well, i'm glad that you and others ended up enjoying it, even if you were pretty thoroughly fooled. And it demonstrates the principle of how easy it can be to create a fabrication that fools the public with its attractiveness, and is only refuted (if it is at all) with a methodical process of hindsight investigation and logical demonstration (or fessing up by the perpetrator.)

Yep, you sure fooled us, as well as the people we told. We should have been alerted by several factors, in this order:
1) it would be literally impossible to get from Portland to Costa Rica, via Sea-Tac in less than one day. First, a 3-hour drive to Sea-Tac, then a 2-hour wait for the international flight, then a change at LAX, Phoenix or Houston perhaps (at least one hour), then a 2 or 3 hour time change (Costa Rica being on either Central or Eastern time), + a 6 or 7 hour flight. Then a drive over rough roads to your jungle lodge. Where did we put our thinking caps?
2) Airlines nowadays are *very* stingy about redeeming frequent-flier miles, almost never at short notice.
3) It was, after all, April l, which didn't even pentrate our thick skulls.
4) I know (or think I know) Dan well enough that he wouldn't cheat that much on his sick days.
5) The cost of a conference at a jungle lodge in Costa Rica is probably upward of $200 per day. Dan is a relatively thrifty guy, and would think hard about throwing around his money that way when the cost of the conference might very well be more than the total airfare.

But thanks for the laughs, Dan. We'll always be grateful for the vision of you rooming with that crazy Australian! Dad