Category: Albuquerque & New Mexico

Take a look at this mug shot from NewMexiKen’s very own Albuquerque Police Department. Surely you will recognize Albuquerque’s most famous short-term resident. The arrest in 1977 was related to a traffic violation.

From The Smoking Gun

Albuquerque Tribune Online

Gov. Bill Richardson has engaged Santa Fe lawyer Bill Robins to act as the Kid’s attorney in the ongoing effort to dig up the truth about the famous outlaw.

Robins’ work is all volunteer, he said.

As clients go, Robins said, the Kid – whose real name is William H. Bonney – will be a challenge to work with.

“Well, he’s dead,” Robins said. “But he may be coming back.”

Robins said he’s been a longtime Billy the Kid buff, and is excited about the prospect of representing the world’s most famous gunslinger.

“The governor felt somebody needed to represent Billy’s interests,” Robins said. “Where it will lead, I’m not sure. I’m hoping this will shed enough light that the governor can ultimately pardon Billy the Kid.”

NewMexiKen wishes he could share today’s sky. A storm passed though quickly last night, washing the air and leaving everything shiny. I can see the colors on the towers on the top of Sandia Crest. The restaurant and gift shop, usually lost among the ambient rocks, stand out sharply. In the other direction, the snow caps Mt. Taylor 70 miles away.

NewMexiKen has signed-up for Sky Blue, a program to receive electrical energy from the New Mexico Wind Energy Center.

Located 170 miles southeast of Albuquerque and 20 miles northeast of Fort Sumner, the wind center is perfectly suited for eastern New Mexico’s windy landscape. Power production does not require water, produce emissions or generate solid waste.

The wind center consists of 136 turbines, each standing 210 feet high. The facility can produce up to 200 megawatts of power, or enough electricity to power 94,000 average-sized New Mexico homes.

The electricity coming into NewMexiKen’s home will come from the grid and not directly from the windmills of course, but it still seems like a worthwhile thing to do. There is a $1.80 surcharge for each block of 100 kilowatt hours (which means it could cost me $4 or $5 a month). I suppose that also means I am subsidizing those who don’t opt for the Sky Blue surcharge, but…

Today NewMexiKen visited the 2003 Weems Artfest at the New Mexico State Fairgrounds. The Artfest, in it 21st incarnation, is rated as New Mexico’s number one arts and crafts festival with 272 artisans. Hollywood and Broadway legend Lauren Bacall was the special attraction this year, but she wasn’t there when NewMexiKen visited.

Some of the art work was quite appealing.

No snow fell on NewMexiKen during the storm of the past two days, but welcome rain did — nearly 1/2-inch. Santa Fe had three inches of snow, Taos five, and most importantly, there was 13 at Taos Ski Valley (11,000 feet). The snow in the photo is among the trees and towers three miles from NewMexiKen’s backyard at 10,678 feet.

MSNBC: “More than a century after Billy the Kid’s heyday, the Old West outlaw is still stirring up trouble. But this time, the showdown pits mayors against sheriffs, and forensic science against the uncertainties of the grave. Could DNA testing resolve once and for all who lies buried beneath the Kid’s New Mexico headstone, or would it merely cast fresh doubt on a 122-year-old legend?”

This photo was taken through the clerestory window from NewMexiKen’s living room this morning (8:25 AM). The morning and evening light always show the Sandias at their best, though this photo was taken a few minutes too late. In the mornings, with the sun at the right angle, you can see the Tram cables, the lower part of which are visible here.

Sandia means watermelon in Spanish. Some historians, overthinking the obvious, wonder if it wasn’t the evening color of the mountains that prompted the name. The mountains to the south are the Manzano (apple). The mountains to the north are the Sangre de Cristo (blood of Christ). Red? You think?

“Voters soundly defeated a proposal to combine the Albuquerque and Bernalillo County governments Tuesday in the county’s first-ever mail-in election, according to unofficial results.

Returns released by the county clerk’s office showed 66,794 votes against and 41,863 votes in favor of the charter.”

From the Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico Ghost Towns and Other Little-Known Places

I was rather enjoying the unseasonably warm weather in ‘Burque — highs in the 80s, lows in the 50s.

High today around 59°.

Performance artist Trek Thunder Kelly — former Student Body President at Albuquerque’s La Cueva High School — is running for office in California. “As Governor, I will legalize gambling, prostitution, and drugs; bringing them into the public sector where they can be regulated and taxed. The money derived would reduce the deficit and fund important programs for education, health, and the environment.” Kelly also says he doesn’t care who you marry or have sex with.

Like all places Albuquerque has much to love and much to be disgruntled about. On a morning like this, however, NewMexiKen is reminded of Ernie Pyle’s fine words.

Yes, there are lots of nice places in the world. I could live with considerable pleasure in the Pacific Northwest, or in New England, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, or in Key West or California or Honolulu. But there is only one of me, and I can’t live in all those places. So if we can have only one house — and that’s all we want — then it has to be in New Mexico, and preferably right at the edge of Albuquerque where it is now.

Follow the Royal Road, aka I-25, through New Mexico in Driving 350 Miles, Traveling 400 Years.

“The Lightning Field”, Walter De Maria’s desert artwork.

… “The Lightning Field” was ready to offer up its magic.

Seen from the porch, the rods marched away in phalanxes to the south. As the sun sank over our right shoulders, the metal spikes started to glow in the golden light. Their pointed tips took fire first, like candles, but soon the spikes themselves lighted up, top to bottom, as if glowing from within.

“This is like a sea, and these ships are moving in the distance” one of us said. “They look like centurions coming at you,” said another. “They look like those golden soldiers from Xian, like grave markers, almost like raindrops, like the Roman armies.”

For me, it was as if a piece of formal music, a Bach invention, perhaps, had taken material form and was playing before my eyes, not my ears. “You can make up stories for every row,” one of us observed, and she was right.

As an almost full moon rose, we sat on the porch and sipped our wine, captivated by what lay before us.

Details here.

(SANTA FE, March 14, 2003) — New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Patrick H. Lyons accepts Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson’s challenge to a duel on the New Mexico-Texas border.

“Anytime, anywhere,” said Lyons. “We’ll settle this once and for all, ’cause I never miss a shot.”

Lyons is referring to a 144-year-old land dispute involving a 3-mile wide, 320-mile long strip of land along the west Texas border that technically belongs to New Mexico. An inaccurate survey by John H. Clark in 1859 granted the land to Texas … and New Mexico has been trying to get it back since the first state legislature convened in 1912.

As recently as 1995, the New Mexico Legislature approved $100,000 in the General Appropriation Act for the attorney general “to enter into negotiations or litigation with both the state of Texas and the United States congress to reestablish and remark the proper boundary between Texas and New Mexico at its proper 103 meridian west.”

The attorney general was also authorized to negotiate a monetary settlement in lieu of the reestablishment of the boundary, if necessary. The governor vetoed the appropriation.

The time and place of the duel has yet to be determined. Assistant Commissioner Jerry King will serve as Lyons’ second.

Chimayó

You can seed the clouds. You can do a rain dance. But the only surefire way to bring rain is to wash your car. Which I did today. Tonight a gentle rain is falling*. It’s not much, but then when it is only the 13th day out of the past 156 with measurable precipitation, it’s nice. As of an hour ago Albuquerque had recorded 1.10 inches of precipitation since March 25th. (By comparison, that’s just a bit more than the Washington, DC, area had Tuesday!)

*My car sleeps indoors. It was rained on when it was out and about this evening.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

Valles Caldera National Preserve
Mesilla
The New Mexico State Fair
Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta
American International Rattlesnake Museum