More Progressive Legislation from Mexico

Mexico City has recently expanded their definition of “Hate Crime” to include crimes against people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

“The measure, which was approved on Thursday by an unanimous vote of 39-0 in the Federal District Legislative Assembly, adds a section to Article 138 of the city's Penal Code which establishes that homicides and lesions will be considered as "hate crimes" when they are committed due to hate, and when "the agent commits it based on social or economic status: By association, affiliation or relationship with a defined social group."

A hate crime, the measure says, can be motivated by "ethnic or social origin, nationality or place of origin, color or any other genetic characteristic, sex, language, gender, religion, age, opinions, disability, health status, physical appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, occupation or activity of the victim."

A couple of weeks ago Mexico legalized possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use. Wouldn’t it be nice if their neighbor to the North would follow suit? Ronald Regan’s ridiculous “War on Drugs” has proved to be as unwinnable as any guerilla war the USA has taken on in the past. Legalizing drugs would put an immediate end to the drug war being waged on the Mexico – USA border and treatment of those who remained addicted would cost much less than continuing this foolhardy “war”. Thousands of civilian lives on both sides of the border would be saved.

Visit From "The Mexico Kid"

We had a visit from our friend Les, aka "The Mexico Kid" today. Les was the person who gave us the confidence to make our first foray into Mexico with the RV three years ago. He is an "old hand" at Mexico travel and has been a great resource for us.

Les was in the USA a week ago and I asked him to pick up a new video distribution switch from Camping World for us as ours was giving us some problems. They were $125 locally and $49 at Camping World. I much prefer to shop locally and don't mind paying a little extra to support local suppliers but this kind of rip-off cannot be explained with any kind of logic. His "excuse" for coming up from Nanaimo was to drop off this switch.

We had a nice lunch and a visit and then Les and I repaired a cupboard door in his motorhome that kept opening when hitting topes in Mexico. We added a couple of extra spring loaded catches to the door that should keep it in place. Les showed me where he had some fiberglass repair done in Mexico after a small backing up contact with a gate. They had done such a nice job that I literally could not tell where the damage had been. Another endorsement of Mexican craftsmen! I would not hesitate having any work done down there.

Honour System

We stopped by a local farm the other day. They had all their produce laid out for sale. "Real" red tomatoes, potatoes still with a trace of dirt, beautiful onions, milti-coloured squash and eggplant. The best to be found and all reasonably priced.

The people must have had something better to do that day than to wait around for the few of us who stopped to buy the goods. They had placed a metal box under the price list and labeled it "Honour Box, please leave payment for what you take".

I gave the box, which was not bolted down, a shake and it was quite heavy. Our purchases came to eight something so I left $10 thinking it might make up for someone who left nothing. I doubt if there are many of those or the farmers would quickly end this method of sale.

This whole thing gives you a good feeling about our fellow man. We could use more of this trust. It is almost Mexican.

Number 30,000

The Blog received it's 30,000th hit a minute ago! It was a regular reader from Roanoke, Virginia who connected via Cox.net. If this is you, let me know!

Mystery solved! It was Wayne from Roanoke, VA who just left a nice note in the Guest Book. It is always nice to know who reads this Blog. Don't be afraid to sign the guest book or leave a comment. All input is welcome and valued.

The End Of An Era!

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."

- Ted Kennedy

Edward “Teddy” Kennedy 1932 - 2009

He was a Champion of Social Justice and a tireless worker for the causes he passionately believed in. Like most of us, he was imperfect but on balance I truly believe it can be said that he left the world a better place for having visited.

Well, That Didn't Work

Sunday morning I tried to open Ghost again and the same thing happened. "No C Drive"! I then did what I should have done in the first place, uninstalled and reinstalled Ghost. So far it seems to be working. I will know for sure by tomorrow.

Yesterday I replaced the huge CRT monitor that took up half of Norma's desk. Staples had 19" Widescreen Acer LCD's on sale for $119 so I rushed out and bought one. It is much better and brighter. I built a platform for it to sit on from a couple of pieces of 2X4 and plywood so it is a little easier to see and provides some storage space underneath. We are again on the cutting edge of technology but I have two 19" CRT monitors to get rid of. If anyone in Campbell River wants them, let me know.

Computer Panic!

Not that many years ago I did not even own a computer! Now the little boxes have become so important to our lives that I seriously think everything would grind to a halt if anything happened to the data they contain. This morning I checked the status of my Norton Ghost backups and discovered that I had not backed up my desktop in almost a month. I usually try to do this every two or three weeks at the most so I was seriously behind schedule.

I opened Norton Ghost in preparation to imaging the hard drive and a box appeared suggesting there was no "C" drive! This is not possible as Windows is on "C" so how could the computer be running if "C" was in trouble? This was not a good situation. I restarted the computer a couple of times and tried again - same thing. It is booting fine from "C" but Norton is telling me there is no "C" drive! I "Googled" the error statement and was told it was likely a Bios problem. I know nothing about Bios problems. I had hit the brick wall at the end of my personal information highway.

I tried System Restore from Windows and went back a couple of weeks but that did nothing for me. I decided to try to use the Ghost image that was three weeks old but that means I would lose three weeks worth of data. I backed up everything I could think of as well as copying my "Documents" directory onto two external hard drives (can't be too careful), loaded my Ghost CD and started the process. Ghost 9 works in a DOS environment and I always get a little confused by it. It renames drives so you really have to be careful what instructions you give it. Well, it's now or never! Closing my eyes, I hit "enter" and it started doing it's thing. I can't stand watching it work so I went and made breakfast. When I finally dared to go back into the computer room, everything was working! AVG had downloaded a new virus database and Windows had done an update. All I had to do was restore my Quicken data and copy my new documents back onto the "C".

Just to test things out I did what had started the problem in the first place. I pretended to do a Ghost image. No warnings! It is working! Exhausted, I flopped into my Lazy-Boy and turned on the NASCAR race. Life Is Good. Again.

One Project A Day

I figure if I can complete one project a day I am doing pretty good. Today I tackled the second phase of replacing the dolly lights with LED lights. The old lights are the type that if a bulb burns out, you replace the whole thing, lens and all. The first light burned out in the first month and the second was soon to follow. I figured that at this rate it would not take long to pay for replacing the lights with LED's that, with any luck will last as long as the dolly. I replaced the tail lights in the Spring and that left the clearance lights on the front of the fenders.

The old lights actually worked as both tail lights and turn signals. I went cheap and just bought clearance lights that work with the tail lights. The cutouts in the fenders were too large for the new lights so I did the same trick with the plastic cutting boards as I did with the tail lights. I bought a cheap white cutting board and cut two pieces out of it to cover the old holes. I then screwed the new lights on and wired them into the old wiring harness. It was a simple job and tested out perfectly. I could go into the business!

Caycuse

We had a great weekend with old friends at the former logging camp of Caycuse. It was a smaller crowd this year but good times and tons of food as usual! It was the usual mix of retired politicians and union types so the conversation never lagged and history was re-written for the better a couple of times. An ex-Premier of BC made two of his trademark blackberry pies from berries that were picked just minutes before they hit the oven. All in all it was a great time and we all left, each feeling a little prouder of our own and each others’ small contributions to society.

Not a bad scene to wake up to. This was taken out of the door of the motorhome parked on the beach in front of our friend's house. Life Is Good!

Off to Lake Cowitchan

We are off in the motorhome to Caycuse on Lake Cowitchan for a few days. Every year Norma's old boss from Forest Renewal BC holds a get-together at his place on the lake near Duncan, BC. Caycuse is an old MacMillan Bloedel logging camp that was closed many years ago. The residents who lived there when the camp was operating made an offer to the logging company to buy the camp which they have operated since as a co-op. Everyone has their own house but everything else is shared including the water system, roads, maintenance shop and community center with pool hall and bowling alley. It is a very nice, quiet place to visit. I will post some photos when we get back. Have a great weekend everyone!