Investor's Corner

A friend is looking for investors to help build single family homes near the Coronado area. He has expertise in pre-fab construction and plans to import pre-fab homes. His plan appears to me to be workable and offers a very good return on investment. If you are interested, please contact him at investor1@panamaretire.net.

From time to time, I run across what I believe to be a good investment opportunity. When I find one, I will publish it here. While I will make every effort to determine that any opportunity I tell you about is genuine and honest, I cannot be responsible for deals that go sour. Please do your own due diligence and satisfy yourself that it is indeed a good deal.

Travel Tip

One of our major annoyances is waiting in the chaos of the arrival area at Tocumen Airport to meet people we've never seen before. Some genius designed the new arrival area with a ~100 feet long screen blocking visibility of the doors and then put an exit on either end of the screen. Naturally, it is impossible to stand in both locations at the same time, so it's a crap shoot whether our passengers will exit the left end or the right end, and always creates a few anxious moments for me, and of course, for all the other folks trying to be in two places at once with their welcome signs. Here's an easy way to avoid confusion. If someone is picking you up, arrange ahead of time to meet them either at the left end or the right end exit. For everyone who is being picked up by Nora or me, I suggest turning left at the exit.

Computer Stuff

I'm trying to design a new logo for Paradise Services and found that my font selection was a bit limited. First I tried downloading the free Microsoft fonts only to discover that they are no longer free. A bit of Googling turned up these two good sources for free fonts.

http :// simply the best.net/fonts
http ://www.webpagepublicity.com/free-fonts.html

Those of you who are customers of Cable and Wireless may notice from time to time that you get a lot of 'Server Not Found' errors. C&W has a long-standing weakness in their Domain Name Service (DNS) servers. This weekend has been no exception, indeed I usually notice the problem on weekends and Monday mornings. Today my friend John called and asked me about the problem, as he was unable to get into a lot of websites. So, I went looking for a solution to the problem and came up with this one. There is a free DNS service which you can use to augment or replace your current service and it is available at the following URL. http://www.opendns.com/start/ If you know what you are doing, it's just a matter of adding one or both of the provided IP addresses to your computer's internet setup. If you don't know what you are doing, they have provided very clear instructions on the website. I immediately noticed faster loading of web pages (less wait time for DNS resolution) after making the changes. I then called John and  talked him through the process and all the sites he had been unable to use all day long came right up.

Shameless Commercial Plug

The upside of dealing in Real Estate is that you get to see some really nice property, and if you can match up the property with a buyer, make some money. One of the downsides is that from time to time you run across something that you really, really want for yourself and of course, you can't buy it all. We've recently discovered just such a small development near Coronado. It has two streams, one creek and one river, and a beautiful view of the mountains. The road in front is asphalt and there is electricity on site and telephone service available. The developer, a farmer/rancher who is retiring from all the hard work, is installing a community water system supplied by wells, and his plan is to keep the whole thing as close to nature as possible. Lots range in size from 700 square meters up to 4,000 square meters and prices are $14.00 and $20.00 per square meter, depending on location. The interior streets will be graveled, rather than asphalt or concrete, to keep as close to nature as possible.

You can see for yourself how nice the area is on the website. Click here.

Now, what we need is for a bunch of you to buy one of these lots from Nora so we can afford one, too. Then we can be neighbors.

Service and Assistance for People Who Want to Live in Panama