Flying back to Albany

We got up at 5 in the morning to the sound of Jason knocking at the door. We quickly washed up and loaded up his car. He dropped us off at the airport and we boarded our flight without any problems. We had a long flight back but finally got into Albany around 4pm. We decided to check in to the Comfort Inn near the airport, and after unloading some of our luggage, we headed down to
Grandma's Country Restaurant on Wolf Rd. We had a filling and delicious meal - both of us had leftovers! - and drove back to the hotel and collapsed into bed.

Bosque del Apache, VLA, Salt River Canyon

We got up to the alarm clock at 6:15am and headed out to the Bosque del Apache bird sanctuary. Unfortunately we took a wrong turn and were halfway to the Trinity Test Site (location of the first atomic bomb detonation) before we realized our error. We turned around and got to the Bosque in time to see some of the sunrise, but too late to see the thousands of birds taking off at dawn. Crystal drove and I fell asleep a few times, but overall it was pretty interesting to see the lush greenery amidst the dry desert. We then returned to the Casa Blanca and had bacon, eggs, and fruit for breakfast while listening a little electronic gadget for reproducing bird calls.

Holy Dirt and Raspberry Tortillas

We got up early in the morning and Crystal emailed everyone about our engagement. She also called her mom and I called my folks. We checked out of our room around 9 and headed out to Chimayo to see the Sanctuario. We got a little lost in the pueblos and reservations around Espanola, but we managed to get to Chimayo eventually (at times by following the random people on the Good Friday pilgrimage to the Sanctuario). We stopped at a small craft/folk art store by the side of the road where Crystal bought a small Indian weaving made at the store itself. We then drove to the Sanctuario, went inside, and looked at the coffin-sized box of Holy Dirt. (Sign printed on a half-sheet of paper lying on the soil: "Please, only a small amount of Holy Dirt per family.") We also went to the back room where there was a 12" diameter hole in the ground - presumably the source of the Holy Dirt. We then went to Leona's, a food stand right outside the church, and had a delicious red chili tamale and the most amazing tortilla either of us had ever tasted. Even better, Leona's had an assortment of Raspberry, Strawberry, and Blueberry Tortillas for sale. They were simply amazing. People talk about a religious experience in Chimayo; for me, the crucifix and holy dirt in the sanctuary take a backseat to the tortillas at Leona's.

Los Alamos and Bandelier

We woke up around 7:30 and got up around 8 when the housecleaning staff opened our door and barged into the room. We headed to the lobby area for our free breakfast and saw some interesting people with racks of windchimes. We drove over to Otowi Station museum and looked around, then walked over to the Los Alamos Historical Society museum and toured it. The lady there gave us a brief talk about the history of Los Alamos and even told me a story about the Ghost Lady of TA-53. Then I took Crystal through the library, around the pond, and we went to China Moon for lunch.

Flagstaff to LA

We awoke at 6 to bright white light streaming in through the bedroom window. A quick look revealed that 3 inches of snow had fallen, and that a light powder was still falling. We decided to stay in bed and download and organize the Grand Canyon pictures we took yesterday. We finally hauled ourselves out of bed around 8, brushed off the car, and drove to the local IHOP for a breakfast of Swedish pancakes and stuffed French (er, Freedom) Toast. After breakfast, we returned to the cabin, packed, took out the trash, and checked out.

Bright Angel

We woke up early again (6 AM) and bid farewell to Jason. Crystal and I quickly filled our Camelbaks with water, packed up the car, and drove out to the Grand Canyon. We took highway 180 out of Flagstaff and got some spectacular views of the Coconino Plateau and the Snow Bowl ski mountain. We had a moderate breakfast at the McDonald's right outside Grand Canyon National Park, then drove into the park and parked at Mather's Point.

Sedona, golf and Corona

We got up bright and early (5:30 AM), ate some P. F. Chang's leftovers for breakfast and loaded up the car. After checking out of our hotel, we went over to Jason's apartment and headed for Flagstaff in two cars. We drove through Sedona and saw some amazing landscapes. (Crystal attempted to capture some of these with the camera as we drove along, with varying degrees of success.) We stopped at Slide Rock State Park and hiked around for a while. The water was very cold (and the rocks were hard as... rocks) and we got a kick out of watching the shocked expressions of thinly-veiled pain on people trying to slide down the Slide Rock. Jason posed some difficult questions about money (I think investing in a house is a very reasonable way to spend $50,000) and I talked a little bit about electric R/C airplanes. We then got back in our cars and continued towards Flagstaff, stopping along the way to fuel up and having a snack at the nearby KFC/A&W (mmm... hot wings and root beer floats).

Camelback, P.F. Chang, and pointy ears

Today we got up bright and early (7:30am), gave Jason a call around 8, went to the IHOP for breakfast, filled up our Camelbak packs with water, and hiked up Camelback Mountain. We headed up the mountain at 10:20am and got back down at 12:50pm. We then picked up our 2003 Chevy Cavalier at the Hertz (they consider this car "Mazda 626-class") and went back to the hotel for showers and brief naps before lunch.

Phoenix, AZ

We left Albany airport yesterday and had an uneventful flight into Phoenix. Since the Mountain Time Zone is two hours behind Eastern Time, and since Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings, our 8pm arrival was equivalent to arriving at 11pm. We each did some reading and watched Being John Malkovich on the plane flight. Jason met us at the airport and drove us to the Days Inn Tempe (we got room 149), where we unloaded all our luggage and unwound a bit. He then gave us a brief nighttime tour of the ASU campus, and we visited his place and hung out until almost midnight.

Geekcorps

Here is an idea for all my unemployed but highly-skilled friends. You get to travel to a foreign country, work with a small- to medium-sized business, helping them develop technology skills for 1 to 4 months, and you get to explore the country and have a good time in the off hours. Thailand, Romania (woo! gymnasts!), Mongolia, Armenia - all these fun places!

A Nuclear Future?

What will be the geopolitical fallout of a US victory in Iraq? Ian Williams finds the answer in Washington's very different responses to Iraq and North Korea, which is frighteningly close to gaining the ability to rain nuclear destruction on Seoul, Beijing, and Tokyo if it has a bad day. Henceforth, the bomb, he argues, will be the only way for small states to ensure respect from Washington.

No conventional force can stand up against the world's lone superpower. The great levelers of the yawning technological divide between the U.S. and the rest of the world are terrorism – which is impervious to the huge boosts in Pentagon spending on hi-tech killing machines – and weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear missiles.

The foreseeable result: unbridled nuclear proliferation in the Third World, with all the scariness that entails.

Neo-Machismo and the War

One of the endlessly amusing aspects of The Nation's columnists is their seemingly infinite capacity to trace the root causes of a fairly straightforward problematic historical event deep into the socio-historical mire, so that all the ills of the US can be mapped onto deep-seated and essentially irremediable neuroses of the nation's psyche. Such is the case with Richard Goldstein's Neo-Macho Man: Pop Culture and Post-9/11 Politics, an exercise in the absurd, in which Goldstein claims that the war in Iraq is the product of a "hypermasculinity" which arose as a revolt against feminism:

Male grievance has found a geopolitical target in Saddam. Sexual revenge has been sublimated into military payback. Underlying this process is a sense of the world as a jungle where friendship is transient, danger is everywhere and one can never have enough power. This is the classic rationale for macho.

"Iraq is a trial run"

Yet another insightful interview with Noam Chomsky. Also depressing as all hell so don't read it unless you really care for this stuff. He doesn't make many new points but seeing them all in one place is rather upsetting.

New Firefly script!

Check it out! It's called "Trash". I haven't read it yet, but the previous script (Heart of Gold) was awesome, so I'm really looking forward to this one. According to this, it looks like there are two more scripts that have yet to be posted.

I wonder if and when the writers from Firefly will start writing Firefly novels. Hell I'd buy 'em all.

Love that Greenspan

This speech by Alan Greenspan is a cogent and beautifully stated case for revisiting the fundamentals behind the current Intellectual Property insanity that is pitting sellers against customers and improving things for no one (except for IP lawyers and patent clerks).

Privacy, Fear, Terrorism

Also known as "pfffffft". There is a good slashdot thread about the tradeoff between privacy and terrorism. Many good, insightful comments (no, I'm being serious!).