Lot – Doesn't Fit In

January 25, 2013

Where Is The Village At Rio Rancho?

The Village at Rio Rancho goes here someday

According to a Albuquerque Business First Article “Unser corridor bursting with retail, office activity” the Village at Rio Rancho was support to start “This Summer”. Since the article was written in May 2012 that would make it last summer. Currently all we have is a lot of cleared desert that will turn into atmospheric dust come this spring. The City of Rio Rancho only mentions this special tax deal from 2009.

Meanwhile down the road in Albuquerque “Construction starts on new Westside ABQ plaza“.

June 2, 2012

The Whitewater Baldy Complex Fire

Image from Gila Forest on Flickr.

The Gila Fire is now the Whitewater Baldy Complex fire, named after the Whitewater and Baldy fires merged. It’s currently 15% contained and has burned 217,988 acres. It’s the largest fire in the US and the largest in New Mexico state history.

It was almost a year ago that I was posting about the Wallow fire in Arizona, which burned more than twice what the Whitewater Baldy Complex fire has burned. The Wallow fire produced a lot of smoked that end up in Albuquerque. So far Albuquerque has been spared most of the smoke from the Whitewater Baldy Complex fire.

August 26, 2009

Hard Water In The Southwest And Faucet Repair

Remodeling For Geeks points out the problems with faucets in the southwest. Although he is in Arizona, New Mexico has the same problem. The water is hard: It has a high level of dissolved minerals and everything that the water runs through eventually gets coated with the minerals (mostly calcium). The water has high levels of minerals because of the ground it comes from.

These minerals act like abrasives on seals and the moving parts of faucets, so they leak. They all leak. I don’t care what the ads or salesman tell you, sooner or later your faucets will leak. So when you are spending money on a faucet you should make sure that repair kits are available. Really. If the place you are buying it from does not have repair kits in the same section as the faucets, run away! Unlike a lot of products, faucet manufacturers have pretty explcit instructions for repair. Plus faucets are not like electric outlets where the only decisions are amperage and color. They are different and do not share parts.

January 10, 2004

It Hurts

I’m tired and I’m in pain. My butt and my arms hurt. Despite my pain I had a good time because today I made a feeble attempt at snow boarding. I already know how to ski, more of a advanced beginner – no where near a professional, I thought I could use that experience to snowboard. It turns out that the experience of each foot having a board strapped to it is far different then having a bigger board strapped to both feet at the same time.

When I first learned to ski I fell down a lot. Having to pick yourself up a couple of hundred dozen times in less then 8 hours with muscles that don’t get used a couple of hundred dozen times in less then 8 hours is where the pain comes from. I suppose if I exercised more (or fell less) that wouldn’t be a problem.

Speed equals control, more or less. The faster you go the more you can control your skis. But if you do loose control your going really fast into a tree or something. When your first learning to ski it’s scary to go fast because you (or at least me) are afraid of loosing control, so you want to try to take is slow. Then there’s that whole balance thing, however I believe that you only get good at that with practice. So your slow and you have no balance. You fall a lot. It’s the same deal with snow-boarding. But balancing on a snowboard is different from balancing on skis (as I learned the hard way). I had no balance and was afraid to go fast. And I fell a lot.

I went out with a good friend from work who is also learning to snowboard. He’s a bit farther along then me as in he doesn’t fall nearly as much. He has been going out with his 7 year old son who also went with us today. Since we spent our time on the bunny hill we didn’t need to buy a lift ticket because you can hike up the hill in snow board boots with relative ease (relative being the key word). His son did get a lift ticket and as he passed me up while I was lying on my back he said if I need help just holler. Uh that’s ok, I’m nice and comfortable here.

Ski Santa Fe was the location of this trip and it costs $32 to rent the snow board and boots.