Niño del Mar

This is a really cool article about my buddy, Bolivar Andres, who lives in Bocas del Toro, Panama. That is him on the left in the picture I have robbed from his Facebook.

Bolivar is originally from Chile, but arrived to Panama many years ago on a sale boat with his father. As the article explains, Bolivar is an experienced sailor - a true seaman, but Bolivar is also well-known in Panama as one hell of a surfer. In crossing paths with him, though, you'd never know it - because he's not at all boastful. In fact, Bolivar is one of the most genuinely good people you'll ever meet. Anyway, I was impressed with the article and wanted to share it with you all. DEFINITELY CHECK OUT THIS ARTICLE.

At the bottom of the article there is some good footage of Bolivar surfing. Here is a link to Bolivar's video on YouTube. I was going to embed Bolivar's surf video directly in this post - but while searching for it I found this other YouTube video of a conversation between Bolivar and my friend, Scott Balogh - discussing the bungalows that Scott built and that he rents out on Bastimentos island in Bocas. Lemme go ahead and plug into this post the Red Frog Bungalows, a place worth checking out when you are looking to get away from the sad U.S. economy and be able to step directly out of your room onto a beautiful beach. Actually, if you check out the El Gringuito Slideshow (in the upper left-hand corner), you can see several images of the very beach where the Red Frog Bungalows are located. I can guarantee you'll wish you were there. Anyway, I'm glad to have the opportunity to give a shout out to both Bolivar and Scott in Panama.

Only the very beginning of the video is in Spanish, and then Bolivar and Scott switch to English - so stick with it even if you don't speak Spanish. I'm not sure when the recorded this, but I got a kick out of it - so I have included the video here:

Bicycle

I have just been told by my friend, Josh, that he received a ticket today for running a red light on Commonwealth Ave. up in Boston. He says there were no cars in sight, but of course we all know that you still are supposed to stop... Here is the kicker, though - he was on his bicycle. The ticket will cost him U$S 150 and will have an adverse effect on his insurance.

I'm studying for a test, so I won't take the time to look into what the current law applicable in Boston, Massachusetts actually says about this. Nor will I get into the policy arguments about whether a bicycle should constitute a "vehicle" - or other relevant terminology - while on the roads and/or sidewalks of an urban community. But you should feel free to debate:

Should driving laws and regulations should be equally applicable to cyclists?
What are the arguments?
Maybe for the sake of synergy between all the operators on the roads?
Maybe to help ensure the safety of community members?
Should cyclists be required to apply for a license to operate their bike or unicycle?
Should cyclists pay for a license plate to put on their bikes?
If so - should the license plates be full-sized like we put on cars - or maybe the little key-chain sized license plates? Maybe something in between...?

Actually, I take it back - don't feel free to debate this here. I'll just end this post by saying that this is one more reason I am enjoying being out of Boston and in Latin America for the semester :-)



UPDATE: Well, the law students decided to debate anyway. Hehe... Therefore, the floor is open again to comments and arguments for anyone who has something to say about this.

Weekend Report - 04.25.2010

This past weekend was a lot of fun. I already told you about Reggaeton Night on Friday. Well, on Saturday I spent most of the afternoon studying, but that evening I went with some buddies to a birthday party. The girl hosting the party was from Italy, and pretty much everyone there was from Europe or different parts of Latin America. I enjoyed this crowd a good bit more than the last ex-pat party I attended several weeks ago. That last ex-pay party was part of the inspiration for my very first blog post - see "Gringo".

Anyway, on Saturday I started out the evening with my friends, Felix and Sebastian. That is Felix on the left in the picture. He is a buddy from my Maritime Law class at the UBA. Felix is a great guy and lots of fun to hang out with; however, I do not think he will be be helping me out a whole lot in preparing for exams because he doesn't show up at class half the time. I've also seen his handwriting, which is complete sh*t. I'll be much better off studying with a nice girl - a strategy I have discussed in a previous post.

Sebastian is the guy squeezed in between me and the skeptical-looking girl with big hair in the picture above. Sebastian is one of Felix's best friends, and we hit it off pretty well when we all went out together a couple weeks ago. Sebastian is one of those guys who seems to know everybody. For example, in Buenos Aires the stores stop selling alcohol at 11:00 p.m., but Sebastian always seems to be on a first-name basis with the owner of the Kiosks. He generally walks in and exchanges some jokes and banter with whomever is working, and then they go ahead and sell us

Belinda

This is a picture with Belinda Peregin. She is a 20-year-old popular singer from Mexico, and pretty good looking in my opinion. I saw her at Reggaeton Night where she was interviewing people for MTV. Actually, I didn't know who she was. My friend Consuelo told me I take a picture with the MTV girl, so I did. Then when I got home I realized that I have some of her music on my computer.



Anyway, this picture doesn't do her justice - so check out one of Belinda's music videos:

Reggaeton Night

On Friday, I went to Reggaeton Night here in Buenos Aires. Reggaeton is a music genre that has developed as sort of a mix of reggae, cumbia, hip-hop and rap. Most of it is in Spanish, although there will occasionally be some English thrown in there.

Reggaeton has developed in countries through Central America and the Caribbean, and it has actually gotten pretty popular in the U.S. Many people consider it a "guilty pleasure". This is because reggaeton isn't always exactly "good" music - the lyrics are often cheesy (with some exceptions - see Calle 13), the rhythms and melodies repetitive, and the singer is usually decked out in platinum chains and other over-the-top bling.

But it is feel good music, and it is great for dance clubs. I guess people start considering it a guilty pleasure when they leave the dance club and start listening to reggaeton on their iPods.

Well, I listened to a whole lot of it when I lived in Panama. As a matter of fact, I still listen to a lot of reggaeton. I listen to it on my iPod in Boston, and I don't feel the least bit guilty about it. Anyway, I need to get back to telling you about what happened at the show.

The 3 singers on Friday night all came from Panama - Eddy Lover, La Factoria, and Makano. None of these guys

Getting Stuck - A Series

I have several friends who are stuck in different parts of western Europe right now because of the volcano eruption in Iceland. Basically, each of them was on vacation somewhere, and now they cannot get back to their families, jobs, and lives because all flights have been canceled and delayed. Huge pain - it has even lead a girl I know to move "volcanos" down to almost last place on her list of favorite natural disasters.

Anyway, the Facebook Community has been responding to this unfortunate predicament by saying things like, "Well, you have a few more days in [INSERT BEAUTIFUL EUROPEAN CITY] - could be worse!" Being stuck on Europe vacation is a huge inconvenience and probably quite costly for these folks, but I guess the Facebook Community does have a point. There are worse places to be stuck. At about 6:00 a.m. this morning, this got me thinking about some of the times I have gotten stuck (or almost gotten stuck) in crappy places and situations. I'll tell these stories in the next three posts below this one. Here are links to those posts:

Part 1 - Stuck in a Cave

Part 2 - Stuck in the Darien Gap

Part 3 - Stuck in Panama City at 4:00 a.m. with no Wallet, Money or Identification

This is sort of "filler" material, because I am studying for another exam on Thursday. These stories happened a little while back when I was in Panama, so I have had them filed away in my head. When I am studying like this, I can still find the time to hammer out a quick blog post, but studying keeps me from going out and doing the weird stuff that I like to come back home and write about. So I just don't have as much new material to report. Don't worry though, I'll be out there making questionable decisions again in no time.

Part 1 - Stuck in a Cave

This is a story from about 4 years ago when when 3 friends and I spent a month in Panama and Colombia after graduating from college. The only other piece of background info you need to know is that we were on an island off the coast of Panama, and found a local Guaymi indian who said that he and his brother could takes us into a cave there on the island. Of course, this sounded like a great thing to do.

Well, we were able to come up with 3 hard-hats and a few flashlights. Of course there were 6 of us (4 gringos + 2 guides), and the flashlights were not water-proof (this is an example of "foreshadowing"). Feeling semi-prepared, we sat off on our adventure. We took a short boat ride through a small creek into the jungle, walked about 20 minutes to the entrance of the cave, and walked in.

The roof of the cave was covered in bats, and the floor of the cave was covered in water and bat droppings. During our first 10 minutes in the cave, we came across a caiman. I'm no animal expert, so I'll just say that these are like smaller versions of the alligators we see in Mississippi and Louisiana. Anyway, my friend Drew decided that he wanted to grab the caiman's tail.

Part 2 - Stuck in the Darien Gap

This is another story from 2006 when 3 friends and I spent a month in Panama and Colombia after college graduation. We decided to rent a car and go hiking into the Darien Gap. For those who don't know, the Darien Gap is the 30+ miles of dense jungle that separates Panama and Colombia. It is the one and only reason that it is not feasible to drive a car all the way down to South America. The Darien Gap is inhabited by the Embera indians, a few VERY small little villages, and roaming FARC guerrilas and other Colombian rebel militias.



Our plan was to hike into the Darien Gap to a ranger station called Rancho Frio. We would spend the night there and spend the next morning seeing animals, taking cool pictures and exploring the jungle. Then we'd hike back to our car and return to Panama City.

So we rent the car and set off down the Pan-American Highway. Well, the Highway eventually turns into more of a road, then a dirt road, then just dirt. Finally, you are bumping along a pitted dirt path that cuts through the jungle. We went through no less than 3 different police checkpoints before we finally arrived to a small little village called Yaviza. This is where the Pan-American Highway stops. We asked some local police if we could leave our rented car at their camouflage-covered police station, and they obliged. Then we found a store to stock up on some "supplies".

Most guidebooks recommend that you do NOT go to the Darien Gap. The guidebooks then give you helpful advice in case you decide to go anyway. I think our guidebook recommended that we take plenty of food, water, a First-Aid kit, satellite phone, camping equipment, etc. Well, here is what we took into the Darien Gap: a bag of rice, a can of mixed vegetables, 4 cans of tuna, some bottled water.

Not the least bit prepared for our hike, the 4 of us set off on a 1-and-a-half hour canoe ride

Part 3 - Stuck in Panama City at 4:00 a.m. with no Wallet, Money or Identification

This is a story from just a couple months ago. I was in Panama and had gone out for the evening with a friend of mine. We had dinner, then went for some drinks, then went to an apartment in Paitilla where several of the her friends were having a little party. Well, at about 3:00 a.m., we left in a taxi. The taxi dropped her off at her house in El Dorado, and then the taxi driver was going to take me to my buddy Ben's apartment where I was staying for the night. I was about half-way to Ben's place when I realized I didn't have my wallet.

I had the wallet earlier in the night when we went for dinner and drinks, so I thought it must have fallen out of my pocket back in the Paitilla apartment. I asked the taxi driver to take me back to to the party. Well, the wallet wasn't there. I now had 2 immediate problems: First, I didn't know how I was going to get back to Ben's apartment, because I didn't have money for a taxi. That leads to the second problem - I had a taxi driver waiting for me downstairs who expected to be paid for driving the girl home and then taking me all the way back to the Paitilla party.

I asked the people at the party if someone could "loan" me a few dollars to pay the taxi driver. I managed to find one guy who gave me $5. I went downstairs and asked the taxi driver how much I owed him - $8 he says. My reply was, "Well, all I have is $5." The taxi driver called me an "awebao" (read "dumbass") and squealed his tires as he sped away. It is interesting how squealing your tires is an international way of saying "I feel very angry with you". Anyway, as the taxi sped away, I knew that one of my problems was now gone.

Then I started trying to think of how I could get back to Ben's apartment, which was several miles away.

Clubbing with a Kingpin

This is a picture of me with Guillermo Coppola taken in the VIP area of the Terrazas del Este club, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

Your first question may be, "What was Ryan Bullock doing in the VIP area of a club in Buenos Aires?" Well, the explanation is that I was not Ryan Bullock that night - I was "Chip Duracell". That's right... of THE Duracell family. My great grandfather started the Duracell battery company, and I am the an "heir to the Duracell family fortune". Of course that is ridiculous - there is no Duracell family. But Chip Duracell gets to step into the VIP area.

The next question is who is Guillermo Coppola. Well, here in Argentina he is known as "El Rey de la Noche" (the King of the Night). Basically, he is a major socialite, politically-connected celebrity, and womanizer who many believe has had links to organized crime here in Argentina. Coppola was Diego Maradona's manager for years. For those of you who don't know, Diego Maradona is a former Argentine soccer player and the current manager of the Argentine national soccer team. Many people consider Maradona the best professional soccer player in the history of the game. He is certainly one of soccer's most controversial figures.

Coppola was arrested back in the mid 90s after police busted him with more than 500 grams of cocaine in his Buenos Aires apartment. He was initially charged with drug possession with intent to sell. Police claimed that he may have been part of a drug ring that sold drugs in resorts along Argentina's Atlantic coast, and Coppola was potentially facing up to 20 years in prison. Here is a New York Times article from about a week after the incident. After he spent over a year in prison, it turned out that the drugs may have been "planted" in Coppola's house by an undercover police officer. Anyway, they let him walk.

There is certainly a lot more to tell about Guillermo Coppola. Back in 2009, he released an autobiographical book full of stories and anecdotes about Maradona, power, drugs, jail, women, scandals, and nightlife. The book cover is pictured here:

Diego Maradona used to say that Guillermo
Coppola could "smoke under water", which is
an argentine expression that means that he
can do anything and everything. That explains
the picture on Coppola's book cover.

Cargo Partnership between Mississippi Gulf Coast and Panama

It is not that often that I get to talk about Mississippi and Panama at the same time. On the surface, one of the few things that the two places have in common is that Ryan Bullock loves them both. Anyway, I am excited to report that representatives from Panama's Tocumen National Airport have been in Mississippi this past week where they signed a cooperation agreement with the Gulfport/Biloxi International Airport. Here is a link to an article from the WLOX News station in South Mississippi.

Rafael Flores, general manager of Panama's
Tocumen International Airport, inks an
agreement with Bruce Frallic, the Director
of Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport

The agreement will allow international cargo coming through the Panama Canal to be flown into South Mississippi, where it will subsequently be stored and transported out of an air cargo facility at the airport in Gulfport. Interstate 10 runs through the Mississippi Gulf Coast, providing access to 10 primary north-south interstates between southern California and Jacksonville, Florida.

The possibility of a synergy between the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Panama has excited me for several years. In October of 2006, while I was living in Panama, a proposal to expand the Canal was approved

Engagement Toast from Argentina

My buddy, Brian Hayden, asked his girlfriend to marry him. Even more important, he has asked me to be the best man in his wedding. On Easter weekend, a bunch of people from the wedding party got together in Destin, Florida to get to know one another and to celebrate the engagement. As the best man, I would have liked to have been involved in planning the weekend - but I could not even attend, because I am in Argentina. I checked out flights, and it would have cost me about U$S 2,400 to get up to Destin for the weekend.

Instead, I got my friend, Darren, to pick up 8 bottles of not too expensive champagne and take them over to Destin. Then I recorded this video-toast, and put it on YouTube. Everyone gathered in the room and toasted, and then I got to talk with everyone for a few minutes over Skype. Before watching this video, you should know that it took about 6 "takes" to get something presentable. "Takes"... that is a technical term that we use in the industry :-) Anyway, that means that I toasted to Brian and Anne-Moreland 6 times. In otherwords, I was a little buzzed by the time we recorded this one.

How I Accidently Ruined the Student Government Elections... for EVERYONE

Chicos,

I apologize that it has been over a week since my last post. I had my first test at the University of Buenos Aires on Monday, so I spent all last weekend locked away studying. The test was on National and International Arbitration. It was an oral exam, where the professors have 4 or 5 students at a time come into the classroom, and they just barrage each of us with open-ended questions about all the material we have discussed throughout the course of the semester. Lemme tell you, it was tough. My Spanish is good in that it is no problem for me to attend a dinner party and chat for 3 or 4 hours. I can converse, make jokes, and even make charming, flirtatious remarks to your girlfriend... for hours.... On the other hand, discussing international arbitration and implementing such a specific and technical vocabulary is a real challenge. Anyway, the test went really well. I passed it, and did well enough that I may even be "exempt" from taking the final exam... depending on how well I do on an in-class project next week.

I have also been a little preoccupied and distracted over the past couple days tying up some final loose ends on an expired relationship. There is much more to it than that, but I'm not ready to tell that story. I usually try to put a light-hearted spin on my stories, and maybe even identify a lesson to be learned from my experiences. These feelings are just too new, though.

Instead, I'll tell another story that is a lot of fun. This is the story of how I accidently ruined the Student Government elections at BU Law last year...

Fútbol Argentino - San Lorenzo Celebrates 102nd Anniversary

This past Wednesday, I attended the 102nd birthday celebration for Club Atletico de San Lorenzo de Almagro. My buddy, Francisco is a huge San Lorenzo fan. Several years ago he bought me a jersey, which I proudly wear when we attend San Lorenzo soccer games. San Lorenzo is the only Argentine soccer team whose fans organize each and every year to celebrate the anniversary of their club's founding. Lemme tell you, they put on quite a party. On the Club's 100th anniversary, more than 17,000 people filled the streets of the small Argentine neighborhood. This year where were more than 3,000.

I have included a short video that I recorded on Wednesday night. We started off in front of the church where the Club was born. I'll tell you more about that later in this article. Several bands and singers took turns performing for the group of gathering San Lorenzo fans. A priest even stepped up to the stage to lead the group in a prayer - he followed the prayer by putting on a San Lorenzo hat, which contrasted with his full clerical robe. That was when they unloaded the flag. I say "unloaded", because the flag is 100 meters long. You can see part of the flag at the very beginning of the video I have included. We all helped to carry the flag about 17 blocks through the streets of the neighborhood to Avenida La Plata, where the original San Lorenzo stadium was located until the late 1970s. I'll tell that story in just a moment.

Understanding Argentine Soccer
Unlike professional sports teams in the U.S. or even soccer teams in the U.K., Argentine soccer clubs are not structured as corporations - they are "associations". There are no equity partners or shareholders - the clubs are made up of "socios". These are fans who pay annual dues for membership in a club, and they elect the President and officers who run the clubs, allocate funds, hire the coaches, and negotiate contracts with the players. San Lorenzo currently has more than 25,000 "socios", but in its heyday it had more than 40,000. Each and every "socio" has a recognized stake in the Club.

To fully appreciate the passion of the Argentine soccer fan, you have to understand that unlike professional sports teams in the U.S., these clubs represent much more than the actual teams. The clubs are more like community institutions. For example,

Somebody Who Loves Me...

That is a loose translation of the name of a popular Argentine novela - see Alguien que me quiera. "Novelas" or "telenovelas" are sort of like a cross between soap operas and mini-series in the U.S. Novelas are packed full of passion and drama like soap operas, but they generally run for a much shorter duration.

This guy in the picture Miguel Ángel Rodríguez. He is one of the characters in the Argentine novela "Alguien que me quiera". I have run into him a couple times at San Lorenzo soccer games, so I guess he must be a fan.

Apparently Viggo Mortensen was also at the game yesterday. He is an American actor who has been in a number of films - the most well known is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I learned yesterday that he spent a substantial portion of his childhood living in Argentina. Apparently he is also a pretty serious San Lorenzo fan, and he shows up periodically at the games.