Channel 7 in Southern California has a news report (from October 4th) with Ken Fairbanks of SmartLabs, who makes all the Insteon gear I write about. Along with the article is a video showing some of the stuff Home Automation can do. Its a short clip but shows some interesting things, like the control of blinds (which I haven't figure out how to do yet).

You don't need Insteon to do the stuff in the video.

Apple Gazette has some scans from a 1983 Apple Computer gift catalog with some (now) vintage swag. What caught my eye is the Apple Hot Air Balloon poster on page 9.

I would love to have this poster, or at least a high res scan of this poster. I googled "Apple Computer Hot Air Balloon" but no one seems to have this poster or any other pictures of it. I'm also curious as to what happened to the balloon. Apple should bring it back, after all, Intel has it's "Floating Point" Hot Air Balloon.

The Governor has declared the state a disaster area, the national guard is on stand by. The snow has stopped falling after a record breaking snow fall, but the fun isn't over. Currently, the humidity is 100% which means lots of nice and icy fog.

I first got into Home Automation for one simple reason, because I always forgot to turn off the lights. Lighting makes up a large part of my system, and I want to optimize the efficiency of the lights as much as possible. I want to not only produce the right amount of light in the right color, but reduce their energy use at the same time.

At first, I used Compact Florescence all over the place. They are a obvious choice for reducing energy because they use a quarter of the wattage of incandescent bulbs for the same amount of light output. But as I have found out, they don't mix well with the PLC (power line communication) switches that I use. You have to find specific dimmer compatible switches (or don't buy dimmers). The CF bulbs produce noise, sometimes for no apparent reason, that interfere with the signals being sent by the switches. The dimable CF bulbs seems to make even more noise than non-dimmable bulbs!

So far my experience with dimmable CFs has been mixed. About 6 months ago I bought some LightWiz 75 watt equivalent dimmable CFs from ebay pretty cheap, around half as much as anywhere else (right now you can get them for about $7 a piece). I had put one in the garage upside down, one in the front porch vapor proof fixture upside down, one in the back porch simple fixture upside down and one in the halway on it's side. [Update] The lights I had outside were not the Lightwiz brand. 4 of the 6 I bought are still installed and working (Haven't installed the other two yet). Including the one mounted upside down in the garage.

One reason I wanted the outdoor fixtures to have CFs is because because I have all the outdoor lights on from sunset to sunrise. Birds tend to rest on the fixtures because they are warm in the winter. Initially they did not produce enough powerline noise to interfere with my Insteon switches. Last week I was unable to get any the status of any switch on one leg of my circuit. Turned out to be one CF bubls producing too much noise, because it was about to die. I would have expected the back porch light, which has the least amount of protection, to be the one to die. It was the one at the fount porch, which is in a vapor proof fixture.

The bulb in the front porch was replaced with a 60 watt halogen, because of the fixture, not much heat is making it out of the fixture. I also have a 100 watt equivalent GE CF dimmable bulb in vapor proof fixture above the garage and so far so good for that one. The CF bulb I have in the halway has since been replaced with a track lighting fixture that has 3 50 watt halogen spot lights.

Don Klipstein has a excellent website on everything you would want to know about bulbs and good advice on when to use bulbs. Based on my experiences and what I read there, I will probably not use CF bulbs as I did before.

[Update 01/08/07 2:21 PM] I forgot to mention some other bulbs. I bought three, pretty pricey, approx. 9 watt, dimmable florescence for a kitchen ceiling fan. These bulbs were incased in a glass bulb so they looked closer real bulbs instead of the spirall-y things. At the time they were hooked up to a X10 switch. 2 of the 3 burnt out within 2 months. I've since replaced these three bulbs with 60 incandescence bulbs. I've heard that X10 can actually kill CF bulbs so this might be more evidence to this fact.

[Update 02/23/07 8:24 PM] Two Westinghouse 20W "mini-twist dimmable" bulbs that I bought last year have died. A MaxLite 15W bulb that I bought several years ago died. This was 1 of 2 that I have, the other one still works fine.

Another snow storm has come through today and it's coming down good. I had to drive in it this morning and are reminded why I bought four wheel drive. Of course, four wheel drive does give more control, it does not have keep you from stopping. Even with the four wheel drive I was slipping and sliding around.

I'm staying home for the rest of the day.

[Update 12/29/06 10:07 PM] I can't believe it, its still snowing! Its been snowing non stop all day, I've got about 6 inches of the white stuff on my driveway. A freind called an said he was stuck in Las Vegas when his plane was diverted, earliest he will be here will be sunday.

[Update 12/30/06 12:18 AM] Apparently this is the most snow thats fallen at once in the Albuquerque area. It's still snowing and has been since yesterday morning. Were looking at another 12-18 hours.

[Update 12/20/06 9:38 AM] Everyone at work is staying home today due to the road conditions. They closed I-40 and I-25 in the city. The city is shut down.

You really can't beat this deal if you were planning on buying some Insteon gear. I just purchased the remaining switches I needed for my house, 3 Switchlincs and 1 Keypadlinc for about $150, which saved me about $40. They are not only offering a 12% discount, but free shipping over $150. Use coupon code EHSAVE12 between now and Dec 18th, use the link below to go to Smarthome's site and give me some affiliate love.

12 Days Of Holidays Deals at Smarthome.

I've been thinking and saying out loud that the City Manager should be fired. Mainly for things like Unser Road and other such things going on in Rio Rancho. Loos like I'm not the only one as City Manager Jim Palenick was canned by the City Council. KRQE reported on it and so did the Citizens Media Group.

Palenick’s management style alienated some on staff, and two department heads had threatened to resign, including Rob Anderson, director of development services. Anderson had followed Palenick from Bay City, Mich., where Palenick had been fired from his job as city manager in August 2002.

Hopefully we will see some better planing around here with the next guy.

Several years ago I started wearing glasses because, apparently, my eye sight was getting bad. Wow, what a difference it's made. i didn't realize how bad my sight was until I started wearing glasses.

I've given up glasses and have been wearing contacts since last year. The contacts are nice but there are still times I need glasses, yet I've broken mine beyond taping anymore. So what, I'm going to have to pay like $300 for a new pair because insurance only covers them every 2 years?

glassyeyes.blogspot.com is documenting the scam that is retail eyeglasses and shows that you can get some really cheap glasses online for considerably less. I can get a pair from for under a $100, with all the options.

It looks like the City of Rio Rancho is resorting to traffic enforcement dirty tricks to generate revenue. Just south of Southern Blvd, on NM 528 there is a left turn lane, it will take you onto Peggy Rd and give you access to local businesses like McDonalds and Burger King.

There is a posted sign indicated that you are not to turn during the hours of 4 to 6pm, rush hour traffic time. This seems reasonable considering that NM 528 is pretty packed during rush hours. What happens if you didn't see the sign? There's nothing there to physically keep you from turing into this lane. What happens is you will likely be greeted by the Rio Rancho Police on Peggy Road, waiting to hand you a ticket.

The reason I consider this a dirty trick: if they were really interested in traffic enforcement and preventing people from turing here they would sit at the turn lane, keeping cars from turing. They are instead waiting for cars to turn and issuing tickets. I don't know about every case but the cases I do know of there were no warning issued. Somebody prove me wrong.

A article notes that the stores in ABQ Uptown are doing extremely well, some of the top sellers in the nation. ABQ Uptown is the fancy-pants outdoor mall which has fancy-pants upscale stores. You know it's fancy-pants because it's got an Apple Store, which only builds in fancy-pants malls.

Speaking of the Apple Store they mention that they did $38,000 in sales in the first hours. I don't know if that's good for a Apple Store but it's sure a lot of computers. I couldn't be there for it's first hour, which really sucks, but others did and it was a typical opening with people lining up around the corner.

Jessica was the local, hot, news reporter on channel 2 and channel 4 here in Albuquerque. She's in Baltimore now. Looks like she's going to be in the transformer's movie too!

Jessica Kartalija joined the WJZ 13 Eyewitness News team during the summer of 2006 as general assignment reporter, and weekend morning news anchor with Tim Williams.

The Rio Rancho City Council has voted to extend Northern Blvd into Corrales. I don't get how this works exactly, how does Rio Rancho decided if a road is built in another city (town, whatever Corrales is).

I also don't get how the road will be extended. Check out the end of Northern Blvd as it butts up against Corrales now, I guess there's some room there somewhere. I do like the concept of having a major road go all the way through, instead of the weird set up we have now. It shouldn't increase traffic to Corrales, that's going to happen whether the road is extended or not. Extending the road should improve the traffic flow for when the traffic does increase.

Finally, I think Councilor Mike Williams is on the right track for voting against it. Why doesn't the city worry about the other road projects that they haven't completed yet, before doing this one.

"I'd be in support of D-93 if at any point in time I had something in writing from, first of all from the state of New Mexico highway department stating that 528 was going to be done before Northern Boulevard was going to be opened up, also that the City of Rio Rancho commits that Northern Boulevard is four to five lanes all the way to Unser just so it can handle the traffic," Williams said. "I have no problem opening this leg, but this is not the time, and until we have that etched in stone with 528 and Northern Boulevard, I have no choice but to vote against it."

From MacRumors, Kevin Rose says the Apple iPhone will be out in January.

• Going to be coming out in January
• All phone providers
• "It's small as sh*t"
• Don't know anything about the Operating System
• The OS is supposed to be "cool"
• Doing some unique things
• Two batteries, one charger. One for MP3 portion and one for Phone.
• 4GB ($249) and 8GB ($449)
• Flash memory, Slide out keyboard
• Maybe touch screen?

I think it will be called the iPod Phone (like iPod Nano, etc) and I will buy one.

Yet another reason not to fly.

Without their knowledge, millions of Americans and foreigners crossing U.S. borders in the past four years have been assigned scores generated by U.S. government computers rating the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals. The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.

It's snowing and it's cold. Cold enough to keep the snow sticking to the street. Glad I don't have to drive in the morning.

The US Government needs to make cash money more easily discernible for the blind.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson on Tuesday ordered the Treasury Department to start working on the problem, leaving it up to government officials to determine the best solution. Possible changes include making bills of differing sizes or adding embossed dots or raised ink.

Here's a picture of my equipment closet. Since I don't have a utility room and don't want to put this stuff, mostly Home Automation gear, in garage due to dirt and dust issues. There was enough room in the heater closet to fit all this stuff.

I've already been asked, is there a heat problem? Doesn't seem to be. The heater doesn't emit that much heat around itself, and since it doesn't constantly run there's not any build up from what little bit of heat that is generated. Also, the all the metal here is not interfering with the wireless stuff.

Keep in mind, all this stuff was strung around the house. Mostly in the living room. Since I access the Home Automation computer via VNC I don't really need direct access to it. It's nice not having wires all over the place anymore.

I primarily listen to my music collection through my iPod. I don't care what Apple says, the shuffle feature of the iPod (and to a lesser degree iTunes) does a poor job of preventing the same Artist from playing randomly. Even with the the scheme I came up wit here, my iPod still played 3 songs from Metallica in a row the other day. These methods do a good job of addressing the issues.

I start off with master playlist called "Filtered", it's filtered for genres. Second playlist is "Filtered - 4 Stars + Played". This ensures that songs which are rated have actually been played. I ofter will rate new songs high but not really listed to them (I have another playlist for new songs). The next playlist is "Filtered - 4 Stars + Played last 14 days." Finally I'm to my primary playlist, "Filtered - 4 Stars + w/o last 14 days."

Unfortunately the iPod does not automatically update these playlists, they only get updated when I sync my iPod with iTunes. At one time "The Stroke" had 2x as many plays as any other song, I like that song but not that much, this does a reasonably good job of reducing this effect. I'd prefer to have a playlist that removes, say the top 10% of played songs, but iTunes doesn't have this option in the filter lists. This also doesn't prevent the same artist being played in a row.

Some people in a Rio Rancho neighborhood hit by a water main break on Sunday are saying that the city isn’t doing its part to assure that they have clean, drinkable water. “It’s just getting really old,” said Renee Popovich, a homeowner near Rockaway and Pyrite in northeast Rio Rancho. “We’re not getting any support from the city to provide at least drinking water for the residents.” Popovich said that her children had to spend the night with friends so they had water to get ready for school on Monday morning. The break carved out a mini arroyo in front of several homes leaving people unable to back their cars out of their driveways. Rio Rancho officials say that they are aware of the problem and have recently removed asphalt over the water main in preparation for repairing the faulty pipes, which have failed several times in recent months.

The city came and fixed the water main break in front of my house pretty quickly. This break seems much worse than mine which might be part of the problem. Perhaps the city should do a better job of communicating to the residents the problems in fixing this and how long it's going to take so it doesn't end up on the news. Just sayin'.

Once you get your Home Automation system up and working the way you want, you start to become dependant on many of it's features. In my living room, I don't have a wall switch to turn on the lights. I have a wireless palm pad, but I rarely use that because the motion detectors (also wireless) usually turn those lights on for me.

Last week I came home from work and none of the lights came on. After a few hours of troubleshooting I find I'm getting errors in Indigo, "undefined byte from w800rf interface." The" w800rf interface" is the W800RF32A, a wireless receiver that connects to the computer via serial port, or in my case a Keyspan USB to Serial Adapter and it receives wireless X10 signals.

Is the W800RF32A bad? Is it a issue with the serial adapter? Is it a driver issue? I used a terminal program and can see that I'm getting data from the W800RF32A, I just don't know if it's the correct data. I don't want to spend $70 on a new W800RF32A only to find out it's some other component. For now I've got a plugin device that will send wireless X10 commands to the powerline, but it only works on one house code and doesn't work with security devices.

That's not the only problem with my system. I moved a lot of my switches to Insteon several month ago, but I still have several X10 devices in the house. For some reason I was not able to change or get their status via the computer. This happens with X10 sometimes but the signal issues go away after a while (one of the reasons I'm getting away from X10). After a month it became clear that there was something else going on. Thanks to a hint from the Indigo message boards, I determined that the X10 part of the PowerLinc V2 interface's had died. Smarthome sent me a replacement this week and sure enough X10 is functional again.

The Home Automation system works good, when it works. Right now it's not working like I want and it's annoying.

A suspected terrorist who spent years in a secret CIA prison should not be allowed to speak to a civilian attorney, the Bush administration argues, because he could reveal the agency's closely guarded interrogation techniques.

In recently filed court documents, the Justice Department said those methods, along with the locations of the CIA's network of prisons, are among the nation's most sensitive secrets. Prisoners who spent time in those prisons should not be allowed to disclose that information, even to a lawyer, the government said.

They should copyright their torture procedures and make the "suspected terrorists" sign a NDA, then they have a legal means to prevent them from revealing their secrets.

Election officials in Santa Fe, Taos and elsewhere in Northern New Mexico are fielding complaints from early voters who are upset they can't cast a ballot in the caustic congressional race between Heather Wilson and Patricia Madrid.Residents of those areas must endure televised attack advertisements aired by the candidates on Albuquerque stations, but the 1st Congressional District where Wilson faces Madrid is limited to the Albuquerque area, Torrance County and parts of Sandoval and Valencia counties."We've had hundreds of calls from people who've completely forgotten about Tom Udall," said Denise Lamb, head of the Santa Fe County Bureau of Elections.

Funny stuff.

This weeks Photo Friday is "Accidental". I took this picture at a peir in Lake Erie, Ohio. Although it's a splashing of water against a metal pier, it looks like a western scene with a cowboy on a horse at sunset.

A Republican congressman accused of abusing his ex-mistress agreed to pay her about $500,000 in a settlement last year that contained a powerful incentive for her to keep quiet until after Election Day, a person familiar with the terms of the deal told The Associated Press. Rep. Don Sherwood is locked in a tight re-election race against a Democratic opponent who has seized on the four-term congressman's relationship with the woman. While Sherwood acknowledged the woman was his mistress, he denied abusing her and said that he had settled her $5.5 million lawsuit on confidential terms.

link to AP story.

I've made some changes to Karl Smith's NOAA Weather Script (revving to 1.1) for use in Indigo. Karl's script is nice because it uses free NOAA weather data that they make available via XML. Since I don't have my own weather station, this will get me close enough to getting the weather data needed for my Home Automation system to make decision.

My changes include:

• Changing the observation time to be a applescript friendly format.
• It's now an attachment and can be run using the function GetNOAAData().
• It auto generates the trigger to run the function every 15 minutes. Just create startup action with the GetNOAAData function and that's all that should be needed.

In my next revision I would like to make the data pull a little more intelligent by having it keep track of the average time between observation time so it's not overtasking the NOAA servers.

You can download this script here: NOAA Weather Script.scpt.zip

Other attempts at downloading weather data:

• Weather Data From Weather Underground
• Another way to get weather from the internet (Original NOAA download)
• Getting weather data from the internet (Using WeathermanX)
• AccuWeather Script (via Perceptive Automation's Forum's)

I've been trying to find a way to move my iBlog entries over to my Blosxom site for, well the two years since I switched over to Bloxsom. I finally figured out to use Agitprop to convert the entries to the MovableType Export format. I then used the following Applescript to parse the entries to individual files.

I offer this script to anyone that might find it useful. Since it was pretty much a one time use script, I didn't put a lot of effort into making it neat. Use at your own risk. You will probably need to modify for your own use.

Finally there's a few things you need to use this. You need the developer tools installed (it uses setfile to change the dates) and the MT Export file need to be in plain ASCII format, MacRoman formatted with Mac line breaks. Other formats might work but it's easier to pre-format the files with TextWrangler first.

You can download this script here: MT Export File to Bloxsom.zip

The New Mexico Scorpions (not those Scorpions) played last night to a sell out crowd of over 6000 at their first game (they say it was sell out but there were plenty of empty seats). I have to say it was pretty cool to be able to go less than 10 minutes away to watch this game. Well, 10 minutes if I had my own private road.

Not surprisingly, Unser road was not complete and not surprisingly, traffic was backed up for some time. City officials were there at the game and seemed pretty proud of the new arena, but they should be ashamed that that Unser road wasn't completed in time for the event. I doubt many from Albuquerque will be willing to make the trip again with those road conditions. Thankfully I know the back ways through Northern Meadows and North Hills so i was able to avoid the traffic, even though it was like driving through a maze (and a little four wheeling).

As for the event itself, it was a good time. The Scorpions lost to the Arizona Sun Dogs 3 - 1, they looked like they haven't played together in 18 months. The concession stands also didn't quite have their act together. I wish they had some local businesses in there like the Isotopes Stadium does. This should all improve over time.

Apartment Therapy LA had this interesting tidbit about Vanilla extract.

Vanilla extract packs a wallop of scent packed strength: easily deodorize that pungent microwave with just a little extract; heat a small amount on High for about a minute. Or rid yourself of the funky bouquet of a week's worth of leftovers in your fridge with a soaked cotton ball using nature's deodorizer. Mix a tablespoon into a can of interior paint, and the fumes will be dampened by vanilla's charms. And because vanilla is a natural insect repellent, not only will your place smell deliciously welcoming, but it will be naturally free of mosquitoes, blackflies, and ticks.

Well this is new. Someone has posted their Panda Express leftovers on craigslist. The post even includes pictures.

Delicious takeout leftover from Panda Express. This food was excellent. Unopened fortune cookie in mint condition. Me and my family just cant think of throwing it out. We are sure someone needs it. Included is an eggroll my daughter was working on at time of picture. Fork not included.

Uhhhh... No thanks.

Friday and Saturday marked the second annual X Prize cup in which the AP has a article about. I wasn't able to make it to this years event (my pictures from last years are on Flickr).

A lot of other people did go and they put their pictures on Flickr. Looks like it was a much better event with real working aircraft. One thing I noted last year were most of the stuff on display were mockups, as opposed to actual working machines. Not to mention that they had more stuff in the air. I will try to go next year but will go for sure when it's at the real space port.

Another interesting note, last year it was call the "preview event" and this year it's called the "second annual", meaning that last year was really the "first annual". Whatever.

Tangerine is a Mac application for analyzing each song in your iTunes music library for BPS, or Beats Per Seconds. The purpose of doing so would be to generate playlists with high BPS for a workout, or low BPS for that night of getting-it-on with the chick you picked up at that party. Tangerine can also generate playlist for you.

It seems that I've tried at least one other program like this, but it was unremarkable because I don't recall it's name. Tangerine is remarkable because of it does what it says it does and that's it. And it does so in a easy to use interface. When generating a playlist it gives a option on the order of high to low BPS songs, so if you can have slower at the beginning, higher in the middle, and lower at the end to match your work out.

The only complaint I have is that it should give an option to choose which where your source songs come from when generating a playlist. You can use a rules list from the preferences, but this is cumbersome. There should be a popup list in the playlist generation dialog. Tangerine is still in beta so it's possible they will add this feature later.

You can download Tangerine here.

User road is one of the main drags through Rio Rancho. It use to only take you to North Hills (where I lived when I first moved to New Mexico), it now takes you to the new Down Town Rio Rancho, along with all the house developments besides North Hills. It's deplorable that with all the housing and the down town that the road is still only in progress of being widened from 2 lanes (no center lane) to 4 lanes. Anyone that's been at the intersection of Unser and Northern about 7am can testify that this road should have been completed with construction about two or three years ago.

The Scorpion's play at the new Santa Anna Star Center in the new down town on 27 October. I don't see anyway that they will have this road paved in a week and ready for traffic. The other road leading to the events center is Paseo Del Volcan, which Cocoposts explains how the whole United States paid for the majority of the road. In fact, I think the whole country paid for most of the Unser expansion too. Thanks USA!

I had noticed a spot in the road in front of my house for a few weeks, thought it was a oil stain or something. I had also noticed some water at the end of the driveway that came from nowhere. The source of the water became very apparent last week when it started bubbling out of a crack in the middle of the street, right where stain was.

I called the Rio Rancho water department, they were out the next day, put a cone out and marked the street. They day after that they had fixed the leak leaving a dirt patch in it's place, I hope they plan to come back and put some asphalt there.

This shouldn't have really been a surprise after AOL said they are going to a free service model.

AOL announced Wednesday it will lay off 1,300 employees by closing call centers in New Mexico and Arizona as part of a previously announced restructuring plan. AOL, the Time Warner Inc. online unit formerly known as America Online, also plans to sell its call center in Ogden, Utah. The cuts include 900 layoffs at the Albuquerque call center and 400 jobs at the center in Tucson, Ariz., AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said. The Arizona and New Mexico call centers each have operated for 10 years.

I'm considering getting a Skype phone just as Garth is. I choose to not get wired phone service at my house, I'm not paying $20 min for a phone I would barely use. I went cell phone only, unfortunately I get a crappy signal from T-Mobile at my house.

I'm looking at Skype, they have phone to skype service for $30 a year and you get your own phone number. As long as I get a internet connection I can get phone service. Plus it can do fancy things like transfer calls to my cell. I'd like to get a dedicated phone, not one I hook up to the computer. The Netgear SPH101 or the Belkin Wi-Fi Phone don't require computers using a wifi connection instead. The Belkin isn't yet available but is $50 cheaper.

Holy crap, I had no idea this place was right in my backyard! I gotta make a trip this weekend.

Welcome to The Black Hole - Ed Grothus' old supermarket and adjoining A-frame church piled deep with salvaged scientific equipment of all kinds. Of course this nerd's paradise is located in Los Alamos, NM

This week's Photo Friday is "Thin". This was taken near the Spruce Hole Yurt near Chama New Mexico. Check out the complete photo set up on Flickr.

I was trying to sleep in on my day off this morning only to be awaken about 10am. The noise sounded like someone was pounding on the side of my house with a hammer, WTF? After listening to it for about a minute I started to think, no, it can't be. It can't be what I think it is, can it?

I manage to get some clothes and shoes on. I walk out to the back yard and there are a shitload of birds all over the place. And what do I find attached to the side of my house? A wood pecker. It's removed a large swatch of stucko from the side of my house, just under a window.

I guess it was time to get up anyways.

Update: Apparently it isn't uncommon to have woodpeckers attack buildings in New Mexico. I found this PDF from NMSU on how to control them.

Do I file this under "Apple Computer" or "Albuquerque"? Whatever. It's coming, the Albuquerque Apple Store is coming! Cult Of Mac has revealed it's exact location in the Uptown Albuquerue shopping center next to the withering Winrock.

Like a true Mac nerd, I plan to be there for it's opening.

I guess I don't have a infestation. After my last post I went to the nearest Home Depot and found some Glue Traps. They are a platform with a ultra sticky substance that's suppose to attract scorpions, spiders and other bugs. I'd prefer to stay away from the nuclear option of spraying the place if possible. Besides, scorpion's are difficult to kill with standard pesticides anyhow.

Since putting them down I haven't seen as single scorpion, which surprised me. Until a few days ago, I found a small one in the glue trap. I'm not sure where they are coming from but It's pretty clear they are coming from the north end of the house. They could be coming up from around the heater ducts in the floor or possibly from the master bathroom where the roots were coming up, i haven't finished demolishing that yet.

In either case I've learned to live with the fact that they are there. In fact, they are a excellent predator and will eat centipedes, another nasty insect that people find in their homes in New Mexico. So what would I rather have, scorpion's or centipedes? Scorpion's turn out to be the lesser of two evils.

DukeCityFix covers the former mayor of Rio Rancho's little predicament.

It seems that state legislative candidate (District 60) and former Rio Rancho Mayor Jim Owen failed to mention his 2001 felony child abuse charges in campaign questionnaires over the years.

The charge was related to corporal punishment and he may have been set up. None the less he's been a little dodgy by not reporting it while running for the legislature. This sort of thing is always going to come out. He should have just mentioned if regardless of the technicalities of the language.

I guess this sucks if you have a helicopter and live in Scottsdale. The advantage of owning a helicopter is you can live pretty far away.

Only a handful of residents have commuted via helicopter since then, but planners said that they feared more helicopters would start hovering since street traffic is so congested. About three years ago, some homeowners began complaining about noise from heli-commuting neighbors.

Wow, a lot of work went into this.

Mona Lisa, the mysterious woman immortalized in Leonardo da Vinci's 16th century masterpiece, had just given birth to her second son when she sat for the painting, a French art expert said on Tuesday.The discovery was made by a team of Canadian scientists who used special infrared and three-dimensional technology to peer through hitherto impenetrable paint layers on the work, which now sits in the Louvre museum in Paris.

Think Secret says:

Apple and Cingular have signed an agreement that will make the US' largest cell phone provider the exclusive carrier of Apple's forthcoming phone, sources report. Apple's iPhone remains on track for an early 2007 release.

Apple's exclusive contract with Cingular is said to be good for the first six months, sources report, meaning other providers will be able to sell the phone in the second-half of 2007. Cingular had an exclusive on the Motorola ROKR—the first phone to feature iTunes—when it launched last year.

If this is true I might be willing to switch, but I'm not going to buy a crippled phone like what Cingular does to the Motorola phones. If Apple designs the phone like Motorola, then hopefully it has a sim card and I can use it with T-Mobile. In which case I will wait patiently and buy a unlocked version off ebay.

In either case I really hate this Motorola SLVR that I bought. I should have stuck with Sony Ericsson.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants Six Flags Great America to scrap its Halloween-themed cockroach-eating promotion. A spokeswoman for the animal rights organization says the contest at the amusement park's FrightFest is "gratuitously cruel." The park in Gurnee, Ill., is joining other Six Flags parks in offering unlimited line-jumping privileges to anyone who eats a live Madagascar hissing cockroach. The bugs are up to three inches long.

Come-on. There's gotta be a line somewhere, and I think cockroaches are it.

The weather in New Mexico has changed from Summer to Winter nearly overnight. Not really giving the usual transition period to winterize the swamp cooler and get the heater started. Tonight, weather.com says that we the temperature, with the wind, feels like 43 degrees.

Tonight I enjoy a alcoholic beverage while setting next to the fire and watching some TV as the wind blows outside. Not so bad really.

The Taos ski area's web cam shows SNOW! Lets hope for a good ski season.

The young woman went to doctors to have them probe her brain, to root out where her seizures came from. But unexpectedly, their investigations and the procedure they performed led her to experience the creepy illusion of a person standing behind her, where nobody was actually present. The patient described the illusory person as young and of indeterminate sex, a "shadow" who did not speak or move. "He is behind me, almost at my body, but I do not feel it," she reported.

Link

The Albuquerque Hilton (La Posada de Albuquerque) Hotel's reception desk is on Craigslist for the bargain price of $5000. I don't know that it's considered vintage, be built in the 1980's. Being huge and being built out of oak, I'd like to have it if I had the money and place for it.

Weird Al's latest work. I keep watching it over and over. As good as Amish Paradise.

Las Cruces police are warning residents that someone threatened to randomly shoot people if city leaders failed to hand over what they described as a "substantial" ransom.The city received the second of two threatening letters Friday afternoon, but police remained tightlipped about details of the demand, including how much money was involved. They did say the demand called for a "substantial amount."At a news conference late Friday, Lt. Randy Lara said he didn't want to alarm residents but he urged them to watch for any suspicious activity."The letter did reference that Las Cruces residents will be shot at random if the city didn't comply with the extortion," Lara said.

Link

The Pentagon has contracted Northrup Grumman to develop a travel booking system, (like Orbitz). If congress doesn't kill it, it will end up costing nearly $474 million dollars. thats MILLION DOLLARS. Even if it cost $1 Million I would say it was excessive.

"It will take 200 years to ever pay back the cost of this contract in terms of that savings," Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., told ABC News, "especially when you consider they're not getting the best price." Four years ago, the Pentagon's inspector general recommended killing the defense travel system altogether, but it survived. Investigators say 70 percent of Pentagon travelers refuse to use DTS because of faulty software or because they believe they can get a better price elsewhere.

I love the way Northrup Grumman tries to make it sound all good and rosy. My first question at reading this article is why the hell did they contract Northrup Grumman? If they really needed their own booking system, which I'm not convinced they do, why didn't they contract a company that does this sort of thing. Like Expedia or Orbitz. My company uses American Express. Hell even IBM could have done it.

What a cool story.

When Susan Kuhnhausen returned home from work one day earlier this month, she encountered an intruder wielding a claw hammer. After a struggle, the 51-year-old nurse fended off her attacker by strangling him with her bare hands. Neighbors praised the woman for her bravery, and investigators said they believed the dead man - Edward Dalton Haffey - was burglarizing Kuhnhausen's home. But after an investigation, police now say the intruder Kuhnhausen strangled was apparently a hit man hired by her estranged husband - Michael James Kuhnhausen Sr. - to kill her.

A few nights ago I found scorpion number 4. After vacuuming him up I quickly found scorpion number 5. I've seen 5 more scorpions in the last month than I have seen in my life, and I've lived in Arizona and New Mexico all my life.

I hope this is just a natural reaction to the rain we have had. I put down some glue traps a few days ago and so far no hits. I also haven't seen any bugs, except for a few crickets, in a few days.

Great! I eat bagged spinach, at least once a week. New Mexico is one of the states listed in the outbreak. They don't know of a specific brand.

An outbreak of E. coli in eight states has left at least one person dead and 50 others sick, federal health officials said Thursday in warning consumers nationwide not to eat bagged fresh spinach. The death occurred in Wisconsin, where 20 people were made ill, state officials said. The outbreak has sickened others - eight of them seriously - in Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah, according to federal health officials.

I guess you could say that AMREP owned most of Rio Rancho at some point. They basically started Rio Rancho, the first house I bought here was made by AMREP. Thankfully they are out of the house building market.

Their latest financial report is a good indicator that the real estate marked hasn't slowed down that much here.

Revenues of the Company's AMREP Southwest real estate subsidiary were $37,092,000 in the first quarter of 2007 compared to $7,689,000 in the same quarter last year. This substantial revenue increase was primarily due to increased sales of both developed and undeveloped lots in AMREP Southwest's principal market of Rio Rancho, New Mexico, where interest in the Company's landholdings did not appear to be impacted by the slowdown in housing that has been reported in many parts of the country.

WTF?

It's a pain in the ass to do just about anything in Rio Rancho, because you can't actually do much in Rio Rancho. You have to go into Albuquerque. Now I'm getting a 14 screen movie theater right down the road from my house. I was hoping for a Home Depot to be build there, but I will take what I can get.

Drew Dolan, a project coordinator with Argus, said plans include a strip mall with 8,500 square feet of retail space to be developed with the theater. Site plans also include another sit-down restaurant, fast food offerings and an auto services provider, he said.

An introductory class on television production for people interested in producing programs for RioVision, the city of Rio Rancho's public access television channel, will take place in September and October.

The class will cover studio and field production, and attendees should be residents of Rio Rancho or sponsored by a city resident. A fee of $50 will be charged for the course, which will meet on Thursday evenings Sept. 21 through October 12 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in council chambers in the Rio Rancho City Hall.

Leading the class will be Ed Smith, owner of Edit House Productions LLC, the Rio Rancho company recently awarded the contract to manage the public access channel, and Elizabeth Dwyer, RioVision producer.

For information, call (505) 891-5051.

Link

If this turns out not to be a hoax, then this could be a huge deal. Especially since I'm concerned that I will have, at least, skin cancer some day.

Genetically altered immune cells wiped out tumors in two men with a deadly form of skin cancer and kept the patients disease-free for at least 18 months, U.S. scientists said on Thursday.

Check out Gawkers response to the fact that New York is 19 and Albuquerque is 20.

We eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast, Albuquerque. Fucking retards.

The City of Rio Rancho has finally updated their website. with all the broken links and lack of purpose, It was badly in need of a update. They still have a while to go to catch up to Albuquerque's website. Also, no RSS feed.

This Observer article has some more information. What this article seems to leave out, which seems to me to be important, is a link to the website. Also, the Observer doesn't have a RSS feed. Why is this so hard people!

I need a lawnmower. Despite the fact that I haven't been able to actually water the lawn, nature has conspired to provide me with weeds. No no. It couldn't sprout grass, it had to sprout all manners of plants that are not grass. Although my Black & Decker CST2000 12 Volt 12" Cordless GRASSHOG Trimmer / Edger does a good job, it's not up to the task of mowing my lawn.

I have no desire to deal with the tomfoolery of a gas powered device. I'm a modern man, and I'm willing to accept the limitations of a electric powered lawnmower and allow the power plant to do the polluting far away rather than generate the pollution in my back yard. Lets then, stick to what I know, Black & Decker.

At first I looked at the Black & Decker MM875 19" Electric Mulching Mower. I gotta have a mulcher to fill my compost bins, otherwise don't waste my time. The reviews seem positive, and it seems to meet my needs. Although it may test the limits of my needs, I've already said I know going into this that there will be limitations and at about $200 I can handle it. This, however is a corded mower. I can't bee seen mowing my backyard with a cord hanging off my mower. What am I, some kind of jerk?

Moving on to cordless models I find the Black & Decker CMM1000 24 Volt 19" Cordless Rechargeable Mulching Mower. Yes yes, I know i read the reviews. I can handle the limitations of a electric mower already. I'm willing to go over the lawn over and over again to get it all cut. One thing I failed to initially notice was the price, at $400 - $500. That's in US dollars.

I guess I won't look like some sort of jerk pushing around a corded mower, for that matter any kind of mower. At least for now. By the way, looks like iRobot is going to come out with a Robotic Lawnmower. Oh sure, it will be just as cheap. I will buy two.

Who the hell voted for this religious whack-o?

U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws." The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.

Harris made the comments - which she clarified Saturday - in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, which interviewed political candidates and asked them about religion and their positions on issues. Separation of church and state is "a lie we have been told," Harris said in the in