Big doings in our newly adoptive country

Unless you live under a rock, it’s been pretty hard to ignore the big — nay historic — news coming out of Panama lately. With the conclusion of the Summit of the Americas in Panama City, we’re thrilled that Panama has gotten some time in the spotlight. Folks, this is what a dynamic and progressive country looks like!

And how great is it that, instead of continuing the stupid pissing contest with Cuba that’s been going on for decades, we’re actually sitting down together and talking? John and I welcome the normalization of relations with Cuba. When we were on our sailing voyage, we had always dreamed of visiting there but had to pass within 20 miles of the Cuban coast (on our passage across from Mexico to Florida) without stopping. That was right around the time Pres. Bush declared that U.S.-flagged private vessels would be impounded for going to Cuba. We deeply resented being told where we could and couldn’t sail, but it wasn’t worth the risk. (Lucky for you, that’s a soapbox I won’t get on right now!)

In other news of the amazing, the Panama Canal expansion project is 80 percent completed. Check out this excellent video to get a sense for the huge scale of this incredible engineering feat. (And thank you, Richard Detrich, for posting this great content.)

Since my day job is writing for the broadcast technology industry, allow me to geek out for a second. Here’s an article from my colleague Randi Altman’s postPerspective site about a film crew for the History Channel’s “Modern Marvels” program on the Canal expansion. It’s probably more detail than you need about the work they did to provide a sense of scale and convey the magnitude of the project. Definitely more epic than a burrito!