The Governor has declared the state a disaster area, the national guard is on stand by. The snow has stopped falling after a record breaking snow fall, but the fun isn’t over. Currently, the humidity is 100% which means lots of nice and icy fog.
Another snow storm has come through today and it’s coming down good. I had to drive in it this morning and are reminded why I bought four wheel drive. Of course, four wheel drive does give more control, it does not have keep you from stopping. Even with the four wheel drive I was slipping and sliding around.
I’m staying home for the rest of the day.
[Update 12/29/06 10:07 PM] I can’t believe it, its still snowing! Its been snowing non stop all day, I’ve got about 6 inches of the white stuff on my driveway. A freind called an said he was stuck in Las Vegas when his plane was diverted, earliest he will be here will be sunday.
[Update 12/30/06 12:18 AM] Apparently this is the most snow thats fallen at once in the Albuquerque area. It’s still snowing and has been since yesterday morning. Were looking at another 12-18 hours.
[Update 12/20/06 9:38 AM] Everyone at work is staying home today due to the road conditions. They closed I-40 and I-25 in the city. The city is shut down.
I’ve been thinking and saying out loud that the City Manager should be fired. Mainly for things like Unser Road and other such things going on in Rio Rancho. Loos like I’m not the only one as City Manager Jim Palenick was canned by the City Council. KRQE reported on it and so did the Citizens Media Group.
Palenick’s management style alienated some on staff, and two department heads had threatened to resign, including Rob Anderson, director of development services. Anderson had followed Palenick from Bay City, Mich., where Palenick had been fired from his job as city manager in August 2002.
Hopefully we will see some better planing around here with the next guy.
It looks like the City of Rio Rancho is resorting to traffic enforcement dirty tricks to generate revenue. Just south of Southern Blvd, on NM 528 there is a left turn lane, it will take you onto Peggy Rd and give you access to local businesses like McDonalds and Burger King.
There is a posted sign indicated that you are not to turn during the hours of 4 to 6pm, rush hour traffic time. This seems reasonable considering that NM 528 is pretty packed during rush hours. What happens if you didn’t see the sign? There’s nothing there to physically keep you from turing into this lane. What happens is you will likely be greeted by the Rio Rancho Police on Peggy Road, waiting to hand you a ticket.
The reason I consider this a dirty trick: if they were really interested in traffic enforcement and preventing people from turing here they would sit at the turn lane, keeping cars from turing. They are instead waiting for cars to turn and issuing tickets. I don’t know about every case but the cases I do know of there were no warning issued. Somebody prove me wrong.
A article notes that the stores in ABQ Uptown are doing extremely well, some of the top sellers in the nation. ABQ Uptown is the fancy-pants outdoor mall which has fancy-pants upscale stores. You know it’s fancy-pants because it’s got an Apple Store, which only builds in fancy-pants malls.
Speaking of the Apple Store they mention that they did $38,000 in sales in the first hours. I don’t know if that’s good for a Apple Store but it’s sure a lot of computers. I couldn’t be there for it’s first hour, which really sucks, but others did and it was a typical opening with people lining up around the corner.
Jessica was the local, hot, news reporter on channel 2 and channel 4 here in Albuquerque. She’s in Baltimore now. Looks like she’s going to be in the transformer’s movie too!
Jessica Kartalija joined the WJZ 13 Eyewitness News team during the summer of 2006 as general assignment reporter, and weekend morning news anchor with Tim Williams.
The Rio Rancho City Council has voted to extend Northern Blvd into Corrales. I don’t get how this works exactly, how does Rio Rancho decided if a road is built in another city (town, whatever Corrales is).
I also don’t get how the road will be extended. Check out the end of Northern Blvd as it butts up against Corrales now, I guess there’s some room there somewhere. I do like the concept of having a major road go all the way through, instead of the weird set up we have now. It shouldn’t increase traffic to Corrales, that’s going to happen whether the road is extended or not. Extending the road should improve the traffic flow for when the traffic does increase.
Finally, I think Councilor Mike Williams is on the right track for voting against it. Why doesn’t the city worry about the other road projects that they haven’t completed yet, before doing this one.
“I’d be in support of D-93 if at any point in time I had something in writing from, first of all from the state of New Mexico highway department stating that 528 was going to be done before Northern Boulevard was going to be opened up, also that the City of Rio Rancho commits that Northern Boulevard is four to five lanes all the way to Unser just so it can handle the traffic,” Williams said. “I have no problem opening this leg, but this is not the time, and until we have that etched in stone with 528 and Northern Boulevard, I have no choice but to vote against it.”