Comments and Rating

I love getting comments on my blog. Thank you Selma.

I was also just awarded a 7.5 rating by Blogger for my blog (apparently based on writing style and relevance). That was cool. If you look at the very bottom of the page you will see Blogger's rating and also the opportunity for you, as a reader of my blog, to provide your rating (anonymously of course). To rate my blog OR to give comments (other than a personal email) you must have a g-mail account. That is a very simple thing to get - just fill in the blanks - and you don't have to actually use the account if you don't want to.

A g-mail account is a very good thing to have, particularly when traveling. I am now using my g-mail account for sending and receiving email and am changing over completely to g-mail because my xplornet account is not working to send email from Mexico.

Now - my comment on your comment Selma - this week we have Canadian TV so are quite appalled at the level of violence we see on the news. After the 3 shooting murders this week in
Vancouver, the armed home invasion with shots fired all over the neighborhood and the woman in Victoria who was pushed under a bus to her death in Victoria; the news here in Baja of a motor home that was stolen seems trivial. Of course the Monty Python experience the owners had of dealing with the various police forces to try to report the theft has kept all the Gringos here in stitches - although it really is not funny but tragic. The Gringos in Baja are quite connected via a few different newsgroups and noticeboards so we know where when and what the problems are.

Here is the story - as reported by the owner of the rv in our Baja Pony Express:

I would like to inform the community of a vehicle theft Sunday night from our locked boat storage lot in Santa Maria. It is a 1988 Born Free fully restored after being damaged in Hurricane John. The thieves broke a gate down, then broke the driver side window, cut away a full RV cover, deactivated the alarm and drove away without neighbors being aware.

In the morning we discovered it at about 8am and drove immediately to the police station in Los Barriles. Not to our surprise there was nobody there so we started driving around and found a patrol truck and we reported the loss to the officers. We gave them a complete description including pictures and registration. About 2 hours later the Minstrel Publico called up and we met him at the storage lot, which he inspected. We saw definite strange footprints, but he did not seem interested in them. He told us that we would have to fill out a report on Monday because nobody was on duty now to help us. We called our insurance carrier and within two hours an agent of the insurer was on site taking our data and requesting that we file a report with the police. We told him that they told us to come in on Monday at which point he said to report it to the Federal Police.

We then drove to San Jose to report the loss the the Federal Police and they said that they needed the Ministerial Publico to first file a report. We told him that they would not do a report until tomorrow and he said that we would have to come back tomorrow after we filed the report to the Ministerial Publico. So all this while our RV is travailing at about 50 mph somewhere while we deal with police organizations unable to work together.

Update on stolen RV - (Tuesday)

I wanted to update all on the ongoing story of the stolen RV in Santa Maria. We have now filled out the paperwork with the local Ministral Publico but the top guy was not there so we were not able to pick up the report until today, Tuesday, to take it to the Federal Police.
A friend suggested that we call the California Highway Patrol in that the RV would make a perfect drug running vehicle. So trying to the right thing, Barbara called the California Highway Patrol to make a stolen vehicle report. The CHP told her that she would have to come into the office to fill out the report. She replied that we were over 1000 miles away and that would be impossible. The CHP said that they then could not help her. Barbara said that she could fax the Mexican stolen Vehicle report to them but they said that they did not like the Mexican report. The CHP suggested that Barbara call the San Diego border patrol and gave her the number. So no report was taken with the CHP

Barbara then called the San Diego Border Patrol office and told then the story about the theft and that possibly a vehicle loaded with drugs was on it way to the border. She asked them to at least look for and detain a vehicle that had been reported stolen. They said they didn't usually do that and anyway they would have to have a US police report. The Border Patrol officer told Barbara that she would have to make a report with the CHP. Barbara explained that she was in Cabo San Lucas and that the CHP demanded that the report be in person. The San Diego Border Patrol then asked Barbara to come into the office to make a report. Barbara then said that she was in Cabo San Lucas and the San Diego Border Patrol officer asked where Cabo was. Once again no report was made and when Barbara asked the agent if they were not concerned that a truck load of drugs was on its way to the border in our stolen vehicle, there was only silence.

So I guess the moral of the story is that government agencies are trained to follow procedure even if that procedure will create harm and that this attitude has no international borders.