Tag: State Of New Mexico

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The Verge Visits The Trinity Site And The VLA

Looking Up

Jesse Hicks of The Verge presumably visited the Trinity Site and the Very Large Array in a single day. An a article titled “Prometheus in the desert: from atom bombs to radio astronomy, New Mexico’s scientific legacy” he compares the destruction of the trinity site with the more peaceful achievement of the Very Large Array.

The VLA captures the imagination in much the same way as Trinity, but without the latter’s dubious legacy. If Trinity represents an omega point of applied science — the almost inevitable outcome of work hypothesized by Fermi and Szilard, warned of by Einstein, and executed by Oppenheimer and his fellows — the Very Large Array epitomizes pure science, motivated only by inexhaustible curiosity. Yet that curiosity, that yearning to better know the world around us, produced a scientific apparatus unique in the world.

It’s not a good introduction for those not from New Mexico. It reminds me that I need to try to visit the Trinity site during one of it’s next open houses and the next time I drive by the VLA I need to actually stop and visit.

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Where Is The Village At Rio Rancho?

The Village at Rio Rancho goes here someday
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“.

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Filmed In New Mexico: The Lost Room

ThelostroomI saw the Lost Room expecting it to be some cheesy SciFi channel B movie. Instead I found the mini series has a good story, good acting and I couldn’t stop watching until I found out what happened at the end. From Wikipedia:

The series revolves around the titular room and some of the everyday items from that room which possess unusual powers. The show’s protagonist, Joe Miller, is searching for these objects to rescue his daughter, Anna, who has disappeared inside the Room. Once a typical room at a 1960s motel along U.S. Route 66, the Lost Room has existed outside of normal time and space since 1961, when what is only referred to as “the Event” took place.

It was completely filmed in New Mexico. In one scene that was supposed to take place in Las Vegas, NV a Albuquerque city bus drives by.

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Don't Hit A Cow In Rio Rancho

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There are too many issues with cows in northern Rio Rancho. It surprises me that the owners of the cows aren’t more concerned with where the cows are. If they don’t care about potential car accidents with someone being harmed or killed, I would expect they would be concerned about what is their lively hood. I’m afraid that someone will die before something is done about it.

This letter to the editor of the Rio Rancho observer “If you hit a cow, make sure you have NMLB phone number to verify owners” documents one persons attempt to hold someone accountable.

I want to share the following information with my fellow Rio Rancho residents. On Sept. 20, 2010, about 8 p.m., I slammed into a cow on Unser Boulevard near Progress Road.
In 2010, there were 10 accidents involving cows and, luckily, none of us was killed. I’ve spent the last 2 years working to hold someone accountable, including the City of Rio Rancho, to keep residents safe, but to no avail.
Also, I’ve also done lots of research to help us. I contacted the New Mexico Livestock Board (NMLB) after my incident and gave the NMLB administrator the cow’s ear tag number that the Rio Rancho police officer retrieved after my incident; the administrator told me it was a King Ranch cow and that the “family should be sued for negligence.”
I took the King Ranch brothers to court but the administrator testified that she never told me it was a King Ranch cow and that the cow’s ear tag is not the identifier. The case was dismissed on Sept. 20, 2012 with still no one held accountable.
If you or someone you know has an incident involving a cow, ask the officers to contact the NMLB at 841-6161 to identify the cow by its brand; the NMLB is the only entity that can identify cattle. Also, Rio Rancho is a “fence out” area meaning that cattle owners have the responsibility to keep their cattle fenced out of our highways.
We only have ourselves to help with the cow situations; let’s keep passing valuable information to each other.

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No Place For Something Obscene Or Profanity In New Mexico

A man in Santa Fe had a New Mexico license plate that says IB6UB9 since 2009 according to KOAT “Man fights for controversial license plate back“. It seems to translate to “I will be 6 and you be 9 in a 69 sexual configuration” however the owner says it does not. The state has said it received an unspecified number of complaints that is has no proof of.

Robert Anaya’s vanity license plate was initially approved back in 2009, but he just got a letter from the Motor Vehicle Division saying it’s revoked because it’s considered obscene. The plate in question reads IB6UB9.

“If something is obscene or profanity, we have no place for it in New Mexico,” Taxation and Revenue Department Secretary Demesia Padilla said.

Anaya said his plate is not a sexual reference, but an inside joke with a friend from a night at a casino.

However, the state said it’s gotten enough complaints to cancel the plate. The state can’t provide those complaints because officials say they weren’t written or recorded.

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Holloman Drones Demoed On Civilian Vehicles

In the New York Times article ““The Drone Zone“, Drone aircraft from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico were demoed for the press by targeting (but not firing on) civilian vehicles on the highway.

Holloman sits on almost 60,000 acres of desert badlands, near jagged hills that are frosted with snow for several months of the year — a perfect training ground for pilots who will fly Predators and Reapers over the similarly hostile terrain of Afghanistan. When I visited the base earlier this year with a small group of reporters, we were taken into a command post where a large flat-screen television was broadcasting a video feed from a drone flying overhead. It took a few seconds to figure out exactly what we were looking at. A white S.U.V. traveling along a highway adjacent to the base came into the cross hairs in the center of the screen and was tracked as it headed south along the desert road. When the S.U.V. drove out of the picture, the drone began following another car.

“Wait, you guys practice tracking enemies by using civilian cars?” a reporter asked. One Air Force officer responded that this was only a training mission, and then the group was quickly hustled out of the room.

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The Whitewater Baldy Complex Fire

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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.

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No Hockey This Winter At The Santa Ann Star Center

The Santa Anna Star Center was built in Rio Rancho to primarily be a venue for the New Mexico Scorpions hockey team. Not only are the New Mexico Scorpions not playing there, the New Mexico Mustangs won’t be playing there either according the the Rio Rancho Observer “Mustangs ‘inactive’ for season“.

The New Mexico Mustangs, who called the Star Center home for the past two seasons of North American Hockey league competition, were officially “granted inactive status” by the NAHL and will not compete in the league in the 2012-13 season.

A ticket to a Mustangs’ game wasn’t exactly the hottest item in town: The team drew an average of 802 fans for each of its 29 home games in 2010-11 and then 721 fans for each of its 30 home games in the just-completed season.

The situation with the Santa Anna Star Center was covered by the New York Times in 2011. The company that convinced the city to build the center, Global Entrainment, went around the country getting a lot of cities to build similar arenas making promises that didn’t come true.

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What Is The Source Of This Woman Hitting A Pole In Rio Rancho

Apparently A person hit a utility pole in the middle of the desert of Rio Rancho. I found several sites “reporting” on it, such a WTF and pictures sites but I cannot find the original source which I assume is from a local source in New Mexico. The best I can find is a UK Orange News site which had this to say:

Car Hits Pole In Rio RanchoPolice in the US are baffled after a woman managed to drive her car into a telegraph pole in the middle of a wide-open desert.

She somehow managed to plough straight into the middle of the 20ft pole, despite being surrounded by acres of empty desert in Rio Rancho, Sandoval, New Mexico.

The damage to the front of the grey car is clearly visible in the snap, with the sheer force of the crash also causing the wooden utility pole to snap.

A Rio Rancho police officer said the driver of the vehicle had no life-threatening injuries but was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.

New Mexico is one of the most vast and least densely populated states in the US due to its mountainous territory and desert landscape.

Based on the picture that accompanies the article, I cannot place exactly where the photo was taken in Rio Rancho but I can see what appears to be at least one house in the back ground. I also suspect there is a road behind the camera.

Update: PNM on Twitter says this was a real incident.

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Cat And Person Survive Lost Over 3 Weeks In New Mexico Forest

Apparently I am not the only one who has considered taking their cat camping with them.

Temperatures dropped below freezing almost every night, but somehow, some way, Margaret Page and her cat survived 3½ weeks in an isolated and rugged region of a southwestern New Mexico national forest.

Tucked away in a blue sleeping bag for warmth and set up near a creek for drinking water, Page and her cat named Miya lived on just a handful of supplies, rescue workers said Friday. The nearest town – tiny Dusty, N.M. – was 10 miles away.

Authorities said the 41-year-old Page, who has a history of mental illness, was found Wednesday emaciated and malnourished but well-hydrated.

“Her cat was in better shape than she was,” New Mexico State Police Search and Rescue incident commander Marc Levesque said. “Her cat was also hunting. (Page) ran out of food a while back.”