gregjsmith

September 25, 2005

X Prize Cup Preview

Sunday 9 October 2005 the X Prize foundation will be showing off the the ships for the next X Cup. Tickets are $6 for adults and $2 for kids. I will be there, will you?

Come meet the astronauts who will fly them and imagine yourself inside them, watching the earth turn below you. The future is closer than you think. We’re not talking about models. We’re talking about the real thing.

Last year the X PRIZE Foundation gave away $10 million for the first private spaceflight a history-making achievement that blanketed the front pages of newspapers across the globe. This year we’re unveiling a new generation of private spaceships at the X PRIZE CUP in New Mexico.

Bring your friends and family to the Las Cruces Airport on Sunday Oct 9th See six different spaceships currently in testing. Watch them fly. Meet the pioneers, pilots and astronauts who conceived them.

September 23, 2005

Rita Evacuees Camp Free At NM State Parks

This is a great idea. All the states should do this.

Evacuees of Hurricane Rita will not be charged a fee to stay at any of New Mexico’s 32 state parks. New Mexico State Parks Director Dave Simon says the usual 14-day limit on stays, electrical fees and charges for campgrounds will be waived for as long as neccesary.

September 10, 2005

Gruesome Grizzly Attack

“I felt her tooth go into my scalp,” he said. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is no good.’ ” Then he felt his scalp rip clean away.

The scary story of Johan Otter, who lured a bear away from his daughter. Besides the loss of his scalp he also had five broken vertebrae, three shattered ribs and other various injuries. The bear attacked his daughter anyways but didn’t do nearly the that it did to him.

September 6, 2005

NM Spaceports First Launch

I drove by the New Mexico Space Port a few years ago, it was a sign with a dirt field behind it. Apparently they are going to launch their first rocket into space next year. I will have to check it out again.

The first launch from New Mexico’s Southwest Regional Spaceport is on — and set for March 27, according to Gov. Bill Richardson. Richardson’s office announced Tuesday that UP Aerospace, of Connecticut, will launch its SpaceLoft rocket on a sub-orbital flight from the New Mexico Spaceport on that date. The flight will carry seven experimental and commercial payloads for a variety of scholastic and business entities and, after traveling into space, the rocket and its payloads will land in the downrange area of the Spaceport, Richardson’s office announced.

September 6, 2005

Rio Rancho Almost Completely Wireless

Azulstar has almost completed the city wide wireless network in Rio Rancho. Although I’m soon to be a resident of Rio Rancho, I probably wont subscribe to this network. Instead going with cable and my own router.

This might change later, especially if If the signal is as strong as they say it will be. The main issue is that I have multiple computer I want to have on the ‘net at the same time.

September 5, 2005

Unexpected Benefits

This house was listed with the clause that the seller would “clean up debris and weeds”. There was quite a bit of weeds and some “debris” but it wasn’t so bad. When I made my offer I said I would would clean up the weeds and crap left behind. They accepted my offer and the rest is history.

On the final contract, they put back in that the Seller would clean up the weeds and debris. WTF? According to the seller’s agent, it was “already scheduled”. OK, whatever. Last week the people they contracted to clean up the place, and oh boy did they do a terrific job. Some of the debris had value to me, but the clean up costs vs the costs of the items more than likely even out. Check out these before and after pics.

Front of the house, not a lot of weeds here, but it was nice to have it cleaned up. Makes a difference in the look of the place from the road.

The partially finished storage shed. I think there was some interesting things in here I would have liked to have had. There was also a big wood pile next to it which was taken.

This is the back yard, showing the back 1/4 acre that hasn’t been devleoped. I didn’t expect them to clean up these weeds.

The vegetable garden. Again, will be a lot easier to get stuff growing here too.

The once grassy area in the back yard (sprinkler system is present). It will be a lot easier to get grass in now.

August 28, 2005

Summer 2005 Classes Are Done

This last quarter’s classes turned out to be more difficult than expected. I signed up for a MS Access class and a Business Stats class. I won’t say much more about the Access class. I already had experience with it so it was a easy A.

I was looking forward to the stats class, since I use it all the time in my work. Unfortunately we were plagued by a new teacher and a new book. The first two chapters of homework were taking students 8 hours (!) to complete, this after being in class for 4 hours. That’s just too much for people who also have real jobs. She cut it down quite a bit after that, but just illustrates how out of sync the teacher was with our needs.

I managed a B in the class, but not without a lot of help from my classmates. If I hadn’t been able to complete the homework I wouldn’t have ever passed. Yet, I still didn’t come out of the class with a good understanding of the subjects.

August 27, 2005

The House Hunting Process: Waiting For Closing

The house will be mine. I’ve signed all the mortgage papers, I’ve signed all the contracts, the inspections are done. I’m just waiting for closing. The official closing date is September 19th, but I cannot imagine why it would take that long.

The place needs work, I knew this before making the offer and the inspection revealed the details. Nothing is so bad that will stop me from moving in. I will be doing some work before I actually move.

You can view pictures of the house on a flickr set.

August 27, 2005

5 Bucks A Gallon For Gas In 2006

Oh lord, no. I just paid $2.70 a gallon yesterday and $2.50 last week. Albuquerque is usually on the low end of the price scale, but were over the national average lately. So what the fuck, lets talk about $5 a gallon next year. You know it’s coming, prices never go back down.

“Why are they charging higher prices for gas? Because people will pay it. Apparently, we’re not changing our driving habits much,” he said. “Blame this on ourselves. This country has not built a new refinery in 30 years, we stopped new oil exploration . . . and put a moratorium on offshore drilling.”

Of course the oil companies are raking in record profits and not making the refineries or reinvesting. We cannot totally blame ourselves for everything.

Author: gregjsmith