Greg In The Desert

Rio Rancho election packets are available from the City Of Rio Rancho.

Here’s a great opportunity for Rio Ranchoans who think they can do a better job running the city than present elected officials: Candidate packets are now available for the city of Rio Rancho’s March 2, 2010, municipal election.

Those interested in running as a candidate must obtain a packet in person from the city clerk’s office at City Hall and be available for a comprehensive review of the electoral process. Packets can be obtained by appointment or Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. until Jan. 5, 2010.

Three council seats, the mayor’s post and municipal judge are up for grabs. All terms are four years.

So far, only three people have announced their intentions to run. Tom Swisstack is seeking another term as mayor; Timothy Crum looks to replace Larry Naranjo, who is not seeking re-election, as the District 5 city councilor, and Jeff Hartman wants to be a municipal judge. No word yet on whether James Walker will seek re-election.

I have seriously considered running for an elected office in the City of Rio Rancho. The city council seat I reside in is not up for re-election this year (and the current District 1 councilor has a far better bio than I). Although I cannot find the information on the City of Rio Rancho’s website, I understand that the Mayor is a part time job and pays about $18,000 a year. I have to wonder how one affords to be mayor.

A PDF of the city organization chart is available on the the City Of Rio Rancho’s website.

A article on off-grid.net describes Rio Rancho, New Mexico as a sort of shanty-town and if your foreclosed you should move here.

Here in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, residents are beyond the reach of power lines and piped water. A few have solar panels or small wind turbines. For others, like a shanty built by Liz Owens, 57, the cost of renewable power sources and drilling a water well is prohibitive. Generators and plastic water tanks are common yard features.

I know no one that lives like this but I have been out on the mesa and seen these sort of buildings. I would not encourage people who have have had their house foreclosed on to come to Rio Rancho and build similar buildings (actually maybe a shanty-town on the Rio Rancho mesa would be interesting).

The problem is the city of Rio Rancho is growing quickly, or at least it was. As it grows these buildings are finding themselves in the middle of developments. These sort of shanty buildings don’t fit within modern developments.

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

The city of Rio Rancho has been putting in roundabouts all over the place and installing “road diets” which I didn’t know what they were called. I learned about them in a Rio Rancho Observer article.

Road diets, according to the United States Department of Transportation, are often conversions of four-lane, undivided roads into three lanes. The fourth lane may be converted to bicycle lanes, sidewalks and/or on-street parking.

The Federal Highway Administration touts roundabouts as being safer than four-way stops.

Roundabouts are touted as being safer because there are less points of conflict than with a four-way stop. Eight with roundabouts, compared to 32. There also are no right angles, meaning less of an impact if a crash were to occur.

According to the Department of Transportation, roundabouts have contributed to a 90 percent reduction in traffic fatalities, a 76 percent reduction in injuries and a 35 percent reduction in crashes. The DOT also says the roundabouts are safer for pedestrians.

• Ford Ranger sales are up for June – New Mexico Business Weekly: – The Ford Motor Co. sold 8.8 percent more Ford Ranger pickup trucks in June than in the same month a year ago, according to data released by the automobile manufacturer Wednesday.
• ‘Asteroids’ lands at Universal – Universal has won a four-studio bidding war to pick up the film rights to the classic Atari video game "Asteroids." Matthew Lopez will write the script for the feature adaptation, which will be produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura.
• www.KOB.com – Naked man diverts flight to Sunport – ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A US Airways flight to Los Angeles was diverted to Albuquerque after a passenger removed all of his clothing mid-flight, forcing flight attendants to cover him with a blanket before he was arrested.
• Revenge of the Fallen is messy, unfunny, and way too long – Ars Technica – The story makes very little sense, and introduces so many strands and subplots that by the end it's nearly impossible to care about anything. The humans pepper everyone with machine gun rounds for very little reason, as it never seems to do anything to anyone. The human characters have very little to do, and no reason to be near each other; there isn't a single relationship that is used for dramatic purposes in a believable way. Megan Fox reprises her role so she can stand around and look hot, jiggling in the appropriate ways when she runs endlessly in slow motion. During one scene, her new pet Decepticon humps her leg as she smiles at him. I guess we know where those egg sacs come from now.
• Intel China fab to use 65nm process, produce notebook chips – Ars Technica – Now, Intel has announced that by a rule change, it will be allowed to produce 65nm silicon at Fab 68, and will abandon the 90nm process. This makes a qualitative difference in the meaning of the new fab, since 65nm will be only two nodes behind the cutting edge in 2010. Current chipsets are produced at the 65nm node, and 65nm processors included the first generation of Core 2 processors, Merom, Conroe, and Kentsfield. If Intel continues to be allowed to produce 2-nodes-behind silicon in China, Santa Clara may drastically expand fab activity in China. Earlier this month, the Taiwanese government announced it was considering allowing TSMC and UMC to operate more sophisticated fabs in mainland China.
• Meltdown 101: Where are the renewable energy jobs? – The Denver Post – Everywhere you turn there is talk of a shift to renewable energy, of building wind farms and solar plants, of making buildings more efficient, of developing biofuels. And of billions in federal funding to help make it all happen. This should mean a whole lot of new energy jobs. So where are they—and how do I get one?
• NM woman hoards 334 hopping bunnies – Rio Rancho Police Officer and Spokesperson John Francis said Monday the county's animal control division discovered 334 hopping bunnies in one woman's backyard.

  Nancy Haseman has been cited for violating a city ordinance that allows five pets per household, and for failing to restrain her animals.

• ABQNews: Some Bad Apples Have Impact on N.M. Film Industry – Film crews are jerks, and small towns are saying, "Enough already, go back to L.A. – we don't want you here anymore."First, it was a moratorium on filming in the village of Los Ranchos that's been going on for a year. Then later this week, the Las Vegas, N.M. City Council passed new restrictions on filming that could seriously impact movies there.
• The Official Site of Rio Rancho, NM – Stimulus Funding for Rio Rancho – Via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the city of Rio Rancho has received confirmation that it will receive the following either directly from the federal government or other government agencies that have received stimulus funding.
• News : Scorpions still looking for owner – Rio Rancho Observer – Will the New Mexico Scorpions play at Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho next season? That question still hasn’t been answered. The hockey club is still searching for a new owner, after claiming a $1 million loss in its first three seasons of playing in Rio Rancho. The Central Hockey League gave the New Mexico Scorpions until Friday to find a new owner, but as of press time the team hadn’t been sold.

It’s been rainy in Rio Rancho the last few days and it looks like there could still be a few more days of rain. I’ve been too busy to sit down and write blog posts but that should change soon.

I haven’t kept up with replacing the roof shingles that blew off in the spring winds and managed to get a hole in the roof. Yesterday I noticed dripping from the garage ceiling and I found that the tar paper under one missing shingle had given out causing the leak. I was not pleased with having to get on a wet roof to make the repairs.

Before the rain started I have been doing quite a bit of work outside including some landscaping and laying pavers, I hope to have a blog post written about that later.

Thanks to the high humidity, available resources and delay of my travel plans I was able to get the self leveling concrete installed in the master bathroom. Although it didn’t come out perfect it’s good enough and moves the project along to some things I an do by myself.

Some of the weeds in the backyard were cleared and burned (rain makes for good burn days in the City of Rio Rancho). I have a new visitor to the house and found about 8 months worth of missing blog posts I had to manually post to the site. It’s now too muddy and wet to do further outdoor work so I hope to have some blog posts about these events up in the next week.

• Two hospital projects stalled as Rio Rancho’s growth projections slip – New Mexico Business Weekly: – The announcements in May 2008 seemed to promise an embarrassment of riches – Rio Rancho would go from no hospitals to two by the end of 2010.

  Then the credit crisis froze the bond market, and by the end of the year, Presbyterian Healthcare Services’ plans were on hold. And today, although the joint hospital project of Legacy Hospital Partners Inc., of Plano, Texas, and the University of New Mexico Medical Group Inc. is not officially on hold, Legacy’s CEO is acknowledging a new reality.

• Lost in Space | Articles | Features | Fortean Times UK – What really happened to Russia's missing cosmonauts? An incredible tale of space hacking, espionage and death in the lonely reaches of space.
• Mooning leads to mistrial in Willcox murder case – A Cochise County judge has declared a mistrial in a murder case because the defendant's brother dropped his pants, gestured and made threatening comments in the presence of jurors.
• Fish may actually feel pain and react to it much like humans | Science Blog – Fish don't make noises or contort their faces to show that it hurts when hooks are pulled from their mouths, but a Purdue University researcher believes they feel that pain all the same.
• The 50 Worst Cars of All Time – The 50 Worst Cars of All Time – TIME – On the 50th anniversary of the Ford Edsel, TIME and Dan Neil, Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive critic and syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, look at the greatest lemons of the automotive industry
• Sony’s GPS-CS3K: Your Geotagging Best Friend… Mini-Review : Akihabara News .com – The Sony GPS-CS3K GPS tracker has a tiny display that operates in three modes: displays current coordinates in big letters, exact coordinates (not rounded values) in small letters, and the current date/time. It might take a few minutes to complete the initial positioning during the first boot after not using the device for some time.
  If the device loses a satellite it usually takes only a few seconds to re-calculate its position. The device can be placed in a pocket without any problems, it doesn't need a direct visual connection to a satellite.
• Above And Beyond: T-Mobile Provides iPhone Support Despite Not Offering iPhone – When a system update caused service failures and bugs in T-Mobile customers' unlocked iPhones, the users emailed T-Mobile to alert them to the issue. Even though T-Mobile doesn't offer the iPhone, they fixed the bugs and gave the users a service credit for the inconvenience.
• Narrow Side Yard Makeover! — Eden Makers Blog – I nominate “side yards” as some of the most under-exploited areas in the landscape! What a shame, especially when every square foot of real estate is valuable, even in a down economy. Small, narrow yards can be perplexing to some homeowners who don’t know which plants and trees work in a constricted space.
• Garden Center at the Pueblo of Santa Ana – The Santa Ana Garden Center is your source for native and xeric perennials, shrubs and trees. Our plants are the natural choice for landscaping. They have evolved over centuries to survive in our unique and varied climate and are suited for low water, poor soil and high altitudes. They can be used for rock gardens, windbreaks, natural hedges, barriers or erosion control. Other uses include wildlife habitat, food and medicine, or simply to enjoy.
• The Official Site of Rio Rancho, NM – Water Watch Program – The City of Rio Rancho participates in the Albuquerque metropolitan area WaterWatch Program. This program is part of the daily weathercast on all local news stations from April 1st through September 30th. The Water Conservation Office promotes the daily watering guide by following the day’s recommended ColorDrop (see below) as well as its own seasonal watering guide.

• News : Master Gardeners win national honor – Rio Rancho Observer – The garden has received the International Master Gardener Search for Excellence Award, which is a cooperative effort of the Sandoval County Master Gardeners through New Mexico State University’s Cooperative Extension program and several City of Rio Rancho departments, partnering with the Rio Grande Basin Initiative, local businesses and community volunteers.

  The award was presented on March 23 to Master Gardener Linda Poe, project coordinator, at the International Master Gardener Conference in Las Vegas, Nev.

• The Consumerist Hive Helps You Buy A Diamond [Jewelry] – What are the things you should know when going diamond shopping? Our reader Justin needs to buy one.
• Realtors: Existing-home sales in West up 19% in March from last year – New Mexico Business Weekly: – The West, including New Mexico, was the only part of the country to see sales of existing homes increase in March from the same month of 2008, according to data released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors.
• Electronista | EU steps toward fining Intel in antitrust case – The European Union has prepared a draft decision in an ongoing antitrust case against Intel that appears to be approaching completion, according to the Wall Street Journal. Unnamed sources familiar with the matter claim the EU will seek a fine against the company, although the draft can be modified as it continues through the process.
• Thirteen year-old revealed as winner of Apple’s billion app contest | Software | Macworld – Apple on Friday revealed the name of the winner of its billion app countdown contest. It’s Connor Mulcahey, a 13 year-old who hails from Weston, Conn.
• The Simple Dollar » Thoughts on Work, Personal Life, and Frugality – If you hate your job, today’s the day to start going frugal. Don’t go home tonight and follow the same old routine. Your future doesn’t have to be like this. Here are 100 ways to get started. Most important: when you’re tempted to spend on something unnecessary, think twice about it. Make the choice not to spend until it becomes familiar and comfortable – then use that money you’re saving to get out of debt and build yourself a future you can be happy with.
• The GOP: divorced from reality – Los Angeles Times – By Bill Maher

  If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments.

• Advanced Composite Structures: Flying high – New Mexico Business Weekly: – The Rio Rancho company, which makes thermoplastic air cargo boxes, reorganized operations through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy over the past two years.

  Now, it has emerged from the process with $16 million in new capital from a New York-based investment firm and a $6 million contract with Northwest Airlines.

• Spider "Resurrections" Take Scientists by Surprise – rs in a lab twitched back to life hours after "drowning"—and the scientists were as surprised as anyone.

  The bugs, it seems, enter comas to survive for hours underwater, according to a new study.

• Chrysler unveils new electric minivan for U.S. Postal Service duty – Chrysler is celebrating Earth Day today by unveiling the first four of what will be a fleet of 250 battery powered minivans for the US Postal Service. The U.S.P.S. will be using the vans for variety of duties at locations around the country – including daily home delivery.

I’m continuing to practice with movie editing in iMovie ‘09 and I’m starting to become much more skilled with the interface. iMovie ‘09 8.0.1 came out yesterday and made some significant improvements, not only to stablility which are noticeable, it also added some features. TidBits more information on all the new features but one welcome improvement is the addition of HD uploads in the YouTube uploader.

I’ve uploaded my first HD video using iMovie ‘09. The video is of the City of Rio Rancho’s 2008 4th of July fireworks as seen from my roof. It was taken from my Canon G9 and although not true HD looks pretty good. Be sure to view the HD version by clicking the HD button in the video controller.

• News : Intel to host ribbon-cutting ceremony for new solar photovoltaic project – Rio Rancho Observer
  Intel New Mexico will host a ribbon cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. on Thursday to unveil its first solar photovoltaic array to be used as a demonstration project highlighting PV use and benefits for powering data centers. Representatives from the NM Solar Energy Association, PNM Resources, the state’s Public Regulations Commission, Sandoval County and the City of Rio Rancho will be present for the ceremony. The presentation is at the Intel campus in Rio Rancho at 4100 Sara Road in Parking Lot B.