Bob G

THE GREAT BOQUETE SOUP FEST IS THIS FRIDAY! Bring your donation and your appetite!! 11:30 to 2:00 at the BCP This event is sponsored by the Boquete Knitters and Quilters, and all proceeds will go for purchase of materials to make booties, jackets, caps and quilts to help little ones of Boquete stay warm. Please help with this important work and enjoy some great soups and desserts as well. We'll have 18 (or more) home made soups for you to enjoy, along with breads and desserts. A cash bar will be available. Suggested donation is $10 Tickets will be available at the door. Beginning at 1:30 pm, soup will be for sale in take-out containers. Representative samples of our knitted items and quilts will be on display so that you can see and touch them. This will be the best place in Boquete to be for lunch this Friday. Join us and your friends for fun, food and fellowship.

It was hardly a rant. It was a reply to two or three people who did not happen to like my choice of fonts. As I pointed out, there is a broad choice of fonts provided by Chiriqui.life. Are they all supposed to be off limits except for non-bold black? When I wrote factual information about the attack on Richard and about AAC, I was writing on behalf of AAC. When I responded to individuals who declared personal prejudices about my choice of font, I was writing on my own behalf. If anyone wants to choose an emergency telephone service based on how I answered people about my choice of fonts...oh, well. On the subject of legibility of fonts, regardless of a personal friend's opinion, the majority of professional typographers say a sans serif font is more legible. See this: Back 10 or so years ago, the best computer screen resolution was 800 x 600 pixels – which wasn’t great for defining the intricacies of a serif font. Screen resolution has increased through the years (resolutions of 1024 x 768 pixels or greater have become the norm). This makes serif fonts more legible but still generally not as easy to read as sans-serif fonts. So online, the best font to go with is sans serif. A 2002 study by the Software Usability and Research Laboratory concluded that: The most legible fonts were Arial, Courier, and Verdana. At 12-point size, Arial was preferred and Times New Roman was the least preferred. For easiest online reading, use Arial 12-point size and larger. In the case of email, some of the highlights of the test results were that at 12 points, respondents showed a preference for Arial over Verdana – 53% to 43% (with 4% not being able to distinguish between the two). (This is Verdana.) Yes, this discussion is far afield from the original topic, but the divergence arose because of other people changing the topic. Prior to the questions and comments of others, I wrote only about AAC-related matters. It hardly makes sense to change the subject and then blame the person respondng to the new subject with being off-topic. I could make a full and complete response to the uninformed comments of "BD," whoever that is, but there may be no point, considering that he has withdrawn himself from Chiriqui.life. Hmmm, maybe he's smarter than he sounds.

APOLOGIA Well, let's talk about fonts and colors. First, I am a person of a certain age (very close to 82), and my eyes are much more comfortable reading fonts that are bold and a bit larger than average. Long ago, I settled on Arial as the most legible font for most purposes. In the matter of vision in older years, I am not at all the Lone Ranger. Here is some information from an article about Typography and Aging Eyes. The population is rapidly aging and becoming a larger share of the marketplace. Thirteen percent of the population is currently over 65 years old. In 30 years that group will double to 66 million people. People change as they age. Sensory, cognitive and motor abilities decline. The built environment is not typically created with the needs of the aging population in mind... ...In general, sans serif faces appear to be the most readable, due to their larger x-heights and consistent stroke widths. Typographic designers must undertake a more comprehensive study of this subject and develop typefaces that work well with the common vision problems of the aging population. It seems clear that there is an opportunity for progress in this area of research... The concept of all caps being the equivalent of "shouting" is an artificial one. For many decades from before the Civil War into the 1980's all text from teletype (teleprinter) machines (civilian and military) was all caps. Throughout my time in the Navy, all typewriters used in communications work were all caps. For quite a while IBM computer systems produced only all caps printing. So for around 120 years all caps was just a normal part of written communications. There was really no choice about it, and no one ever considered the all caps format as "shouting." I have read that considering all caps text as shouting is a "tradition," but if it is a "tradition," it is a rather recent one. Though I don't know, I suspect that someone who saw something in all caps (probably a young person who had no clue about the long use of all caps) happened to be bothered by it, got his or her knickers in a twist and came up with the bizarre idea that it was "shouting." That having been said, I do not write in all caps, mainly because without ascenders and descenders words cannot be read quite as comfortably or rapidly. But now bold fonts are also triggering calls of "shouting." With the advent of HTML, most programs on computers have the capability of easily changing fonts, font size, displaying bold and colored fonts, indenting and reverse-indenting text, etc. Why, goodness me! Those capabilities are even built into Chiriqui.life! If they allow such egregious behavior, maybe those capabilities should be removed so that every person who participates on the site is stamped out as with a cookie cutter with no ability to choose to do anything different from anyone else. Why, we can't have folks running around willy-nilly just writing any way they want to! That's as offensive as one of those jockey boys astride Dan Patch! And while we're at it, we should all drive black cars. Oh, and the colored font? (It's maroon, not red.) For me it adds to legibility, but that is probably just personal. I also add to readability by double line spacing between paragraphs and double spacing after periods and colons. That is very good standard practice that has fallen into disuse by a lot of people in the computer age (not to mention that many of them cannot spell or use good grammar---but they sure as hell know "shouting" when they see it!). Finally the colored font helps me quickly find my posts in a long series of posts or to find my emails in long series of emails chained in "conversations" as they are called on Gmail. In my "former life" back in the U.S. I dubbed myself "The Curmudgeon of Inglewood" in email posts and many of my 40+ published letters to the editor. Maybe I should resurrect my title and change it to "The Curmudgeon of Boquete." Certainly I am too old and ornery to stop being a curmudgeon.

Think about it. If the message was from Rodny, and I have it, does that not give you a clue that the service was the AAC Hotline? The problem occurred before Rodny Direct was activated for the Boquete area. The message from Rodny is more than sufficient to show that he did not receive that particular emergency call. The name of the caller is not in Rodny's message, and there is no need whatever for that name to become involved.

No need to check on the missed call by Rodny I mentioned. My computer remembers these things. Here is an excerpt from the text of a message from Rodny reporting the problem. I mis-remembered and thought it was a heart attack when it was a stroke. "...after getting up from bed this morning, I found a text message on the hotline phone saying that at 1 05 earlier in the morning, a phone number tried to call me. So I called the number to find that it was a lady who tried to call but the call did went through, and that the reason for her call was that her husband had a stroke. They found an ambulance on their own and take him to the hospital where he is on treatment . The hot line seems to work fine now since today there has been 2 calls on how to sign in and one for fire. I contacted Movistar and they are saying that their system went under some maintenance and that it may have cause the malfunction. So for now the hotline is up and running."

Dottie: Yes, did you not read the post above? ------------------------------------------- Two Sailors: Send changes to AAC.boquete@gmail.com Be sure to include your Residence ID number. David van Harn will be adding a page for submitting modifications to existing AAC Hotline registrations. It will function similarly to the email option except that it will have fields for the various categories of information. The changes do not go directly into the data base because it is much better that they be checked first. We will also be contacting registrants about updates because quite frequently people forget to update their information when things change.

Almost nowhere in the world can you be 100% sure that an emergency call will go through. Certainly in an area with very few land line phones (and those often have microwave radio paths as a part of the system) and large numbers of cell phones, there will be glitches at times. During the time of the Coffee and Flower Fair in Boquete (going on now) we have an influx of very large numbers of people, all with cell phones and all making calls, thus overloading the systems of the various carriers. Even without bad connectivity, there will be times when a system will be busy so that a call will not go through. Alto al Crimen has added a second number with a different carrier based on the premise that two different systems will not be likely be have problems at the same time (though Murphy's Law will tell you that it CAN happen). As I mentioned above, no emergency call about the attack on Richard Moore came to the AAC Hotline telephone. I am not saying that a call to our number was not made, but if it was, there was a problem in the wireless phone system, and it did not reach our phone. We have scheduled a meeting with an expert on local cell phone systems to help us analyze the problem. But the longstanding AAC Hotline number and its associated SIM card are unchanged and have generally been working as they are supposed to. I have had the experience (and probably all of us have) of calling a number and immediately hearing a squawk indicating a transfer to voice mail. That MAY mean the called phone is turned off, but it may also be a system problem. I have had it happen when calling my wife's phone when she is at home in the house with it. Yesterday it happened five or six times when I was calling someone on AAC business. Finally a call went through and it was clear as a bell. He had not been talking on his phone during those other calls I tried to make. It was just a problem in the system. Unfortunately, the AAC Hotline is not immune to these kinds of problems. Several months ago an AAC Hotline call was made to Rodny for emergency medical assistance for a heart attack victim. Rodny did not answer. He reported later that there had been a problem with a MoviStar tower. The best answer we have at this time is having a main number and a backup number. Make sure that both are in your phone under AAC or AAA so that they remain at the top of your contact directory. Here are the numbers again: 6477-6662 and 6917-0011

I learned of the attack on Richard shortly after 3:00 p.m. on the day of the attack. A good mutual friend of ours and the Moore's told me that Barbara had called the AAC Hotline and got a voice mail reply. I immediately called Franc Lugo. He had not received a call, and there were no calls all all that day showing on the call log on the telephone until my call to him at 3:19. If there had been a missed call, it would have shown in the log. Alto al Crimen has the same number with the same SIM card as we have had for years. It is in a brand new, good quality Samsung telephone. Rodny, who was our contract employee, turned over the actual SIM card, so there has been no change at all. We also recently announced that we have a second number. We prefer that the main number be used, but the second number is available at any time the service on the main number is not available or not working properly for any reason Unfortunately AAC can not do anything about the occasional anomalies in the telephone systems in Panama, but we have added dual diversity to minimize the chance of missing calls. Contrary to Fran's post, I am not aware of any AAC post that has "bashed" Rodny direct at all, and I don't know what "its administration" is supposed to mean or when any "whining" has occurred. Conversely, there is a large amount of AAC "bashing" on this site. Of course we frequently mention the need for donations because that is how the organization works. Every advertisement for Rodny Direct asks for money because it is a business that charges for its service. AAC does not "charge" for its services, but those services cannot exist without the money needed to keep them operating. As for insulting people's intelligence and not providing information they "deserve," I need to ask something. If you had had every finite detail about the attack on Richard Moore within an hour of its occurrence, exactly what benefit would it have provided to you? You are either already taking proper security measures with regard to your home and your person, or you are not. If a similar home invasion occurred in the same area or another area and the victim was a Panamanian, you might never know about it. Wanting near-instantaneous information about crimes affecting Gringos is really more a matter of morbid curiosity than something that provides a tangible benefit. AAC looks into the details and weakness in security that contributed to the problem and provides information that can help other people to take measure to prevent similar occurrences in their homes. If Fran or someone else wants to take on the role of Brenda Starr, crime reporter, be my guest. It will not constitute an encroachment on AAC's mission. We are going to do some careful research to see if we can find any problem that may exist in the telephone system or our own equipment that could be causing calls not to go through. Franc Lugo has the phone constantly with him. Meanwhile, we have received calls to the AAC Hotline that have worked just as they were supposed to, so there is no indication that the system has any kind of across-the-board failure. Remember these TWO AAC Hotline numbers 6477-6662 AND 6917-0011 ===========================

Bonnie and all other posters: Franc DOES NOT need a work permit. A work permit is not required for a personal services contract. All of our arrangements have been carefully done, using a well-qualified lawyer. If Franc receives an emergency call while he is working in the BCP parking lot, he will take it. There is another man who also handles parking in the lot. The answer to the question about whether Franc will take calls from people not registered with AAC is YES. We offer AAC Hotline services to tourists, short term visitors and residents. AAC is a foundation and operates on donations. It does not make and cannot legally make charges for services as would a corporation or sole proprietorship. Unfortunately, there are always freeloaders who will take unfair advantage of such a situation. Theoretically, AAC could offer its services only to people who have made donations, but that would alter the character of our organization and deny services to the tourists, short stay people and others who may truly need them in emergencies. For almost six years, AAC has worked with this model, and it has worked well enough to benefit hundreds of people. We plan to continue it. If too many people decide to take a free ride on someone else's nickel, AAC will go broke and close down. For the system to work well, we need everyone who is registered to make a MINIMUM donation of $20 per year. Additional donations help with our other projects that concentrate on prevention of crimes, improving home security, etc. Rodny has done a good job for AAC. AAC provide employment and training for him, or he would not have been the successful emergency operator that he is. We like Rodny and wish him well, but for those who say not one can equal him, I would point out that never before has there been anyone else around to do the same kind of job, so how can you tell? As someone else pointed out, AAC did not decide to compete with Rodny. Rodny chose to terminate the contract services of his busines with AAC and compete with AAC in the Boquete area. Otherwise, he would have continued to be the AAC Hotline operator. His business was already serving Coronado and Volcan with revenues of more than $25,000 per year. He has now added around 100 subscribers from the Boquete area which added around $8,000 per year for an approximate total of $33,000 per year. There was a recent announcement that Rodny Direct now provides services nationally. The announcement said: "The Panama Helpline serves a the area from Chamé to Penonomé and inland to el Valle, including Coronado, San Carlos and Santa Clara. The Rodny Direct Chiriqui Helpline serves all of Chriqui from the Costa Rica border, including Volcan, David, Portrerillos, Boquete, Caldera and East to the border at Guabala (sic). I don't believe you need to be worried about Alto al Crimen being a lot of competition for Rodny Direct. About 89% of Panamanians have an average income of $700 per month. It would appear that Rodny is already well within the top 11%. AAC exists only to serve the community of our own area. Because significant numbers of expats live in the Potrerillos area, we may expand services into that small part of the District of Dolega after we are sure we have solid relations with the emergency services there. The AAC Hotline will have the capability of calling various auto insurance companies for roadside assistance, continue the translation service for traffic stops, maintain a list of veterinarians for pet emergencies and add some other data that will be maintained in our database. Our new system includes a two-SIM phone so that an emergency caller can be placed on hold while a call is made for police, fire or medical emergency service. Then the caller can receive a report of what action is being taken. The second number will also serve as a back-up number for emergency calls from areas in which connectivity to the primary AAC Hotline number is not working well. Franc will carry a small, state of the art tablet computer with a copy of the database for instant reference. We will have the capability of securely updating the database in the tablet at WIFI spots so that new changes and additions are quickly available. Time has passed during which AAC has been quiet because we had multiple issues dumped on us that needed to be resolved. Our AAC Hotline service has continued to operate without problems or interruptions. We have other plans that will roll out in the coming days. We are now out of the woods, back in the saddle again and fully ready to roll for the new year. Franc Lugo knows his stuff, he is good with people, he is service-oriented and he will provide our community with rapid, capable, high quality service. Bob

Thank you to the various people who have commented to Franc Lugo, me or other Alto al Crimen volunteers, expressing their excitement and approval of Franc's selection as the new AAC Hotline operator.

DONATIONS HELP US SERVE YOU AND THE ENTIRE BOQUETE COMMUNITY. There have been several enthusiastic responses to the announcement of Franc Lugo as our new AAC Hotline operator, both by email and in person. Perhaps the most common question we have received is, "How do I make my donation to Alto al Crimen?" You can leave cash or a check payable to "FUNDACION ALTO AL CRIMEN" with David van Harn at his Alto al Crimen table (where he sells beautiful wood turnings). It's on the north side patio at the Tuesday Market. You can also put a check into an envelope labeled "ALTO AL CRIMEN" and leave it at Mail Boxes, Etc. You can deposit a check to the AAC checking account at San Francisco Plaza, using account number 850054030. Finally, you can make an online ACH account-to-account transfer from most banks to Scotia Bank, using the same account number. To be sure that we know who made the donation, please write your name (and residence ID number, if any) on envelopes and checks. In the cases of deposits of cash, checks or ACH transfers directly to Scotia Bank, send us an email to studiotomaspanama@gmail.com with your name and resident ID number (if any) to let us know you made the deposit. If you are already registered and have a residence ID but have not made a contribution in a year or more, please make a donation of $20 or more now. If you use a calendar on your computer, phone, iPad, etc. make an annual reminder entry so that you won't forget your donations. The AAC Hotline is sort of like an insurance policy---you fund it and hope you don't need it. If you are not yet registered for the AAC Hotline, go to altoalcrimen.info, click the big red rectangle on the right side of the opening page and register online. Then you can donate to David van Harn or in one of the other ways. New registrants should include a $10 one-time donation for the resident ID plaque. Your plaque will then be available later at Mail Boxes, Etc. or from David van Harn at the Tuesday Market. Your plaque number is used to link your information in our database and make it easier for our AAC Hotline operator to give directions and other information to emergency services. Thank you for your support of Alto al Crimen!

IT'S FRANC! Since the announcement by Rodny Moreno back in August that he intends to terminate the contract between his business and Alto al Crimen when it expires in 2016, there have been many questions about who would be the operator to continue the operation of the Alto al Crimen Hotline. We are pleased to announce that commencing in the first week of January, Franc (for Francisco) Lugo, a member of our expat community, will take on the operator duties. The AAC Hotline number, 6477-6662, will remain the same. Franc is thoroughly bilingual, having had Puerto Rican parents and having been raised speaking both Spanish and English. Franc grew up in New York City. As an adult he has been an aviation mechanic in the Navy and has worked in the transportation and construction industries. He has been in Boquete since 2009 and is well-known to a lot of us for his participation in many and varied expat activities. He is a member of San Juan Bautista Catholic church and is active in many volunteer groups throughout Boquete. Frank has a can-do attitude and a friendly word for all. You can bet that those traits will transfer to the AAC Hotline service. Alto al Crimen is modernizing its operations in a number of ways. Some of those you can't see because they relate to the scope, maintenance and security of the database which holds information about the 500+ people/families who are registered. We'll also be using a new two-SIM telephone that will allow callers with emergencies to remain on hold while police, fire or medical assistance is called. Then Franc will be able to return to the caller and report about his notification to the appropriate agencies and when they are being dispatched. The second line (with a different cellular service) will also serve as an alternate AAC Hotline number for cases when someone may be calling from an accident or other incident on the road and the cellular service for the main number is weak or unavailable. Another new approach is a powerful tablet computer small enough to be kept with the operator all the time so that full database information can be always available. Moreover, we will have the capability of updating the database by WI-FI via the internet so that it is kept regularly updated. The Board of Alto al Crimen thanks the many loyal supporters of our non-profit foundation and its programs of providing crime prevention and bilingual emergency telephone services to one and all in the community. AAC only works with your donations and support. Our goal is to have every person or family registered for AAC Hotline service to donate a minimum of $20 per year (plus a one-time $10 donation when you receive your resident ID plaque). If you can donate more, you will be helping support our various crime prevention programs and our work with the local police and fire departments. If you are not registered, you can sign up at altoalcrimen.info Click on the bright red rectangle on the right side of the page not far from the top. When you see Franc Lugo at BCP or at local restaurants or other places around town, say hello and tell him about your support for AAC. But if he needs to answer a phone call, please excuse him because he has a good reason. If you need help, he will always be as close as your phone and working for you and the whole community 24 hours per day. Watch for more Alto al Crimen news over the next few days.

NEW VEHICLES AND CRIME FIGHTING EMPHASIS FOR BOQUETE By Bob Gregory This morning at the Palacio Municipio of Boquete an impressive array of government officials assembled to speak about a new emphasis for security for the Districts of Boquete, Dolega and Gualaca, including presentation of a large stable of brand new vehicles. Alto al Crimen was represented at the invitation of Mayor Millo Vasquez. Below are some photos of the ceremony and of the new vehicles which will aid the police in law enforcement and investigation. Support your local police and other officials, and also please support Alto al Crimen as it continues to work for a safer Boquete. Police Commissioner Erick Amaya speaks. Mayor Vasquez speaks. Minister of Security Rodolfo Aguilera speaks. He specifically mentioned that he supports the garita at the Caldera Road junction, but he told me that the project requires coordination with MOP and the Transito Police. Mayor Vasquez told me the same thing. After the speeches from the dais, all the dignitaries went into the plaza for presentation of the keys to all the new vehicles. There are six new pickup trucks, two new 4 X 4 ATV's and six new motorcyles. New pickup trucks for the police of Boquete, Dolega and Gualaca. New ATV's for the police. New motorcycles for the police Mayor Vasquez and local dignitaries Captain Jaun Arauz and Commissioner Erick Amaya with two of the new pickup trucks Alto al Crimen supported the police checkpoint at the Caldera Road junction. Minister of Security Rodolfo Aguilera speaks to the press. Alto al Crimen Vice President Tom Counter speaks with Captain Juan Arauz. Alto al Crimen President Bob Gregory converses with Minister of Security Rodolfo Aguilera. This was a very significant event and possibly a turning point in the security of all the residents of the District of Boquete. In his speech, Minister of Security Aguilera emphasized that the foreign population of Boquete is an important part of the district and that the security of regular tourists and residential tourists deserves strong attention.

Boiling is practical and fast, but it is good to know an alternate way for purifying water. One of those is SODIS (for Solar Disinfection). See the information below.In addition to being very useful as a very broad spectrum treatment against bacteria, viruses and some parasites, colloidal silver (some of which is nano silver) can be used to treat suspect water directly. I make colloidal silver that is substantially nano silver, and water can be treated with it at a rate of one teaspoon per liter. For more information and pricing on colloidal silver, send an email to rhgusn@gmail.com with "SILVER" in the subject line. =================== This link is to frequently asked questions about SODIS. http://www.waterschool.com/faqs/ How does it work?The SODIS method is very easy to apply: A transparent PET bottle is cleaned with soap. Then, the bottle is filled with water and placed in full sunlight for at least 6 hours. The water has then been disinfected and can be drunk. Important points to consider when applying the SODIS method Material, colour and shape of the bottle We recommend using PET bottles in the application of the SODIS method because they are light and do not break. They are also easy to obtain in many regions. However, glass bottles or special bags can also be used. PET bottles are usually labelled as such, but they are not called by the same name in all countries. Factsheet Glass vs. PET (EN, FR, ES) Factsheet Bottle vs. Bag (EN, FR, ES) Factsheet Use of Bags (EN, FR, ES) The bottles must be transparent and colorless. PET bottles often have a bluish tinge. This is not a problem. Heavily scratched bottles must be replaced. The bottles must not hold more than 3 litres. Factsheet Depth of water (EN, FR, ES) Turbidity If the water is very turbid, the effectiveness of the method is reduced. It is very easy to determine whether the water is sufficiently clear: The filled PET bottle must be placed on top of a newspaper headline. Now one must look at the bottom of the bottle from the neck at the top and through the water. If the letters of the headline are readable, the water can be used. If the letters are not readable, the water must be filtered. This test corresponds to a turbidity of 30 NTU. Factsheet Turbidity (EN, FR, ES) Cloudiness Cloudiness affects the strength of solar radiation and thus also the effectiveness of the method. Rule of thumb: If less than half of the sky is clouded over, 6 hours will be enough to completely disinfect the water.If more than half of the sky is covered with clouds, the bottle must be placed in the sun for 2 consecutive days.Factsheet Cloudiness (EN, FR, ES) Rain The method does not work satisfactorily during lengthy periods of rain. On these days, we recommend collecting rainwater. Preventing recontamination The treated water should be kept in the bottle and drunk directly from the bottle, or poured into a cup or glass immediately before it is drunk. In this way, it is possible to prevent the treated water from becoming contaminated again.