Repairing The Insulation on the Space Shuttle

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Carlos Mencia would love this.
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Now that they've finally got a Mexican guy up in space they are getting him to do all the hard work. I can just see some white guy at NASA in Houston saying, "Well Gosh, all those people know how to do upholstery, etc. don't they? Let's send Olivas out to sew up the torn insulation." Anyway, no need to risk any white people on this dangerous mission, huh?
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And I'm sure that Danny will do the finest job any human could do. Go Danny!
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Here is an article about Danny out of China! http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-06/18/content_6255199.htm

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Searching for Fluorescent Rocks

The regional vice president of the Fluorescent Mineral Society for the Tucson, Arizona area is a very nice lady. She is sold on the concept of using a black cloth barbecue cover so that one can search for fluorescent minerals during the day light hours. I absolutely love camping out in the wilderness, and then at night when gets dark getting the fluorescent lamp out. It is such a nice way to search for glow rocks.

Last weekend I went on a field trip with the El Paso Gem and Mineral Society. We went up to a large open pit copper mine near Hillsboro, New Mexico USA.

I tried out my almost $100- black BBQ cover. I can now report that in the June sunlight this device makes an excellent solar powered oven. Good grief! One could not possibly remain under cover for more than about 45 seconds without almost suffering a heat stroke.

One of my friends sent me a couple of pictures she took of me. One of the pictures shows me on the ground inside of the BBQ cover. My little black doggie is looking at me thinking, “What in the hell???”

The other picture shows me carrying the BBQ cover. My friend called me Batman. After seeing her picture I can see why.

Hector Bernal

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I don’t know nearly as much about art as I would like to. First off, I am not a artist myself. I am a very practical guy, good at fixing things, working on cars, doing plumbing, electrical, etc. Call me Mr. Fix-It. But in college at the encouragement of my sister and brother in law I took a course at UTEP in art appreciation. It sort of opened up my eyes.

Then after college I got lucky enough to live in Europe - twice. The first time for almost 3 years in Frankfurt, Germany on the Main river, and then many years later I lived in The Netherlands for 15 years. Both times I went out of my way to visit as many art museums and galleries (and as often) as possible.

One of my favourite artists is the Spaniard, Juan Miro’. I have seen his work all over Europe and once was lucky enough to visit the Miro’ Foundation Museum in Barcelona. I own a couple of his original prints, one of them signed.

Another one of my favourites is the Belgian, Rene' Magritte. I have also seen his work in many art museums across Europe. A couple of times in Brussels I visited the house he lived in while he did some of his best work. I’ve also been to his grave site. Paul Simon wrote a song about Rene' and his wife Georgette and their dog.
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I got the following from Wikipedia: Rock band Jethro Tull mention Magritte in a 1976 lyric, and Paul Simon's song "René and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War" appears on the 1983 album Hearts and Bones. Paul McCartney, a life-long fan of Magritte, owns many of his paintings, and claims that a Magritte painting inspired him to use the name Apple for the Beatles' media corporation.
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The really odd thing is that I used to occasionally have these somewhat erotic dreams about his wife. She of course has been dead now for many years, but as a young woman she was so incredibly beautiful. For a while I kept a framed picture of her on my desk at work, until one of the ladies who worked in the office told me, "Paul that is just TOO weird." I still think she was beautiful, but I no longer dream about her.

Yesterday I went by the Hal Marcus Gallery in El Paso, Texas. Marcus is one of the more famous local artists, and he has a very nice gallery. They have some of the nicest paintings from Southwestern artists that I have seen anywhere.

One of their exhibits was by a painter named Hector Bernal. This is a link to an article about Bernal: http://www.ventanasdelvalle.com/html/visualarts.html

Here is what the Hal Marcus website has to say about him:

Hector was born in Cd. Juarez Chih. He came to El Paso at the age of twelve in 1959. He then attended Aoy Elementary School in south El Paso. He also attended Bowie High School and graduated in 1968. His priorities changed soon after graduation. He got married and started a family. Having the responsibility of supporting his wife and children, he had no choice but to neglect his painting. He took a job as a commercial artist in 1974 and also worked at The Popular Department Store and The White House Department Store. He resumed his painting in 1986, since he had a little more time and space. In 1997, he had his first one man show which was a great success. Since then he exhibits his works and continues to paint.

"Painting has always been the language of my inner being. It is my gift not my profession. Modernism and technology dazzle everyone, but we remain as artists to say who we are with our hands, our imagination and with our vision. I strongly believe that a man as an artist should always be concerned with the problems of social struggle. Painting to me is a process of freedom by which I express not simply what I see but how I feel and see with my eyes. Through painting I want to express what moves me most....the human aspect"

I was absolutely taken aback at his work. So striking. This is not in any way a put down on the other really excellent artists who are exhibiting in the gallery, but Bernal’s work is just simply outstanding.
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And in some ways it reminds me of Rene’ Magritte. I liked all of his paintings, but I was especially taken with his work entitled "The Visionaries."

This is a link to the website of the Hal Marcus gallery: http://www.halmarcus.com/

Danny Olivas

The El Paso metropolitan area (including Juarez) has far in excess of a million people.

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But it feels like a small town in a lot of ways.

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And everyone is so proud to have one of our own as an astronaut in space, doing walks and everything. It shows the young people that if you are responsible, diligent, and work hard greatness is possible.

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Friend In The Hospital

A dear friend of Inu and myself is in the hospital in Ruidoso, New Mexico USA.

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She foolishly chased after a pickup truck, which ran over her.

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Well, we have all done foolish things in our lives. Anyone who is not making mistakes isn't doing anything.

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Daisy, we sure wish you a speedy recovery!

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Anne Frank

If she had lived yesterday would have been Anne Frank’s birthday. Her full name was Annelies Marie Frank. She was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1929 and her family moved to Amstetrdam, The Netherlands in 1933.

She died in a German concentration camp along with her sister. She had wanted Dutch citizenship, but instead she and her family were turned in by the Dutch. She would be a really old lady now, but it is entirely possible she would still be alive if she had not gone to the Nazi concentration camp.

I lived in Frankfurt, Germany for several years and then many years later I lived in The Netherlands for fifteen years. I’ve been to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam several times.

Overall I would say that the top tourist attractions in Amsterdam are the canals (which are free to visit), the Anne Frank house, and the museum which houses the artwork of the lunatic painter Vincent Van Gogh. I guess for young people visiting Amsterdam going to a coffee shop is also high on the list.

It is not much talked about among the Dutch, but it is common knowledge that some of the jews from Amsterdam who had been sent to concentration camps did survive world war II. But when they returned home to Amsterdam to reclaim their houses and businesses their prior neighbours claimed not to know them. Because their property had been taken (stolen) by the local Dutch Christians. Honest.

After living there so many years I know the Dutch very well. One of the weaknesses of the Dutch culture and character is placing far too much emphasis on making money. Even to the point of doing immoral or unethical things.

Please check out the web site of the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. This place is sacred: http://www.annefrank.org/content.asp

And here is the link for the wikipedia site on Anne Frank: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank

Universal Health Care

Its just talk.

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At least the Democratic candidates are talking about it. And the Republicans aren't even talking about it. But even among the Democrats its just blah, blah, blah.

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Michael Moore's new Movie Sicko says that Cubans and even U.S. prisoners at Guantanamo get better health care than many Americans. That is sure true for the almsot 50 million of us who have no health care at all. Zero. Zip. In the wealthiest country in the world. The only remaining superpower. Absolutely shameful.

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This is a picture I took about a year ago of some of the art painted on the remnants of the Berlin wall.

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JUNE 10

I grew up with one older sister and one younger brother. My parents had done a good job of spacing us; we were all roughly 3 years apart.

When my little brother continually got in trouble at school for having his shirt tail untucked, little did I realize that it was because of the large and getting larger growth he had on his ass cheek. It was later removed surgically, and thank heavens the doctors did not have to remove any bone or his leg. He later graduated with honours from UTEP as an electrical engineer.

My little brother died in his 40’s of hardening of the arteries. His personal finances were in a mess after he and some of the best and brightest from Texas Instruments in Dallas had gone out on their own and started their own computer software business.

Today is my big sister Jan's birthday. Over the years she and I have grown closer and closer. Jan is a really nice person and a neat lady with 4 great kids.

We had a great lunch, and afterwards she opened her presents. She got some great gifts including a Nintendo Wii.

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My little black doggie Inu and I took a 1.1 mile walk out in the desert this morning. We saw some more beautiful wild desert flowers.

A red pickup truck drove nearby (maybe 100 yards) on a dirt road. Just a few seconds later a BIG dog like a rotweiler ran directly towards us and away from his lazy pickup truck owner.

No doubt the lazy prick in the 8 mpg red pickup truck was walking his dog via the truck. He probably had an open beer can in his hand or sitting between his legs in his lap.

I was rather concerned that we were going to get in a possibly fatal conflict with the big dog (fatal to him if he attacked), but fortunately just as I was kneeling down and was in the process of getting my pistol out of my ankle holster the big dog backed off and ran away. Thank goodness.

Nonetheless the rest of the way back to our car I carried the little gun concealed in my hand. (Yes, I do have a license from the State of Texas to carry a concealed firearm.)

Open Pit Copper Mine near Hillsboron, N.M.

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I went on an El Paso Mineral and Gem Society field trip today up to the closed open pit copper mine east of Hillsboro, N.M.

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This is such a nice group of people. The company was great and there were lots of neat rocks.

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Afterwards I took my archaeologist friend over to see the petroglyphs nearby, and then I lead the group to see the fluorescent stones at from the tailing pile at the Petroglyph Mine.

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My goodness it is beautiful there.

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Wild Flowers in The Mountains

Yesterday up in the mountains we saw a lot of wild flowers including wild strawberries and wild iris.

Day Up In The Rocky Mountains

My little doggie and I had a really busy and nice day.

We began just before the sun rose by taking a nice little walk out in the desert.

We saw our buddy the burrowing owl, who was calmly sitting up in the top of a mesquite bush. This picture is kind of washed out, but I think it is the best portrait I have gotten of him so far.

After that we drove about 110 miles (177 km) up into the high mountains at Cloudcroft, New Mexico. This is a really special drive because in a relatively short distance you go from the Chihuahuan desert at about 4,000 ft above sea level (1,444 meters) to between 8,000 and 9,500 ft (2,888 – 3,430 meters).

Today was the first time I have ever felt a little bit of altitude sickness. It came on at 9,000 ft. At 8,500 ft I was just fine, but at 9,000 and above I had a headache and felt dizzy and a bit like I might pass out. So much for being old and fat and having second rate lungs after many years of smoking cigarettes. The only good news is that I haven’t smoked now for 5-1/2 years.

At this altitude there are alpine meadows and plenty of wild flowers in bloom.

You Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog

On July 2, 1956 Elvis Aaron Presley recorded the song “Hound Dog.” I was about 7-1/2 years old at the time.

I’ve got this song on CD in my Sony 300 CD changer, a copy on my cell phone in MP3 format, and an original vinyl 45 in my old Seeburg juke box.

When I’m walking my little black doggie Inu in the Chihuahuan desert outback, when there isn’t another person around for miles, sometimes I sing to Inu. The song “Hound Dog” by Elvis has been one of my favorites to sing to him. Especially the verse that goes “you ain’t never caught a rabbit, and you ain’t no friend of mine.”

He sprained a muscle in his right rear leg a couple of days ago, so I have been trying to get him to take it easy. We took a shorter than normal one mile walk this morning. We went out pretty early (around 7:30 am). Also a cold front has come through overnight. There was a nice breeze, and the temperature was very pleasant.

It sort of freaks Inu out when I take the life of another sentient being, like when I kill a fly or a moth. But this comes sort of instinctively to me. And cockroaches get absolutely no mercy from me. In fact I am even engaging in hard core chemical warfare against them.

Canines are predators. They hunt and kill. This comes from their heritage as wolfs.

Well, Inu ran down, caught, and killed a bunny rabbit this morning. I didn’t criticize him, he was just doing what his genes told him to do. I’m certain that his mother never taught him to kill his prey by clamping those strong canine jaws down on the front of the neck, but this is exactly what he did.

Afterwards, when it was clear that the sweet little furry bunny was in fact dead, Inu felt a bit odd. I could tell from the way he was acting. So even though I hope he never kills another sentient being, I gave him some love, petted him, and praised him.

Eastern Wisdom

I ate at a nice Chinese buffet yesterday. I find that normally the fortune cookies I get are platitudes and hogwash. But the one that I got yesterday was very wise indeed.

Purple Passion Mine

North of Phoenix, Arizona USA near Wickenburg there is a little mine that is famous for its multi colored fluorescent rocks.

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The mine is currently owned by Dick Shields. He charges a small fee to people who want to colllect there. It is well worth it.

This stone is beautiful to look at under shortwave UV light because it has calcite (red), fluorite (purple), and willemite (green).

Red Cloud Mine - Yuma, Arizona

The Red Cloud Mine in La Paz County, Arizona has generated some very nice multicolored ultraviolet rocks.

This rock contains wulfenite, willemite, fluorite, hyalite, and barite.

This is a link about a group that collected at the mine site:

http://www.gamineral.org/rr06_gb-az_red-cloud.html

Fluorescent Minerals

My little athlete black doggie sprained his right rear leg yesterday while furiously chasing after a rabbit in the desert. So we are a little housebound today. I want to give it a little time to heal, so we are not going for our long walks today. We both are getting a bit of cabin fever just sitting around the house.

So since I am sitting around the house I decided to continue on with my project of photographing the most special rocks in my collection of fluorescent minerals.

I took pictures of three stones this morning.

One is a rock from California which contains little pieces of benitoite. I bought it from a fellow collector in The Netherlands. Benitoite occurs only near the head waters of the San Benito River in San Benito County, California.

Under shortwave ultraviolet light benitoite fluoresces a brilliant blue color. This is a link to the wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benitoite

The second stone I photographed this morning with my little Nikon was one of the rocks in my collection from the Long Lake zinc mine which is 8.8 km northwest of Parham, in Frontenac County, Ontario, Canada. I got several rocks from this mine this year at the Deming, New Mexico mineral show.

Under shortwave ultraviolet light this stone just lights up absolutely stunning. The minerals that fluoresce are aragonite (peach and pale blue), chondrodite which fluoresces creamy yellow, diopside (blue-green), and hydrozincite (pale blue).

The third rock I took pictures of this morning is a beautiful stone from the Petoglyph mine just a few miles to the East of Hillsboro, New Mexico.
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It has really striking veins of hydrozincite which fluoresce a very bright light blue under shortwave ultraviolet light.
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At 7 inches wide (18 cm) it is a little too big. But it is just so neat that I had to bring it home.

Bush Tucker

In most places around the American Southwest where you find rock art, either petroglyphs or pictographs, you will normally find some stationary mortars.

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These were used to pound and grind various foodstuffs including mesquite beans.

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Wild Flowers In My Backyard

I am making a wild desert landscape in my backyard.

Another way to describe this would be to say that the first people who owned this house and myself both have done no landscaping at all in the backyard.

So the desert is completely on its own.

I am surprised to seem some very beautiful purple flowers growing completely wild in my backyard.

Leon C. Metz

Leon C. Metz is an author and historian who lives in El Paso, Texas USA. He has written many books including ones about Billy The Kid, John Wesley Hardin, and Pat Garrett.

Leon Metz was born November 6th, 1930, in Parkersburg, West Virginia. This makes him almost 20 years older than me.

I feel very honored to have met him today. I got to talk one-on-one with him before he gave his presentation to the Concordia Cemetery group on the Mexican Revolution. I am a life member of this group.

Leon Metz is warm and charming. I would have to say that his body looks younger than mine does, and after talking with him and hearing his public speech, I think his brain works at least as good as mine. He is a great speaker.

I found his presentation today especially interesting because in part it dealt with Pancho Villa. As a young child my grandmother played a major part in raising me. And she was living in Columbus, New Mexico USA when Pancho Villa and his men attacked the town. So I have heard the tales of this raid many times; first hand.

After his formal presentation there was time for questions from the audience. One of the people who asked him a question was a lady who is one of the granddaughters of Pancho Villa.

Hueco Mountains

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Since it is getting a bit warm here in the desert now, my little black doggie and I went for our walk out in the desert pretty early this morning.

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The GPS says that where we normally park the car is exactly 1.06 miles east of our house. The only reason we drive over there is because it is on the other side of the freeway.

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Looking off to the northeast this morning I was struck with the stark beauty of the Hueco mountains in the distance.

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