Newsletter #61

Shopping for a Used Car

Nora and I agree that her Honda Civic is not roomy enough for many of our customers. My Chevrolet Vivant is great for up to four adults, having a lot of room for people and luggage, and our Jeep Cherokee is also limited to four adults. So we decided to sell the Honda and buy a used 7 passenger (or larger) minivan or SUV. Ideally, we want to buy the new vehicle with the proceeds of the sale of the Honda and have a little left over for fixing the inevitable faults in a used car. Knowing how quickly a sale can occur once a buyer decides he/she simply must have THAT car, we've been doing some tire kicking.

I've had my eye on the Kia Carnival for a while, and in theory, it seems like an ideal solution to our needs. It has enough room for six adults and a driver and lots of luggage space, and the price is right on a 4 or 5 year old Carnival. Best of all, most of the ones sold in Panama have 2.9 L diesel engines. Kia had a dismal record with their gasoline engines during the years in which I'm interested, but the diesel engine seems to be quite strong and reliable.

We steer clear of the many lots where cars imported from the US are sold. By sticking to cars that were originally sold here in Panama, there is a greater chance of determining the car's real history. Two lots that sell almost exclusively local cars are Barriga's in Parque le Fevre and Silaba's used car lot in Villa Caceres. We found several Carnivals at the Silaba lot, where we also encountered the rather common situation where only one of the ones I looked at would start. Cars are put on most of the local lots with little prep besides a wash job and no one goes around and makes sure each car will start every day. Partly because of this and partly because of the rather ragged looking condition of a couple of 2004 Carnivals I looked at, I'm a bit disenchanted with them at the moment.

On another lot we looked at a very clean 8 year old Chevrolet Suburban which also wouldn't start, but had leather upholstery and all the creature comforts. When they jumped the battery the 5.7 liter V-8 sounded like new, and no smoke came out the tailpipe. This is a 2500 series and does not suffer from the transmission problems that plagued the 1500 series. It will carry 7 full sized adults plus a driver and enough luggage to keep them clothed for a month without braking a sweat. Of course, it sucks down gasoline like it has an addiction, but so does our Jeep Cherokee.

We're still looking, and in any case, we need a buyer for the Honda first, so if you know someone who wants a really clean, low mileage 3 year old Honda Civic, give Nora or me a shout.

New Computer

I like the little laptop computer more every time I use it, and hate its OS in inverse proportion. Every bootup is accompanied by intrusive messages telling me such important things as 'the wireless network is not connected' or 'the wireless network is now connected'. While I'm sure there must be a way to turn off the worst of the reminders (I was able to figure out how to get rid of that stupid dog), I'm really not all that interested in learning all the quirks of Windows XP. I use it because I have to at the moment.

I wanted to install financial software to keep track of our small business income and large business outgo and since I am familiar with Quicken and Microsoft Money, I decided to check them out. Money can be had on a free 6 months trial basis, so I downloaded it first. I never got it installed. It demanded a Microsoft Passport account before I could even begin the installation. Maybe I'm the one who's behind the times, but I see no good reason why a program that I intend to use to keep track of our money has any reason whatsoever to access the internet. Yes, I know all about the online payments, etc., but let's get real. I'm supposed to trust my financial records to a program that requires me to have a Yahoo or MSN email account? Somebody at Microsoft is on Crack. Next step, download a trial version of Quicken. It too never got past the install stage where it informed me I MUST have Internet Explorer 6 installed for the program to function. Do people actually trust their financial transactions to the most insecure web-enabled software in the world? Anyway, if someone knows of a decent financial program at a reasonable price that doesn't insist on being connected to the internet, give me a shout. I'm currently looking at Gnucash for Linux which seems to have all the bells and whistles I need, and came free with SuSE Linux.

Pushbuttons

The Pushbutton is basically a by-the-hour motel with the added attraction of having garages with doors for each room. Customers drive into an empty garage, push a button (hence the name) which closes the door and slip the required fee through a slot in the door. Rooms range from spartan to plush and are priced accordingly. The Pushbutton, or Push for short, is not unique to Panama, but it has been enthusiastically adopted and is firmly embedded in the culture. Though I found it impossible to get any accurate estimate of how many there are in the Republic, I get the impression that there are more Pushes than hotels.

Aside from the expected patronage by couples who are not married to each other, many young married couples find a large quality-of-life value in Pushbuttons. Panama is still a poor country and it has always been a struggle for young couples to find the financial resources to get their own home or apartment, so many of them end up living with one set of parents or the other. Some families will have a grandparent and one or more married child with spouse plus any children still living at home and the parents jammed into a small two or three bedroom house. Needless to say the opportunities for romance are severely limited in such an extended family. This is where the Pushbutton plays a vital role in the Panamanian family structure, and if you watch the entrance to one on just about any evening, you will see young couples in taxis going and coming. The driver presumably waits in the taxi in the garage. The couple get an hour of blessed privacy, and the family remains intact.

Mind you, all this is second hand information, I having no personal experience with Pushbuttons. For those who are sure to ask, I don't know if they give Jubilado discounts.