Today is Earth Day, the one day per year where we acknowledge the giant (approximately) oblate spheroid of rock/ductile rock/magma on which we live. What are you doing for Earth Day? The Earth Science Club here at Tech has a little lunch where they discussed some issues. I think there were about 7 people there when I left (to go to class). Nice idea, although they were not to warm to my suggestion that they should start a community garden for the grad students in an effort to eat more local food.
The City of Socorro has "started" a recycling program here, which basically consists of a company that picks up your recycling happening to move from the East Mountains (east of Albuquerque) down to Socorro. I am dubious that this has been an effort on the part of the City. The recycling company actually calls itself Morning WoodCutters, which, if you are like me and watched a lot of Beavis and Butthead will strike you as either hilariously funny or generally shocking. And to drive home the point that this is not any kind of accidental naming, scope out this picture on the Morning WoodCutters website, which leaves very little to the imagination.
The upshot of the Socorro recycling thing is that you pay $20 a month for MWC to come to your house and pick up your recycling once a month. If you want a one-time pickup (that utilizes the entire truck), this will cost you all of $90. I recommended to those at the lunch that, if they go to Albuquerque once every month or so anyway, it would be much smarter for them to just take their recyclables up there themselves. I guess I should have encouraged the local option for the benefit of those who cannot go to Albuquerque. However, I would have taken less than that per person to transmit recyclables up to Albuquerque back when we lived in Socorro. (By the way, according to the City website it looks like the range of materials that MWC will recycle is the exact same stuff that Albuquerque recycles, leading me to believe that they just dump it off on the same recycling company).
The school is trying to get the Earth Science Club to handle the recycling for the entire campus, which consists of collecting recyclables (plastic bottles and aluminum cans only) from 38 different points on campus and taking them up to Albuquerque. Now, mind that the club is not going to get paid for any of this. I think maybe they get to keep can revenues, but that is unclear. Maybe with MWC now collecting recyclables it would make a lot of sense for the school to shell out $90 per month for its very own recycling runs (I'm pretty sure they spend much less that on flowers every month) and get one of the FacMgmt people to collect stuff. I made this suggestion, we'll see if it actually happens.
I didn't intend to actually write anything about Socorro, and was instead going to be all caustic about the Bush administration, but I guess this will have to be broken into multiple posts...
Showing posts with label socorro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label socorro. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
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.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Golf
Sorry there haven't been any posts lately. I've been kind of down. So today the wife and I drove on up to the New Mexico Tech Golf Course. We don't really drive very much in town at all, but we decided not to walk the golf clubs all the way (1.25 miles each way) up to the course. I'll have to figure out a cheap way to put a trailer on my bike for them.
This was our first trip up to this golf course, and only the third time I've ever played. Those who have known me for a long time would probably be pretty surprised to find out that I am golfing, especially Matt, who I'm sure doesn't read this blog anyway (Hi!). We got tired and quit after 13 holes, plus it was already 5:30 anyway.
This being only my third time, I didn't do very well. My scores, and par for each hole:
Hole: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Par: 5 4 4 3 5 4 4 4 3 4 4 5 4
Matt: 8 7 7 5 8 9 6 7 7 8 6 8 11
So my total score over 13 holes was 97; extrapolated to 18 holes, I would have shot about 132. And we should keep in mind that I often took two shots off the tee, or tossed a ball from the rough into the fairway (or from out-of-bounds into the fairway, as the case often was). I don't know how much of this was not having Alison's dad or brother-in-law around, or how much of it was the 30-mph wind constantly blowing, or what. I think my score was worse than the last time I went.
It cost us about $30 to play here, which would be really cheap for a good course. The one here is very strange though, with very few sand traps (maybe the 30-mph winds blow all the sand out), lots of water, and more hills than anywhere ever. The last hole we played, the green was 50 feet higher than the rest of the fairway. Crazy.
Here, though, are some pictures of Alison golfing. Hooray! Note in the first picture the beautiful view of the mountains that we cannot access because they're covered with explosives. Note also in the second picture the giant dirt pile on the golf course. These two things pretty much encapsulate Socorro.
This was our first trip up to this golf course, and only the third time I've ever played. Those who have known me for a long time would probably be pretty surprised to find out that I am golfing, especially Matt, who I'm sure doesn't read this blog anyway (Hi!). We got tired and quit after 13 holes, plus it was already 5:30 anyway.
This being only my third time, I didn't do very well. My scores, and par for each hole:
Hole: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Par: 5 4 4 3 5 4 4 4 3 4 4 5 4
Matt: 8 7 7 5 8 9 6 7 7 8 6 8 11
So my total score over 13 holes was 97; extrapolated to 18 holes, I would have shot about 132. And we should keep in mind that I often took two shots off the tee, or tossed a ball from the rough into the fairway (or from out-of-bounds into the fairway, as the case often was). I don't know how much of this was not having Alison's dad or brother-in-law around, or how much of it was the 30-mph wind constantly blowing, or what. I think my score was worse than the last time I went.
It cost us about $30 to play here, which would be really cheap for a good course. The one here is very strange though, with very few sand traps (maybe the 30-mph winds blow all the sand out), lots of water, and more hills than anywhere ever. The last hole we played, the green was 50 feet higher than the rest of the fairway. Crazy.
Here, though, are some pictures of Alison golfing. Hooray! Note in the first picture the beautiful view of the mountains that we cannot access because they're covered with explosives. Note also in the second picture the giant dirt pile on the golf course. These two things pretty much encapsulate Socorro.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Socorro Weekend
Last night and today we went to the Inaugural Rio Film Festival here on campus at Tech. We saw a bunch of very good documentaries and a few interesting short films. Right now they are playing An Inconvenient Truth, a movie that you all must see. No, really. I'll wait for you to get back. Seriously. Go.
OK, now that you are back and have seen the light, I'll give you a little look at the things we saw this weekend.
Last night they played a documentary by Jeff Barrie titled Kilowatt Ours. This was a South-centric view of the damage being caused by coal-fired power plants. Super good. Nothing that we hadn't heard before, but it puts it all together in a nice package for the layman. And it isn't just a film about how coal plants are bad; it also presents a solution. Much of the solution information is on their web site, given above (http://www.kilowattours.org/). Jeff Barrie and his wife go through a number of low-cost steps they took to cut their energy bills in half with a grand total of about $300 expenditure. One of the things they did was to install CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lamps) in all of their light fixtures, something that had an immediate and significant impact on their bills. We've had a couple of these for some time, but for some reason put them into fixtures that we pretty much never use. After getting home, we moved them. Also, we went through the Kilowatt Ours website and purchased 12 more of them for a grand total of $35 from the Energy Federation. Now, the other two we had bought at our local Smith's cost us about $8 a pop. These from the website are $3 each (although this is if you buy packs of 4), and shipping is free. Also, there is a 10% discount if you use the kilowattours code at checkout. Even if you hate the earth and don't want to conserve, these babies not only don't cost much more than regular light bulbs, they are rated to last for approximately 10,000 hours. Annually, incandescent bulbs will run you (according to the Energy Federation) $8.72 each for their energy. CFLs run $2.16. And that's just for the energy, never mind the fact that CFLs last 5 to 20 times longer. Many times, the impact of throwing something away and replacing it with something new precludes replacing your inefficient old things with new technology (environmental-impact-wise), but apparently studies show (I need to find them) that you it's better to just go ahead and get rid of your incandescents now and replace them with CFLs.
The documentary also spends some time on different types of zero-emission power types (wind and solar), as well as zero-emission ways to heat or cool your home (geothermal and passive solar). Also, it shows just how much you can save by changing over to efficient appliances.
This morning we saw one called Being Caribou, a documentary filmed by a couple who undertook a 1,000-mile, five month hike along with migrating porcupine caribou, who wend their way through the frigid Yukon into Alaska to calve for the summer on the north coast of Alaska, at ANWR. They follow the herd through some extremely harsh conditions to camp with them at the calving ground, where Dubya proposes to do some needless drillin'. We both voted for this one to be the people's choice for the festival.
We also watched one called Troubled Waters: the Dilemma of Dams about the impacts of dams and the benefits of their removal. Very interesting. Did you know that estimates place the number of dams in the U.S. between 75,000 and 2.5 million? I assume it depends on what you exactly consider a "dam". Also very informative.
A few shorts that were interesting (check the film festival website), and this evening there was a free showing of An Inconvenient Truth, which we already own on DVD and so were not too into sitting in the theater to watch. Another that everybody should watch. Again, not much that we hadn't already heard, but great for the non-climate-scientist. Pretty much will convince you that anybody who does not believe in global warming is just not paying attention.
Other than the technical glitches (like Norton Antivirus popping up in the middle of a movie, and other movies stopping partway through), and the low turnout (joint Matt-Alison scienguesstimate of 50), we enjoyed ourselves and hope that it happens again next year. Maybe somebody will join us if it does.
Whew.
OK, now that you are back and have seen the light, I'll give you a little look at the things we saw this weekend.
Last night they played a documentary by Jeff Barrie titled Kilowatt Ours. This was a South-centric view of the damage being caused by coal-fired power plants. Super good. Nothing that we hadn't heard before, but it puts it all together in a nice package for the layman. And it isn't just a film about how coal plants are bad; it also presents a solution. Much of the solution information is on their web site, given above (http://www.kilowattours.org/). Jeff Barrie and his wife go through a number of low-cost steps they took to cut their energy bills in half with a grand total of about $300 expenditure. One of the things they did was to install CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lamps) in all of their light fixtures, something that had an immediate and significant impact on their bills. We've had a couple of these for some time, but for some reason put them into fixtures that we pretty much never use. After getting home, we moved them. Also, we went through the Kilowatt Ours website and purchased 12 more of them for a grand total of $35 from the Energy Federation. Now, the other two we had bought at our local Smith's cost us about $8 a pop. These from the website are $3 each (although this is if you buy packs of 4), and shipping is free. Also, there is a 10% discount if you use the kilowattours code at checkout. Even if you hate the earth and don't want to conserve, these babies not only don't cost much more than regular light bulbs, they are rated to last for approximately 10,000 hours. Annually, incandescent bulbs will run you (according to the Energy Federation) $8.72 each for their energy. CFLs run $2.16. And that's just for the energy, never mind the fact that CFLs last 5 to 20 times longer. Many times, the impact of throwing something away and replacing it with something new precludes replacing your inefficient old things with new technology (environmental-impact-wise), but apparently studies show (I need to find them) that you it's better to just go ahead and get rid of your incandescents now and replace them with CFLs.
The documentary also spends some time on different types of zero-emission power types (wind and solar), as well as zero-emission ways to heat or cool your home (geothermal and passive solar). Also, it shows just how much you can save by changing over to efficient appliances.
This morning we saw one called Being Caribou, a documentary filmed by a couple who undertook a 1,000-mile, five month hike along with migrating porcupine caribou, who wend their way through the frigid Yukon into Alaska to calve for the summer on the north coast of Alaska, at ANWR. They follow the herd through some extremely harsh conditions to camp with them at the calving ground, where Dubya proposes to do some needless drillin'. We both voted for this one to be the people's choice for the festival.
We also watched one called Troubled Waters: the Dilemma of Dams about the impacts of dams and the benefits of their removal. Very interesting. Did you know that estimates place the number of dams in the U.S. between 75,000 and 2.5 million? I assume it depends on what you exactly consider a "dam". Also very informative.
A few shorts that were interesting (check the film festival website), and this evening there was a free showing of An Inconvenient Truth, which we already own on DVD and so were not too into sitting in the theater to watch. Another that everybody should watch. Again, not much that we hadn't already heard, but great for the non-climate-scientist. Pretty much will convince you that anybody who does not believe in global warming is just not paying attention.
Other than the technical glitches (like Norton Antivirus popping up in the middle of a movie, and other movies stopping partway through), and the low turnout (joint Matt-Alison scienguesstimate of 50), we enjoyed ourselves and hope that it happens again next year. Maybe somebody will join us if it does.
Whew.
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