Schlepp in Northern New Mexico

Earlier this month Schlepp attended the InterLab 2007 Conference in Los Alamos, NM. On the way up he stopped at the obscure Mormon Battalion Memorial near Budaghers. (You have to look real hard at the bottom of the monument to see Schlepp.)

Then on the way back, he stopped at Camel Rock. Most people stop at the casino on the north side of the road, but there's a small parking area for the stone formation on the south side of the interchange. The rock is now fenced off, but when I first arrived in NM you could climb right onto the camel's hump. Worries about erosion and the loss of the camel have resulted in a closed off site.

Where's Terrance?

Can you spot him?

This photo from two weeks ago shows him foraging in the oregano, where he is almost invisible. Now the weather has turned cold and he's dug himself a couple inches into the leaf litter underneath the Vinca. If I poke around a little, I can just see the top of his shell.

Even though the low this morning is forecast to be 40, this weekend its supposed to be back near 80. We'll see if that warms Terrance enough to get him moving again. This time of year in Albuquerque there are only 11 hours and 11 minutes between sunrise and sunset. With a sun elevation of only 45 degrees and the porch shading the Vinca bed until 1:00, he won't be getting much direct heat.

Meanwhile, Schlepp and the gang continue to work on Chapter Three of his book. Its almost time for NaNoWriMo, but since we started this last summer, we can't take credit for the 8000 words written so far.

Turtle Weight Watchers

Something for the biologists out there. Here is the graph of Terrance's weight, which I've been tracking since July.

I'm a bit surprised that it took such a dive in August when I thought he'd be laying on winterfat. At least the weight loss has flattened out, but he seems to be turning up his nose at strawberries, his favorite summer food.

His current weight of 354 grams works out to about 12.5 oz. In the next 2-3 weeks Terrance will be burrowing in for the winter's hibernations. Be on the lookout for post-hibernation weights next spring.

Abo Pass

Schlepp and PC took a pilgrimage to Abo Pass yesterday. This obscure pass between Mountainair and Belen, NM handles an incredible amount of rail traffic. Apparently this line carries more freight than the combined maritime transport between Europe and the U.S.

For several tight miles down in the canyon on the west side of the saddle it is single rail, so the trains stack up waiting for one to snake through before another can climb up the grade.

We watched a dozen or so from various vantage points as the 9000-foot long intermodal freights rolled by. Here we watch an east-bound train head into the pass at the NM 47 crossing. I'll have a audio podcast up later today and post the video to YouTube.

We went off the pavement south of the highway just west of the ghost town of Scholle, under a trestle, and down a canyon looking for the twin horned serpent petroglyphs, but we were turned back by mud from the recent rains.

Terrance, Newport and Schlepp

Terrance was out for a stroll the other morning. I found him behind the rosemary, so I brought him a plate of strawberries (his favorite food). Afterwards he checked out Newport, Schlepp, and Roberta (off camera left--you can just see an ear).

Since then I've only seen Terrance in the vinca, probably because its been too hot in other parts of the yard. As we move into September and things cool off, he'll start using the rosemary bed more often because of its early morning warmth.

Schlepp Visits Acoma

Its been about three years since Karl was out at Acoma. This trip Schlepp got to go along for the ride. The visitor center, which burned down seven years ago, has been rebuilt and is a wonderful island of cool and shade full of interesting exhibits, a museum, a restaurant, a picnic area, and gift shop. Schlepp got to see the entire mesa-top pueblo, go inside the church with its fascinating mixture of Pueblo and Christian symbolism, and hike down the original trail from the cliff top. At left Schlepp rests on a bench in the main Acoma square.

From the mesa top, one can see marvelous vistas across the Acoma reservation. Here you can see the view out towards Enchanted Mesa, a very large, very vertical formation off to the northeast. The clouds in the background are probably building up over the Jemez or Sangre de Christo Mountains 75-100 miles away.

Matthew Meadows Neighborhood Association Online

The great guys over at Openia came through with a Plone instance for my neighborhood association. Now our little Matthew Meadows has a nice new home in cyberspace. With Plone we should be in good shape for moderated blogs, a community calendar, news listings, and a useful repository for handy community information.

Already I've raided the City of Albuquerque GIS and purloined names and addresses of all the residents. Links to govt, Yahoo, and Google maps are up, but relevant content is still short. I'm posting on various of my sites to get some cross-linking with the indexing services.

Note that this morning the WaPo has an article about community and neighborhood blogs. Very timely.

Memorial Day Weekend

Its been a busy weekend: Ty's graduation, shopping for plants at High Country Gardens, getting ready for tomorrow's evening get-together. For me, definitely not a morning-bear, getting up for the nephew's 9:00 AM graduation was a horrible way to start the weekend. But luckily, he graduates from high school only once.

Then, on the way back down to Albuquerque, we stopped at High Country Gardens so Caro could pick up some plants. The photo is of me in their green house by the petunias. Of course, buying plants means having to eventually plant them. So much of today was spent digging holes. Terrance was out and about, so he survived his little adventure in the swimming pool last weekend. Caro did the bulk of the work, but I'm a little sore in the back from digging and some heavy lifting.

Had time to tidy up some of the bonsai, especially a couple of the tropicals. The ginkgo is doing very well despite some critter trying to excavate a burrow in its pot. The little fern-like ground cover adds a nice touch.

Monday we're having eight or so friends over for bon bowl--our version of a Vietnamese noodle salad. Lettuce, cucumber, green onion, cilantro, basil, bean sprouts, and a pile of capellini topped with grilled shrimp and pieces of spring roll. Don't forget to sprinkle liberally with chopped peanuts. The sauce is noteworthy (from Sunset Magazine years ago):

3/4 c rice wine vinegar
1/2 c soy sauce
3 T sugar
2 T sesame oil
2 T minced fresh ginger
2 cloves minced garlic
1-2 t red chili powder

Albuquerque Bonsai Exhibit

The Albuquerque Bonsai Club will have a display of bonsai, viewing stones, and accent plants at the Albuquerque Botanic Gardens over the Mothers Day weekend. BTW, Schlepp will be taking his turn as docent and guardian of the bonsai from noon until 3 PM Sunday.

Evolution

It came as a shock during the Republican Presidential Candidates Debate, not only that three of ten candidates do not believe in evolution, but that the question of evolution is a one to be asked. Even more astounding is that the answer is still open for debate among the Republican Party. A fourth candidate (McCain) has accepted speaking engagements from the Discovery Institute (the intelligent design think tank). We have a President who claims that the jury is still out on the theory of evolution. (The three who identified themselves as not believing in the theory of evolution were Sen. Sam Brownback, Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Rep. Tom Tancredo. Curiously, a number of MSM outlets did not name names.)

This state of affairs represents a profound disregard for scientific knowledge, a serious lack of understanding of the scientific method, and a prodigious statement of anti-intellectualism at the very highest levels of U.S. government. No wonder our response to global warming has been held back for seven years. No wonder we have ideological recipes to justify the invasion of Iraq and then more ideology to design a failed solution.

What ever happened to plain old critical thinking?

(Truth in Blogging Disclaimer: Schlepp has a PhD in Biology.)

The Return of Terrance the Tortoise

Its April 30th and we still hadn't seen Terrance. Last winter he popped up in mid-April. We were beginning to worry. Then this evening after work, we spotted him along the edge of the rosemary. Yup, he's up and at 'em.

True, he's a Western Box Turtle, not a tortoise, and he's slow, but he's busy hunting. Snagged a bug on his way back to his burrow underneath the Euonymus.

Good to have you back, Terrance!

Soon to come, another episode of SchleppCast in which Schlepp rescues a hummingbird who was trapped in the garage.

The Mauser

Horrific news from Virginia today. The massacre at Virginia Tech has that feel of 911 for some reason, even though it is two orders of magnitude smaller. Perhaps it is the innocence lost... yet again. Another assault by unfathomable forces--one by extreme ideology, the other by extreme instability. Perhaps they are, deep down, the same thing. Schlepp's heart goes out to all those touched by these senseless acts of violence.

I am reminded that on the wall behind me is a wooden gun rack holding the 8mm Mauser that Grandpa brought back from France. As the family lore goes, he picked it up off the battlefield of Verdun. Its a carbine, originally designed for cavalry use, but the machine guns of World War One ended that.


Instead, the Mauser on my wall became an artillery officer's sidearm. The idea is that if you are in a rear echelon artillery battery and you have an opportunity to shoot a sidearm at the enemy, they'd better be at rifle range or else your artillery is as good as captured.

Grandpa was career military, a brevet company commander, and had a Sharpshooter medal. He was a Kansas farm boy who grew up with guns, probably hunting for food, not sport. He came back from the Great War and put all the guns away. Never taught his sons to shoot or hunt. He took the carbine apart and sanded the stock down, planning to refinish the gun, but never completed the task.

Years later I had a gunsmith friend in Santa Fe finish what Grandpa had started. With newly stained wood and browned barrel, it only needed a replacement shoulder strap. It hasn't been fired since at least 1918, although the gunsmith tells me it should be fine. Perhaps in 2018 I'll fire the Mauser, to celebrate a century of peace, at least for one small rifle.

But as yesterday's events bear out, Grandpa was right--guns are for killing. I'll follow his example and not fall into the trap of bringing a gun into my CSF classroom. The best we can hope for is to make it harder for madmen to lay hands on them.

I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before anyone even at the cost of your life. -- Mahatma Gandhi

Shrine of the Stone Lion

Schlepp had an interesting weekend. Instead of traveling somewhere exotic and faraway, he traveled to someplace exotic and nearby. With an eclectic group of fellow hikers he climbed an obscure mesa in central New Mexico and visited the ancient and little-known Stone Lion Shrine at its eastern rim.

True, there is a well-known Stone Lions Shrine just north in Bandelier National Monument with its two famous carved lions, but this is a single lion shrine. The ancestors of Cochiti Pueblo no doubt carved this remarkable work and set up the stone ring around it. They set the standing stones in place.

Apparently, in years past, the University of New Mexico used a helicopter to remove the lion to the Maxwell Museum, but protests caused it to be returned. I wonder if that is when the tail went missing?

At any rate, the shrine appeared unused, even now, just two weeks after the equinox when we would have thought there would have been a ceremony. Ten years ago there were sea shells, obsidian, and quartz crystals, but today... nothing. But still the Stone Lion quietly guards its sipapu and looks out forever across the endless mesas.

Arrivederci Amman!

Its the final day of the workshop. Everyone wandered off to home or caught flights out or are waiting for tomorrow's flight. Tim, Ruth, Amir, Kent, Hanada, and Ghada had dinner in the Marriott's Cigar Lounge. (It wasn't really smoky, but it has big comfortable chairs and is much quieter than the Champions sports bar.)

Ghada, our heroic workshop coordinator, finally got to meet Schlepp. I think everyone except Gen. Shiyyaab has posed with the furry one. Frankly, its been a good trip for a little bear and international security.

Travel home tomorrow starts at 5:30. There's a two-hour connection in London (tricky but possible) and then a 1:50 connection in Chicago. With customs, passport control, picking up and rechecking luggage, this will need a minor miracle to pull off. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post with all the exciting details.

Schlepp in Amman, Part 2

Today Schlepp went shopping down the street from the Marriott. By happy accident, he found a sports shop that sold football jerseys (soccer to you Yanks) in Jordan team colors. So we've got nephew Ty's birthday present worked out. We found Jordanian pastries for the gang at the office, some Afghan trinkets at the bazaar, and Dead Sea beauty products for the ladies back home. Now to a bear, they look like packages of mud and salt, but they're supposed to be great stuff.

For dinner the entire workshop went to Kan Zaman, a traditional restaurant. Excellent food, great company, and traditional music and entertainment. Schlepp made lots of new friends--Hanada, Rima, and Hakam from the Cooperative Monitoring Center at Amman.

Now its late and Karl has finished his e-mail to the States and he's done updating view graphs for tomorrow's final workshop sessions. Friday the long flight home begins early. There are close connections at Heathrow and a O'Hare, so stay tuned for the exciting transits through some of the world's most busy airports.

Time for a little bear to get to bed. TTFN

Travel Schlepp in Amman

After an eventful flight over, Schlepp is at last settled in at the Marriott in Amman, Jordan. There have been meetings at the Cooperative Monitoring Center at Amman and preparations for the disaster preparedness workshop are virtually complete.

On Friday the Muslim sabbath, Schlepp toured the ancient Roman ruins downtown, especially the theater of what was then called Philadelphia. Now its 1:14 am on Sunday March 4 and Schlepp is up in the middle of the night to catch the total eclipse of the moon. Its deep rudy red, even here in the middle of Amman with only a slight lightening on the north limb of the disc. Beautiful.

Travel Schlepp on the Go Again

Its official -- the trip to Amman has been blessed by the powers that be and the tickets finally arrived.

With a little luck Schlepp managed to get an aisle seat (unfortunately back in row 43) for the 9+ hours Denver-London. Seating from Heathrow to Jordan appears better. Overall the trip is an uncomfortable one, 25 hours long not counting getting to the airport 2 hours early to check in and then its coach all the way. That makes for a wasted day after arrival just sleeping off the effects.

The technical aspects of the trip involve disaster management and specifically how to respond to a hazardous chemical disaster along the lines of a terrorist event with chemical weapons. What was initially thought to be an academic exercise now turns out to be frighteningly urgent, what with two recent chlorine car bombs in Iraq.

Expect some podcasts during the two weeks in Amman. Friends in Jordan have already found a kafia (traditional headgear) sized just right for a small bear.

Eight Years of Travel Schlepp

Its January 26 and this is the 8-year anniversary for Little Schlepp. It was on Karl's birthday in 1999 that Travel Schlepp arrived from the Bears Cookie Den in Seal Rock, Oregon. The very next day he was whisked off to Vienna for his first international adventure.

Here's one of the first photos taken of TS while traveling. Karl had his new Kodak digital camera (a 1-megapixel DC-265) and the maid at Hotel am Stephensplatz had placed Schlepp in the sconce of the bedside light.

In no time Schlepp was heading out with Karl to historic and picturesque sites all over Europe. That first trip included a stop in The Hague to meet with the OPCW. In the past 8 years he's visited Paris, Venice, Prague, Budapest, Salzburg, Bonn, and Bratislava, as well as toured parts of England and Ireland. He's gone to Cairo, Vancouver, Mumbai, and Ankara plus coast to coast in the US.

Next month he'll take his first trip to Amman, Jordan. There he will help out with a Middle East Regional Workshop on Emergency Preparedness. Its a long flight, but he's used to it. Expect several posts while he's on the road.

New Year -- New Post

Technorati Profile

The odometer of US military deaths in Iraq turned over 3000 recently. Saddam Hussein was executed in a mocking, unprofessional manner on a Sunni holy day (but, interestingly, not a Shia holy day). A milestone and a martyr for the insurgency.

Winter in NM

Record-setting snow fell over the weekend, but luckily we got Kent moved before things really got icy Friday night. By Saturday morning, there was over 15" on the ground.

The family across the street got out in the snow by noon and built a truly enormous snowman. Of course, Little Schlepp went out to help.

Although pretty to look at, the storm stranded travelers, caused us to cancel holiday dinners with friends, knocked out power over at Paul and Toni's place. Last I heard, McGoey had borrowed a pole lopper yesterday evening to cut frozen branches away from the utilities.