Greg In The Desert

• Police: Argument over better father ends in shooting – A man shot his former lover's new boyfriend in the leg early Saturday morning after the two men argued about who was a better father to the first man's son, police said.
• Home invasion suspects tied to border group – KVOA News 4, Tucson, Arizona - – The trio are alleged to have dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into a home about 10 miles north of the Mexican border in rural Arivaca on May 30, wounding a woman and fatally shooting her husband and their 9-year-old daughter.

  Their motive was financial, Dupnik said.

  "The husband who was murdered has a history of being involved in narcotics and there was an anticipation that there would be a considerable amount of cash at this location as well as the possibility of drugs," Dupnik said.

  Forde is the leader of Minutemen American Defense, a small border watch group, and Bush goes by the nickname "Gunny" and is its operations director, according to the group's Web site.

• News : Intel fined for hazardous waste – The New Mexico Environment Department fined Intel for violating the state’s hazardous waste management regulations in March.

  On March 25, NMED conducted a hazardous waste compliance evaluation inspection at Intel Corporation. Inspectors discovered that Intel failed to close several containers of universal waste lamps. Universal waste lamps are bulbs used for standard office lighting and can contain levels of mercury and lead that make them hazardous waste when disposed.

• Growing the Poison Pepper – Boing Boing – I ordered naga jolokia pepper seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University. The naga jolokia, sometimes called the bhut jolokia, the ghost pepper, or the poison pepper, is the world's hottest chile pepper. My brother, the expert gardener, is growing them right now. These are pretty difficult to grow in Minnesota; they take forever to germinate and the drop flowers at the slightest provocation.
• Bare-bones warning to Boulder cyclists – The Denver Post – Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner warned Thursday that police will ticket bike riders if they expose their genitals during the World Naked Bike Ride, which is planned for Saturday as a protest against oil dependency.
• Not so windy: Research suggests winds dying down – The Denver Post – The wind, a favorite power source of the green energy movement, seems to be dying down across the United States. And the cause, ironically, may be global warming—the very problem wind power seeks to address.
  The idea that winds may be slowing is still a speculative one, and scientists disagree whether that is happening. But a first-of-its-kind study suggests that average and peak wind speeds have been noticeably slowing since 1973, especially in the Midwest and the East.
• Four Reasons Why iPhone Owners Hate AT&T – With the iPhone 3G S news now in the wild, the discussion digressed from the announcement of the 3G S itself to AT&T, the iPhone's exclusive carrier in the U.S. (at the moment). Without a doubt, this relationship is where Apple's weaknesses lie.
• Three Things the Palm Pre Does Better Than the iPhone 3GS | Popular Science – Arguably the Pre’s biggest draw is its super-elegant multitasking schema—apps fill up “cards” as they’re launched, which you can quickly scroll through horizontally by pressing the main button, which zooms out into a “card”view. Closing apps is done by flicking it off the top of the screen, which feels great. Aside from the five icons in a quick-launch bar and those within the three drawers of the app launcher, there is no icons-on-a-desktop conceit.
• Al Jazeera English – Europe – WHO declares H1N1 pandemic – The World Health Organisation has declared a H1N1 pandemic, the first such annoucement in more than 40 years, as infections continue to rise around the planet.
• Atomic Warfare – Intel last week bought for $884 million Wind River Systems, a venerable embedded operating system company — yet another of the chip giant’s recent forays into software. The reason for this purchase is both simple and grand — to help Intel vertically integrate and to further its Linux ambitions. Intel’s ultimate target with this purchase is Microsoft. It’s all about kicking Redmond out of the netbook business.

• 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.

In January, the New Mexico state Environment Department offered a free Radon test kit to residents, coincidentally January was also National Radon Month. I emailed the person who is running the program and obtained a kit. Before I get to the results, what is Radon?

Radon is a odorless, colorless gas that comes from the decay of radium. Radon is present all over the earth. it’s extremely common and it the second most common cause of lung cancer. Check out the EPA’s website or Wikipedia’s page on Radon for more information.

As I understand it, radon is a gas and decays pretty quickly once in the air. If in a contained area it can be real bad. Knowing parts of New Mexico are in a possible “hot zone”, I decided to take the free kit. THey weren’t that expensive to start with but free is free.

The kit is just a charcoal canister. I placed the kit 6 feet in the air away from major air flows and in a central part of my house. After some amount of time, I think 48 hours, I put the kit in a aluminum foil envelope and sent it off to a testing lab. They then email me the results.

Your radon test result is – 2.7 pCi/L

Radon Level (pCi/L)

• 0.4 Average outdoor radon concentration
• 1.3 Average indoor radon concentration
• 4.0 EPA RECOMMENDED ACTION GUIDELINE

My results are in between what’s considered normal and before I need to take action. What am I going to do? Nothing at the moment except test some more.

The New Mexico State Quarter will be out in 2007.

The Department of the Treasury approved the design on May 25, 2007. The other three designs considered were “Zia Symbol over Textured State Outline,” “Textured Zia Symbol over State Outline,” and “Zia Symbol over Textured State Outline,” with the Zia symbol marking the location of the capital, Santa Fe.

Wikiscanner is a tool to determine who is anonymously editing Wikipedia. Well, not the specific person but what organization the IP address belongs to. For example, the tool shows that some one from Exxon made favorable edits to a entry about the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The Santa Fe New Mexican checked to see what edits were being made by state employees.

But I was disappointed. Doing a WikiScanner search of the name “State of New Mexico,” with the location of Santa Fe, I found relatively little activity from state computers related to politicos.

Most of the edits by state employees appear to be unrelated to politics. No scandal here, move along.

This is a great idea. All the states should do this.

Evacuees of Hurricane Rita will not be charged a fee to stay at any of New Mexico’s 32 state parks. New Mexico State Parks Director Dave Simon says the usual 14-day limit on stays, electrical fees and charges for campgrounds will be waived for as long as neccesary.

I have traveled between Albuquerque and the Phoenix area about 100 times. I have tried every route possible settling on the Albuquerque to Flagstaff via I-40 then Flag to Phx via I-10. This is the fast way taking less then 8 hours (a lot less if your not worried about Cops). I’ve written about the trip before and some of the sites to see. Some of the interesting parts are the modern ruins of Route 66 along I-40. I never knew Route 66 as a road only what I have seen driving along at high speed and can only imagine what it was like when Route 66 was a real road.

Just west of Albuquerque is the Rio Puerco Bridge. This bridge is an remnant of the orignal Route 66 and the New Mexico highway department has chosen to keep it in tact for history along with a little bit of the original route 66. What facinates me most about this bridge is it appears to be a 1 lane bridge. With people zipping by on nearby I-40 it’s hard to imagine a time when people had to slow down for this. You can read more here. The sign on the bridge reads the following” “This parker through truss located on the historic route 66 was built in 1933. It was fabricated by the Kansas City Structural Steel Company and erected by F.D. Shufflebarger of Albuquerque. It’s 250 good lenght is on eo fhte longest in New Mexico. Repairs and remodeling were completed in 1957. This structure was replaced in 1999 and is being preserved by the New Mexico State Hightway and Transportation Department.”

On down the road in Arizona you will find the Meteor Crater, “50,000 years ago, a huge iron-nickel meteorite, hurtling at about 40,000 miles per hour, struck the rocky plain of Northern Arizona with an explosive force greater than 20 million tons of TNT. The meteorite estimated to have been about 150 feet across and weighing several hundred thousand tons, in less than a few seconds, left a crater 700 feet deep and over 4000 feet across”. You will find a modern vistors center at the crater site itself. What is most interesting is the original visitors outpost located along the old route 66. It amazes me how quickly and easily a building can be come run down so quickly.

I can only imagine what a place Two Guns was back in it’s day. The run down buildings once held wild animals one of them still partially stands to say “Mountian Lions”. There’s a standing bridge crossing the Diablo Canyon which was part of the original route 66 road. The whole place is for sale you as of this writing you can drive up on the property. I assume that is so prospective buyers can take a look at the place. Looks like there was once an attempt at a modern gas station but apparently didn’t get enough business.

Twin Arrows is another abandon outpost along the old Route 66. Looks a little more modern and from the gas price still partly up on the sign it appears to be opened sometime during the last decade at least. I guess people don’t need to stop as often as they use to for gas thought this station looks a lot more interesting than the run of the mill “modern” stations do. There’s more to Twin Arrows then what you can see from the interstate as the old Route 66 loops back and around this gas station to the Padre Canyon Bridge. There’s nothing to stop you from driving along these areas of old Route 66.

You can read more about these sites and others along Route 66 here