Occupation of Independence

Who was it that coined the phrase, "Nothin' beats a great pair of legs?" Cyd Charisse, Ann Miller, Juliet Prowse? Whoever it was, what counts is that the expression, whatever its veracity, is not of universal utility and applicability. For instance there are times when nothin' beats having the right set of balls. While doing some backroad exploring near Socorro, NM, I took the wrong road. (There was no sign.) The road surface was hard and smooth, b ut very steep, well past negative double digits in percent slope. When the road deadended at a ranch I realized my error, got turned around, and started to go back up the hill. Whoa now, st op, breathe, think.  It was time to let half the air out of the tires. We all probably forget to do this as often as we should. Even when extra traction/flotation isn't needed, lower ti re pressure makes washboarded BLM roads less brutal. The trick is to buy a good tire inflator so it doesn't take forever to put the air pr

It's rare to get a chance to smile at animals, aside from our domestic pets. The best shots at this occur when a normally boring or stupid animal suddenly becomes clever. For instance, ungulates don't seem like the brightest bulbs on Mother Earth, but under the right circumstances... Going down a road in the Socorro NM area I was surprised at the number of "hunters" parked along the road. Which season is it now ? But then again, maybe they were joy-riding four-wheelers, rather than hunters. The "lower" Rio Grande starts at Socorro by my estimate. It is reminiscent of the Mojave Desert, even though it is the Chihuahuan Desert, officially. Although I postpone "winter" locations in order to keep North America from shrinking too soon, it was fun to start walking arroyos again, which is something I only do in the winter. What really makes walking these arroyos delicious is the cold, dry air. On today's walk there were some cows. That'

Near El Rito, NM. It was finally time to come down from the high ridges and head to town to get the usual supplies. Hunters said that the only store in town was a restaurant that was humble, but offered tasty food. Victims of Bernanke's Zero Interest Policy like me have no business "eating out" but sometimes it is irresistible in small towns. It seems like you are really "making a difference" in a place that has the weakest commercial pulse imaginable. As it turned out, the restaurant was closed anyway. Typical. I drove through the town looking for a small grocery store, but found nothing. Ahh but there was something else. There were huge school buildings and athletic fields; police headquarters with high tech and expensive squad cars parked outside; and a Forest Service office. It was a large, modern, air-conditioned, office building, decked out in nice office furniture and the latest computers. Outside was an astounding number of motor vehicles; not just h

Go ahead and laugh. I responded to the news about the $500 Windows RT tablet by going to Walmart to buy a second Acer Aspire One (model 722-0473) netbook. This is the first time in my life when I've o wned two computers. I panicked into concluding that, over the ne xt cou ple years, the computer industry will kill off the netbook and leave the chumps only the following sorry options : 1) $800-1000 WINTEL "ultrabooks" or , 2) $500-600 tablets based on ARM micro processors , similar to those in sm artphones, that only offer a "half-internet" experience or , 3) inexpensive 7" tablets that are basically just smartphones with out the ability to make phone calls. Or call them vending machines for media consumable s from Amazon or the iShackle s tore (Apple's iTunes) . Last but not least, 4) the usual overpriced "walled garden" at the Apple store, built around its notorious iShackle media store, and incompatible connect ors and opera

Baby Boomers should have something to say about consuming information as a way of life. When we came into this world, the great blight of television befell the world. Today, toward the end of our passage, the internet is taking over. These are two information revolutions just as big as, but far more sudden than, the invention of the alphabet or Gutenberg's movable-type printing press. Baby Boomers, destined to eventually become America's Worst Generation, started off life as the first generation raised on television. TV-haters (like me) would love to believe that that proves cause and effect. Whether you buy that or not, it is strange how uncritically many parents welcomed TV into their homes in the 1950s. Soon the living room furniture was all arranged around the TV set. Many children grew up with no restrictions on their TV habits. How ironic that many a traditional father in the 1950s kept a gun in the house to 'protect his family', you know. And yet he allowed th