Category: Uncategorized (Page 47 of 52)

I proceeded over the San Augustine Pass. I tried to capture what I could of the mountains and the flora.

The restricted area signs are an interesting contrast to the vast fields of desert poppies as they open up in the morning light.

This area was the site of a fire last year or the year before. Except for a few plants like this one, it is hardly noticeable.

This should give you an idea of how vast the poppy fields are.

So after a long day at the job (where photography is not allowed), I headed home. The desert poppies were a bit more open then they had been in the morning, but not quite as vibrant as they are around noontime.

The poppies were more open in the afternoon, but not as impressive as at midday.

My sister and I once stopped here on our way back from a Fabulous Thunderbirds concert before our vehicle broke down.

Here is a fuller view of the store I had photographed in the morning. The crumbling roof part had collapsed recently. In fact, that was what interested me in photographing the abandoned buildings.

The glass in this building was fairly intact until the last year or so.

And so ends my description my daily commute. I only wish I had photographic skills to capture the incredible sunrises I usually see, but I also lack the hardware for that.

The first time I ever heard this song, it was my favorite song:

http://youtu.be/ErtCj8iqdD4

Enjoy.

For the past several days, each afternoon has witnessed vast sheets of yellow blooming across the desert floor. I decided to take a camera with me.

1) El Camino Real

I began my morning as usual, taking my son to school. I noticed a couple of great photo opportunities only as I passed them. Instead, I had to settle for these:

Sun rising over St. Augustine Pass on El Camino Real.

Unfortunately, the sun beat me and I wasn’t able to get a clean picture of a freshly planted field without the obscuring feature of Sol rendering all a mere shadow:

The downtown area was marred by construction, so I opted to leave that out. Instead, I began the long commute and didn’t stop until I reached the ghost town. Organ, New Mexico is a peculiar place. Once a mining town, it has existed for the last half century as little more than the only stopping point between Las Cruces and Alamogordo or White Sands. With the eastward expansion of Las Cruces, the town was reduced to a residential area. It recently occurred to me that the abandoned buildings left along the highway gave it the appearance of a ghost town. I thought to take some pictures to share my daily ghost town experience. My wife, however, thought that I should wait until Spring, as the new growth in the flora would provide a contrast to the lifelessness of each edifice.

So I began my regular Friday drive. Unfortunately, there isn’t a safe place to pull off of the highway to get a good picture before Organ. It really is rather nice in places. I was able to stop at Organ along the way.

This building has both doors open, so you can see all the way through.

This was actually a functioning business when I first moved to Las Cruces some twenty years ago.

From another angle, you can see this is actually an interesting old building. And they once sold "Sandwitches."

The state of the Organ Mountain Lodge motel exemplifies the area. Note the contrast of the active traffic in the background.

I'm not sure when this was last a functioning garage, but it's been at least twenty years.

I think that pretty well describes the first part of my drive.

Today I saw this post by Erik Loomis at the Lawyers, Guns, and Money Blog. It is a brief rant in response to Rand Paul’s absurd claim that taxation of oil companies is, well, I’ll let the Dim Son say it himself:

Instead of punishing them, you should want to encourage them. I would think you would want to say to the oil companies, “What obstacles are there to you making more money?” And hiring more people. Instead they say, “No, we must punish them. We must tax them more to make things fair.” This whole thing about fairness is so misguided and gotten out of hand.

Note: that is the same quote Loomis used.

Here is the response:

Dear Big Oil Executives,

My name is Erik Loomis. I like to drive and heat my home and eat. Because of that, I really want you to profit off of me. I was thinking about eating three meals a day this year, but it’s really more important that your shareholders kick some more indigenous people in Ecuador off their land so you can maximize profits. …

I have a problem here with one little word. Shareholders. This is something that so many people have somehow managed to miss in the last couple of decades. Shareholders are not the recipients of large profits. Sure the shareholders get thrown a bone in the form of some fraction of the declared profits. What fraction, though, of the would-be profits go directly into the pockets of executives and members of various boards? I would love to see what fraction of total income of those companies is siphoned off by these vultures. Especially telling would be what the profits would be if the CEO-to-janitor pay ratio resembled that of 1950.

Look at a listing of boards of directors and you will see a few names pop up in more than one. How can an individual be an expert in multiple unrelated industries? Investigate deeply enough, and you will notice a real pattern. A pattern, that is, of political connections. The current “board of directors” system of large corporations is the definition of crony capitalism.

Oops. This weekend, I discovered that an entry I had for a local extinct volcano called Kilbourne Hole had wrong directions. They were correct when we posted them, but a couple of years ago some construction was done that resulted in an alteration of the path. As well, one of the numbered county roads got an actual name instead. I will have to update that. We made sure to get pictures of the intersections on the way out along with the mileage at each turn.

Anyway, I decided to take along a prop. I got a nice brass and wood spyglass for Christmas. So I wanted to see if I could get a picture of my son using the scope. In the desert.

I trimmed it so that he was the only one in the picture, but then I thought a close up might be a worthy avatar picture:

We’ll see if I can figure out how to do the avatar thing.