http://duford.com Chronicling the adventure of building a house in the mountains of Panama Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:35:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The photo director for National Geographic, David Griffin knows the power of photography to connect us to our world. In a talk filled with glorious images, he talks about how we all use photos to tell our stories. http://duford.com/2008/08/20/photography-connects-us-to-the-world/ Panama had only won two bronze medals in its entire Olympic history, and the last one was 60 years ago. Well this week long-jumper Irving Saladino made history by winning Panama's first gold medal with a jump of 8.34 meters, well short of his 8.73 personal best, but ... http://duford.com/2008/08/19/panamanian-long-jumper-saladino-makes-history/ We are putting our cottage up for sale. You can find more details here. Here are some pictures. http://duford.com/2008/08/18/lakefront-cottage-for-sale/ There is basically only one serious GPS map available for Panama, the one from Panama-Zone. I bought this map last year for my Garmin Nuvi GPS and at first I had some reservations because the map was pricey, had very limited points of interests, and contained several errors. However, the team at ... http://duford.com/2008/08/10/gps-map-for-panama/ I found a really nice site for learning Spanish online, called StudySpanish.com. Here's some of the free stuff they have: * Spanish Pronunciation * Spanish Grammar * Spanish Vocabulary * Spanish Verbs * Spanish Travel Helper * Directory of Spanish Schools They also have a CD course you can purchase. I've ordered it and will let you know ... http://duford.com/2008/08/10/learning-spanish-online/ Panama's young National Airline, COPA Airlines, is expanding again. My wife and I flew with them a couple of times and were quite happy. New planes, decent service, decent prices. COPA is partly owned by Continental and they have code-share flights with them as well as KLM/Air France. COPA has quickly ... http://duford.com/2008/08/07/copa-airlines-is-expanding-again/ They have made some progress on the pool and the steel c-beams for the roof structures have arrived. We should have a roof on the guest-house anytime now. Here's is a picture of the pool, you can see the wall winding it's way between the bohio and the kitchen. It then ... http://duford.com/2008/08/03/construction-update-6/ Just reposting this from a friend, regarding an interesting health care plan from Paitilla Hospital in Panama City. Potential Health Insurance Sign-Up to be held at Dee and Bob Braden?s in Altos del Maria Saturday, August 9th (time to be determined). Deb Turl, who continues to work with Manuel Granados Licdo, the ... http://duford.com/2008/08/02/another-health-care-option-in-panama/ This weekend my wife and I, along with 10 of our friends, are going on the Ottawa Blues Cruise. This should be fun: an old Mississippi-style paddle-wheel boat on the Ottawa river, an old Mississippi-style blues man and his band, and a local Cajun band. The whole thing will end ... http://duford.com/2008/08/01/ottawa-blues-cruise/ I found a couple of new and interesting websites on Panama. The first is a blog called Birdwatching In Panama. It provides bird photos and bird watching and hiking tips. The second one is called PTY4U.com (PTY is the ICAO abbreviation for the Panama City Tocumen International Airport). This site provides dozens ... http://duford.com/2008/08/01/new-interesting-web-sites/ Here's a cool article from U.S.News on American expatriates and a fair bit of talk about why many of them go to Panama. Here's an excerpt: In his recent book Bad Money, political commentator Kevin Phillips warns that an unprecedented number of citizens, fed up with failed politics and a souring economy, ... http://duford.com/2008/07/31/a-growing-trend-of-leaving-america/ An interesting article on the geological origins of Panama. (ScienceDaily) July 29, 2008 Contrary to previous evidence, a new University of Florida study shows the Isthmus of Panama was most likely formed by a Central American Peninsula colliding slowly with the South American continent through tectonic plate movement over millions of years. Read ... http://duford.com/2008/07/30/isthmus-of-panama-formed-as-result-of-plate-tectonics-study-finds/ There has been some heavy afternoon downpours lately in Panama, which has somewhat impeded progress. I was expecting the guest house to have a roof on it by now, but I think they are waiting to do all the roofs at the same time. The roofs need a welded steel-beam ... http://duford.com/2008/07/24/construction-slowed-down-by-heavy-rains/ Those of you who have followed this blog for a while know that I've been pretty vocal about the media's general ineptitude and increasing innefficiency in providing us with actual news. Well on that same theme, here's an excellent article by one of the best journalists of the last 20 ... http://duford.com/2008/07/23/bad-time-for-newsrooms-and-democracy/ I smiled a lot while watching this wonderful video. In the end all I could think was: Why can't we all just get along? Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo. http://duford.com/2008/07/22/dancing-for-peace/