Category: Albuquerque & New Mexico

The light snow this morning gave way to the real thing this afternoon — four or five inches worth by nightfall. NewMexiKen particularly loved how the snow changed the light through the skylights.

Anyway, it being such a great day to curl up with a book, I did just that. The book in this case is a great read, Shadow Divers, the very well-told story of divers discovering and unraveling the mystery of a sunken World War II German submarine off New Jersey. Non-fiction that reads like a well-crafted novel.

The author is Robert Kurson. Great book; highly recommended.

It’s snowing lightly at NewMexiKen’s this morning — it’s 36°F.

[The point being, it was 74° Saturday and 70° Sunday.]

From the Farmington Daily Times

The New Mexico Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to sue Texas for the return of 603,485 acres along the north-south boundary.

The Senate is referring to a 144-year-old land dispute involving a three-mile wide, 320-mile long strip of land along the west Texas border that technically belongs to New Mexico. The original 1859 survey posts were marked too far west.

It’s now officially the wettest January-February in Albuquerque ever, edging out the record set in 1863, and with more rain possible through Sunday.

Update: NewMexiKen needs to point out that “wettest ever” here means just 3.16 inches over almost eight weeks.

From Farr Feed in Taos, posted late this morning:

Right now there are the most unspeakably WHITE puffy clouds over the Sangres, covering the tops of the peaks. Sounds ordinary, but the clouds are simply gigantic. Leviathan. Humongous. Four times as tall as the mountains themselves, at least, and they’re moving to the south. In between cloud-trains is the deepest blue on earth, and right now the sun is blasting down. This is what constitutes a “winter storm warning” in these parts. If you were IN one of those clouds, sitting on a mountain above 8,000 feet, you’d be covered with snow.

Forecast for Albuquerque for the rest of the week: Chance of rain during the day. Chance of snow at night. Right now (just after 6PM) one can see the front, dark and ominous in the west backlit by the twilight.

The Albuquerque Tribune columnist Stacy Sacco is lost in translation:

Starting from the south, we might enter the state through the Passage city in Texas (El Paso) that parallels the Big River (Rio Grande) and travel north to the City of Crosses (Las Cruces). Other towns to visit in New Mexico might include Cold Water (Agua Fria), Soul (Alma), Birth Place (Belen), Horse (Caballo), Hill (Cerro), Sweet (Dulce), Poplar Forest (Los Alamos), The Moons (Los Lunas), Large Rock (Peñasco), Little Towns (Placitas), Porches (Portales), River Ranch (Rio Rancho), Noisy Place (Ruidoso, so named for the loud river that runs through it), Holy Faith (Santa Fe), Saint Rose (Santa Rosa), Dry Ditch (Arroyo Seco), Cry For Help (Socorro) or Solitude (Soledad).

One of our most unusual city names is Rat City (Raton) named for the large number of mice and rats found in the nearby mountains feasting on piñon nuts (as noted in Donald A. Gill’s book “Stories Behind the Street Names of Albuquerque, Santa Fe & Taos”).

If our Spanish-speaking visitors wanted to do something recreational, they might try sailing at Shell Lake (Conchas), hiking along The Light Trail (La Luz) or fishing in the Dirty River (Rio Puerco). They may also want to do some afternoon shopping at Crowned Center (Coronado), followed by dinner at The Twins Restaurant (Los Cuates) before taking in a performance at the Mud Brick Theater (Adobe).

As they drive around the Albuquerque area, our Spanish-speaking friends might discover some of our unusually named schools. Examples include Bear Ditch Elementary (Arroyo Del Oso), Little Bird Elementary (Pajarito), Mountain View Elementary (Monte Vista), Placed by the Sun Elementary (Puesta Del Sol), Mountain Shadow Elementary (Sombra Del Monte), Valley View Elementary (Valle Vista), The Cave High School (La Cueva), North High School (Del Norte) or West Table High School (West Mesa).

When I first visited Atlanta, I wondered if Georgians were “peach-crazy” since they used the word “peach” to name so many streets and landmarks such as Peach Street Plaza. Our Spanish-speaking visitors might wonder if we are “watermelon-crazy” since more than 100 companies in the area include the word “sandia,” which translates to “watermelon.”

For example, there’s Watermelon National Laboratories, the Watermelon Peak Tram and Ski Area, Lovelace Watermelon Health Systems, Watermelon Casino, Watermelon Science & Technology Park, Watermelon Hearing Aids, and one of my favorites, the city Watermelon Pool just north of Watermelon High School. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think watermelons float.

NewMexiKen admires the nearby Watermelon Presbyterian Church and Watermelon Memory Gardens.

From The Albuquerque Tribune:

You have to travel either 20 or 16 miles of rutted dirt road to complete the final leg of a trip to Chaco Canyon.

That’s tough enough.

But a recent listing of favorite national parks indicated the way to Chaco was even longer – apparently landing you in . . . Arizona.

The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees this week released a list of its members’ 10 favorite parks in the country. Chaco, an archaeological site about 50 miles west of Cuba and south of Farmington, made it onto the list, but was placed in Arizona.

From The New Mexican:

Cougars could be shot on sight under a proposal headed to the House for a vote.

The bill, backed by livestock growers, was endorsed Tuesday by the House Government and Urban Affairs Committee.

It would take the cats — also called mountain lions or pumas — off the list of biggame animals whose hunting is regulated by the state Game and Fish Department.

Some think cows should be shot on sight.

From The New Mexican:

The movement to have New Mexico join 48 other states in outlawing cockfighting suffered a serious setback Tuesday when a Senate committee voted effectively to kill two bills that would have prohibited the centuries-old spectacle in which roosters battle to the death.

The article tells that during the debate cockfighting was compared to other evils like gambling and tobacco, that it leads to domestic violence, harms children, and was silly to outlaw when we’re killing people in Iraq. It also was, or wasn’t, part of the Hispanic tradition:

Others argued that not all “traditions” are good. Yvonne Boudreaux said at the same time New Mexico was being settled by the Spanish, “You could sell children. You could stone adulterers. You could burn witches. Do you want to go back to that?”

New Mexico and Louisiana are the only states that allow cockfighting.

Joe Monahan makes a big New Mexico no-no.

“A major cultural transgression,” is how longtime politico and newsy Janet Blair characterized the misspelling of “chile” on the blog this week. One of our readers complained about Wal-Mart selling roasted “chili” and claiming it was from the “chili” capital of Hatch, NM, when it wasn’t. They also claimed Wal-Mart was undercutting local “chili” growers. Janet was joined in sounding the three chile alarm bell by ex-New Mexicans Linda Doran and many other readers. They are all right. The correct spelling is c-h-i-l-e. And as punishment for this transgression I will spend a weekend in Amarillo.

Bad as the crime is, the self-imposed punishment is much too severe.

From The Albuquerque Tribune:

With 1.38 inches of precipitation, this was the second-wettest January on record in Albuquerque, topped only by 2.52 inches in 1916.

February has already seen two record-breaking days: With 0.25 inches of rain, Saturday was the wettest Feb. 12 on record; with 0.56 inches, Sunday was the wettest Feb. 13.

The view of Sandia Crest from NewMexiKen’s this morning. The towers are called the “Electric Forest,” and are about three miles (in a direct line) from my home. The Crest is 10,678 feet (3255 meters) above sea level.

“A bill to limit the public’s right to sue the food industry for obesity or other medical conditions moved through a [New Mexico] Senate committee Friday.”

According to a story in The New Mexican, the bill is called the “Right to Eat Enchiladas Act.”

Yours truly took up residence in New Mexico on this date in 1999, thereby becoming NewMexiKen.

New Mexico ranks fifth for longevity among the states where I’ve lived, after Michigan, Virginia, California and Arizona. I’ve also resided in Texas, Nevada and New York, though the latter two just for a few weeks each during the same summer. Long enough to have a job in each, though.

2005 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta — Friday, September 30 through Sunday, October 9, 2005

Photographer’s Guide to New Mexico (and a little bit of Colorado).

It begins:

There are three cultures co-existing in New Mexico (if you read the middle third of my Summer 1994 travelogue then you might question the extent to which these actually co-exist). The Indians created interesting pueblos. The Spanish some impressive churches. The Anglos … mostly some houses that look like they could have been imported from Cleveland.

Colorado Luis writes about the nine seasons of the year in Denver. Much of what he says resonates with northern New Mexico, though Albuquerque receives only about two-thirds as much precipitation as Denver and is about five degrees warmer on average.

And doesn’t have a Stock Show.

From The Albuquerque Tribune:

High Tech High Albuquerque is the new name of the charter school Mayor Martin Chavez sponsored.

The Albuquerque Board of Education is scheduled to approve the name today.

The tech school – originally called MAST High – is planning to open on schedule in August with 90 ninth-graders, Principal Robin Troup said. MAST is an acronym for math, science and technology.

High Tech High. Other secondary schools in Albuquerque include El Dorado, Manzano, Sandia, Cibola, La Cueva, Rio Grande.

From The Albuquerque Tribune:

A common and unruly trespasser might finally be chained in its own yard if an Albuquerque ordinance passes.

That intruder isn’t an animal, but light, which under vague laws can legally stray from the sides of backyard floodlights into the bedrooms and living spaces of disgruntled neighbors, said Josh Skarsgard, an assistant city attorney who just finished writing a proposed light pollution ordinance.

The ordinance would clamp down on that type of light, called “light trespass.” It will make it illegal for people to have outdoor lights stronger than 75 watts – unless they are fully shielded so the light doesn’t reach other’s homes, he said.

… “If this goes through, in about three years even places like Downtown Albuquerque will be significantly changed,” Skarsgard said. “People will be able to see more shooting stars, the Milky Way, the Big Dipper – all the things we used to see when we were kids on camping trips. You’ll even be able to see most of that Downtown. That’s the plan.”

Four backyard flood lights downslope distract from NewMexiKen’s view of the city lights. And I could read in bed by the light from the motion-activated floodlight in the driveway across the street. Why don’t people point these things toward the ground?

In Albuquerque, last year was the eighth wettest year since 1931 with 11.80 inches of precipitation, ending a five-year streak of below-normal precipitation for the state’s largest city.

But elsewhere, drought has been harder to erase, Liles said. Santa Fe’s precipitation was below average for the year and Jemez Springs fell further behind.

“In parts of the northern mountains, the drought worsened this year,” he said.

From report in the Albuquerque Tribune

One-fifth of Albuquerque’s precipitation came in a 24-hour period last April. The average annual precipitation in Albuquerque is 8.46.

Photo by Stacia Spragg, Albuquerque Tribune

From the Santa Fe New Mexican:

Starting Saturday, New Mexicans shopping for food at the grocery store can concentrate on feeding themselves — not the tax man.

The gross-receipts tax on food — a fixture on New Mexico’s law books since the days of the Great Depression — goes kaput New Year’s Day.

The Legislature repealed the tax on most groceries and food staples last spring. Gov. Bill Richardson pushed the measure and House Speaker Ben Luján, D-Nambé, ramrodded it through.

Of course, the sales tax on everything else is going up 1/2 percent.

Best quote from the story:

“Beginning Jan. 1, baby food will have the same treatment as horse feed, which is tax-exempt here in New Mexico,” Nathan said.