Greg In The Desert

If the HGTV Dream Home Sweepstake doesn’t work out, there’s a raffle for a $190,000 house in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. I looked for it in Google Maps and found that part of the Cabezon development that the house is supposed to be in is photographed properly but not mapped properly. I had to use a few different mapping programs to find the house, which doesn’t seem to actually built yet It will probably be a fine house if you don’t mind living next to dirt lots for a while.

2483 Corvara Drive in Astante Villas Gated Community at Cabezon in Rio Rancho, NM. GRAND PRIZE: Win a beautiful brand new home valued at $189,900 or $100,000 CASH. Additional 100 CASH Prizes to be given away. Tickets are $75.00 each. Drawing will be February 27, 2010 at the home to be given away. This raffle benefits El Ranchito de los Ninos Children’s Home — a home for children who do not have a home of their own and are unable to live with their biological families.

When I was a kid growing up in Arizona one of the few memories I can recall is visiting the Ahwatukee Arizona “House of the Future” with Boy Scout troop 456. The house was built in 1979 at a cost $1,200,000 dollars. It was a demonstration for a planned community. It appears to have lost money every year it was sold.

Surprisingly there is no Wikipedia entry on the subject but I did find a June 23rd, 1980 article from InfoWorld on Google Book Search.

The house was designed by Charles R. Schiffner of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Built over 30 years ago it featured an advanced home automation system with five Motorola 6800 processors linked together. The system was designed by Motorola who was the major employer in Arizona at the time.

It’s important to note that the Ahwatukee home is not a computer controlled home, rather the home permits the tenant to to be in complete control of his environment, making the important decisions which will then be carried out by the microcomputer system.

That’s a quote from Charles E. Thompson, some marketing genius who seems to want to keep people from being scared of the computer controlled house. It’s also worth mentioning that 30 years later, I have been able to reproduce everything that house was capable of for a few thousand dollars and that such home automation capabilities have not yet caught on although the energy saving technologies have.

The house still exists today at 3713 Equestrian Trail, Phoenix, Az and can be seen on Google Maps. Although they gave tours back in the day for $3, I can’t seem to find any information on who the current owner is or even pictures of the interior on the internet.

A couple driving from Tucson, Arizona to Chicago had their Chevy Trailblazer crushed when a Mcdonalds Golden Arches fell on it in Window Rock Arizona. 60MPH winds were apparently responsible for causing the sign to fall down. They were pretty seriously injured. This is probably part of the same storm that is in New Mexico now and I’ve had winds this fast at my house before. Imagine driving down the freeway with this kind of weather.

Window Rock is located on the Arizona and New Mexico border, north of Gallup New Mexico and north of Interstate 40. There’s a picture of Mcdonalds on Google Maps that could be the sign that crushed the car.

Via Jalopnik

• Coconino County to charge $20 to challenge tix
  FLAGSTAFF – Drivers busted by photo-enforcement cameras along state highways in northern Arizona’s Coconino County will have to pay to challenge speeding tickets. 

  Coconino County Justice Courts will charge $20 extra when drivers challenge or ignore their tickets.

  The only way for drivers to avoid the extra fee is to pay the ticket without question.

• See where your friends are with Google Latitude
  Latitude is a new feature for Google Maps on your mobile device. It’s also an iGoogle gadget on your computer. Once you’ve opted in to Latitude, you can see the approximate location of your friends and loved ones who have decided to share their location with you. So now you can do things like see if your spouse is stuck in traffic on the way home from work, notice that a buddy is in town for the weekend, or take comfort in knowing that a loved one’s flight landed safely, despite bad weather.
• Al Jazeera English – Business – ‘Buy American’ plan sparks warnings
  Barack Obama has warned the US congress not to tie protectionist language that could trigger a trade war to a multi-billion dollar economic recovery package.
• High-Speed Trains Return to U.S. Fast Track | Autopia from Wired.com
  The president’s $825 billion economic stimulus package includes $30 billion for rail and mass transit projects; a Senate version specifically allocates $850 million for Amtrak and $2 billion for high-speed rail. It’s significant, because Obama has long favored expanding passenger rail service and has specifically called for a rail network linking Chicago with the major cities of the Midwest.
• Organic Jeans That Heal.
  The Ayurveda Organic Jeans are created using the ancient Indian technique of dyeing textiles in medicinal herbs. Each dye can contain up to 50 different herbs that are used to practice Ayurvedic medicine. This herbs are then absorbed into your body through the skin each time you wear the jeans.
• DOT Listens To I-25 Commuters Concerns – Albuquerque News Story – KOAT Albuquerque
  “The speed is not conducive to the geometry of the curve and consequently we end up with quite a few accidents in that area,” said Robert Velasquez, an NMDOT engineer.

  People sounded off about concerns at a meeting Tuesday night where the DOT revealed it is looking to straighten that section of I-25.

  With Albuquerque’s population expected to increase by nearly 40 percent in the next 20 years and with Mesa Del Sol bringing in more business and residents, the DOT said it wanted input on how that section of I-25 should be dealt with.

• News : Rio Ranchoan gets kicks working on old 2926 – Rio Rancho Observer
  Restoring a 65-year-old steam locomotive is quite a bit different than restoring an old Corvette. Strebe can’t find what he needs at NAPA or even on eBay, he said, “I have purchased $10,000 worth of tools and supplies in the last two years.”
• Sex On Wheels: The Top 11 Cars Of 2009 Most Likely To Get You Laid
  Teenagers have always lusted after cars as a way of getting other things they’re lusting after, which is why we’ve compiled these eleven 2009 model year cars most likely to get you laid.
• CreditBloggers: Ford Hybrid Tax Credit: Devil is in the Details
  First, the good news for would-be 2010 Ford Fusion hybrid owners: the 39 mpg sedan qualifies for a whopping $3,400 tax credit. That’s the highest tax credit the government offers (for hybrid cars, that is). 

  Now for the bad news: The tax credit is set to expire just before the cars hit the market sometime around March 31.

• Divorce, antidepressants, or weight gain/loss can add years to your face | Science Blog
  The study, involving identical twins, suggests that despite genetic make-up, certain environmental factors can add years to a person’s perceived age. Results just published on the web-based version of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), reveal that factors like divorce or the use of antidepressants are the real culprits that can wreak havoc on one’s face.
• The Associated Press: Motorola’s woes pile up in $3.6B quarterly loss
  North America’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment posted a massive fourth-quarter loss as it recorded charges to reflect the shrinking value of its cell phone business. It also suspended its dividend, said its chief financial officer had left and gave a disappointing forecast for the current quarter.
• Apartment Therapy The Kitchn | Do You Think Omega-3 Eggs Taste Fishy?
  Some farmers feed their hens flax seed (which, from my experience, also has a slightly fishy smell); others add kelp or even fish oil to the hens’ diets. So it’s not really much of a mystery why there might be a fishy taste.
• Retro: Stainless Steel Fords Scoff At Rust, De Loreans
  Back in 1936, Allegheny Ludlum Steel and Ford Motor Company collaborated on the production of six stainless-steel-bodied 1936 Ford sedans. Pretty cool idea, but that wasn’t the end of the stainless steel Fords!

Oops, looks like Google Maps via satellite has accidently taken a picture of a stealth bomber. It’s probably a not a big deal, since everyone knows we have stealth bombers and it’s not hard to figure out that they might be sitting at a military base. This photo also only shows one bomber, not a whole fleet of them.