About Foster and This Site
I’m Foster Coburn, a full-time resident of Loreto Bay, and I’ve built this site to help others living in or visiting Loreto. Let’s get three things out of the way quickly. I don’t have anything to rent! More on this later. This site is not selling anything either. Yes, I’ll also explain this later. I simply hope you’ll find the information provided on the site useful. None of the businesses or services in Loreto have paid anything to be on the site. In fact, many times I have gone to their business and spent money. For example, buying myself a meal at a restaurant while getting photos of their menus and food.
Site History and “Rental” Name
I am one of those who bought into the Loreto Bay dream early. Late in 2004 I put down the deposit and picked my lot. In July of 2006, I took ownership of my casa. Like many others who got in early, I have my nightmare stories to share and I’ll spare you the details.
Early on, the Loreto Bay Company rented my home when I was not visiting. Most of those rentals were for many months and they were employees of the company doing construction work. When the Loreto Bay Company died, so did that program. As a homeowner, I was looking for ways to cover some of the costs of my home. VRBO was the platform I chose, but I thought I could help myself by having a Web site dedicated to promoting my own home. My real job is as a WordPress Web Designer, so might as well put my skills to use for myself. Thus, the site was born and that’s why the original URL includes the words “home rental”. It has since been changed to remove those words.
I live here full-time now (FWIW, I am a permanent resident of Mexico and citizen of USA). While there are plenty of houses available for rent in Loreto Bay (and the town of Loreto), mine is not one of them!
When I moved to Loreto Bay full-time, I didn’t need the site to promote my own home anymore. I thought about what to do with it and decided I’d use it to provide information of use to others in the area. I kept the existing URL with “home rental” in the name, but changed the site to purely information useful to those in Loreto. Soon afterwards a new name was attached. There is nothing listed on this site for rent. While it is possible that will change in the future, there are no plans to do it.
Who is Paying For This?
The short answer is nobody but myself. Yes, you’ll see a few ads promoting my stuff. Let’s just say the total monthly proceeds from those ads wouldn’t get me an ice cream cone! This includes some ads for t-shirt designs. Every single shirt you see is one where I’ve created the artwork.
If the site is “selling” anything, it shows off my skills as a WordPress Web Designer. Maybe, just maybe, someone visiting this site will be interested in hiring me to work on their site. I’m all for that! I’ve also built some sites for some Loreto businesses you may know. Those include gastroteca AZUL, Nopolo Wine Cellar, Rocavilla, Serenity Loreto and Where is Safarigal.
Just in case someone wants to donate to help motivate me to keep building out the site, I’ve included a donation form (it’s in US dollars). The payment method used is PayPal and keep in mind this also means you can use a credit card even if you don’t have a PayPal account. Money goes directly to my PayPal account. While I don’t expect donations, I certainly will be thankful for any I receive.
More Info About Foster
For the first 20+ years of my career, I authored 13 books on CorelDRAW and provided training classes. While I have been doing Web Design since the mid-90s, that became my focus in 2012. Anyone who has met me knows I’m a die-hard fan of my University of Kansas Jayhawks. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
Growing up in the US, my language was English. It was required to take a language in high school and I chose French (who knew I’d need Spanish later). While I don’t speak Spanish, I’m trying to pick it up as fast as I can. I’ll get there, but it will likely take a couple years before I’m better at understanding and speaking.
Keeping this site updated is important to me, but my real job (paying clients) will always take priority. Feel free to tell me about upcoming events, places to eat and other information that I should add to the site.
If we haven’t already met and you see me in the neighborhood, please say hello!