Author: gregjsmith

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Live Pigeon Cam

Unfortunately, I have some pigeons living on my patio. That’s unfortunate because 1) They crap all over the place, 2) They have a nest with a egg in it. I cannot bring myself to get rid of them with the egg there, actually it’s their second one. Had I know about it before they laid it I would have done something about it.

To get something useful out of of the situation I have set up the pigeon cam. Running off my 500mhz first gen iBook, a iSight and EvoCam you can watch as the butt ugly baby is born (and believe me, they are ugly). Click on the image to see a 640×480 image. I will be adding it to the side bar as well. I’m also working on a time-lapse.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=gregssite-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0976141604&fc1=000000&=1&lc1=0000ff&bc1=ffffff&lt1=_top&IS2=1&f=ifr&bg1=ffffff&f=ifrI’ve seem the mom and dad birds do some weird things so I will try to point them out when I see them. Also check out this MetaFilter post, who knew people ate them?

Update 06/01/05 3:44 PM: I wanted to mention that the picture updates only when there is movement, But EvoCam still seems to struggle to upload to my iDisk. I’ve also put in the link to the timelapse movie but doesn’t seem to be accepted by QuickTime in the browser, it works fine when I view it from the finder.

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House Hunting Week 2

I’m being very careful this time around, not jumping into anything unless I’m very sure it’s what I want. I looked at two house this week.

This house, being a HUD home, was foreclosed on.

  • The interior was pretty dated, probably was built in the 70s.
  • For a HUD home, it isn’t in bad shape but does need work.
  • The house is good size at ~1500 square feet, but the kitchen is smaller than my apartments!
  • The yard is probably a 1/4 acre, but oddly shaped.
  • The landscaping isn’t too bad. Mostly dead grass and no rocks.
  • Asking price is $85,000

Although it seems cheap, it gets bid on. Bids are due on this house by the end of next week. My concern is that I could get outbid by a contractor who can do the fix up work cheap that I can (which is apparently happening with the HUD homes around here). Even though it’s the fixer upper that I’m looking for the kitchen needs more work than I think I’m prepared (or know how to) do. Not to mention the yard is oddly shaped.

This house didn’t have any lot size info on the MLS, only saying it was on a culdesack. To make a long story short, the house was pretty nice inside but the lot was very small.

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Housing Bubble Or Not?

The Montly Fool has a article about the housing bubble that I found interesting.

In our neck of the woods, things look pretty unhealthy. I recently came across an OK-looking three-bedroom, maybe 1,000 square feet. 1950s vintage. Needs a new roof and windows and updating throughout. Price: $500,000. If you’re screaming, you don’t live in the D.C. area. The showing agent expected prospective buyers to make an offer within two days, and, as is now usual here, to waive all reasonable protections like inspection clauses. To me, that screams, “Bubble!”

Thankfully I don’t have to deal with housing prices like that here in New Mexico, but we are dealing with the same sort of house buying frenzy that the rest of the country is. The 30 years house I looked at for $113,000 is a good example, cheap but still a lot for such a old house (that needed work!).

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Albloggerque: The Evaporative Cooler As An Alter Of Manhood

Summer in Albuquerque gets hot, but not nearly as hot as Phoenix. It rains but it does not get humid like Austin. The summer time in Albuquerque as warm and dry, and we can use some pretty simple technology like the evaporative cooler. Albloggerque explains why it’s so manly.

The swamp cooler is the last bastion of twentieth century manhood. I say this for several reasons.

  1. It is up on the roof. Take your tools, sun hat, beer cooler…go up that rickety ladder and say adios to civilization until you feel like coming down. It is like disappearing under the car in a “Gasoline Alley” cartoon. For kicks, yell down the opening, “Turn on the fan!” once in a while. Then, “Okay…turn it off.”
  2. The guts of the cooler are straight out of a 6th grade science book. Nothing hi-tech here: just pulleys, tubes, pads, and pumps. This is basically a nostalgic visit to the science of Mr. Wizard.
  3. A cooler is so mechanical…a car is not. Guys used to work on the car or truck all the time. Change the points, plugs…maybe the condenser. You need gapping gauges, sockets, screwdrivers. Nowdays cars have no points, no condenser, and plugs last forever. Open the hood and you’re lost. Coolers, on the other hand, still require the occasional wrench and screwdriver. And it feels so good…pockets full of a crescent wrench, a 1/2 inch open end wrench, pliers, and a brush.
  4. It has its own secret vocabulary. You get to sit around with other cooler-techs and throw out words like: pillow bearings, octopus, brass ferrels, 3 quarter horse motor, squirrel cage, and fan belt.
  5. The job can last as long as it needs to. I swear you can be out of there in 20 minutes…or it can last a day and a half. It all depends on how much you replace and how much beer was in your toolbox. (And how much you like being on the roof. A shady tree usually adds a couple of hours to the job).

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House Hunting Week 1

I started house hunting this week. No winners yet, my apartment lease is up in about 5 months so I have plenty of time. Here’s what I found so far.

In perspective, this house was just about perfect.

  • It is on a rectangular 1/2 acre lot.
  • It in the city of Rio Rancho but just on the edge so has a septic and propane tank but has city water running to it.
  • It’s on a dirt road and has a bunch of trailers in the neighbor hood, neither of which concern me.
  • The house itself is on ~1200 square feet, not huge but big enough for me. Newer construction (last few years).
  • The best part, it has a solid 8 foot fence all away around the property. Made of welded tubular steel with metal paneling. The fence goes all the way around the front to make a gate in the front.
  • It was well in my price range at $113000.

Unfortunately the house had an offer on it when we went to look at it, so I never saw the inside.

No house yet, its being built and will be done in about 3 months. But I did look at an identical house nearby that was almost done.

  • This house is in a flood plane. Yeah it will probably never flood, unless I buy this house then we will have the rain storm that only comes around every 1000 years.
  • The property, although a full acre, was all over the place. I don’t think I could put it to use the way I would want.
  • Its outside the city of Rio Rancho. Septic, propane and well water. None of which bothers me except the well is shared by two other houses. I don’t want to have to deal with neighbors at all.

Considering it’s on a flood plane they still wanted ~$130000 for it. I’m afraid this isn’t the house I’m looking for.

No photo for the next house.

  • On the edge of the city and has city water and sewer.
  • On dirt roads, lots of desert around.
  • 1/2 acre lot, most of it not cleared. I like the natural desert look.

It’s a new house, they want ~$130000 for it and it just doesn’t seem that special for the price. There were no windows in the back of the house, just weird.

Were getting close with this house.

  • It’s old. Exact age or builder isn’t known but was estimated to be 20 to 30 years old. It certainly had that 70s look to the interior.
  • Speaking of the interior, it needed work. I would want to redo much of the kitchen and living room. A fixer up for sure.
  • The lot is 1/4 acre. Unfortunately it seems most of the property is in the front, since it’s a corner lot. I would prefer it be in the back. I’m sure some creative fencing could move some to the back but it’s not ideal.

Like I said, it’s close. I going to keep looking, but I may come back to this one in a few months if I don’t find anything else (if it’s still available).

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My First Car: 1973 Ford Torino 2 Door

A brown 1973 Ford Torino was my first car. The 73 model year wasn’t what I would consider at the height of style for the Torinios (seems all of Ford’s designs went for the worse starting with 1973). The 72 Torino had a much better looking front end, however Starsky and Hutch drove a 73.

1973 Ford Torino - 1

You can see, my Torino was in bad shape. I don’t recall but it may not have ran at all. But it was cheap! This is the type of car Sandler sings about in Ode To My Car (iTunes DRM Freeicon or Ode To My Car [Explicit]).

1973 Ford Torino - 5

As a result we found this powered blue 1973 Ford Torino 4 door.

1973ish Ford Tornio 4 door

The idea was that it would be used as parts for the 2 door. The big difference between the two is that the 4 door ran, had all it’s parts togther and it ran. I know what your saying, that 2 door is far sexier that that ugly 4 door, but did I mention it actually ran? Of course when I pushed on the accelerator it would actually accelerate about 2 seconds later. Made for some interesting left hand turns into traffic.

Thankfully I purchased a much better 1972 Ford Maverick not too much longer.

Update: The Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino came out and has a much better looking Ford Torino. If my car had looked like the car in the movie, I would have had much different perspective on my POS.

F3EC9D3D-34B9-4C5A-B325-7F3CD6C16155.jpg

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Would I Fail This 4th Grade Test

Johnny Mango declares that the current APS (Albuquerque Public Schools) assessment test will be too hard. Look at the examples test questions he gives:

  • You go to a party. There are 3 drinks, 2 sandwiches, and 4 kinds of candy. How many combinations of all three are possible?
  • You have the sides of a rectangular prism flattened out. How many faces and how many total cubic inches are there?
  • You have a carpet and a runner of certain dimensions. Is the rug 3 square feet more than the runner?

These test questions or for 4th graders, do they seem like they might be over their heads? I’m not qualified to say what’s good for a 4th grader and what’s not but this seems like they are bit complicated. I even had a hard time understanding exactly what the questions are asking on the first few read through.

Albuquerque schools are in a dismal state. I;m glad to see the school district trying to improve things but this might be a bit more than the kids are ready for right now.

Click through to see if I answered them correctly.

Let’s see if I answered these questions correctly?

  1. 3x2x4 = 24
  2. This question was confusing to me. But it says a flattened rectangular prism. So at one point it was 3 dimensional which mean it has 6 faces. But since it’s flattened out it has no cu inches, otherwise they would have to give some size information.
  3. I have no freaking idea.

 

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2005 SuperNationals

digg_url = ‘http://www.greginthedesert.net/files/B60754CD-FA13-4444-BB66-46FFB1D93FCA-549.html’; digg_bgcolor = ‘#ffffff’; digg_skin = ‘compact’;

169 photos from the 2005 Supernationals taken on 1/30/2005. I’m getting better with the camera, increased the exposure a bit too much so some of these are a little blurry. Overall I feel they came out better than the photos I took at the 2004 Supernationals. These photos are available at flickr (2005 Supernationals set) or watch the slideshow below.

http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/index.gne?group_id=&user_id=74806935@N00&set_id=72057594058615576&text=

The title of these photos are: Waiting to get into the 2005 supernationals, Hot Wheels Car, 1955 Chevy Pickup – Darrell & Tim Cimbanin, 1955 Chevy Pickup – Darrell & Tim Cimbanin, Motorcycles, 1964 Plymouth Road Runner, 1964 Plymouth Road Runner, 1955 Chevy – Jim & Barbara Canress, 1964 GTO, 1927 Ford Roadster – Ted & Betty Peirce, 1970 Chevy Truck, 1968 Chevy Camaro, 1957 Willys Jeep FC 180 – Troy & Michelle Fry, 1957 Willys Jeep FC 180 – Troy & Michelle Fry, 1957 Willys Jeep FC 180 – Troy & Michelle Fry, 1936 Chevrolet Standard Coach – Berry & Cheryl Lardsburg, 1936 Chevrolet Standard Coach – Berry & Cheryl Lardsburg, 1941 Willy’s Coupe – Mark Manly, 1941 Willy’s Coupe – Mark Manly, 1968 Chevy Camaro – Robert Martinez, 1913(?) Ford Hearse, 1913(?) Ford Hearse, 1913(?) Ford Hearse, 1932 Ford Roadster – Ron Ginn, 1932 Ford Roadster – Ron Ginn, 1955 Chevy Sedan Delivery – Jim & Ann Nelson, 1955 Chevy Sedan Delivery – Jim & Ann Nelson, 2002 Texas Chopper – Danny Hathaway, 1972 Chevyrolet Suburban – Porfie Maldanado, 1967 Camaro RS – George Bustamante, Ford new car booth, exciting stuff, Ford GT, Ford GT, 1972 Chevy Pickup, 1972 Chevy Pickup, 1972 Chevy Pickup, 1996 Toyota 4Runner, 1932 Ford frame & engine – Paul Blass, 1968 Chevy Camaro – Terry Card, 1968 Chevy Camaro – Terry Card, 1956 Chevy Hard Top – Richard Chavez, 1956 Chevy Hard Top – Richard Chavez, 1971 Chevy Nova – Vicky Marihugh, 1951 Mercury, 1951 Mercury, 1934 Chevrolet Phantom Sedan – Rich & Paige Hdell, 1934 Chevrolet Phantom Sedan – Rich & Paige Hdell, 1934 Chevrolet Phantom Sedan – Rich & Paige Hdell, Custom Motorcylce, 1957 Chevy Belair – Albert Benavides, 1957 Chevy Belair – Albert Benavides, 1964 Chevy Chevette – Albert Benavides, 1958 Chevy Truck – Bill Terrazas, 1958 Chevy Truck – Bill Terrazas, 2003 Campagne T-Rex – Bruce Loughridge, 2003 Campagne T-Rex – Bruce Loughridge, 1966 Chevy Nova "Johnny Rocket", I1966 Chevy Nova "Johnny Rocket", 1966 Chevy Nova "Johnny Rocket", 1966 Chevy Nova "Johnny Rocket", 1968 Chevy Truck – Eddie Aterio, 1968 Chevy Chevelle, 1972 Ford Mustang Mach1 – Jim Martinez, 1972 Ford Mustang Mach1 – Jim Martinez, 1955 Ford F100 – Lee Laner, IMG_4896.JPG, Mustang, Mustang, 1961 Chevy Wagon, 1961 Chevy Wagon, 1967 Ford F-100 1/2 Ton – Jim McCoy, 1967 Ford F-100 1/2 Ton – Jim McCoy, 1939 Ford Cabriolet, 1939 Ford Cabriolet, Tri-cycle, 1968 Chevy Camaro – Joseph Ortiz, 1959 Chevy Suburban, 1959 Chevy Suburban, 1969 Chevy Camaro – David & Jacob Graston, IMG_4881.JPG, 1969 Dodge Dart GTS – Bob Chavez, 1969 Dodge Dart GTS – Bob Chavez, 1929 Ford "A" – Wayne & Bonny Holly, 1957 Chevy Sport Coupe, 1976 Honda Civic 1500 – Bob O’Connell, 1976 Honda Civic 1500 – Bob O’Connell, 1976 Honda Civic 1500 – Bob O’Connell, 1954 Chevy – Amy Sanford, 1955 Pontiac Star Cheif – Richard & Debbie Figved, IMG_4865.JPG, GTX Hemi, GTX Hemi, 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, IMG_4858.JPG, IMG_4857.JPG, IMG_4856.JPG, IMG_4855.JPG, IMG_4854.JPG, IMG_4853.JPG, IMG_4852.JPG, IMG_4851.JPG, IMG_4850.JPG, IMG_4849.JPG, IMG_4848.JPG, IMG_4847.JPG, IMG_4846.JPG, IMG_4845.JPG, IMG_4844.JPG, IMG_4843.JPG, IMG_4842.JPG, IMG_4841.JPG, IMG_4840.JPG, IMG_4839.JPG, IMG_4838.JPG, IMG_4837.JPG, IMG_4836.JPG, IMG_4835.JPG, IMG_4834.JPG, IMG_4833.JPG, IMG_4832.JPG, IMG_4831.JPG, IMG_4830.JPG, IMG_4829.JPG, IMG_4828.JPG, IMG_4827.JPG, IMG_4826.JPG, IMG_4825.JPG, IMG_4824.JPG, IMG_4823.JPG, IMG_4822.JPG, IMG_4821.JPG, IMG_4820.JPG, IMG_4819.JPG, IMG_4818.JPG, IMG_4817.JPG, IMG_4816.JPG, IMG_4815.JPG, IMG_4814.JPG, IMG_4813.JPG, IMG_4812.JPG, IMG_4811.JPG, IMG_4810.JPG, IMG_4809.JPG, IMG_4808.JPG, IMG_4807.JPG, IMG_4806.JPG, IMG_4805.JPG, IMG_4804.JPG, IMG_4803.JPG, IMG_4802.JPG, IMG_4801.JPG, IMG_4800.JPG, 3 buidlings worth of cars, IMG_4798.JPG, IMG_4797.JPG, IMG_4796.JPG, IMG_4795.JPG, IMG_4794.JPG, IMG_4793.JPG, 1932 Ford, 1932 Ford, 1971 Ford Ranchero, 1965 Chevy El Camino – Darrel Yottn, 1965 Chevy El Camino – Darrel Yottn, 1965 Chevy El Camino – Darrel Yottn, 1965 Chevy El Camino – Darrel Yottn, IMG_4781.JPG, IMG_4780.JPG

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West Mesa Skeleton Is Not a Chupacabra

This thing has been making news around here. The chupacabra is a little gargoyle type creature that exists in Latin American folklore, it was even on a episode of the X-Files.

Someone found a skeleton out on the west mesa that looks weird and since it’s just the bones it must be a chupacabra, turns out it’s a “ocean skate“. You got to admit, with it’s face all smashed down and all, it looks pretty freaky. Its even stranger that it ended up out in the middle of the desert but people dump all kinds of crap out there including couches, car bodies, human bodies, hot water tanks and now sea creatures.