It’s the most wonderful time …

Cat Herders Day is here again!

It is time once again to celebrate Cat Herders Day, the official holiday of Five O’Clock Somewhere, tomorrow, December 15. Those of my followers in Europe are already enjoying the holiday.

The holiday was originally invented by a couple in California who have made up other wacky, offbeat holidays to celebrate. The date for this one, I’m sure, is a reflection on how busy most of us are at this time of year, with shopping, holiday arrangements, parties, entertaining, decorating, cooking, wrapping gifts, shipping gifts, writing and mailing holiday cards, traveling, coping with nasty weather, and sometimes also finishing up an academic semester or term with the accompanying final exams or portfolios and the grading thereof. Even those whose households are devoid of felines may feel like they’re herding cats.

Then there are those who are literally herding cats. Perhaps they have a house full of the critters. Perhaps they’ve taken an interest in a colony of feral cats, possibly even going to the trouble of participating in trap-neuter-release programs to reduce population growth and improve the health of cats in the colony. Perhaps they volunteer for a local animal shelter, fostering cats who need more special care than they can get in a shelter environment or providing kittens with a highly interactive environment to help them learn the socialization skills that will help them to get adopted.

This year, I’ve set up an event on Facebook for Cat Herders Day. You’re invited to come and share the ways you will be celebrating the day. You may post photos of the cats you herd and share your own cat-herding experiences, or if you don’t herd any cats yourself, express your admiration for those who do.

Of course, the Byrnes cat herd is small, consisting of only two cats.

Dulce was adopted in January 1997 from the organization now known as Animal Humane New Mexico. She had been picked up as a starving stray in a blizzard in Edgewood the previous Thanksgiving. She has been living in the lap of luxury ever since, and after all these years, I doubt she has any memory of her deprived early years.

Scratch came last year from the City of Albuquerque Animal Welfare Department, and his beginnings were happier. Although he and his littermates were turned over to the shelter, they were placed in a foster home where they socialized not only with humans but with many other animals, so he was a totally friendly and outgoing young cat. Gerald hadn’t intended to adopt a cat, but Scratch picked him out at an event in the parking lot of a local sporting-goods store.

So my thanks go out to the cat herders whose efforts led to two wonderful cats ending up in our household.

How many cats is a three dog night worth?

Trying to keep warm

It’s a cold night in Albuquerque. It’s also a windy night. The predicted low is 24 degrees (Fahrenheit), and the winds are howling, gusting to 50 mph and sometimes even higher. According to NOAA, the wind chill means it really feels like 12 degrees or colder.

During the day, a wind gust of 78 mph was clocked in the far northeast part of Albuquerque, and the Sunport reported a gust of 53. Our storm door was flung off its hinges, and in the process, the hydraulic closing cylinder punched a hole in the front door. The result is that the door is letting cold air in, so it’s hard to keep the house warm.

I was listening to my favorite radio station on the way home from work, as my little Vibe was getting knocked all over the road by gusts of wind, and the DJ commented that it was going to be a “three dog night,” as a segue into a song by the band named after that concept.

For those who don’t know, the phrase comes from medieval times, when home heating was, to put it mildly, not exactly efficient. On an especially cold night, the humans in a house would derive extra warmth by having their dogs, often large ones, in their beds to help keep them warm. A “three dog night” was an especially cold one, as it required three dogs to keep the bed warm enough.

Unfortunately, all Pat and I have is a cat. And Dulce is not exactly a large cat – she probably weighs in at about six pounds. So she’s about a tenth of a large dog.

Now, we do have friends who could be described as cat herders. These friends have large numbers of cats on hand. And those cats are probably larger than Dulce – I’m guessing the average cat is 10 pounds or more. Also, cats’ normal body temperature is slightly higher than that of dogs, so maybe it doesn’t take as much mass of cat as of dog to produce the same amount of heat.

So I open this question up to the cat herders I know: If it’s a three dog night, how many cats is it?

More long and winding ...

Another long way home, this time by way of the Rio Grande Gorge.

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This time around, we took the scenic route eastward along U.S. 64, a drive best known for fall colors. This early in the year, just a few of the cottonwoods and willows along the streams were just beginning to turn gold. Unfortunately, insect ravages (tent caterpillars in the aspens, bark beetles in the firs) have made for less than vibrant colors in recent years. Still, the scenery was dramatic.

At Tres Piedras, we took a right and took the back road to Pilar. The descent into the Rio Grande Gorge is rather rough, but before the high bridge was built in 1965, that was the way to get from one side to the other. The stagecoach ride from the train station at Taos Junction into Taos must have been grueling.

By this time, it was dark, so we didn't get as much enjoyment out of the scenery as we might have. Darned days are getting shorter now.

(Stats on this journey, according to Google Maps: 214 mi.; 4 hours, 28 minutes.)

Long and winding road update

One detour I wish did not have to be ...

A major section of the last route shown in the previous post is currently off-limits, and once it is no longer off limits, it may no longer be as scenic as it used to be.

The Las Conchas Fire in northern New Mexico began early Sunday afternoon, and within hours, it had consumed several thousand acres. This section of the road is now closed:

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The fire started at one of my favorite picnic spots in the mountains, the Las Conchas recreation area just past where Highway 4 (westbound) leaves the vast grassy area called the Valle Grande, a crater caused by the collapse, about a million years ago, of a huge volcano.

The fire has spread mostly eastward but also outward in other directions. The thumbnail photo above was shot by Lupita L. Tom-yepa at Cochiti Pueblo, about 20 miles southeast of the blaze, Sunday night. Pat and I were on the way south from Heron Lake to Albuquerque, and we went through thick smoke from Española through Pojoaque and on to Santa Fe. From Pojoaque on, we could see the flames erupting from the ridgelines. We were getting gas at Santo Domingo, near Cochiti, about the same time Lupita took her photo -- alas, that tiny picture does little justice to how scary it is to see such a huge portion of the mountains on fire.

As we were driving, we tried to get news on the radio about the fire. We tuned in to KRSN, Los Alamos' local radio station. The signal was poor; the smoke plume from the fire caused a lot of interference. But there was a live interview with one of the people in charge of fighting the fire, and he was reassuring -- while there were mandatory evacuations in parts of the mountains, people in Los Alamos and White Rock with respiratory problems should evacuate, but everybody else could stay put but be prepared in case of mandatory evacuations. I had a mental flashback, to the La Mesa fire in the late 1970s, with the late, legendary Bob Burns, patriarch and owner of KRSN, reassuring everybody with his gravelly but comforting voice. The station normally signed off at 11 p.m., but during that crisis, it was on the air all night. Bob is long gone, but he is fondly remembered.

We got fed up with the poor signal and decided to change from KRSN to Albuqueruque's all-news station, KKOB. We were just in time to hear an official Emergency Broadcast System alert that there was a fire emergency in Sandoval County. Well, duh.

Just over 11 years ago, I was cleaning out the guest room in case my folks had to evacuate because of the Cerro Grande Fire. They did have to evacuate a couple of days later. Now, we're cleaning out the guest room in case they have to evacuate again. This time around, there shouldn't be as much danger, since the Cerro Grande removed much of the fuel that would take the Las Conchas into the town. But still, the flashbacks happen.

More long and winding roads

Exercises in getting from here to there, or there to here

In planning for this weekend, we had a bit of a problem. I had to return to Albuquerque to teach my classes Tuesday, but Pat has to stay at the lake until his dockmaster duties end Wednesday. So we had to drive up Friday in separate vehicles; Pat took Enterprise with the fifth-wheel, while Dulce and I had Galileo.

Being in a larger, clumsier rig, Pat took a route that emphasized big roads and faster travel. According to Google Maps, this route is 166 miles and takes 3 hours, 11 minutes. That seems about right.

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Meanwhile, Dulce and I took a more scenic route. It's shorter in miles, but it's decidedly not suitable for bigger, clumsier rigs. Google Maps says it's 153 miles and takes 3 hours, 55 minutes. The time estimate is WAY off. This trip, Pat and I left at the same time, and while he had to stop for fuel and spent 15 minutes getting lunch, I arrived ahead of him by about the time he spent on fuel and lunch. On other trips, Gerald and I have arrived sooner via the scenic route than Pat on the big roads. My guess is that Google Maps underestimates the travel speed on New Mexico's state highways, some of which are unpaved but still can be traveled at a fairly high speed. Sure, I had to stop a couple of times to wait for some cattle to mosey out of the way, but, hey, that's part of the appeal of the back roads.

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Then for the trip home, I chose a route that I already knew was going to be more time-consuming, but that would also be fantastically scenic. If Google Maps had an option to select the most scenic route, this is how it would tell people to go. It's 193 miles and 4 hours, 8 minutes -- an accurate assessment, probably because none of the roads are unpaved. For out-of-state visitors, the reverse of this route is what I would recommend to get from the airport to Five O'Clock Somewhere; it provides the best of the best of scenery, plus a nifty bonus: the chance to stop at Viola's Restaurant in Los Alamos for lunch. On this route, it wasn't cattle but deer that I had to stop for until they decided they wanted to wander over to the side of the road.

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In case you're wondering, I hate freeways. I also dislike road construction. When a route involves both, I'd rather find some other way to go.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Some thoughts about Home Owners Associations

Pat and I have been toying with the idea of buying a house of some sort in Arizona. Real estate prices in that state have plummeted, so there are a lot of good deals out there. The idea is that we would get a place close to ASU that Gerald could live in and that we could stay in when we go to visit him. By the time he graduates, property values will probably not have risen to the extreme levels they were at before the real-estate crash, but the house would likely have gained some value. At that point, we might sell at a profit, keep the place as a rental, or move into it ourselves – at least during the colder parts of the year. For summer, we’d retreat to Five O’Clock Somewhere up in the mountains.

Some of the properties we have looked at have been in neighborhoods where there is a Home Owners Association, or HOA. That can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing, depending on the nature of the HOA in question. A good HOA will preserve or even enhance the value of the properties in the neighborhood, and it will provide a good return on residents’ dues in terms of services provided. A bad HOA can be a nightmare to deal with.

Among the HOAs associated with homes in Arizona, $100 a month seems to be about typical for dues. For that money, the HOA provides facilities and services, such as community swimming pools, tennis courts, open space, golf courses, clubhouses, and/or security. Some HOAs have lower dues, about $40 a month, and presumably the amenities provided are fewer as well.

And then there are the really bare-bones HOAs. We haven’t seen any of those in Arizona, but I was once on the board of an HOA that had one, and only one, function: to maintain and improve 7½ miles of private road leading into the neighborhood. No, I’m not on the board anymore, so I didn’t have anything to do with the current board’s disastrous decision to cut corners on costs by using cheaper gravel that turned out to be contaminated by millions of small nails, screws, and bits of wire. But back then, we were justifiably proud of our road. We heard many people call it “the best private road in Rio Arriba County,” and members of other HOA boards came to observe how we operated and how we managed to maintain the road with “only” $150 a year dues. (Dues have since been raised to $200 a year, but the board still manages to do a lot with very little – which lately has included paying for a lot of members’ tire repairs.)

Of course, services are only one side of the HOA issue. Many HOAs do more than provide services; they also have a say in what residents can or can’t do with their homes. This is seen primarily as a way to preserve property values; a neighbor’s activity will not negatively impact a place and reduce its desirability. These rules may be fairly loose, or they may be strict, and they typically apply to what can be stored in a house or yard, what activities can or can’t be done, what sort of landscaping is permitted, and changes to the house or other structures. The idea is that a person can buy a house in the neighborhood and not have to worry that the neighbors will disassemble junk cars in the front yard or paint their house vomit-green.

On the other hand, some HOAs rule with an iron fist. My brother Jer, of Muddled Ramblings, once lived in a neighborhood with a very strict and unreasonable HOA. He and his wife wanted to remodel the kitchen, but even though that remodeling wouldn’t impact the exterior of the house, it required approval of the HOA board. Another time, they wanted to replace a balky sliding glass door with an attractive French door at the back of the house. The board refused.

Jer’s neighbor had an even crazier run-in with the HOA. The neighborhood is on the edge of a canyon that is kept as a wilderness preserve in Southern California, where wildfires frequently sweep through in vast waves of destruction. The fire marshal had made an inspection of all local neighborhoods as part of an emergency-preparedness “triage” plan, and had declared that, in the event of a wildfire, this neighborhood was not savable, and that firefighting resources would be better focused elsewhere.

So the neighbor bought and installed a fire hose in front of his house. The HOA board went ballistic, ordering him to remove the eyesore immediately. He begged and pleaded and groveled, and eventually the board allowed him to keep the fire hose, under two conditions: that he keep it locked up at all times and that he not train anybody in how to use it.

The next fire season in Southern California was one of the worst on record. At one point, it seemed like all of San Diego County was on fire. Jer’s neighborhood was surrounded on three sides by wildfires. The neighbor broke out the fire hose and spent the next two days spraying water on all of the houses within reach. When the flames subsided, smoldering wreckage was all around, but Jer’s neighborhood survived. I never heard, though, whether the HOA board ate crow.

Meanwhile, back in Arizona, some HOAs seem to have more reasonable rules than others. It’s very typical to see rules on what color residents can paint their houses, restricting or forbidding parking of boats or RVs, or regulating landscaping.

There is one neighborhood in particular, where I would not want to live. The HOA has completely unreasonable restrictions, for example, on what colors house trim may be painted. If I want to paint my front door blue (a tradition in Northern New Mexico for good luck), I fail to see how that negatively impacts my neighbor’s property value, but blue is not on the list of permitted colors. That rule, however, is the least of the beefs with this particular HOA. The landscaping rules require that residents pretend they are not living in a desert. At least a certain percentage of the lot must be landscaped with water-hogging green grass (artificial turf is not allowed), and desert vegetation is forbidden, especially cacti. Saguaros are expressly prohibited.

That’s right, no saguaros allowed. In a neighborhood in Arizona. The saguaro blossom is the state flower. The majestic cactus itself is such an iconic symbol of the state that the very thought of Arizona brings to mind images of it, and it’s featured on state license plate. It amounts to heresy to prohibit an Arizona resident from having one as part of the landscape. If people don’t want to live where there are saguaros, they darn well shouldn’t live in Arizona, except perhaps in the northern part of the state that doesn’t have them.

On the other hand, there’s another neighborhood whose HOA’s rules are much more to my liking. Very few things are totally forbidden, although many do have to get approval of a special Architectural Compliance Committee appointed by the HOA board. This committee is very busy; it meets for two hours every other week. Depending on how reasonable members of the committee are, I might be able to live with it. For example, the HOA does have a list of approved colors that one can paint one’s house trim, but if a homeowner wishes to use another color, he or she can get permission from the committee. If I want to paint my front door blue, I can bring in a paint chip of the shade I want to use and explain how it will not detract from the appearance of the neighborhood, as well as the cultural background behind the color – this HOA seems to be very big on cultural heritage.

Other things that are forbidden outright by some HOAs are allowed in this neighborhood, again, with the approval of the Architectural Compliance Committee. Boats and RVs, clotheslines, auto maintenance, and more, are generally acceptable if they are not within view of adjacent properties or public areas, and if the means of shielding said view (shed, fence, or whatever) is approved by the committee. If the committee is reasonable about sheds, fences, and the like, I can live with that.

But the big thing that I really like about this HOA is its landscaping rules. This HOA understands the desert and respects it. Residents are encouraged to landscape with desert vegetation, especially species native to the Sonoran Desert, although other water-thrifty plants are allowed. The HOA has an extensive, detailed list, broken down by categories, of approved plants that a homeowner can plant. And yes, the saguaro tops the list in the “cactus” category. The HOA also has an extremely short list of forbidden plants that guzzle water, crank out vast quantities of pollen, or otherwise create a nuisance (palm trees over a certain height, pines, oleanders, junipers, and Bermuda grass). Any plant that is not on the approved list but not on that short list can be planted if – you guessed it – the Architectural Compliance Committee approves.

There is, however, one restriction on landscaping that I can’t quite figure out. Residents are not to have “unnecessarily unattractive shrubbery.” What the heck is that? I guess I can define “necessarily unattractive” shrubbery as, say, scrawny new plants that need time to fill out, or “unnecessarily attractive” plants as those that don’t have to be pretty but happen to be, while “necessarily attractive” shrubbery would be plants that can’t help being beautiful. But “unnecessarily unattractive”? My best guess would be something like obscene topiaries, but I’m not so sure. I guess I would have to ask the Architectural Compliance Committee.

Chile vs. chili revisited

Coming back to a hot topic

A couple of years ago, I posted a lengthy explanation of the semantic distinctions of two words, Chile vs. chili. In particular, I focused on the New Mexico definitions (drawn from the Albuquerque Journal style guide), which differ from the definitions in the rest of the world. In most places, the word chili is used interchangeably, but in New Mexico, chile with an e at the end refers to the fruit of the capsicum plant, while chili refers to a stew made using chiles. I also posted a recipe.

Of course, there are discussions also about the composition of chili (the stew). Some people disagree about whether the meat in it should be beef or pork, or whether either is acceptable (I prefer coarse-ground pork, but I’ll use beef if that’s what’s available). And then beans are a huge area of contention. Some people say that chili should not have any beans, while others say chili must have beans, and among the bean proponents, there is disagreement about what sorts of beans are acceptable – pinto beans only, or other sorts, such as kidney beans, black beans, or navy beans. (I like kidney beans myself.)

And then there’s that other form of chili found in Cincinnati, which doesn’t have so much chile in it (but does apparently include cinnamon and – surprise – chocolate?) and which is served over pasta and topped with grated cheese and chopped onions. I remember watching a Monday Night Football game during which John Madden gave Cincinnati chili a resounding endorsement. I’m going to have to try it someday.

One update on the recipe in the link above: Since I wrote that post, the Chimayo chile production plant has been bought by Bueno Foods, and the former Chimayo brand is now available as the Bueno Select product line.

Time for a breather

The summer term draws to a close …

Because the summer term is shorter than the fall and spring terms, it's more intense. Classes have 12 weeks to get through 15 weeks' worth of material. At least I'm not at a university where the work is packed into eight or (gasp!) four weeks. Still, even condensing the term by three weeks makes for a more intense experience.

Making matters worse is that this has been a rough time for both instructors and students. Some of it has to do with economic woes – both institutional (state funding being cut) and personal (unemployment and underemployment are rampant among my students). But it's not just about the economy. In just my department, four colleagues have died unexpectedly this term. And many of my students are going through various sorts of turmoil – illnesses and injuries, relationship problems, deaths of loved ones, and more.

Last year, as part of efforts to alleviate possible H1N1 outbreaks, the college issued each instructor with a bottle of hand sanitizer and a box of tissues. But it was a very small box and didn't last very long. This term, I brought my own, jumbo-sized boxes of tissues – one to keep at each of the campuses where I teach. Now I'm nearly out of tissues; my students and I have used a lot of them.

So, this week is the last week of the term, and I have my students working on their portfolios, so I'm not buried under papers to grade. Friday will be intensive portfolio grading; then I will enter grades into the computer system, and then I will have two weeks off before the fall term begins.

And if you hear an enormous sigh of relief coming from the Southwestern U.S. late Friday afternoon, you will know it's me, looking forward to that breather and hoping I won't need so many tissues next term.

Poetry Corner: Walt Kelly

Look up and to the north …

Gerald is making coffee, preparing to go sit on a mountaintop with a friend and watch for the aurora.

Normally, we don't get auroras in New Mexico – we're too far south. But NASA has reported a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun. In plain English, that means that there is an unusually strong wave of ionized particles headed our way. These particles interact with the Earth's magnetic field to create the glowing displays known as auroras.

The peak of the first wave is supposed to be about 1 a.m. MDT. Gerald's ham-radio friends are already reporting a high level of electromagnetic activity, and he's hoping not only to see the aurora but to photograph it – he does have a good camera for that sort of thing, as his pictures of Earthshine during last summer's eclipse attest.

I can recall one time when I actually did see an aurora in New Mexico. It was faint, and I'm sure it could never compare to the spectacular displays that folks further north can see. It was September, and the sun was in a phase of high activity. The high-school astronomy club had a star party (if I remember correctly, it was to look at a comet) in the very small hours of the morning. We saw very faint wispy glowing streaks, in pale yellow and green. It was not exactly spectacular, but it was an aurora – in New Mexico.

In honor of the aurora, here is Walt Kelly, the creator of the Pogo Possum comic strip:

Oh, roar a roar for Nora,
Nora Alice in the night.
For she has seen Aurora
Borealis burning bright.

A furore for our Nora!
And applaud Aurora seen!
Where, throughout the summer, has
Our Borealis been?

For more about the CME, check out NASA's official announcement.

In Memory of Richard Dittmar

Yee-Haw!

Yee-haw!

All right, let's try it again, Yee-haw!

Now, again, with feeling, Yee-haw!

OK, that's better.

Everybody who sailed with Richard, whether on the same boat or on another boat at the same regatta, knows yee-haw. It was his signature line.

He could use it in many ways. If conditions were brisk, knocking his boat down in ways that only a low-budget, water-ballasted, non-racing boat could ever demonstrate, his "yee-haw" was one of excitement. In a drifter, where even the fast boats were barely moving, and his boat wasn't really moving at all, the "yee-haw" was full of irony. He could shape "yee-haw" to whatever emotion he wanted to express.

Irony can also describe the way he got into sailing. He was an insurance salesman, and his idea was that he could join the sailing club, and then he would be rubbing elbows with all sorts of well-to-do yachtsmen, and then he could sell them insurance. He didn't realize until after he joined the Rio Grande Sailing Club that its membership did not contain the sorts of customers he envisioned – we have a whole lot of working stiffs, middle-management types, unemployed and underemployed people who sail because it's something to do, and a sizeable number of other insurance people. I don't know that he ever sold any one of us a policy.

But he did discover that he loved sailing. And he learned to do it well. He had a Hunter 26, a boat designed to be comfortable and affordable to middle-class Americans, but not designed for high performance. In spite of having a low-performance boat, he entered races, and he managed to do well. He learned the ways of the fickle winds on Elephant Butte Lake, and on occasion, he even put the higher-performance boats to shame.

In recent years, he did buy himself a true racing boat, an International Etchells, but his declining health prevented him from realizing its potential – if he could get the sort of performance he did out of the Hunter, there is no telling what he could have done with the Etchells if he had had the chance.

Unfortunately, that was not to be.

Yee-haw, Richard, wherever you are.

Poetry Corner: Tom Lehrer

One more echo from the class reunion

I grew up in an extremely odd place. In many ways, it was like a military base, since just about everybody there came from someplace else, and to a certain extent, it was metaphorically distant from the surrounding communities. Many areas are not open to the public, and even away from the lab, what was formerly military-base-style housing is readily visible in many parts of the town.

But then, there were other ways in which it was not so much like a military base. For one thing, the place has, I have been told, the highest per capita ratio of PhDs of any community in the world. For a while, there was a Nobel physics laureate living across the street from me. The high school's football and basketball teams were perpetually struggling, but our chess team, soccer team, and band always brought home the trophies. The graduating class prior to mine had 11 National Merit finalists, which seems impressive until one learns that my own graduating class had 36.

I am talking, of course, about Los Alamos.

Once upon a time, the satirist/songwriter Tom Lehrer worked at Los Alamos. As he had previously done at Harvard, he ended up writing a song about the place, in the style of a classic cowboy ballad: "The Wild West is Where I Want to Be." This song is soon to be given new life, as the Los Alamos barbershop group, of which my dad is a member, is preparing a barbershop version of it – Lehrer himself has given permission to create the new arrangement and might – just maybe – show up at the performance of the premiere.

Here is Lehrer's own introduction to the piece, and its lyrics, courtesy of sing365.com:

The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be Lyrics
Artist(Band):Tom Lehrer

Now if I may indulge in a bit of personal history, a few years ago I worked for a while at the Los Alamos scientific laboratory in New Mexico. I had a job there as a spy. No, I guess you know that the staff out there at that time was composed almost exclusively of spies... of one persuasion or another. And, while I was out there, I came to realize how much the Wild West had changed since the good old days of Wyatt Earp and Home on the Range, and here then is a modern cowboy ballad commemorating that delightful metamorphosis called The Wild West Is Where I Wanna Be.

Along the trail you'll find me lopin'
Where the spaces are wide open,
In the land of the old A.E.C. (yea-hah!)
Where the scenery's attractive,
And the air is radioactive,
Oh, the wild west is where I wanna be.

Mid the sagebrush and the cactus,
I'll watch the fellas practice
Droppin' bombs through the clean desert breeze.
I'll have on my sombrero,
And of course I'll wear a pair o'
Levis over my lead B.V.D.'s.

Ah will leave the city's rush,
Leave the fancy and the plush,
Leave the snow and leave the slush
And the crowds.
Ah will seek the desert's hush,
Where the scenery is lush,
How I long to see the mush-
room clouds.

'Mid the yuccas and the thistles
I'll watch the guided missiles,
While the old F.B.I. watches me. (yea-hah!)
Yes, I'll soon make my appearance
(Soon as I can get my clearance),
'Cause the wild west is where I wanna be.

Now I need to get back to grading those papers …

Reunion Saturday night

Looking good

Thanks to classmate Nicki, who got a good photo of me and Pat (well, a good one of me, not necessarily as good of Pat) at the formal Saturday night dinner-dance at the class reunion. I was wearing the Zuni needlepoint turquoise-and-silver jewelry that all of the burglars have missed so far, and my hair was looking really good for a blustery evening more than a month after Vicente had last worked his magic on it. I was told that I looked "very Santa Fe."

Getting banged up at the lake

A weekend of bruises

The second spring series regatta wasn't too different from most of the others I have reported on, so I'm not going to go into details. The most noteworthy aspect was having a new crewmember on board. He's just bought himself an Etchells back home in Maine, although he hasn't sailed it yet. He's in El Paso for the winter, and he happened to visit Elephant Butte a few weeks ago, when he saw Black Magic and Constellation in the marina. Zorro happened to be around, so this guy (we'll call him Boothbay, since that's where he's from) came down to visit.

The upshot is that for the past two regattas, we've had Boothbay as crew. He's a very experienced sailor, so he's mainly on board to learn the specific ways an Etchells operates.

For the first regatta, we had light air on Saturday, and then on Sunday, Pat and I got shanghaied to be on committee boat, so we didn't get in much good sailing. This past weekend, we had really fierce winds to start with on Saturday. We went out and got banged about, and absolutely cold and miserable, waiting for the committee boat to show up. When, a half hour after races were to start, the committee boat still hadn't showed up, we went back to the marina to warm up and straighten some things out on the boat. About as we were tying up at the marina, the committee boat finally showed up, but at that point I was shivering uncontrollably and had no feeling in my hands, so we didn't go back out.

It took the committee boat a time to get around to running a race, and by the time the first race was finishing, we were warmed up and the wind was abating. We headed out to the course in time to make the second and third races of the day. Boothbay had loads of fun.

Sunday, winds were light – very light. We drifted out to the race course while the committee boat motored out and got there on time. Eventually, a trace of wind showed up. I turned the helm over to Boothbay, and we had a good race – at last, conditions under which we could show how the spinnaker works. Shortly after we finished, the wind went away nearly completely, and it took the rest of the fleet nearly an hour to finish. We drifted back to the boat ramp near the marina, where we were to meet Carguy, take his boat off our trailer, put our boat on, and generally pack things up.

Boothbay was interested in the procedure for getting deep-keel sailboats onto a trailer on a boat ramp; he'd never seen the process before. He got quite a lesson. As we waited our turn on the ramp, he got to watch as a J/22, a J/24, a Freedom 21, and an S2 34 were all loaded onto trailers. He probably now has things down cold, so he can show all those people up in Maine how things are done in New Mexico.

Meanwhile, I have developed a craving for wild blueberries. Come summer, we're going to have to take a trip up to Maine to sail with Boothbay.

Hey, what’s all this green stuff?

Of course, when you're in Arizona, you gotta take pics of saguaros …

Pat and I just spent this past weekend in Arizona. The original plan was to sell a boat, but that deal fell through, so essentially we ended up making a very expensive green chile delivery to Gerald.

It's been rainy in Arizona lately. According to Gerald's roommate/landlord, the Phoenix area has, in the first two months of this year, received about as much precipitation as it usually gets in about three years. As a result, the desert is looking … well … not so desert-like.

In Albuquerque, there's a company that used to sell and install sprinkler systems. Now, it still does sprinklers, but it also does artificial lawns that don't need sprinklers to stay green, and other landscape components. Until recently, it had a patch of artificial lawn out front, with a saguaro cactus (presumably also artificial, but very real-looking) in the middle of it. Every time I went past it, I thought, a saguaro surrounded by green grass … that's so … so … wrong.

Well, maybe it isn't, as demonstrated by these shots taken along the Carefree Highway near Lake Pleasant.

Movie magic

A blast from the past

One movie that I have been eager to see that has just come out is Invictus, the movie about the South African rugby team and the way it united a previously divided country. With Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon leading the cast, and Clint Eastwood directing, I am expecting great things.

However, I currently can't afford full price movie tickets, which means I have to wait until the movie gets to the bargain cinemas to see it.

Then I remembered El Cortez Theater in Truth or Consequences. Depending on what source you look at, this theater was built sometime in the 1930s or possibly 1943. It's old (the website recommends that moviegoers bring blankets, as the heating system doesn't work so well). It shows movies on 35mm film. It also charges far less than the multiplexes in the big city, both for admission and for refreshments – when is the last time you got a large order of popcorn for $2? The disadvantage is that it has only one screen, so moviegoers in Sierra County don't have any choice what to watch – it's whatever the theater is showing that week.

Eureka, I thought. If El Cortez is showing the film, I could go sailing during the day and then see the film in the evening, with Pat, or Zorro, or Cornhusker and Bassmaster, or some combination thereof. Unfortunately, when I looked up the theater's schedule on the Internet, I found that Invictus is not listed among the next few films to be shown. (However, the theater is showing It's a Wonderful Life free of charge through the month of December, in addition to the first-run movies.)

Maybe I'll go and watch The Blind Side. That's another sports movie, and since it's about football, wrapping up in a blanket like fans in the stands will make the film all the more realistic.

Thanksgiving with flippy floppies

Not your traditional weather …

So Pat and I have taken a trip to Arizona to have Thanksgiving with Gerald. While we were driving through the mountains of eastern Arizona last night, the temperature did get down to 34 degrees, according to the thermometer in our truck. However, now we’re in Tempe, in the Valley of the Sun, and the temperature is somewhere in the vicinity of 80 degrees.

Pat discovered that he had forgotten something in his packing, leaving him short of pants. No problem, we found that one clothing store in the outlet mall was open special Thanksgiving hours. This shopping center has one of the very trendy sound systems that plays music in all of the outdoor areas. It’s playing holiday tunes.

There was something incongruous, however, about what was playing as we were walking from the truck to the store: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

Sunset, moonlight, Sunrise Regatta

Not much time to write; will try to keep this brief

This past weekend was the Rio Grande Sailing Club's Sunrise Regatta, consisting of four fleets: 10-mile, 25-mile spinnaker, 25-mile non-spinnaker, and 50-mile. The regatta gets its name because if the winds are light, sunrise is about when the 50-milers finish.

Pat and I got to the lake Friday afternoon, so he could take the club's motorboat out and put flashing lights on the navigation buoys that were to be used as turning marks during the race, so sailors could see them after dark. Before going to get the boat, Pat dropped me off at the Rock Canyon Marina, where I was to meet Zorro to sail with him. When I got there, he was already out sailing on the lake, but after about a half hour, he came to pick me up.

The wind was brisk, and so I had to hop on board Constellation from the dock while the boat was moving fairly fast. In order to make the jump easier, and since it was only going to be a short sail, I left almost everything in my gear bag, which I stowed on Windependent, Twinkle Toes' boat, on which Zorro and I and a few other people would be sailing in the 25-mile spinnaker fleet Saturday. Thus, when Zorro and I set sail, I was wearing my hat, sunglasses, and PFD, but I didn't have my non-sun glasses, my lip balm, or my cell phone with me. Well, we weren't going to be out long, so I wouldn't need those things – or so I thought.

It was late afternoon, but the wind was good, so Zorro decided to make a reconnaissance trip to the southernmost of the turning marks, to verify exactly where it was so we wouldn't have to hunt for it Saturday. As we arrived at that mark, the wind began to fade. On our way back to the marina, as the sun was going down, so was the wind. Then, when we were about halfway back, the wind went away completely. If I had had my cell phone, I could have called Pat to bring the motorboat and give us a tow in, but, well, I didn't have it. As it turned out, Pat had tried to phone me to ask what was up, but when he didn't get an answer, he figured that Zorro and I were simply enjoying our time on the water.

At this point, well, we didn't have much choice but to sit there and enjoy the sunset and try to find at least a little bit of a hint of a puff of wind. So we did. The sunset was glorious – but I didn't have a camera, or even a cell phone, to take a picture of it, so readers will have to take my word on that.

It was about this point that some song lyrics started humming through my head … and Zorro's too. I ended up with "Slow Boat to China" stuck in my brain for the whole weekend, and then some – it's still floating around my synapses. Zorro admitted that he, too, thought of the same song, although I was thinking of Jimmy Buffett's version, and he was thinking of Bette Midler's.

Just about as the sun set, we picked up just a hint of wind, and then a little more, and the boat was again moving, although not all that fast. The light was fading from the sky, and I realized I wouldn't be able to see all that well in the dark with my sunglasses on, but I didn't have my other glasses to change into. I tried going without any glasses on, but I'm so nearsighted, I couldn't see a thing – dark glasses were better than no glasses. Zorro admitted that his own night vision wasn't so great, either.

Meanwhile, in the east, the full moon was rising. So was the wind. Constellation picked up speed. We put up a spinnaker to get back to the marina more quickly. The wind built. And then it built some more. We were flying along, keeping pace with the waves, as the silvery moonlight reflected off the water like a million diamonds and gave us just barely enough light to see what we were doing. It was an awesome feeling, surfing the waves, the wind in my face, ripping along in the glow of the moon.

When we arrived at the marina, we found the harbor entrance almost by accident, and when we came to the dock, a fisherman on the shore facing the marina had a spotlight that provided enough light to allow us to get into the slip without incident.

I have in the past blogged about a peak
experience
with Team Zorro … this was another peak experience.

Saturday was the Sunrise Regatta. On board Windependent were boat owner Twinkle Toes, Zorro, Blondie, Blondie's boyfriend, and a friend of Zorro's from Belize who now lives in the U.S. and has his own boat. Zorro was at the helm, Twinkle Toes on main trim, Boyfriend and Belize on jib trim, Blondie tailing, and I wherever there was a hole that needed filling. Winds were stiff, and they gradually got stiffer as the day went on, but they never got to the really insane levels that they sometimes get. For the first half of the race, in particular, they were in the range that was great for a Hunter 34, enough to make such a big and clumsy boat move smartly. Later, they got to a level at which reefing the sails would have been good, but this boat's not rigged for easy reefing, so we kept full sail up and just pressed on.

One of the rules of thumb about racing on Windependent is that something ALWAYS breaks. That is especially true in rougher conditions. But this time around, we got lucky. There were two things that broke, neither of them a serious problem. On the first upwind leg, because of the stiff winds, we didn't raise a full-size spinnaker; instead, we used an old Etchells spinnaker that Zorro had donated to the cause. It did the trick, bringing the boat up to the maximum hull speed for a Hunter 34. It also looked very silly, just a little handkerchief high up and out in front of the mast. As we were approaching a narrow channel leading to the northern part of the lake, Zorro was talking about how we were going to take that sail down in order to zigzag through the channel – and then there was a major wind shift and we broached. The spinnaker was ripped to shreds in the incident.

The second thing that broke was the nail on my right pinkie. That's OK; I don't think I've ever had a worthwhile sail on which I didn't break a nail or two. If there were no broken nails, it was probably not fun. Maybe whenever Windependent races, I should be on board so what gets broken is one of my nails, and nothing important.

In our fleet, we were second over the finish line behind the J/24 Hot Flash, but we beat her on corrected time.

Oh, yeah, that song … Consider this a lengthy intro to a Poetry Corner – another one on Frank Loesser, whom I've featured before. This is the version that Buffett sings, adapted from Lyrics Depot.

On A Slow Boat To China
By: Frank Loesser
1948

I'd love to get you
On a slow boat to China
All to myself alone

Get you and keep you
In my arms ever more
Leave all your lovers
Weepin' on a far away shore

Out on the briny
With the moon big and shiny
Melting your heart of stone
Honey I'd love to get you
On a slow boat to China
All by myself alone

(instrumental)

I'd love to get you
On a slow boat to China
All to myself alone
A twist in the rudder
And a rip in the sails
Driftin' and dreamin'
Honey throw the compass over the rail

Out on the ocean
Far from all the commotion
Melting your heart of stone
Honey I'd love to get you
On a slow boat to China
All by myself alone

Honey I'd love to get you
On a slow boat to China
All to myself alone

Unclear on the concept

Being well-meaning is good, but it's not enough …

Something that bugs me a whole lot is people who are all gung-ho about saving the planet (reducing our carbon footprint, saving energy, saving water, saving the whales, saving … whatever) but who don't really have a good idea how to go about all of that saving.

One of my pet peeves is the so-called "water-saving" toilets that flush themselves whenever they feel like it. How does it save water for a toilet to flush itself when flushing is not needed, especially when somebody is seated upon said toilet and isn't finished? And then, to make matters worse, once the person IS finished, there is often not a manual flush option, so matter that should be flushed goes unflushed. Don't the powers-that-be trust the general public to flush the toilet when a flush is needed? Just give us toilets that use very little water per flush; let us decide when to flush.

Many of the people who are most vocal about saving the planet are also not terribly well in tune with it. It seems they often come from urban or privileged suburban backgrounds, and they aren't so aware of the realities. One current example is a project called the WaterPod, in which a colony of artists is attempting to create a self-sustaining ecosystem on a barge. They found out it wasn't so easy as they thought it would be. "I kind of thought we'd just be able to float around," one crew member said. NOT! Gardening takes work, and so does maintaining a boat. It's not the Garden of Eden. On the other hand, if this crew learns from the experience, it will be A Good Thing.

One of the most horrible examples of "unclear on the concept" was the 20^th anniversary Earth Day celebration in New York City in 1990. Pat and I had been to a conference of Girl Scout leaders in upstate New York, and we had a weekend in the big city before returning home to Iowa and Minnesota and Kansas and Alaska and New Mexico. First, there was a parade. It consisted of a bunch of people dressed up in primitive costumes mostly depicting endangered species, with the occasional unicorn or mermaid thrown in, carrying banners saying things like "Save the Wales" (yes, that's how it was spelled, although the guys carrying that banner were wearing little other than some body paint that seemed to depict orcas). Yes, the participants in the parade had a lot of enthusiasm, but they really didn't seem to go much beyond trendy sayings. There was no meaning.

Worse was the rally in Central Park following the parade. Pat and I didn't know how awful it really was until after we got home and we saw the footage on the television news showing the bulldozers corralling the 600 tons of garbage that had been left in the park by the rally participants. Here we were, a group of people from an organization that abides by the saying, "Leave the campsite cleaner than you found it," and we were observing an event that was supposed to be about saving the planet, and the people participating in that event were completely clueless. We may have been just hicks from the sticks, but we were utterly aghast. I don't think that an Earth Day event in Iowa or Minnesota or Kansas or Alaska or New Mexico would have resulted in much trash to pick up at all – maybe if the trash cans or recycling bins got full, there would be some overflow.

Good intentions alone are not going to save the planet. The good intentions have to be backed up by good science and realistic expectations. Carrying a misspelled banner while wearing body paint to look like an orca is not going to save the orcas. Thinking that operating a self-sustaining ecosystem will be like the Garden of Eden is utterly unrealistic. Toilets that flush themselves when they don't need to be flushed will not save water. Holding a rally to promote ecological consciousness while producing 600 tons of trash is completely counter-productive.

The WaterPod people might perhaps learn from the EarthShip people. It's a similar concept – create an ecologically self-sustaining dwelling – and while it's in a different environment (the desert near Taos, New Mexico, as opposed to the water off New York City), many of the same principles apply. Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the EarthShip was at a similar level of development as the WaterPod is today: idealistic people planning an idealistic way of living. Early on, the EarthShip had similar problems to the WaterPod, such as people discovering that idealism alone isn't enough to make a project successful; some hard work is involved as well, and there are hardships in the lifestyle that many modern Americans aren't willing to tolerate. The good news is that, with four decades' worth of improvements, the EarthShip has become a viable mode of living. Houses are spacious and comfortable, and improvements in technology have led to better solar and wind electricity generation, more efficient storage battery systems, and appliances that consume far less energy while providing greater convenience.

But even with all the improvements, EarthShips aren't for everyone. It's important to provide ways that people can contribute to the well-being of the planet without making a huge sacrifice, and without moving to the desert outside of Taos. Mainstream developers need to provide housing that people will buy that is also environmentally friendly. Artistic Homes is such a developer. People who buy in one of Artistic's green subdivisions have three options: a small photovoltaic system on the roof that provides for about a third of the house's electricity needs; a larger system that provides for all of the needs of an all-electric home; or, for those who prefer to use natural gas for heating and cooking, a yet larger photovoltaic system that provides more power than the house needs, with the surplus to be sold to the electric company to pay for the cost of the natural gas. All three options also have a direct-heat solar system for heating water. The idealists may scoff at such a conformist solution, especially one that is produced by a big-business developer, but the thing is, it's realistic and doable, and the only sacrifice people have to make is paying more for their homes – and that added cost is offset at least partially by tax incentives.

Meanwhile, people who already own homes and aren't looking to buy new ones can – if they have money – install solar or wind powered electrical generating systems. While it might be romantic to be "off the grid," being on the grid is actually an advantage nowadays, because a battery storage system becomes unnecessary. The way it works here in Albuquerque is typical – if a customer has a "cogeneration facility" (solar or wind power generation system), then when the customer is producing more power than the customer is consuming, the meter runs backward. If the customer consumes more than the customer feeds into the system, the customer is charged the retail price for the electricity. But if the customer generates more than is consumed, the power company pays the customer the wholesale price. Essentially, the customer becomes one of the providers of the product, and the power company resells it for the usual profit margin.

That's good for those people who have the wherewithal to install their own generating systems. The power company here in Albuquerque has proposed a way of allowing people with less money to get in on the action – the power company will lease space on the customer's roof for a photovoltaic system owned by the power company, and the power company will pay the customer rent for the rooftop plus a royalty based on how much the system produces beyond what the customer uses. At first glance, that looks good. The customer doesn't have to come up with the upfront cash to buy the system. However, in asking state regulators for permission to create this plan, the electric company has requested a tradeoff – that the electric company be allowed to regulate the number of customers with their own cogeneration facilities, and the size of those facilities. That's not good. We want to encourage cogeneration, not put caps on it. The question now is whether public outcry can sway the overtly corrupt regulators. This is where we need the fanatics – except they don't seem to understand the issue. They're just blindly opposed to anything the power company wants, and they don't produce any sound reasoning to back up their arguments.

Yes, we want to save the planet. Yes, we admire the idealists. But the actual saving of the planet is going to happen when sound thinking replaces fanatical and ignorant idealism. And sometimes, corporate America is an ally rather than an enemy.

But as far as I'm concerned, self-flushing toilets are always the enemy.

Magic Uncles revisited

Although, it turns out, I haven’t really visited them in the first place …

Many years ago, when I was first venturing out into the blogosphere, I had written a bit about Magic Uncles. I thought I had written a post about them, but a search of my archives turns up nothing; instead, what I wrote was a comment on Muddled Ramblings.

At the time, Jer, on his epic road trip, was visiting an old high-school friend who had married, settled down, and produced multiple offspring, and these offspring were totally excited by this stranger who had rolled into their lives, in a cool car, bringing a change of routine and representing something other than safe, ordinary, ho-hum life as usual.

I use the term “Magic Uncle” to describe this sort of relationship – the person doesn’t actually have to be an uncle, and, as in Jer’s case, may not even be a relative. A Magic Uncle is a relative or friend of the family, and his role is to bring fun and interest to the kids’ lives. He is single and childless, generally not tied down in any serious way, and he typically drives a fun car. Because he’s not fully embedded in adult life, the kids perceive him as being more like them and less like the (much too stuffy) parents. Every kid should have one.

When I was a kid, my Magic Uncle was Dupes, who can be seen at (Enter Title Here) doing something strange involving a cheese puff. He was my mom’s cousin, who had come to live with my grandparents when his home situation went bad. He was single, and he was a younger than my mom. He had recently finished a tour of duty in the Navy, and he drove a Mustang Mach 3. On the Fourth of July, he was the one who got the fireworks and then shot them off the end of the boat dock at the lake house. He was always joking and goofing around. He got married when I was in high school, but as you can see from the photo on Gerald’s blog, he never completely outgrew the silly stuff.

Captain JP has recently made some comments that lead me to believe he’s a Magic Uncle – in his case, literally. That is, literally an uncle, not necessarily literally magic. I don’t know that he’s brought any tree seeds home from Narnia. He often mentions his nieces and nephews, especially in the context of borrowing a couple of them to participate in some fun activity or other. As best as I can tell, he’s single. I don’t know what sort of car he drives, but a cool car is merely a plus and not a defining factor; Dupes continued to be a Magic Uncle even after totaling the Mach 3.

I had thought about inviting Captain JP to bring along a few nieces and nephews to enjoy the Five O’Clock Somewhere Experience. I figured he could have the elegant guest room, and they could have the one with the train set. But then, he took dibs on the room with train set. Now, that’s a defining factor of a Magic Uncle – still not too grown up to enjoy some good toys.