I'm way behind on blogging about my recycling-picking-up adventures. I've also been on vacation a bit lately, spending a weekend in the Silver City area and this past week in northern Michigan (my first ever visit to Michigan, it included a trip to the fabled Upper Peninsula, my first ever chance to see a home game of my longtime favorite sports franchise, the Detroit Tigers, and several hours spent picking wild blueberries, among other activities). However, I did some collecting before these trips, and am now getting around to listing them while cleaning the house. I don't remember the dates on these, so I'm just going to list them all at once.
Trip #4: ~1 mile, OSE building to house:
Total of 26 pieces, although this counts as one piece an entire Alibi, which maybe should count as like 30 sheets of paper, as we all know that is what it would have ended up as had I not picked it up.
2 glass bottles
8 aluminum cans
13 plastic bottles
3 pieces of paper
Trip #5: ~1.1 miles, Community garden to house:
Total of 21 pieces
1 glass bottle
3 aluminum cans
14 plastic bottles
2 pieces of paper
1 chipboard box
Trip #6: ~0.6 miles, ATC to house:
Total of 39(!) pieces (my plastic bag become overburdened and started to tear; I had to leave it somewhere, walk home, get another bag, and come back to complete this collection)
18 glass bottles
5 aluminum cans
13 plastic bottles
3 pieces of paper
Total number of pieces so far is 158:
38 glass bottles
31 aluminum cans
67 plastic bottles
6 plastic bags
13 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box
1 tin can
1 chipboard box
Amazing what a holiday weekend (4th of July in this case) will do to a town.
Showing posts with label albuquerque. Show all posts
Showing posts with label albuquerque. Show all posts
Monday, July 21, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Recycling ABQ 3
I had to go water the garden today, so I made another walking trip up to my old house at 11th and Mountain here in town. I noticed a lot of stuff on my way up, but decided not to pick it up, rather getting it on the way home. Today I took a plastic bag with me for collection. After doing my thing at the garden, I started collecting recyclables, but took a different route home, stopping at the old house to pick up mail (the postal system is seriously ridiculous here, and it apparently takes a month to start getting your mail forwarded; I have never had this problem during all of my moves in Arizona, where mail starts getting sent ahead pretty much immediately) and chat with the old landlady, then stopping at the grocery store.
On this 1.1 mile trip, I collected a total of 25 pieces:
1 glass bottle
6 aluminum cans
12 plastic bottles
2 plastic bags
3 pieces of paper
1 tin can
Total number of pieces so far is 72:
17 glass bottles
15 aluminum cans
27 plastic bottles
6 plastic bags
5 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box
1 tin can
On this 1.1 mile trip, I collected a total of 25 pieces:
1 glass bottle
6 aluminum cans
12 plastic bottles
2 plastic bags
3 pieces of paper
1 tin can
Total number of pieces so far is 72:
17 glass bottles
15 aluminum cans
27 plastic bottles
6 plastic bags
5 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box
1 tin can
Recycling ABQ 2
This morning I walked Alison to the ATC again and continued my recycling-clean-up project. I took a slightly different route, and maybe paid a little more attention, and came up with even more recyclables than yesterday. Today I found a plastic bag on the road, and used that to collect stuff. Today's total was 26 total pieces collected:
3 glass bottles
8 aluminum cans
9 plastic bottles
4 plastic bags
2 pieces of paper
Total number of pieces so far is 47:
16 glass bottles
9 aluminum cans
15 plastic bottles
4 plastic bags
2 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box
3 glass bottles
8 aluminum cans
9 plastic bottles
4 plastic bags
2 pieces of paper
Total number of pieces so far is 47:
16 glass bottles
9 aluminum cans
15 plastic bottles
4 plastic bags
2 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box
Monday, June 23, 2008
Recycling ABQ 1
I have decided to undertake a new project. This project takes very little extra time out of my schedule, but I hope it will be eye-opening. The premise is this: when I walk around town (which I do much of the time), I am going to begin collecting recyclables that I find on the street. I am going to document how much, what, and when I collect.
I started this yesterday with an eye toward glass. I was walking Alison down to the ATC in the morning, and I noticed two beer bottles, one of them on top of a newspaper box. I decided that I needed to collect these bottles because otherwise they would end up as broken glass all over the sidewalk, as tends to happen; I left them there for the return trip. On my way back home from the ATC, I found seven (SEVEN!) beer bottles in a parking lot, obviously left there by jackass revelers from the weekend. Carrying these all in my hands was a little difficult, but then I found a cardboard box lying next to the curb, as if sent there specifically to help me collect recyclables! I ended up getting home (keeping in mind this is a ~2/3 mile trip) with 21 total pieces collected:
13 glass bottles
1 aluminum can
6 plastic bottles
1 cardboard box.
Perhaps after the weekend it won't be as bad?
My other motivation for doing this is that these recyclables on the street will most likely never get recycled (this is based on intuition, not facts). So I do not collect trash, just recyclables. I also have been coming up with some ground rules for this project:
1. I won't pick up anything disgusting.
2. I won't put myself in danger.
3. I won't pick up glass shards, although large pieces of bottles are ok.
I hope this little project of mine will make downtown Albuquerque a slightly nicer place, and maybe inspire some other people to clean up their own towns.
I started this yesterday with an eye toward glass. I was walking Alison down to the ATC in the morning, and I noticed two beer bottles, one of them on top of a newspaper box. I decided that I needed to collect these bottles because otherwise they would end up as broken glass all over the sidewalk, as tends to happen; I left them there for the return trip. On my way back home from the ATC, I found seven (SEVEN!) beer bottles in a parking lot, obviously left there by jackass revelers from the weekend. Carrying these all in my hands was a little difficult, but then I found a cardboard box lying next to the curb, as if sent there specifically to help me collect recyclables! I ended up getting home (keeping in mind this is a ~2/3 mile trip) with 21 total pieces collected:
13 glass bottles
1 aluminum can
6 plastic bottles
1 cardboard box.
Perhaps after the weekend it won't be as bad?
My other motivation for doing this is that these recyclables on the street will most likely never get recycled (this is based on intuition, not facts). So I do not collect trash, just recyclables. I also have been coming up with some ground rules for this project:
1. I won't pick up anything disgusting.
2. I won't put myself in danger.
3. I won't pick up glass shards, although large pieces of bottles are ok.
I hope this little project of mine will make downtown Albuquerque a slightly nicer place, and maybe inspire some other people to clean up their own towns.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Baseball and Fireworks!
This weekend we went to another Albuquerque Isotopes game at beautiful Isotopes Park. They were playing the Nashville Sounds, who I remember watching many times back in the day at Omaha. I went with the wife as well as her "little sister" (she's in Big Brothers Big Sisters of America).
The game started out not-so-hot. The 'topes went down 3-0 after the top of the 2nd, but the home team busted out 10 runs in the bottom of the 2nd. You'd think this would translate to a laugher, but the Sounds actually came back to 10-9 by the middle of the 7th. The final score was 15-10 'topes, and there was a total of 9 home runs in the game, and not a single one came out onto the berm. Several cleared the weird hill in center field, and some jerks actually jumped the fence to get one of the balls. And somehow the park staff didn't do anything about it. Blergh.
The main attraction to going to the game was the fact that it was a fireworks night. The fireworks displays are pretty good for a ballpark display, and the best thing is that, if you are on the berm, the fireworks are pretty much directly over you. It's a wild time; next time I'll try to remember to take the camera and the tripod. And the music is patriotastic! Actually, it's a weird mixture of blind patriotism and classical music, but it's much more fun to make fun of "Proud to be an Amerrcan." We ended up getting the little sister home after 11pm because of all the offense.
The only bad part of the evening was that the berm was packed with children who were running around, screaming, stepping on our blanket, even running into us at times. And stealing other kids' baseballs. But any night at the ballpark is a good night.
The game started out not-so-hot. The 'topes went down 3-0 after the top of the 2nd, but the home team busted out 10 runs in the bottom of the 2nd. You'd think this would translate to a laugher, but the Sounds actually came back to 10-9 by the middle of the 7th. The final score was 15-10 'topes, and there was a total of 9 home runs in the game, and not a single one came out onto the berm. Several cleared the weird hill in center field, and some jerks actually jumped the fence to get one of the balls. And somehow the park staff didn't do anything about it. Blergh.
The main attraction to going to the game was the fact that it was a fireworks night. The fireworks displays are pretty good for a ballpark display, and the best thing is that, if you are on the berm, the fireworks are pretty much directly over you. It's a wild time; next time I'll try to remember to take the camera and the tripod. And the music is patriotastic! Actually, it's a weird mixture of blind patriotism and classical music, but it's much more fun to make fun of "Proud to be an Amerrcan." We ended up getting the little sister home after 11pm because of all the offense.
The only bad part of the evening was that the berm was packed with children who were running around, screaming, stepping on our blanket, even running into us at times. And stealing other kids' baseballs. But any night at the ballpark is a good night.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Take me out to the ballgame!
Look! It's Matt! And he's alive!
Yes, I apologize for not blogging at you for the past 1.5 months. I imagine this is my longest drought ever. I just didn't have anything interesting to say (not that that usually stops me). Finally, though, a subject about which I can speak passionately: Baseball!
That's right, last night was the home opener for our beloved local Isotopes, and I, the wife, AW, and BT all bundled up to attend. We sat on the berm, where the team has raised ticket prices 20% since last year (from $5 to $6)! Also, I am extremely sad to report that Isotopes Brewing Company has apparently gone out of business, so no more Slammin' Amber or Isotope Ale. This makes me very, very sad, as these beers were quite excellent (especially considering that the team had no real reason to make a really good beer, since people would buy it anyway for the novelty), and the best beer available at the ballpark (they also have Fat Tire). Certainly the freshest! They were also cheap for ballpark beer, about $5-6 a pint. A trip to the ballpark will not be quite the same any more, and I'll probably no longer buy beer at the park in Albuquerque.
Our ballpark has been recognized by many as one of the nicest in the country, and in the pregame ceremonies (which included our mayor receiving an oversized novelty rent check) one person claimed it was the nicest in all of baseball. Now, we're not going to be visiting PNC Park in Pittsburgh for another month yet, and that's been called the best park in the majors; we'll see.
The theme of the evening was "cold." It was 47 degrees Fahrenheit when the game started, and the sun quickly set. Some of the players were wearing these cold-weather head things like Placido Polanco does. Of course, others were in t-shirts and whatnot. I had a thick fleece over a thinner one, and Alison was even more bundled up:
BT is the only one of the four of us who paid attention to the weather and truly prepared for it. We sat on the berm, as we always do, and I don't know whether this made us colder or warmer. The 'topes did not get off to a very good start, and were down 5-2 after the top of the third. The cold made it difficult to pay attention to the game, and I hadn't been around AW for awhile, so he had to assail me with a couple months' worth of puns in the span of a few hours. I was watching the scoreboard to monitor the major league scores (the Tigers actually won a game!) and the temperature as it continued to drop through the game. 46...45...44. At some point each of us had to get up and walk around for awhile to warm up. AW got some Crown Royal, Alison and BT went to locate hot chocolate (unsuccessfully - the concessioners must have run out), and I went to the warmest place in the park - the gear store. I didn't buy anything, although I was sorely tempted.
After the 5th, it was 6-3 Redhawks and about 44 degrees. AW, Alison, and I were all ready to go home at this point, but BT refused to leave before the end of the game. I guess we all felt emasculated, and stuck it out. I took a picture in the 7th after the temperature dropped to 42 degrees:
We ended up staying until the end of the game. The announced attendance was over 9,200, but there could not have been more than a couple hundred people left at the end of the game, and maybe fewer than 10 on the berm. Go us! The temperature when we left was 41 degrees, and the Isotopes lost their home opener.
Anyway, we were (or I was, anyway) glad to go see a baseball game for the first time this season, and look forward to seeing some more. I have two new major league parks on my schedule this summer (PNC Park in Pittsburgh and Comerica in Detroit), so that will be pretty exciting and blogs are sure to be forthcoming!
Yes, I apologize for not blogging at you for the past 1.5 months. I imagine this is my longest drought ever. I just didn't have anything interesting to say (not that that usually stops me). Finally, though, a subject about which I can speak passionately: Baseball!
That's right, last night was the home opener for our beloved local Isotopes, and I, the wife, AW, and BT all bundled up to attend. We sat on the berm, where the team has raised ticket prices 20% since last year (from $5 to $6)! Also, I am extremely sad to report that Isotopes Brewing Company has apparently gone out of business, so no more Slammin' Amber or Isotope Ale. This makes me very, very sad, as these beers were quite excellent (especially considering that the team had no real reason to make a really good beer, since people would buy it anyway for the novelty), and the best beer available at the ballpark (they also have Fat Tire). Certainly the freshest! They were also cheap for ballpark beer, about $5-6 a pint. A trip to the ballpark will not be quite the same any more, and I'll probably no longer buy beer at the park in Albuquerque.
Our ballpark has been recognized by many as one of the nicest in the country, and in the pregame ceremonies (which included our mayor receiving an oversized novelty rent check) one person claimed it was the nicest in all of baseball. Now, we're not going to be visiting PNC Park in Pittsburgh for another month yet, and that's been called the best park in the majors; we'll see.
The theme of the evening was "cold." It was 47 degrees Fahrenheit when the game started, and the sun quickly set. Some of the players were wearing these cold-weather head things like Placido Polanco does. Of course, others were in t-shirts and whatnot. I had a thick fleece over a thinner one, and Alison was even more bundled up:
BT is the only one of the four of us who paid attention to the weather and truly prepared for it. We sat on the berm, as we always do, and I don't know whether this made us colder or warmer. The 'topes did not get off to a very good start, and were down 5-2 after the top of the third. The cold made it difficult to pay attention to the game, and I hadn't been around AW for awhile, so he had to assail me with a couple months' worth of puns in the span of a few hours. I was watching the scoreboard to monitor the major league scores (the Tigers actually won a game!) and the temperature as it continued to drop through the game. 46...45...44. At some point each of us had to get up and walk around for awhile to warm up. AW got some Crown Royal, Alison and BT went to locate hot chocolate (unsuccessfully - the concessioners must have run out), and I went to the warmest place in the park - the gear store. I didn't buy anything, although I was sorely tempted.
After the 5th, it was 6-3 Redhawks and about 44 degrees. AW, Alison, and I were all ready to go home at this point, but BT refused to leave before the end of the game. I guess we all felt emasculated, and stuck it out. I took a picture in the 7th after the temperature dropped to 42 degrees:
We ended up staying until the end of the game. The announced attendance was over 9,200, but there could not have been more than a couple hundred people left at the end of the game, and maybe fewer than 10 on the berm. Go us! The temperature when we left was 41 degrees, and the Isotopes lost their home opener.
Anyway, we were (or I was, anyway) glad to go see a baseball game for the first time this season, and look forward to seeing some more. I have two new major league parks on my schedule this summer (PNC Park in Pittsburgh and Comerica in Detroit), so that will be pretty exciting and blogs are sure to be forthcoming!
Friday, December 14, 2007
Welcome, winter weather.
I got up at 6:12 this morning to get myself down to my vanpool. I usually try to get up at 5:40 (my alarm goes off at 5:30) so I can shower and maybe even eat breakfast. This morning I had to sacrifice both to laziness. I left the house at 6:30, and arrived at the parking lot just a little before 6:40. The van is supposed to pick us up at 6:45, but that time came and went with no sign of a van. This happened once recently, and that time there was only one person at the north stop (I board the van at the second, south stop), and he apparently didn't want to drive because he sat there and waited for a long time before deciding to drive down. He also almost ran us off the road, leading to my first experience driving the vanpool van. But that's another story.
The van never showed up, but a car of usual van-riders did arrive around 6:50 to 6:55. Four of them piled out of a fairly small car. There were two of us waiting at the south stop for the van. Hmm. I decided not to go down to Socorro today because of that, and am instead working from Albuquerque. This fact has allowed me to observe the winter weather happening down here near the Rio Grande this fine day.
7:00 a.m.: When I started biking home, it was overcast and nothing was going on. Right around 7, we started getting an extremely light snow. Very exciting; I haven't been snowed on since last year. That snow steadily increased as I got home and walked Alison back to her bus stop for her trip to work. By the time I got home, a little bit had actually accumulated.
8:30 a.m.: By this time, the snow had stopped completely. We had probably about a tenth of an inch or so of accumulation. I took this picture:
10:00 a.m.: Most of the snow has sublimated or melted away. I figure this is the last of our winter weather today.
11:30 a.m.: The sun is out and shining in through the skylight above me.
12:02 p.m.: Graupel starts, up to pea-sized. At first I thought it was hail because it was hitting the skylight pretty hard. But no, it was just graupel. Large graupel lasts only a few minutes, and turns into very small grains of the stuff.
12:15 p.m.: Graupel stops. Within five minutes, much of the clouds have gone away and the sun is shining again. It looks pretty clear to the west, which is where our weather tends to come from this time of year. Out east looks damn ugly. That's where Alison works. I can't see the mountains at all, so they are probably getting hammered. I hope she can make it home today.
13:37 p.m.: The sky has clouded up again, and there is the lightest little bit of snow falling. Pretty much everything that had collected previously has melted. There was a cat in the yard, but he didn't want to be my friend.
13:53 p.m.: The light snow has stopped again, and the sky is once again clearing up fairly quickly.
14:31 p.m.: Extremely light snow, but the sky is clearing up already.
After that, it cleared, darkened, and cleared one more time. What strange weather. This morning it was 8 degrees in the Valles Caldera, and snowing heavily. We will not be making a trip up there this weekend.
The van never showed up, but a car of usual van-riders did arrive around 6:50 to 6:55. Four of them piled out of a fairly small car. There were two of us waiting at the south stop for the van. Hmm. I decided not to go down to Socorro today because of that, and am instead working from Albuquerque. This fact has allowed me to observe the winter weather happening down here near the Rio Grande this fine day.
7:00 a.m.: When I started biking home, it was overcast and nothing was going on. Right around 7, we started getting an extremely light snow. Very exciting; I haven't been snowed on since last year. That snow steadily increased as I got home and walked Alison back to her bus stop for her trip to work. By the time I got home, a little bit had actually accumulated.
8:30 a.m.: By this time, the snow had stopped completely. We had probably about a tenth of an inch or so of accumulation. I took this picture:
10:00 a.m.: Most of the snow has sublimated or melted away. I figure this is the last of our winter weather today.
11:30 a.m.: The sun is out and shining in through the skylight above me.
12:02 p.m.: Graupel starts, up to pea-sized. At first I thought it was hail because it was hitting the skylight pretty hard. But no, it was just graupel. Large graupel lasts only a few minutes, and turns into very small grains of the stuff.
12:15 p.m.: Graupel stops. Within five minutes, much of the clouds have gone away and the sun is shining again. It looks pretty clear to the west, which is where our weather tends to come from this time of year. Out east looks damn ugly. That's where Alison works. I can't see the mountains at all, so they are probably getting hammered. I hope she can make it home today.
13:37 p.m.: The sky has clouded up again, and there is the lightest little bit of snow falling. Pretty much everything that had collected previously has melted. There was a cat in the yard, but he didn't want to be my friend.
13:53 p.m.: The light snow has stopped again, and the sky is once again clearing up fairly quickly.
14:31 p.m.: Extremely light snow, but the sky is clearing up already.
After that, it cleared, darkened, and cleared one more time. What strange weather. This morning it was 8 degrees in the Valles Caldera, and snowing heavily. We will not be making a trip up there this weekend.
Monday, September 17, 2007
The in-laws visit!
So this weekend Alison's parents came to Albuquerque from Phoenix to visit us. They arrived at lunchtime on Saturday and stayed until after lunch on Sunday. Lots of driving for little old us. We started out by going to the Plaza for lunch, eating at La Placita Restaurant, where we took my parents when they visited a couple weeks ago. I went with the Enchiladas Ranchera, which translates to three enchiladas of varying ingredients (ground beef, chicken, and cheese). It was OK, but not my favorite thing I've had there. The salsa was spicy today.
After that we went back to the house and decided to go visit the Sandia Peak Tramway, which we had never taken before. It is very expensive ($17.50 per person), but pretty neat. Most of the pictures below are of the tram ride.
Tram car at the base. You can see that the off-duty operators get to ride strapped to the top of the tram car. This is what we in the business call "bat-shit insane."
After that we went back to the house and decided to go visit the Sandia Peak Tramway, which we had never taken before. It is very expensive ($17.50 per person), but pretty neat. Most of the pictures below are of the tram ride.
Tram car at the base. You can see that the off-duty operators get to ride strapped to the top of the tram car. This is what we in the business call "bat-shit insane."
Picture out the west side of the tram. It was getting on toward late afternoon so the sun is in a bad spot for pictures. There were probably about 20 of us in the car, so we were far less cattle-car-packed-in than we had been in the Funicular in Switzerland.
Picture taken off the east side of the mountains. You're looking down one of the chair lift runs toward apparently a southern tip of the Santa Fe Mountains.
This is one of the chairs on that very chair lift. Alison said that she would never take this lift due to the extreme apparent age of the chairs. For safety there is a chain that you can put across your lap.
A picture of another chair on a different lift from below. We came to the conclusion that these chairs are not meant for discomfort, but rather that they are likely padded in the winter when they're running.
Please leave the flowers! There were very few flowers up here to leave. We did not take this path.
A picture of the Williams family (minus one) above the chair lift. Smiles all 'round.
Another photo down the chair lift run toward the east.
Now if you can't beat Ned to this point, you should really give up.
A photo of a hang glider up on top of the crest. There were about 4 of these up there and they had a big crowd gathered around them.
A photo toward the south from the tramcar on the way back down. This is looking down the west face of the Sandia Mountains. After we came down off the mountains, we drove over to the Chama River Brewing Company just off I-25. We have been here for lunch a couple times before, and it's excellent food. I had a burger and Alison had hummus and sweet potato fries. I also had a beer that I am pretty sure was different from the one I ordered, but it was still quite good. After that we went bowling, which was great fun. I bowled a 152 in my first game, which I'm pretty sure was my best game ever. It would have been even better had I not tossed two gutter balls after my initial strike in the tenth frame. The second game was not so good (115).
Alison bowling. The sweatshirt was quickly removed. After bowling we went home and had a little bit of the peach pie I had made on Friday. That was it for Saturday! On Sunday morning we got up and went over to take a walk on the Rio Grande, going from the parking area on Central down to Tingley Beach and back. After that we went out to eastern Albuquerque to eat lunch at the Olive Garden. This was our second visit there this week, but there's nothing wrong with that. Breadsticks have made a bit of a comeback there, although the ends are still kind of dry and hard. After lunch the in-laws headed out of town and we got back to normal life.OK, the post was far more boring than the actual weekend. Also, this is my 100th post! But only on blogspot; apparently I have missed 5 posts on myspace...if you still only look at my Myspace blog, this is probably a good reason to switch.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Outdoors movie watchin'
So last night I got together with Arun, BT, and friend R out at the Albuquerque Civic Plaza downtown for the first of five Civic Cinema events this summer. The City is putting on free movies downtown, which is pretty exciting! Did I mention it's free?
The movie last night was the classic Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. I had seen this movie once before, when we had a weeklong substitute teacher in high school. What a great movie, I think I enjoyed it more this time around. There will be four more movies this summer: Lonely are the Brave, Some Like it Hot, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and To Kill a Mockingbird. The last is the only one I've seen. I will be gone next weekend one way or another, but otherwise I hope to get to all of these.
Today I got the book and I am running a desperate campaign to avoid spoilers. I have had it for like 1.5 hours and have not yet opened it! Trying to get through another, fairly long article first.
The movie last night was the classic Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. I had seen this movie once before, when we had a weeklong substitute teacher in high school. What a great movie, I think I enjoyed it more this time around. There will be four more movies this summer: Lonely are the Brave, Some Like it Hot, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and To Kill a Mockingbird. The last is the only one I've seen. I will be gone next weekend one way or another, but otherwise I hope to get to all of these.
Today I got the book and I am running a desperate campaign to avoid spoilers. I have had it for like 1.5 hours and have not yet opened it! Trying to get through another, fairly long article first.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Baseball + tonight = awesome
Tonight a friend and I attended game 2 of the 4-game Isotopes-ORoyals series. This time we avoided the berm, sitting down in the reserved seats on the first base (visitors' dugout) side. We thought it would be intolerably sunny and hot (it hit 101 in the Burque today), but the seats were shaded by the time we got there. The chairs themselves were hot, but it was OK.
So after the weirdness of last night, I was ready for things to possibly be worse (in relation to my rooting for the visiting team). But things went really smoothly; I still clapped when the Royals did good things, and was silent when the Isotopes did. One guy sitting in the row in front of me turned around at one point and asked if we were Royals fans, and I affirmed that I was, and that I had grown up near Omaha. He was not at all upset. If the circle-running guy from the previous night is reading this, this guy's reaction to me rooting for the Royals was the correct one.
The Isotopes were winning 5-3 going into the 9th inning, when they put two Royals on base. I said to my friend that the go-ahead run was at the plate. This guy then proceeded to crank a home run to left-center, putting the Royals up 6-5. The game would end that way, which was pretty exciting for me. So that's two nights, two one-run games, one going to each team. Exciting series, and I can't be upset with the results, even though Omaha lost the first game.
Now I'm in Socorro. Bleh.
So after the weirdness of last night, I was ready for things to possibly be worse (in relation to my rooting for the visiting team). But things went really smoothly; I still clapped when the Royals did good things, and was silent when the Isotopes did. One guy sitting in the row in front of me turned around at one point and asked if we were Royals fans, and I affirmed that I was, and that I had grown up near Omaha. He was not at all upset. If the circle-running guy from the previous night is reading this, this guy's reaction to me rooting for the Royals was the correct one.
The Isotopes were winning 5-3 going into the 9th inning, when they put two Royals on base. I said to my friend that the go-ahead run was at the plate. This guy then proceeded to crank a home run to left-center, putting the Royals up 6-5. The game would end that way, which was pretty exciting for me. So that's two nights, two one-run games, one going to each team. Exciting series, and I can't be upset with the results, even though Omaha lost the first game.
Now I'm in Socorro. Bleh.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Stupid + baseball = tonight
Tonight the Wahi and I attended the first of a four-game set between the visiting Omaha Royals and the hometown Albuquerque Isotopes. I was pretty excited about this series because I grew up watching the Royals play back when I lived in a suburb of Omaha. The Royals represent a lot to me in terms of my childhood, as does their stadium, Rosenblatt. Even though I don't like the major league Royals, I will always root for Omaha.
The game started at 7:05, so Arun headed over after work and we drove down to the UNM area to eat at Saggios, an Albuquerque pizza institution. It's tasty, as long as you get some extra toppings on your pizza; the plain cheese is a bit cardboardy.
After that we headed to the game and got our seats out on the berm ($5 each, can't beat it). At this time of year, for a standard 7:05 start, the sun is annoying for a little while, but after that it gets just beautiful. Sitting on the grass can wear on you after a few hours, especially if you have a boney butt.
The game started out real slow, with a total of 10 runs scoring in the first two innings; these two innings lasted just a few minutes under an hour. After that the game moved on more quickly, and included a nice, although not stunning sunset.
Now, being a fan of the visiting team, I cheered when the Royals did good things. I would clap when they scored a run, and I raised my voice twice through the 10-inning game to say "Let's go Royals!" I would classify my rooting as wholly unintrusive. And if the Royals had blown out the Isotopes, I would certainly not have rubbed it in, as I have known others to do at games. I try to be fair and nice, things that I know, I know, are not really part of being a sports fan. Apparently my low-level cheering rankled at least one person on the berm.
Toward the end of the game (the bottom of the seventh, to be exact), one of the Isotopes players hit a home run out to left field. This guy sitting near me, who was there with his wife (I presume) and their two young sons (I presume) jumped up, started going crazy with cheering. Nothing too weird there, except that it put them up from 7-5 to 8-5, rather than being, for example, a game-winning home run. However, after that (and this seemed to happen in slow-motion), this guy ran over toward Arun and myself, and actually hustled a circuit around us, ran out from right to left in front of us, then left to right behind us. He then ran back over to his spot with his family (I presume), sat down, and said "Take THAT, Nebraska fans!" I mentioned quietly to Arun that maybe I should disabuse this guy of the idea that they are the Nebraska Royals rather than the Omaha Royals, but decided that would not really accomplish anything. He didn't say anything else to us before or after that throughout the game.
After this point it started sprinkling a little (monsoon season IS upon us), and I must say that it was the single most pleasant and refreshing rain I have ever sat in. So gentle that you don't get wet because the drops that have hit you evaporate away. Cool enough that it is refreshing, but not so cold that it is uncomfortable. Not intense enough to create runoff on the hillside upon which we were sitting. It was so nice, and so beautiful. Of course, this being the Southwest, this gentle rain also caused a mass exodus of a great majority of the 6,700+ people who attended the game.
Now, the Royals scored three runs to tie up the game in the top of the ninth inning to introduce some tension into the contest, and it went into extra innings. Of course, most everybody had left, so not a lot of people got to see the excitement. I was hoping for a home run in extra innings, since nobody else was out there to retrieve it. But alas, no such luck. Instead, the Isotopes won it in the bottom of the 10th by hitting a gapper with a man on 2nd and no outs (or one, I don't remember). The Omaha center fielder did something strange that I don't think I have ever seen in a baseball game before: he didn't bother getting the ball, and instead left it sitting on the warning track where it stopped. No reason to pick it up and throw it in, since the run was in easily.
So as the players all left the field, a fan from a group that had stayed up on the berm decided that, ooh, ball left unprotected, me want. This guy went up to the fence (the right field fence is surely at least 10 feet high, including the chain link fence above the berm), removed his flip-flops, and jumped down into the field. Now, I have seen a number of people enter the field during a baseball game, but never one afterward. This guy jumped down and started running toward the ball. If you've never seen this, you should know that stadium security gets really upset when anybody enters the field of play who is not allowed. So there was a security guard running an intercept course for this guy, and another staffer standing down at the berm fence. The runner got to the ball, picked it up, and started sprinting back toward us. I guess he realized he was in trouble (or maybe he planned this out with his likely-just-as-inebriated friend beforehand), because he skipped climbing the wall to get back to where he had started, and instead chucked the ball up onto the berm, somewhat near us. We didn't at all want to get involved, so we stayed put as the friend and the staffer both ran toward the ball. The friend fell down, and the staffer sort of then slide-tackled the ball, which was a very strange thing to do. The friend recovered the baseball, and the staffer tried to take it back from him, but the friend just kind of ignored him; I guess staffers have no power.
Meanwhile, the first guy had been tackled by security, handcuffed, and turned over to the police. I don't approve of people running onto the field and the encouragement they get from the crowd, but I do like how excited people get when security tackles these guys. And they always pretty much overreact in terms of physicality, but in this case I really, really don't mind. The staffer, still up on the berm, picked up the first guy's flip-flops, and asked us if they belonged to him; I confirmed that they were, indeed, the runner's, my own little "up yours" to that guy. The staffer took them, and I genuinely hope he tossed them in the trash; if you leave something sitting around the stadium, I think it fair to consider it garbage.
Now, this extended family (I assume) was pretty upset, aside from the guy who got the ball, since their kinsman was being hauled off the field in police custody. One lady was throwing up her hands, although to be fair she could have been pissed off at the guy who ran onto the field; somehow I doubt it. Another guy was trying to get into a confrontation with the staffer, basically asking him why it was necessary for security to take down the runner.
I don't like to tell people that they are stupid, because who am I to say? But these folks were stupid. As if it needed to, the team reminds the crowd that they are, in fact, not allowed on the field unless told so. If you break the rules for something as stupid as retrieving a baseball, you deserve to be punished, and I have zero sympathy for you, even if you are hauled to jail. I don't think he was, since I think that I observed the police uncuffing the guy on the field. Doing something that is so likely to end in your being under a pile of law enforcement officers in front of your kids, when you are supposed to be your children's moral educator, is just plain dumb. Next time, think, don't drink.
The game started at 7:05, so Arun headed over after work and we drove down to the UNM area to eat at Saggios, an Albuquerque pizza institution. It's tasty, as long as you get some extra toppings on your pizza; the plain cheese is a bit cardboardy.After that we headed to the game and got our seats out on the berm ($5 each, can't beat it). At this time of year, for a standard 7:05 start, the sun is annoying for a little while, but after that it gets just beautiful. Sitting on the grass can wear on you after a few hours, especially if you have a boney butt.
The game started out real slow, with a total of 10 runs scoring in the first two innings; these two innings lasted just a few minutes under an hour. After that the game moved on more quickly, and included a nice, although not stunning sunset.
Now, being a fan of the visiting team, I cheered when the Royals did good things. I would clap when they scored a run, and I raised my voice twice through the 10-inning game to say "Let's go Royals!" I would classify my rooting as wholly unintrusive. And if the Royals had blown out the Isotopes, I would certainly not have rubbed it in, as I have known others to do at games. I try to be fair and nice, things that I know, I know, are not really part of being a sports fan. Apparently my low-level cheering rankled at least one person on the berm.Toward the end of the game (the bottom of the seventh, to be exact), one of the Isotopes players hit a home run out to left field. This guy sitting near me, who was there with his wife (I presume) and their two young sons (I presume) jumped up, started going crazy with cheering. Nothing too weird there, except that it put them up from 7-5 to 8-5, rather than being, for example, a game-winning home run. However, after that (and this seemed to happen in slow-motion), this guy ran over toward Arun and myself, and actually hustled a circuit around us, ran out from right to left in front of us, then left to right behind us. He then ran back over to his spot with his family (I presume), sat down, and said "Take THAT, Nebraska fans!" I mentioned quietly to Arun that maybe I should disabuse this guy of the idea that they are the Nebraska Royals rather than the Omaha Royals, but decided that would not really accomplish anything. He didn't say anything else to us before or after that throughout the game.
After this point it started sprinkling a little (monsoon season IS upon us), and I must say that it was the single most pleasant and refreshing rain I have ever sat in. So gentle that you don't get wet because the drops that have hit you evaporate away. Cool enough that it is refreshing, but not so cold that it is uncomfortable. Not intense enough to create runoff on the hillside upon which we were sitting. It was so nice, and so beautiful. Of course, this being the Southwest, this gentle rain also caused a mass exodus of a great majority of the 6,700+ people who attended the game.
Now, the Royals scored three runs to tie up the game in the top of the ninth inning to introduce some tension into the contest, and it went into extra innings. Of course, most everybody had left, so not a lot of people got to see the excitement. I was hoping for a home run in extra innings, since nobody else was out there to retrieve it. But alas, no such luck. Instead, the Isotopes won it in the bottom of the 10th by hitting a gapper with a man on 2nd and no outs (or one, I don't remember). The Omaha center fielder did something strange that I don't think I have ever seen in a baseball game before: he didn't bother getting the ball, and instead left it sitting on the warning track where it stopped. No reason to pick it up and throw it in, since the run was in easily.
So as the players all left the field, a fan from a group that had stayed up on the berm decided that, ooh, ball left unprotected, me want. This guy went up to the fence (the right field fence is surely at least 10 feet high, including the chain link fence above the berm), removed his flip-flops, and jumped down into the field. Now, I have seen a number of people enter the field during a baseball game, but never one afterward. This guy jumped down and started running toward the ball. If you've never seen this, you should know that stadium security gets really upset when anybody enters the field of play who is not allowed. So there was a security guard running an intercept course for this guy, and another staffer standing down at the berm fence. The runner got to the ball, picked it up, and started sprinting back toward us. I guess he realized he was in trouble (or maybe he planned this out with his likely-just-as-inebriated friend beforehand), because he skipped climbing the wall to get back to where he had started, and instead chucked the ball up onto the berm, somewhat near us. We didn't at all want to get involved, so we stayed put as the friend and the staffer both ran toward the ball. The friend fell down, and the staffer sort of then slide-tackled the ball, which was a very strange thing to do. The friend recovered the baseball, and the staffer tried to take it back from him, but the friend just kind of ignored him; I guess staffers have no power.
Meanwhile, the first guy had been tackled by security, handcuffed, and turned over to the police. I don't approve of people running onto the field and the encouragement they get from the crowd, but I do like how excited people get when security tackles these guys. And they always pretty much overreact in terms of physicality, but in this case I really, really don't mind. The staffer, still up on the berm, picked up the first guy's flip-flops, and asked us if they belonged to him; I confirmed that they were, indeed, the runner's, my own little "up yours" to that guy. The staffer took them, and I genuinely hope he tossed them in the trash; if you leave something sitting around the stadium, I think it fair to consider it garbage.
Now, this extended family (I assume) was pretty upset, aside from the guy who got the ball, since their kinsman was being hauled off the field in police custody. One lady was throwing up her hands, although to be fair she could have been pissed off at the guy who ran onto the field; somehow I doubt it. Another guy was trying to get into a confrontation with the staffer, basically asking him why it was necessary for security to take down the runner.
I don't like to tell people that they are stupid, because who am I to say? But these folks were stupid. As if it needed to, the team reminds the crowd that they are, in fact, not allowed on the field unless told so. If you break the rules for something as stupid as retrieving a baseball, you deserve to be punished, and I have zero sympathy for you, even if you are hauled to jail. I don't think he was, since I think that I observed the police uncuffing the guy on the field. Doing something that is so likely to end in your being under a pile of law enforcement officers in front of your kids, when you are supposed to be your children's moral educator, is just plain dumb. Next time, think, don't drink.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Our house
Check it out. I Google-Earthed our house last night. Anybody notice anything strange? I think I might do some exploring.
Sorry about the white borders; I wasn't interested enough to get rid of them.
Sorry about the white borders; I wasn't interested enough to get rid of them.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
A fiesta of all-starrish proportions
Tonight I was treated to the 2007 Triple-A All-Star Fiesta here in Albuquerque. I received a free ticket from good friend the Wahi, who received free tickets to said game via his participation in the trombone group Ambush Brass. See below for an action shot.
After they were done, we went into the game complete with smuggled contraband pocket burrito. Oh Baja. Mmmmmmmm. After introductions of all the players we stood for the playing of the anthems of Canada and the U.S. by that other brass ensemble. A group from the local AFB carried out the most incredibly gigantic flag onto the field, and stretched it out for our anthem. See below.
In case you're wondering (you aren't), we had the Canadian anthem because there is still one team in Canada. Also had the flag up next to the berm. You can just see in the picture below the hill in center field at Isotopes Park.
Now, if you're a casual sports fan (I being likely the most rabid sports fan that ever reads this stuff), you may not understand the joy that is Minor League Baseball. I started out going to Omaha Royals games in beautiful Rosenblatt Stadium, also home of the College World Series. Anyway, being a minor league baseball team, the Isotopes have to do all kinds of weird stuff to draw in an audience. One of the things they do in every game, aside from Orbit's dancing, is the Chili Race. Red chili vs. green chili vs. taco. I always cheer for red. Red is behind in the year's race, of course. See below for an action shot from tonight's race.
Now the isotopes apparently thought it would be a good idea to give away terrible noisemakers to the entire crowd. I first knew of these things a few years ago, when the Angels beat the Giants in the world series (2002); they also caused worldwide anguish with their damn rally monkey. See below for a shot of the Wahi with the Bam Bams.
Isotopes park is quite beautiful. Not as nice as Rosenblatt, but this one is hard to beat. We usually try to sit out on the berm in right field, but the view from the lines is quite nice. A great view of the Sandia mountains past the right field fence. See below.
Finally, in case chili races and a specially ambiguous mascot aren't enough for you, they decided that they would bring in BirdZerk, apparently a group that is trying to fill the void left by the Famous Chicken not being there. Rather than being entertaining, they achieve some sort of impressionistic mascotism, which floats in a vague realm between interpretive dance and modern art. Included in the group was a character called "Harry Canary", a take-off on broadcasting personality and noted drunkard Harry Caray. He led us all in the singing of Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the 7th Inning Stretch, then came out and danced. See below for an action shot.
All-in-all, a great time. The Pacific Coast League lost the game 7-5, which is unfortunate because the Isotopes and the O-Royals are both in the PCL. At least the Mud Hens are in the IL and helped with the wind (netting the MVP trophy). Glad I got to go, and special thanks to the Wahi and Ambush Brass for paving the way.
Coming soon: More.
After they were done, we went into the game complete with smuggled contraband pocket burrito. Oh Baja. Mmmmmmmm. After introductions of all the players we stood for the playing of the anthems of Canada and the U.S. by that other brass ensemble. A group from the local AFB carried out the most incredibly gigantic flag onto the field, and stretched it out for our anthem. See below.
In case you're wondering (you aren't), we had the Canadian anthem because there is still one team in Canada. Also had the flag up next to the berm. You can just see in the picture below the hill in center field at Isotopes Park.
Now, if you're a casual sports fan (I being likely the most rabid sports fan that ever reads this stuff), you may not understand the joy that is Minor League Baseball. I started out going to Omaha Royals games in beautiful Rosenblatt Stadium, also home of the College World Series. Anyway, being a minor league baseball team, the Isotopes have to do all kinds of weird stuff to draw in an audience. One of the things they do in every game, aside from Orbit's dancing, is the Chili Race. Red chili vs. green chili vs. taco. I always cheer for red. Red is behind in the year's race, of course. See below for an action shot from tonight's race.
Now the isotopes apparently thought it would be a good idea to give away terrible noisemakers to the entire crowd. I first knew of these things a few years ago, when the Angels beat the Giants in the world series (2002); they also caused worldwide anguish with their damn rally monkey. See below for a shot of the Wahi with the Bam Bams.
Isotopes park is quite beautiful. Not as nice as Rosenblatt, but this one is hard to beat. We usually try to sit out on the berm in right field, but the view from the lines is quite nice. A great view of the Sandia mountains past the right field fence. See below.
Finally, in case chili races and a specially ambiguous mascot aren't enough for you, they decided that they would bring in BirdZerk, apparently a group that is trying to fill the void left by the Famous Chicken not being there. Rather than being entertaining, they achieve some sort of impressionistic mascotism, which floats in a vague realm between interpretive dance and modern art. Included in the group was a character called "Harry Canary", a take-off on broadcasting personality and noted drunkard Harry Caray. He led us all in the singing of Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the 7th Inning Stretch, then came out and danced. See below for an action shot.
All-in-all, a great time. The Pacific Coast League lost the game 7-5, which is unfortunate because the Isotopes and the O-Royals are both in the PCL. At least the Mud Hens are in the IL and helped with the wind (netting the MVP trophy). Glad I got to go, and special thanks to the Wahi and Ambush Brass for paving the way.
Coming soon: More.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
The REI stampede
So today was the Scratch-n-Dent sale at the REI. Started at 9am, but the flyer says "Come early & form a line". Unfortunately, I couldn't find a photo of the Albuquerque REI that fully shows the layout. I got there at 8:55, and there was a line all the way around the building and down the sidewalk outside. They opened the sale at 9, and it probably took 10 minutes for my spot in line to wind into the sale. When I got in, I descended into a pit of anger, sweat, and mistrust. I was in the sale for half an hour wandering around, and bought four things: a folding table that was missing a pretty integral part, some gaiters from Outdoor Research that are missing a metal hook, a pair of socks that are too small, and a pair of pretty well-used trekking poles from REI that had a strap broken; that one I fixed. Ended up costing me $40.
It was a really strange experience. There must have been a couple hundred people in there, in a real small area. They had bins of stuff that you couldn't even get to because there were so many people crowded around. And there were a lot of people who seemed to be buying several of something; four thermarests, five pairs of shoes, etc. Pretty sure those'll be up on E-bay soon.
There's more sale tomorrow, but I've got the big wedding to go to tomorrow, which should be really exciting. I'll give a report.
It was a really strange experience. There must have been a couple hundred people in there, in a real small area. They had bins of stuff that you couldn't even get to because there were so many people crowded around. And there were a lot of people who seemed to be buying several of something; four thermarests, five pairs of shoes, etc. Pretty sure those'll be up on E-bay soon.
There's more sale tomorrow, but I've got the big wedding to go to tomorrow, which should be really exciting. I'll give a report.
Friday, June 15, 2007
A Socorro kind of day
Today I took the van pool to Socorro, where I am working for the day. I hope to make this a more regular occurrence, as this is only the second time I've come down since we moved to the big ABQ. Turning onto Bullock, I actually missed Socorro a little somehow. Got a glimpse of the old house, so it appears to be still standing (or at least the southwest corner). Missing Socorro is an odd sensation, as most people who have spent time here can attest. I do not in any way regret the move to Albuquerque, where I can take a bus to a Minor League baseball game any time I want to when they're in town, and a place where there are ultimate frisbee leagues and softball leagues and a climbing gym and an REI and more than 3 good restaurants and an organic food delivery service. It's just one of those things where you go back somewhere that you used to be all the time, and that you got used to, and now your life is different from then. Sort of nostalgia, but not the "wish I was there" kind.
It quickly passed when I thought about it.
It quickly passed when I thought about it.
Monday, June 4, 2007
New House
So we moved into a new house this past week. Well, it's a really old house, but new to us. And completely remodeled. It's very very nice. It is also half the size of our Socorro house, or possibly even a little less. To get an idea of how much nicer this house is (despite its advanced age), consider this: the sloping floors in our Socorro house we considered ghetto; the sloping floors in this house we consider quaint.
The new house is made entirely out of adobe, and I haven't yet flipped on the swamp cooler, except once to test it. It's funny for those of us who have lived in Phoenix how people here think that 85 degrees is really hot.
We are having internet issues at the new house, which is why Alison and I haven't updated in a while. She's in DC right now getting orientated to the damn liberal media. I hope to take some pictures of the house soon, and put them up somewhere so you all can see it. Maybe I can have the house organized before Alison gets back. In the meantime, here is a mock-up of the house that I did in powerpoint to whet your appetite.
The new house is made entirely out of adobe, and I haven't yet flipped on the swamp cooler, except once to test it. It's funny for those of us who have lived in Phoenix how people here think that 85 degrees is really hot.
We are having internet issues at the new house, which is why Alison and I haven't updated in a while. She's in DC right now getting orientated to the damn liberal media. I hope to take some pictures of the house soon, and put them up somewhere so you all can see it. Maybe I can have the house organized before Alison gets back. In the meantime, here is a mock-up of the house that I did in powerpoint to whet your appetite.
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