Disaster/Accident – Doesn't Fit In

April 24, 2013

Bathing Bad Bath Salts: Cooked In Albuquerque

Inspired by Breaking Bad:

Indications
Do you find yourself worrying about taking care of yourself or your family? Do you spend time during your tv show wandering around in just your underwear? Even had a plane crash over your house? Are you looking for better ways than a carwash to launder your money? Then Bathing Bad is for you. We relax away the bad with every, long, hot, luxurious bath.

Ingredients
A proprietary blend of fine, course and jumbo ancient salts, organic blend of essential oils that relaxes away the Bad.

Directions
First, stop worrying about everything. Run yourself a nice hot bath. Sprinkle our blue “meth” salts into your water and smell the relaxation. Add yourself to the warm bath and soak as long as needed to relax away the Bad.

You can get:

Bathing Bad Bath Salts for $15.

Bathing Bad Bath Salts & Body Scrub for $32

Bathing Bad Bath Gift Bucket with a Los Pollos Hermanos Gift bucket for $67.

February 25, 2013

US89 In Arizona Closed Due To Geological Event

A 500-700 foot section of US89 in Northern Arizona has crumbled according to the Arizona Depart of Transportation “US 89 to remain closed as ADOT assesses damage“. ADOT has also posted some video on youtube “US 89 Pavement Buckle (February 20, 2013)” showing how impressive the damage is.

While the Arizona Department of Transportation is still trying to determine what exactly happened to cause the ground to shift beneath US 89 Wednesday morning (Feb. 20) the agency continues to assess the significant damage to the highway. Geotechnical engineers are currently evaluating the stability of the mountain slope, approximately 25 miles south of Page.

“This area encompasses close to 500 feet of damaged pavement, but we had the opportunity in the plane to circle the area twice and it looks like the settlement could be a lot larger,” said Robert Samour, ADOT senior deputy state engineer of operations. “The area over the guardrail drops off a couple hundred feet; we saw some cracking in the soil down the slope, so I would say that this is probably a 500- to 700-foot section that we’re going to have to take a good look at for settlement.”

US 89 will remain closed for an extended period of time. There is no timetable to reopen the highway, which has over 150 feet of pavement that buckled approximately four to six feet.

June 23, 2011

Raton Track Fire Caused By An ATV

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/de21nEfXvmc?version=3&hl=en_US

The Raton Track Fire has burned more than 27,000 acres and caused 500 people to be evacuated, was caused by ATV spewing exhaust.

New Mexico State Forestry says exhaust particles from an ATV in the area is what most likely caused the dry brush to catch fire.

According to findings from investigators, the ATV driver or drivers trespassed onto private property then headed onto land owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.

The Track Fire is 98% contained.

June 20, 2011

Pacheco Canyon Fire In Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe, New Mexico Pacheco Canyon Fire As Seen From Rio Rancho by gregjsmith, on Flickr — Santa Fe, New Mexico Pacheco Canyon Fire As Seen From Rio Rancho

Say hello to New Mexico’s newest fire, the Pacheco Canyon Fire In Santa Fe. The fire was visible from my house in Rio Rancho on the day it started but I haven’t been able to see it since Saturday. On Sunday there was too much smoke from the Arizona Wallow fire to see much of anything.

InciWeb says the fire has burned over 3000 acres and describes it as extreme.

June 18, 2011

Wallow Fire Has Burned 500,409 Acres And Is 38% Contained

In Albuquerque, we haven’t had a whole lot of smoke in the last few days. It’s mostly been blowing south of the city. InciWeb says that 32 residences has been destroyed, which is impressive considering this is now the largest fire in Arizona’s history at over 500,000 acres.

The 4000 people fighting this fire deserve far more credit than I can possible give.

June 10, 2011

Motorola's 52nd Street Plant Still A Superfund Site

My parents didn’t work at the 52nd street Motorola plant (now a superfund site), built in 1956 near 48th Street and McDowell Road in Pheonix, Az but I think my Grandfather did. The EPA is still testing near the site nearly 30 year later.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials told about 15 residents at a community meeting Wednesday that their preliminary test results from some spots in the Lindon Park neighborhood, near 48th Street and McDowell Road, show some soil samples had unsafe levels of two industrial cleaning chemicals.

The chemicals were used at the former Motorola plant years ago to clean machinery and other equipment.

EPA scientists said the risk to residents’ health probably was small, but they believe they need to test for chemicals inside some homes to be sure.

“The kinds of soil vapor or the soil gas concentrations that we’re seeing do not lead us to believe that you would have the kinds of levels or exposure that would cause extreme health effects,” said Gerald Hiatt, an EPA toxicologist. “We may have some exposures inside homes that are high enough to create a (health) risk over long-term exposure, but I would be very, very surprised if we saw exposures that would create acute health effects.”

The neighborhood is the focus of an EPA Superfund monitoring and cleanup effort that has been under way for more than 20 years.

Apparently there was chemical tank that leaked into the soil in the 1980. It doesn’t surprise me from what I heard from my parents and what I saw working at electronic companies in the early 1990’s in Arizona. Companies were not that concerned about such safety issues.

Motorola's 52nd Street Plant The factory is now owned by On Semiconductor. It’s been remodeled and I couldn’t find any pictures of what the factory originally looked like except one on the semiconductor Museum’s page.

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 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.