Michael: Rosebud

The golden amber
Streaming through the rain forest
Is a dappled treat.

Monday, March 28, 2016

Last week during some strong winds our phone line got taken down. We went without phone or internet service for two days. Not that we have dial up, but for some reason when the phone goes out, so does the net.

That means for the first time this year we turned to our old frumpled friend, and murder, to unwind before bed; Culombo. It’s gotten to the point where we know the old detective so well that we watch to see what minor flaws there are in the workings of the show.

The episode we watched had a EST type psychologist using his Dobermans to kill his best friend who had an affair with his wife. The flaw we discovered is that the psyche trained the dogs to kill the person who gives the command, “Rosebud.” Yet at the end he tries to kill Columbo by pointing to Culombo and giving the command. We feel the dogs should’ve attacked him.

All of this is to say it’s nice to watch a Culombo once every three months and not on a semi-regular basis like we did for several months last year when our net was on and off for days.

Michael: Television en Espanol

The afternoon breeze
Strokes the face like a lover
During a picnic.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

As an experiment to see if it would boost our Spanish learning, we’ve decided to watch Spanish television. This month we’ve been watching an episode of Seinfeld every morning with Spanish subtitles and in the afternoon Kimme’s been watching part of the programming coming from WOBI, a business oriented station that is a mix of English and Spanish with subtitles.

Cable works here like the phone. You buy a scratch off card at a grocery store in one of three amounts; $5, $10 or $25. You get 5 days with the $5, 10 days with the $10, and 30 days with the $25.  You then dial in the code # over the phone to your provider and you’re good to go.

Our landlord chose Mas Movil as our provider before we moved in. There are other companies but we don’t feel any reason to look into them for now, even though our selection through Mas Movil’s basic set up is pretty slim. The only English channels are TNT, WOBI, BBC World News and Aljeerza World News. The other channels are in Spanish and most do not provide English subtitles. There are premium channels, like HBO, but we don’t get them and aren’t interested in finding out what would be required to get them.

After a month, I’m not sure I can say whether it’s made any difference, but I enjoy Seinfeld and it’s been fun trying to read the Spanish subtitles.

Michael: That Was Quick

In the morning darkness
As the cold blankets my face
You radiate warmth.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Customs did inform SDC, our shipping company, what they seized and it was what they’re calling a box of ammo. Within 60 days the Fines, Penalties, and Forfeitures Department will contact me. Neither of those options sound very pleasant. I feel to lighten things up and make the prospect of their contact less stressful, they should add Prizes to the end of their title.

Michael: The Mystery Box

The full moon rising
With Venus nearby brightens
The darkest of skies.

Friday, March 25, 2016

Our shipping company, SDC, has just informed me that during the customs inspection process, customs removed one of our boxes. SDC says customs doesn’t usually tell them what was removed but they’ll try to find out and let me know. I’ve asked them if they won’t tell them then please let me know how I could make an inquiry to try and find out what was seized.

Though I’m not certain, I have a good idea of what box customs now has in its possession. During one of my artistic phases, I used a lot of empty rifle shell casings in my art. These casings are empty and I drilled holes in the bottom of them so they wouldn’t ever be usable, but I can’t imagine that anything else on board would be of any concern.

If that’s the case I have to give the customs inspection process a thumbs up. The box is only about 4”x12”x24” and only had about 100 shells inside.

Now we have to wait until our container arrives next month to see if they were equally diligent in repacking our container.

Michael: The Other Shipping Option

The wind’s clear furry
Races over the valley
To silence the beasts.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Our household goods are on their way, but we’ve met a few ex-pats that decided to forego the shipping process and sell or donate their goods to charity and just buy what they need here.

Kimme and I both feel that if shipping costs ran over $10,000 we’d have given serious thought to that option. I’m sure at that cost, along with the small amount we could’ve made selling our goods in the states, we’d come pretty close to the replacement value of our goods.
But there are other cost that come into play once the needle starts heading toward the replacement indicator. There’s the emotional attachment of some items. A piece of paper is cheap but a love letter could be considered invaluable.

There’s also a time cost. With our goods here we can take our time and decide what has value and what should be sold or discarded.  We gave away a lot before we put our goods into storage in the states. If and when we return, I doubt we’ll be taking very much back with us, but that’s a few years away, thank God, because this hasn’t been easy, and we’re not quite through yet. We’ve still got to find a storage unit in David, then wait for our goods to get there and unload the container.

Michael: Door to Door

The halo rising
Over the mountains will soon
Cover us in gray.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Today I’ve got to ante up and pay the bill for shipping our household goods to Panama. It cost $9,000. That’s a lot more than I expected to pay, but it would’ve been a couple of thousand of dollars more if we hadn’t packed the container ourselves.

Initially we had to decide on what size container and what type of service. The sizes are 20’, 40’, or a shared container and the services are: 1. Let the shipping company handle all the packing and unpacking, 2. Do all the packing and unpacking yourself or 3. Do some combination of the two. We opted to for a 40’ and utilized option 3.

We were told by one shipping company that we could pack everything into a 20’ container but for $400 more we opted for the 40’ because, not being very experienced movers, we didn’t want to end up short and having to make rushed decisions about what to leave behind if we couldn’t fit it in. We did have quite a bit of room left over, but I’m comfortable we made a wise decision. The 40’ container cost us $4,200.

Next, we had to decide whether to unpack it ourselves. That would involve renting a truck in Panama and going to Panama City to deal with customs and then unpacking the truck ourselves at our storage unit. For $2,500 we opted to let the shipping company deal with this.

I never seriously considered sharing a container. There just seemed to be too many variables and unknown costs. For example, if the shipping company has to store your goods while they wait for a container to share, the shipping company charges storage fees. What those are and how high they could go, I didn’t look into. Just too many variables for me to tolerate.

A big chunk of the cost that I should’ve known about is the U.S. customs inspection fee. That is one costly x-ray - $2,500. And though the shipping companies don’t quote you that in their estimates, it is listed as a possible cost. I just didn’t bother to investigate.

Another cost that we debated was whether to purchase marine insurance. That would be an extra 2-3% of the claimed value of our goods. But since we packed the container ourselves we wouldn’t be able to get full coverage but would be limited to partial coverage that would only cover our loss if our container was lost at sea.

Another small, 2.5% cost, was using a debit or credit card to cover the shipping cost. I would’ve avoided this and used a wire transfer if I could but B. of A. doesn’t allow for transfers of over a $1,000 unless you’re enrolled in something called Safe Pass. I soon will be but am not at the moment. I couldn’t enroll instantly using a mobile device because of my international phone number, so I’ll have to have a Safe Pass card mailed to my stateside address. But that’s all too late to pay for this bill.

We really won’t know how we did as cost benefit balancers until we see how our goods held up when we unload them at our storage unit. That stress will hopefully come in a few weeks.

Michael: The Seven Million Dollar Man

Cerro Punta is
Shades of green patchwork that climbs
The dinosaur’s back.

Monday, March 21, 2016

Friday when we took the bus to run errands we had our second run in with the 7 million dollar man of Volcan. He was sitting across from us when he noticed we spoke English. This provided him with a good opportunity to practice his English and to once again tell us about how he came to learn English, become a millionaire, then eventually return to Panama and live a simple life again in Volcan.

I don’t think he remembered telling us his story before and though Kimme says there were some deviations between the story he told us last time, it seemed pretty consistent to me. Basically, he was a heavy equipment operator that went to Canada for work. Loved it there. Made millions of dollars, but when it was discovered he wasn’t a citizen he was deported. He drove back to Panama, started drinking, which caused his wife to leave him. Either an accident or his wife leaving or both caused him to lose all of his money. But he’s not upset about it. He has faith and is not drinking anymore.

I hope somewhere down the road we’ll meet again and he’ll tell us his story again. He seems like a decent man and I like people with stories. Sometime soon I need to work on a good one for myself.