Posts Tagged ‘Albuquerque Journal’

And now for the rumors behind the news

December 5, 2021

This photo has nothing to do with the blog post. I just like it.

This morning I awakened, cracked one eye, gauged the light levels in our bedroom, and guessed the time to be 6:33 a.m.

It was 6:35. Boom. Close enough. The ol’ temple of the soul is back on track after two days of the Pfizer Pfeebles.

Coffee and the news. I see via my former employer The New Mexican that some douchebags are tearing up the Nambé Badlands. My old riding buddy Dave Kraig, who is very much not a douchebag, is on the case with the Friends of the Nambé Badlands.

Down here, meanwhile, Herself saw someone throwing an unread bundle of 20 Sunday Albuquerque Journals into the recycling bins near the Lowe’s on Juan Tabo. When I was a paperboy the idea was to throw the papers onto readers’ doorsteps so that the readers could throw them in the trash. Division of labor, don’t you know.

FInally, up in Colorado, the latest in a seemingly endless invasion of out-of-towners is trying to make a silk purse out of the sow’s ear that is the dormant Cuchara ski area. Good luck with that, fellas. I hear they’ve been in touch with my man Hal Walter about doing a burro race. How about adding a “Little 500”-style gravel race in which all the competitors have to ride Range Rover Evoque bicycles? Electrify them sumbitches to bring ’em up to date and you’ll have a little sumpin’-sumpin’ goin’ on.

All in the family

August 11, 2020

“Albuquerque Journal, mister? Fresh from Santa Fe!”

I almost missed this in the hubbub over “Nasty” Kamala joining “Sleepy” Joe atop the Communist … pardon, Democratic Party ticket.

The Albuquerque Journal and The New Mexican have announced an agreement to print their publications in Santa Fe.

Both papers are family-owned, which is an honest-to-God miracle in the modern era. And their newsrooms will remain separate and independent.

The idea, of course, is to enhance efficiency. Just ask ’em:

Robin Martin, president of The New Mexican, and William P. Lang, president of the Journal, collaborated and determined the two production facilities, just 50 miles apart, could operate more efficiently as a single operation.

They obviously didn’t collaborate with a copy editor on that paragraph. But still, the point limps across.

And you don’t have to be a president to know what the word “efficiency” means: layoffs! As in up to 70 positions in Albuquerque.

So, come mid-October, when and if the snow flies, Duke City subscribers may be draining their second cup of joe — or even on lunch break — before the blat hits the driveway. But hey, that’s efficiency for you.

Extry, extry, readallaboudit!

Harbinger

July 7, 2020

We’re headed for the red zone.

Last night’s fiery sunset was a glimpse of things to come.

The weather wizards say we’re in for a run of hot weather, with temperatures inching up this week toward triple-digit highs by the weekend.

“Yeah, but it’s a dry heat,” we quip.

Ho, ho, very funny, says meteorologist Andy Church. Not.

Clouds for now … but not for long.

“This heat, especially in the Middle Rio Grande Valley, with these types of temperatures this early, this high, is a pretty rare event,” Church told the Albuquerque Journal. “It is going to be a dry heat, but we know that doesn’t necessarily make much of a difference. We’ve got no clouds and little shade.”

And we’re light on river water, too.

The Bernalillo County Water Authority announced in early July that it would stop pulling drinking water from the Rio Grande, which is looking less and less like a river every day, and rely on groundwater throughout the summer.

Water resources division manager Katherine Yuhas told the Journal this type of shutoff usually doesn’t happen until August or September. It is also anticipated to last longer than in wetter years, she added.

“A lot of the snow sublimated, and we didn’t get the runoff we had expected,” Yuhas said. “With these dry conditions, the water authority wants to be off the river.”

Say, just how many horsemen are there in the Apocalypse these days, anyway? It seems to be staffing up.

‘You got to know the right people’

September 29, 2019

O, ’tis true, the druck traffickers are a shower of bastards.
Just say “No” to them drucks, kids. Especially in traffic.

“You got to know the right people,” indeed. Starting with a good copy editor. Or at least one who isn’t on drucks.

Dislike

August 26, 2016
You see any pie up there? Yeah, me neither.

You see any pie up there? Yeah, me neither.

OK, I admit that I don’t understand business, beyond the basics (buy cheap, sell dear).

That said, how does giving $10 million in state economic development funding to Facebook — yes, that Facebook, the one worth $350 billion — constitute good business for the state of New Mexico, which faces a projected shortfall for the current budget year of $458 million?

The deal to bring a data center to Los Lunas would also, according to the Albuquerque Journal:

• Guarantee Facebook 1.5 million gallons of water per day.

• Reimburse the sixth most valuable company in America for up to 75 percent of gross tax revenues from the center’s construction and operation.

• Waive property taxes for more than 30 years.

All for “up to” 300 construction jobs over seven years and 50 “permanent” jobs, which we know are anything but as restless gazillionaires in search of a better deal make struggling localities scrap like dumb dogs over an old bone.

As I said, I don’t understand business. And I know New Mexicans need jobs. But wouldn’t Los Lunas be better served in the long run by courting companies that love us for what we are, and might still respect us in the morning?

 

Chile today

January 1, 2016
Pax capsicum.

Pax capsicum.

2016 has begun as 2015 ended, with a bit of fresh snow on the deck and temps in the mid-20s. And they call this a “new year.” Harumph, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.

Last year was the wettest in a decade for Albuquerque and New Mexico, according to the Albuquerque Journal. A quarter of the state remains abnormally dry, but the National Weather Service says there is no drought for the first time in five years.

As to 2016, quien sabe?

“It’s hard to say what short-term drought will be like next summer,” says Chuck Jones, a meteorologist with the Albuquerque office of the NWS. “But we are getting off to a good start for 2016.”

Of course, opinions vary wildly as regards what constitutes “a good start for 2016.” All the four-legged O’Gradys are curled up in their various beds trying to stay warm, while the two-legged types are pouring cups of hot tea over last night’s tinga poblana, which proved a stunning success. If you’re feeling the January chill, I urge you to make it at once, if not sooner.

Dig it

April 8, 2015
A stretch of the Paseo del Bosque trail, south of the zoo.

A stretch of the Paseo del Bosque trail, south of the zoo.

There are times — even when my eyeballs feel sandpapered and my snout is clogged like the Paseo del Norte at rush hour — when I think I was pretty smart to let Herself take that job with the Military-Industrial Complex here in Duke City.

A recently resurfaced section of the Bear Canyon Arroyo trail, just west of Tramway.

A recently resurfaced section of the Bear Canyon Arroyo trail, just west of Tramway.

Like today, when I read in the Albuquerque Journal that Duke City just broke ground for a project to create a 50-mile bike loop around town.

About 80 percent of the “Activity Loop” trail already exists, and I’ve ridden quite a piece of it. Mostly it’s a matter of linking up and sprucing up all the various bits and pieces. Bike-ped bridges, on-demand signals, striping improvements, and what have you. The project will take years — the work is to be done in nine phases, as money becomes available — and cost about $20 million.

This sort of thing is not a panacea for problems like violent crime, trigger-happy cops, chronic long-term unemployment, and a sluggish economy. But it can help make a town a better place to live, which in the long term might help address at least a few of these issues.

I did most of my 61-mile birthday ride on separated bike path. The rest was on streets that were designated bike routes or had bike lanes. Not bad for a place where Bugs Bunny was always missing that crucial left turn.