A quick trip to California

No sooner were we just settling into the routines of being imigrants in a strange and wonderful new land WHEN I had to go back!

Yes, there was some fire insurance stuff on our house in Aromas that I had to take care of fast and there was a corporate sponsor who offered to pay my way to a conference in San Diego. Well I think I already told you all that but my memory fades fast and I guess in a blog it is better to have continuity by telling things twice so you don't have go back and read everything.

Anyway, I went and spent a week in Aromas, limbing trees, paying bills, working a little at the Authority and camping in the trailer. This was the first time I had spent any extended time alone in the "campsite" and everything worked well. Ranger, the cat we left behind popped in every night and all the neighborhood dogs came by looking for Linda.

Well, I had a huge list of stuff to bring back with me and I needed some way to carry it. So I went out and bought the World's Biggest Suitcase. It is large enough to swallow what had previously been my biggest bag. Now I have spent my life being critical of travelers who wheel in these behemoths and now I am one. But it worked........Inside was a printer, hair rollers, books, lots of liquids from the drug store, and more. 62 pounds of stuff.

Well, everything went well on the Southwest flight to San Diego. The bag was overweight and I paid the charge. But when I left San Diego on Continental three days later I learned that contrary to their website (with a max weight of 70 pounds) there is "holiday embargo" on overweight suitcases and I had to get both bags down to 50 pounds. That meant I had to open all my bags on the floor in front of the ticket desk and pull out and heft those heaviest items and then cram them into my carry on bag. Well my carry on now weighed 25 pounts but I made the flight with all the stuff still going the right direction, just in different containers.

I thought my adventures were over. After all I just had to change planes in Houston and then jet home to Panama. But I was mistaken. Just past the ticket taker for the Panama Flight were four Customs agents questioning everyone getting on the flight. You may not know that it is a big no no to carry more than $10,000 out of the country and these guys were looking for any money smugglers. They also had dog with them sniffing but not for money (since we all had some of that). I could only think it was a drug dog looking for really dumb crooks trying to smuggle drugs OUT of the US.

Anyway when I got up to the chief customs guy, he looked me right in the eye and cited the statue the makes it a no no to take money out of the country and and asked me if I was carrying more than $10,000. I looked him back in the eye and said "no". He then asked me how much money I WAS carrying and I told him it was none of his business since I just said that I was not carrying too much. Well we went around a couple of times and I finally said defiantly that I was carrying a hundred bucks. He moved me to the side and said "I will handle you over here". So then his cronies took apart all my carry on. Yes, that one which had 25 pounds of everything carefully packed in a small space. When I asked them why, if the new currency has RFID strips in it so the money can be detected electronically, they did not know what I was talking about. Anyway they found no extra stash of cash, just lots of stuff I would not rather show to anyone but close friends. BUT they did not even pat me down so If I was harboring a wad of $100's in my crotch they would never have found it.

Oh, the measures our government goes to in an effort to keep us paying taxes.

And now back home in Panama we had a very productive day. We almost got another bank account (we need few more papers), we paid our cable bill all by ourselves and we arranged to have a cabinet maker come to the house later. Big day eh?

Live well and be very very nice to everyone you meet.