I signed a contract on a house today.

The property owner of the above property is in Scotland, about five hours ahead of the time here. I talked with my real estate agent and emailed an offer. He replied, “They have more money in the house alone than this offer. It’s all nispero. That’s very expensive wood.” “Not my problem.”

He sent them an email, they countered, I countered, they countered, I countered. They rejected. Apparently the house has been getting a lot of viewings lately. I replied, “Ok, I’ll lower my offer, if lots of people are viewing and nobody is putting in an offer then they know the place is overpriced. This is my final offer. Cash buy, closing in thirty days.”

They took the offer. House comes with all furnishings and a boat.

Now I have to have somebody go over and inspect the $4,000 worth of batteries that are charged by the solar panel system.

The only operating cost for this house is the groundskeeper/guard about $400 a month. For that he also cleans the house every damn day, will do varnishing, planting, anything I want.

When I want to travel I should be able to rent it out for a week at a time. In the high season it is very difficult to find accommodations here.

Next up, get another boat, a gun safe, an alarm system, some security cameras and build some cabinas over the water and plant a bunch of fruit trees.

Life is good.

I went to look at a boat today and ended up putting in an offer on a house.

http://www.beyondbocas.com/featured-new-properties/so220.shtml

If they accept my offer, I will be closing in 45 days.

Last night I saw one of my neighbors in the street and told her about my theft over dinner and offered a reward for the return of my stuff no questions asked

Missing

Sony Viao Computer
Asus Netbook Computer
Amazon Kindle
Canon DX10 Camera
Fenix LD20 Flashlight

I had a knock on my door at 12:30. My neighbor Grant is caretaker to this place and has a key to the gate. With him was his neighbor, the woman with whom I had spoken. She said she had found out where my computers were and would have them delivered in the morning. She also said that it had been stolen by two kids.

This morning Carlos took me to the office of investigations and while I was filing a report my landlord Bernd called and said that Jeana, my neighbor had my computers.

Bernd, Carlos and my friend Stephen all said I should report her to the police. But I had given my word and a man is only as good as his word. While filing the report I was advised I had to present my passport. When I returned to my apartment my landlord was changing the lock on the front door and said that nobody had a key to the back door. I went to Jeana’s and collected my computers.

Carlos as my translator advised the police about Jeana’s role in this matter but asked them to leave it out of the report. Jeana came in while I was filing, scared as hell. When I was done, I went over to Jeana’s showed her the report and the fact that her name was not in it. I also told her she had to get the rest of my stuff back.

Hell, the other stuff is only an expense. Now I have more than a couple people seriously disappointed the police won’t be hunting down the thieves and incarcerating them, but once again, I gave my word. I’m just very glad to have my computers back.

Returning to the apartment I rekeyed the back door. Now it’s time to rekey the lower locks.

It was a beautiful day, cool and overcast. I sat on the back deck and finished off three months of coding.

At 1:00 I called my landlord and asked him to bring me over a key so I could rekey the locks to my apartment as they hadn’t been changed since my very disturbed visitor left.

At 6:50 I called my friend Stephen and we agreed to meet for dinner at Kun Ja’s the best Chinese restaurant in town. We ate and shot the shit until about 8:30 when I headed back home. It was time to back up all of my work.

I unlocked the door and shit! The computer I bought last week and my development computer were missing. No sign of forced entry. I called my landlord, he told me that there were only three sets of keys, mine, the set Becca had, and his set, he had changed the locks just before I moved in. When my neighbor cleaned the place during my medical treatments my landlord came over, unlocked the place and locked it up when he was done.

I grabbed my friend Carlos and headed off to the police station, who referred me to the office of investigation. They came over to the apartment and agreed there had been no forced entry. The doors had not been kicked in and there are bars over all the windows.

God Damn it. That’s about three months worth of coding down the drain, all the backups were to another partition on the same computer.

Now I have to buy another computer and spend a month configuring it and another three months reproducing my code. It was bad enough doing it the first time, it will be very frustrating repeating my work.

Despite the beautiful weather I spent the day indoors programming. As soon as I can get a router I can code on the back deck.

I went online and started purchasing things to replace those stolen by my visitor.

My landlord came by, greeted me back and extended a dinner invitation. My friend Carlos stopped me on the street and told me that his steak house was now open. At seven Stephen I went over to check it out. A wonderful 16 oz ribeye, half and ear of corn boiled in milk, half a baked potato, some bread with seasoned olive oil and tomato toppings and two bottles of water came to $19. It was wonderful.

Off to Casa Verde to chat with my friends, apologize for my visitor and an early return home.

Dentist

On my initial visit to the dentist this week he observed my teeth and told me I was grinding them in my sleep. Then he asked if I snored. He recommended that I get a sleep apnea test and suggested that he could fit me with a dental appliance that would force my jaw forward at night almost certainly eliminating snoring and sleep apnea if present.

The cost of the evaluation is $1,200, seems a bit high for somebody to monitor your breathing and oxygen levels for four hours. The price of the dental appliance is $1,420. Well hell, if I have sleep apnea, I’m out $2,640. If I don’t I’m out $1,200.

I went home and looked up the symptoms of sleep apnea, decided I was a good candidate. Anybody whose neck is over 17″ is an excellent candidate regardless of body fat levels. I snore. What the hell, why not just get the appliance and see?

The doc promptly attended to me at my 10:00 appointment which I had made the day before. An impression was made of my upper teeth, my lower teeth and then my bite when I thrust my jaw as far forward as possible.

Now to wait six weeks for the device to be made in the U.S.

Flying Home

Aeroperlas started a new service from Tocumen airport to Bocas on July 6. Formerly they only flew to the Albrook Airport and International Regional Airport handling prop planes that fly within the country and to Costa Rica. Yesterday I booked a flight online from Tocumen as it is a bit closer to where I am staying. This proved to be a big mistake.

I went back to the place at which I was staying and got very frustrated at the number of things my operating system upgrade broke and killed time until it was time to go the airport. My gracious hostess arranged for a taxi pickup at 1:30. This should get me to the airport by 2:00. I returned my keys and went out front. At 1:30 a taxi pulled up. I asked if he had been called to go to the airport and he replied in the affirmative.

I got in the cab and said “Yo necessito Tocumen Aeropuerto Internacional.” He looked at me blankly “Aeropuerto Albrook.” “No, Tocumen Aeropuerto Internactional.” He got his dispatcher on the radio they talked for two minutes and he looked back at me gave me the thumbs up and said “bien” (good). Off we went. I pulled out my netbook and played a game for a while. Finally the driver said “Aeropuerto” and pointed. WTF? This is Albrook airport. “No, yo necessito Tocumen Aeropuerto Internacional.” Off we went I looked, what the hell? Now he was taking me to the bus terminal. I told him a third time and we headed off in the correct direction.
Now where the hell is the Aeroplas check in counter. I couldn’t find it and everybody who worked at the airport told me that I had to go to Albrook. Just frigging great. Finally somebody told me that Taca operated Aeroplas. Hundreds of people were in queue to fly to San Jose, Costa Rica. I’m never gonna get on this flight. Once I got past the guy who checks passports I somehow managed to find an attendant who wasn’t checking in people to San Jose. I informed her of my destination and she told me I was in the wrong terminal. How can this be? There is only one terminal. A tall slender black woman who smelled like lavender came over to help me. I told her she was a beautiful person and asked her just to walk me over, either so I don’t get lost or just so I could enjoy the view. She gave a hearty laugh and led me over to a 2,000 square foot building that was still covered in aluminum covered insulation.

There was but one man in the building, he met me at the door and said “Senoir Schmidt?” “Si” “We’ve been waiting for you.” How nice they were holding up the plane. Then he informed me that the plane was at Albrook. WTF? I have a reservation out of Tocumen. “Yes but the plane is at Albrook.” Apparently flights to Tocumen fly through Albrook. These airports can’t be more than 20 kilometers apart. As I was the only passenger on the flight they decided not to stop at Tocumen. We walked back to the international terminal and he gave me a taxi voucher. Then we went out front and a large van was hailed. Now don’t come under the impression this van was built for comfort. The seats were so close together it should be used exclusively by amputees and midgets.

Arriving at Albrook I got a very confused look on the woman’s face at the check in desk. Did I want to buy a ticket? No I bought one. May I see it? No, I made it online. You are not in here. I was supposed to be flying out of Tocumen. Then why are you here? They sent me here.
Fifteen minutes later it was all sorted out and I got an Aeroplas boarding card, a 1/4″ thick piece of white plastic with a number on it. My carry on consisted of my backpack and three sixteen ounce bottles, shampoo, conditioner and aloe vera. Nobody suspected I was going to blow up the plane with them and I was allowed to carry them on. I did have to surrender my lighter, but not a box of matches.

Life is strange.

Back in Bocas

At 6:00 we flew across a sea of bananas extending to the horizon in all directions, country, we were landing in Changinoula the westernmost city on the Pananamian Caribbean.

Bocas Rumors

Spirit may be flying direct from Fort Lauderdale to Bocas. Negotiations underway to increase length and thickness of runway.

3 New fire trucks on the way

Golf Course on Boca Drago next month breaking ground.

The diesel power plant will be shut down, electricity will be brought over from the mainland and run the length of this island.

Dinner

Had dinner at Shellys (best Mexican food around) with Stephen. Chatted up two lovely Slovakian women. They wanted an escort to the beach to watch the sea turtles come in but I was too tired for even their company. Went to Stephens house and picked up my replacement Tilley and a complicated device that requires a twenty page instruction manual ordered by my former visitor.

On my walk home I was warmly welcomed back on near every block. Good to be home, but to many I felt the need to apologize for inflicting my visitor on them.

Home

Two minutes after I walked in the door the electricity went out for two hours. This doesn’t happen often here. After the power came on I checked my email. Amazing, no delusional rants in my inbox.

Some Panamanian recommended by my gracious host just return to talk about my notebook. The cost of a new keyboard? $85 A new DVD drive $85. Blow out the unit and replace the parts. Labor $90.

I told him the keyboard costs $30 in the US. The drive costs $35 and it’s 20 minutes of work and described exactly how to take the machine apart. No thanks, I’ll buy the parts online and fix it myself.

When I was in Santiago last August with pneumonia that I contracted in the Bolivian Alps the doctor examined my X-Ray and told me that I had Cardiomegaly, an enlarged heart and that I should see a cardiologist.

This week I was advised that I have high blood pressure and that I needed to see a cardiologist. Ok, I’m on the Costco medical services binge, so I tried to schedule an appointment with a cardiologist that was recommended to me by my dentist, but they don’t take appointments on the first visit. Just show up between 4 and 7. WTF?

I grabbed a cab and bopped over to Centro Médico Paitilla. Entering the suite, I filled out a form with about 12 questions on it. Two minutes later I was getting an EKG. Five minutes after that I was escorted into the cardiologist’s office. He was sitting behind a 30″ apple screen running faceline or some such thing as he was talking on the phone. He ended his phone call in a couple of minutes and consulted with me.

Regarding the enlarged heart, yeah trekking at 6,000 meters can cause a temporary enlargement of the heart. Was I having any difficulty with strenuous exercise now? No.

I had been advised that I have high blood pressure. He took my blood pressure three times and told me I had normal blood pressure. What was going on? Well, crazy has left the country, albeit with my MacBook pro. I presume I’ll never see the loans repaid either, but, whatever. Worth it, just to be rid of the aggravation.

He asked if I had been under any stress. I told him a tale that took 20 minutes. He was laughing his ass off. Finally he took out a pad, wrote something on it and handed it to me. “This is my prescription for you” Guess Who. American Woman
Now it was my time to laugh my ass off. I paid my $100 tab, $40 for the EKG $60 for the consultation.

I walked the streets for 45 minutes trying to catch a taxi. Finally I returned to the mall behind the clinic found a taxi. He wanted $25 for a $5 fare. Yeah, right.
I took in a little tool porn at the Doit Center, Panama’s equivalent of Home Depot. Then I walked the mall.

Hmmm… maybe I should get some contact lenses. I entered the contact lens store, put my netbook on the counter and asked the receptionist to remember to tell me to take it as I would forget. I got an eye exam and what the hell? My prescription was now -.5 diopters per eye. Hardly worth the trouble. So I left, when down to the taxi stand and realized I had left the computer. What a dope. I searched around for a bit, found the store, grabbed my netbook, headed back to the taxi stand and headed home.

The jewish tico (Costa Rican) and the Spanish/Croatian Colombian were in a bit of a cookoff. Tico had a mass of chicken hindquarters while Hotto, the furtive beer snatcher from yesterday was going to cook a roast. The tico family was gathered, the refrigerator technician, Hotto, Ivonne and I gathered under the rancho.

While the chicken was marinading in a mustard based sauce the tico kept bringing drinks to Hotto alternating between 5 ounces of vodka neat and beer, each served 10 minutes apart. We toasted, I with a large glass of water and they with their respective drinks. After a toast the glasses were emptied, excepting mine. The tico spoke no English, his wife some, his 25 year old daughter, who looks 16 teaches it. Hotto speaks Spanish and is intermediate in English.

The kids were cavorting noisily in the pool and conversations were amicable and covered a large variety of topics.

Hotto told me about a guest that had left two weeks earlier with whom had become good friends. It seems some guy from Denver was in town and somehow in his drug dealings ran afoul of the Colombians and woke to find a guy pointing a gun at his head while he lay in bed got into a scuffle. It was a long tale but in the end the target of the Colombians was staying here and somehow got on TV. Hotto suggested it would be in everybody’s best interests if he left.

Upon inquiry hotto told me that he was in the crocodile shoe business from end to end, buying untanned hides from Indians in the Darien, tanning them in Panama City to shoe manufacturing.

More drinks and Hotto started telling me about his proficiency with guns but he couldn’t name the calibers of a long list of popular guns. More drinks. I told the tico he had to stop bringing Hotto drinks, he was going to kill him. The chicken was put on the grill, more bullshitting. More drinking.

Finally we sat down to eat. The chicken was the best chicken I’ve ever had. The tico had been drinking at the same rate as Hotto. The tico merrily served everybody chicken and drinks while Hotto sat in the chair with a glazed look in his eye.

“Jim, yer all smilz tnite but sher you were in Texas and I guy touch his balls you smash him in face? Am I right? Am I right? You don’t take the shit. Am I right?”

He put his fork in the chicken, manipulated the chicken with his knife, lifted an empty fork to his face and missed his mouth. This happened up to half a dozen times consecutively before he would get a piece into his mouth. He talked incessantly in a language no person on earth could comprehend. The 25 year and I kept glancing at each other in extreme amusement, her mother was just astonished.

Later it came time to throw people in the pool. Everybody was thrown in but me. That was considerate. I went to bed at 10. The Tico hit the hay at 1 slept until 2:30 and decided this was an appropriate time to drive half the length of Panama.

My good friend Walter suggested that I might be more comfortable and find my commutes to the hospital shorter if I stayed at a different place and informed me that a friend of his liked to stay in a private house that rents out rooms.

Omar, the operator of Panama by Luis called Villa Michelle for me, secured a room and wrote down the address.

Altos del Golf
Villa Michelle
Entrar por Waikiki
al final de la calle
En El Muro Naranja
porton negro

which translates to

Altos del Golf
Villa Michelle
Entering Waikiki (a famous restaurant)
at the end of the street
Orange In The Wall
black gate

Interesting addresses down here, but I’ll go into that later.

Thanking Omar, the hard working operator of the operator of Panama By Luis I checked out. A 10 minute taxi ride later I found myself in front of an 8 foot orange wall with a massive 8′ tall black gate. There was no sign in front to indicate that this was anything other than a private residence. I pressed the buzzer and walked up the drive to be greeted by a flat chested woman who showed me around.

I was given a bedroom which was formerly the library. The walls and ceiling are mahogany planks. Two walls are outfitted with wonderful shelves but no private bath. The queen sized bed had 600 thread count sheets. Ahh, this is more like it.

Presently the maid receded into the depths of the house and a cylindrical blonde appeared with a ready smile on her face. “I am Ivonne, this is my home of 28 years.” Ivonne appears to be in her mid fifties.

We walked out past the pool and entered the rancho. She pulled out a business card and flipped it over. There was a map of the immediate neighborhood three streets by three streets and she put in little boxes and said things along the lines of “This is the closest and cleanest chino.” Again a chino is a grocery store. The Chinese do nothing but own grocery stores and all grocery stores are owned by the Chinese. Restaurants, ATMS and other things of interest were marked off.

She collected four days rental at $45/day asked for no identification and I filled out no forms. Certainly walking around the grounds was within the scope of my physical condition. The large rancho ended at a drainage ditch. The concrete wall on this side dropping fourteen feet to the bottom of the ditch which flowed with clear water. On the far side the wall rose six feet surrendering to a ledge filled with rich black soil support all manner of greenery many of which where vines which ascended the 18 foot wall on the other side of the ledge. A security moat and an arboretum in one.

Looking as I turned clockwise I saw successively a massive stainless steel Brinkman grill a full sized refrigerator a sink, four feet of tiled counter, a two burner stove, an extreme high output stove, the swimming pool, a bar a large glass fronted beverage refrigerator that was most certainly was intended for a retail establishment, a massive deep freezer and a TV. In the center were two large tables six and eight feet across. This is obviously the center of activity.

My fellow guests were described as a family of Colombians and some jewish Ticos. Not feeling well enough to walk three blocks to a restaurant I chose from a list of menus and had Seafood Soup delivered, popped a painkiller and sat down to read.

The tico kids splashed in the pool a cute little eight year old asked me if she could charge her ipod on my computer, which of course I graciously accommodated. She then went over took out a huge block of ice and seeing that it wouldn’t fit into the glass took a big butcher knife and was going to drive it toward the palm of her left hand. “ALTO!” I took the ice block and beat it with the wood handle of a spatula.

I found out the maid was male and just an employee not Ivanne’s lesbian partner.

While sitting reading I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. A guy in a long sleeved shirt and underwear was crouched on the far side of the refrigerator furtively opened it, grabbed a beer and scampered away. What the hell was that? That was my introduction to Hotta, the Colombian.

Needing money I walked five blocks to the ATM, which requires oh, two turns. On my way home, I got lost and had to take a taxi.

Come dinner time everybody here came under the rancho and cooking commenced as the families gathered around. A quiet, peaceful, sociable evening. Just what I needed.