Greg In The Desert

I have been threatening to trim back and cut down the trees in my yard (mostly cut down) for several years. It’s already starting to cool down and I decided to get on it before it’s too late. It’s only been a threat because I wanted to rent a chipper but chippers are expensive and I finally gave up on that idea and started cutting things down and putting the waste in the back part of my lot. Out of sight and out of mind.

The big project was cutting down a large branch on what I think is a Elm tree. This kind of tree can be seen throughout older neighborhoods of Rio Rancho and Albuquerque and they all seem to have the same problem, whole limbs off the main truck just die off.

On my tree, the main limb that hangs over the patio died off. The dead limb with all its sub branches make for great bird perches in which the birds then crap all over my patio. It also makes a mess with twigs all over the place as the whole thing slowly breaks up.

The plan was to cut off the main branch without it falling onto the house. I did the cutting with a reciprocating saw and a 9″ pruning blade and a friend pulled on the branch with a rope so it would fall away from the house.

It didn’t quite go as planned (and I should have had video). I wasn’t able to tie the limb high enough and pulling it with the rope wasn’t effective at moving it away from the house fast enough. The top of the limb partially hit the roof and the glass table. Luckily the limb and branches were dead and dried up and they broke apart when they hit the roof and patio furniture.

I cut up the Elm branch into small pieces and they will be used as firewood this winter. The rest of the trees that I cut down will sit in the backyard and allowed to dry out. Most of it is from pine based trees, so they are not suitable for burning inside but may see use in the outdoor fire pit.

Several years ago there was a huge fire in the bosque near the Rio Grande in Albuquerque. After the fire they cleared the trees and I have some of the wood from project. The wood was far away from the house, too much of a pain to access during the winter. I moved all of that wood near the house and cut up the larger pieces with the reciprocating saw, some if still needs splitting but it should be plenty for this winter.

I exclusively used my Dewalt reciprocating saw
for all this cutting and it amazes me how well a refurbished tool that I bought over 12 years ago works like it’s brand new. I was able to fully test out the Dewalt DC9180 18 Volt Nano Tech lithium ion battery pack and it performed exactly as advertised. It provided full power thought multiple cuts until it just stopped. It wasn’t as fast as a chain saw would have been but it did cut through everything I asked with constant power including a few logs larger than the 9 inch blade. I would guess I could get about 6 to 8 cuts between charges and it would charge in about 30 minutes, which provided breaks for me.

There are still some larger logs that I may try to cut with a small chainsaw if I can find one to borrow.

Of course my cat Saturn was happy to supervise the project from the bedroom window making occasional recommendations.

• Critics oppose Border Patrol herbicide plan – The Border Patrol plans to poison vegetation along more than a mile of the Rio Grande riverbank in Texas to eliminate the dense foliage used as hiding places by illegal immigrants and smugglers.

  The Houston Chronicle reports opponents of the action compare it to the Vietnam War-era Agent Orange chemical program and say it could have harmful long-term effects.

• We Put Pepsi’s New Aquafina Product To The Test – I’m concerned that Pepsi decided to promote its new “eco-friendly” product by proactively shipping, via Fedex overnight, 5 lb boxes of the water to press around the country. And then sending a second batch either in error or to reinforce the message. That’s not very eco-friendly (if anyone knows the carbon cost of sending these boxes, let me know, then multiply it by hundreds or thousands of press). It all seems a little wasteful.
• China tells U.S. to drop Cold War mindset on military | Reuters – hina on Thursday slammed a Pentagon report on its growing military might, saying criticism of China's lack of transparency betrayed Washington's "Cold War" mindset and risked damaging ties.

  China had complained to Washington about the annual report, which was released on Wednesday, because it distorted the truth and amounted to meddling in China's affairs, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a scheduled news conference.

• Aided by Safety Nets, Europe Resists Stimulus Push – NYTimes.com – The Europeans say they have no need for further stimulus right now because their social safety nets, derided in good times by free market disciples as sclerotic impediments to growth, are automatically providing the spending programs that the United States Congress has to legislate.

  Europe’s extensive job protections and unemployment benefits are “bad in the upswing, because firms don’t dare to hire people, because then they are glued to them,” said Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich. “In the downswing, it’s good if the people are glued to the companies. They keep their jobs. They keep their income. They keep consuming.”

• Toy story: The Lego renaissance | Life and style | The Guardian – Never mind the recession – Lego is now so popular that there are 62 little coloured blocks for every person on the planet. Yet only five years ago this family business was on the brink of ruin. Jon Henley reports from the Danish town where it all began.
• Canon PowerShot SX 1 IS Review: 17. Conclusion: Digital Photography Review – But cameras don't exist only on spec sheets or web pages. Once in hand, the SX1 IS cannot deliver on the promise of the CMOS sensor (which Canon is known for in their EOS range of DSLR cameras). Image quality, while not terrible is actually slightly worse then the much cheaper SX10 IS, and high ISO noise performance is firmly in compact territory. As much as it tries to be DSLR junior, as soon as you see the images you know that it is not. Even though there is RAW mode to give you control over image processing, it offers no more dynamic range, just control over white balance and the amount of noise reduction and sharpening.
• Pizza-making machine has chefs in a spin | Oddly Enough | Reuters – A vending machine that bakes fresh pizza in minutes for a few euros has got Italian chefs in a whirl before it hits the streets in the coming weeks.

  The bright-red "Let's Pizza" machine uses infra-red rays and technology developed at the University of Bologna to knead flour and water into dough, spread it with tomato sauce and a choice of topping, and cook it — all in less than three minutes.

• Police identify 200 children as potential terrorists – Crime, UK – The Independent – He said the "Channel project" had intervened in the cases of at least 200 children who were thought to be at risk of extremism, since it began 18 months ago. The number has leapt from 10 children identified by June 2008.

  Two hundred schoolchildren in Britain, some as young as 13, have been identified as potential terrorists by a police scheme that aims to spot youngsters who are "vulnerable" to Islamic radicalisation. The programme, run by the Association of Chief Police Officers, asks teachers, parents and other community figures to be vigilant for signs that may indicate an attraction to extreme views or susceptibility to being "groomed" by radicalisers. Sir Norman, whose force covers the area in which all four 7 July 2005 bombers grew up, said: "What will often manifest itself is what might be regarded as racism and the adoption of bad attitudes towards 'the West'.

• Fancy shelling out £5,000 for a 400-year-old stale egg? | Mail Online – Its mother has long since departed the scene. As, indeed, has its entire species.

  But this giant egg is a great survivor. It was laid around 400 years ago by one of the great elephant birds of Madagascar.

• Elephant Bird – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – The elephant birds, which were giant ratites native to Madagascar, have been extinct since at least the 17th century. Étienne de Flacourt, governor of Madagascar recorded frequent sightings of elephant birds. Aepyornis was the world's largest bird, believed to have been over 3 metres (10 ft) tall and weighing close to half a ton (400 kilograms (880 lb)).[2] Remains of Aepyornis adults and eggs have been found; in some cases the eggs have a circumference of over 1 metre (3 ft) and a length up to 34 centimetres (13 in).[3] The egg volume is about 160 times greater than a chicken egg.

• Single home building permit issued in Chandler last month – Only one home building permit was taken out in Chandler in February, the lowest monthly total since the city started keeping records 17 years ago and a far cry from the 300 to 400 monthly home construction permits before the recent downturn.
• Employees sue Eclipse over termination – Two former employees of Eclipse Aviation are suing the company, claiming they were laid off without the notice required by law.

  Varela worked at the company's Albuquerque headquarters, and Dimura worked at an Albany, N.Y., service facility. Both were laid off when the company stopped operations in February.

• Forgotten Albuquerque: Santiago/Ghufoor Pueblo – Duke City Fix – We’re standing just outside the location of one of the middle Rio Grande valley’s most historically and archaeologically important sites. Or, rather, we are standing just outside the former location of the site, greed and apathy having resulted in its irrevocable destruction some half-a-century ago. The site is that of a Tiguex pueblo called Ghufoor, which the Spanish pronounced “Alcanfor” and later renamed “Santiago.” In an ironic footnote, the subdivision that now occupies the land is also named Santiago.
• Eclipse Aviation Critic NG: Finally, Eclipse Aviation Corporation is no more – It is in many ways, for many people, a very sad day. The end of a genuine attempt to change almost every aspect of how a small jet is designed, built, sold and maintained or a failed business plan that became a scam. Either way, I'm sure we'll be debating many aspects of EAC for a long time to come.
• Is one diet as good as another? U of I study says no and tells you why | Science Blog – Any diet will do? Not if you want to lose fat instead of muscle. Not if you want to lower your triglyceride levels so you'll be less likely to develop diabetes and heart disease. Not if you want to avoid cravings that tempt you to cheat on your diet. And not if you want to keep the weight off long-term.

  "Our latest study shows you have a better chance of achieving all these goals if you follow a diet that is moderately high in protein," said Donald Layman, a University of Illinois professor emeritus of nutrition. The research was published in the March Journal of Nutrition.

• Pure fructose frequently confused with high fructose corn syrup | Science Blog – The American Medical Association in June 2008 helped put to rest a common misunderstanding about high fructose corn syrup and obesity, stating that "high fructose syrup does not appear to contribute to obesity more than other caloric sweeteners." Even former critics of high fructose corn syrup dispelled long-held myths and distanced themselves from earlier speculation about the sweetener's link to obesity in a comprehensive scientific review published in a recent supplement of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
• the physics arXiv blog » Blog Archive » Were gravitational waves first detected in 1987? – In 1987, Joe Weber, a physicist at the University of Maryland, claimed to have detected gravitational waves at exactly the same moment that other astronomers witnessed the famous supernova of that year, SN1987A.

  His equipment consisted of several massive aluminium bars that were designed to vibrate in a unique way when a large enough gravitational wave passed by.

  His claims were ignored largely because other physicists calculated that gravitational waves ought to be several orders of magnitude too weak to be picked up by this kind of gear. (And he’d made several similar claims throughout the 60s and 70s that others had failed to repeat.)

• Sunset Point Rest Area set to open after revamp – Interstate 17's popular Sunset Point Rest Area is expected to reopen this month, after more than a year of renovations.

  Work at the scenic overlook located north of Phoenix focused on utility and infrastructure updates.

  "A lot of what we did was underground," said Bill Williams, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Transportation. "You won't necessarily see the improvements."

• Head-to-Head: Parallels Desktop for Mac vs. VMware Fusion – With virtualization, like what you'll see in Parallels Desktop for Mac or in VMware Fusion, you can run not only Windows, but other x86-based OSes alongside the Mac OS, getting the best of both worlds. For many, this may mean running the virtualized OS in a "window" on your Mac. Both VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop also have the ability to run Windows applications even more transparently, but we'll leave that for another article.

  The Big Question

  So which virtualization product do you choose? Which solution is faster? Should you run Windows XP or Vista? 32-bit or 64-bit? One virtual processor or more? In short, there are different answers for different people. It all depends on your needs.

• Why I employed a felon – We didn’t know John was convicted of infecting 250,000 computers with bots when we hired him. We have a rigorous hiring process at Mahalo, in which each candidate must go through an average of five to eight interviews, and in which at least three, but more typically five, references are checked. Our CTO, and one of my oldest friends, Mark Jeffrey, did all of this with John, and he passed with flying colors.

My friend James took an excellent picture of Lions at the Rio Grande Zoo in Albuquerque, NM. I am jealous of his superior skills and equipment.

Looks like I’m not the only one with gopher problems.

An irrigation ditch in the South Valley overflowed Friday morning flooding a residential neighborhood near Isleta and Rio Bravo. Officials are blaming the incident on damage caused by gophers. Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District crews worked in the predawn hours to repair the damage and staunch the flooding.

Yes, yes. I know Halloween is over. Yet you can still find this New Mexico relevant shirt entitled “Camisa de los Muertos“.

I know people who don’t get a good signal, well within the network.

Ushering in a new generation of wireless public and government services, this city on the bank of the Rio Grande today completed one of the nation’s largest municipal Wi-Fi networks. Built for Rio Rancho by wireless services firm Azulstar Networks, the metro network provides “laptop ready” mobile Wi-Fi access across more than 40 square miles and is already delivering never-before-available services to businesses, city agencies and some 70,000 residents.

Who knew we had a Los Angeles series attack submarine named after the city of Albuquerque? Powered by one nuclear reactor and one propeller, it was commissioned in 1983. A pretty old boat if you ask me.

At the ship’s commissioning on May 21, 1983, the Mayor of the City of Albuquerque presented a set of keys for a new Rolls Royce to the Commanding Officer. The first skipper to pilot the submarine up the Rio Grande to Albuquerque for a port visit will win this prize. At each Change of Command these keys are turned over to the new Commanding Officer by the Mayor or his representative.

I ended up with a very busy weekend, with school, a friday trip and a party on Saturday there was no time to post. Not to mention the wireless I’m, er… borrowing, went down and I my trial of MarsEdit expired.

The fact that 2 people have died going down the same part of the river did not stop us from making a rafting trip down the Rio Grande river on Friday. That’s me in the picture, the blue hat in the back. I was a little worried at first, but it wasn’t really that bad.

The trip was suppose to take 3+ hours but took less than 1 1/2 because of the speed of the water. We also saw where the the unfortunate incident took place that lead to the death of Carolyn Whalen. Really, it’s a matter of a good guide keeping the boat from going in the wrong place and the river not forcing you there.

It was fun, were looking at doing “the box” which is a rougher part that’s farther north up the river.

The State Of New Mexico, the state I’m living in, became an official state this day in 1912. At one point the portion of the country that makes up Arizona and New Mexico was one whole Territory, and was split up into two states. More importantly New Mexico was first and Arizona was second, take that you Arizona scum! Oh wait, I was born in Arizona, DOH!

The incorporation of the modern-day state’s territory into the United States was a gradual process. The northeastern corner was ceded by France in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The remainder of what is now New Mexico was then wholly claimed by the Spanish colony of New Spain and its successor state (after 1810), the Republic of Mexico. The incorporation of this territory into the USA came in three stages: the portion to the east of the Rio Grande was claimed by the breakaway Republic of Texas when it seceded from Mexico in 1836; this territory was transferred to the federal government by Texas in 1850.

Most of the western portion of the state (to the west of the river) was surrendered by Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848. Finally, the southwestern corner of the state (the “boot heel”) was ceded by Mexico under the 1853 Gadsden Purchase. The Territory of New Mexico was established on September 9, 1850; under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, slavery was legal in the territory, but does not appear to have taken significant hold there. The eastern half of the territory became the State of New Mexico, which was admitted to the Union as its 47th member on January 6, 1912, the western half being admitted separately as the 48th state of Arizona on February 14, 1912.