Mom's New Mexico Visit: Days 3 & 4

After a weekend of getting up really early, we took a couple of leisurely days to recover. On Monday we hung around town, and went to Old Town earlier in the day for some shopping. My mom originally had the idea of getting a locally made ring, but nothing really appealed to her when we actually got in the stores. However, she ended up finding a watch with white buffalo stone inlay.

It hadn't occurred to me that Old Town would be crowded. Every time I've been before it's pretty dead. However, since the Balloon Fiesta was drawing people from all over the place, it was kind of a bustling place to be. There was even some entertainment in the town square, with music and dancing.

A Mariachi band in the town center. The guy with the guitarron kept making funny faces and wiggling his big eyebrows.

Later in the afternoon I brought my mom to the knitting club I usually go to on Mondays. We meet at 5:30pm after work at Bailey's on the Beach, a restaurant that is really close to campus, has tasty food, and sangria. My mom mostly went because of the promise of sangria, but I like to think she also wanted to meet my friends and hang out with me. Usually I like their food, but they have a habit of putting spice into everything. Unfortunately, the pasta my mom got was a little too spicy and we stopped on the way home to get her a burger. We had been eating a lot of spicy food lately, and we just needed to give our digestive systems a break.

Tuesday morning I had to suck it up and head in to school to go to class. It was my turn to lead discussion in my paleoclimate class, otherwise I might have skipped this one time. Tuesday also turned out to be a sucky weather day, so we had to take our wholesome activities indoors. We decided to get lunch at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, which was pretty good. I got pasole and an indian taco salad. Indian tacos are kind of like fried dough with taco stuff on top. This time it had carne adovada, which is always a good choice. Lunch was tasty, if not healthy.

It started to actually rain while we were at lunch, but we were already at the cultural center, so we decided to check out the exhibits and go through the museum. They have native dance performances pretty much every day, so we checked that out. Photos were allowed for this particular performance, although the lighting was bad and it was hard to get a good shot of the dancers who were moving fast. I can't remember what the first dance was called, but it was supposed to be the old way of doing the dance. The dancer was covered in eagle feathers. The second dance was the Jingle Dress Dance. The metal cones on the dress are supposed to call to healing spirits. The story that went along with the dance was that a grandfather was instructed to have this dress made for his deathly ill grand daughter. The little girl began to dance, and the spirits heard the jingling from the objects on the dress, and she was healed.

Traditional Dance

Jingle Dress Dance

The next program was done by some young adult Navajos, but since their presentation was more of a religious nature I didn't take any pictures. They demonstrated grinding cornmeal, the basket dance, and a bow and arrow dance. The "performers" looked like they were maybe in high school or college. We learned that the average age of a person within the Navajo nation is about 21, which is really young.

After the performances, we looked at an exhibit on the 19 Pueblos in New Mexico. In addition to the Pueblo, New Mexico also has resident Navajo and Apache Nations. The had a photo exhibit from Laguna Pueblo, and had images from Grab Day, which was associated with a movie documentary about the day and this tribe. It was a special project because many tribes are very private and don't allow photography in their villages. The rest of the museum exhibited the history, crafts, and traditions of the tribes of New Mexico.

Mom's Visit to New Mexico: Days 1 & 2

What a fantastic week! Mom got in in the late evening last Friday for her 8-day vacation in New Mexico. The visit was timed with the balloon fiesta; after seeing my pictures from last year, my mom decided immediately that she must make it here for that week, specifically.

Saturday morning we were up and on the road by 5:30am, which by Fiesta weekend standards is late. We were on our way to one of the mass ascensions, where they inflate a launch literally hundreds of hot air balloons.

Balloons being inflated before lift off.

The Darth Vader balloon was back again this year from Belgium.

Two new shape balloons: Spider Pig and a huge butterfly (it's left antenna was having a  little trouble here).

Took this one for my Mom's friend Al who, like this balloon, is from Jordan.

"Stay inflated my friends"

The Bees

Just like last year, I took dozens more photos than will actually end up on this blog. I'll need to do something with them this time around, I certainly have enough for Fiesta themed photo presents for birthday's and holidays.

On Sunday we went to the Taos Wool Festival.
I always get an interesting reaction from people when I say I'm going to a wool festival. First of all, you get to see cute/funny animals. Secondly, the drive is beautiful. Third, there are lots of pretty things to look at and buy. So don't knock the wool festival until you've tried it.

An alpaca that is cute/silly.

Disapproving Llama, disapproves of me taking its picture.

I ended up buying some very nice yarn to make knitted gifts for Matt and my Mom. They picked the yarn, but the surprise will still be there when I finish the projects. I also left with a warm and fuzzy fleece headband and a drop spindle to make my own yarn. It isn't enough that I spend money and time on knitting and crocheting and materials, I now feel the need to make yarn too. Overachiever.

On the drive back from Taos, we stopped at the Rio Grande Gorge for a view over the bridge.

Rio Grande

My Mom, with the wind in her hair.

Taos Wool Festival Gang

Me and Matteo

Second tarantula I've seen in this area of NM. This guy was crawling around the ladies bathroom at the rest stop.

Recap of Aubreya’s Weekend – 2

Bea spent Saturday night with Mouse and Dave in Socorro. When Matt and I got there in the morning, the whole Socorro crew was kind of groggy. They had apparently had a pretty rough night: there had been a 5 car accident just by the Sunport (the airport in ABQ), so it took them twice as long to get home as it should have. It had taken them over an hour just to get outside of Albuquerque proper. Mouse was awake enough, however, to get up to make a delicious breakfast of sourdough waffles and crepes. You could just taste the love in them, mmm.

After brunch, Bea got to see their sweet backyard in the daylight, and Matt and I went to the store to get the necessary items to make a big bowl of guacamole. Mouse and Dave’s landlords, Chris and Andy, are also their neighbors. They were having a big cookout shindig around dinner time, and we were all going. Parties at their house always involve crazy amounts of food and drink, so it isn’t really necessary to bring much with us. Homemade guacamole, however, is always welcome. In addition to breakfast, Mouse had also been up early baking some cakes, and she also brought enchilada casserole. Like I said, crazy amounts of food.

After the cookout died down some, we stuck around to play games at Andy and Chris’. All of the company for the evening was, in the most loving way possible, pretty geeky. Andy, Chris, and their friends are all gamers. Matt, Bea, Dave, and I got in a game of Settler’s of Catan, while Mouse, Andy, Chris, and their friend K Scott played Power Grid. It just wouldn’t have been a complete weekend visit if we hadn’t played Settler’s with Bea.

After the party, Aubreya came back to Albuquerque with us. She was heading home the following afternoon, and we were trying to figure out what to do. Rather than try and rush a trip to Santa Fe, we decided that the Petroglyphs would be a good last thing to do for her visit. We had another leisurely morning with a late breakfast at the Frontier Restaurant (more green chili!). Mouse and Dave decided to come back down to Albuquerque to go to the petroglyphs with us, and Bea was so excited to be able to see rocks! Apparently outcrops are hard to come by in Louisiana. I can verify this from my own visit, I can’t recall much in the way of topography and there is a lot of obscuring vegetation. In the high desert where we are, though, we have the mountains and several basalt flows; the petroglyphs are on the basalt cliffs. We spent a couple hours exploring, looking at the drawings, and trying to imagine what they mean.

Before Bea headed back to Louisiana we got lunch at another local chain, Flying Star. We both got Mexican lattes (coffee, chocolate, and cinnamon, mmm), and I had my usual green chili chicken enchiladas. We still had a lot left that we wanted to do, the next time she visits we’ll make it a point to get up to Santa Fe.

I think Matt and I are pleased with the number of visitors we’ve had so far in the year we’ve been in New Mexico: his parents, Sam, Dan, Lev, Fabia, and now Aubreya. We’ve had more visitors so far than we had the entire time we were in Pennsylvania. Maybe it’s because we’re further away, so it seems like more of a “destination” than State College, PA. Maybe it also helps that the four of us (Matt, Mouse, Dave, and myself) are kind of concentrated here, so a lot of visiting can happen in one shot. Whatever the reasons, I’m happy.

Recap of Aubreya’s Weekend – 1

Almost three weeks ago, Aubreya (our friend and former roommate) visited us for Labor Day weekend. It worked out really well because she gets every other Friday off from work because she her company has a 9-80 work schedule. Additionally, she had Labor Day off, so it was a really long weekend. She flew in late Thursday evening and we got a full 3 and a half days of visiting in.

Friday morning was laid back and we had brunch with Pnina, an acquaintance from PASSCAL. Pnina and Aubreya had met in Africa while she was doing a seismological study, and it had been years since they had seen each other. Pnina and our other friend, Mouse, both work together. We met at Mannie’s for a HUGE breakfast/lunch. Bea and I both got the same thing, the “Pileup at Central and Girard”. It consists of eggs, hash browns, beans, cheese, and chili all piled up together on a plate. It is delicious and filling, which fits my criteria for a good brunch meal. I don’t have it often, it’s a little rich for every-day consumption.

After brunch, I gave Aubreya the 30 minute tour of campus before I had to run off to the only class I have on Friday’s, BioBLOG. I introduced her to a couple of my friends, and showed off my office and some of the pretty architecture on campus. While I was at class, she and Matt went to Nob Hill to check out some of the stores. When I was finished I took the Rapid Ride down to the Co-Op to meet up with them again. We wandered some more, found the most adorable kitty for adoption in a store front, and got some gelato at Ecco. 

One of the places I always bring people when they visit is Old Town. It’s kind of touristy and I don’t usually eat or shop there, but there’s a lot of art and pretty things to look at. It’s also the oldest part of town (as the name implies) and there’s a neat looking church and town center. It’s also kind of fun to poke in and out of stores, and we did find a fairly new art gallery belonging to an artist we recognized. We had seen some of his bird paintings at the New Mexico Tea Co., and I got a pair of earrings that had miniature versions of some of those paintings.

Our next stop was dinner at Sadie’s. The three of us planned on getting our fill of New Mexican food that weekend, which naturally includes sopapillas. In my opinion, Sadie’s has some of the best sopapillas in town. Sometimes Matt and I just go there to get margaritas and sopapillas. Then we headed home for the evening to hang out and play games. I invited Fred over, and we had kind of a late night playing Dixit and Flux. Dixit was new, and Fred brought it over. It very much reminded me of Balderdash, only in Dixit you make up stories that go along with weird pictures. 

On Saturday we had breakfast at our apartment. Matt and Bea had bought some tasty lemon and lavender at the Co-Op the day before, which were delicious with tea. Mouse and Dave drove up from Socorro to spend the afternoon with us. We got some sandwiches to-go from Which Wich?, because we were going to be riding the tram up to the top of the Sandia Mountains. The tram is really fun, you get a great view and it’s the fastest way to the top of the mountain. It’s only about a 15 minute ride in either direction. We had lunch at the top and wandered around some. Bea found the tiniest baby horned lizard, and we observed the fattest rock squirrel I had ever seen.

Later in the afternoon we went to the Bernalillo wine festival. New Mexico isn’t exactly known for its wine, but there were a large number of wineries there. My favorite variety that I tried was Casa Abril’s dry red zinfandel. It had a spicy, peppery quality that was really nice and Matt and I both liked it, I would probably buy it to have at home. We did try some red and green chili wine. It was kind of gimmicky, and I probably wouldn’t ever buy it, but it wasn’t bad either. I was told before by someone that it was terrible, which turned out to be a major exaggeration. 

After we got back from the wine festival we had some dinner at Il Vicino, which is a local chain that does micro brews and brick over pizza. I decided that I had enough to drink, alcohol wise, and decided instead to have some of their homebrewed root beer. Root beer is always better when it’s made in the traditional way and you can get it on tap. I also love the pizza at Il Vicino, as far as thin crust pizza goes, it’s the best in Albuquerque. Dinner was followed by more gelato, I’m pretty much always in the mood for it.

That evening, Bea went back with Mouse and Dave to fabulous Socorro. We would be heading down ourselves for brunch and a cookout the following day.

My Car is Getting Old

I was reminded this weekend of my Dad. It’s kind of too bad that something unpleasant like my car falling apart made me miss him; but he was always there to help me deal with life, and life can often be a pain in the ass. Oil changes, check engine lights, tax returns, odd transmission behavior... these were things my Dad taught me about.

The other day I was on my way to go buy canning supplies. I got about three-quarters of the way to my destination when my car started to stall out when I was accelerating. Past experience told me this was likely a transmission problem. I’m no mechanic, but I will say that I’m pretty good at identifying common car troubles by feel and sound. My first car had a transmission that leaked like a sieve, so I know what it feels like to suddenly realize you’re low on fluid. 

I got home, popped the hood, and checked my fluid level. To my dismay, the dipstick indicated that I had a dangerously low amount of fluid. The only way you lose fluid levels in automatic transmissions is through a leak, and I had no clue that I had a leak. Therefore, I have no idea how long I’ve been low on fluid or if any permanent damage has been done. I keep thinking about how we took this car up the Sandia Mountains last weekend, I am so glad it didn’t break down that night. Anyone that might have rescued us was in my car. A transmission fix will cost more than my car is worth, and I’m not exactly rolling in dough with my stipend.

At any rate, I’m kicking myself for not keeping a closer eye on my car. I know better than to not check under the hood occasionally. I checkout out a few other things while I was at it and I’m also low on power steering fluid, but unlike the transmission, that won’t leave me stranded somewhere. I already figured that would be low, given the whining noise I’ve been hearing for months now.

So Matt and I made a Pep Boys run yesterday to get transmission fixer and some more fluid. I’m terrified of overfilling the transmission in my desperation to get the stuff back in there. Everything I’ve read from the internet and my owner’s manual indicates this can be as bad as not having enough fluid. In the mean time I’ll need to the car out on a short ride so that I can check the level when the engine is hot, and then add fluid little by little until it looks good. And from now on I’ll check it every month. Sorry Dad.

Sorry for the Absence

I just realized it's been an unacceptably long time since I've written.

I do have plenty to talk about (Aubreya's visit last weekend), and I have some catching up to do (on everything, yikes), but for now I'll just explain my absence.

I'm writing for the UNM BioBLOG again this semester, and probably for every semester here on out. I was on deck this past week, so I was furiously getting my post together. Without giving too much away, the post is on the state of scientific literacy in America. It turned out kind of long, but everyone who's reviewed it so far says it's great. I'm really excited about it going up later this week. Scientific literacy wasn't at all what I planned on writing about, I try to stay away from really heavy topics when my reading is going to be public. However, I was inspired, and when inspiration calls you just have to go with it. I'll let you all know when it gets posted. Also, the most recent post is on my labmate's 6-week adventure in Australia. It's good, you should check it out.

The other reason I've been MIA is that I have been hopelessly trying to work on an assignment that involves writing a research proposal. I'm having many issues, including: being organized, my brain drifting, not having a firm enough grasp on what I want to write about, and my computer being a pain in the butt (i.e. slooooooow).

I am going to start posting on my personal blog more frequently. I found out yesterday that if I do some fun writing, tedious writing comes a lot easier afterward. I guess my brain just needs to get warmed up before heavy lifting.

Inflated Sense of Self Importance

This has been a crazy week for my friends and family back East. On Tuesday (8/23/11) there was a magnitude 5.9 earthquake in Virginia that was felt widely throughout the Eastern part of the country. Friends in Connecticut and State College, PA felt it, and I even heard that people in Boston felt it too. In addition to the earthquake, the whole East coast is bracing itself for hurricane Irene, which should be going through my home state of CT over the weekend.

I don't like natural disasters, but as a geologist I have a weird sense of disappointment that I have never been through an earthquake. I'm not trivializing it, I have an idea of how dangerous and scary they can be. That's not the point. Earthquakes and other major events are demonstrations of the amazing power of natural forces, and I'm fascinated by any event that show that the Earth isn't just a static piece of rock floating through space. By the end of the weekend, people back East will have experienced two powerful forces in a one-week span: a fairly large earthquake and a pretty serious hurricane.

The only thing that is kind of getting under my skin about all of this is the reaction that people are having, specifically "Why is this happening?", or "What did we do to deserve this?" As if there is some reason these things happen beyond chance and the physical sciences. I'm hearing things like "this is because New York legalized gay marriage", or "this is because of Obama". Seriously?? That's not how the Earth works. There are reasons for all of the events that happen, that's for sure. But they have nothing to do with petty human social affairs. When I hear these kinds of things, I feel like we've stepped back into the Dark Ages.

Maybe it's because people feel like bad things need some kind of moral reason for happening. But bad stuff happens all the time, to all kinds of people. We're so absorbed with ourselves, that when something like this happens it feels special because it's "happening to us." But these kinds of things have been happening for as long as the Earth has existed, and they'll keep happening once we're long gone.

My suggestion is that if you want to know why stuff happens, spend some time reading about the physical causes and the science behind it. I know blaming it on "divine retribution" might be easier and make you feel better, but it's total and complete crap. Knowing the real how and why behind things like earthquakes is fascinating. But it sure as hell isn't all about you.