Traffic – Doesn't Fit In

September 17, 2009

More On Roundabouts

The City Of Rio Rancho publishes more information about the safety of roundabouts.

Improve Safety
Reduction in fatalities, reduction in injuries, reduction in all crash types, reduction in the severity of a crash if it does occur, slower speeds which allow drivers more time to react to a situation, and generally safer for pedestrians because they need only cross one direction of traffic at a time at each approach

March 20, 2005

My First Car: 1973 Ford Torino 2 Door

A brown 1973 Ford Torino was my first car. The 73 model year wasn’t what I would consider at the height of style for the Torinios (seems all of Ford’s designs went for the worse starting with 1973). The 72 Torino had a much better looking front end, however Starsky and Hutch drove a 73.

You can see, my Torino was in bad shape. I don’t recall but it may not have ran at all. But it was cheap! This is the type of car Sandler sings about in Ode To My Car (iTunes DRM Free or Ode To My Car [Explicit]).

As a result we found this powered blue 1973 Ford Torino 4 door.

The idea was that it would be used as parts for the 2 door. The big difference between the two is that the 4 door ran, had all it’s parts togther and it ran. I know what your saying, that 2 door is far sexier that that ugly 4 door, but did I mention it actually ran? Of course when I pushed on the accelerator it would actually accelerate about 2 seconds later. Made for some interesting left hand turns into traffic.

Thankfully I purchased a much better 1972 Ford Maverick not too much longer.

Update: The Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino came out and has a much better looking Ford Torino. If my car had looked like the car in the movie, I would have had much different perspective on my POS.

December 13, 2004

Skiing Weekend

On Friday I left for Taos. Mapopolis said it should only take about 3 hours to get to Taos from Albuquerque. Friends tell me I could get there in 2. It actually took me a little over 4 hours. I should have got up at 5am, which would allowed me to leave at 6. Instead I got up at 6 (darn snooze button) and left a little after 7. This meant I was stuck in Albuquerque traffic and there didn’t see t be a single road that lead to the freeway that didn’t have a accident on it.
Between Santa Fe and Espanola there’s construction building a nice new road. Unfortunately it’s not done and there was only 1 lane. I finally arrived in Taos sometime after 11. The good news is lift tickets were only 20 bucks, and rentals were only 11. Cheap! I skied for about 3 1/2 hours. To be honest I was getting sore so it’s probably a good thing I didn’t get there when they opened. Plus my right boot wasn’t fitting right, it was pretty uncomfortable and was cutting off circulation to my right foot at times. The track file (read at the bottom on how it was made) shows I reached about 38mph at points. Not bad. You can also see they have some very long runs. Once they get some more snow the skiing should be awesome, it wasn’t bad but wasn’t the best.
I left after 3:30 and began the trip home, which didn’t take quite as long as it did to get there. Next time I go I will probably plan on staying there overnight. It doesn’t seem worth it for the length of the trip.

On Saturday I went up to Santa Fe with some friends from work. Santa Fe will the primary location of skiing this winter since I purchased the Millennium pass. This pass is one step down from the Season Pass, yet is more than $500 cheaper. It gets you $10 off lift tickets, except in January where lift tickets are free. Guess where I will be in January? By the way, I picked up my pass which is a ID card with my picture, It’s the worse possible picture they could have taken.
RIght now lift tickets are $34, so it cost me $24. They also got new rental equipment, which cost $18 to rent for the day. I was very happy with the boots, they fit perfectly and are probably the most comfortable boots I have ever worn. I think I will be doing enough skiing this year that I really need to invest in my own gear.
One of the best part about skiing at Santa Fe is stopping at the little restaurant/bar located just up slope. A nice (and expensive) lunch just hits the spot about 11. Then come back every hour or two for a break and have a delicious Hot Buttered Rum. It’s not enough to get you drunk, but enough to get a buzz and warm you up.
I have to admit that I was still kind of sore from the previous day when we started and the pain continued though out the day. It wasn’t enough to keep me from skiing but was enough to keep me from really hitting the bumpy parts. Thats when you really put your leg muscles to work. The pain in my thighs did start to go away as the day went on. But even today I’m still feeling it. A few more times on the slopes and it won’t bother me anymore.
The right back was less comfortable since my legs were sore and I sat in the back of my friends Honda Pilot. It’s a nice enough SUV, just pretty cramped in the back seats for a long trip like that.
Santa Fe had 80% of the mountain open and I could tell they needed some more snow in parts. Hopefully the weather will cooperate because, well, you know where I will be every weekend.

If you’re interested in how I generated the speed tracking maps, click here.

June 16, 2004

Rio Rancho & Lots Of WiFI

Rio Rancho, New Mexico is just butted up against Albuquerque to the north. Thanks to Intel (the largest employer in Rio Rancho and one of the largest in the state) they will have the worlds largest WiFi hot spot. It will cover 103 square miles including residential homes. Funny since you can barley get DSL and no internet via cable.

I lived in Rio Rancho (often called Rio Rathole) when I first moved here. At the time it was mostly a overgrown truck stop with no roads. The road have improved some and the whole city has grown up a lot, it’s good to see some high tech anything moving in.

[Update:] Check out the submission I made to slashdot. Unfortunately I couldn’t remember my password otherwise I would have tons of traffic coming to this site 🙂