balloon season is here and this is an old favorite of mine with some new modifications to snap it up a bit… here is the original from oct 1, 2005…

this was taken at albuquerque international balloon fiesta with my first real digital camera (lotsa stuff is broke at that link, btw)… i have no idea how it came out so good – it was totally a lucky shot, pointed, clicked, and it was just there… i have always had an affection for it and there was very little to do when i touched it up for this re-post… i enhanced the colors a little and sharpened the whole thing a bit, cropped a bit off the bottom, brightened it a hair, but, that’s it… i am considering doing a fancier edit, but, this will do for now…

anyway, tomorrow is the local, pathetic little balloon thing and we are about three weeks away, i guess from the REAL balloon fiesta in abq and, rest assured, i will be taking my dslr and my little canon p&s with plenty of cards…

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Google News Search – “John Hevener”
you can bookmark that and keep checking it for updates or subscribe to the rss feed…
and if anyone sees this story mentioned on local blogs, etc., let me know, or just leave the link in the comments…

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and, yes, i know, i vanished… and the pics haven’t been updated in months for the first time in years… and there are a couple things broken on the site…
yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever…
i have just been too busy living my life to blog about it or something… and a couple months ago, Truman‘s mother board gave out, so, i am using this piece of junk on my desk in my bedroom that i cobbled together from spare parts…

i do apologize to those who get email notification of updates to this site…  i know that, for some reason, it has sent a few out when there was no actual update…

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so, to hear i could actually be witness to or even be on set for the filming of “No Country For Old Men” could not have struck at a better time… the article mentions that “Filming will take place in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Vegas starting in late May.”…

i don’t get starstruck about much, but, this would do it :P

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the weather is finally agreeable and, in my experience, this place is not without decent playing spots…
here is a site that has allegedly all the new mexico courses: nmdgc.org (new mexico disc golf courses dot org)… and here is a little thing i put together on windows live local, showing the abq courses: well, all but roosevelt :P… you might also have a look at pdga.com’s new mexico course page…
vista hills on rockaway is the obvious quick-game choice, centrally located for most people i know, just a couple minutes from the church… a really simple 9-hole course that can easily be played in under an hour…

i’m able, ready, and more than willing after work (4:30, 5-ish) on mondays, thursdays, and fridays… i’m always up for grabbing a quick round at rockaway (the earlier the better on mondays or else the third hole has to be skipped because of the soccer kids) and, if time permits, ladera would be great… i’d love to play the baca, but when is a huge question mark… (weekends are not exactly ideal…)
just gimme’ a call me on my cell – 328.1406

i have enough discs for two people… if you want to buy, it has been too long, i don’t know where to go except online or try ‘head shops (ya’ know, where you used to buy incense, pipes, and tie-dye)… over at Big 5 sporting goods on coors near paseo, i bumped into a very small, basic selection of drivers and putters (no mid-ranges) for $10 a piece, but, maybe some local players will read this and post a comment letting us know where to go for the good stuff… i’m looking your direction, matthew bohnsack :)

and, for that matter, anyone interested in getting a game can hit the comments and make it known… never played? no problem, i play like i’ve never played, so, it’s all good… just a nice way to waste a bit of time after work and maybe get hardcore on the weekends or something…
it’s free and it’s fun, so, let’s get out there…

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UPDATE – April 9
forget what i said about weekends not being ideal… we have had a couple great saturdays out at Ladera and it looks like i/we will be doing it every saturday, hopefully getting there about 10am, 11am, somewhere in there and counting on spending 3 hours or so to play the 18 holes… yesterday, i was on the course EIGHT hours, so, i think the window of opportunity is pretty much all day if anyone else wants to join me/us…

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Anyone who has taken the tram up to Sandia Crest has probably overheard a passenger or two asking about the ‘crash site.’ They are referring to the wreck of TWA flight 206; a twin engine Martin 404 that slammed in to the west face of Sandia Peak on February 19, 1955. Sixteen passengers and crew were killed. While all of the bodies were removed, the remote location and rugged terrain necessitated leaving the bulk of the aircraft on the mountain in the upper portion of Domingo Baca Canyon in area that has since become known as TWA Canyon. A hike to the site makes for a memorable, if tiring, day trip.

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in many ways, i miss the bus… we used to take it all the time in cali… sometimes i would just get my walkman, catch a bus, take it to the end of the route and then take it back home… “two dollar therapy” we called it (a buck each way)…
anyway, i think this article nails it and there are some poignant comments, as well…

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[i should start blogging links more often... i always just add any interesting link to the "looking at" section over there on the right, qute a ways down, but, no one ever sees those... and a link can go over there for a wide variety of reasons... anyway, i just grabbed the "Press It" bookmarklet and this is my first use of it...]

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live info from AlbuquerqueGasPrices.com, a handy little site that tells you where to go to get the cheapest gas (though, atm as i am posting this, it is showing a low of 2.62 and the site says the lowest around is 2.85, so, i guess it is not bug-free)… i doubt i will add this to the side bar, but, i at least wanted to mention the site since i gave everyone the wrong address at the little get-together tonight… oops…

also, via DCF, “OurABQTrib.com“, which has promise to be a cool site about our beloved city… news for me, by me… at least, that’s what it says…

and, just because i thought it was cool, via i-don’t-remember-where, this one is called “How To Pimp Your Windows XP Desktop to Look Like a Cool Mac Desktop“…
i must try this out… later this week… even a three-day weekend was not long enough…

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how cool is that?

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where would i even start?

how would i ever stop?

how many pics of clouds and balloons do you figure they’d accept before they told me to come up with something else to shoot?

why oh why didn’t i have my dad make a back up of all the pics in the last webspace before “The Great Disaster”?

so many questions…

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ALBUQUERQUE (AP) – A 29-year-old man was shot during an argument near a
popular Albuquerque restaurant Thanksgiving morning.
Albuquerque police say the incident occurred in a parking lot behind the
Frontier Restaurant.
The shooting victim was identified as Daniel Gallegos. He was taken to an
Albuquerque hospital where he later died.
Police are looking for a white, four-door Nissan pickup in connection with the
shooting—but no arrests have been made.
 
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

insidious_plots…

http://insidiousplots.com/him

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Rio Rancho’s plan for a citywide high-speed wireless communication system is
back on line.
The city has reached an agreement with a wireless service provider, Azulstar.
Rio Rancho city administrator Jim Palenick plans to ask the Rio Rancho City
Council to approve the agreement next week.
Azulstar would begin deployment of the wireless network on November 15th. The
project would be completed by May 15th.
The city had contracted with Usurf America for the wireless network earlier
this year.
The company says it terminated its contract with the city in August because
the financial terms didn’t fit its new financial model.
The city says it terminated the contract after it became clear that Usurf
couldn’t meet the deployment deadline.
 
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

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well, he made big news today…

with headlines like Balloon Gets Caught In Radio Tower [koat tv] and Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta ending with a bang: “Smokey the Bear” balloon is wrapped around the top of a 670ft AM radio tower, four people in gondola [fark]…
and someone in the fark thread mentioned it was even on cnn…

behold…

i ALMOST saw it happen… i was recording the mass ascension coverage on tv this morning and popping downstairs once in a while to see if there was anything worth taking pics of… last trip i had made down, i saw smokey and almost took a pic since he was in a good spot, but, i have not been taking many pics since we went to the event, not much chance of topping those… anyway, so, i then came back upstairs… within a minute or two they were talking about it on tv… i bet i missed it by 30 seconds…

by the time i ran out there, all i saw was this…

the reports are still coming in, but, it is now confirmed that there were three people aboard, all ok, they were able to get out of the gondola to the ladder that runs inside it and climb down… it took nearly an hour… there was the 70-year-old pilot, and two passengers on their first balloon ride ever… they were 14 and 10 years old… he sent them down the ladder first…

here is the pilot climbing down the tower, and here he is after they got him in a cherry picker, as he and a rescue worker look up at the tattered remnants of the balloon…

of course, the big question now is how they are going to get that thing down from there…

garth’s informal predictions at America’s Outback didn’t include radio towers, but, turns out he was right about the power lines…
Balloon catches on live power line, no one injured
Balloon Fiesta Pilot Trips Up With Power Line

other headlines the last few days have included…
Balloon Fiesta Brings Injuries, Power Outage
Rough landings, snagged balloons mark morning
Pilots Injured As Balloon Makes Hard Landing Near Chama
Gas balloon makes hard landing, injures pilots

here is a google news search if you want to see more…

and the whole 10-day event has also been well blogged…

America’s Outback has great pics from the day 7 special shapes mass ascension…

mr. bohnsack posted many pics from the day 9 mass ascension with links to over 400 high-res pics from the three previous years… he also links a few other abq bloggers posting about the aibf… (including me; plus, i fit his comment about those with “freshly purchased digital marvels”…)

and Quirky Burque even gave us the Balloon Fiesta Avoidance Plan…

i am probably not going to keep up with posting all the follow up news and/or blog posts about it all, but, i will definitely get pics and vids again next year, and post ‘em all here…

there are a few pics and one vid from the last few days that i did not comment on, and now that it is all done, the vids will stay for a while until we need the space, so, take one last trip to the now completed AIBF collection…

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AWS PalmNet
KOBTV.com – Eyewitness News 4
Albuquerque Cam
Dartmouth Street Gallery
WXnation: Weather Radar, Live Cams – Albuquerque, New Mexico
webcamworld.com : WebCam Directory : North America : USA : New Mexico

after i sort the wheat from the chaff, i will add some abq blogs to the sidebar…

ABQ Blogger.com’ers
ABQ LiveJournal’ers
Quirky Burque
Metaquerque
Burque News
Albloggerque
bohnsack.com
Musings from America’s Outback
NewMexiKen

9/11 anniversary thread on fark and the original news thread…

FARK.com: Comments (Avantgo version) (1119031)
9/11 remembrance discussion thread. Link goes to the original

FARK.com: Comments (Avantgo version) (45086)
NEWS FLASH: PLANES CRASH INTO WORLD TRADE CENTER, PENTAGON. Our link to CNN works (thanks Metafilter). We have news and pics in comments section, if you have any post it there

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for something like two weeks now, we have had every window and this huge sliding glass door open from the time we get up to the time we go to bed and, aside from times it gets too windy to have them all open (we live on a mesa on the edge of town), it has been more than perfectly comfortable…
we sometimes close the sliding glass door and blinds in the afternoon because it faces west and the sun shines right in and it can be a bit too warm, but, even that is not necessary every day…

and, even on the warmest days, once that sun goes down, the temperature starts dramatically dropping…

and, btw, if someone wants to ask how something like good weather can be so exciting, it is because that back in dallas, i bet it is 212 degrees and 115% humidity already… for 4 months or more, you have to stay in all the time, even at night, with everything closed tight, no sun, no fresh air, with the a/c cranked… and that is no fun…

it’s great to be back in the desert…

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