The Panama Canal

As we sipped our coffee on the porch I spotted something huge flittering through a nearby tree. It was almost as big as a bird, only it didn't look like any bird I had ever seen. In fact, it looked a lot like a dragonfly that had done far too many steroids.

"What the hell was THAT?" I squeaked at my Dad.

He hadn't seen it and since we were taking off for the day, he was disinclined to go chasing it.

We survived another mad dash through traffic with Oscar at the wheel, despite his near miss with a five-ton truck, and ended up at the Panama Canal on the second day of my visit.

The most important canal in the world, as it is billed, connects the Atlantic to the Pacific and contributes somewhere between six and seven million dollars per day to the Panamanian economy. While this is impressive, I felt the presentation of the Canal, at least at the Miraflores lock, was poor and underwhelming.

We entered the air conditioned building after paying our eight bucks and were shown a dated 10 minute movie on the Canal's history. After that we emerged into the lobby where the gift shop and info booth were located, and after some wandering around stumbled upon the museum.

The museum on the 1st floor is basically what was shown in the movie, only with neat little scale models behind glass. There is no information on how the workers lived, and the scale models were largely unimpressive.

Moving on we hit the second floor where three fish tanks constructed into the walls housed a small variety of local fish but I couldn't tell you what kind of fish because the display did not include any information on them.

Other display cases on the walls showed the wild variety of insects native to the country, and these are all super-sized versions of North American bugs. These were all dead and pinned, so I braved the room and took some snaps.

I had my Dad hold up a finger for size comparison in these frames but if you ask me bigger is not always better, especially when it comes to insects.

The iridescent blue of the butterflies is lovely.

Either a beetle or... a bed bug!

Scorpions!

A hawk moth.

The dragonfly I had seen that morning wasn't actually a dragonfly at all. This is what I saw, and it's bigger than a hummingbird!

It's a winged cricket.

The third floor of the museum was closed for remodelling, so we headed outside onto the tiny observation platform and watched a container ship coming through the locks. I've seen ships moved through locks before but the sheer size of the container ships moving through mere inches from either side of the Canal is indeed impressive.

Also impressive was the price tag. The cost for this ship to move through the Canal was $340,000. The heftiest bill ever for passage through belongs to a passenger cruise ship, which paid $419,000. All payments are cash ONLY and guards armed to the eyeballs with automatic weapons collect the money from ships pursers.

As super container ships are being built and the current Canal locks are too small to accommodate them, Panama is busy cutting a new canal which will run alongside the existing one. I expect the price tag for the super ships will set a new bar for the most expensive passage through the Canal once the new locks are completed.

The ship in the upper lock.

The water level is lowered, dropping the ship to lower lock height.

The ship is moved into the lower lock.

The immense container ship is lowered to the Pacific ocean.

The ships are held taut with lines tethered to little iron engines on tracks called "mules". Here's a shot of one in front of the lock pumping station.

They look like a fun ride, no?

Dad and I enjoyed a beer on the small observation deck (it really does need to be so much larger), but my headache kept getting worse and worse so we retreated to the air conditioned interior of the building where we bought a few cheap souvenirs.

By the time Oscar came to get us I was fighting off a strong desire to pass out, and when we got back to the cabin I lay down. I had a bad night wherein I had to take ice cold showers to lower my body temperature and had a lot of trouble keeping even a bit of water down.

Despite all my precautions I had gotten heat stroke, and it was something that I would battle with for the duration of my stay, along with a multitude of insects that would torment me mercilessly and have me clawing the flesh from my body.

I guess I'm just not designed for the tropics.

I've updated the album to include all the photos of my day at the Panama Canal. Click HERE.

Next up: Taboga Island.

Panama: Day 1

I don't think anyone really believed I'd get on the plane this time, and there were times I wasn't so sure either, but I really had no choice. I had booked my father's return ticket to Canada and unless I went down to give it to him, he wasn't getting home.

"Are you going to be okay?" my Mom asked for the 1000th time, hugging me hard at the airport.

"Sure, sure," I told her, focusing on one step at a time. I got checked in, cleared customs and got my first stamp ever on my passport - a USA stamp. Yay. It's a little thing but it represents a major accomplishment for me considering my phobia.

I grabbed a Timmy's and parked my butt on a seat while I waited to board the flight. It was then my mind decided to torture me with thoughts of imminent death that involved fiery plane crashes. Note to self: Stop watching plane disaster TV shows. I popped an Ativan and cracked open a book.

They let us board and I took my seat and strapped myself in. As the plane taxied down the runway I did I crossed myself like the Catholics do (I'm not Catholic) and said some prayers. I heard a buzzing sound and turned my head left to look for the source.

My seatmate was fast asleep, head thrown back, sawing wood in his dreams. I resisted a sudden, overwhelming urge to wrap my hands around his throat and start squeezing. Beyond him through the small glass window I watched the earth drop away and then swing sharply back into view as the pilot started twisting and turning the plane to gain altitude.

That was when I started crying. I managed not to blubber like a child, but it took me a long time to actually stop and gain my composure, by which point we had levelled off and the cloud cover offered the illusion of a floor.

I popped another Ativan and knocked myself into unconsciousness, awakening as we approached Newark. Because of the logjam of incoming flights into Halifax, we had been late departing so I didn't have a lot of time in Newark. Luckily everything was clearly marked and I made my way over to the C terminal for the 5 hour flight to Panama City.

Nom nom nom!

I took the time to enjoy some good old fashioned American diner cuisine in a 50's style joint that reminded me a lot of Pop Tate's place from the Archie comics. The food was simple, affordable and delicious and the service and atmosphere were great, not something I expected in an airport.

On the flight to Panama I had another crying session upon liftoff and then dozed again thanks to the meds, at least until some guy stepped on my foot which was well under my seat, in order to reach his overhead bag. He apologized but the damage was done and I read until the descent when again I had another crying / fear session.

Upon approach the flight attendants gave us immigration forms to fill out and I panicked because I couldn't answer some of the questions. I texted my brother for the info the second we hit the ground, and he contacted Dad. While I waited for Bro to text me back I dashed into the bathroom and splashed a lot of cold water on my puffy face.

I got the info card filled out and turned it in, prepared to answer questions and have my bag examined. The Customs Guy pissed me off by waving me through without a second glance. All that scrambling for nothing!

Oscar

Just outside my father's landlord, whom I shall refer to as Oscar, is a native Montrealer and Nordiques-turned-Bruins-fan (Anybody but the Habs. I HATE the Habs). He had found me and after much hugging and hellos I stepped outside with him and my Dad into the Panamanian night.

The first thing I noticed was the heat and the second thing was the smell.

I expected the heat but the air had a hot jungle smell with undertones of rotting foliage. I wrinkled my nose and climbed into the car.

Oscar drives like Nico Bellic from Grand Theft Auto after Nico has just been spotted jacking a car and is now being pursued by the cops. He is quite honestly the single worst driver I've ever been in a moving motor vehicle with, and he was our designated chauffeur for the week.

Oscar likes to rubberneck and I don't mean a casual glance at what's going on but a nice, long look wherein he turns his head and ignores the road entirely. He tends to do this at top speed, because Oscar also has absolutely no use whatsoever for his brakes except at the last moment when he roars up on another car's ass and drives them into the floor to stop mere centimeters from the other guy's bumper.

He tends to change lanes without looking, insults other drivers who must yield to him and suffer the consquences, and he accelerates into and through the on and off ramp turns while leaning so far over that part of his torso ends up in the passenger side.

On the way to their house the 3 cars in front of him were clearly going way too slow for Oscar. We were about to enter a blind turn and sure enough, he hit the gas and ran his white Cavalier into the passing lane. I did some praying and God heard me because no oncoming vehicle came around that turn and we got safely to the cabin.

"Oh shit," I said, as the 3 dogs immediately came out to greet us.

They are guard dogs, 2 Doberman crosses and a Husky. But they were unaware I was a postie and since I didn't tell them we took to each other just fine. Throughout the duration of my stay there one always slept on the porch outside the cabin where I stayed, guarding me through the night.

Cookie

The first night I was there it was Cookie who guarded me as I slept. You don't really need guarding. Veracruz is not impressive but it's pretty quiet and safe. The next morning Dad and I went down to the nearby beach where he takes his morning walk and drinks a local ginger ale or beer.

The beach is not really swimmable. It's all mud when the tide is out and a variety of birds like to feast on the jellyfish or small fish that get caught in the low pools or washed up on the sand. I didn't catch a snap of the vultures but they spent the morning circling over my head.

"Do they know something I don't?" I asked Dad, but he said they're always up there. I did catch a shot of one of the sandpipers who obliged me by posing for a moment.

More friendly were the bar's parrots, who like to yell "Hola" at everybody. They keep this up for quite a while before they get tired of it.

Sandpiper on the Veracruz beach.

The parrots are bred in captivity, as it's illegal to own a wild parrot.

"Hola" seems to be the only word they know.

For our first day of adventure we went to the Causeway of Amodor. It used to be an island but when they dug up the canal they had to move the earth somewhere and one of the places they moved it was to the island, using it to build a causeway.

The Amodor Causeway

View of Panama City skyline from the Amodor Causeway

It's probably my favorite spot to visit in Panama City. It's highly tourist oriented and very beautiful. We had lunch at an Irish Pub where I enjoyed the air conditioning and frozen lime margarita immensely. After a brief jaunt to the duty free I took some pics and we retreated from the heat back to my father's cabin.

I was already feeling a bit groggy and had a headache coming on, but I chalked it up to the jet lag. Boy was I wrong.

Anyway, click HERE for some more snaps of the Causeway, as well as snaps of my Dad's neighborhood, Veracruz.

Next up: The Panama Canal.

Why Hollywood Can't Do Women

Real women are silly and fun and can fish too! Also shorter.

I'm sure in Hollywood where the cars are fancy and expensive and the money flows like wine there are more than a few women that strongly resemble the type of female characters that permeate even the most successful of television shows.

Take The Walking Dead for example. The females are all typical Hollywood female stereotype.

First you have Andrea - the strong "I really want to be a man but I'm not so I'll just ACT like a man and show them I can do everything they can do" female. Andrea takes a lot of hate on the fanboards and while I like the character and am actually a fan of the actress (I remember Laurie Holden from the X-files), she's pretty much your stereotypical man-in-a-skirt character right down to a post-killing-rampage-high car sex romp with Shane.

The only real part where Andrea got interesting to me at all was her relationship with Dale. He clearly had feelings for her that she did not reciprocate, but instead of talking about the elephant in the room with them she would avoid him or talk about something else that did not address what both characters were really thinking and should have discussed.

Mind you, this is no shrinking violet afraid of confrontation. She wields a gun, she tells Rick and Shane off fairly regularly and pretty much everyone else too. But she doesn't address the issue that most needs adressing, so it comes across to me as (a) out of character and (b) contrived to create tension / drama where in real life, no female I actually know would behave that way.

I've been in a similar situation, and I can dig avoiding it for a while because that's human nature. But no real woman, particularly one as direct as supposedly as strong as Andrea, would live in that sort of tension day in and day out when there's plenty of tension to go around. Other stuff she might not be able to fix, but some old guy hitting on her all the time and trailing her like a puppy dog she could fix, and every female I've ever known or care to know would have addressed it rather than live with it for weeks or months on end.

Oh, and in the season finale Andrea had to be rescued by the next incarnation of a strong female on this show, Michonne. So now there are two of them. Lovely.

Carol is pretty much the exact opposite of Andrea in that she has a lot more inner strength to deal with things, but her character's role was pretty obvious from the moment we met her. Carol is The Victim and will always suffer more than her fair share with this group. And if and when she protests and tries to show some strength, she's going to come across less as tough or determined and more as scared and over-reacting.

In the season finale Carol had to be rescued within a matter of minutes not once but twice, after first running into danger to begin with, thus jeopardizing the lives of others. Andrea tried to save her and ended up nearly getting bitten, but of course it was the big strong man who doesn't want attachment but is developing some, Daryl Dixon, who finally and successfully rushed to Carol's rescue. On his motorcycle no less.

Carol is one of those female characters who everyone is supposed to feel sorry for and like because she suffers so much, but what Hollywood doesn't get is that for real women like me, we detest these women. It has nothing to do with jealousy (because hey who doesn't want a wife beater or a zombie-ear-trophy wearing masochistic prick with intimacy issues) and everything to do with logic.

If I were Andrea I'd have left Carol to die and made my escape. Would Carol have come back for me? Hardly. Moments earlier she was trying to convince a mother to abandon her child when danger was all around. I get that Carol is scared, but Carol is always scared 24/7 or else she's crying or trying to seduce another protector.

The kicker is this - Carol has plenty of inner strength. She was utterly devastated by her daughter's death but either got over it pretty fast (unlikely) or has internalized a lot of the pain - which having known women go through such deep pain seems highly likely. Why Carol keeps going - is Dixon really worth living for or is she just doing it out of habit - her motivations after Sophia's death is a mystery that has yet to be solved.

In reality losing a child breaks apart marriages and some people never recover themselves. Carol, meanwhile, has started the series as a victim and remains one to this day, and the apparent death of her Sophia was no more than a drama engineered to drag out an already long, boring season and oft times seems to have more lasting repercussions for remaining characters than the child's mother.

And while we are on the subject of mothers and their children, that brings me to possibly one of the worst lead female characters on a hit television show - Lori Grimes, as portrayed by the likable Sarah Wayne Callies.

While losing Sophia seems like a blip on Carol's radar, the mere thought of losing Carl (who names their kid Carl these days anyway) tends to send Lori over the edge. This is pretty much how every woman in my life operates, including my own mother, despite the fact that I left my childhood behind a while ago. When I had my car accident she stayed strong in front of me and melted down in private, so props to the writers for at least getting that aspect of Lori Grimes right.

Any conversation or motivation or reasoning unrelated to Carl, however, and Lori Grimes has clearly been cobbled right out of a How To Build Your Female Lead Character book. Whatever hate Andrea gets on the fan boards is probably doubled or trebled for Lori, and pretty much deservedly so.

I've never met, nor do I ever hope to (never visiting Hollywood), a female like Lori Grimes or her countless incarnations throughout television and movies.

First, there's the love triangle. Her husband supposedly dies and she takes some other man's word for it. Yes, danger was all around so I'll buy that. A few days later she apparently needs comfort and takes the best friend's comfort because she's having a moment of female helplessness and needs / wants a protector for her and her son.

I can get all that. What I can't dig is the ensuing triangle that manifested the moment her not-so-dead husband showed back up on the scene. She tried to have the best of both worlds, sneaking away to hiss at Shane not to tell Rick while trying to recommit to her marriage.

We won't get into Rick and Shane's behavior here since this piece is about the writing of the women on this show, but Lori immediately morphed into pretty much every soap opera female in a romantic triangle I've ever seen.

She's been blessed with 2 Alpha males lusting after her scrawny ass and any redeeming qualities she herself may have had has now been overshadowed by the need to manufacture tension between the men. Threat of imment gross zombie death and 2 Alpha males fighting for control of a small, ragtag group is just never tension enough in Hollywoodland so there has to be a sex factor thrown in just for good measure.

Lori goes from pushing Shane away to keeping him close for protection. She does the push-pull thing with Rick too, and apparently this is all due to mood swings right down to the standard soap opera cliche of Who's My Baby's Daddy? Cue Jerry Springer. Seriously.

I don't know if the ones casting the show picked Callies because she's nailed the wishy-washy over emotional high school drama queen thing so well or what? She did the same character in Prison Break, and I tired of her then too.

What could have been a great role for her - helping out an inmate she fell in love with - turned into an amazing love story (not) instead of a female who got duped and has to rebuild her life thanks to this no good asshole who used her to save his brother.

Second, Lori all but begs Rick to kill Shane - because that way she can stop with the love triangle shenanigans and stress I guess - and now that Rick has done it she's all disgusted with him. Well Shane did plot to kill Rick and was even threatening him at gunpoint, but that has to be overlooked as Lori's lingering romantic feelings for Shane are now stronger than her feelings of fear and hate for the guy and the threat she thought he represented to her marriage and family unit.

In real life it has been my experience that everyone loves you when you're dead. The biggest asshole SOB can get killed and all you see on the news is how his family loved him and they're all crying and heartbroken. So I get that part.

But if that same asshole SOB was plotting to kill my husband and threatening him at gunpoint and my my husband manages to kill him first, chances are pretty good I'm not going to get mad at my husband for defending himself.

Nothing Lori does is logical. She's all emotion all the time, and no female ever actually operates like this. This human race would have died out long ago if we did.

Post-season finale the show's writer tried to pass Lori off as complicated and having all these unresolved emotions. It's nice of him to try but really what she is is one dimensionally emotional, lacking all logic or sense and the writers use her to drive their male lead (who is, in fact, a well-written character) pretty much gonzo at any given moment.

Remember when Lori went after Rick when he was drinking with Hershel in the bar? She's never once been able to take care of herself - having always relied on Shane or Rick to do it - but she didn't let that stop her. Clearly she thought Rick needed her protecting or something (seriously) and went after him, risking her son becoming a orphan should she and Rick not return. Even her primary motivating factor for everything - her son - was not enough to counter her sudden need to go off on a mission after a husband who has proven he can take care of himself and was unlikely to need her help.

Lori does not even compute on the maternal instinct levels lately, so her character continues to grow progressively worse. Instead of explaining to Carl that Shane tried to kill his father and that his father had to protect himself, she allows her son to buy into Rick's grief-stricken claim that he murdered Shane and believes it herself.

Whether or not she believes it is immaterial, but in order to maintain the all-important father-son relationship, especially in a zombie-infested world, her first instinct as a mother should have been to defend Rick to her son. That she cannot or will not even operate as every mother I've ever met would is a clear indicator that these writers are completely clueless when it comes to motherhood and female motivations.

Maggie, on the other hand, is the tough but not too tough 20-something girl still pining for true love and realizing it's never going to happen. She deals with the reality of the situation better than most females on the show, and her devotion to her family is one of the best and most likable things about her. When Glen shows up he's not her Prince Charming, but he's nice enough and cute enough and what with the pickings so slim since most eligible bachelors are now zombies, he'll do.

Maggie is the "I'll take what I can get" character, and frankly I DO know women like this, so she's one of the more accurate females on this show and since she doesn't get a lot of airtime I'll give the writers props for not YET screwing up her character beyond reality. However as characters keep dying and if Maggie keeps surviving, I expect she'll continue to evolve into one of the standard Hollywood stereotypes.

Maggie still needs rescuing, but since I'd need the occasional rescuing in Zombieland - but not every single damned time (ala Carol) I'm going to give her a pass on this one too. Besides, Glen is hardly an alpha male and occasionally needs rescuing himself so it's a fair matchup for a change.

Odds it continues this way? 0%.

On TV shows men are the logical creatures making plans and taking the lead in dramatic situations, and women either need saving, protecting, bedding (by more than one of the alpha males) or killing - particularly for dramatic effect (see Sophia). That's it. They serve no other purpose.

Every female I've ever met in real life is capable and does use logic to make plans and take the lead in the stressful situations in their lives. They rarely if ever rely on a man to do it and work in unison with their partners when times are tough.

They don't pick up guns and start trying to prove they are just as tough as men. They don't run around needing to be saved all the time. They don't sleep around and then attempt to prolong a soap opera scenario. And on and on and on.

I'm picking on a zombie show here, so I suppose a reality-type female is a bit much to ask when one is getting overrun by hoardes of flesh eating undead. But the fact is that no matter what show you are watching these are the females you get.

On Hawaii Five-0 recently they introduced a tough female version of the lead male Steve McGarrett. She was universally reviled. Why?

Because she wasn't tough. She talked a good game but she needed saving and whenever McGarrett looked at her sideways she went all puppy dog eyes on him.

Someone really needs to burn that damned How-To book on creating a female character in Hollywood and start from scratch. I'm really tired of almost never liking any of them anymore. And after years of this shit it's getting pretty offensive to watch.

Don't even get me started on rom-coms.

Meanwhile on The Walking Dead, just lay off Maggie, okay?