Happy Thanksgiving
I'm writing this while waiting for our Thanksgiving bird to cook. We no
longer buy a turkey for Thanksgiving. It's just too much trouble. There
will just be us and two grandchildren. We're having a salad, baked
chicken with trimmings, cranberry sauce, sweet peas, mashed potatoes,
corn bread, and pecan pie.
We will give thanks for the good life we live, and the freedom to enjoy
it. I hope all of you have as good a time as we will today.
As frequently happens, I did not finish this when I planned. We had a
great time with the grandchildren and ate too much. Since then we
celebrated Panama's Independence from Spain yesterday, thanks to our
neighbor across the street who thoughtfully hired a DJ with an
extremely powerful sound system so we could all enjoy his music. On the
plus side, it was music, not the garbage noise that is called
reggaeton.
Next up, Mother's Day on December 8th.
Web Site Changes
I've been making some minor changes to the website in hopes it will
look better to all of you. In particular, IE users should see a better
presentation. I do all website coding in Linux and don't often check
the site in Windows. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer (all versions) is
not standards compliant, so what looks great in Firefox may not look so
good in IE. I have corrected most of the really bad coding, learning as
I go.
Feedback, as always, is welcome.
New Traffic Lights
Way back at the beginning of the year, the government began installing
new traffic lights at many key intersections. At the beginning of May
many of them were turned on and set to flashing red/yellow. In early
October they were still flashing, essentially useless. When they were
finally set to normal operation, the expected improved traffic flow
turned into massive traffic jams during rush hours. Some of that could
be blamed on the typical Panama driver's tendency to continue into the
intersection even when the intersection is completely filled so long as
the light has not been red for more than 5 seconds, but mostly it was
because the touted computerized traffic flow optimizing system requires
at least an adequate traffic infrastructure to work.
With the madness of November/December holiday season, and floods of
complaints from commuters, the traffic lights have now been set back to
flashing mode, making them nothing more than ugly ornaments.
Martinelli's administration is making noises about not paying the
contractor if they can't make the system work, which would be a
refreshing change from past practise.
I'm betting the system never works as intended unless Panama somehow
doubles its current traffic capacity.
New Mall
I visited the new Metro Mall across from Los Pueblos on Tumba Muerto
(Airport highway) on Nov 18, and was impressed with its size. It is not
finished but some stores are open. The Machetazo store is huge, and
grocery prices are good. Being new, it's much cleaner than other
Machetazo stores in Panama, but the meat market already has that nasty
smell that so many meat markets in Panama have.
It was very easy to get there and took only about 5 minutes from my
house. Getting home was a different matter entirely. There is no easy
way to get from that side of the street to the other to go home. I
entered the street headed toward the city, and at the first place where
I could turn around, the other side of the street was bumper to bumper,
and not moving, so I decided to go a bit further down and try a
different route. Traffic continued to be bumper to bumper all the way
to the women's prison (about 3 miles) so I went all the way to the exit
to San Miguelito where the traffic circle is and went back home via
Corredor Sur. Nora says the traffic is like that every day going toward
the airport past Los Pueblos, so I don't see the new mall as being of
much use to us. We can get to Multi Plaza in Paitilla and back in less
time. And Riba Smith in Costa del Este, where we usually shop, has a
meat market that doesn't stink.