Time for Photos

Hiking the Piedra Lisa Trail in one hour is a workout!

Motorcycle ride to Mountainair

A visit from my friendly, local, neighborhood … Roadrunner

Abby Max. Model, actor, fitness guru, grandmother: kind, irrepressible, funny, talented, & beautiful.

An Arch on a Byway

There are many things to see while hiking the Quebrados National Back Country Byway: arches, ridges, slot canyons with fantastically high walls, and pooled water. The ridges have alternating bands of red and yellow sandstone, red and purple shale, and white to bluish-gray limestone. The byway is a 24-mile dirt road sandwiched between Two National Wildlife Refuges – Sevilleta and Bosque del Apache near Socorro, New Mexico. It is habitat for mule deer, coyote, bobcat, gray fox, raccoon, porcupine, opossum, ground squirrel, cottontail, and jackrabbit. I hike with several different Meetup groups of various hiking abilities. The group I was with for this hike consisted of strong hikers, so it can be difficult to keep up after I stop for photos. We also spent time in the Arroyo del Tajo. I’ve included a photo of a 60-year-old hiker from the last time I was hiking there in March. She moved away to teach in a remote area of Alaska. I hope to hear her Alaska stories someday.

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Less Talk. More Photos. Santa Fe Forest.

Yesterday, I went up through the Jemez Mountains, then turned onto State Road 126 to hike in the Santa Fe National Forest along San Antonio Creek. Great hike, beautiful day. Saw several piles of bear scat, but no bears. Stopped by the creek to rest; all I could hear were birds and the creek gurgling. Once you click on the first photo, you should be able to arrow along to the next so you can see all of the photos in full size.

A July 2, 2022 hike on Sandia’s crest: Rocks, Flowers, and Paragliders

Kiwanis cabin, east side

Restaurant

Went up to the Crest House at the end of Sandia Crest Road at 10,678 ft. Hiked a big loop around the ridge east to the Kiwanis cabin, then over to the Ten-3 restaurant at approximately 10,300 ft. I bought a take-out beer, because they don’t sell take-out food, then hiked the long way back along the western edge with an unobstructed view of the foothills, Albuquerque, and everything west as far as Mount Taylor. It’s a narrow trail with deep drop-offs, descending for a bit until it circles back up to the Crest House, but the view is worth the effort. Note: look closely at the eighth photo – that is the white paraglider soaring high above the Kiwanis cabin. There was also a red & blue paraglider, paintbrush flowers, swallowtail butterflies, and rusty rocks. There are two photos of the Ten-3 restaurant alongside the upper tram tower. One photo shows a tram car heading back down the mountain. Another shows a view to the south.

So, those above are old photos, but here are the pictures from the July 2nd hike (you should be able to click on the photos to see the full images):

Photography from Arroyo del Tajo, New Mexico

These are from a slot canyon in a ravine called Arroyo del Tajo, just southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, along the Rio Grande. The first five are my favorites., but more follow. Click on each to enlarge.

Beehive on a Cliff

Contrast in Light & Color

Land Under a Blue NM Sky

Hidden Petroglyph

New Mexico Soil

More photos:

An interesting thing happened on this hike. I met a fascinating woman. She is quite beautiful and close to my own age at 61. Her American Indian heritage graced her with dark hair that she has not had to dye at all. She is very intelligent and we shared our life stories on the hike. She is a retired teacher from Texas but has been teaching in New Mexico. She will be leaving later this year to teach in a remote area of Alaska. She said she would send me stories from there. We appear to have much in common. She asked me to send her the photos I took, so I gave her my card with my contact information. She also took some photos I’d like to see. She was going to contact me with her information. I know some women don’t like to give that away to strangers they’ve just met, so that seemed best. I waited for days to post any photos to the meetup hiking site but never heard from her again. When I was doing that, I noticed that she had removed herself from the hiking group. I thought: “What did I say or do?” It was so disappointing. I so much wanted to stay in touch with her at the very least, and I believed we had connected. I looked forward to perhaps seeing her again. I felt so happy to have met someone like her. I have not dated in years because no one I’ve met interested me enough. This woman, yes, she interested me enough to make changes to my life. That’s incredible to me. Anyway, here are a few photos, aside from the ones above, that I won’t be able to send her. Sigh. But these ones of her were really for me.

Walker Flats and a Solitary Llama

Photos from a hike to Walker Flats. The mountain peaks are part of the Chimayosos and Jicarita peaks. I was up above Santa Fe, and north of Mora, NM. West of that general area is the Pecos Wilderness. The specific place is called Walker Flats. We were searching for a waterfall and just missed it. Two travelers from Houston, Texas had already found it. We’d have gone back, but two of the people were ready to go home, and I didn’t like the looks of the dark clouds moving in. The winding dirt road we took to get there was full of deep ruts, and undercarriage-busting rocks. I didn’t want to drive on that road at night or in the rain, or in the rain at night. This llama followed us around but didn’t want to be approached too closely. Perhaps she is lost? She was munching on plentiful meadow grass, but two hikers kept trying to feed her almonds and granola bars.

On the way home, we stopped for ice cream, at Rene’s 50’s Diner and Little Alaska Ice Cream Parlor.

The Diner is paired with Little Alaska Ice Cream Parlor, so you can sit down and get both.

Laundry Dreams? A Dating Adventure?

Every once in a while I’ll have a dream that sticks with me after I’m awake. This morning, one of those shook me awake: I was living in some kind of multi-story apartment building, which I have never done, nor have I ever considered doing that. There was someone else in the apartment with me, maybe even two other people. It seemed we were arguing, or deep in some serious discussion. The phone rang. There was a laundry facility in the basement of the building, and my clothes were done. It wasn’t a service, just coin-operated machines, and the drier had finished. So they needed me to come get my clothes out of the machine. I said I’d be right down. As I was telling the other person, or persons, that I had to go get my laundry, there was a knock on my door. It was a large muscular man and I let him in. He had my clothes in a laundry basket. I lifted my arms to take the laundry and dump it on the bed, but he inverted the basket, dumping my clothes on the floor. I didn’t say anything, I just swooped down to pick them up and put them on the bed. They were still slightly damp.

And I was awake. I was confused for a moment, because it was just after 5:00 am, and still dark. I have no place to be, and nothing planned for all day, but I was wide awake. I made some strong tea as dawn broke. I can’t get the dream out of my mind, pondering what the hell it was about. A high-rise apartment? A laundry room? Neither applies.

The dream wasn’t about laundry. Anger? Was the argument about something important? I did have an odd breakup with someone I barely knew a few weeks ago. Diedre was someone I met on a movie set, the set of Matthew McConaughey’s Gold movie. It was shot here in Albuquerque in 2017. I was a background actor on the set for a few scenes. She was also doing background on that set. We had gotten together back then some time later, and gone to watch a movie in this great theater that has a brewery and bar in it. (not a dream – it was real). It was about the time that the Gold movie had been released, 2018, so I think that was what we watched. The movie house has multiple theaters, but it’s been closed since Covid-19 hit. Great place. You can sit at the bar before the movie starts, and then take your drinks with you into the theater. In fact, you can order food, and another drink while you watch the movie and they bring it to you.

After we watched the movie, we talked for a bit at the bar, discussing the movie, and other things. I had seen Diedre at meetings of a local group, Casting Coffee, made up of other people in the movie business, mostly background actors like myself. Before Covid-19 we had get-togethers once every other Saturday for coffee, snacks, and pot-luck items, and we talked shop: what movies were being shot, who was casting, etc. Around Christmas time, I had worn a Santa hat to the meeting. Diedre actually sat down on my lap, joking about what Santa (me) would bring her. It’s an old joke, so I laughed. We finally exchanged phone numbers, which is how our movie date came about.

As we were talking after the movie, she mentioned some friends we had in common, a man and a woman. They had made a short movie themselves, and I had supplied a still photo that was used in the movie as a MacGuffin (an object that is unimportant in itself but figures in the plot). I watched the finished short movie with them. I knew that woman, Tara, also from Casting Coffee meetings, and we had shared driving to and from movie events in Santa Fe a few times. She was then part of a Foundation that promotes movie making in New Mexico, and I had told her about a photography/modeling group that gave photographers and models practical experience and instruction in a photographer’s studio: Guerrilla Photo Group. The group that met there were also interested in movies, and I had obtained my first role with some novice movie makers there. So Tara and I met at the photographer’s studio and she gave a short introduction of her organization for people interested in getting involved in the movie business. I took some photos of Tara that she could use as headshots for casting directors. She had a small role on the TV series “The Night Shift” as a nurse, and they made her ID badge from one of those photos I took of her. I knew the man also, Chuck, who was a close friend of Tara’s.

Is this getting too complicated? I’m just rambling here, trying to piece this thing together.

So, all of that had to do with my conversation with Diedre at the movie theater bar. She talked about those two people, Tara and Chuck, whom she knew well, but she was gossiping about them, and bad-mouthing them. I didn’t like that at all, and never wanted to see her again. I don’t like gossips, and since Tara was a friend of mine, I hadn’t liked what Deidre was saying about Tara and Chuck at all. Malicious gossip and innuendo.

So, jumping forward to the present, in March I met Diedre on a hike organized by a Meetup hiking group. I was actually happy to see her, as a few years had passed. We hiked together and talked some. After the hike I asked if she’d like to get lunch nearby. We met at a popular Cafe in Corrales, a place where I had met a very interesting woman about nine years ago, but that’s a whole different kind of story. The GPG photography/modeling group I was part of then had also been to this same Cafe that night, holding a photography exhibit there, and one of my photos was part of the exhibit back then. So, anyway, during lunch at that Cafe with Diedre, I brought up the whole gossiping thing that had occured years earlier, because, if we were to be friends, I wanted that settled? discussed? It had bugged me about her. She told me about being on the outs with Tara, and having had an argument with her, and Chuck was somehow involved in that, and it was more that I wanted to hear about, but it seemed to explain why Deidre had been gossiping about them, so I decided to let it go.

It turned out that Diedre actually lives near me, and was more interested in having a hiking buddy to fast walk along the ditches in this old farming area. She really wasn’t that interested in hiking with the Meetup group. I agreed to meet her for hikes, since we lived close anyway. Well, fast forwarding a little, we had some enjoyable hikes. I suggested that we get something to eat after the first one, since I hadn’t eaten breakfast. She agreed. That happened a few more times. Once she offered to split the tab, so it seemed we were just to be friends, hiking buddies, which was fine with me. However, that was just a ruse. She kept buying me facemasks, as she didn’t like the generic ones I wore on the hikes (this was pre-vaccinations). She offered me two: a maroon one, a flashy bright paritotic one. She even gave me a photography book. She thought I should wear those skin-tight water-wicking pants that runners and bicyclists wear. Turns out she was curious about my legs and ass, which wouldn’t have been a bad thing, except she was becoming less and less interesting to me. She still gossiped, about other people now, and how people had ghosted her, and wronged her, and I wasn’t interested in any of that. She thought I wasn’t being supportive. I also was becoming suspicious of her, as she was acting like my long-time best friend, and wanted to date more often, pushing through the hikes quickly just so we could go out to eat.

She had also once been talking about crime in the neighborhood, and suddenly spit out: “Those Fucking Mexicans!” which I found horrifying. She herself was born and raised in New Mexico, so an attitude like that shocked me. We discussed it briefly, and she back-pedeled a bit, saying she just meant the ones committting crimes around where she lived, but it harked back to Donald Trump’s habit of lumping all Mexicans together who traveled (legally or illegally) to work in the US, as rapists, killers and thieves. We hadn’t discussed politics, but I was now highly wary of her. We hiked after that, but the discussion sometimes got heated, and I started calling her out on the way she talked about her friends, and I told her if she was so upset, she should call them and try to straighten things out.

I suspected now why people ghosted her and were mad at her. She’s a bit overbearing, and besides gossiping about other people, she has strong opinions about things, opinions that bothered me, so I would tell her what I thought, which was often much the opposite of what she thought. She didn’t like that. I think she wanted a PAL – which at one time was slang for “personal ass licker” a person whose sole value in a friendship is to agree with everything they say, condemn the people and things they don’t like, and like only what they like. It is not how I see real friendship. It’s also a domination thing. Diedre spoke often about how people had wronged her, especially men, whom she saw as always trying to control her. More and more, however, that’s how I saw her, She was critical of the clothes I wore to hike, critical of my house when she was there once, and absolutley sure of her opinions, which she could not discuss without taking offense to anything I said that did not reinforce her own opinions. She said I was trying to control her.

I’m a pretty laid-back kind of guy, so that seemed like a bizarre thing for her to say. But she tried to back it up by saying she had studied psychology and read a lot, so she understood people and understood how people manipulated other people. She also said that she was a really good person, that many people had told her that. An interesting discussion that we had once centered around how people often project their personality flaws onto others they have relationships with, unable to see those things in themselves. It was something we agreed on. However, I could see Diedre doing that herself. I found her manipulative, as I mentioned, but also rude to food workers in the restaurtants we went to, always – and I mean every time – wanting substitutions and additions. Her favorite thing was to ask for “crumbles” to be added to her meatless dishes, by which she meant meat, like hamburger, crumpled over her food dishes, but she didn’t want to pay for it – she fully expected it to given to her free because she smiled when she asked for it. Some waitstaff told her she would have to pay for it, which she didn’t seem to expect. This was a pattern with her.

She usually asked for extras, extra sauce on the side, extra this and that, and it seemed she was used to getting free items, and extra service. She always ordered more than she could eat, and then would specify extra boxes for each of the items on her plate, rather than one container. I saw her actions as rude, self absorbed, and coming from a sense of entitlement. We stopped at a restaurent one evening at 9:30 pm, but they were closing at 10:00 pm, and had already shut down the kitchen. Diedre wouldn’t accept that, insisting not only that they seat us, but that they make food for us, and she asked for the manger, who politely told her she couldn’t do that. She offered to seat us and bring us drinks and snacks, but Diedre wasn’t having any of that. We left. I could see she was used to having her own way, and fit the popular image of people like her who are called “Karens” – those older white women coming from a life of privilege and money who think they should always be obeyed by those lesser than them, and that they know more about everything than anyone else.

I was really disliking this woman. Our talks turned into arguments. I got heated once and apologized. This woman was getting to me, irritating me. Then one night in April I saw her exactly as she was. I had been telling her I wanted some crabcakes. I grew up in Baltimore, “fished” for crabs in the Cheasapeake bay, and know how to make a good crabcake. However, in New Mexico crabmeat is very expensive, and few restuarants use unfrozen, fresh meat, or prepare it the way it’s done in Maryland. ↓

So, when I found an open Pelican’s restaurant offering “Maryland Crabcakes” I was excited. Diedre had helped me shoot a dialogue audition at my house, for which I had promised her a meal. Which is how we had ended up a week earlier at the other restaurant at 9:30 pm, and then ended up getting a couple of good sub sandwiches at Dion’s Italian restaurant take-out window. Diedre didn’t consider that the meal she had been promised, which is why we were going to a nice sit-down dinner for crabcakes.

The meal was a disaster. The crabcakes came two to an order. They weren’t very big, but I was getting that order of two. Diedre insisted that we split the order, and each get one crabcake and something else. Since I was paying anyway, I politely told her to get an order for herself; I wasn’t splitting that – it was what I’d come for. That really pissed her off, which was bothering me, because it confirmed my idea that she expected to get her own way no matter what. But, we agreed to an order of crabcakes for each of us. She said that wasn’t enough, she would need something else, and the other menu items would be too much to eat combined with the crabcakes. I told her she could order whatever she wanted, but she was in a bad mood now because I hadn’t complied with her insistence that I have only one crabcake. They had a menu item that combined a cup of clam chowder and a salad, so I suggested we get that to pair with the crabcakes, and split it. She agreed. However, after I told the waiter what we wanted and he turned to go, she yelled at him: two separate orders of crabcakes, and a seperate chowder and a separate salad, which confused him. So, he brought our crabcakes, and then he brought out the largest bowl of clam chowder I’d ever seen, not part of the combo. Diedra didn’t want any, and I couldn’t eat all that. She tucked into the endless salad menu instead. It was not part of the combo either.

But the meal wasn’t over. Of course, she asked for extra bread, which she just wanted to take home. She wasn’t all that hungry. She asked our poor waiter for a box for the bread, a box for the salad, and even a container for the salad dressing, and, out of boxes, and because I suggested she add the crabcake to the salad – a crabcake salad for later – she insisted that he bring her another box for the leftover crabcake, because she had only been able to eat one of them (in truth, they weren’t very good). The clam chowder hadn’t been all that good either. She had tasted it but hadn’t wanted any, but she didn’t want to take that home too. She insisted that I send the waiter back for another container and take that home with me. I didn’t want to. She kept insiting that I take it and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I just wanted out of there. I finally had to tell her I didn’t like the heavily creamed chowder, and I wasn’t going to eat it. At this point everyone near us was listening to all of this. She finally backed down, sullenly. I took her back to my house so she could get her car. She didn’t insist on hugging as she had been doing, and said that she needed to go home immediately because she had to pee real bad. I offered my bathroom of course, but she said no.

I didn’t expect to hear from her again.

But, of course, I did. She called me wanting to try Pappadeaux, another restaurant I had mentioned that used to have a Maryland chef who made good crabcakes. I told her no, that I had called the restaurant and they were asking $16 for each crabcake, double what I had just paid. But I asked Diedre if she wanted to hike and she agreed. It wasn’t the best hike. She was argumentative and hostile, trying to rehash things we had discussed over and over again. At one point as we made our way back from the hike along a different trail, she pointed out a cactus I had seen earlier that I had commented on. She said: “There’s your cactus again.” I was unsure what she meant, since we had taken a different trail back that she chose. I told her it was not the same one, but she insisted it was. She said I was trying to control her. I told her that I hadn’t understood what she meant, because it couldn’t be since we were on a different trail, farther from the river than when we’d set out. She wasn’t having any of that, and wouldn’t believe me. I let it go. She said, <“Maybe it was the same one,” but she kept insisting we were on the same trail. Then she wanted to go eat. I told her I’d eaten a good breakfast and wasn’t hungry, which was true. She insisted, however, that we go out to eat, and maybe try another restaurant with crabcakes.

She didn’t take kindly to my turning her down on that. So, I told her we weren’t old friends, we weren’t close or family, and I hadn’t liked this way she kept coming on to me, wanting to have regular dates right off the bat, and acting like we were a couple. That really pissed her off. She acted indignant, insisting that she is a good looking, really attractive woman, and I was old and ugly, even though she’d once told me she was almost my age. She said there was no way she’d be interested in me, and that’s the way men, including me, are – so full of ourselves, and so self-centered and deluded that we think women are interested in us when they are not.

Again, I thought that was the last of it, and I was content not to ever have to deal with her again. However, she sent me a long text, the gist of which was that she was still really upset at what I said. It sounded like she wanted me to apologize. I ignored the text, so I got one last retort from her, which I’ve forgotten, because I deleted the conversation entirely. I was actually very happy that she would be out of my life.

When she had been at my house helping read for me for my audition, she had offered to clean my house for me as a job, because I had not been keeping up with dusting and clutter. She’s getting unemployment, but doesn’t want to work. She only wants to go back to art painting. She had asked me if I was getting unemployment too, as so many were during this time of Covid. I had told her I had a small retirement income and was receiving social security as well. She had smiled broadly, and half joking, had said: “Marry Me.”

I dodged a bullet there.

[UPDATE:

Weeks later, I took myself to Pappadeaux. Their crabcakes were exactly the same type as the ones served at Pelican’s: breaded claw meat, not lump meat, but also gaggingly smothered in capers. Now, in a large dish or stew I can take a few capers, but they had prepared the capers in a sauce that they poured over the crabcakes. I picked out the dozens of capers, but there was nothing I could do about the strongly infused taste of capers in the sauce. I could barely taste the flavor of the crabmeat. Capers are way too powerful a taste to me, because they completely overwhelm a delicate flavor like blue crab. I asked if it was possible to get the crabcakes without capers the next time I came, and the server told me I could order them that way. However, at $16 per crabcake, I’m not likely to order them again.]

Hiking Somewhere Above Fenton Lake

Went for a Meetup hike in the Jemez mountains, way out past Jemez Pueblo. The plan was to hike to an overlook with a good view of Fenton Lake, but hours later, we discovered we’d not taken the right trail to the overlook. Nevertheless, we had a pleasant day with occasional cool breezes or cloud cover, although it was hot in the direct sun. I didn’t get the photos of Fenton Lake I wanted, but, next time. We also stopped at the Intersection of US-550 and NM-4 near San Ysidro to catch some recent art ( @skindian_art ) near the feed store and animal museum there. Here are some photos:

Urban Refuge: Valle de Oro

Hiked through the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge today, taking photos. It is close to the Rio Grande, within the city limits, and crowded with Cottonwood trees. Much of the area used to be Price’s dairy farm (founded 1906), but the farmland is alfalfa and tall fescue grass now. I could see the grass seeds in the bird droppings all around. Developers salivated over a parcel of land only seven miles from downtown Albuquerque. A few palatial homes got built, but the farmland was purchased by The Trust for Public Land. In 2012 it was transferred to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. We tried parking on the side of the road near the hiking trails, but one of the few homeowners there rudely told us we shouldn’t park there. There is a sign warning people not to park west of the sign, so we parked east of it, but the few people there don’t like strangers anywhere near their nice houses. Rather than antagonize the people there, we left and parked at the visitor center for the Valle del Oro, and hiked back the one mile to the bosque trails.

A working farm remains but is becoming native Middle Rio Grande Valley habitat for resident and migratory wildlife. The bosque, a riparian forest, will be extended to include the old farmland.

Eagles have been seen there, along with the more abundant hawks and the migrating snow geese and sandhill cranes. Of course, there are coyotes. There were a few waterfowl hanging out on sandbars in the middle of the river (low in winter), and swimming along sections of free flowing water, and a few crows in the trees, and we saw no other wildlife today. That doesn’t stop me from taking photos.

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Otero Canyon Hike

Otero Canyon runs along the ridges of the Manzanita Mountain foothills, in the Cedro Peak Region, very near to Albuquerque, up what used to be called south New Mexico 14, and is now denoted as NM 337. The area butts up along an air force base, and parts of it are off-limits, due to weapons testing by the air force many years ago. Posted signs warn of possible unexploded ordinance. One of these beautiful Ponderosa pines had recently just been cut down inside the boundaries of the base area, and lay across a dry ditch, blocking anyone from being tempted to travel that way, I suppose.

It was a very pleasant hike. The temperatures were below freezing early this morning just after dawn but warmed up considerably. There were no winds, and the sky was crystal clear and dark blue all day. There was still some snow in the shadows.

I forgot my camera but decided to try capturing a few photos on my cheap cell phone anyway: these are Ponderosas – they grow straight and true, and live a long time if they aren’t logged. And the bark smells like butterscotch or vanilla.

A Canyon, A Hike, A Plane Crash 65 Years Ago

Early in the morning, before the sun has peeked over the craggy hills of the Sandia Mountains that border Albuquerque, is a great time to be in those mountains.

As the sun started to creep over the edges of those peaks and promontories, a cool wind picked up. Later on, it would be 92°F in the city, but right then it was perfect.

Our goal was the scene of the crash of 1955 TWA flight 260, which utilized a cutting-edge Martin 404, with the capacity to hold forty passengers. The company was headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, where I was born four years & four months earlier. I never dreamed that I would live in Albuquerque, or climb these Sandias. I visited Albuquerque a few months before and then moved here permanently a few months after my 26th birthday. But it took me many years, practically to my retirement from the University of New Mexico, before I began hiking in the mountains. My passion back then was riding a bicycle, and it was what brought me from Baltimore to Albuquerque.

But, enough about me. On February 19, 1955, thirteen passengers and three crew members boarded the TWA Skyliner Binghamton for a short 26-minute flight to Santa Fe, taking off on time, at 7:03 am, before it would head eventually for Baltimore after a series of other stops. But a winter storm blanketed the Sandia Mountains, which top off at 13,678 feet. And, the two gyroscopic fluxgate compasses on the Martin 404 did not register its correct path. The exact details are not known, but the plane failed to clear a pinnacle called the Dragon’s Tooth by 300 feet, smashing full-speed into solid rock at 7:13 am. No one survived.

It is always with the utmost respect, and a feeling of sadness, that people climb to the area below the impact, where the ground is still littered with the wreckage of TWA’s Flight500 260. At the time, there wasn’t any equipment that could remove the wreckage from an area only accessible by hikers. As of 1966, the National Historic Preservation Act provides protection for any historic site that is fifty or more years old. It is illegal to remove any of the wreckage now.

But, about every five years I make the trek, always amazed at the total devastation of that plane, and the loss of those people. There is a memorial plaque fastened to a piece of the fuselage. There are engine parts, tires, and pieces of shredded airplane scattered over a large area of the very steep TWA Canyon. We had to first hike up steep sections of Domingo Baca Canyon to even get there. It is only a few miles to the crash site, but it took five hours to reach it and return. It was a lot hotter by then.

So, here are the photos I took today, and some from earlier hikes to the crash site.

09/26/2020:

12/05/2009:

Ghostly image

02/19/2015:

Some of the information I’ve used here came from a February 2015 article heavily researched and written by Adam R. Baca in Albuquerque the Magazine.

A Gorgeous Day Hiking in Jemez

Drove out through the Jemez Mountains Thursday (July 30, 2020). There are beautiful vistas and red hills and streams and deep woods and hot springs up there. Didn’t make it to any of the hot springs this time, nor stop at any of the funky bars in the village of Jemez Springs, but it was an extremely pleasant day, with lots of sunshine and a steady, cool breeze. It was calming, both physically and mentally. It’s a wonderful part of New Mexico that I have visited and camped at over the last forty-four years. I have really fine memories of the hiking, camping, and fun women I used to hang out with. Memories aside, the volcanic Jemez Mountains are my most favorite place to go in all of New Mexico.

Jemez Pueblo food stand (closed)

“Darth Vader”

Weather-sculpted nose

Butterflies all over

 

 

 

Sandia Crest Hike 7/7/20

Just photos to post today, from a hike 7/7/20, 7 days ago. After that, I also went for a hike 7/12/20 with my stepdaughter but took no photos. However, we did have a great meal on 7/12 at Ten-3. That is Albuquerque’s mountaintop restaurant, closed due to Covid-19 shortly after it opened. It had just reopened for dining in, but Sunday 7/12 was the last day for that, for who knows how long. But we did each enjoy a great beer along with a sandwich of brisket braised for 10 hours, including red chile bbq, smoked gouda and apple slaw. We were able to take in a great view of the area east of the Sandias while polishing off our meals with spicy ginger sorbet.  But, after that, the Ten-3 restaurant has begun offering only cliffside takeout, and that’s OK. I’ll hike up there again, order some great food and let my feet dangle off a cliff while I eat. It’s a wonderful pleasure. Sun, a cool breeze, a hike with spectacular views, and good company. What more could I possibly ask for? Sometimes you don’t need photos. But here are the ones from 7/7 –>

(Unfortunately, the shots of distant landscapes are partially obscured by the smoke still drifting over New Mexico from local fires and from the fires in Arizona.)

A Walk Among Ponderosa and Alligator

I went for another hike Friday, July 26. The sky started out blue, but clouded over. There was a cool breeze all day, thankfully, because the weather has been in the 90s pretty steadily every day. Still, the sky was an odd color. I wondered if there was some of that dust from the Sahara dust plume in the atmosphere already. The storm was supposed to hit the Gulf Coast area on Saturday. Well, no matter; it was a great day. After the hike, I looked back to the area where we’d hiked, and saw Virga rain in the upper atmosphere. Virga is rain that evaporates, above the ground. In the southwestern USA, storms are easily visible a hundred miles away. One can see the rain falling from the clouds, but it often doesn’t extend all the way to the horizon. Hence, drought, even though there’s rain.

The trail we began hiking on is called Mahogany Loop (Forest Trail #05602), but we intersected with the Ponderosa Trail Loop, which meanders through a dense Ponderosa pine forest in the Cibola National Forest that hasn’t been logged in perhaps fifty years. I took a few photos of those, including a Ponderosa broken by high winds, and some bark beetle damage that killed many thousands of old-growth trees throughout New Mexico. There were also some Alligator Junipers, and I photographed the lower portion to show it’s texture and immense thickness. Very old tree. There are other tree species too, and tons of wildflowers. We met a couple with their dog. They said they had seen him twice in the area, and were unable to find his owner, before deciding to adopt him.

Adopted

Alligator Juniper

Another Alligator

Looking west at the Sandias

Ponderosa V

Bark Beetle damage

Bark Beetle holes

Timmmmberrrrrr!

Death on the trail

Life

Paintbrush

I have no idea why

and more paintbrush

Interestingly, this is the first time I’d been back to that area in an entire year. It is directly adjacent to the area where Angelina Jolie shot the movie “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” which wrapped July 1, 2019. The film was directed by Taylor Sheridan and produced by Film Rites and BRON Studios, based on a book by Michael Koryta. Ms. Jolie is quite friendly, and chatted with the background actors surrounding her during brief cuts in one scene that was shot many, many times. She is funny too. Her makeup included tangled hair, deep bloody gashes, and soot from a fire in a previous scene. Since it is OK to respond to an actor if they speak to you, I was curious about what had been happening to her character. “You look a little worse for wear,” I said. I regretted saying that afterward; it’s not the sort of thing one says to a woman. She pulled down her torn shirt to reveal a scar at that point, saying: “And I got hit by lightning too!” Whew. I hadn’t meant to insult her, just saying what was on my mind. I was a bit embarrassed and looked down when she did that. A bit later she told me that the movie is very well done, an intelligent, tense drama, and very much worth watching. I looked for it and found that the release date is October 23, 2020. I will watch it.

So, getting back to the hike. After we returned to our vehicles, we headed back down State Road 337, but stopped at a private cemetery just off the road. It was fenced, so I didn’t enter, but I took some photos, with respect. The details of the graves were very touching and sad, especially the ones for “Victor, Son of Manny and MaryLou,” and for 20-year-old Rosa, who may have died during childbirth, as it is inscribed: “Mother of Dorothy”.

Very sad. But they were, it seems, very much loved. And lived, for a time, in beauty.

Crest Spur Hike – Sandia Mountains

Took some photos on a hike along the crest of the Sandia Mountains. Social distancing, masks and all. Used a new trail called the Crest Spur to link up with La Luz. Hiked with a few people in a hiking meetup, organized and run by Frank Ernst, shown in the second photo. Flowers can live short lives in this desert heat, so I always photograph them. Didn’t see any wildlife that day (06/18/20), but there were quite a few people on top of the mountain, despite the Tram not being in operation, nor the new Ten-3 restaurant being open. I did see two workers inspecting the cables. If you enlarge the photo you can see them on top. Workers often ride on top of the tram car in the morning so they can do a quick visual of the cables, and also because the car is full of all the food and water the restaurant needs for the day. Twice a year they have to shut the Tramway down to do a detailed inspection and test.

The views are usually spectacular, but on this day, smoke from the fires in Arizona came in like fog, blanketing the city. In one of the photos here, you can see a thin blue line representing the brilliant blue we usually experience here. Below it is the blanket of smoke. As always, click on a thumbnail to enlarge it, use arrows to scroll.

Paintbrush

Western Wallflower

A thin blue line

Tree vs rock

a large chip off an old block

Fossils

Fossils

Fossils

Fossils

Fossils

Fossils

Fossils

Fossils

Ammonite fossil

Ten-3 (10,300 ft above sea level)

Tram tower with city below

Hanging out

Inspecting cables

1936 CCC cabin shelter

Ten-3

Ten-3

Ten-3

Cabin, north side

cabin, east side

Man, boy and Triumph

 

Photos 3: Another Day, Another Ditch

12/28/19. Rode my motorcycle to the village of Corrales. It was an amazingly cold day. There were Canadian Geese galore in the sky, and a few on the ground. Passed a few small flocks of Sandhill Cranes on my way to Corrales, but have enough photos of them already. Hiked along the ditches and the river in Corrales for three hours. I liked watching the geese circle. I did capture one solitary Sandhill Crane in flight. It’s rained a bit lately, and there was a bit of light snow falling, so there was much mud to slosh through. Saw a lot of saltcedar (Tamarisk) by the Rio Grande. It’s an invasive species from dry regions of Eurasia and Africa. The generic name originated in Latin and may refer to the Tamaris River in Hispania Tarraconensis (one of three Roman provinces in Hispania). It encompassed much of the Mediterranean coast of modern Spain along with the central plateau, but the beautiful orange/red is quite a contrast to the winter landscape. Afterwards, I ate at Hannah and Nate’s in Corrales. Good food, and I know I am dating myself, and it is wrong these days for men to comment on a woman’s looks, but the young wait staff were not only quick and competent, but all were also amazingly pretty. Really. Sorry, no photos.

But here are the photos I took of the birds and landscape and river. Click on one to view full sized, and use the arrows to scroll through them all at that size, if you’d like.

Cottonwood bark

geese

porcupine up a tree

geese

geese

geese

Sandhill Crane

Sandhill Crane

saltcedar

ditch

ditch

saltcedar

geese

saltcedar and mountain

geese

Canadian Geese

geese

more geese

geese

Canadian Goose

 

Photos 1: Ditch Walking

Went walking along the ditches north of my neighborhood recently (the Village of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque). It was December 22, so there were some festive sights. There were also huge, thick cottonwoods, and big expansive views of the mountain, and expensive homes mixed in with farms and horses, sheep and llamas. Throughout, there were migrating Canadian Geese and Sandhill Cranes. So, this post is one of three that is going to feature photos, some from this walk, some from a hike in the mountains, and some from another walk through ditches even further north of this area (Corrales).

Click on any photo below to view full size. Then use the arrows to scroll through.

Balloons, of course

One more

Canadian Geese

cottonwood

Sandhill Cranes

geese

Cottonwood(s)

Curious llamas

art

Horses grazing on a winter day…

Sandhill Cranes

cottonwood bridge

three trees

three columns

moose, and columns

art on a perimeter wall

fancy gate

more art (bronze)

Late harvest grapes

Balloon art

Prickly pear with fruit

Cranes in low flight

Baaaaaaa, humbug

Cottonwood

Cholla

lizard art

Merry and Bright

Mary and Cholla

Patio enclosure with bread oven (horno)

One more:

Contemplating Death Again

Over six years ago I had a heart attack. Too much plaque in the heart artery that feeds the heart muscle itself. Problems for some time before that, something I attributed – as did my doctor – to a recurrence of my childhood asthma. Overtired on exertion, falling way behind on hikes up the mountain. Getting weaker instead of stronger. I’ve climbed up the Sandia-Manzano mountains. Sandia Crest is at 10,679 feet above sea level. Manzano Peak is at 10,098 feet. I’ve climbed in the San Mateo Mountains, specifically to the highest point, up Mt. Taylor, to 11,306 feet, and I’ve snowshoed Mt. Taylor several times. Also climbed to the nearby La Mosca lookout tower at 11,036 ft. I’ve climbed Mount Baldy, at 10,783 feet, in the Magdalena Mountains. I’ve hiked in the Jemez mountains, including snowshoeing in the Valles Caldera. At 11,253 feet in elevation, the volcanic caldera is 13-miles wide. I’ve hiked and snowshoed often in New Mexico’s mountains.    

After the heart attack, not as much. I still hike, usually once a week, sometimes two times a week. Sometimes I hike a fair distance, sometimes I hike really fast for just 70 to 90 minutes, a cardio hike. I figure I’m in good enough shape for my age. My knees never bother me. Since I had the angioplasty and stent placement 6 years ago, I’ve been good. No sign of any heart problems, but you never know.

Of late, I’ve noticed myself falling behind the others I hike with, and being very winded at times, more than usual. I’m sleepy often throughout the day. I used to catnap for 15 or 20 minutes, and be completely refreshed. Often I try that now, and sleep for an hour or two. I have no trouble sleeping through the night.

But, but, but. Today, after I’d taken another short nap, I awoke to a small sharp pain in the chest, just right of center. I researched it, and it’s likely not a heart attack, but it could be leading up to one. Possibly it’s angina, a symptom of heart disease. or it could have been a spasm. Either of those can occur during sleep, and generally last 5 to 15 minutes. This one lasted two to three hours. Took some Advil and then some aspirin.

The more likely cause is a blood clot traveling to my lungs, as I had none of the heart attack symptoms I’d experienced before, nor any of the other classic symptoms. The reason for this could be that I badly sprained my right ankle a month ago. A lot of blood clotted around it, giving me bruises all around the ankle and even between my toes. I’ve been wearing a stabilizing boot since then. There is also a small (3mm) chip fracture on the talus bone of my ankle. I can walk fine with or without the boot, but the doc gave me two more weeks to keep wearing the boot. I hate it. But, it could be that the ankle injury is the source of a blood clot, if that’s what it was. Painful anyway. The pain is gone now, but it could come back. I don’t know what caused it.

I was supposed to have had a checkup with my cardiologist two weeks ago. Arrived 20 minutes early for a 3:45pm appointment. Checked in and waited. And waited. The few people there all got called in. I waited. More people showed up until there was quite a crowd. There are a lot of doctors there. At 3:45, a tall healthy-looking man checked in, saying he had a 4:00pm appointment with my doctor. He was called shortly. I waited. About 10 minutes later, I got called to the examining room, to have my vital signs read. I told the woman taking them about experiencing weakness, and sleepiness as before my heart attack six years ago. She left, said the doctor would be in shortly.

I sat there, unhappy. The reason I’d come early was hoping to get out by 4:15, as I had an important commitment at 5pm. As I sat, I could hear my doctor’s voice next door, with the man I’d seen come in 20 minutes after me. I waited. But, by 4:30, I had to leave, and I stopped at the reception desk to tell them I was leaving. Never heard back.

Now this sudden pain. I thought about making another appointment, but never got around to it. I could die any time, so I figured I’d get an online will started while I still could. Such a strange thing it is to contemplate a will!

I rent, so I have no property to leave behind. I have only the money in the bank that comes in and goes out every month. I save, but things always come up to spend it on, necessary things, like repairs to my aging car and much older motorcycle. Sometimes I have to travel to family events, and none of them live nearby. Anyway, I have little in the way of tangible assets. But, there are things I’d like to leave to family. I have way too many things, like music CDs and vinyl albums. Tons of books. Some paintings, but mostly prints. A few coins. Not really a whole lot, but I’ve been to enough estate sales to know what happens to all the stuff you think is worth something. It’s all junk, sold cheap. Some things can be worth a goodly amount, but no one knows, unless someone hires a professional appraiser. But few family ever do that, unless the deceased was extremely wealthy. As it happens, I am not. Wealthy. Or deceased, as yet.

But it sure got me thinking about who I could give my things away too. So much of it has little enough financial worth. I thought about who might enjoy this small sculpture, or that old painting, or the coins, or a keepsake from the winery I worked at for eight years before it closed. Some things I’d like to have go to family who would appreciate it. I have too much stuff, sure, and much of it can be sold off at an estate sale for whatever they can get; that’s fine. Sitting here for hours today while the pain subsided, deciding who should get what, and not wanting to slight anyone, but not having so much to give everyone something, even if they actually would want it. 1st world problems. And yet, I’d like family members I love to know I was thinking about them. I like to make people smile, especially those I love. My estate, what a joke. Cheap material goods.

What was my life? Flipping burgers. High school diploma. Working in a college physics lab, measuring x-ray wavelengths and spaces between atoms in silicon crystals, a useful thing to know later on for computer technology. But I left that lab before the computer chip revolution hit. Spent years traveling, working for a carnival, a bronze foundry. Settled down in another state 1,675 miles away as the crow flies, but I rode my bicycle there over countless miles. Poured concrete, laid concrete block, installed park benches and steel doors. Treasurer of my union local. Finally got a job back in the sciences, giving tumors to rats, and treating them with chemotherapy drugs and x-rays. I did continue in Cancer Research a bit, then worked Quality Control at a printed circuit board company for three years. Finally went back and got another job at a medical school working first with mice, and their immune system proteins, then with research machines.

I took night school classes for years until I finally got a Bachelors of Arts college degree, a dual major of English (Creative Writing) and Distributed Sciences. I had studied a lot of sciences over the years, but not enough in any one field to get a diploma in it, not even a Bachelors of Science. Never did much with the writing part of my education, but I ended up making synthetic proteins for medical research, and synthetic DNA and RNA as well later on. I could also sequence proteins, or DNA, or analyze the amino acid content of proteins, or purify proteins and DNA. I ran a lab, balanced my budget, kept database records, worked independently. Finally retired with a small pension. Then I made wine for eight years at a small winery until the vintner died, and we had to close the winery. Now I take acting lessons, hike in the mountains, work occasionally as a background actor on movies and TV shows. Still hoping to land a good speaking role, one that brings me recognition, something to show that my life had meaning.

Yeah, I had lovers as I traveled, and met someone I wanted to spend my life with, but all I got was a bit less than two years with her. Married sometime later to a great woman, but after seven years that was over too. Two stepkids I never got to spend time with again. Then I married again. Two more stepkids. That 14-year relationship was fun, but ran out of steam and died. However, I did realize that I loved my stepdaughter when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Fortunately we’ve been able to stay connected, even making wine together for those eight years at the winery. She survived after surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and more chemo. How strange to find those chemicals and x-rays I used on rats used successfully on a human being I loved.

So perhaps I did accomplish something significant after all, Perhaps my work on x-rays in silicon and germanium crystals helped create the computers to run those fancy treatment machines. Perhaps the work I did on rats helped establish correct dosages of chemotherapy drugs and x-rays. Perhaps my work helping calibrate x-ray wavelengths helped doctors calculate just how much energy was necessary to kill a tumor and not the person. All the people that work in science, even those that just run the machines, and conduct the experimental protocols, contribute, each in our own small way, to a much greater good.

And, goddamnit, my step daughter is alive and healthy. And I love her. I finally learned that love is when you truly care about someone, about their happiness, and not just your own. Love is not about having another person. It’s about loving, without expecting anything in return. That’s what I think. If I’m still alive tomorrow morning, I’m going to call the doctor’s office, get in there as soon as possible, and do what it takes to stay alive. Because I love someone, and I like that feeling.

Just realized I was writing my own obituary. Hmph. Got things to do yet.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE: Cardiologist says the pain in my chest is just a pulled muscle. (I thought the heart was a muscle?).  Saw a gastroenterologist. Been coughing for 7 or 8 months. Having trouble swallowing, and things seem to get stuck easily. Sometimes a mouthful of water won’t go down, and when I swallow it’s mildly painful. So, I had an endoscopy – that’s where they shove a small HDTV camera down your throat, way down there. Nothing serious. Some inflammation, but mostly two constricted areas, caused by acid reflux. So they sent another device down to stretch those areas out wider. Caused a slight tear in the esophagus, but no big deal. Meanwhile my lower jaw had been sore that day, but I wasn’t allowed to take anything for pain. Went to a dentist afterwards. Pain was so bad by then I had a death grip on the dental chair. Lots of x-rays -18. Looked like a root canal infection, among other things. Regular dentists don’t do those anymore – you have to go to a root canal dentist. In the meantime, Yeah, you guessed it – bigger fees. Prescription for amoxicillin. Told me to alternate high does of Advil and Tylenol until that antibiotic kicked in, 24 to 48 hours. Took longer. But no pain now. Regular dental appointment in two days. Root canal appointment in two weeks. Expensive. This getting old is really pricey, even with insurance. But, I’m feeling better psychologically. Enjoying some reading. Digging on some good music. 

Contemplating Death Again, With Photos

09/03/19
Well, six years ago I had a heart attack. Too much plaque in the heart artery that feeds the heart muscle itself. Problems for some time before that, something I attributed – as did my doctor – to a recurrence of my childhood asthma. Overtired on exertion, falling way behind on hikes up the mountain. Getting weaker instead of stronger. I’ve climbed up the Sandia-Manzano mountains. Sandia Crest is at 10,679 feet above sea level. Manzano Peak is at 10,098 feet. I’ve climbed in the San Mateo Mountains, specifically to the highest point, up Mt. Taylor, to 11,306 feet, and I’ve snowshoed Mt. Taylor several times. Also climbed to the nearby La Mosca lookout tower at 11,036 ft. I’ve climbed Mount Baldy, at 10,783 feet, in the Magdalena Mountains. I’ve hiked in the Jemez mountains, including snowshoeing in the Valles Caldera. At 11,253 feet in elevation,  the volcanic caldera is 13-miles wide. I’ve hiked and snowshoed often in New Mexico’s mountains.

Valles Caldera mound

Valles Caldera

After the heart attack, not as much. I still hike, usually once a week, sometimes two times a week. Sometimes I hike a fair distance, sometimes I hike really fast for just 70 to 90 minutes, a cardio hike. I figure I’m in good enough shape for my age. My knees never bother me. Since I had the angioplasty and stent placement 6 years ago, I’ve been good. No sign of any heart problems, but you never know.

Of late, I’ve noticed myself falling behind the others I hike with, and being very winded at times, more than usual. I’m sleepy often throughout the day. I used to catnap for 15 or 20 minutes, and be completely refreshed. Often I try that now, and sleep for an hour or two. I have no trouble sleeping through the night.

But, but, but. Today, after I’d taken another short nap, I awoke to a small sharp pain in the chest, just right of center. I researched it, and it’s likely not a heart attack, but it could be leading up to one. Possibly it’s angina, a symptom of heart disease. or it could have been a spasm. Either of those can occur during sleep, and generally last 5 to 15 minutes. This one lasted  two to three hours. Took some Advil and then some aspirin.

The more likely cause is a blood clot traveling to my lungs, as I had none of the heart attack symptoms I’d experienced before, nor any of the other classic symptoms. The reason for this could be that I badly sprained my right ankle a month ago. A lot of blood clotted around it, giving me bruises all around the ankle and even between my toes. I’ve been wearing a stabilizing boot since then. There is also a small (3mm) chip fracture on the talus bone of my ankle. I can walk fine with or without the boot, but the doc gave me two more weeks to keep wearing the boot. I hate it. But, it could be that the ankle injury is the source of a blood clot, if that’s what it was. Painful anyway. The pain is gone now, but it could come back. I don’t know what caused it.

I was supposed to have had a checkup with my cardiologist two weeks ago. Arrived 20 minutes early for a 3:45pm appointment. Checked in and waited. And waited. The few people there all got called in. I waited. More people showed up until there was quite a crowd. There are a lot of doctors there. At 3:45, a tall healthy-looking man checked in, saying he had a 4:00pm appointment with my doctor. He was called shortly. I waited. About 10 minutes later, I got called to the examining room, to have my vital signs read. I told the woman taking them about experiencing weakness, and sleepiness as before my heart attack six years ago. She left, said the doctor would be in shortly.

I sat there, unhappy. The reason I’d come early was hoping to get out by 4:15, as I had an important commitment at 5pm. As I sat, I could hear my doctor’s voice next door, with the man I’d seen come in 20 minutes after me. I waited. But, by 4:30, I had to leave, and I stopped at the reception desk to tell them I was leaving. Never heard back.

Now this sudden pain. I thought about making another appointment, but never got around to it. I could die any time, so I figured I’d get an online will started while I still could. Such a strange thing it is to contemplate a will!

I rent, so I have no property to leave behind. I have only the money in the bank that comes in and goes out every month. I save, but things always come up to spend it on, necessary things, like repairs to my aging car and much older motorcycle. Sometimes I have to travel to family events, and none of them live nearby. Anyway, I have little in the way of tangible assets. But, there are things I’d like to leave to family. I have way too many things, like music CDs and vinyl albums. Tons of books. Some paintings, but mostly prints. A few coins. Not really a whole lot, but I’ve been to enough estate sales to know what happens to all the stuff you think is worth something. It’s all junk, sold cheap. Some things can be worth a goodly amount, but no one knows, unless someone hires a professional appraiser. But few family ever do that, unless the deceased was extremely wealthy. As it happens, I am not. Wealthy. Or deceased, as yet.

But it sure got me thinking about who I could give my things away too. So much of it has little enough financial worth. I thought about who might enjoy this small sculpture, or that old painting, or the coins, or a keepsake from the winery I worked at for eight years before it closed. Some things I’d like to have go to family who would appreciate it. I have too much stuff, sure, and much of it can be sold off at an estate sale for whatever they can get; that’s fine. Sitting here for hours today while the pain subsided, deciding who should get what, and not wanting to slight anyone, but not having so much to give everyone something, even if they actually would want it. 1st world problems. And yet, I’d like family members I love to know I was thinking about them. I like to make people smile, especially those I love. My estate, what a joke. Cheap material goods.

What was my life? Flipping burgers. High school diploma. Working in a college physics lab, measuring x-ray wavelengths and spaces between atoms in silicon crystals, a useful thing to know later on for computer technology. But I left that lab before the computer chip revolution hit. Spent years traveling, working for a carnival, a bronze foundry. Settled down in another state 1,675 miles miles away as the crow flies, but I rode my bicycle there over countless miles. Poured concrete, laid concrete block, installed park benches and steel doors. Treasurer of my union local. Finally got a job back in the sciences, giving tumors to rats, and treating them with chemotherapy drugs and x-rays. I did continue in Cancer Research a bit, then worked Quality Control at a printed circuit board company for three years. Finally went back and got another job at a medical school working first with mice, and their immune system proteins, then with research machines.

I took night school classes for years until I finally got a Bachelors of Arts college degree, a dual major of English (Creative Writing) and Distributed Sciences. I had studied a lot of sciences over the years, but not enough in any one field to get a diploma in it, not even a Bachelors of Science. Never did much with the writing part of my education, but I ended up making synthetic proteins for medical research, and synthetic DNA and RNA as well later on. I could also sequence proteins, or DNA, or analyze the amino acid content of proteins, or purify proteins and DNA. I ran a lab, balanced my budget, kept database records, worked independently. Finally retired with a small pension. Then I made wine for eight years at a small winery until the vintner died, and we had to close the winery. Now I take acting lessons, hike in the mountains, work occasionally as a background actor on movies and TV shows. Still hoping to land a good speaking role, one that brings me recognition, something to show that my life had meaning.

Yeah, I had lovers as I traveled, and met someone I wanted to spend my life with, but all I got was a bit less than two years with her. Married sometime later to a great woman, but after seven years that was over too. Two stepkids I never got to spend time with again. Then I married again. Two more stepkids. That 14-year relationship was fun, but ran out of steam and died. However, I did realize that I loved my stepdaughter when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Fortunately we’ve been able to stay connected, even making wine together for those eight years at the winery. She survived after surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and more chemo. How strange to find those chemicals and x-rays I used on rats used successfully on a human being I loved.

So perhaps I did accomplish something significant after all, Perhaps my work on x-rays in silicon and germanium crystals helped create the computers to run those fancy treatment machines. Perhaps the work I did on rats helped establish correct dosages of chemotherapy drugs and x-rays. Perhaps my work helping calibrate x-ray wavelengths helped doctors calculate just how much energy was necessary to kill a tumor and not the person. All the people that work in science, even those that just run the machines, and conduct the experimental protocols contribute, each in our own small way, to a much greater good.

And, goddamnit, my step daughter is alive and healthy. And I love her. I finally learned that love is when you truly care about someone, about their happiness, and not just your own. Love is not about having another person. It’s about loving, without expecting anything in return. That’s what I think. If I’m still alive tomorrow morning, I’m going to call the doctor’s office, get in there as soon as possible, and do what it takes to stay alive. Because I love someone, and I like that feeling.

Just realized I was writing my own obituary. Hmph. Got things to do yet.

(09/05/19 UPDATE: The cardiologist says the pain in my chest is likely muscular, because of the lingering pain, and like a blood clot or angina. Blood pressure, however is high, so I need to monitor it twice a day for two weeks, report back).

Almost Autumn on the Pino and Tree Spring Trails

First off is the Pino Trail, on September 6:

Followed by the Tree Spring Trail on Sept. 13:

And, well, that’s all the hiking I’ve managed to do this month, except for a quick cardio hike in the foothills on September 10, for the exercise, no camera.

Sometimes, I’m Happy; Real Tired Too

May and June sure took their toll; hella busy. Didn’t get much hiking in. In June the fire danger in New Mexico closed the nearby trails I like to hike in the Sandia mountains. I got a hike in on May 3, on the Faulty Trail near the crest of the mountain range.

In addition to an acting class I take on Thursdays, I had also been taking an eight-week acting workshop on Tuesdays, starting in March. On May 7, I met with fellow classmate Teresa to rehearse a scene we would perform in class. In class on May 8, we did a scene from Harold Pinter’s play A Slight Ache. Teresa is an accomplished actor and pretty amazing. She was also in rehearsals for a production of The Full Monty here in town, and how she manages family, classes, auditions, and acting in plays and short movies is beyond me. She is highly intelligent, having done a lot of scientific research in her past as well. We once drove together all the way to Roswell, NM to audition (but neither of us got a job out of it). I did, however, thoroughly enjoy traveling with Teresa and filling our time with a bit of each other’s life stories, and dreams for the future. I hope to work with her again. Good pool player too, and beautiful.

May 11, I met with an acting coach from the other class I had been attending. He videotaped my audition for the TV pilot of Back To Billy. May 16 was a meeting to begin planning a fundraiser for the New Mexico Film Foundation. The Foundation gives an aspiring local filmmaker a $5000 check every year.

I managed to watch two plays in two days, one I had auditioned for after learning a Dublin, Ireland dialect: a 1978 comedy play by Hugh Leonard: Da. Learned the basics of the dialect, but hadn’t gotten the part. I also watched Deathtrap, a play written by Ira Levin, also in 1978. I knew one of the actors, having worked together in a 48-hour movie competition. Met with my acting coach for prepare for a callback audition. We worked hard, but, as usual, I didn’t get the part. Saw another play on the 25th, The Full Monty that Teresa was in: acting, singing and dancing.

Went to a BBQ out of town at the home of a fellow classmate in my Thursday acting class. Good food, good music, and great people. Unfortunately, her husband, in dealing with a severe case of PTSD, had drunk too much and went around accusing the actors of laughing at him, and thinking they were bettter than him (he’s not an actor). He was extremely agitated, and physically threatened people, saying he would beat the crap out of anyone, even the women there; saying he lived for that shit. When he ripped off his shirt and went at a friend there, I called him out for his behavior. He left the woman he was attacking alone, and came for me. After a bit of shouting at me, his wife stepped between us before he could attack me, but he did mange to kick at me from behind her. It was a very strange episode, and I suprised myself calling that guy out like that, but his behavior was way out of line.

Got one more hike in before the month of May ended (Pino Trail):

Then I did a table read for a movie being developed. And that was just the merry lusty month of May.

June started off with another hike, on the eastern side of the Sandias. It was ten degress cooler up there near the crest of the mountains.

Watched a friend’s movie called A Bitter Reckoning, as part of a festival of award-winning shorts. Teresa, above, was also in that. Great movie. Click on the name to see a trailer from it.

Hiked the Pino Trail again on the 10th: Aspens, Ponderosas, approx. 6.7 miles total with 1800 feet of elevation gain. And then auditioned for another movie that afternoon. It’s an interesting Sci Fi shoot.  (I got the part. We started shooting on July 2nd, and my part will be shot on July 8th. It is mostly for the actors in it to have material for their acting reels, so we have something new to submit to major casting calls.)

On the 16th I went to a movie prop house in the afternoon to pick out props for the New Mexico Film Foundation fundraiser on July 14. We will decorate the Nativo Lodge in Albuquerque for what we are calling a soirée: films, music, finger food, silent auction, and a live auction conducted by master-of-dialects Steve Corona, who will auction off each item in a different dialect. In the evening I was a background actor on a new movie called Caged, a fascinating look at kickboxing.

Got another hike in on the 24th, going up in the foothills to the Eye of the Sandias. The foothills aren’t closed, it’s City of Albuquerque Open Space.

The EYE

The rest of the month I spent at a coin show, a motorcycle breakfast meetup, acting class, a doctor’s appointment, an actor’s coffee meetup, and more work getting auction items ready for the July 14th soirée. For an old fart retiree, my calendar sure looks full.

July is in full swing. In another installment of this blog, I’ll recap my motorcycle trip to the old movie ranch near Santa Fe,

and my and my cousin’s small parts in a movie being shot there. The day after that, I helped with sound on the short movie I’ll act in on the 8th of July. I’ll be picking up the props on the 13th for the soirée, and then helping out at the event with the silent auction part of the soirée on the 14th, and then returning props to the prop house on the 16th. I’m booked already for background scenes on the 9th and the 17th. The actor’s coffee group will produce its own movie for the 48-Hour movie competition on the 27th and 28th, and I’ll be assisting the camera and editing people. I hope to have a break during the 48-Hour project to audition for a play nearby, but I may not be able to. But, that’s all I have going in July so far.

More About Jim Fish From Beyond

A little while back I wrote about Renaissance man Jim Fish, who died a few days after his 68th birthday, while hiking back down a mountain he had just climbed in the New Mexico wilderness. He was a poet, among other things.

Recently on the grounds of the winery he started, I met several other people, two of whom had a nice long truck, and a trenching machine known around here as a ditch witch. It was handy. We had to tear down a solidly built shed, one that had been built to last. I took a few swings at it with a sledge hammer, and only removed a few wooden shelf braces and some upper storage shelving. To take this thing down would have taken all of us working hard all day, and we still had to load it all on the truck. But, the ditch witch made much shorter work of that shed.

You see, after Jim’s death, we had to clean up around there. This shed had held many of Jim’s personal items: old papers, maps, camping gear, antlers, pieces of wood for carving, etc. and etc. Unfortunately, our local desert rats, or pack rats, had moved in. They pissed and shit everywhere. The mixture has the consistency of hardened epoxy. Really. You have to chip it away. It was all over everything, along with all the bits and pieces they drag into their nests. One idea was to just torch the building, but we decided it was better, and more in keeping with local fire ordinances, to just tear it down. It still took roughly 6 hours of hard work, but we got it down, and hauled away.

During the process, I found some old cards Jim had printed up, and sent out to friends many years ago. He was already into the poetry, so each had a poem, and a photo of Jim’s of New Mexico, where he lived. I had read several of Jim’s poetry books, but not all of them, so I’d never seen these poems, and I don’t even know if they were published in book form.  I scanned and cleaned the four cards up a bit digitally, and I’m posting them here, because they are good, and to give others an idea of what he was like. Those are his horses in the second photo image; they are off in the high New Mexico countryside now, just grazing and keeping an eye out for cougars. Jim took a lot of photos of bears over the years, but, as you can see, not this particular one (fourth photo image). He probably made a card each year, but the only ones I found were from 1982, 1983, 1987, and 1988.

Musings on Unclaimed Relationships & Utter Things

I read some poetry today that reminded me how so many people feel sad because someone they loved is gone, either through the end of a relationship or death. That is sad indeed, although an old relationships can often be rekindled, even though at a certain point in time it doesn’t seem possible. People seem to not know that, or ignore it, or conveniently forget it.

I don’t forget it. Sometimes that has happened to me. I remember how terrible it felt at times, but I no longer feel that way, about the relationships, or the two marriages, or my father’s death, or even my godfather’s death, although I still miss my favorite cat ever, and even though I accepted that he was dead, I suspect he is still alive, having seen what I’m pretty sure was that cat, with a new collar and tag a few miles from here.

I can’t go get the cat, even if I could find him, because I have a new cat, and another cat besides, and the fighting would be bad, and three cats is just too much. I am deeply saddened by not having that cat around, and knowing that with some effort, I might be able to reclaim him. But, that is somewhat like what this post is actually about: unclaimed relationships, not with cats, but with people.

I live alone, save for the cats. It could be otherwise. An old girlfriend from many years ago ended up single, and available for friendship or living together. And even though I used to think that I would jump at that, I don’t want to. For one thing, she is quite batty, with a house overrun by cats, and sometimes a dog or two, and bizarre off-the-deep-end beliefs which she will force on anyone and everyone, but also because I like living alone.

She is not the only woman I’ve met since my last divorce. An old girlfriend actually lived in this same housing complex when I moved in ten years ago. We often met at the mailbox kiosk. Once I met her walking her dog along the ditch that runs just behind these houses, and went to a mutual friend’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was nice. Next time I saw she she gave me a big smile, but we never hung out. She taught at a technical/vocational community college, and she worked at the nearby bookstore, so I often saw her there. But, I didn’t feel any sparks. I remembered that the sex had been nice. We attended another Thanksgiving dinner the next year, but then not again. She eventually quit the bookstore, and moved away, though I did visit her in her new place a couple times.

Not too long ago, a much younger woman gave me a couple of years of extreme pleasure, but insisted I not fall in love with her because we were friends only, with benefits. I was a bit sad about that, because I would certainly have married her, and not just for the sex, although that would have been a pretty compelling reason, but because she and I enjoyed each other’s company, sharing meals, watching movies, and even having drinking games during movies. The pleasure of snuggling up with her between bouts of sex was heavenly. She finally moved away. Contacted her and she wanted me to visit, but then changed her mind. Such is life.

I wasn’t as sad about that as I’ve been about other relationships, because she warned me from the first to not fall in love with her, and would get quite upset if she thought I was drifting that way. So, it never came as a shock, nor depressed me beyond my normal state of living life a bit less than to the fullest.

It’s not like I don’t still meet women. Being involved with the TV & movie industry in New Mexico, both in front of a camera, and behind the scenes, I meet a lot of woman, and there are possibilities there. But I don’t pursue them. There’s something about leaving things as they are that suits me. Beside the acting and crew work, I hike the mountains around here. I read a lot. I eat what I want, sleep when I want, watch TV or not watch TV. I’ve a friend I watch Netflix rental movies with once a week.

I work at a winery,

  watering, weeding, picking fruit, pumping and filtering, bottling and labeling about a thousand or more gallons of fruit wine every year. I don’t make any money at it, but it sure keeps some of my “free” time occupied.

I buy lots of things online, mostly books, and graphic novels, and I resell them. (Terry’s Books) I have a diverse coin collection:

I also take photos of the landscape around here, and sometimes I sell one, in a shop, or by hanging them at the winery. 

 I owe the I.R.S. way too much money every year, so I think I’m doing my part to prop up the U.S. economy.

But, let me tell you, it all doesn’t seem to mean much. It’s not that I think there’s more to life, or need a reason for life, or worry about the meaning of life. I don’t think life has much meaning, except what we each want it to mean. Sometimes though, I remember what it was like to share my everyday life with others, sleep next to them each night, and wake up with them.

I do miss that, in somewhat the same way I miss my cat. Not the same thing of course. Even having cats leaves me feeling lonely and miserable at times.

Nowadays, I accept that I am just going to be living this way. It’s easier for a misanthrope to live alone. I suppose I don’t really dislike all people so much as I like being a recluse and not having to deal with other people.

And then again, sometimes I don’t think it matters, because I don’t expect to live all that much longer. I had a heart attack back in 2013. Before that happened, I was losing my ability to keep up with other hikers, some of whom were older than me. My energy was flagging, and I kept having to stop and catch my breath. I fell to the back position in any hike, and was wasted by the time I reached the mountaintop. Finally, one day while reading, I felt suddenly as though the world was ending, that everything was going black, and there was this intense pressure in my chest, and I called 911. The paramedics, and a cardiologist convinced me I was having a heart attack, and I had angioplasty with a stent emplacement, followed up by drugs. Things got better, I ran three half marathons, I got faster on hikes, and had more energy.

But, now I am starting to feel the energy fade again. I hiked on Monday 8.9 miles, about 6 hours, up and down my favorite trail, an elevation gain of roughly 2800 feet.

It was slow going, about 1 1/2 miles an hour, but I was beat when I was done. Felt wasted. Drank electrolytes on the way up, and a bottle of black tea on the way down, and had to drink two more bottles when I got home, just to have the energy to function. I’ve done this trail before, and I wasn’t that wasted. It was the same on another trail I hiked recently – wasted, sleepy, lethargic afterwards. I’m thinking the heart is not doing all that well. My cholesterol is the lowest it’s ever been, and my blood pressure has never been too high. I do have a visit with my cardiologist next month, and a stress test, so I’m curious what that will reveal.  Even simple exercise seems to tire me, just like before the 2013 heart attack.

I should write a poem, or a song:

I’m so sad and lonely

near my end of  time

there’s no one to miss me

and nothing left to live for.

O, o, o, I think I’ll die.

Set to music, it’d be alright, and entertaining. Of course, it’s been done so many times already. It’s the human condition, the poet’s theme, the singer’s shout, the hipster’s wail.

Meanwhile, I’m still here. A hike tomorrow morning, fruit to water  on Friday, wine to sell on Sunday with my affable stepdaughter, physical therapy for my damaged back Tuesday morning, acting class Tuesday evening, background work for a TV crime series pilot (based on graphic novels) next Wednesday. I’ve an acting gig to finish up. Then the stress echo-cardiogram next month, and a visit to the urologist, and a strange 5-day cruse with five of my six siblings, some in-laws, some nieces, a nephew, a couple of cousins and my mom, mostly to please her. Dream cruise for her, or I wouldn’t go. I’d rather not have that much interaction with people, even though I sometimes crave it.

A Busy Summer

BEAR CORN

It’s a parasitic growth on tree roots, usually pines. It’s interesting how it takes on the characteristics of a pine cone, made very apparent here sprouting among the cones themselves. Bears do eat it. From a hike in the Sandia mountains on June 9, 2016.

MULE DEER

You never know what you’ll run into in the mountains around here. These shots are from a  hike in July.

DANCING ACROBATS

Some amazingly acrobatic dancers at the International Folk Festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 10, 2016.

PRAIRIE RATTLESNAKE

Like I said, you never know what you’ll run across in these mountains. This guy is about 3 feet long, full-grown for his type, lying right across the trail, but very full and sleepy. July 18, 2015.

CIRCUS VIDEO

July was a very busy month. Here I am, made up, posing with the fire breather for a Gothic Circus-themed music video. She dressed like that for the whole 1st day, but since we were on location at a masonic temple, the Masons asked that she cover up a bit the next day. Aww.

[AND, da da da dah! here is the “Circus Life” video: Circus Life video by Rachele Royale ]

It was released, finally, by singer Rachele Royale. If you watch carefully, you’ll see me here and there.

CLOUDY DAYS CAN SURPRISE YOU

Wrapping up July, here is a hot-air balloon flying over my house, silhouetted against some rare clouds.

HORSE CLINIC FOR MOVIE COWBOYS

So August found me at an open house for actors needing to learn or polish horse-riding skills. Directors can be very picky about who they let ride a horse on set. Even the two lifelong professionals shown here can’t be sure a director will pick them. 08/02/16

A SUDDEN RAIN

Looks like snow, but it’s just raindrops backlit by the sun on an otherwise bright summer day. 08/30/16

BUBONICON 48

Albuquerque just had its 48th science fiction convention. The Convention Theme was “Rockets, Robots & Rayguns”. Although you see some costumes here, it’s not so much about that as it is about the authors. There are plenty of chances to meet one of your favorite authors. And, the auctions are not only a lot of fun, but the final one on Sunday gives you a chance to auction off your own superfluous items. There was also an art show, open to all, based on the theme. The panel discussions can be interesting, but there are also presentations by authors and at least one by a scientist. This year, the science talk was by Sid M. Gutierrez, NASA Shuttle astronaut as well as the first Hispanic astronaut.

It’s Winter in the desert, but there’s snow

I live in Albuquerque, at the base of a mountain range called the Sandias. The mountains often block rain and snow storms from hitting the city very hard, so many winters there is just no snow in Albuquerque at all. However, the long drought has ended for most of the state, and this past year we had more rain and snow for any year since 1986.  Technically, according to geography studies, based on the average amount of rain that falls here, New Mexico is more accurately classified as a steppe. (In physical geography, a steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes.) Locally, people say we live in a high desert.

Long story short: we’ve got snow! Not much hit the city. In areas closest to the mountain range, there were several inches. In other places, like outside my house:

I hiked up the Pino Trail on December 17 looking for snow:

I went for a hike on Dec. 24. There was still snow in the mountains.

In fact, we got snowed  on as we hiked. Things were looking up!

(photos by Robin Tackett)

So, I hiked up the Piedra Lisa Trail on the first day of the New Year:

Good snow, but I knew there was more on the crest of the mountain range itself.

Hike leader Robin Tackett set up a hike for Jan. 7, where we would ride the aerial tram up to the crest and hike along the ridge:

Someone mentioned this reminded them of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining

As you can see, the tram station was nicely iced over. In fact, the workers there had to carefully inspect the cables, as well as clean under the docking area for one of the trams, chipping away ice and frozen snow.

The cross-country skiers took off ahead of us on virgin powder.

I could hike on the narrow trail itself, but step off and I sank, sometimes to my waist.

 

This is living!  However, not only did I not bring snowshoes, but I forgot my camera this day, so none of the photos are mine. Photos by Robin Tackett and Khondeh M.

One more trip up the mountain, up the Pino Trail again on Monday the 11th of January:

Modern Art

Dancer

It was a (relatively) warm day, (the sun was out) and there was no wind! Damn! Life can just be so good to me sometimes. (Even though some people aren’t).

Such a glorious start to winter. I hope this means the upcoming fire season will be quenched by the rain to come. Moisture! Snow! Come On Rain! Here’s hoping there’s enough rain to discourage the bark beetles and moth larvae that have been destroying so many acres of trees, and they won’t be so easy to burn. Yea snow!

 

Black Ghosts in the Dome Wilderness

The Dome Fire burned in the Jemez Mountains in the northern portion of the state of New Mexico. Devastating portions of the Santa Fe National Forest and Bandelier National Monument, the fire exploded on April 26, 1996, starting from an improperly extinguished campfire. 16,516 acres in Capulin Canyon and the Dome Wilderness were burned.  The fire was fought by over 900 firefighters. In 2011, the Las Conchas fire reburned the wilderness area almost completely. Congress designated the Dome Wilderness in 1980. The Dome Fire burned the majority of the wilderness. The area was closed under a Santa Fe National Forest Closure Order.

On May 30, 2014, I hiked through a small part of the area. I was struck by the fact that all the trees had been burnt, to the ground. In fact, I could see portions of roots that stuck out above ground burnt. Everywhere I looked the trees remained as black ghosts of their former selves. In some case, due to the destruction of the soil, extreme flooding brought down centuries-old Ponderosa Pines, breaking them up like matchsticks, or simply pulling them out of the ground.

And, Suddenly, a Heart Attack

I hike in the mountains, nearly every week. Sometimes its a three to four-hour jaunt, sometimes six hours, with a lunch break. The elevation gain can be 1000 feet or 2000. I’ve done much harder hikes in the past, but found that I was having too much trouble keeping up with the other hikers. Instead of getting stronger with more stamina over time, I was having a hard time finishing 12 mile hikes up and down a mountain trail at all. So, I began hiking with a Meetup group, hiking just the three or four hours at a leisurely pace. I tried snowshoeing to the peak of one mountain: Mt. Taylor, at 11,301 feet. I had hiked it on two prior occasions, and snowshoed it once before, but didn’t make it that day. I had to stop to catch my breath a few times. Once I leaned against a tree and felt like I could fall asleep right there, standing up. I fell so far behind that the hike leader, tired of coming back to look for me and unwilling to wait for me in temperatures near zero degrees F (he was not warmly-enough dressed), relayed a message to me that I was to turn around. I had never failed to complete a hike before, so that was upsetting. I knew I could get to the top, but just needed more time. The hike leader had also cancelled our scheduled lunch break at the top, which is when I felt I could have caught up to them. I missed the wonderful sluicing through the deep powder on the back side of that climb. Well, so it goes. However, on the way home by car, I had trouble breathing. My chest actually hurt upon taking a deep breath. That was very troubling. Back home, I saw my doctor and he said I had exercise asthma, and prescribed an inhaler. I used it a few times before hikes, and had no trouble. However, on several hikes with rapid elevation gain, I had felt strange and weak when we stopped for lunch.

Then, last Sunday, while puttering around a winery I help out at, I felt the same strangeness, more like a tightening or pressure in my chest. I had only been cleaning up, putting equipment away, and climbing up and down a steep ramp when I felt it overtake me. I sat down in a chair with a  glass of cranberry wine and relaxed. I felt better after a short while, so I finished my duties and went home. At home I was comfortable and relaxed and slept well. The next day, however, was far different.

In the morning I woke early, had coffee, and picked my step-daughter up from her home, dropping her off at her job. She doesn’t drive, due to a problem with her peripheral vision, so I take her to and from work most days. This day I also had a blood donation appointment, so I went there after dropping her off. The blood donation went well – no unusual blood pressure, pulse normal. Afterwards I stopped at a breakfast buffet,  and for $6.49 had bacon, sausage, eggs smothered in red chile, a bit of carne adovada (pork marinated in red chile), small slices of french toast, and fruit – hey, the blood place said to eat a big breakfast, so I did. I dropped off a package at Fed-X for my step-daughter and went home. It was a slow day after that. I messed around at the computer: reading news, checking blogs, Facebook, eBay, an art site (Deviant Art), and then sat down to quietly read a book. In mid-afternoon, however, I felt that strange pressure again in my chest. I used my asthma inhaler, but to no effect. Remembering advice I’d heard about heart attacks, I took two aspirin. I stretched out on my bed for a bit, but without any improvement. I felt odd, perhaps a little anxious. I was sweating, so I turned on the evaporative cooler. I went back to reading. I still felt that something was wrong, and I was sweating heavily. I increased blower speed on the cooler. I began to worry. It was getting late, after 4pm, so I wasn’t sure if I could get to the clinic my doctor worked at before it closed. Suddenly I decided I was going to go anyway. Enough uncertainty! I had to find out what was wrong; I might even be having heart problems. I decided not to take the motorcycle, opting instead for four wheels, should I become weak or unsteady. However, I changed my mind as I was backing the car up, and went back in. Something was wrong and I was getting worse fast. I called 911.

It didn’t take the EMT guys long to get to my house, as the firehouse was less than two miles away, but they had to search for my house in this compound, so I got up and flagged ’em down, went back in and left the door open. They came in, and wanted to know where the patient was. I riased my hand, “Me”. They asked questions, took vitals, noted the profuse sweating, and agreed I was probably having a heart attack, so I should go to the hospital. An ambulance had arrived after they came in their firetruck. By this time I felt weaker, and didn’t mind lying on their gurney. I’m not sure it was a good idea to attempt an IV while the ambulance was bouncing over the speed humps, but I got to the hospital OK.

There were more questions, including one about Viagra, which has been implicated in heart attacks. I told them I’d had sex Saturday night and early Sunday morning. They sent me to the cardiac lab, and five or six guys went to work, taking pictures, repeating vitals and finally deciding that I was, indeed, having a heart attack. There were options, like drug therapy, but the best idea presented was to do an angioplasty, where they run an inflatable device up an artery into my heart to open the artery there. X-rays had shown that the artery was indeed almost completely blocked by a clot. 

I agreed, so the team went ahead. I felt a pain after they began. I said “Ouch!” just as someone was sticking a needle in me, and he apologized, but it was the sudden sharp pain in my heart that had gotten my attention. The pain increased, but, miraculously, as they worked and the catheter reached my heart, the pain subsided; the pressure that had been building stopped, and I felt great! They had used the balloon-like device on the end of the catheter to ream out my artery,  and then released a stainless-steel tube from there that expanded to fit to the walls of the artery. It’s called a stent.  It’s an odd, meshed device. To me, it resembles those old Chinese finger puzzles, but on a much reduced scale. The stent will remain with me now.  I must take a drug for one year to prevent my body from rejecting the stent. Ha! I wish I only had to take one drug. I must also take aspirin, a small 81 mg dose, every day. I am taking a drug to lower my blood pressure, even though my pressure is normal. I am taking a statin drug to lower my cholesterol even though my cholesterol is not high. I am taking a drug to block blood platelets from sticking together and forming clots. I am taking a drug to lower the acid in my stomach. And I am taking a drug that lowers my heart rate, reducing strain on my heart, which was only minimally damaged in all this. The pain I had felt as they worked on me was due to movement of the clot: it had suddenly turned, to completely block that artery! They saved an angiogram picture of the block to show me later. If that had happened while I was at home, my heart would have been seriously damaged by the time I’d gotten to a hospital. That artery feeds the heart itself. If I’d done nothing, I’d have just died.

I survived, thanks to the people at the Heart Hospital of NM of the Lovelace Medical Center. I’m in good shape. I’m certain I do not need all of these drugs. My blood pressure is now lower than ever, at about 118 over 70, as I just measured. I already eat fairly well, so my cholesterol is not dangerous, but I welcome the assistance of the drug, for now. I think some of the others are a bit too much, as I would like to be as drug-free as possible. One drug can be interfered with by fish-oil supplements, which are in my daily multivitamins already. If the fish oil has the same effect, I don’t know why I can’t just take that instead of a drug.

Ah, well. I’m lucky to be alive, and damn lucky to have had that cardiac team work on me. They worked very quickly, efficiently and smoothly, each one performing certain vital tasks, and being watchful of changes in my status. Without them, I wouldn’t have survived.

I received lots of messages from friends and family. I was confined to the hospital for two days. My friend Michal  went to my house, fed my cats and brought me my laptop. My wonderful step-daughter Maya  also visited me.

My girlfriend, who, she says, is “not a girlfriend”, declined to visit me in the hospital because, as she put it, “…hospitals freak me all the fuck out…”, but she said she wanted to see me to verify that I was alive.  Friday afternoon we went to a movie, had dinner  at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen, and then to my house for sex. I’m alive. Life goes on.

An Arch Called Ventana (the window) in New Mexico

Previously, I uploaded some pics from my hike across the lava flows in El Malpais Conservation Area, founded in 1987 near Grants, New Mexico. See: Hiking the pāhoehoe and ‘a’a in New Mexico. I went back. This time I saw, not only the lava and spectacular landscape, but also an incredible arch, located in a very accessible public part of the area. It is called La Ventana (The Window), and it is also in the El Malpais Conservation Area, founded in 1987 near Grants, New Mexico.

and here’s more of the pictures from my 3/11/12 hike (click on a pic to view it full size):

 

Hoodoos and Petrified Wood: Bisti / De-Na-Zin Badlands in New Mexico

I went hiking in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness recently. I thought people might be interested in seeing some photos. After you click on one, you can use the arrows to view all of the photos. They are high resolution photos, so give each one time to fully load before moving on to the next one. It was fantastic hiking there.

Hiking the pāhoehoe and ‘a’a in New Mexico

For many years, I’ve traveled by the lava flows around Grants, New Mexico. I’ve stopped to smell the lava occasionally, and even picked the tunas, the fruits of the prickly pear, as they are known around here, which grow near the lava by the highway. I’d never hiked through the lava fields before, so when a hike came up to do so, I jumped at it. Now, hiking through cold lava is not as easy as it sounds. The smooth flow, pāhoehoe, is not bad to walk on: mostly flat, good traction. The ‘a’a is not so easy. Much of the later half of the hike was on ‘a’a, the sharp, strewn rocks blown out of the volcanoes, including loose gravel-like stones.

 El Malpais is a national park.

There is a trail, (a very loose term), through the badlands. It is 7.5 miles long. Seems easy, right? Well, people do get lost and die in there. In fact, human bones found scattered on a lava flow in El Malpais National Monument have been identified, just last year, as those of James Chatman and Crystal Tuggle, father and daughter, who never came back from an afternoon walk there nine years ago. See? It is so easy to get lost in there. The trail, such as it is, is marked with cairns throughout. Sometimes the cairns are no more than ten feet apart, sometimes, 20 to 30 feet apart, when the trail is obvious. Usually, it is not, so the cairns are placed liberally along the trail, showing the way through every twist and turn.

There’s one there, in the upper right corner, next to one of my hiking companions. Now, this one is fairly easy to spot, but do you see a problem? The cairns are simply piles of lava rocks. On a rise like this, fairly easy to spot, silhouetted against the sky. Imagine that you are walking through a field of lava and all of the cairns are about two to three feet tall (max), composed of rocks the exact same color of the background. Here are two cairns in a row; can you spot them?

The advice the park service gives is to always have the next cairn in sight before you leave the one you’re at, and I wholeheartedly endorse that. Occasionally, this takes a bit of reconnoitering, but there is always a cairn alongside the trail in the direction one needs to travel. Looking at the photo above, you might be tempted to say that one needs only follow the other hikers, right? Wrong. Suppose you’re a slower hiker, or you stop to pee or take a photo. The other hikers are gone, around a bend, down a hill, or behind a pile of lava somewhere. You then have to navigate on your own until you see them again. Sometimes you walk right past a cairn, if you glance up at the wrong moment, so you have to backtrack a bit and try again. Imagine doing this right after a snowstorm. It had snowed the night before, but fortunately, it was light, and tended to melt as the day wore on.

 

Helpfully, the park service has provided wooden posts for some cairns, sticking straight up through the center of the cairn, but even these have a tendency to fall down, due to the really intense winds blowing through there.    This one was near one end of the trail.

There were piles of these poles here and there, so I assume it’s an ongoing project for the few rangers that have kept their jobs. It’s unfortunate that the National Park Service has felt the brunt of the many cuts in government over the years.  I guess we need to keep raising our Congress people’s salaries, and keep paying them for life, and make sure they have top-of-the-line free medical care.  Well, at least they think it’s more important, for them, even if they don’t think it’s important for the rest of us.

Anyway, you came here for pictures, yes?

Here ya go – (click on one to view larger, then use your keyboard’s arrow keys to scroll through):

As I told the hike leader, it was one hell of a hike. Although I was tired and aching by the time we finished, (just under five hours including two 15-minute breaks), I really enjoyed this hike. The views were always outstanding, and the experience, on the whole, was fantastic! It’s one of the best hikes I’ve ever done. On the way home, we stopped at the ‘WOW’ diner in Milan, near Grants. Their menu is just as unique and varied as the lava fields are. With three pages of dinner entrées, I may never experience everything on their menu, but I intend to try. (There are still lots of hikes in the area.)  It is the perfect end to a perfect hike.

40 Years and a Retirement Hike

After spending nearly 40 years of my life working, post high school, I retired from my last job after 25 years there. 

In high school I flipped burgers, but after leaving high school, my first real job was running equipment in a physics lab at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.  It was a good job, working with a machine that used x-rays to measure molecular spacing in crystals, like silicon and germanium, which would prove vital to computers later on.  It was, however, boring and repetitious, but I took night classes for free there.  I stopped working full time to attend the University of Maryland Baltimore County  for two years, but continued working part time as an independent contractor.  I simply typed up a bill for my time every week.  As good as that was, I was also involved in anti-war and anti-government protests, as well as volunteer work with a free clinic,  classes with a chapter of the Black Panthers,  and experiments with sex and drugs, so college work seemed irrelevant.  The University finally told me my grade-point average was too low to continue, so I’d have to drop out for a couple semesters.  Instead, I left town with my bicycle, riding through parts of Michigan, Canada, Wisconsin and North Dakota.  Short of money, I took my second real job, as an electrician’s assistant for a large mid-western carnival: Murphy Brothers Mile Long Pleasure Exposition.  I spent a full season with them, running cables to rides, troubleshooting, and maintaining the generators.  Then, when my final pay was stolen by Toothless Lester, so he could go on a binge, I stayed on and worked small fairs in Oklahoma and Florida.  Florida in winter is nice, and I got to swim in the ocean in December, but the ride I was with didn’t get enough business, for the four of us it took to set up and run, for us to eat all that well.   I split to Virginia to visit people I’d met in Canada.  The only work I could find there was helping out on a small goat farm, so I passed on that, and hopped a train back to Baltimore.

I got another job at Johns Hopkins  after a short search, and this time I was preparing genetics and developmental biology laboratory materials for the pre-med students there.   That job got short circuited when a graduate student opened a drawer in a chicken egg incubator, and left it open.  The large rotating drum full of dozens of drawers full of eggs then tilted forward, and the drawer slid out.  It didn’t have far to go, and could have slipped back in, but ventilation was maintained by aid of a wooden blade revolving around the drum.  The graduate student was long gone by the time the wooden blade slammed into the open drawer, jamming the whole device, and causing the premature hatching of 50 to 60 chicks.  I was blamed.  As it was, there had been complaints from the students of contaminated agar plates, which was also blamed on me, even though the students did not follow instructions very well, and violated every protocol they were given to prevent contamination.  Another job down the tubes.  I knew exactly what to do: get on the bicycle again.  This time I left Baltimore directly, and rode west to Arizona.  After hiking across the Grand Canyon and back, I ended up in Scottsdale, Arizona, working for a crafts foundry run by Paolo Solari, a visionary architect building an “Arcology” in the desert.  I made bronze wind-bells, melting bronze, ramming clay/sand mixtures around molds and then pouring the bronze, cleaning up the raw products, assembling and even selling them.  Sometimes I helped out by giving tours to tourists and other visitors.  It was a fine job, but I met some bicyclists traveling through who were doing advance work for a cross-country bicycling/networking trip.  I agreed to join them when the group arrived from California.

That was my longest break from working ever, although it involved riding a bicycle nearly every day for six months.  Sometimes we did odd jobs to supplement our communal income, and we all gave workshops in our specialties.  Mine was bicycle maintenance and repair.  The tour ended, and I tried working for a solar contractor in Philadelphia, but that didn’t work out.  I hadn’t enough experience in carpentry (none with solar panels) to satisfy my boss, who had wanted to have me work unsupervised.  So, I traveled to New York City.  I knew a few people there and had a place to stay.  Then began my fourth major job: bicycle messenger.  I pedaled letters, packages, advertising films and even artwork all over Manhattan on my trusty metal steed.  However, I had met a fascinating and very sexy woman in Albuquerque when the bicycle group had stopped there for ten days.  Although I had met several woman in my travels, she seemed like the one.  She wanted me to move there, and I wanted her, so I found my way back to New Mexico.  Unfortunately, there weren’t many jobs available in the Land of Enchantment.  After six months of looking, working odd jobs, and hanging around the unemployment office, I finally got a job at the University of New Mexico as a mason’s helper.   For a couple of years I replaced broken sidewalks, mixed hod for block walls, and even laid a brick floor in the University President’s house.  There was also some remodeling and jack hammer work.  I transferred to a job at the Cancer Center for about a year and half, injecting and implanting, respectively, tumor cells or tumor chunks into rats and mice.  Then I would treat them with radiation and drugs, monitoring them, weighing them, and dissecting them.  It was OK work, but the Director, and my boss, the Associate Director, took their grant money and moved to Philadelphia.  I had no desire to go there, much less to the east coast, so I was out of work for another six months, doing odd jobs, and even collecting unemployment while I searched for work.  I finally found a good part-time job, analyzing electroplating baths for a printed-circuit board manufacturer,  which gave me a chance to take University classes again.  I did that for four years, but my quality control position was dropped, and I was looking for work again.  This time I ended up back at the University, working initially with mice, removing their glands for analysis and isolation of immunoglobulins, the wonderful molecules that protect our bodies from disease.

This time the job lasted 25 years.  It changed continuously though.  I stopped working with mice, and ran machines again exclusively.  There were machines for determining the amino acid sequence of a protein,  for purifying such proteins,  for making short versions of such proteins, for analyzing the total amino acid content of biological samples, and determining the purity of all of the above.  That changed too, as we obtained new machines: first, a machine for creating synthetic DNA.  Cool.  Then a machine for determining the sequence of various DNA samples.  That became my job then: making and sequencing DNA.  Interesting at first, but ultimately boring and repetitive, fraught with problems.  The problems could be fun to isolate and resolve, but dealing with an ever-changing clientele of Ph.D.s, graduate students, post-graduate students, undergraduates, and dealing with all the budget balancing was sometimes frustrating.  As this last and final job wound down, I went through the motions, doing the best job I knew how, but increasingly disinterested.  I could barely force myself to go to work, much less work all day, every day.  In the end, I suddenly decided I’d had enough, and retired.

So, what do I do the day after retirement? I went hiking in the Sandia Mountains here.  Hiking the entire 18-mile length of the Faulty trail from Placitas, New Mexico to Tijeras, New Mexico. It was fun, with beautiful views, a clear blue sky and leftover snowfall from a snowstorm four days earlier. Faulty Trail has a mysterious origin. Diamond blazes appeared on trees marking its route before any official Forest Service recognition, and it was unofficially called the Diamond Trail. Probably an old herding route, it was apparently cleared by a horse club. The Forest Service took it over and renamed it Faulty Trail in honor of the dikes—fissures filled with igneous rock that moved up from a lower fracture and created the limestone blocks—that appear alongside the trail. Working in a laboratory for twenty-five years, however, does not really prepare one for hiking rolling hills 18 miles at almost 8000 feet above sea level, even with some hiking experience over the last year.  I saw wild turkey, rabbit, raccoon, deer, and even fox tracks  in the snow and mud.   Many of the trees date to the 1700 and 1800s, and some have been cored and marked with their age,  so that is a wonderful experience.   I even saw a large black coyote near the crest of the mountain.  It was one hell of a long day however, from the meet-up at 7 a.m., to the timely lunch break halfway, to wandering off the trail for a bit, to the final late, forced steps on the darkened trail in the light of a full moon at 7:30 p.m. (2 1/2 hours beyond schedule).  Tired, sore, and as hungry as a bear, I ate, went home, and crawled into bed early that night, and slept the longest I have in fifteen years: 8 and 1/2 hours non-stop!

Now that is worth retiring for.

Good ol’ February 14

Another Valentine’s Day.  People make fun of the day, and criticize it as meaningless commercial promotion for the greeting card and candy companies.  I’ve often found, however, that when I’m in a serious relationship, it is satisfying to do something nice for your lover on a day that is dedicated to love. Once I didn’t, by mistake, actually.  I was one of those who felt that gifts or flowers as sentiment should come spontaneously and randomly, and I acted on that.  However, I knew, without a doubt, that my lover at the time would want to be treated special, so I had a plan. Since I rode a bicycle every day to and from work, it was difficult to range very far in getting flowers, which is what I thought most appropriate at that time.  And, of course, arranging to have them delivered never occurred to me. Every day, I passed a flower shop on the way home.  I had never had a real girlfriend or lover to buy flowers for before, and had no idea how early one has to buy these things.  However, the shop would certainly have had some kind of flowers left, even if they weren’t roses.  So, I left work, and headed home, climbing the slope of “nine-mile” hill steadily.  I reached the flower shop, and THEY WERE CLOSED! As in shut down and moved away. Crap.  I couldn’t believe it.  I knew of none other within miles, and I was expected at home anyway.  I went home, and promptly told my love what had happened, and she said it was OK, and no big deal.  DON”T EVER BELIEVE THAT.  It is just not true.  Later, after she’d left me for someone else, and we’d become friends again, years later, she told me that’s when she changed her mind about me. She was actually pretty upset.  She met this guy coincidentally the next day, and she became interested in  him.  

Be that all as it may be, however, I’ve been with many women since then, and I never screwed up like that again, always giving flowers and treats, and not because I had to, but because I wanted to.  So, I like Valentine’s Day.  However, since that last divorce and my subsequent unrequited love infatuation and rejection, I don’t think much of this approaching day of love.  It sucks, really.   I added a note to myself on my appointments calendar for the 14th: Kill myself.  Now, it’s unlikely I will.  For one thing, I’ve gotten really interested in learning guitar, and I practice every day.  I understand a little bit of the nomenclature, and I’m training my fingers, and making slow progress.  It may take a long time, but I think I can do it.  So, since I want to see how well I can do, I should stick around a bit longer.

Before this, I joined the Mountain Club, however.  I went on four hikes, up and down hilly terrain, for lengths of  8 to ten miles, and enjoyed it.  Loved the slowly increasing strength and stamina, but I haven’t been hiking since January 1.  I used to go hiking on level ground about 4 miles every Sunday before going mountaineering, but I haven’t even done that.  Now I’m focused on guitar.  I wonder if I can keep my interest in that?  Or will I lose the excitement that grips me now?  If I do, will I decide there’s no further reason to keep on living? or will I find another item on my bucket list to throw myself into?  I can’t predict, just can’t tell.

Day 15 – a very slow day.

Well, here I am, 3 days into the new year of 2009, day 15 of my vacation from all things work related.  I’m trying to see what I’ve accomplished.

1.)  Replaced the remaining three almost-bald tires on the car – they have whitewall stripes too, matching the car (well, actually it’s cream colored).

2.) Took the rear tire off the motorcycle, scraped the grease off the gear and rim, and replaced the tire, which was stark-raving mad, er, nude, er, uh, bald.

3.) Broke a link out of the stretched-out bike chain (had to use a cold chisel); cleaned, adjusted and greased the chain.

4.) Went hiking around To’hajiilee, just west of Albuquerque. Hiked beyond my comfort level, took some nice pics.

5.) Had lunch with my 1st wife.  Learned she thought I wanted the divorce; I thought she did.

6.) Had dinner on Xmas day with my step-daughter; made a kick-ass chile with Italian sausage, green chile, and black beans. We both enjoyed it.

7.) Went hiking in San Lorenzo canyon (near Socorro, New Mexico); hiked just past my comfort level; took a few pics.

8.) Bought a digital picture frame; learned I haven’t beaten my eBay addiction yet.

9.) Read several books: Titan’s Daughter, by Sci Fi author James Blish; Ballroom of the Skies, a Sci Fi novel by crime/mystery novelist John D. MacDonald; Please Write For Details, also by John D. MacDonald, Wild Traveler, a 1967 story about an adopted coyote by A.M. Lightner; Jack of Eagles, by James Blish; Berlin (2): City of Smoke, graphic novel by Jason Lutes; graphic novel David Boring, by Daniel Clowes; graphic novel Far West (Vol. 1), by Richard Moore; the screenplay of Ghost World, by Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff; a wierd “art” graphic novel Jellyfist, by Jhonen Vasquez and Jenny Goldberg; and Aya of Yop City, a graphic novel by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie.

10.) Finally watched: 2010: The Year We Make Contact, the new 2008 Journey to the Center of the Earth, the orignal Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), Transsiberian, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Outer Limits: The 2nd Soul, the animated Superman Doomsday, anime Kai Doh Maru, Bridge to Terabithia, a dumb anime: Fencer of Minerva, Chap. 1, and The Incredible Hulk, with which I easily identify.

11.) Learned how NOT to make chocolate chip cookies.

12.) Went out to dinner with an old girlfriend on New Year’s Eve; played 2 games of chess, took her home at 10:00 pm (She goes to bed early).

13.) Went hiking 5 miles up the La Luz Trail in our Sandia Mountains; took the old trail back down; got off the trail; had to bushwhack and slide through snow to the bottom and hike back up to the trailhead.  Went beyond any comfort level I thought I had before. Had a GREAT time, because my step-daughter and her boyfriend went with me. (Hope they forgive me for leading them astray.)

Did NOT pass Go, collect $200, fall into or out of love, or have sex, but I  least I kept myself busy.  What a demented way to live. 🙂