I managed to recover a year’s worth of posts that were automatically copied over to my Facebook Notes.
If any of you readers have saved some of my previous posts, please do send them to me so I can repost them…
Thanks
On 01.26.10, In Uncategorized, By admin
On 01.21.10, In Uncategorized, By admin
Yesterday I took some pictures of the house for insurance purposes. We’re very nearly done, taking possession of the last module (master bedroom) tomorrow. The pool is nearly ready to fill as well, hopefully by the end of next week.
Kitchen
Living Room
Bohio / Outdoor Kitchen / Dining Room
Bed Room Module
Bohio and Swimming Pool
Deck & Swimming Pool
On 01.21.10, In Uncategorized, By admin
Unfortunately I was not able to recover anything from my database. It appears that someone hacked into my site and deleted the database. On top of that, I was relying on my Hosting Service to do backups but for some reason their backup process had been broken for a while so there was no viable backup for me to recover from. So I have lost some 4 years of blogging and that is rather discouraging. I now have my own automated backup in place, and I still have all the pictures I had posted, so it is now just a matter of rebuilding the links and starting fresh like a new blogger.
It is unfortunate that all the good information I had posted on our Panama Adventure has been lost. I apologize if you came here looking for it and couldn’t find it.
On 12.02.09, In Uncategorized, By admin
Sorry folks, I had a major crash of my blog database and my backup was not viable. I will try to restore the content but it doesn’t look good right now.
On 07.17.09, In Uncategorized, By admin
I don’t like China’s politics and human rights record. I’m also unimpressed with the quality of the majority of what comes out of China these days. So I try very hard to avoid “Made in China” products out of principle, and out of concern for quality. Alas, it is becoming increasingly difficult not to buy products that are made in China, especially here in Panamá where price is king, and the Chinese seem to own every single hardware store.
It was with this in mind that I set out to shop online for a good quality tankless water heater, willing to pay for the extra shipping. So I settled on a commercial-grade “pro” Bosch water heater. I ordered it and had it shipped to Panamá via my Miami-based cargo aggregator. Once here it ended up costing four times as much as the locally sold chinese units. I was happy with my purchase, until I noticed the dreaded little line on the box: “Made in China”. And here I thought I was buying German quality… Turns out this unit seems to be very well made and it was obviously engineered in Germany and built to Bosch’s specifications. Still, I feel like I’ve been taken.
Next I decided to order some high-quality and energy efficient ceiling fans (a necessary item in every room here in Panamá). So I bought online and shipped to Panamá some of the best fans money can buy. I bought some Emerson fans whose tag line is: “The Original American Fan Company”. You guest it, the box says: “Made in China”. I also bought some Casablanca fans, this company’s tag line is: “The World’s Best Ceiling Fans”. Well, yeah, they are also “Made in China”.
This is getting very frustrating: everything is now “Made in China”. There is no way to entirely avoid Chinese products anymore. Reminds me of the little scandal in Ottawa a few years ago, when tourists discovered that their little Canadian Moose and Mounted Police effigies were manufactured in China.
If you ever had any doubts about China taking over the world, don’t! The American empire is in steep decline and China is just gathering steam.
On 12.18.08, In Uncategorized, By admin
My friend Michel Lafontaine, who was also my business partner in Panama, died in a tragic accident in the San Blas islands on Wednesday. He fell off a roof and banged his head. He passed out for a short while but came back. He complained of not feeling well and went to his room to rest. They found him dead the next morning. He probably died from internal bleeding which could have been avoided had he gone to the hospital, but the closest hospital was several hours away. Michel was a great guy who truly enjoyed life to the fullest.
Michel and I were co-owners of Palmex Panama and he was running all operations on the ground there. I now need to head down to Panama for a few weeks so I can sort out the business and find someone else to run it with.
Almost exactly a year ago I had come down to Panama to help him get our business started and we spent Christmas eve on his deck eating a wonderful meal we had prepared together. We drank lots of wine and rum while telling each other stories from our respective past and speculating on what lay ahead of us with our business venture in Panama. We laughed hard while enjoying the beautiful air of Altos del Maria and we felt like we were on top of the world. Needless to say, our Panama adventure will never be the same without him, and this Christmas will not be so joyous.
I am very sad that I will never see his smiley face or feel his famous bear hug again. I miss him dearly already.
Here he is with his wife Patricia and my wife Diane, at his place in Panama.
