Old Time Radio Shows.

I love old radio shows, especially Gunsmoke. Did you know that Gunsmoke ran for almost 10 years on radio and there are 480 episodes? Fortunately, an organization called Old Time Radio Researchers Group has collected, cleaned up, organized, and made available at no cost the complete Gunsmoke collection, along with Dragnet, Your's Truly Johnny Dollar and many, many others. The organization's home page is at http://www.otrr.org/, but to download any of the series, you should go to http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=otrr There you will find the OTRR library of released collections. If you would like to have some of these collections, but are stuck with a slow internet connection, give me a shout and I will download them and burn to CD or DVD for you. $2.00 per CD (up to 700MByte) or $5.00 per DVD (up to 4 GByte). Delivery in Panama by Panama Post Office, Fletes Chavale, or pick  up at our office in Casco Viejo. Be sure to arrange pickup ahead of time, because we are not always there. 

US Postage Stamps

For those of us who have access to the Diplomatic Post Office in Clayton (Military Retirees), here's a bit of good news. When the post office switched from an APO to a DPO, it became impossible to buy stamps or pay for shipping at the post office. I just rediscovered the USPS online service where you can order stamps for delivery to your post office box or print out postage paid mailing labels. I sent some photos to my family in Texas using the service. You will need to open an account and provide a credit card number. You will also need a PDF reader (Adobe Acrobat) and printer. The web address is: http://www.usps.com/

Great Place to Eat

It's a little far out of town for those who live in PC, but Cholo's Mexican Restaurant in San Carlos is a great place to eat. If you are young and single, it's also a great place to meet other young singles.

Run by a young US expat, Owen, and his Panamanian wife, Mariela, Cholo's is located next to the gas station near the overwalk on the main highway in San Carlos. It's small, with 8 tables, but nicely decorated and clean. They keep the music down to a conversation promoting level, which we geezers appreciate. Within minutes of sitting down, they bring a dish of what I believe are home-made tortilla chips and definitely homemade picante dip.

The food is great. Mariela cooks with little hot pepper, so you get the great flavor of Tex-Mex without the tongue-searing peppers. So far, we've sampled chimichangas, enchiladas, and soft tacos. All were accompanied by rice and refried beans, both as good as I've tasted anywhere. They also serve a very large, and I'm told excellent, Marguerita. Unfortunately, every time I've been there I was driving, so  haven't yet sampled one.

Prices are quite reasonable, starting at $3.95 for a meal and local beer at $1.00. Stop in the next time you're in San Carlos, and give them a try. Ask to speak to Mariela and tell her how much you enjoyed the food. Also tell them we recommended them. You won't be sorry.


Annoyances

One of the most difficult things for us foreigners to accept is the casual attitude of most Panamanians towards time and commitments. We learn that “manaña” does not mean tomorrow, it means “not today”. We learn to take something to occupy our minds, a book or mp3 player, to appointments because we know the doctor is not going to see us at the appointed time. We learn to never go into town to do only one errand, unless it's an emergency.

For me, the hardest to accept is the business that promises to be at your home or office at a certain hour and day, and then simply fails to appear, without even bothering to call. Since we know we are likely to get treated this way, we always call the business the day before to confirm. It's not quite so bad when it is an appointment at our home, because it's only an annoying inconvenience to have to wait for a delivery or trades-person at home. Nora is increasingly arranging services and deliveries for clients who are not present in Panama, which means she or I have to go to that person's home or office and wait. When the person or delivery service fails to arrive at the appointed time, it can become a real inconvenience. Here are a few recent incidents.

Cable and Wireless contracted to install ADSL for a friend in a beach community, “within the next 10 days”. When the installers arrived on the ninth day, they discovered that there were no lines on that street. When the friend called C&W on the 10th day, he was told that they couldn't install the phone line. OK, he still had a week left before leaving Panama, so a mad scramble by Nora turned up an alternate Internet provider for the area, friend signed the contract, and waited. Of course, nothing happened, and he had to leave Panama on Saturday. OK, Nora and I agreed to go to his house on Saturday and wait for the installer, who finally called at 6:00 pm when we were on our way back to Panama.

Part of the above. Friend bought window blinds for his beach house and paid $50.00 extra for delivery. On Monday, CortiCentro called Nora, who acts as his agent, to arrange for delivery on Tuesday. When they failed to show on Tuesday, Nora called them to ask when they would be there and they told her that they also had some other deliveries to make in that area on Saturday, so they had canceled the Tuesday delivery, without bothering to inform her. By this time our friend had left the country, so Nora had to make the 50+ miles drive and wait for them to show up. When they again failed to show on Saturday, Nora called and was told they would deliver the next day. Nora refused to make another trip to that area the following day and they finally showed up a week later and installed the drapes.

All of this would be annoying enough if you lived there and had to be home anyway, but having to drive over 100 miles round trip, and wait most of the day, only to have nothing happen is outrageous. We suggest you find some other company if you need drapes or window shades. CortiCentro cannot be trusted to keep their appointments.

On the positive side, Do It Center called to make sure someone would be there to receive a new washer and dryer, and showed up at the time they said they would be there.

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