The Electromagnetic Spectrum

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I was watching a great PBS TV show on reading 2,000 year old papyrus which has been damaged. Scientists are now using a NASA imaging technology, using infrared light to read these old documents.
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So these guys are really turned on by very long wave light. Say infrared light that our eyes can't see, at a wavelength of 950 nano meters (nm). And here me and some of my friends are fascinated by ultraviolet light that is just shorter in wavelength than what the human eye can see. And what happens when you shine this UV on certain minerals. They suddenly light up in the part of the sprectrum that the human eye can see.
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UV-A is long wave UV light. I call it plain old hippie black light. It is about 400 - 320 nm and the lamps to produce this can be purchased very inexpensively. UV-C is short wave UV light. It can damage your eyes or skin and can even be germicidal. It has a wavelength of around 280 nm, or even shorter.
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Amateur radio operators or "Ham radio operators" can relate to how massive an 80 meter 1/2 wavelength dipole antenna is. We can also see that one yard or 3 feet is 36 inches, and one meter is about 39 inches. And amateur radio operators know that the ionosphere easily bounces waves of 20 meters. But that when you get up to the high frequencies (shorter wavelengths) like 10, 6, or 2 meters it is pretty rare for this layer of particles high up in the sky to be sufficiently ionized to act like a mirror.
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So how long is a nano meter? Most of us can visualize 35 mm and maybe even 16 mm or 8 mm because we used to be into chemical silver based photography. A nano meter is really small. It takes one million nano meters to make one millimeter! So if one were talking about light that has a wave length of 1,000 nano meters, this is one one thousanth of a millimeter. It may be called super long wave length light, but it is still really quite small.
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Here is the real interesting concept and little bit of a surprise. Light, X-rays, AM and FM radio waves, cellphone tower output, the dangerous radiation inside of your microwave oven that heats things up, and even television transmissions are all just light. Just like what our eyes see, only at different frequencies (colors you could say) that our eyes cannot decode (see). So there are indeed lots of things happening around us that we cannot see. Seeing is believing. Well, maybe. Think about the concept of parallel universes in this context.
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This picture of the spectrum came from wilkpedia, and I have modified it slightly to make my point. Click on it and it should enlarge enough that you can read it.

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Death From Complications of Leukemia

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In yesterday’s news on TV and in the papers, two relatively famous men were reported as having died from complications of Chronic Lymphocitic Leukemia (CLL). Technically CLL is a malignant cancer. It has various symptoms, and it does various things to one. You sweat profusely. At night when sleeping you sweat, during the day after the slightest exertion, etc. You stay so wet, so much of the time, that skin fungal infections are sometimes a bit of a problem.

CLL affects the bone marrow, the white blood cells, the lymphatic system basically goes hair wire, and your lymph nodes swell up outrageously. The ones near the surface like on your neck show up as big lumps, and the internal ones press uncomfortably against various relatively important and useful internal organs.

Often you itch really badly. So bad that people sometimes draw blood from their scratching. This type of leukemia causes some people to have absolutely zero energy. I mean wanting to sleep 22 hours per day. Barely having the energy to walk to the bathroom and back. My friend up in Hillsboro has this symptom. Luckily I do not.

But probably the most inconvenient effect of CLL is that it reduces the effectiveness of your immune system. Over time you get to where you body just can’t fight off any simple little invader. Bacterial, viral, fungal, mold, etc. And then one day you get a simple little chest cold and poof. Just like that you die from pneumonia. One day you're here, the next...who knows. John Lennon said it was just like getting out of one car and getting into another. Yes, well maybe so. Hope springs eternal.
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Some people have sleepy, slow acting leukemia. Others (like me) have a more aggressive variety which tends to cause serious problems somewhat sooner rather than later.

I’m in the middle of one of my periodic battles with an infection inside of my right lung. I can remember back to being in Paris a little over a year ago, and being in so much pain I thought I might croak right there at the Eifel Tower. That’s kind of how it feels right now. My body just can’t seem to get rid of this lung infection permanently.

All of this has made me much more aware of my own mortality. I’m taking some ass kick antibiotics which I was prescribed back when I lived in Europe. And at least me and my stuff made it back home to El Paso, Texas. My little black doggie Inu is a lot more comfort to me than any of my 3 ex-wives would have been if they were here. I'm making certain that my Will, my financial information, internet user names and passwords, wishes for funeral, obituary, grave stone, etc. are all written down and up-to-date and readily accesible. May seem morbid to you; to me it just seems practical and being well prepared.
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And if this is the time that the pneumonia wins, well so be it. I guess that is Allah’s will or one of those other dudes from the popular fairy tales. I think that in general Karl Mark's ideas were really quite wrong. But his statement about religion being the opiate of the masses seems pretty close to the truth.

Bad To The Bone

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The ACOR internet support group for CLL was a great deal more interesting and intellectually stimulating back before the various bad boys either got run off or got so angry that they just went away or they started their own groups or web sites. I guess I'm sort of in that group of bad boys, but I'm mostly thinking of some great guys from Arizona and Australia.
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Chris Dwyer is a Canadian who has frequently been somewhat controversial. He sure is smart! Looking at his web site he is doing some really good things: http://www.cllcanada.ca/
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I took this picture from his web site. I would encourage anyone who is battling the CLL dragon to check out his web site from time to time.

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Cleaning Up Juarez

I was reading a newspaper article today about how the Mexican authorities are “cleaning up” Juarez. No longer allowing underage Gringo kids to drink, closing down the whore houses, etc.

It made me think back to high school. For several generations of people, Juarez was our own little Amsterdam.

I guess that’s why when I moved to the Netherlands and lived there for 15 years it was just no shock at all to find out that prostitution was completely legal. Indeed the Dutch whores have a Whore’s Labor Union to make sure that their working conditions are correct. And in any little Dutch town large enough to have a pub, there will also be a “coffee shop” where they completely legally serve pot and hashish. You walk in and sit down (or go to the bar) and the waitress hands you a menu of their various ass kick varieties of the green herb. You can even take some home to go like you would at the Chinese restaurant.

So here I am at age 58. I haven’t drank one little drop of alcohol for 5 or 6 years. I also quit smoking cigarettes roughly that long ago. And I haven’t smoked pot for years.

Haven’t had sex with a woman since wife No. 3. That’s OK too. Most of my married friends either never have sex with their wife, or they get some 2 - 3 times per year. Yet they have to put up with their wife constantly trying to improve and modify them. And wives are not inexpensive either. I digress.

Well, several of the friends I had back then who liked to go to Juarez and get drunk have been dead for years now. Dead for various official reasons, but in reality primarily due to their continued consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol and drugs and cigarettes.

I got to thinking about what it was like back in High School. Being constantly driven by testosterone and titts.

Everything I did, every goal, was intended to increase the supply of sex from women and access to mammaries. It certainly was not convenient to think deeply or very long about history or philosophy, when in fact all one could think about was that girl sitting over there… And what she had hidden up between her legs and in her blouse.

It truly is a great relief to be 58 and have the sex hormones quieting down a little. Its not that I actually detest women. I really kind of like them, and rather enjoy their company. But I certainly wouldn’t want to have sex with some fat old chick who looks like my grandmother.

I guess overall it is probably good for the Mexicans to clean up Juarez. Kind of like prohibition was a good idea in the 1930s.

But I do think that growing up next to Little Amsterdam gave us a wider and more balanced view of the world than someone who grew up as a Baptist. In some little narrow minded town in the Midwest.

Albert B. Fall

Albert Bacon Fall was a lawyer. He became a judge, and was later one of the first Republican U.S. Senators from New Mexico.

In 1921 President Warren G. Harding appointed him as Secretary of the Interior. He was soon involved in the Teapot Dome scandal where he received large bribes in connection with two oil leases he granted to friends of his to drill for oil in the U.S. Strategic Naval Reserve. We were taught about the Teapot Dome Scandal in school, but I wasn't very interested then. Maybe if I had known the guy lived here in El Paso I would have been more interested.

Fall was found guilty of conspiracy and bribery. At the time he held the honor of being the first former cabinet officer sentenced to prison as a result of misconduct in office.

Wikipedia says that historians joke about Albert B. Fall, saying he was "so crooked they had to screw him into the ground" upon his death. Sort of figures since he was a republican and a lawyer.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_B._Fall

Albert Fall owned the Three River Ranch north of Tularosa, New Mexico, and he also built an elegant house in El Paso located at what is now 1725 Arizona. N 31.77617, W-106.47698

This house in El Paso is getting a little shabby and is gradually falling into a state of disrepair, but it is still very elegant nonetheless. Among other things it has several stained glass windows made by Tiffany in New York.

The city of El Paso has been trying to preserve the piece of history and they should be praised for their efforts. The current owner has not adequately preserved the property, so the city has finally had to use their power of eminent domain to take the property from this gentlemen. He of course will be compensated at current market value, which is in the range of $400,000-.

The city plans to then sell the property to someone who will put in the necessary money and effort to preserve it.

Vaseline Glass

I became aware today that there is going to be a Vaseline Glass collector's convention in San Antonio at the Holiday Inn Select Airport on October 12 - 13.

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Sure sounds like a good excuse to go to San Antonio! N 29.52085, W-98.48765

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This is a link to a few of the things in my little collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_garland/sets/72157600602448583/

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Dignity in Death

-War is horrible. That really is the nicest thing one can say about it.

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But there are times, unfortunately, when a society has no choice but to go to war. Think about Hitler in WWII.

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So we put up various memorials to make it seem more acceptable to have died in war. Outside of No. 10 Downing Street in London there is a memorial to the Glorius Dead.

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I saw another interesting memorial yesterday in Veteran's Park in Deming, New Mexico USA. This one refers to men knowing how to die. Honestly, that is a vitally important subject, especially to us older folks. I sure as hell don't intend to die in prison (read hospital) tied down to the bed and hooked up to lots of tubes.

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Deming, New Mexico USA

Yesterday I drove up to Deming, New Mexico USA to visit the Deming Luna County Historical Museum. It has been closed for 14 months undergoing renovation, and it recently reopened.

It was really surprisingly good. Many people had told me that it was a good museum, but it is so easy to discount what others say. But honestly this really is right up at the top of the best museums I have ever visited. I say that from the perspective of having visited the British Museum 4 or 5 times, the Louvre in Paris probably 8 or 10 times (I’ve kind of lost track), the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and lots of museums in New York City, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rome, Florence, Israel, Greece, etc.

I expected there to be some nice Indian pottery and some pretty minerals and rocks. Turns out to be one of the finest historical museums I have ever been in anywhere. Antique glass, oil lamps, carbide lanterns for miners and late 1800s bicycles, china, furniture, fire trucks, old cars and pickups, the military in the old west, WWII military, grandfather clocks, a Gustav Becker German wall clock frmo the 1880s, indian pots, baskets, arrow heads and artificats in prodigious quantities, unreal collections of antique bells, nut crackers, whiskey bottles, old business machines, old medical, old dental, an old funeral home, an old barber shop, old radios, a room full of dolls (not for me, but I'll bet that the chicks love it), an old real jail cell, old real chuck wagon, lots of geology, rocks, geodes, 2,000 year old Roman coins, etc etc etc.

El Paso doesn’t have anything that comes even close, even though it is a much, much larger place than Deming. The people who put this museum together and keep it running deserve a great deal of credit. I was so impressed that I joined the Deming Historical Society.

Afterwards we drove off North of Deming hoping to visit Fluorite Ridge and maybe the Pony Hills petroglyphs. The desert is really such an interesting place. It can be so incredibly dry here. Going without rain for 6 months or more is not at all out of the ordinary.

At 58 years old this was the first time that I have ever seen running water from a flash flood many miles away.

It was sunny and sure didn’t feel like rain in any way. But when we crested a little hill I had to panic stop, skidding on the dirt road and stopping before falling off into a muddy creek right ahead of me where the road used to be. If I had been in the 4 wheel drive car we might have tried to get through, but there is no way that the Toyota Corolla would have made it through this.

Vaseline Glass Necklace

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My sister and brother-in-law just got back from an extended trip back east.

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In their travels they went to a place that specialies in Vaseline Glass. There they ordered a custom made necklace for me made of hand made sterling silver and vaseline glass beads.

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It arrived today. Gosh it is beautiful!

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Harry Potter Mania

I guess I’m about as much into Harry Potter as your average 58 year old man.

The last time I was in Great Britain (a little over a year ago) I made sure to drive over to Hogwarts (aka Alnwick castle). Alnwick is on the East coast of the island, up North near the border with Scotland.
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While I was visiting in Alnwick I went to an antiques sale, and I picked up a very a very nice piece of Victorian vaseline glass from an older couple.

This is a link to some of the pictures that I took at Hogwarts: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_garland/sets/72157600451263039/

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In Edinburg, Scotland two different times I’ve eaten in the 2nd floor restaurant where J.K. Rowling wrote most of the first Harry Potter book.
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Her brother used to own the place. Now it is called the Buffet King. It has turned into a really tasty all-you-can-eat oriental buffett. I was so excited to be there that the first time I was there, I sent my sister an e-mail from my cellphone while I was sitting there eating. This is a link to some of the pics I took there: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_garland/sets/72157600531760613/

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I’ve driven a long way out of my way just to visit her old 19th century castle-mansion named Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Perth is a nice place. I stopped at the Sony store there and bought myself a new camera. The correct pronunciation for the town of Perth Scotland is Pear-th not Pur-th.
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This is just about the most beautiful area I've ever been to in the whole world. If I couldn't live in El Paso, Texas, then this part of Scotland is where I would want to live. As the crow flies it is about 35 km northwest of Perth. Some of our family's ancestors are buried half way there in the church yard cemetery in Clunie. LINK: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_garland/sets/72157600548550143/
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This is truly a magical area. Just a couple of miles away from the church in Clunie on a little road near Ardblair there are the ancient megalithic bronze age standing stones called the Leys of Marlee. LINK: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_garland/642015840/in/set-72157600520047049/
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I was outside of the gates of her house of course, just like when you visit the houses of the stars in Hollywood. To get to her house you go past the Aberfeldy Water mill over the Tay on Taybridge Road. This turns into Poplar avenue. Take it to the Tee junction, then turn right. Drive along the Tay until you reach the large manor house on your left with the green gates. I had to drive a riding lawn mower for about 2 hours to cut the grass in the front yard of my house in Holland. J.K. Rowling has sheep doing her front yard. Very Good!

If anyone wants to see them, this is a link to the pictures I took there in front of her house: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_garland/sets/72157600602426623/



And today I rode my motorcycle down to the book store just so that I could see the real Harry Potter fanatics.

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There at the bookstore I bought myself a Hogwarts baseball cap. I put it on my sleeping terracotta bulldog guardog when I got home.

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The El Paso Stony Meteorite

In 1950 Professor W.S. Strain discovered that a stony meteorite had fallen east of El Paso, Texas. The GPS coordinates are approximately N 31.78285, W-106.23390. It weighed 275.8 grams, and is now in the Department of Geology at the University of Texas in El Paso.

The International Meteoritical Society officially lists this meteorite as the EL PASO STONY METEORITE. It is one of 291 approved meteorites from Texas, and 1,497 from the entire United States.

It is a stony, olivine-hypersthene chondrite. It is classified as an LL4 type. These chondrites are genuine pieces of primordial matter and are around 4.5 billion years old – much older that any rock or mineral that was formed on our planet. LL chondrites, which are low iron and low metal account for 8.1% of all witnessed meteorite falls.

The stones shown to the right are some pictures that T.E. Bunch made of chondrite meteorites.

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This is an internet link regarding the LL chondrite class of meteorites: http://www.meteoris.de/class/LL-Group.html

Since this location is out in the desert only 3.4 miles (5,5 km) from my house, I took my little black doggie out there this morning and we wandered around looking to see if we could get lucky enough to find any pieces from the meteor fall. I believe that we were successful.

There is plenty of white caliche covered rock laying around, occasionally some Apache Tears. These are little rounded pieces of volcanic glass officially know as obsidian.

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Here is the Apache Tears legend: About 75 Apaches and the US Calvary squared off against each other in battle on a mountain overlooking what is now Superior, Arizona in the 1870's. Rather than face defeat, the outnumbered Apache warriors rode their horses off the mountain to their deaths. The families of the warriors cried when they learned of the tragedy. Their tears turned into stone upon hitting the ground. Today these beautiful black stones are known as Apache Tears Good Luck Stones.

The pictures to the left are two little pieces of the El Paso Meteorite that we found this morning.

Old Graveyards

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My sister and I visited three graveyards in town earlier this week.

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We were going to pay our respects to various family members, and then we kind of got into it and ended up wandering around Concordia, thinking about Buffalo Soldiers, Gunslingers, Mexican Presidents, and late 1800s prostitutes.

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At Evergreen cemetary down near R.E. Thomason I saw a couple of gravestones that said IHS, which reminded me of a late middle age cemetery in Arlon, Belgium. During this time period lots of gravestones said IHS and RIP and it was fairly common to also show a skull and crossbones.

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(click on the pictures and they will enlarge)

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This is a link to more (unedited or cleaned up) pictures from Arlon, Belgium: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_garland/sets/72157600455183369/

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My sister Jan and I were talking about the symbol IHS. She said that the I refered to the Christian Jesus, but that the Romans didn't have a J in their alphabet. In writing this entry I remembered a Roman terrcotta pot I saw at a Roman bathouse and museum where the Roman potter 2,000 years ago had written the alphabet on his pot. It was on a moving turntable, and this is a kind of blurry picture of it.

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At the left I have a picture of a similar Roman pot. I took this picture at the French Museum of Antiquities just to the west of Paris.

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International Museum of Art

The El Paso International Museum of Art has an excellent exhibition going on called Art on The Border. The lead painter is the fine artist and very nice gentleman Bassel Wolfe, who has lived in El Paso for many years. I was fortunate to have met and talked with him last weekend.

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Link: http://www.studio-w.com/wolfe/art.htm

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Also exhibiting are Bob Adams, Bill Bissell, Holly Cox, Willibald DeCabrera, Alberto Escamilla, Julie Ford Oliver, Kitty Kistenmacher, Mario Parra, Bill Rakocy, Krystyna Robbins, Corinne Spinnler, Nina Walker, Martha Moheno, Candy Mayer and Abel De La Rosa. Sculptors are Karen Alvarado, Ray Alvarado, Vladimir Alvarado, Jimmie Bemont, Judy Garcia, and Claude Montes.

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This museum is located in the Trost house at 1211 Monatana Ave. El Paso Texas, 79902. It is open kind of weird hours: Thursday thru Sunday 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.

Bug on Storm Door

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When I came home this beautiful little bug was waiting for me on my storm door. I gently shooed him away.

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I was cleaning up the image a little and cropping it in Photoshop, and I decided to phychedelicise him too.

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Victorian Era Oil Lamp Evolution

http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/08/oil-lamp-evolution.html

http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/08/history-of-photography.html

http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/08/kerosene.html

http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/07/oil-lamp-burners-and-chimneys.html

http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/07/pre-electricity-lighting-in-europe.html

http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/07/old-stuff.html

http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/06/oil-lamps-from-europe.html

http://paulgarland.blogspot.com/2006/06/cologne-germany-antiques-market.html

Immigration/Integration in Germany

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Germany in many way has a similar situation to America.
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The educational level among native Germans is high, so the birth rate is very low. Immigrants who work and pay social security taxes are needed to help pay for the unfunded benefits of the ageing Germans.
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Native Germans don't want to the do the nasty, dirty, low paying work so foreign immigrants are needed in order to perform those jobs.
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Sound similar Americans? The German situation is like ours in more ways. A great many of their immigrants (rather than Mexicans the Germans primarily have immigrants from Turkey) have not learned the primary language of their new country, and they are living in squalid ghettos surrounded by other Turks.
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This is a quote from a newspaper in Frankfurt, Germany:
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Integrating into Germany's political system also means respecting the will of the democratic majority as shown in elections and parliament. ... Some foreigners come here in order to maintain a self-centered and self-sufficient way of life under more generous circumstances than in their homeland -- in other words, to live with their own kind in ghettos and parallel societies. ... "
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"The government must be honest to itself and to its citizens and admit that there are foreigners who are willing to integrate and there are foreigners who do not want to integrate. The government can grant the first group a measure of trust as well as considerable sums of money for integration courses and other assistance. To the others however, in particular to those who substantiate their refusal to integrate on an organizational basis, the government must send a clear signal. Because Germany is not a country of immigration, but a country of integration."
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That is an interesting phrase: Germany is a country of integration not a country of immigration. I've got to give that some thought.
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Living In A Poor Country

A friend of a friend just moved to India. She sold all her worldly possessions and moved without ever having visited the place she was going to. Depending upon one’s perspective (is the glass half full or half empty?) this bold move into the unknown was either very gutsy or very stupid.

It is fascinating to read her e-mail. She has a much clearer focus now regarding what we in the developed world have, and what much of the world wants desperately.

Chemically and biologically safe running water. That runs 24 hours per day. Even as nearby as our neighbor country Mexico, this is not always assured. Safe running water to drink, cook with, and bathe with is essential. Two thousand years ago the Romans invested a great deal of energy in order to bring running water into their towns. http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1431/660429015_da9948a313_o.jpg

The Romans also had an extensive system of sewers. Even in London just a few hundred years ago there was raw sewage in the streets and the drinking water was contaminated with sewage. The royalty drank bottled water from stoneware containers filled at special religious springs. Naturally there were terrible health consequences to the majority of the people who had to drink biologically contaminated water. http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1352/660428071_4c5c7eab7e_o.jpg


Electricity that operates 24 hours per day. When the power goes off for an extended period of time in the summer one realizes the importance of our electrical power grid. Being able to read after the sun goes down without having to light a fire hazard lamp is very beneficial to society. If the power were to go off for a few days during the winter would your furnace operate?

When one looks into the area of communication one sees massive differences between the developed countries and the rest of the world. Telephones, cell phones, the internet, television, etc. This radical improvement in communication permits all sorts of coordination that is not possible when one is using the mail, runners, or the pony express. In many cases you see cellular telephone networks developing in places where safe running water is not even yet available.

When one is stopped in a traffic jam on the highway, one does not appreciate what a tremendous advancement this infrastructure is. But when one visits a really poor country where even a dirt road that a jeep can travel over may be seen as quite a luxury one sees how useful these paved highways are.

I won’t go into health care because almost 50 million people in the United States of America don’t have access to the health care system. Have cancer but no insurance? Tough luck jerk, just die. As one would expect, infant mortality in America is much worse than those countries where there is universal health care.

Having a roof over your head seems elemental to us here in America, but one doesn’t have to travel far to see people living in shacks built from cardboard.

World Population Day

July 11 is the United Nations' World Population Day.
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Here is a link to the Sierra Club website about it. The total population that the planet is having the feed and supply energy to is one of the most critical issues we are facing as a species. http://www.sierraclub.org/population/world_population_day.asp
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My dog has been neutered. Me too. I got my vasectectomy after having one child as suggested by Zero Population Growth back in the 1970s.
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The High Desert

For the last two weeks or so it has been pretty warm here in the high desert. In fact all of America has been fairly hot. The high temperature has been between 38 degrees C and 40 C (100F to 105F) every day. And some days even at 7:00 pm in the evening it is still 38 C.

My little black doggie and I normally take a walk out in the wilderness desert every morning. If I take my time in the morning, eat breakfast, answer all of my e-mails, etc. it seems like it is normally around 9:30 or 10:00 am before we get out to the desert. I reset the trip odometer on my Garmin handheld (carried in a belt holster) GPS at the start. Our minimum walk is 1 mile for me, and normally it is more like 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). The problem is that by 10:00 a.m. it is already around 90 F (32 degrees C), and even with the relatively low humidity that is hot when you are hiking in the direct sunlight.

This morning we got moving a little earlier and got out to the desert around 8:00 a.m. The temperature was much more pleasant, and we went a little further than usual. The trip odometer on the Garmin said I went 1.9 miles (3.1 kilometers). No doubt my dog went 2 to 3 times that distance, chasing rabbits and lizards.

For several months I have been looking at the topography of this area. We sometimes take a trail from the high flat mesa down into an area 50 to 100 feet lower that obviously had water running towards the Rio Grande river sometime in the geologic past. This trail we take was not made by a wheeled vehicle, and certainly has not ever been bladed. It wanders around the sand dunes rather than being completely straight. But it is far too big to be just an animal trail. So I have been pretty sure that aboriginal humans made this trail, going from the mesa down to the water.

I have found a couple of very old fire pits, but until this morning I could not absolutely confirm that the native humans who were surviving by living off the land lived here. But today I found a fairly large shard of pottery, which absolutely confirms that people were here in the olden times. It is fairly thick at 7 mm and is about 55 mm or 2 inches wide. It has a small amount of curvature.

I understand from archaeologists that the majority of the humans left this area around 1,300 A.D. Apparently the climate just got too dry and hard for them to survive in. So when one finds pottery shards hear here one can be fairly certain that they are at least 700 years old. Maybe 2,000 years old or more.

I also found a nice little fluorescent stone on our walk this morning.

It is milky white chalcedony. Often these stones fluoresce green when illuminated with short wave (UV-C) light. Even thought this material fluoresces the same color as many uranium samples, unlike most uranium these desert chalcedonies don’t fluoresce at all under standard long wave ultraviolet light (UV-A).

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The academics say that trace amounts of uranium are responsible for this fluorescence. Yea, Maybe.

Desert Rain

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Yesterday afternoon Inu and I were in the park when a nice rain came up. It rained hard for maybe 30 minutes.

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This morning walking out in the desert I saw this little critter. Never seen one of these before. Kind of pretty.

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Twin Peaks

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Seventeen years ago I was living in South Louisiana. I was routinely working 12 - 14 hours per day. Sometimes more.
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Shortly thereafter the company promoted me to be the General Manager of the European Division of our company. And there I put it at least 12 hours a day.
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I don't in any way regret that phase of my life. It was interesting and challenging. I'd do it again. For sure. But now that I have time to smell the roses, this phase is good too. For sure.

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The above is my excuse for not having become acquainted with the 1990 - 1991 movie and TV series. But I have just arrived. After watching the movie I can report that without any doubt this is the weirdest and strangest flick I have ever seen.
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It was truly wonderful.
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LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_peaks



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Flickr Photos

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Since those arrogant, non-customer service oriented jerks at Yahoo! have arbitrarily cancelled their photos service, I have had to change to another internet picture service.

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I have chosen Flickr, and since I am now paying for the service I have uploaded almost 50,000 of my pictures from my external hard drives. One odd and interesting feature of flickr is that other people can add you as one of their contacts so that you can see their photos too. Then they can also send you e-mails not by the traditonal route, but via the flicker service.

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I'm not certain that I approve of this setup, but I have gotten some rather interesting "friends" this way. These are a couple of pictures by J. Huston of Joshua Tree National Park where she has played with the colors.

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And this is a link to my newly expanded pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_garland/sets/

The El Paso Solar Energy Association

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The El Paso Solar Energy Association is a very worthwhile group. Certainly the first step is reducing our waste of energy (conservation), and then the very important second step is to get our energy from renewable sources like the sun or wind.
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Driving a car that gets 8 - 10 miles per gallon is not only stupid and arrogant, it is socially irresponsible. In the late 1960s I drove an English Ford Anglia (like J.K. Rowling's friend), and it got over 40 mpg on the highway. The Toyota I have now has a great sound system, cruise control, and even running the air conditioner it really does get 42 mpg on the highway.
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The next most productive area one can attack is your dwelling. If you haven't yet changed virtually all of your incandescent lights for compact fluorescent bulbs you are asleep at the switch. Do the math. This has a measurable societal impact and a rapid financial payback.
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I am a life member of the El Paso Solar Energy organization.
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The group got together today in a very nice park on the eastside of El Paso. They set up several solar cookers and actually cooked hot dogs and cookies!

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Link: http://www.epsea.org/


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