Bud

On 7/31/2019 at 7:18 AM, Moderator_02 said:

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/7-cars-one-house-damaged-by-no-brakes-truck

Just a side thought here: if Panama were to change its annual "revisado" process to include a safety and mechanical check of critical vehicular components (e.g., brake lights, head lights, brakes, turn signals, etc.) then perhaps some of these accidents due to failures could be eliminated.

The following message is being posted for a friend. I and many of us "old timers" have known Dan for many years.

If you would like to contact Dan, his email is salesboquete@gmail.com and his cell is 6614-3575.

Quote

Hello, we are the Boville family, living in La Estrella, Chiriqui. Dan & Nixia Boville. We have a 13 year old daughter, Hanna, who last June was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). She has gone through a year of chemo treatment, and we were told the cancer was gone, only to find out they want to continue this treatment for 2 more years. We have taken her out of the hospital system and will continue with a more natural approach. We have a top notch Dr we can work with, but this will require funding we don't have available.

This year long process has drained our savings. We are asking friends and strangers to help us with this continued treatment. We have the contacts to purchase the necessary medicines from Mexico or Columbia. Costs are $10,000 and up.

We have lived in Boquete for 18 years, and Nixia was born in Boquete next to the Library. We know how people help one another in this small community, and are asking for your help.

If you have the resources and are able to help us in any way, you can direct deposit money into Nixia's account.

Global Bank
Nixia De Boville
Acct # 16-301-00239-8
Savings Account

Thank you for listening, wish you the best.

Dan & Nixia Boville

On 7/25/2019 at 1:26 PM, Uncle Doug said:

I'm assuming that yellow curbs mean the same thing as red curbs in the USA?

In general, yes, Panama uses the same traffic sign and lane marking color conventions as in the US. Yellow stripes between lanes means opposing traffic, whereas white dividing lines between lanes means vehicles going in the same direction. Passing allowed, when it can be done safely, if the line is broken. Solid lines are not to be crossed over.

Insofar as curb color goes:

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White (or no color):

Parking allowed, unless restricted or limited by signs.

Blue:

Parking for the disabled only. Motorists must have a disabled person parking placard (typically hanging on the rear view mirror) or disabled person or disabled veteran license plate.

Green:

Parking allowed for a short time. The time is usually shown on a sign next to the green zone, or may be painted on the curb. Green curb can also be used for student loading zones, if accompanied by the appropriate signs.

Yellow:

Stop only long enough to load or unload passengers—no longer than posted. Drivers are usually required to stay with their vehicle.

Red:

No stopping, standing, or parking. A bus may stop at a red zone marked for buses. Red is also used to designate fire lanes at schools or “No Parking” areas.

Reference for the bottom quote: http://guide.saferoutesinfo.org/engineering/curb_paint_signs_and_school_pavement_legends.cfm

5 minutes ago, Moderator_02 said:

There were no injuries.

No injuries to the humans involved, but I'm sure the perps' egos took a beating.

(I couldn't resist this. Please forgive me.)

 Be advised that SENADIS recently relocated. Here is the link on Google maps for the new location of SENADIS, which is the agency that issues the handicap parking placards: https://goo.gl/maps/DjqDoqPtVFJZmj5P9
 

Yes, on the requirements for renewal. Mine was renewed earlier this year, and I had to have all of the same paperwork.

Unlike my original placard that was valid for two years, the renewed placard is valid for five years. I do not know if that is because it was a renewal, or if all placards are now valid for five years as a policy change.

The staff at SENADIS was/is extremely polite and efficient.

Total cost = $0.00, not including the doctor’s fee.

Keith and Doug,

I've never thought about minting of coins and printing of paper currency from a life cycle cost perspective. Thanks for enlightening me on this subject.

BTW, there are some dollar bills circulating here in our area that really need to be retired. Is there a bank process for swapping aged bills that are falling apart?

Three plus hours with no electricity this morning. Fortunately we have a generator, but jeez, why so many?

Thanks for the warning. We are headed to PS tomorrow, so will be on the look out and extra careful. Wish we could avoid it, but we have to go.

Marcelyn and I enjoyed another round of bingo last night at La Posada, along with a good friend, great conversation, and a tasty pizza and drinks for dinner. Unfortunately we did not win anything, but still enjoyed the evening with friends. And it is all for a good cause.

Here is a picture taken of the winners (only those who were willing to have their picture taken) as the event was shutting down. Dr. Bill (on the left in this picture) is becoming well known because he has won several rounds so far; you might want to see if you can sit at his table next time and hope some of his good luck rubs off on you. Oops, maybe I jinxed it for him now.?!

Brandy and her team continue to help those with needs in our community. Thank you for doing what you do.

I now am told that the black fire truck is from Dolega.

Late yesterday afternoon we drove by the area where this fire was located. To us, it appeared that there was only one house that was affected, and fairly substantially.

We do not know, but from what appeared to be a torched sofa now located in the front yard in front of a window, one might conjecture that someone fell asleep while smoking. Sad.

The houses in that neighborhood are built very close to each other, and so we think it was very fortunate that other structures were not damaged.

We have no information as to injuries, if any.

That house now is uninhabitable. Don't know if it is salvageable.

Here are some pictures, taken in between the rain drops.

Marcelyn and I had to make an unplanned trip to David earlier today for business reasons. On the way back to Boquete, literally while at the Caldera checkpoint, the older policeman signaled -- energetically -- for me "adelante, rapido". The adelante part was expected, but the "rapido" part caught my attention. Within a fraction of a second I then heard a siren behind me. We pulled away from the inspection area and then a fire truck went through the inspection area with the blue lights flashing and the siren wailing. Certainly an unusual scenario.

All of this began earlier today, Saturday, June 29th, about 11:45AM.

Also interesting was the fact that the fire truck was black, as in solid black. Never in my life have I seen a black fire truck. Red, green, various shades of blue, etc., yes, but solid black was a first for me (and for Marcelyn). The sign on the back of the fire truck said "Cambria". Marcelyn noticed a logo on the side of the truck as it passed us, but I was keeping my eyes forward.

Below picture is of the black fire truck just after it had passed us, a bit north of the Caldera checkpoint station.

Okay, a bit of excitement, but we thought that was the end of it.

Then as we pass through Bajo Boquete to continue on to the El Santuario area where we live, we noticed some smoke off to the right. The smoke was in the area known as Bajo Lino, which is after the Los Naranjos/Alto Lino "Y" intersection (we take to the Alto Lino route to get to our home). As we began curving around toward the right it was clear that there was at least one building on fire. We eventually had to slow down because of the pedestrians looking down from the roadway, and one car had been stopped and abandoned for the looky lou people to do their thing. We took some pictures, which are posted below. The following pictures were taken about 12:10PM.

One person told us three homes were on fire. However, given that we could not safely move forward Marcelyn looked very carefully at the area and concluded that three buildings (they did not appear to be residences) were involved in smoke. The black fire truck that had passed us was there on scene, along with one red fire truck (presumably the Boquete Bomberos fire truck). We presume that the Boquete Bomberos called for assistance.

We did not see any open flames, but there was a lot of smoke. We saw no ambulances.

After we got home, we checked with Google to see what the significance of the word "Cambria" might be, and low and behold we found not only that word, but also the exact same font used on the back of the black fire truck, as well as the logo/symbol that was on the right door of the black fire truck. Here is that information from Google:

There sure were a lot of unusual and interesting things happening today on our way home from David. We presume that there were no human casualties, given the absence of ambulance, and no urgent expressions on people's faces.

Marcelyn and I attended this June 15^th concert at the library. This was an exceptionally good performance (not wanting to detract from others, but this just really was our kind of music).

Here are the pictures and videos that were taken during the performance. Note that only a few of the songs were recorded, partly because I had only one camera and can do only one kind of multimedia recording at a time, and partly because the lighting was such that I felt the visual part of video recordings would not be attractive (that turned out to be the case).

The performers were well received by the audience as witnessed by the many energetic standing ovations.

Our community owes a huge "thank you" to Elsa Castillo for bringing such talented musicians to our special community in the Chiriqui highlands.

Here are the pictures.

And here are the videos.

And finally, here is the program brochure.

Based on personal experience, this news put a big smile on my face. Thank you to all who made this happen, and so successfully. 

Three of us recently tried out the cuisine at a relatively new "food truck" called El Turko. El Turko is located across the street from Tres Scalini, which is one of the many high end eateries on "restaurant row" in Bajo Boquete. Besides El Turko, there are also Mr. Burger and Fabrica Cubana in the same general patch of land. Parking was off-street and no charge, even though there was a sign saying $3 parking.

Tony is the proprietor of El Turko. From the business name one would be correct in thinking of Turkish cuisine. Food prices were quite reasonable, the food quality was excellent. Can't say much as to authenticity because none of the three of us is an expert on Turkish food. But we enjoyed it and will go back. If there is any complaint it would be that the servings are quite large, and so all of us had some doggie bag food going home with us. Tony assisted with packaging of the food for our doggie bags.

Here are some pictures taken during our first outing at El Turko.

Donna has given permission to provide her email to you. Please see the PM (private message) that has just now been sent to you.

18 hours ago, WoodyMacaw said:

Does anyone know where Donna is now?  Is she still in Panama?  I am an old friend from the United States and would like to get in touch with her.

Will contact Donna to she if she is okay with releasing private information.

Interesting posting. In my 18+ years of living in Boquete this is the first news of a waterspout in Panama that I can recall.

As a long ago navy guy (don't ask), I learned that a waterspout is basically a tornado that has formed over water. There are two kinds of waterspouts: tornadic and fair-weather. Once a waterspout comes over land it is then a tornado.

I ***DO*** appreciate all of the postings here. Good information. After this transaction is completed, I will post as to the procedure used and the outcome.

It is quite nice to have people, some of whom we don't even know, helping in this journey through life in Boquete. Thank you.

Thanks to both of you. Will let the sender decide which method works best from the sending end. 

A friend is wanting to send us some cash. That friend lives in South America and would be sending US dollars. The question I have is how to get that money to us? We have zero experience in this kind of business transaction. We are not talking about a large sum of money, so hopefully we wouldn't raise any concerns about money laundering, illegal activities, etc., none of which apply.

I think there is (or was?) a Western Union office across the street from Multibank. Is that service still available, and if so how does it work?

I thought about suggesting PayPal, but don't know if and how that works either.

Some Google searches this morning were, at best, confusing.

Suggestions, recommendations, information about reliability and timing and fees, etc., solicited.

I’ve read this topic several times and still do not understand what the problem is. I do understand that Skype does not offer Panama phone numbers like they do for some other countries.

To answer your question, we do have Skype, but don’t use it very much because of the quality of the audio when talking. We have and use all the time a “business” phone service using VOIP technology through a company based in Arizona called Nextiva. That service allows us to pick any state for our phone number (we selected a 713 area code number since we vote in Houston) plus unlimited incoming and outgoing FAX service (also using a separate 713 number) that has saved our bacon on several occasions. They also provide an app for our iPad that means the Houston number “follows” with us while in travel mode anywhere in the world, providing we have [good] Internet access. Both phone numbers are unlimited calling to anywhere in the US and Canada, and very attractive rates per minute for international calling (meaning any number outside of the US and Canada). I sometimes even use our Houston line when calling to PC because the quality of the audio is so much better than using our Panama landline service. (We are not big on using cell service.) The expensive part of Nextiva is buying the phone instrument itself, which is a one-time thing. You do need good Internet service, but that applies to Skype as well because they both are VOIP technology.

Wow, bring on the chicken pot pies. One of my favorites.