Shallow Thoughts

Fun on the White Rock Path

One of my regular routes to the grocery store and library takes me along the paved pedestrian/bike path that follows NM highway 4. I also take the southern section of the path at the end of most mountain bike rides on the DOE trails south of town.

A few days ago, a very clever art piece appeared on that southern section. Someone had noticed that some of the copious crack filling seams were shaped like a grand piano, and had added a keyboard and the words MAKE MUSIC.

But it turns out the piano was just the tip of the iceberg.

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Construction Sites Covered with Plastic

Periodically in Los Alamos county we try to pass an ordinance to make retailers charge for #plastic bags, so people use fewer of them and we don't end up with plastic bag litter floating around all over the county.

But plastic bags are a nonissue compared to the new practice of covering whole buildings with plastic wrap during construction.

I've noticed it before, late last year when there was some sort of construction going on on the guard tower that stands near the east edge of town on NM 502. The entire tower was covered with plastic for months.

But between wind and the fierce UV at over 6000' elevation, plastic doesn't last long outdoors. So on the guard tower, the plastic shredded in just a few days, and they had to replace it several times a week. I'm sure the same will be true of the new plastic wrap on Piñon school.

Surely there must be a better way?

Knitted a Camelbak Hose Insulator

This week's group hike was at the always beautiful Las Conchas trail, up in the Jemez mountains. Originally planned as a snowshoe/ski hike, we discovered there wasn't enough show to justify either one, so we all opted for Yak Trax or other forms of shoe-mounted spikes. As it turned out, there wasn't much ice so we probably didn't even need that. (One of Dave's spike sets fell off early in the hike, and he continued for miles before he noticed one foot was unspiked. Fortunately, he was ahead of the group and someone else spotted the lost spikes.)

It was beautiful, and the 27°F temperature didn't feel so bad once we were moving. But it did cause one problem: my Camelbak hose froze up, so I had to resort to eating snow when I wanted a drink of water until lunchtime when I managed to clear out the ice.

Not the first time that's happened. I've long wanted to get some sort of hose insulator that would keep the hose from freezing, but I haven't been able to find one.

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Best Books I Read in 2024

My annual "Best Books I Read Last Year" is a little sparse for 2024. When I look at my reading record, I see I only finished 17 books all year, the lowest count by far since I started keeping track in 2004.

There are a couple of reasons for that, some good, some bad.

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A Lovely Christmas Eve Present

I just had the greatest Christmas Eve present.

Yesterday we went exploring bike trails. We drove the length of Buckman Rd (a little over 10 miles of dirt washboard and sand, which I'm happy to say the newer Rav4 handles much better than the old one did) to explore the trail along the river. But we hit a washout about a mile and a half in, and Dave didn't want to try to find a way around it. So we went back to the car, packed up the bikes, and drove over to the La Tierra Trails, which turned out to be a wonderful mountain bike playground, about which I may write at some point.

When we got home, though, I realized I no longer had my Rav4 key.

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Christmas Bird Count

Sunday was the annual Christmas Bird Count, and we had unusually good weather for it: sunny, windless, not too cold.

It started with a bang at Overlook Park when a bunch of starlings flew over ... followed by a small falcon. I'm not good at identifying falcons because I see them so seldom, but fortunately I was with an experienced birder who sees merlins at her house and confidently IDed this one. A life bird for me (I'm sure I've seen them, but never been sure enough of the ID to count one), and also a bird that was on the list of birds to watch for since they hadn't been seen so far during the count week.

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Voting Stories

My hiking group includes several volunteer poll workers. After an election, sometimes you hear some fun stories.

The Case of the Missing Information

Like the absentee ballot that came in with all the outer envelope fields blank.

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Possible (but unlikely) Leonid Show; Made a Repo for TuxMeteor

Salon.com had an article predicting a rare Leonid show on Friday and Saturday night this week: Rare "outburst" meteor shower will be visible this weekend.

I'm not sure where they got that idea; more science-leaning resources, like Universe Today and Science Alert, say 2024 is an "off" year for the Leonids, with an expected Zenithal Hourly Rate (ZHR) of 15-20 meteors per hour even with ideal conditions, which we don'e have because of an almost-full moon.

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