Know what's awesome? Not in the continent-forming, solar flare, oceans rising to conquer the land sense, but in the d00d! sense of the word as it's used in parlance these days?



Road trips. Road trips rock.

Give me a car (and while you're at it, a competent driver, because I don't like to eat and drive at the same time and we should all be grateful for this), a couple of Micky Diaz's sausage bisquits, a tallish coffee, and a strip of asphalt that goes a ways, and I'm guh-roovin'. Particularly if the asphalt wends it's way across an American state made for said wending. Like, say, New Mexico.

It's not a surprise that the apogee of our rolling orbit was Roswell. I hesitate to say "destination", because the best road trips don't have destinations, they have only filling stations and rest stops and restaurants offering fried delicacies in grease-sodden wrappers, good solid American road food that necessitates a knowledge of the whereabouts of the establishment's defibrillator or set of jumper cables. The missus and I didn't want to focus on an end point. We wanted to glide through the landscape and absorb.



The Willamette Valley in Oregon reveals it's emerald secrets a little at a time as one follows a writhing road, and even the clouds conspire to keep it under wraps. It's a tease, like a flirtation. New Mexico's eastern plains are like a Sumo belly bump. It's here and it's there and it's way over there, and it resists cuddling and it demands awe and respect. It's worked damned hard over the course of millenia to be what it is, you betta recognize. And that glorious, dangerous sunlight just pours over all of it.

(Not my photo!  "Borrowed" from TrekEarth.com)

I've read that one of the ways New Mexicans identify Texans is by how they pronounce Ruidoso "Reeyo-dosa", and that's exactly how the missus pronounces it. Forgive her, please. She lived in Texas even longer than me. Ruidoso is beautiful and surprisingly Oregonish in places. And touristy. Ah well. We don't gamble (well, I don't) but next time we'll hike some trails there.



Roswell. What can I say? Well, I can say that my first home town* needs to get shy of quite a few bug-eyed mannequins and posters and crap. When I lived there, Roswell had no need to look to the mysterious heavens for revenue. It had Walker Air Force Base, where my dad was stationed. Alas, Walker shut down in 1967 and we moved to Ramey AFB on the magical isle of Puerto Rico, and in my absence the town was over-run with unearthly kitch. Aliens on shop windows. Alien heads on lamp posts. Aliens selling coffee and beer. Inflatable ETs hawking furniture and books. A "UFO Museum" (that was actually in the silly-but-cool category even with the cheesy fifth-grader dioramas, and cudos to the optimistic nerds who've managed to grow it into quite the going concern and are living the dream) that will soon move into an even larger facility thanks to the donations of like-minded sky-gogglers and conspiracy fans. It's all just too too much. The citizens of the town of Corona, which is actually closer than Roswell to the alleged crash site, should daily face southeast and raise their hands and voices in gratitude.

Underneath all the otherweirdly junk is a pleasantly modest, lived-in-looking town. In ways Roswell reminds me of Abilene, Texas (my second home town, and another place I hope to visit soon). I can actually visualize myself living in Roswell again (although I'd be divorced; I have this on good authority). Of course I had to find the house I lived in as a kid, so that's what we went looking for first. I just pretty much asked my wife to head in a general direction, and said something like "We'll have to find a map somewhere, it's not like I know my way around anymore..."

And we went right to it. Spooky.



Those of you who've followed this blog for awhile will probably recognize the house, but this time I was the one taking the picture. At the last second I couldn't bring myself to step out of the car because I thought it was suspicious-looking enough to be snapping photos from the car without actually strolling the sidewalk like I owned it. People get twitchy about that kind of thing, and twitchy people call the police, and REALLY twitchy people might reach for a baseball bat. As it is, I kind of hope no one in that neighborhood reads this, because even though it's part of a cherished memory, I still felt like an intruder.

As we rounded a corner at the far end of the street I was pointing out things I remembered that no longer existed. A friend's house, the friend's name long forgotten; the corral fence that bordered his front yard, and now girded only by cracked curb; the vast open pit across the alley that we used to call the boondocks, full of dirt mounds and roots called devils horns and junked and rusting cars, now mostly filled in and a lot smaller than I recall; the Piggly Wiggly that once stood just a couple blocks away now replaced with a Dollar General.



After a tour of the UFO Museum, we had lunch at a Cattle Baron restaurant (over-priced and nothing special), and then got directions to Valley View Elementary School from two cheerful young waitresses. Again, we had no trouble finding our way.



Except for the newish playground equipment, it looked just how I remembered it. I don't recall the sign being there, but it may have been.



In my day our classes had Halloween parties, not "Fall festivals". Dang fundy-mentals.

Finally, we chased the sun homeward, watched the day fade into gold and then into sepia.



Great trip. I might even go back and spend a weekend in Roswell sometime soon.


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I usually get up at 5 a.m., and I'm at the gym by six at least two or three mornings per week. The other mornings, I hit the sidewalk and walk for an hour.

Weight-lifting is good for you, it's a good way to lift your metabolism and maintain tone. It's also a sort of hydraulic fake labor, convenient only because it beats keeping boulders to throw around in your back yard (front yard if you're a show-off). Lifting is necessary to stave off the middle-age blobular silhouette, but no way is it FUN.

Walking is fun. And mood-enhancing. And educational. And spiritual.

On one walk I saw three coyotes cross Eubank and intersect my path (or maybe it was two coyotes, one of them twice). As I walked further and turned down the North Piño Arroyo Trail, I was paced by roadrunners and bunnies and lizards in the underbrush. On another walk I discovered neighborhoods near home that had escaped the fauxdobe glut by some miracle, and I strode the sidewalk wide-awake past slippered and still-groggy newspaper collectors and a few dawn patrol dog-walkers. Not one looked in my direction. Maybe most folk aren't quite ready to be assailed by the presence of other humans that early, who knows? Once upon a time I was the nocturnal sort and didn't gaze upon the world before noon willingly, so I guess I can relate. I try not to miss a sunrise now, though. An hour's walk and then home to greet the missus with a cup of coffee as she levers herself upright to seize the day. That's the stuff.

I recommend going for a walk.

(* I was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, but I don't count that as my home town because I feel you should be able to do more in your home town than dribble on yourself. Thus, Roswell was my first home town.)

This morning's breakfast: a lump of pumpkin bread. I say "lump" because I have over the last two days eroded it's loaf-shaped goodness, picking at it until it looks less loaf-y and more asteroid-y. An asteroid of pumpkin bread would rock, I think.

I took a few photos of balloons last weekend before BOTH cameras' batteries died (of COURSE).









No, we didn't go into the park; too many people too close together. Instead we parked on I-25 with every other luckless soul who thought they would surely find a superior vantage point within 25 miles of the place. Well, not exactly "parked" per se, but I'm pretty certain our forward motion could have been outrun by various forms of lichen. You'd think we would have been peeved at this, but it did turn out to be a good balloon-gazing spot, plus it was kind of pleasant to witness so many automobiles on the freeway that weren't trying to break the effin' sound barrier. I'm not a big fan of freeway driving anyway, but I've found that many motorists here up the ante considerably by refusing to use turn-signals, so driving amongst these hurtling blinker-phobes is a lot like Han Solo threading the needle through the asteroid field.

Two asteroid references in as many paragraphs. Did NOT see that coming.

Anyway. I can attest to the fact that seeing photos of many balloons in the sky and actually witnessing it personally are two vastly different experiences. Beautiful. Also eerie. I can see why animals would be spooked by these huge craft; even birds make noise, but balloons just hover there as if pondering a judgement. Every once in a while they make this *hhhhhhhhhh* as the pilots adjust altitude, but otherwise they're silent as a secret. I hate to use the overworked and abused word "awesome", but that is what it is to watch these gliding marvels.

All that last was mostly for the benefit of my PDX pals. Maybe many of the 'Burquenos (is that right? Or am I underlining my n00bness here, good citizens?) reading this are thinking "Yeah, balloons yadayada *YAWN!*" I hope not. I hope I don't live here so long that such a wonder becomes boring. It feels much as I used to feel when on a clear morning in Portland I would stand on my balcony with my coffee and gaze at Mt. Hood. You get tired of something like that, go find y'self a sturdy shovel and commence ta diggin'. Yer done.


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From the bowels of the "Why I'm Hopeless At Nearly Everything" department: Lately I've been regretting not having learned how to play a musical instrument when I was younger, particularly the guitar. I took a class in junior high school -- Lincoln Junior High, in Abilene, Texas -- in an abortive attempt to learn to play the recorder. Stupid name for an instrument, and I proved to be as ham-fisted with that as I did with virtually any tool I'd handled in wood shop (yeah, I sucked at that too). I had good intentions, I approached the task of learning with all seriousness at first (except for the couple of times I tried to practice at home in front of the mirror, standing on one foot a la Ian Anderson, just to see what I looked like; surprise! I looked like a DORK*), but t'was for naught. I'd have made more pleasant noise stepping on a squirrel. The musical bent I apparently had not. After awhile I tried turning the recorder into a blowgun. My parents were somewhat less than proud.

The reason this yen for guitar-god musicianship has reared it's dexterity-deficient head is that the FM rock stations here in the Duke City seem inordinately fond of '80s metal. Heretofore I wasn't really a fan at all, gravitating to the more eclectic fare of KINK 101.9 FM, perhaps Portland's best station. Here I've found no radio station that quite fits that bill, so when in the car or at work (I installed my own stereo in my work room, go me!) I most often listen to one of three interchangeable rock stations, and godz help me, I've aquired a taste for hair metal! If cities had to decide on a song that represented the collective musical tastes of it's citizenry, Albuquerque's would be The Scorpions' "Rock You Like A Hurricane", because if I bounced to and fro between these three radio stations I would hear that song twenty times in one day, I no keed.

Impromptu Top Seven Guitar Godz List, No Particular Order Except The First Two And That's Debatable Between Them (this is SO youtube-lolz-wtf-geeky I wouldn't blame anyone for rolling their eyes and refusing to read it, but d00dz, just RAWK with me kthx):

Jimi Hendricks
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Eddie Van Halen
Jack White
The Edge
Pete Townsend
Skwisgaar Skwigelf

'kay, that is all.



(* This made feel better, dork-wise. Thanks, Ian. You're still one of my musical heroes.)

It's Pancake Sunday! Been awhile since we've had a breakfast o' flapjacks, so I'm looking forward to it. I'm hoping we still have the Snoqualmie Falls pancake mix. What restaurants in Albuquerque make good pancakes? Anyone? Anyone?

Oops, and flapjacks aren't really pancakes. Thanks, Wikipedia.

I have a bone to pick, and hopefully that bone I seek to pick won't be (a), MINE, and (b), plucked from the side of a motor vehicle. My consternation has to do with this: WHY must I share a bike lane with passenger-side rearview mirrors? What is it about many motorists in this fair city that leads them to drive so far right of the freakin' crown of the road? I realize I have a bias here; Portland motorists by and large skirt bike lanes by a fat margin because of the amount of bicycle traffic, and those who ride bicycles in Portland are a vocal and litigious lot (and USUALLY rightly so, although some are all too eager to pick a fight). There is, however, in my mind no excuse. A bike lane is a bike lane no matter in what city it may be found. It is NOT a bonus space for automobiles, demarkated to show motorists just what a deal they're getting, like a line on the outside of a cereal box showing how much less cereal you'd get if it weren't for the graciousness and largesse of the producer. "Dang! Looka this, honey! Twenty percent MORE ROOM on the right!"

Don't misunderstand, please. As a vehicular cyclist I have found that sometimes bike lanes aren't the optimum path to safety, and so I will eschew the confines, and pedal outside the lines, for broader avenues the cyclist he pines (awright, knock it OFF). Often, when they lead where I want to go, I'll be on the many and delightful trails 'twixt the ditches anyway since they're scenic and fun to ride. However, while I'm IN the bike lane, it's MINE. I'm thinking the law itself says so unless New Mexico's traffic laws are very different from Oregon's. Please keep all your metal and glass bits to yourself and well to the left, because if you don't and I get clobbered by your mirror or any other part of your vehicle, I WILL try to get some of my blood on your physical person. STAY OFF MY PATCH.

That issue aside, I've had an easy time commuting to work. Now I have to gird my loins and start riding more often AND ride home FROM work as well. So far one thing or another has made riding home impractical, but I'll be honest here and state that the few times I could have ridden homeward, I didn't. Shame on me. Not warrior-like at ALL. This next week I'll make the effort to ride round-trip on my commutes. What does not kill me makes me stronger, once I've stopped heaving behind the shrubbery.


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We recently discovered the Bear Canyon Arroyo Trail a mere two miles or less from our front door. Excellent place for a walk and to see lots of animals and flora. Now I know where those prickly pear things come from.









There are always roadrunners, rabbits, lizards, and birds everywhere, just as on all the trails we've walked. And QUIET. The kind of quiet that makes cresting the path beside the dam overlooking Juan Tabo Blvd. somewhat startling when the sound and sight of traffic reassert themselves. Actually, everywhere seems a might quieter; is it possibly the rarer air? Or the fact that we aren't hugged on all sides by hills?

My friends in PDX are gonna get awfully bored with me waxing rhapsodic about the Southwest but I mean to say, even the SKY is a wonder here. The clouds are soaring sculptures suspended in the fathomless blue.



Our favorite time to take walks is at dusk, watching the sun go down and set the clouds aflame on the horizon. Truly stunning.

One last note. I keep hearing a gotta go to this place, and now I see THIS.




Gotta go. It's been real.

Sunday is traditionally house-cleaning day at der Garrisonhaus, and these days there's lots less acreage to cover now that we've down-sized living space. Unfortunately that means we gave up the washer and dryer provided in the larger apartment and must now use the community laundry rooms.

Cripes. I hate picking up after other people, man. It's like our neighbors just moved here from the Pleistocene epoch, when people wore mostly dirt. Why must I get elbow-deep in somebody else's lint? You know when you walk into a laundry facility and the tops of the machines aren't sticky, the floor is swept, and the lint traps are clean? That's because I live in your complex. Say "Hi". I promise never to leave my detritus for you to wade through, nor anyone else's after I've left, most likely. I also will never leave my clothes in the dryers until they're dusty and have to be washed all over again. One thing that separates us from the beasts of the field is our ability to TELL TIME, see? I've always found it funny that people would dare get huffy when someone else had to haul their wet junk out of a washer because it sat in there for three hours. Did they assume everyone else had just left the planet for the day?

I won't say that I "love" my fellow humans, but I'll always respect them, and I'll always shake my head (or my fist) when I meet people who refuse to think past their own immediate needs.

Okay, rant off.

Last Sunday (I am SUCH a lazy blogger guy), The wife and I drove into Cibola National Forest and up to Sandia Crest.

Isn't that just awesome? This was taken from Sandia Crest. Notice that there is NO RAILING. I find it refreshing that visitors are required to look after themselves and those in their charge, don't you? No railing, and therefore no reason for you to be this close to the edge. No mollycoddling here, boy. Watch your step.

Since the trail continued along the very brink of the precipice, and the missus is not fond of heights (nor am I, truth be told), our hike came to an abrupt halt. We'll come back and hike it another day, or I will while the little woman dials our insurance agent, as she has less faith in my middle ear than I do. Besides, there were thunderclouds and lightning in the distance and we had no desire to tempt the godz. We've read of something like ten people being struck by lightning since we moved to Albuquerque . I love to watch lightning storms (Portland sees something like three per millenium) but when you get worried just walking to your car in the parking lot, that's a tad creepy, gnome sane?

These warm sunny days have been a balm, but I'll admit I'm looking forward to autumn. Autumn was once my favorite season, before I moved to a part of the country where it rains almost incessantly between September and May (and NO, I won't forget that's part of what makes Oregon so lush and beautiful), so I hope to recapture that romance now that we've settled once again in the Southwest where it precipitates in the spring and summer as is proper.

Earlier this morning I took a virtual walk past Valley View Elementary, the school I attended in Roswell, via Google Earth. The photo I'd zoomed into looked as if it had been taken in the fall or winter and I was immediately struck with the scent of dry, brittle grass on the playground. My schoolmates and I staged mock superhero battles at recess, sprawling on that grass and later taking it home with us in the folds of our jackets for our mothers to tut over. Y'know, I can't even remember what superhero I chose to be back then. I'm sure he was cool, though.

I'm sitting at the desk with a cup of coffee, earphones on listening to AC/DC ("Who Made Who?") on Pandora.com. This is one of my very favorite things to do on an early weekend morning before the world brightens and stirs.

Actually, any day that starts with music and/or a bike ride puts me in a fine state of mind. I need that these days, seeing as how my present job has me knee-deep in tediousness and miopic management foofraw much of the time. Pardon me, just a little rant, missing my old job and comrades. At least I can say my week days go by really fast because to accomplish ANYTHING I have to be at a fair trot. Fancy "managing" and "coordinating" individuals who don't have to do what you ask of them and who don't have anything like the desire you have to GET SH!T DONE. And you can't yell at them or call them names. this is like my seventh circle of Hades. I can hear my old work-mates guffawing over their fish tacos as I speak. Type. Whatever.

Perhaps I should state here that I feel fortunate and grateful to be employed. This is me doing that now.

We're finally in the new apartment, and it's one of our better decisions. Small? Oh yeah. We haven't lived this small since the early days of our marriage. It's just the right size, though. I don't know why we felt we needed a separate office space. *snort!* "Office", like I really worked in there. The "office" was where I slaughtered enemy zombies and Nazis and watched YouTube videos. Yeah, it's like I just stopped maturing at fifteen years old. Except we didn't have this stuff when I was fifteen. We youngsters had to stage G.I. Joe® Apocalypse in the back yard in real time, with real fire, by gawd. I love the smell of singed plastic in the morning. The parents, and my kid brother whose G.I. Joe® I incinerated, not so much.


I wasn't a troubled child. Everyone else seemed a lot more bothered than me.

I digress.

I love this new place. It's orderly and efficient and just all-around more livable than the previous space. Our next-door neighbor can't park his damned Volvo to save his life, and directly above us live a troupe of clog dancers, but having been a cliff-dweller for most of my adult life it doesn't bother me. Oddly, nobody lived in any of the other apartments around us in the old unit; the entire block was vacant except for us and we never have found out why. I kept expecting to be waylayed by former tenants in the parking lot, waving shaky fingers at the building and moaning "Noooo! Do not abide there!" and warning me of little girls from beyond who don't brush their hair.

Speaking of things that go *bump* in the night...I know it's a subjective thing and anyone is free to comment au contraire, but apparently about the only thing liable to go *bump* in the night in Albuquerque is drunk drivers. Don't get me wrong, 505'ers, I'm a YUGE fan of this city, but compared to my old stomping grounds (that being Portland, Oregon, natch) there's nary a whiff of the mystic here. Portland is Spook Factor Ten, Mr. Sulu. All that lovely misty rain and fog, silent side streets lined with old houses, mossy sidewalks, and looming bridges and trees make for quite the eerie atmosphere. It's reflected in the citizenry too, what with the dark clothing and the gloomy demeanor. Maybe it's different in the fall and winter months, but Albuquerque seems doomed by topography and meteorology, bereft of the kind of ambience that turns one's thoughts to the night side of Nature.

I'm sure these folk would disagree. Perhaps I should do some research before I shoot off my fat fingers. I don't mean to say that I believe in the occurrence of paranormal phenomena in the absence of empirical evidence (of which I've read and experienced none), but I have an open mind and I'm a sucker for atmosphere. Now that I mention it, judging by my reaction to an experience I had with a waking dream many years ago (an apparition in blinding-white robes standing by the bed as I lay paralyzed in terror after an afternoon nap), open mind + sucker for atmosphere = susceptible to suggestion = first guy in the group to jump out the window after soiling his trousers. Maybe I should just research from HERE.

A long day of loafing awaits, to end with a nice twilight stroll through the neighborhood this evening. L8erz.

In another couple of weeks we're moving AGAIN.  There is nothing else I loathe worse that I seemingly do so often.  That it's MY idea this time, and for a practical reason, won't lessen the misery either.

The impetus this time is almost purely economic; this apartment is more expensive in rent than we care to afford (and the floorplan sucks, too).  We have a mind to do all we can to become debt-free[ish] within five years, and tossing cash at an apartment we don't like isn't fiscally sound.  So we're moving across the parking lot to a 1bdrm/1bath, for an eventual savings of $260 per month.  I say "eventual" because the corporate (pirate) entity that runs this community insists upon another deposit and a 30-day waiting period for the refund of the original deposit we paid for this unit, instead of merely transferring.  Plus some other little fees and expenses here and there.  Thanks so much, and may I point out that in some nations of the world a bullet-pocked wall in the central square has often been the response to this sort of crap?  Just a cultural-slash-historical aside offered for edification.

Other than the slogging of possessions across hot pavement for hours on end (how can two people amass so much junk?  Excuse me, how can ONE person amass so much junk?  These "curios" are NOT mine), I'm looking forward to living in a smaller space.  Let's say "more utile space" instead.  The living area and balcony are actually somewhat larger and much more arrangement-friendly in the smaller unit.  No more shoe-horning my bike in and out of a cramped space (what, you thought I stored my bike OUTSIDE?  Dudes!  I'm from PDX!) AND there's a breeze-way right outside the front door where I can clean it under cover.  Sweet.

One slight disadvantage: no washer and dryer in the unit.  This bothers the missus more than me, but I told her I'd gladly take care of the laundering.  I prefer doing laundry in an hour-and-a-half rather than four anyway.  Makes for a less-noisy household, too.  Freakin' dish washer is bad enough.  I haven't checked out the laundry facilities here, but should they be inadequate (surely not, in a "luxury" community) I'll need to find a decent laundromat in the neighborhood.

Other quibbles that I'll make someone else's problem if they aren't addressed:  what's with the cheap plastic base moulding in a "luxury" apartment?  And the soot on the ceiling next to the vent?  And the debris shoveled into the storage closet?  Are we in Green Acres here?  I've been a cliff-dweller most of my adult life, so I don't expect faeries and chocolates every time I rent in a complex, but if one's brochure suggests filet mignon, one better not be slingin' Hamburger Helper.  

Ever seeking the easiest way to do any damned thing, I've hit upon an idea for moving our stuff.  Rather than boxing up the books and kuhnick-kuhnacks, I'll use a few of the canvas grocery bags we've accumulated.  This will mean a lot of trips to and fro.  Oh well.  I'd rather do it this way than spend a bunch of time filling unwieldy cartons to carry up and down flights of stairs (of COURSE we're moving into yet another second-floor unit to appease the little woman's security anxieties; I swear next time I'll just offer to install punji sticks in all the windows).  We'll have to hire a couple of guys for the big stuff because the wife can't carry anything that heavy and I'm not about to Ferrigno a sofa by myself; my middle-age insecurities don't yet extend quite that far.

One interesting bit is that this "office" will have to be incorporated into the dining area.  This prospect pleases me more than I would have once thought.  I spend too much time in this room with my back literally turned to everything and everyone else, and I need seriously to break the habit.  This honkin' yuge desk is going away too, and it's about time.  I've broken this thing down to relocate it so often it's a wonder it doesn't fly apart as I type on the keyboard.  Time to go find a new and smaller (and cheaper) one.

Another purchase in the offing:  a king-size mattress set.  We ditched our old one a couple years ago in favor of a friend's plushy queen that she had replaced.  Nice, comfy mattress, but we've subsequently found that both of us reading in bed leads to elbow wars, plus the cats are missing the no-man's-land, plus the woman stored it on it's side and leaning against a wall so that it's all warped (what IS it with people?).  We shopped a couple of mattress shops and have decided to put a king set on lay-away so that when 2020 rolls around we'll have a brand-new bed that I hope will float because I expect we'll all be under water by then unless some kindly aliens drop by to save us from ourselves.  Klaatu barada nikto.


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I'm pleased to relate that so far I've had nary a curse nor beer bottle cast in my direction since I've taken to Albuquerque's streets on the bicycle.  I was "honked at" (more of a "please don't" than a "HOW DARE YOU, WORTHLESS TWO-WHEELED HUMMER-LESS PINKO!" kind of honk, really) once last week when I was looking to segue to the left lane on Ellison with the intent to turn onto Jefferson (I didn't make it; this was at roughly 9:15 a.m. on a weekday morning and there was just enough overtaking traffic to warrant a safer transit at the crosswalk.  So far I feel just as safe as I did in Portland, and my route to work is actually a LOT more fun.

I've had two flats so far (one rear, one front), and neither of them were attributable to the dreaded and despised goat-head or any other roadway hazard.  In both cases the tube simply gave way around the valve.  I was told this might be due to the drier air and friction (I now use talc when replacing tubes).  The missus went to a bike shop while I was at work to purchase a couple of spares for me (I always carry two) and came home with a pair of thorn-resistant tubes, the cartons of which stated they were sized 35c to 43c.  Oops.  I use 32c hard-case tires, so I'd asked her to request 28c-32c; every tube I've ever purchased indicated this sizing.  She was repeatedly assured that they would fit when she voiced concern.  Guess what?  It was like trying to stuff an anaconda into a garden hose.  WTF?  I am not a dab hand at changing tubes, I'll admit, but I actually ruined one tube trying to get it seated properly.  We took them back and we received full refund for them, but the fellow stated again that this was the size recommended, and they had no other size range.  Weird.  I'll try another shop later this week.

I'm outtie.  Enjoy the week.

It's Sunday.  I have been without benefit of spouse for most of three days now.  Can't say I care for it.

The missus is visiting relatives from South Carolina (or is it North Carolina?  It's one of those drawl-y, humid states), and a new job and pet care considerations have dictated that I stay home.  That sounds great, doesn't it?  Love her as I do, she and I shouldn't have to be in each others' pockets all the time, have to have some free-and-clear private and personal time, correct?  So relax, dude.  Watch bad tv, eat what you want, drink more than is good for you, hey?

Y'know?  That's good for, like, four hours.  I was pretty much done with waving my freak flag by noon yesterday.  I'd even entertained the notion of treating myself to dinner out at Los Cuates (preternaturally great New Mexican food!) but talked myself out of it because it felt like I'd be cheating on my wife in a way.  You just DON'T go to a restaurant alone that you've always previously visited with your mate.  It just. isn't. done.

I've watched a lot of CNN and MSNBC, which, if you watch for two hours, is basically the same as watching the same half-hour program four times in a row.  It's true, apparently this big ol' wide world doesn't provide quite enough news of the easily-digestible sort that we Americans demand (two minutes of shaky video showing unrest in Iran followed by the awwww-inspiring story of the rescue of a flushed kitten to wash that tart taste of social concern out of your mouth).  I should have tuned to BBC America for news; at the very least, news reported in that plummy accent at least SOUNDS more interesting and important.  They don't have Nancy Grace, either.  I wish they did.  No I don't.  That's just mean.  To the British.

(I'm happy to report that the local news is by-and-large pretty inoffensive, at least as evidenced by channel 7.  There IS this one guy who has a hairstyle that makes him look like Eddie Munster: The Anchorman Years, but that's not offensive at all.  Maybe I'M offensive for pointing it out.)

I watched a Lifetime movie.  Yes, a Lifetime movie.  Angie Harmon and her family find out their neighbor placed video recording equipment in the attic of their house and taped them without their knowledge.  Creepy.  I can't say that it was a "good" production (other than blurry, back-and-white Angie nudity) in that I felt no compulsion to ring people up and say "You HAVE to see this!", but it was effective.  Boy, was I mad at that creepy neighbor guy.

Then I watched a documentary about UFO mania, hosted by Peter Jennings.  Since Peter Jennings himself beamed up four years ago, it's obvious this program wasn't terribly fresh, but I'll say it was the best examination of the subject I've seen so far.  That's actually not saying very much, as most television fare on the topic tends to owe a debt to the Erich von Däniken School O' Mystic Science-y Stuff.

I could just give you a quick run-down of our weekly viewing schedule too, if you like.  No?  FINE.


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I love this town for bicycling.  Portland, Oregon has one very good MUP (Multi-Use Path, and it is VERY good one) called the Springwater Corridor, and a superior network of bike lanes and routes (ah, but for how much longer?).  Albuquerque's infrastructure seems more organic, though.  Perhaps it's because most paths seem to stretch from greenspace to park to neighborhood along arroyos and natural contours in the landscape.  Maybe it's because of the wide-open views.  Maybe I'm just still dazzled by the scenery.  I can't say anything definitive other than I'm diggin' it.  Today I'm going to drop off some books at Cherry Hills Library and then pedal onward to explore a possible route to work.  If our observations are correct, using paths through Heritage Hills Park and along the North Pino Arroyo will take me most of the way, to within a mile and a half or so of my workplace on Office Blvd.  There's a segue point at Ellison and I-25 that looks a leetle sketchy, but it won't scar my psyche all that much to use a crosswalk for safety's sake, I imagine.  Anything to keep the missus from having to walk to the hospital from the airport Tuesday night.

Gotta get to it.  L8rs.

Tomorrow I hope to hear that I'm even more gainfully and happily employed.  I submitted to a drug screen last Wednesday as the final step in the acceptance process.  Barring the inadvertent ingestion of poppy seeds, I should have no problem there.  I'd hoped to hear from them Friday, but it looks like Monday now.  

That whole idea, of a drug test gone horribly wrong because I ate something that tripped a positive result, makes me wish I'd showed up at the clinic with a small bag of hair and nail clippings too, maybe a cheek swab, my bath towel, anything to demonstrate good faith, y'know?  Certainly they'd look at me askance, but there'd be no doubting my sincerity, right?  

I have a letter of resignation ready to go for the contract job I hold now.  I dread delivering it.  I don't take rejection very well myself, so I always cringe at the thought of conveying dissatisfaction to other people.  This is why I no longer go to the ASPCA; my wife has to bring home all the replacement pets because when I look into the cages at all the animals I want to take ALL of them home and so when we choose only  one it feels as if I've leveled a finger at all the others and thundered "I FIND YOU WANTING!".  Kills me.  Can't do it.

I've been very fortunate in mining the job market here, since I've actually only interviewed for two jobs (I don't count the two or three on-line applications I submitted) since moving to town and got both of them.  I'm particularly pleased with this second opportunity because I'll be working for a non-profit company in aid of a public welfare cause.  That'll be a new experience for me.  The missus has expressed an interest in volunteering her time and effort for the organization as well (the company relies quite heavily upon volunteers), so it's entirely possible that we'll be in essence working together two or three days per week.  Can't beat that.

So now I must find a route that I can ride to work.  I'm feeling a lot more confident on the bike now, thanks to a couple of cruises I've pedaled on Tramway and the Riverside Trail (VERY nice riding, by the way).  The goal now is to find the route offering the best odds for survival to and from work.  Where we live now it'll be a six-and-something-mile ride one way.  That may change within a year because we're going to move from the apartment community in which we live to somewhere a bit more economical (and roomy, and without a fireplace taking up one whole wall in an already undersized living room, thus forcing us to Picasso our furniture in somewhat awkward juxtapositions, culminating in a need for physical therapy to alleviate muscular distress from simply watching our damned television.  Godz save us all from architects who insist upon rooms that have more than four corners.  Gimme a box.  I can create my own "visual interest", 'kay?).

I digress.

We already have another apartment community in mind, should it be necessary in ten months' time to move to yet another apartment, but we hope to find a decent house to rent or a manufactured home to purchase in a good park.  Yes, I said manufactured home.  Or call it a mobile home, or a trailer, I don't care.  At our age, "investing in a home" is just another way to pay for something that, in the end, stays above the ground while you get to lie in a box under it.  Our tastes (other than for broadband access and cable television) are modest.  I'd like a porch or balcony from which I may watch the sun set as I enjoy a beverage with my wife after a day's work.  We aren't that choosy as to what said porch is attached as long as we aren't treated to daily viewings of Domestic 911 or meth fumes.  We like the Northeast Heights area just fine, the fauxdobe generic style notwithstanding, but when I read the words "located in the prestigious Northeast Heights" in real estate brochures my Inner Trotsky starts hurking his hairballs of indignation.  No offense.  I'm just saying that these vague declarations of class distinctions make me uncomfy, and I'm not all that neurotic about where and in what I abide as long as it doesn't necessitate the wearing of Kevlar to fetch my newspaper.

Today I have to change a flat tire on the bike.  Why it's flat I have not a clue.  The tire itself looks no more molested than before I rode the Bosque Trail, but the tube won't accept air.  I even tried a Schrader adapter on the off-chance the Presta port on my pump was malfunctioning; nope.  (Non-cyclist peeps may Google these terms if they desire to know what the Hell I'm talking about, but yeah, I wouldn't either probably.)  These are Bontrager Race Lite HardCase tires I bought specifically to combat the perils of Portland's rubble/glass/syringe-strewn streets, and so goat-heads aside I have trouble believing a few cracked sections of pavement here would breach them.  I suspect the tube simply unsealed, perhaps at the valve seam. (Non-bikers: Zzzzzzzzzzzzz)  I'll find out.  OF COURSE it's the rear tire, and I suck at changing flats anyway.  Grr.

After that, a walk along the North Pino Arroyo Trail through Heritage Hills Park.  We discovered it yesterday from the Cherry Hills Library lot.  It's awesome.

But first, the household chores.

Get out and enjoy the day!

Adios.

It's time to get busy, judging from last week's tragi-comic bicycle adventure (or Miss Adventure, as it's obvious our relationship is not on a first-name basis).

Call it an acclimation proclamation, a call to harms.  In short, I'm going to have to go out on the bike and hurt myself over and over again.  It just needs doing, else I'll remain standing beside the road sniveling "Mommy!  The stupid old air HURT me!"

The facts are these:  Last week I kitted up (that is, I donned some tatty bike shorts, a pair of cut-off sweats for modesty, a jersey, a flapping LOUD aloha shirt, and a helmet with blinking bike light affixed; it's the sort of oufit that had even Portlanders snorting into their lattés, which is fine because if you're laughing at me it means you SEE me), slathered on a layer of 30 SPF, and carried my trusty steed (a 2004 model Trek 7500FX) down the stairs.  My wife agreed to drive SAG for me in the event my effort flagged OR the bright red of our Toyota Yaris was needed to distract a Hummer whose rutting ground I might inadvertently invade.  Turning out of the parking lot, I pedaled my way to Academy Blvd. and turned east toward the Sandias.  The goal was to reach Tramway Blvd, where I would turn north and ride as far as time allowed.

I made it two miles on Academy.  At the most.

As I stood on the sidewalk waiting for the missus to circle around to collect me, as the blackness slowly receded from the edges of my vision, as the slight pink mist of exhaled lung tissue emanating from my gaping mouth abated little by little with each gusting breath, I had some time for reflection, a few minutes of interior dialogue.  Much of it was profane, and I'm really trying to cut down on the coarse language.  Basically the conversation ran thusly:

You have GOT to be [farmin'] kidding me.  You used to commute ten miles a day to and from work with energy to spare, you take a couple of months off, and you only manage TWO MILES, if that?  [Melon farmer]!

Hey!  These aren't the plump, juicy air molecules they grow at sea level, a'ight?  These here are, like, tiny spiky samurai dudes.  Who hate you.  And look, who was it decided that because he wasn't working he didn't see a reason to go out and ride?  What kind of [stuff] is that?  You could've kept it up at least for fitness' sake or better yet, FUN, but oh NO, hand me another [farmin'] doughnut!  This is YOUR [gosh-danged] fault, Humongulus!

I was still castigating myself for my slothful ways when the missus reappeared and pulled over at the curb.  This was humiliating!  Depressing!  Logic, ever timid and too polite, tapped lightly upon my cognitive processes and suggested that of course not all of this regretful situation was due to laziness, that I simply wasn't prepared for the toll the elevation and the rarer air would take, but it really didn't make me feel better.  I was, and still am, very annoyed with myself.

Over the next week my lungs rattled like a plague victim's, my back and chest hurt like Hell, my calves threatened to cramp just walking across the room.  Although I recently -- well, five or six months ago -- had a physical exam and was declared reasonably fit (for a fat-air sucker, at least), it feels as if I've been betrayed by my aging shell of flesh.  Well NUTS TO THAT.  Acclimate I will.  Today I'm going out again, and I'll keep going out until I either conquer the atmosphere, or my colorfully-attired corpse decorates a curb (Ooh pretty!  Is it a shrub?  No, it was moving a little and then it stopped.  Did you hear that noise it made?  Like a cartoon steam shovel!)


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If you're vegetably-inclined (I used to eschew -- as in "not chew" -- anything that grew from the ground, but I've learned better habits these last few years), I can recommend the farmer's market on Eubank Blvd NE.  We discovered it this last week and Holy Cr@p does it smell good in there!  The markets we visited in Oregon were all open-air affairs, so this indoor market really concentrates the aromas, chief of which were from fresh green chiles.  We took some home and the missus made her very first batch of green chile chicken enchiladas.  I about made myself sick.  There's still some left in the fridge, so breakfast this morning will be atypical I think.  Anyway, aside from the chiles there were strawberries that were among the largest and tastiest I've yet eaten.  This kind of place could turn you vegetarian.  

Today we'll be touring the city again, seeing what's to see and familiarizing ourselves with our adopted city.  Maybe get further west of I-25, park the car and stroll Old Town.  This is IF I haven't been collected from the roadway and medivac'd to the nearest hospital before then.

I'm off to read the morning paper and have a bite with the spousal unit.  Enjoy your day.

If I'm not very careful, I could get used to this.  

I've been irradiated by unfettered rays of sunlight for forty straight days now.  What a joy it is to dress every day as if I'm a tourist heading to a luau.  I've worn the two tattered straw hats I have in my collection almost exclusively; the rest won't see the light of day until winter.  The climate rocks.  My hair dries while I'm rinsing it in the shower.  Even the annointing process, wherein I must slather what feels like melted crayon on my as-yet fishy-pale flesh, isn't quite as annoying as I had imagined (and I'm not going without, regardless; our hike through the petroglyphs was lesson enough).  Before the move from Portland I'll admit I felt a little low; now, although the elevation and the rarified air still tug a little (my fault, I'm not working hard enough), I'd say even my posture has improved.  This place is good for me.

Of course, this vacation state of mind will be tempered somewhat (and really, this is a good thing, since it's hard to see ditches when one's head is in the clouds) once I've found an employer whose wages and benefits package merit my attendance most days of the week.  I've been out of the job search business for nearly fourteen years; it feels...alien, like Ellis Island weird.  When did the big-box purveyers start accepting applications almost exclusively on-line?  Talk about feeling anonymous!  I remember once upon a time carping about the interview process, sitting across from people whose interview tactics ranged from silent stares as they watched me fidget in their nasty plastic chairs, to non-stop chatter about the business environment (requiring only nods of comprehension from me; this is actually my favorite), to the seemingly endless sessions of "What would your fellow employees say about you?" and  "Where do you see yourself in five years?" (I've always wanted to answer "At this point I'd say sitting here, I guess.")  

I was once interviewed by an executive type in a three-piece who sat ramrod straight behind his desk and asked very specific questions about my work history, then in response to my answers would hunch over a note pad in front of him and write with his face nearly touching the table.  I swear I saw the tip of his tongue protrude from the side of his mouth.  It was like talking to a grown man while his five-year-old "alter" played secretary.  I could imagine him writing "dont lik him he luks at me funy i want madonals for lunch ok".

I would choose these interrogations, though, to the on-line method of invasive questionaire mixed with psychoanalysis that seems to be preferred these days.  I've submitted applications to two prospective employers in this manner, taking at least thirty minutes of type-and-click each time.  After answering three hundred questions (which were really one hundred questions worded differently three times), even I was convinced I was a misanthropic malcontent, abroad in society only  to alienate customers, rip off merchandise, and rend the very fabric of retail.  Whereas with a true sit-down-and-gab meeting I usually come away with the idea I did pretty well and held my own, after these keyboarding trials I want just to redo the whole thing, or take the whole machine and bury it in a basement under a healthy layer of quicklime.  

A few companies have simply requested resumés via email.  That's not so bad, and as a matter of fact has led to my most promising prospect thus far.  The feeling remains however that the face-to-face meeting is fast becoming passé.  I fear that this is not progress.

Speaking of progress, I have to get out on the bicycle and start acclimating and exploring Albuquerque's bike-tolerant byways before I forget how to ride the damned thing.  I have no excuse.  The missus is of course terrified for my well-being, but I keep assuring her that it'll be fine once I'm out there pedaling away.  Yes, there are places where bike lanes suddenly vanish and wide shoulders abruptly disintegrate into rubble, but I'm always quick to compare this city's nice, relatively wide and uncluttered streets to Portland's narrow, rain-buckled and ruptured asphalt (don't hate on me, my NW peeps, it's the simple truth).  

First thing I'm gonna do: take the fenders off!  Since now I live where the rainfall averages a mere 9.5 inches yearly versus 36.5 inches in PDX, I'll risk a summer downpour now and then.  Once I decide finally to get on with getting out there, my first ride may be north (and then west) on Tramway, downhill with the valley spread out before me.  It's awesome in a car, so I can't wait to see it from the saddle.  

Getting home via the same route will be a bitch bastert, though.  Hopefully my sea-level lungs won't be fluttering on either side of my chin at the end of my maiden desert (chaparral?  whatEVAR) voyage.

Brunch beckons.  L8trs.

It's seven in the morning (as I write this; I tend to dither over structure, get distracted by Boris wanting in my lap, and rise from this chair several times to fetch more coffee, so I might take ten minutes to finish one sentence. Discipline is not my strong suit) and I've got the 'phones on listening to pandora.com and having my morning espresso roast. Playing now is Weezer, "Island in the Sun". This is the opening paragraph, the "Good GODZ just get something on the screen!" paragraph. I have to approach this thing like Chris O'Donnel in Vertical Limit, leaping at a sprint across a chasm, fists full of climbing hammers.

(Two observations here: (1), I regret using a really horrible movie for analogy, and (B), the Internet Movie Database -- www.imdb.com -- thinks that, because I looked up Vertical Limit, I would probably like Gone with the Wind and Speed Racer as well. Why? Is it because there's wind on mountains too? Because the characters make a speedy ascent as they race to rescue the stranded climbers? Actually, I might pay to see Rhett and Scarlet peel out of a burning Atlanta in the Mach 5, just leave stupid people uttering witless dialogue on mountains out of it.)

We've been in Albuquerque 26 days now, and the requisite period of "Oh F**K, what did we DO??" passed after the first, say, twelve hours. I actually expected to feel out of sorts for quite a while, but even though it had been eighteen years since we made such a long-distance move (from Dallas, Texas to Portland) I guess our migratory muscles had kept their tone all this time. Once the furniture was huffed and puffed up the stairs and our stuff started coming out of boxes, it was already feeling good and right that we are here. I think it's an absence of culture shock, really. Becoming acquainted with The Portland Way was a steeper learning curve, whereas in Albuquerque there is more of that "southern state of mind" that we remember from our time in Texas.

Let me state now that I don't intend to play the "better than" game here. I love Portland down to it's grumpy, gothy, dour little soul, and the friends I've made there. I am not glad to be away from Portland. I AM very glad to be in Albuquerque nonetheless. When I make comparisons here, it's in the spirit of embracing the diversity of, and between, both places. So don't hate, 'kay?

Striking Difference #1: Holy crap, I can see two states from here! It's a kick to be driving west and see seemingly half the planet sprawling before us, with volcanic cones rising in the distance. To the northeast of course is the Sandia range, not quite the honkin' YUGE rumpled-blanket green mountains on offer in the Cascade and Coast ranges of the Northwest, but somehow the Sandias are more immediate, more there. See past entries about how I feel about desert environs. I'm diggin' it.



Striking Difference #2: I pump my own gas and it feels great! I almost broke the locking gas cap the first time because hey, I never had to open the damned thing before. (This was actually in Idaho).

Striking Difference #3: I've seen the sun every day so far. That's twenty-six days in a row. Okay, THIS is one aspect I'll unequivocally state is an improvement over Portland Oregon. Portland hasn't seen that many consecutive days of sunshine since Mt. Hood was a speed-bump. My vampire friends of the Northwest will just have to forgive me here.

Striking Difference #4: The Mexican/New Mexican food here is awesome, and I haven't found pot-roast in my enchiladas yet. Red or Green? Make it Christmas, please.

Yadayada #5: They stock stuff in the supermarkets (grocery stores, whatever) that I haven't seen since I was a teenager. King Vitamin cereal! (Think "cereal for people who believe that Cap'n Crunch just won't carry them to their first diabetic seizure quite fast enough".) Wolf brand chili WITHOUT BEANS, as the godz intended!

Numero Six-O: Speed limits of 55 mph are posted on surface streets. I kid you not. We've thus far avoided being run down, or even honked at (unlike, you know, other places). Regardless of the race-track mentality, the motorists here have been quite courteous. We'll see how they react to moi on a bicycle. The little woman has threatened to run over my bike herself rather than see me brave the roads, but the cyclists I've observed look pretty comfy and their shoulders appear lumber-free.

(A side subject: The medians here in the Northeast Heights area are scary; one has to traverse them either to turn left or do U-turns, and the sight-lines are often non-existent. I'm convinced I'm gonna head-on somebody coming around the other way or get side-swiped by someone trying to get by from behind. I'll get over it, but I'll admit it's my least-favorite driving maneuver here.)

Se7en: The arid climate means that static electricity is my homie. I mean, my toothbrush throws sparks, yo. The cats have taken to flinching every time I come near them.

Ate: They could relax with the adobe motif in my 'hood. Just a little. It looks like an SUV dealership on Tatooine up in here. That being said, the architecture here is unique to my experience. I liked walking Portland's sidewalks and admiring the old houses. Much of Albuquerque's building style appears more organic, as if the structures are grown straight from the soil. Portland is jutting, sharp angles. Albuquerque is rounded and wind-buffed. The two couldn't be more different.



Nein!: For the first couple weeks we had a little trouble gathering air molecules. Sleep was actually a bit of a chore. It's eased now, but I'm betting my first bike ride of any real distance is going to be a humbling experience.


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Today our plan is to go to Petroglyph National Monument for a hike. We'll be doing as much sight-seeing and traveling of the state as funds allow; heck, just getting outside the city's light-smog to see the stars at night will be awesome, the best show on Earth for free! For daylight activities I'm gonna have to get used to sunscreen, I suppose, seeing as I intend to be outdoors a LOT and the near-constant sunshine and elevation make for excellent opportunities to grow my melanoma potential. (I flirted with the idea of trying a spray-on tan to cover my pasty hide, but so far have shunned the concept as being simply too dorky even for me.)

A final note: When researching Albuquerque I came across post after post on various websites that warned of the venomous critters here. To date I have seen two moths and a few (admittedly king-size) ants. Not one scorpion. Not one tarantula. No black widows. Nary a snake. This may all change today, but at this point I'm almost disappointed. That's really ridiculous considering that I'm ever-so-slightly entomophobic, huh?

Brunchtime!

Adios.

Dang. We did it.

After months of planning, and saving as best we could, and second-guessing ourselves, and being thrilled at the prospect while at the same time being nearly paralyzed by the amorphous spectre of “what if?”, we finally made good our threat to move to Albuquerque. Our apartment here is still in disarray (knick-knacks to place, pictures to hang), but it already feels like a home. I'm sitting here looking out of a window at sunshine and blue sky and listening to the sounds of what I assume are white-winged doves (I Googled). Pretty soon (after another cup or two of coffee and maybe a donut (Dunkin' Donuts has survived! Except they do lattes now. Gah.), I'll resume the task of putting things where they belong, or rather finding new places for them since we're dealing with somewhat less square footage in this place and we're having to be creative. Later I hope to get out and take more photos, perhaps partake of a New Mexican lunch. I'm already partial to the green chiles, but it's all good.

Turns out the hardest part was loading the truck, and since I did damn little of that myself (thanks again, Rebecca and Davey), I'd say it rocks most excellently to be me.

Actually I have that wrong (not the rocking excellently part). The hardest part turned out to be getting on the damned road. We loaded Sunday afternoon with the intent to set out at five the next morning, but we kept discovering closets and drawers full of possessions that we had apparently overlooked. Maddening! The typical dialogue ensued: “Aaargh! I thought you said you cleaned this out!” “I did!” “Well, the feather must have fallen out of your effing wand then, because guess the eff what?”. As you may have noticed, I'm trying to watch my language here, so I may as well not relate the rest of that conversation. Suffice to say that the next couple of hours were not all that scrapbook-worthy.

When all was said and done, we had this:







That's right, there was no room in the truck for my bike, and so it traveled the entire distance strapped to the trunk of the car. I kept telling myself that, since the ride was double-suspended back there, it was highly unlikely the bike would escape it's bonds in pursuit of a second life as a grill ornament for a semi, but my anxiety drove me to repeatedly check the rear-view mirrors for signs of evasive action in our wake. In fact at every stop I was all over that trailer checking straps and chains and seeing to the welfare of the occupants of the car - the cats.

Cats and travel. I may be the first person in the world to actually put those two terms together separated only by an inclusive. This pairing is nearly never a comfortable one, and in fact during one motel room-to-car transfer, one laminated corrugated-board top-loading pet carrier was rendered useless when it's occupant (Harley) surged through the side of the thing as if it had been made of wishful thinking. Fortunately we were still inside and were able to block his escape. Not all felines find the ride itself that harrowing however:



Boris seemed quite happy to observe the world hurtling by.

Once past The Dalles via I-84 our final glimpse of Oregon saw the hills and dales mantled with snow. Glorious.



A note about my photography. It sucks. I'm aware of it. I simply have no eye for composition, and putting a finer camera than I own in my hands would be akin to giving an ape a sharp rock and pointing at the Monolith. Given that we had little time to sight-see per se (as in, get out of the truck, stroll around, offend natives at our leisure), still I feel my efforts at what I call dashboard photography are fairly passable. Nothing I could do could really convey just how awesome (in the truest definition of the word) is the landscape through which we traveled. Having been valley-hugged in the Northwest for so long, I had forgotten how the vistas east of the Cascade Range illustrate the breath-taking vastness of the West and of the Earth as a whole.





The missus is fond of trees. I like them myself just fine. They're pretty, they provide shade, and they help make oxygen which comes in handy most days. This sort of landscape, though, has always spoken louder to me. It's the Earth with the gloves off.



I'm wishy-washy about my belief in divinity at times, but this is the sort of evidence that straightens the spine. The above photo was taken in Utah somewhat near Arches National Park. I wish we'd had time to visit the park, but soon, soon. We saw a LOT of trailers and vehicles bearing mountain bikes; slickrock is a big attraction in these parts. The little woman suggested that I try that style of biking, which isn't surprising given that we'd been in a truck together for most of two days by then and we'd just recently increased my life insurance.

It was at this point of the journey that we received a phone call from the owner of the moving company that was due to help us unload at our destination. Folks, it's never a good omen when your moving guy calls you on the phone and you can hear that he's choking back tears. The missus had arranged the details with this fellow initially, and she had voiced some reservations about him; nothing definitive, just a “feeling”, not distrust, just a...thing. Well, turns out he was calling to inform us that he would be unable to fulfill the contract (we'd paid the rental company to arrange for the unloading service) because the state of New Mexico had shut his business down. Well. Marvy. The prospect of unloading and lugging every single stick we own up a flight of stairs after having spent three days on the road led to about an hour of frantic phone calls until we found a service that would fill the gap at almost literally the last minute (Manny and his crew with Two Guys and a Truck will forever have our gratitude and I recommend them to anyone!).

We stuck to interstates for the trip through Oregon, Idaho, and Utah, but upon crossing the Colorado border (we only nibbled at the southeast corner before turning due south into New Mexico) the most direct route demanded we segue to state routes. I prefer the smaller routes...except when it's dark, raining, and we're traversing mountain passes. This should be entered into the Olympics as an X-treme sport. My hands and forearms were cramping by the time we emerged from the last one. You can understand why there are no photos of that leg of the journey. All you would see is a wet windshield or the reflection of my distorted face, lips peeled back in trepidation. So much traffic met us as we wound through these passes (almost all huge trucks, of course!), and so poor the visibility, that I had the brights practically disco-strobing the entire time. I'll hang-glide that route before I ever drive it after sundown again. (Neither will I ever again drive I-15 through Salt Lake City; it was like the Death Star trench scene in Star Wars except I didn't have any blasters with which to defend us from the rampaging Mormons.)

We finally made it to our new place at about 10 p.m. Wednesday night, and we were so exhausted that we just yanked cats out of the car and left the truck and trailer parked at the curb. We slept on the floor of the apartment while the cats roamed what I'm sure to them was some sort of gulag.

The next morning we had movers and a cable installer in at the same time, and it all went without a single hitch.





We signed our lease contract that day as well; we actually had no legal business inhabiting the premises before then but the management here have been nothing but gracious and accommodating. I even managed to hook up the digital box, television, stereo, DVD player, and VCR so that all work together as they should, and I don't believe one “eff” passed my lips, which is a nigh water-into-wine miracle (nor did I perspire much over it; yay for an arid climate!).

As I finish for now, the wife is busy returning phone calls to practically everyone we've ever known. Excuse us, we've been a might busy this last week. Speaking of which, I must now close this in order to continue clearing the floor of debris from this nesting process. More photos and blather are forthcoming.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen. We do appreciate you all, and miss you much.

L8trz.

This will be the last entry composed within the state of Oregon.  I'm unplugging all the toys today, rendering unto Caesar, and scraping the last bits into the nearest box.  Tomorrow afternoon we load a truck, and if we have the stamina we just might blast off for the next sunrise by late tomorrow night.  I seriously doubt it, but it's been discussed.

I packed our coffee pot yesterday.  That tastes like a mistake right now.  When the little woman rises we'll make our sleepy way to a coffee shop, but it's not yet six in the ayem and she'll sleep until seven.  My very veins are howling.

I want to say Thank You to everyone who has made this place a home to us.  We will miss you all.  I've passed the new address around, and anyone who didn't get it initially may ask those who did to share.  As soon as we've made landfall and hooked up this machine I'll beam greets.

And, y'know, you're always welcome to visit us UP here in Albuquerque.

Adios, mommies and poppies.







* Albuquerque's elevation ranges from 4900 to 6700 feet above sea level.

I have a cold.  This is great because, y'know, it's an exellent excuse to take a break from my hectic schedule and kick it on the sofa with snacks and cartoons.  My conscience and my work ethic isn't taking a hit here at all.  Oh no.  I've earned a rest.  I'm having fun.  I'm on vacation!

I am SO freakin' bored.

Found an apartment in Albuquerque, check.  Arranged utilities, check.  Reserved a rental truck, moving supplies, and loading/unloading help, check.  Almost every aspect save the physical labor of the move itself is accomplished.  Twenty days remain to repaint this apartment (thus to ensure return of the deposit), schedule cable and broadband for the new digs (Comcast wouldn't schedule transfer of services more than two weeks before the activation date), and pack up all the pictures and knick-knacks.  We'll start all that next week, because why have cartons stacked around too soon?  So instead...holding pattern.  Waiting for Godot.  Except I want to go find Godot and yank his metaphorical ass back here so we can get this circus on the road.  I don't want him offstage being all enigmatic, I want his sleeves rolled up and carting our junk down the stairs to an open and waiting truck.  In fact, I want Godot to be my bitch.


I'm a bit shame-faced to admit that I...WE...already feel a sense of separation from this place.  It's taken only the loss of a job, stacked against the assets of friendships, a decent place to live, and an interesting city, to completely unravel our connection to a place we've called home for over sixteen years.  What does it say about us?  I may have flights of fancy at times but rarely do they manifest in reality to the degree that they warp the paradigm (Paradigm Warp!  Band name!).  Of the two of us, I'm the one usually given to analytical paralysis.  It seemed unwise at the time to risk what stability we had when we moved up here in 1992, and now we're doing it again?  We're mad as hatters.  I hate moving!  Things could go horribly, tragically wrong!  We should be protected from ourselves!  

We are SO psyched.  

First thing after we get moved in and oriented, we're going to join an astronomy club and eventually buy a good telescope.  New Mexico boasts some of the deepest sky around, and we're gonna go digging in it.  We're also going to get a pair of rock hammers and go look for geodes.  As above, so below.  Also:  Learn Spanish.  It's stupid that we've spent most of our lives (other than in the Northwest) in the southern states and have only absorbed, like, ten words of Spanish, eight of them related to food.  

Job?  Yeah, need one of those.  I'd like to say that it won't be yet another warehouse gig.  I want to do something else now.  Bookseller?  That sounds terrific until you consider that you're not paid to read the books.  Maybe something tech-related?  I know how to surf the Internet fairly efficiently, and with two forefingers and one thumb I can rip along at, say, fifteen words per minute.  I've just recently introduced myself to one Linux distribution (that being Ubuntu), so what is that worth?  Hmph.  Food service?  I'll join a carnival before I do that.  Don't prospective employers actually read blogs these days?  Oops.

Before we can do ANYTHING, we have to wait.  That's the difficult bit.  Meanwhile, I haven't been on my bike in a month.  That changes this week.  Just not today, because my lungs are full of glue.  Hell, I'm going to stop this and go lie down.  Colds, they suck the suckness.

Seems like a year since I wrote anything, but that's because my schedule is all fnarkt.  It's a little difficult to maintain a routine when one main facet of it is gone.  I've been trying to pretend I'm on vacation, but one downside of adulthood is that it gets harder to buff the rust off one's disbelief suspension.

Via the wonders of the Innerwebz and the majick that is Google Earth (have you used this?  It's AWESOME), the missus and I have been hunting apartments in Albuquerque (and is "Albuquerque" the only word in existance that contains two "q"s and three "u"s?  It used to be "AlbuRquerque", as in Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 8th Duke of Alburquerque, the founder of the city of Albuquerque, but for some reason they dropped an "r", and okay, no more parenthetical asides this long or containing this many commas), and have managed to decide upon one main candidate and a couple of alternates.  All are near the foothills of the Sandias and all have decent ameneties.  We have also decided to manage the move via one 16-foot rental truck and a car trailer, with the addition of two hired loaders on this end and a pair of UNloaders in ABQ (the little woman isn't physically capable of helping me carry the heavy stuff down a flight of stairs OR up a flight of stairs to the new place; I suggested that, just this once, we could lease a ground-level unit, but she has security anxieties and my suggestion of simply scattering thumb tacks around the doors and windows at night was met with that slight shake of the head and roll of the eyes that has always served as our particular means of silent communication).  I hire labor for moving because I can never bring myself to ask friends; why ask people to do things you KNOW they'll hate?  Doesn't seem very friendly, nome sane?

I'm trying mightily to maintain a positive attitude about this adventure, but I get tunnel-vision something fierce when it comes to moving; I mean I have been known to draw diagrams, even.  With a little imagination I can see myself shoving little shipping cartons around a huge table-top diagram of each apartment like I'm Patton preparing to head off a bulge.  The packing itself is merely a tedious slog, and the loading I leave to alleged professionals, but in this case we'll have to drive the truck and THAT fills me with dread.  Twenty-two hours of driving almost 1400 miles to an unfamiliar city, and towing a car yet.  What if I underestimate the length of the trailer when I change lanes, and scrub someone off the freeway?  What if I stop for fuel (that will cost nearly $500 for the trip, by the way), and get the box stuck because I didn't have the necessary clearance?  Do we dare to afford ourselves a night in a motel and run the risk of our stuff getting stolen in the night?  Add to all this the thrilling prospect of transporting three cats (once we've cornered them and wrested the broken bottles from their paws).  Every worst-case scenario comes lurching and slavering up from the inky depths.  If I allow it, this stuff will drive me mad, which in turn will drive my wife mad, and her brand of madness is the-very-earth-split-asunder variety.  It is in my best interest to find a happy damned place with this whole process, or I may find myself on the side of the road in the desert watching the truck pull away in a cloud of disgusted dust.

Actually, that doesn't really sound bad at all.  I like to walk.

I had an idea to try to earn some extra cash for the trip (and beyond) by writing a series about this whole relocation business and submitting it to Associated Content.  I wrote a first chapter and submitted it for review...and that was most of two weeks ago.  I've not seen or heard a thing.  This does not inspire confidence.  Ah well.  I'll be researching other alternatives, and at the least I can chalk it up to gaining experience.  In the meantime we'll fax off the leasing application to the first-choice apartment community in Albuquerque on Monday and start sifting CraigsList for packing materials.  We'll keep you all posted on our progress.  If any.

endit

Because I enjoy trying once in a while to stick it to The (pasty white but stupifyingly wealthy) Man, I am right now attempting to burn a copy of a Linux OS called Freespire. I've wanted to try a Linux distribution for some time but have always talked myself out of it; my inner geek only willingly comes out for Battlestar Galactica and movies made from comic books these days. This particular distro is allegedly easy for Windows thralls to use, so I'm gonna give it a shot. I should tell you that I have turned a computer or two into smoking rubble in the past, so if I'm not heard from for awhile (I mean longer than this time), you'll know why.

It's snowing. Excellent.

The missus and I watched Tropic Thunder last night. It was offensive AND funny as Hell, and about thirty minutes too long. Robert Downey Jr. received an Oscar nomination for his role, and he won't win because the Academy doesn't give major category awards for movies like that, else John Belushi would have won at least one Oscar before he "sniffed the long long line". Be that as it may, Robert Downey Jr. is actually very convincing as a black man, albeit a black man stuck in 1975, like he'd just gone AWOL from the set of Starsky and Hutch.

I had an appointment with my doctor this last Friday. My blood pressure was 104/70! That was the second time; I asked the nurse (or the blood pressure technician, or the not-the-doctor -- I never know) to take it a second time, from the other arm, because I didn't believe 104/68. I had to ask if this was acceptable because I'd never heard of that first number ever being lower than 120-something unless it was on one of those hospital shows on The Learning Channel where the patient's blood pressure was low because most of his or her blood was on the floor or on the doctors. I was assured that it was fine, which made me happy because that means I keep taking the hydrochlorothiazide instead of upgrading to one of those medications you see advertized on television where the disclaimer runs longer than the list of benefits for the product itself, and that's with the voice-over guy talking reallyreallyreallyreallyFAST. (Is it my imagination, or is every other ad on television now for either pharmaceuticals or automobiles?) Anyway, I assume my increased physical activity of late is partially responsible for the decrease in blood pressure, so now I have to ramp up the exercise. I have another follow-up scheduled for May, and I seriously want to be as fit as possible by then.

This is apropos of absolutely nothing, but the missus just informed me that over half of charitable donations in this country are given by households earning an income of less than $100,000. I hear this kind of thing and just get all Trotsky up in here. It sort of makes me want to fill the first donation barrel I come across, and then pitch it through the windshield of the nearest luxury car. That's not terribly mature (and I'm actually a big believer in civic order), but I can't help the way I feel. Maybe there's hope yet, though. The next eight years (yeah, I said eight) may see this country started on the road toward the revolution it needs.

(By the way, the missus told me this when I went to the kitchen for more coffee. She's sitting at the dining room table reading the newspaper. She didn't enter the room like a Valkyrie in an opera proclaiming this bit of information. She's not given to impromptu announcements of nonsequiter and unsolicited factoids, like "Sixty-one percent of Albanians enjoy Barry Manilow" or "Mites live on eyelashes!"*. That's usually my thing.)

*This apparently is true, AND, as offered on this website, you can shop for mites at Target!

I'm visiting the gym later this afternoon, where I'll have to squeeze in with the New Year's Resolution crowd. You can spot the members of this group easily; they're the glum-looking ones sitting listlessly on the equipment between sets. Like TEN MINUTES between sets. When I go to the gym I'm a pretty focused guy; I go from machine to machine in one circuit and then go around again. Saves time and keeps me on the move. So when I come across one of these fleshy speed bumps idling on the next machine in my circuit I have to resist the urge to snap them with my towel, particularly if the individual also happens to be talking on a cell phone. What is it about people and these got-damn devices? Are people that afraid to be out of touch for a few freakin' minutes? If we ever do get nuked I suspect the electro-magnetic pulse with kill half of these idiots due to withdrawal, long before the blast wave reaches them. "Hi, it's me, did you see the pretty bright light just now? Hello? HELLO!!?? Oh, GOD!! *uurgk!!*".

Oh my. The missus is offering me pancakes. You may go. *flapping a hand dismissively*

I just tried to find a few Grinch-y quotes to include here but all I found was a quote from (yeah) The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and even that passage holds snow in schmaltzy regard. I could keep looking, but maybe it would be best if I just said what was on my mind straight out, which is I hate snow. It's all pretty for, like, an hour or so as I gaze out at it from the cozy blanket-strewn nest of my armchair, and yes, there's a certain frisson of schadenfreude as I observe the cursed souls below on the road, forced to imperil their health and insurance rates, but beyond that it sucketh as none have sucked in the history of suckdom. I am not a fan of snow. I gave up the wonder and awe alloted for snow when I was ten, when I and my family returned to the states from Puerto Rico and I was rudely reminded that much of the rest of the world was allowed to dip below thirty-two degrees Farenheit AND precipitate at the same time.

So now I've missed precious hours of wage-earning from last week and apparently can anticipate a few lost this week, all due to this wretched white pestilence. For a white Christmas I do not pine, is what I mean to infer here.

Okay. Shake it out.



This is my desktop. That road in the picture is cutting through the landscape of West Texas, not far from Abilene. I was in a nostalgic mood yesterday, and so went looking for pictures of old stomping grounds of my youth. I claim Abilene as my home town even though I wasn't born there. My place of birth is a town called Cuyahoga Falls in Ohio, but my family moved to Roswell, New Mexico almost immediately, as if they bore guilt. Come to think of it, the places I've lived all have been sites of bizarre events. The Cuyahoga River caught fire a few years before my birth, the Roswell area has it's UFO mystery (that the citizenry subsequently embraced with a tacky tourist-trap fervor), and Texas has a deeply unfortunate voting history (except for Ann Richards). I can't think of anything about Portland that stands out other than it's home to THE crankiest liberals I've yet encountered, but then I'm a cranky liberal and so I can't stow thrones, can I? ANYWAY. I was in a nostalgic frame of mind and so I looked for pictures of places I've lived and then navigated to eBay to look for stuff I had as a kid. Ah, eBay. I hardly ever buy anything from it, but it's da shizz for wallowing in yesteryear.




My first lunchbox! It's not the Daniel Boone of the television series; this Dan'l seems less politically correct, what with swatting the injun heathens with his musket-butt o' caucasian frontier justice. I loved that lunchbox anyway.




My second lunchbox! The Seaview was coool. I'll still sit and watch an episode of the series if I happen upon one, painful as they are to watch now (Richard Basehart made a better Ishmael than a grumpy admiral, and David ("Al") Hedison made a better man-fly, but that's 'sixties sci-fi drama, folks.




The Seaview was so cool I tried to take this rubberband-driven bath model home with me after a visit to see my aunt and uncle and cousins. Cousin Nate objected. Hey, I was seven years old; what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine unless I get caught trying to smuggle it out of your home under my coat.




Major! Matt! Mason!! After seeing a really scary movie called The Green Slime, I had my Major do battle with a large lump of green Play-Doh. Often Major Matt didn't win. Actually, now that I recall, that wasn't MY Major Matt Mason. It was a friend's. After watching the contortions and agonies his action figure endured at my hands (with horrid screams of "OH GOD AAAAAUUUGHH!", because even at ten I was all about authenticity and "method"), my friend wasn't too keen about sharing any of his other stuff. This was actually repeated a lot during my childhood. My brother's G.I. Joe "with life-like hair" just barely survived a Martian death-ray attack (care of my magnifying glass) that left him mostly life-like hairless and disfigured, a state that my brother tried to reproduce with living flesh once he'd discovered what I'd done.



Tinkertoys. I made weapons with these. Yeah, like you didn't.



I had a Rennaisance chess set like this. I haven't played chess in years (and I suck at it anyway), but I used to play a lot when I was young. In recent years I've tried to win one of these sets on eBay and and have been outbid every time. Obviously I'm not the only one who loved it.


Good memories (for me, anyway; don't you love being dragged along somebody else's self-indulgent trips down Memory Lane? Yes. I know that you do.)

Going to cobble together a brunch. Not so oddly, I'm peckish for a bologna sandwich prepared with Miracle Whip on gluey white bread, but to get it absolutely right I'd have to enclose it in a tin lunchbox and let it sit at room temperature for four hours. Perhaps an experiment for another time.

L8rz.

I'm listening to Gregorian chant. I'm in an a capella mood today I really ought to burn a copy of this disk and play it at work, see how many people pitch themselves head-first out of the dock door. Then again, somebody might complain, or worse yet try to take my disk out. Most of my fellow associates were hired later than five years ago, so they don't know about the time I threw my clipboard and broke a wall clock during a dispute over musical selection. I'm somewhat calmer these days. Somewhat. YMMV.

Ooh, I sound like a tough guy don't I? Oooh. But no, I'm actually this big teddy-bear of a guy. A panda. Pandas are cute and fuzzy even at 500 pounds (or however big they get -- I'm not Marlin Perkins and I'm too lazy right now to look it up), and they just sit and nibble bamboo. This is me. Of course, who knows what a panda will do when his bamboo shoots are ripped from his paws, or when someone tosses his music around. Mad Panda. There's a band name.

Pardon me, I had to put SOMETHING on the screen. I've been staring at it for like five minutes.

I've been looking around for ideas for cash flow augmentation and have been kicking around the idea of writing articles and/or ebooks. Apparently one can write and publish on the 3W and either offer subscriptions, or have one's scribblings underwritten by advertizers who strategically place ads with one's masterpieces and pay a few coppers for each click. Sounds interesting. Sounds crassly commercial. Sounds like I need to investigate further. I have nothing against tasteful commerce, but I'd rather my readership avoid the risk of seizures brought about by luridly-colored and flashing adverts. If someone is beset by involuntary spasms and bowel movements, I'd much rather it be as a direct result of reading my junk. Anything for a reaction. C'mon, who else but attention whores write blogs?

One possibility presented to me by a nearest and dearest: Pornography. And y'know, on the face of it, it's not a bad idea for someone who has finally lost all self-respect for himself. Sex sells and all that. Here's the rub, though (*snicker*): how does one go about genericizing smut? Can I stoop to writing standard "Tab A in Slot B/C/D" scenarios, sanitized to the nth degree against anything that represents my personal predilections? Because, boiz 'n' grrls, I don't want anybody in my head that far. Really. What I find erotic is my own bidness and I think that (#1), many of you wouldn't care for what I have scrabbling and croaking back there in the dark recesses, and (#2), I wouldn't care to share it with you anyway, outside of a very secure room with plastic sheeting and a Costco-sized box of handi-wipes. Actually, should my personal shudderies become known, I'd probably be mortified by the reactions of friends and associates regardless of whether they were, uh, supportive.

One Reaction: "Have we met? Umm, gotta go. Hell NO I'm not shakin' your hand!".

Another Reaction: "Dude! What are you doing in my head?? Awesome!"

If I decide that I really prefer cash over common sense, I'm sure as Hell not going to use my own name. I'd have to choose something genteel-sounding to offset the fact that the writer has elected to debase him(my)self. Nigel Fappington. Fenton Slappy-Smythe. Okay, getting silly now.

By the way, if I ever elected to engage in cyber-sex (which I do NOT because it's awkward and giggle-inducing), I would follow this guy's example. Go read it, I'll wait...

As I've mentioned before (and will probably state again and again until the deed is done, thereby ensuring that there will be sighs of relief all 'round when we finally DO hit the road), we intend to move to the southwest within a couple of years. Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Roswell, and even Abilene (Texas, not Kansas) are possibilities. The biggest question for me is HOW to move. I do not relish the idea of pulling a trailer behind a car filled with humans and cats. That's how we came to Oregon, with a swaying U-Haul 8X10 flapping streamers of orange tarp and a doped up orange tabby gnawing on my ankle in a druggy delirium. I would love to have our furnishings hauled overland separately while we took the train, but I've never traveled via rail and have to research cost aaand okay I just did and it's $352.00 for two days of three trains and two bus transfers no-uh freaking-uh way-uh. I'd rather walk and drag the missus and the cats via travois. I think flying will have to do. And then I intend never to get on another freakin' commercial aircraft again. That love affair died the last trip we took.

Really, I must go. I have other things to accomplish besides chin-wag with you lot.