Newsletter #90

Today's Meadow Muffin.

I told yall. Forget everything I wrote about the new procedures to get an after-hours vet at Tocumen airport. A friend arrived with her pet late at night and presented the letter she had been told she MUST have. The vet looked at it and said "I don't need that". As usual, the only constant is change.

November - Mes de la Patria

November is the month when just about everything in Panama comes to a grinding halt while the whole country participates in patriotic celebrations. There will be parades, beer, fireworks (Yep, even more than usual), beer, marching bands which despite weeks and months of practice never get any better, just louder, beer, flag waving, beer, and endless celebration. Taxis and government workers will festoon their cars with dozens of Panama flags, and everybody will drink a lot of beer. About the only folks not drinking beer will be those drinking Seco.

Expect to encounter delays getting across town. Better yet, expect to not be able to get across town on parade days.

The best that can be said about November is that it's not as bad as December. If I could, I would simply barricade myself inside the house until January 1st every year, but life's demands intrude.

Top 100 Music

My oldest daughter Kim once told me that she wished she had grown up in the 60s because of the great music. What she didn't realize was that for every great song from the 60s that survived there are about 100 rotten ones, just like today. But, if you want to hear those great survivors, my friend Bill sent me a link this AM to a great website.

As I write this I'm listening to the Top 100 songs from 1959, (Dode Stevens and “Pink Shoelaces”) with Top 100 from 1950 to 1982 available. There's lots more on this website, too much to list here. Check it out for yourself. It's free and works fine on my Linux/Firefox combo.

http://www.tropicalglen.com/

New Riba Smith Supermarket

Good news for folks who don't like to fight the downtown traffic to go grocery shopping, especially if you live on the southeast side of town. Riba Smith has opened a giant new Supermarket in Coste del Este. It's located on the coast side of the Corredor Sur. If you're coming from town take either the first or second exit after the long bridge. The first is marked “Cd Costa del Este, and you take the first left, drive past the school, and turn right at the Porsche dealer. Drive to the circle past the mall (Arrochas and Banco General on the right) and take a left. Riba Smith is just past Novy's on the right about 1 km down. If you take the second exit, turn left and it's just down the hill and around the corner.

There is plenty of covered angle parking, making the slots easy to get in and out of and keeping your car far enough away from the next car to avoid dings.

The store is huge, and even better stocked than the other three stores. Like chocolate? They have a fabulous collection of real chocolate, ranging all the way up to 99% Cacao.

To a native Texan, the selection of fresh fruits and vegetables is pretty slim all over Panama, but Riba Smith makes the best of what there is, and offers some things that few of the other stores do. I noticed today that there were a number of vegetables labeled “organic”, and I have my choice of local or imported for many vegetables. The fruit section is a lot better than most other stores, with a much larger selection of apples, pears, plums, grapes and other imported fruits. Riba Smith is also one of the few stores that sells almost-export quality bananas, and they usually have a stock of my favorites, the small ones about 3 inches long.

Aside from having the best stock of local and imported foods in Panama, I really like the cleanliness of the Riba Smith stores. The employees are cheerful and friendly. I give Riba Smith my 3 thumbs up rating.

Russian Business Network

I've been noticing poor performance from my Cable and Wireless 1 Mbit ADSL connection for weeks. I request a webpage and it may be 10 seconds or more before I get a response. Sometimes I never get a response. When I run “traceroute” I discover that the bottleneck is right here in Panama. The “speed” of my connection is as good as ever, about 87% of what I pay for. The problem is lengthy delays in reply at various steps along the way.

Recently, I reopened my Forum for web signups, but require approval before allowing new members to post. Almost immediately I began getting signups from a previously unseen IP block. I ran a whois and discovered that the addresses belong to RBNetwork, aka RBusinessNetwork, aka Russian Business Network, with a physical location in Panama City, Republic of Panama. The RBN is headqquartered in Russia, and is said to be responsible for as much as 30% of the world's SPAM. Its clients run hundreds of websites distributing malware. It is so notorious that many ISPs block their entire IP address block. So they're looking for new territory to pollute, and Panama seems to be a choice spot. I could be wrong, but I'm betting my poor internet performance is being caused by a flood of SPAM leaving Panama.

Bring Back the Magic