My New Baby!

I've had my old car for almost 10 years. I could get a few more years out of it but I took the plunge and got a new car. Both my old and new cars are Mazdas, the old a Miata and the new one a Mazda-3.

I've been thinking about a new car of some type that could be used for my massage work. That means it needs to be able to take a folded massage table into the back of it. This Mazda-3 hatchback has plenty of room for my table and more.

Also, there was a bunch of discounts and stuff that made it financially good to buy now. I even got a great price to trade in my 2007 Miata. 👍🏼

I do have to admit, I nearly got a tear in my eye as we drove off from the dealership and saw my Miata being driven into the back lot by the sales guy. One more nice feature Bina will ride in this one much more than the Miata. She did not like how low the Miata was.

Antelope Canyon, Page Arizona

October 7th 2016 we drove up to Page Arizona to tour Antelope Canyon. We timed our trip to be there when the tempretures would be comfortable. We left around noon time from our home and the drive up there was about four hours. We’d booked a hotel for friday night because of the four hour drive and our schedule tour time was 8:30 on Saturday morning.

Comfort in Page Arizona

We woke up to 62 degrees Saturday morning, it was refreshing. After an early breakfast in the hotel were off to Antelope Canyon. The canyon was only about 10 minutes away from our hotel.

Ken’s tours that we used for our tour is located within Navajo land. Before you can get to the Ken’s there’s an $8 fee to get in the Navajo owned park. The tour cost $20 per person and toally worth it. there was about 15 people in our group and the guide was very friendly and knowadable. He even would stop us and show the best photo places & angles.

When we walked out to the canyon, it was pretty uneventful. Once we got to the edge of the cayon we saw the metal stairs we’d need to go down to get to the bottom of the canyon.

The trip through the canyon little by little worked back and forth up to the top of the canyon rim.

Bina doing tai chi

When you come out of Atnelope canyon at the end of it, you zip-zag through a last few turns and pop out at ground level up on the rim. The trip was wanderful and it’s an amazing place to see.

Dinner at Carefree Resort Restaurant

Bina along with several of her students decided to go out for dinner at the the Carefree Resort restaurant. It was burger nite, the meal consists of a burger of your making, fries or sweet potato fries or onion rings, and a glass of wine. I was invited to tag along with them. 😀

We all had a great evening, good and great conversation. It was also one of her student's birthday, so we celebrated that also.

And we were treated to a lovely sunset.

Kodi is up and running!

While I was in Panama the couple we were trading emails with prior to showing up told me about a very cool device called Kodi. It's like a Roku box but is open to apps/plug-in and there's lots of fun stuff it can do. It costs about $50 and I got it from Amazon.

We've been unplugged from the Cable/Satalite companies for a long time now. We currently are getting local TV from an over-the-air digital antenna and internet based movies and TV shows from a Roku device. I decided to explore what the Kodi device could do. It has WIFI so you don't even need a cable attached to it.

From the Kodi website: "Kodi® (formerly known as XBMC™) is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media center for playing videos, music, pictures, games, and more. Kodi runs on Linux, OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android, featuring a user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most videos, music, podcasts, and other digital media files from local and network storage media and the internet".

I was told to get a blue tooth remote for it because it would make using it easier. This little guy is so cool with it's chiclet size keyboard and even a touch mouse pad.

I've been using it for a short time and it's very nice. I've found all types of movies, TV series and it even an app/plugin to get live streaming local radio stations from across the internet. The interface in not quite as polished as the Roku but it's got a lot going for it. It's not for the technology faint hearted, it'd not hard to setup but you need some average AV skills and be willing to read through some more detailed manuals. Its also cool that there's Kodi software for most devices.

Kodi Screen Shots

Morning Coffee Relaxing in Front Courtyard

It's Saturday morning August 28, and one of the first cool morning. Bina and I sipping coffee in the front courtyard.   

 

Panama Trip

October 2016 Panama Trip!   Day One - Thursday Yesterday we started our adventure. Took a 6:30 AM flight out of Phoenix Sky Harbor airport. We had a layover in Dallas for about 3 hours. From there it was a long trip down to Panama. It was about 7:00 PM and got the room at the Crowne Plaza for one night.   

 

  Day Two - Friday 2016-08-05. We left the hotel as 6:30 AM.  We got a taxi to the Holbrook bus station. We got to the bus station a few minutes before 7:30 and were told there was not 8:00 bus today.  We were hurried off to a bus by whom we discovered afterward was the bus driver. At some point, we will pay for our tickets on the bus.  Once on the bus, we started chatting with an older couple who now live in Boquete. There was also a young girl from London named Margeret. She's also going to Boquete. 

  The bus cost $15.30 each for the trip to David. We stopped about half way to David, and we're given 30 minutes to get lunch. There was a cafeteria type line. Bina got white rice, veggies and chicken and I got rice with beans, vegetables and beef stew. Not a bad meal for $10:50.  Dinner was at Mar De Grau, a Peruvian place uptown that has a lot of seafood dishes.

 

  Day three - 2016-08-06 Saturday We got to meet Carrie and Bruce. We met them for lunch at the Sugar & Spice Cafe.   After a walk through town, we walked up to their home they are renting. It's a gorgeous place with a yard full of unusual plants, both fruiting and ornamental. Bruce showed me some of the technology he uses here in Panama. One neat item is a Kodi box, I've already ordered one.  

We've enjoyed pastry treats from several bakeries in town. Dinner was at the fish house place. Drumming and trumpets for hours into the night.   Day four - 2016-08-07 Sunday Booked Copa Airways flight to Panama airport about $119 total for use one way. About an hour flight. We went out twice today, first to get breakfast at the Sugar & Spice restaurant. Then up to book a coffee tour trip for Wednesday morning. When we were out booking the tour for Wednesday, we had lunch across the street from the tour booking place at Big Daddy cafe. Bina got a fish taco, and I got beef ones. Yummy stuff.

 

  After our trips around town and watching a movie, we walked over to the Sugar & Spice Cafe and got several muffins to eat for breakfast tomorrow morning. They are going to pick us up and 8:00 AM to do a tour.   Day Five - 2016-08-08 Monday It about 6:07 AM and we are sipping our first cup of coffee/tea. A few more sips and I'm off to shower. We've for our Jungle cloud tour this morning at 8:00. The tour was done riding in the back of an old Toyota Land Cruiser jeep type truck. It went for about two hours.

 

 We had dinner at a small pizza place on Main Street. We had a nice dinner overall.

The Panama beer (cervesa) was a nice light lager.    Day Six - 2016-08-09 Tuesday It's raining pretty hard so Susan our new friend got a taxi and picked us up at our hotel and dropped us all off at the weekly market just over the bridge. There were all kinds of food; local handcrafted items and retail items for sale.     We hung out with Susan and went out for breakfast at the El Oasis hotel/restaurant.

  For dinner, we went to La Posada Boquete, nice but a little more expensive than most places in town.   Day Seven - 2016-08-10 Wednesday  We woke up today to pouring down rain. We'd scheduled a tour of a coffee farm and roaster. Luckily the tour place sent a closed van for the trip and gave us thin plastic rain ponchos. We got to see the coffee trees, the raw beans, and the cleaning and roasting process. We also bought several bags of their coffee. 

  After we had got back to the room, the rain stopped, and we walked to the town square for and early lunch. I had chicken soup with big chunks of veggies and Bina had the beef stew with vegetables and rice. Even with a large of coffee, the total bill was only $5.00.  We sat around for a while then walked over to the Oasis hotel for Bina to take photos of their garden and water features. After leaving gardens, we stop at La Villa Cafe for a cup of coffee.    Bina remembered a photo she wanted to get and went back to Oasis   

  So I'm still relaxing at the coffee shop.     Day Eight - 2016-08-11 Thursday We met up with Susan at their condo for breakfast and to walk around their community. After that, we met up with Carrie and Bruce at the La Villa coffee shop. For dinner, I went up to Big Daddy's place and got a roasted 1/2 chicken for Bina and I got fish and chips.  

 

Day Nine - 2016-08-12 Friday We had breakfast at Sugar and Spice restaurant. While there we met Charles and Juanita Ivins, a lovely older couple. We chatted with them and got a lot of good advice about living in Boquete.   

  Later meeting up with Susan and John Hays to go up to the zip line place to their restaurant. This place was about 6,500 feet in altitude.

Day Ten - 2016-08-13 Saturday. (Heading Home)  We had a guy named Jim take is to the David airport this morning from Boquete. Our flight from there to Panama City was overall good.  After a short time, we were off to Miami.  Our flight from Miami to Phoenix there was repeated delays until about 11:00 PM they canceled the flight entirely. There was a significant number of flights canceled and hundreds of people in the airport without a flight. We had to sleep in the airport. We are scheduled for a flight to Charlette NC and then on to Phoenix from there.  

  Day Eleven 2016-08-14 Sunday. Day 2 in the Miami airport.  We got on our flight to Charlotte NC and arrived there without issue. I sleep most of the flight from Charlotte to Phoenix. Our bags had not yet arrived in Phoenix, and we submitted a ticket on it. Our two bags were delivered to our house the next day. All is good!   

2016 March 25th head back to see family in NJ

It's March 25th at 8:04 PM and I'm sitting in Phoenix Airport waiting on my red eye flight to Newark New Jersey. I've been relaxing for the last hour or so, and nursing a couple gin and tonics. By the time I get into Newark it will be 6:30 tomorrow morning. I'll try and get some sleep on the flight.