RickS

...as in VERY!

My Tivo remote quit working. I took the battery cap off and..... I have NEVER seen as much corrosion in anything before. I'm surprised that it did not ruin it! Maybe there's something in the air.... reaching all the way to Colorado.

Service Dog....

A couple. There are also a couple of individuals that rent used vehicles....

Several. Plus several individuals rent used cars.

Living in La Paz you may want to set up a mail-forwarding facility 'at the border' for important mail. Then your mail gets sent to you by a service. Same with the renewal of your plates. Put your annual renewal 'time' on your calendar; call Clay County a month before and pay for the renewal. Without a mail-forwarding service in Mexico you can send stuff back and forth using UPS/FedX or Estefa. It's just part of living abroad but still needing to ''do business" in the US. Face it. One cannot title a vehicle in two states simultaneously. So you buy in NM but get temp plates; send the NM title to SD and get SD title and plates. Move to La Paz WITH SD title/plates. Renew them annually as above. Recommendation: leave yourself PLENTY of time for this process... buying then getting SD title and plates in hand....well before your departure time. Drive around in NM with SD plates for a few weeks or a month is OK... just can't do that 'for ever'.

The 'short' version is: one goes online and fills out a couple of forms and sends their current title, a copy of your driver's license and a check to Clay County. In about a week... if one is in the US... you'll get the plates and registration directly from Clay County. They are FAST. The title which must come from the State... and they are not as quick... was taking 4-6 weeks for the last several years. Then annually Clay County will send out a notice for renewal and a new 'year' sticker which one can pay by mail or online credit card. This is what makes the service nice since other states will not let you 1) have a title/plates if you don't live in their state, and 2) renew said by mail.

It continues to amaze me how many folks will ask a question here but won't take the time to 'Google' it first. About the same effort on the inquirer but.....

What is it that you would like to know about this? The place to go is not the state but rather a county that has been doing it for years.... Clay County. I have had both car and trailer titles/plates over the years from SD. At one point there were about as many SD plates at Lakeside at any given time as there were other states combined.... because of the ease of renewal.

Who is "their"... Banjercito or South Dakota DMV?

Well one can purchase a TIP at the Banjericto (Mexican Bank) office AT the ferry terminal in La Paz if heading for the mainland but I don't know if one can cancel/turn in a TIP if coming into La Paz from the mainland. "Normally" one can only do this at a Banjercito when leaving Mexico into either US or Belize. IF you can actually do this cancellation in La Paz, you have one more 'problem'. Although one does NOT have to have a TIP anywhere in the Baja, Mexico does require one maintain a current vehicle registration while there. If you plan on living full time in La Paz you will need to find a state that will give you a title/plate and then let you renew it annually via mail. South Dakota will do this.

Also the "best" way to do B12 is sublingually but that's harder to come by....

Meaning 'if you purchase after 70 the coverage is not good"? Even though the cost is high?

The 'learning process' sometimes takes many years for some folks....

Mostly, my income reference was about the 'ability to pay'.... the financial ability or desire of an expat to pay. Many expats choose IMSS because they do not have sufficient funds to pay for private insurance.

Take all this with a grain of salt..... an overview, not the gospel for all cases. First of all MANY expats at Lakeside do NOT use IMSS at all. Has something to do with income level IMO. Some number of people use IMSS for their 'catastrophic coverage'. Those that do use it often pay out of pocket until all of their benefits kick in. Many expats pay out of pocket regardless of their coverage.... or lack thereof. Many expats purchase private insurance, some of which also choose a high deductible and pay for lesser medical needs out of pocket. (Keep in mind that medical care in Mexico, even in expat-heavy Lakeside, is 'cheap' especially when compared to the US.) Private insurance has a threshold age.... 70, 72, 75?... after which one cannot enroll. Some/all? policies can be continued even after a holder passes that threshold. Dental cost is extraordinarily 'cheap' compared to the US. A filling, a crown, a root canal, a bridge, dentures... even implants... can be paid for by anyone who has the means to actually be in Mexico to begin with! And Lakeside has several very high quality dentists from which to choose.

Just because it 'cannot connect' does not mean it's a brick. It is showing 'disconnected' and many things could cause this and the device still be perfectly sound. I've 'programmed' several of these ATAs..... just not this Cisco one.... and the last thing that I would want to have happen if I were going to try and help is to have had it reset to factory default. I can confidently say that it will not work if set to factory default because it is from there that one starts adding/changing some of the settings that whatever IP phone company this device is going to play with requires. P.S. There is no ATA model. ATA is the generic term for a/any Analog Telephone Adapter, one of which is the Cisco Spa Series. My ATA is a Grandstream HT801.

Don't know why you would rule out them but.... In the past.... I now use Barragan exclusively.... I have used a very competent Doctora Dentista at Dental Del Lago, 27-A Constitución 27 Ajijic. 766-4503

I, for one, would NOT reset the device. There are probably some settings that make it normally work for the OP's environment that will be 'lost' that way. If the OP can get someone to come out and look at it, having the settings that have worked for 10 years might be of some benefit vs seeing 'factory defaults'. Just my opinion....

Having said that... lap surgery for hernia has been around for many years with much success. So why even consider the more invasive surgery?

"Many reports" as in how many? What percentage? "There remains a lack of validated neuropsychological testing for POCD (Post Operative Cognitive Decline), which is required for homogeneous research methodology...."

If money is a factor as stated, this sounds like a no-brainer to me. $9-$11,000 here vs less than $1k in California.

I'm not an Insurance pro, but... Medicare Advantage and a Medicare Supplement to an Original Medicare account are two different animals and cannot be compared in 'any' way. What is fine with one may not be... and probably isn't.... fine with the other. They live under vastly different 'laws'. Both are products of a private medical insurance company but are not similar in most ways.

Careful. Medicare Advantage Plans can only be used in an Emergency while traveling abroad... not if one actually lives or winters in Mexico, and then generally only in a 60-day vacation period. Lakeside Medical may not tell you that part.