Greg In The Desert

The Koensayr’s BTL Y-Wing Fighters often got their cockpit opening mechanism jammed in sub-zero operating temperatures. On Hoth It was not good, not good at all.

Amazing photos from Avanaut on Flickr of Star Wars scenes on Hoth using Legos and snow.

I did not attend this year’s Albuquerque Balloon Fiasco, er… I mean Fiesta. I don’t need to because The Albuquerque Convention and Visitors Bureau thinks it the most photographed event in the world.

As of this post using, Flickr as a gauge, there are 7,178 photos or videos taken between 10/03/2009 and 10/18/2009. Is there another event which has more photos on Flickr?

The boring and uninteresting Qwest building in Phoenix Arizona was imploded on September 27th. The explosion is apparently going to be part of the TLC TV show called “Dynamite Family”.

Although azcentral.com’s story includes a video, I recommend a comercial free version by user teamdroid on Flickr. I’m sure there’s more than a few on YouTube as well.

I took some video while flying near Mount Hood in Oregon from my iPhone 3GS. I posted it to Flickr, which I prefer to YouTube due to the better privacy controls. But Flickr only allows 90 seconds of video. I also posted a version to YouTube but I think I may force myself to keep my iPhone videos to less than 90 seconds.

Now that I’ve had some time to use the video capabilities from the iPhone I find it’s OK but not great. It can be a lot better when there’s good lighting. It won’t replace my HD video camera anytime soon but ability to instantly upload to online video sharing sites is a huge advantage.

Since the built in iPhone camera application doesn’t support uploads to Flickr for videos, I used the $2.99 Mobile Fotos app.

A portal (pronounced port-al not port-ol) is what they call porches in New Mexico, at least when referring to Santa Fe style architecture.

This weekend I helped my friend Rick install a portal along with three other people. He said he needed help with raising one beam and it would take an hour. Riiiiight…

We ended up putting up the whole porch cover and it took about 5 hours. That’s OK, he will be over helping me with my projects.

We connected together 8 inch posts to corbels creating a 12 foot tall structure. This structure weighed too much for even five guys to raise and our first attempt failed with the corbels nearly falling off. OSHA would have shut the operation down.

Once we finally got the posts raised and used temporary 2×4 supports to keep it from falling over. Luckily there were no strong winds.

We them raised five 8 inch vigas (cross beams) that also weight too much and yet somehow we figured out a way to get them 12 feet in the air. We did not install the latillas, that’s Ricks job.

View the whole flickr set from my friend Rick on his flickr page.

There is a 1999 Ford Ranger Electric for sale by a dealer in the Albuquerque Craigslist for only $27900. I’m very tempted to purchase it (I won’t).

I’ve reproduced the craigslist ad here and swiped the pictures from Flickr.

Update: I continue to get email asking if this car is still for sale. I am not the seller, I reproduced the ad from craigslist because I found it interesting. Don’t email me asking if its for sale.

1999 Ford Ranger Electric – $27900

---

Reply to: sale-1057064108@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}
Date: 2009-03-02, 12:01PM MST

Only 400
in existence!

Own
a piece of automotive history!

Operating and maintenance
costs are low….no oil changes….just plug
it in to fill it up with a charge. The car even makes its own energy
when the accelerator is released and the electric motor generates a
charge to the battery. It is powered by a rear-mounted 90-hp electric
motor with a top speed of 70 mph.

Background
story

Ford was forced to manufacture
this vehicle between 1998 and
2001 so it could meet the California Air Resource Boards Zero Emissions
Vehicle regulations. It cost over $80,000 for Ford to make this
vehicle! If you have seen the movie, Who Killed the Electric Car?, you
will know the whole story of what happened to electric vehicles like
this Ford Ranger. Most of them were crushed upon lease return!

There were only 1500 Ford Ranger EVs made between 1998-2001 and today
there are only about 400 left with only 100 that have the special
Nickel Metal Hydride Batteries. Compared to older lead-acid technology,
NiMH batteries are lighter, charge faster and increase the overall
range per charge. Lucky for you and 399 other individuals, not all of
these Ranger EV’s were crushed. These vehicles were warehoused after
lease return and finally released to Ford’s battery pack manufacturer
for testing.

Vehicle Systems

• Tires: Low-Rolling
  Resistance
• Air Bags: Driver and
  passenger side
• Equipped Air
  Conditioning/Heater: Standard
• Anti-Lock Braking System
  (ABS): 4-Wheel
• Steering: Electro-Hydraulic
  Power
• Brake Assist: Front
  & Rear – Disc
• Regenerative Braking:
  Standard
• Transmission: Automatic
• Audio System (AM/FM/CD):
  AM/FM Cassette
• Recharging Specifications:
  Conductive Charging – 240v/30
  amp
• Suspension: Front – A Arms/
  Rear – Leaf Spring

Vehicle
Specifications

• Wheel Base (in.): 112
• Overall Width (in.): 69.4
• Vehicle Size: Overall Length
  (in.): 187.8
• Payload (lbs.): 1,250 lbs.
• Max Number Occupants: 3
  passengers
• Overall Height (in.): 65.6
• Curb Weight (lbs.): 4,196

Performance

• Acceleration: 0 – 50 mph in
  12.5 seconds
• Recharging Time: 6-8 hours
• Range: avg. 60 miles
• Maximum Speed: 70 mph
• Miles: only 9k!

 

Have pictures of or in Rio Rancho, New Mexico? Join the Rio Rancho Flickr pool and post them. Here are some recently posted pictures.

Title: IMG_8573

By: rich_new_mexico

Title: IMG_0570 56 Chevy

Description: Park In The Park auto show event. April 26, 2008. Haynes Park, Rio Rancho, NM

By: rich_new_mexico

Title: colorful trees in fall

By: J-seth photography1

Title: Tiny visitor

Description: Very small in the backyard

By: Lady Rio

Title: Joan Marie at New Mexico Wildcat Football Game

Description: Joan Marie Yazze Gallegos “Miss New Mexico, 2008″…at the New Mexico Wildcat’s Indoor Football Team 1st Home Game. Here…she is with the Wildcat Dancers during the game.

By: “Miss New Mexico 2008″ ~ Joan Marie

Charles Platt has had a number of posts on Boing Boing about Arizona (Unfortunately there’s no way for me to link to just his posts on Arizona or just his posts on Boing Boing). Since I am from Arizona, I have particularly enjoyed these posts. Arizona is so much more than the heavily populated and oppressively hot Phoenix Metro area.

His latest is about the Titan Missile Museum in Sahuarita, Arizona. I have never heard of either. Sahuarita, Arizona is located south of Tucson near Green Valley. There are about 1000 pictures related to the museum on Flickr.

I also liked his post with a view from a “former mining town” somewhere in Arizona. It could from a number of places. He doesn’t mention where exactly (probably Jerome).

I also have a number of photos on Flickr about Arizona and posts here on this blog you can check out.

Titan Missile photo from Telstar Logistics on Flickr.

Moonlight over Spruce Hole, originally uploaded by gregjsmith.

I completed my third yurt trip and it was by far the best. The basic concept here is that we cross country ski to a Yurt and spend a few days away from the world. The Spruce Hole yurt is nice because it has bedding and is fairly large. The yurt itself is located in Colorado just across the boarder from Chama, NM. All we really need to carry is food, drink, clothes and personal hygiene items. There were four other people besides my self on this trip and we stayed for three nights.

This is usually the only cross country skiing I do, I’m mostly a down hill guy. Plus I’m not in any great shape and I therefore tend to be the slow one of the group. Caring a 30 to 40 pound pack doesn’t help. The first several hundred yards of the trail are all up hill. It is grueling work getting there but worth it once we finally arrive.

This particular trip was planned around the full moon. The highlight was our moonlight ski in the nearby Spruce Hole meadow. The moon was incredibly bright and blue. It was an incredible experience that I can’t begin to describe with my pathetic words and pictures. Speaking of which, taking pictures in moonlight requires a tripod which I didn’t have. Yet I managed to take a few decent pictures. You can find all the pictures I took on my Flickr set. They are all geotagged so you can view them on a map.

The Mac home automation software Indigo that I use was updated to version 4.0 Beta. A list of changes are available on the Perceptive Automation message board but the big changes are: Pro and lite version, folder support and iPhone application.

I’ve been using the beta of the Mac and iPhone apps since they came out. They are still rough around the edges (that’s why they are called betas) but are still very functional.

Indigo itself hasn’t changed much except the addition of folders in the UI. The big change is support for IndigoTouch, which runs on the iPhone and the iPod Touch. IndigoTouch has basic functionality; you can control devices but not set them up, you can control existing actions, you can view but not edit variables and you can interact with control pages.

I’d like to see the ability to create devices on the phone which makes it easier to install new devices. I’d also like to see the log and the time date action in real time.

I did have some trouble getting it set up. It will connect, via bonjour, to the server when on the same network which works flawlessly for me. Getting the ports configure through my firewall so I could connect outside the network was a bit of a pain. It’s working now without much problems and using the prism service would eliminate the need for this.

Below are pictures of the interface on flickr or you can visit the set.