gregjsmith

June 4, 2011

Arizona's Wallow Fire In Albuquerque

The view of the Sandia Mountains from my front window the last few days has been obscured by smoke from the Wallow fire near the New Mexico border in Alpine, Arizona. This fire is affecting the Albuquerque area by creating a cloud of smoke which besides the smell has caused some ash to fall from the sky.

Normally I have a clear view of the Sandias except when we have a storm.

It’s bad enough that the last two nights I have had to turn off the cooler because it was filling the house with the smell of forest fire.

This is going to be a bad year for fires unless we get some rain, which the Albuquerque area hasn’t received a significant rain storm since early this year.

The Arizona Republic as a good FAQ on the Wallow Fire and An image from the NOAA shows the smoke plume (I don’t know if the NOAA has a direct source to this image).

Wallo Fire Smoke NOAA

Update 06/07/2011: The trend for the last few days is the smoke goes away during the day and settles back in during the evening. It feels like a nuclear winter. Here are a few pictures I took from the office building last night, note the red dot which is the sun.

While the smoke here in Rio Rancho and Albuquerque is bad, it’s not nearly as bad as for those who actually live where the fire is. The local paper The White Mountain Independent has information about all of the evacuations in the area.

Latest map from the NOAA.

May 30, 2011

Intel's D1X In The Oregonian

The Oregonian has an article titled “Intel goes big to get small — an early look at its new Hillsboro research factory, D1X” which looks at the construction and impact of Intel’s new factory in Oregon. Even in Oregon Intel is a big employer.

“If you’re talking even a thousand jobs on one project, that will have a substantial impact on overall construction employment in the Portland area,” said David Cooke, an economist with the Oregon Employment Department. “The construction jobs are very important to the overall economic picture over the short term.”

Those workers will haul away up to a million yards of dirt as Intel excavates for D1X’s foundation and brings the site level with D1D, the fab next door.

Of that, 150,000 cubic yards are headed just up the road, to SolarWorld’s Hillsboro property. That company is contemplating a second factory someday and needs to elevate its property to ensure proper drainage.

The castoffs will raise 4 1/2 acres of SolarWorld’s site by 21 feet.

May 23, 2011

Car Vs. Cow Accident In Rio Rancho

From local TV news station KOAT “Man Shaken Up After Slamming Into Cow“

A Rio Rancho man said he’s lucky to be alive after his car crashed into a cow that walked into a busy street.
Action 7 News has detailed the cow crossing problems in Sandoval County for years, but reports of cow incidents have spiked in recent weeks.

Last Friday, Action 7 News reported on several cows that’d been getting through a cut fence line near King Boulevard in Rio Rancho. That cut fence line is just down the road from where Gill’s accident occurred.

Hard to believe that there’s enough out in the desert of Rio Rancho for cows to eat, but there are many of them out here, epecially near this area which is which is supposed to be downtown.

May 7, 2011

Is The Picture Of Mechanically Separated Chicken Pink Bubble Gum?

A video on YouTube from the Discovery Channel’s “How It’s Made” shows how Pink Bubble Gum is made.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/WB3st6SQnsk?fs=1&hl=en_US

The extrusion process looks like the fake picture of mechanically separated chicken I posted about in October of 2010. The video doesn’t show the bubble gum being put into cardboard boxes so I can’t say for sure that the mystery has been solved, it could still be a foam rubber product. Bubble gum is also not MSC by the way.

April 8, 2011

Durango Silverton Train Ride & Backpack Trip

It’s not well know but the Durango Silverton train that runs from (surprise!) Durango, Colorado to Silverton, Colorado offers what they call wilderness access. Depending on the time of year the train will make stops along certain areas of the track where back backers can get off.

On 26 August 2010 I took a trip with three other friends to Durango, Colorado. We drove down US550 from Albuquerque to Durango and we spent the night in a cabin at the Lightner Creek Campground near Durango so that we could be on the Durango Silverton train at about 9am.

Just like in the days when the train was a main mode of transportation, the backpacks are loaded into the baggage car. The baggage car looked pretty rickety and at the very least needs a new paint job.

The train dropped us off just before a bridge over the Animas river at Cascade Canyon.

After hiking a short distance along the river we came across a newer cabin fully stocked with firewood where no one was apparently home.

Near the cabin was a rusted out old truck.

There was an interesting old train engine that had been converted to do some sort of milling work not far from the cabin.

My party and I ended up setting up camp near the Animus and maybe a 1/3 of a mile from the tracks in an established camping area. While some of my party thought it was pathetic that we didn’t really do much of a hike, I thought the area was great place to pitch a tent.

While exploring, we hiked up the river for and found what was left of a building.

While waiting for the train to pick us up, we hung out at a picnic area where the train apparently stops for large group activities.

We did what one does while camping: eating, drinking and enjoying nature without internet access. I took about 200 photos of our trip and they can be found on a set call “Durango Silverton Train & Backpack Trip” on Flickr.

April 4, 2011August 1, 2015

Clean Cut Touchless Paper Towel Dispenser Review

Cloth and paper towels have their uses in my kitchen. Paper towels are difficult to use because I often get too much or two little towel, or I make make a mess of the whole roll of paper towel. I have been looking at automatic dispensers and found one that I like.

One of the paper towel dispensers I considered was the enMotion Automated Motion-Activated Touchless Paper Towel Dispenser that has become common in commercial settings in the last few years, including where I work. I’ve had a chance to check them out pretty good and even if I was to ignore it’s looks, I find that the enMotion doesn’t consistently detect a hand in front of the sensor requiring multiple swipes in front the of the sensor for it to work properly.

Several years go the iTouchless Towel-Matic Automatic Sensor Paper Towel Dispenser and a more recent Towel-Matic II Came out that would be more approprate for my kitchen. Neither one has had good reviews with issues about sensing hands and how it dispenses individual towels.

Recently the Clean Cut Touchless Paper Towel Dispenser came out and seems to address the problems with the other paper towel dispensers.

Clean Cut Touchless Paper Towel Dispenser Installed In My Kitchen — Clean Cut Touchless paper towel dispenser installed in my kitchen, which is sort of under construction.

Where the enMotion and iTouchless employ a sensor which expects a hand to placed in front of it in a certian place, the Clean Cut employes a break the beam set up. Where the hand must be placed between the sensor and the beam emmiter. This is big advantage for the Clean Cut since it is easy to determine where to put your hand to activate the dispenseor and there’s no guess like the other dispensers.

The Clean Cut does not try to detect where the paper towel perforations are. It has one sensor to dispense the paper towel and another to deploy the cutter. You can make towels however long you want, but it can hold the towels enough that you can reach down and tear off a piece at the perforations if they are exposed. I found myself doing this at first until I got used to using the cutter.

Clean Cut Touchiness Paper Towel Dispenser Open For Loading

The Clean Cut has one mounting option, it mounts horizontally under a cabinet. I would have prefered to have a vertical wall mount option. To load a roll of paper towel, there is a latch on the front in the middle. When the latch is operated the unit swings down and and the roll of paper is placed on a bar. I find the operation of the Clean Cut’s loading mechanisms to work very well and I like the design but I think it makes the whole unit bulky.

Clean Cut Touchless Paper Towel Grippers

The towel gripper and motorized roller can grip any size or texture of paper towel. It takes no effort to load a new paper towel into the gripper, I have set the end of the paper towel into the gripper haphazardly and it still managed to grab a hold of the paper towel and dispense it.

The Clean Cut is powered by a wall transformer. There is not battery powered option. I wish the transformer was built into the device rather than having a brick attacked to the power outlet.

In conclusion I find the Clean Cut Touchless paper towel dispenser to be well designed, easy to use and I have managed not to break it. It does what it’s supposed to, dispense paper towels and is easy to load. It was expensive and the unit is bulkier and doesn’t have a lot of mounting options.

April 3, 2011

150,000 Miles And Still Going

My 1997 Ford Ranger rolled over to 150,000 miles today.

March 14, 2011

Missing Person Looking For The Lost Dutchman Mine

People are still looking for the Lost Dutchman Mine in the Superstition Mountains in Apache Junction, Arizona. Including Jesse Capen who disappeared looking for it in January of 2010.

He had planned to return to Denver in time for Christmas, but he either walked away or was taken from his campsite, and his whereabouts remain a mystery. He could have been bitten by a rattlesnake, shot by another prospector or fallen and broken his leg and been devoured by a bear, Burnett said.
“Deputies suspect foul play may be involved because there is no sign of him,” she said. “Even if he would have been eaten by wild animals, there would be shoes and clothes left behind.”

Capen, who had never married, worked a graveyard shift as a bellhop at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel the past 11 years. For 10 years, he spent his free time studying the legend of the Lost Dutchman mine.
“This is beyond obsessed,” Burnett said. “He has more than 100 books and maps on the legend. This was like research for a Ph.D. This is a classic case of a man’s search for treasure.”

I’ve been camping a few times in the Superstition Mountains when I lived in Arizona as a kid. It’s hard to believe that a area relatively close to a major city, with today’s technology of Google Maps and GPS locators that someone could disappear so easily.

As far as I know, Jesse Capen has not been found.

March 11, 2011

Cows And Guns In Rio Rancho

Back in October, the local news station KRQE recently two stories about Rio Rancho. I like living in Rio Rancho, I like being on the edge of civilization and I will deal with the occasional scorpion, dust storm. Or cows.

When I moved here 15 years ago I used to drive around in the desert that is now Northern Meadows. There were cows then just like there are cows now.

Residents in Rio Rancho’s North Meadows say they don’t know what to do with a growing problem. A cattle herd has been traveling from the west ends of the city limits into neighborhoods causing car crashes and eating gardens at some homes.

Another thing I did when I moved here was to go out and shot guns at the end of Southern Blvd. Then there wasn’t a house in site but now that the area has developed, people, not me, are still out there shooting.

That’s because Sara–who asked News 13 not to use her real name because she fears retaliation–lives in an area that is a popular but illegal shooting range. She said she often hears nonstop gunfire, especially on weekends, from people shooting weapons in the desert near her home at the far west end of Southern Boulevard near 38th Street.

Having people guns near and at your house makes having a cow problem not so bad.

March 10, 2011

South Side Gate Replacement

Residential fencing in albuquerque and Rio Rancho used to be made of wood until the last 20 years or so. While they build fences of block now I have a older house and all of the fencing and gates are made of wood. For whatever reason a large amount of it has decomposed and fallen down mostly since I moved in.

The gate on the south side of the house is the worse and it’s also the primary access to the back yard with a vehicle. I decided it was time to get off my butt and replace it with not only a fence that isn’t falling but with one that has more privacy.

I didn’t go into this project with any detailed plans. I knew I wanted to bring the gate to be flush with the front of the house, the old gate sat back about 6 feet. I also wanted a short gate for people and a long gate for vehicles with a 5 foot fence section at the edge of the property.

I started by adding a single post on the first day to get an idea of what I was doing. I dug a hole, leveled a 4×4 redwood post and anchored it with some quick setting cement. That was it for the day. The next day the City of Rio Rancho inspector came by and red tagged the house due to the old falling gate and “debris” they could see in my back yard.

I found the timing strange and I have to wonder if someone called or the inspector just saw the work I was doing and decided to complain.

It took another day to build the corner which consisted of the 5 foot fence section and tying into the old fence. The biggest difficultly was positioning the sections of 2x4s around a rather large yucca. The plant is nice looking but very pointy and I left quite a bit of blood on the plant.

The main part of the fence was completed 2 days after I started. I had to go back at least three times and redo the position slats since I screwed up the level. I know several ways not to level fence slats.

The continuation of this project will be to clean up the river rocks on the side and level the ground. I also need to continue with the 6 foot fence along the south side of the property.