New Mexico – Page 2 – Doesn't Fit In

Governor Richardson was with Mayor Tom Swisstack of Rio Rancho today to announce that Green2V will build a million square-foot factory and headquarters in Rio Rancho. With Advent Solar and Schott AG building solar factories in Albuquerque, I wondered when one would build in Rio Rancho.

I have a number of concerns about this company, primarily that the company doesn’t seem to exist. As far as I can tell the privately owned Green2V doesn’t have any buildings or even a website and Wikipedia doesn’t have a page for them. The companies CEO, Bill Sheppard, is a former Intel New Mexico manager. Convenient since I suspect a large number of Green2V employees will come from the Intel New Mexico site. I don’t know where they are getting their money to build this company, what experience they have or what their business plan is.

The only thing I know is that their ambitious plan involves building in downtown Rio Rancho and that they want to start shipping in 2011. I hope this works out.

Update: Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting this is some sort of scam. I really want this to work out and I may even want to work for Green2V. I’m suggesting it’s a little early to get excited. It could turn out like Tesla, Lions Gate or Signet Solar, all established companies that planned to build in the Albuquerque area and didn’t for one reason or another.

November 27, 2007

"Laboratory Conditions" Movie About Los Alamos

Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 4.29.10 PM

From the department of “one thing inevitably leads to another,” we present Laboratory Conditions, a film we made on the way to making another film. Scouting for props and locations for our current film project, 72° led us to Los Alamos, New Mexico. We found a lot more there than we bargained for.

Laboratory Conditions

April 30, 2006

Poor Quality Roofing Jobs

This is what a poor quality roofing job gets you, shingles that literally blow off the roof. In this case it appears that the roofer may have put one nail in the shingles then stapled the rest of it. Yes, freaking staples!

I’ve blogged about it before, New Mexico gets very windy in the spring and fall. This spring we we had winds up to 50 MPH and the windy season seems, to me at least, have lasted longer than normal. The winds came from the west and this side of the roof faces west. Along with the poor attachment of the shingles leads the the perfect recipe for this problem. The previous owners must have had this problem because they had nailed many of the shingles on this side of the roof down. Yet they made the problem worse by nailing through the visible part of the shingle, which is bad because they essentially broke through the seal of the shingle, leaving a place for water to leak through. All those nail heads had to be covered with tar.

Repairing these missing shingles was pretty easy. I collected all the blown off shingles from around the property rather than buying new ones. I carefully slid the shingles under neath the tiles above it, where it was missing, and put it back in place where it matches the position of the other shingles. I then lifted the tile above it up enough so I could put some nails in, 4 nails per shingle. The nails are under the shingles where they belong and safe from the elements. Hopefully the tar on the shingles melts and holds the whole mess together, or at least thats how its suppose to work.

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.

May 14, 2004