…former mayor and current blogger Jim Baca can be heard wailing “nooooooooooooooo”.
Ok, I don’t know that for sure. It’s just the fiction writer coming out in me. :)
But Jim Baca is a pretty strong anti-Marty Chávez guy, so I wonder at his response to the ABQjournal article that Mayor Chávez won his court battle to run for a third term.
Developing.
I’ll be checking Only in New Mexico throughout the day.
Yes, Monday finds me back at my same gray walled office. Back to work, slogging through emails and working up my expense report.
All in all, the trip to Florida was a good one.
I’m glad to be home. It was a long haul on Saturday, hopping a couple planes and ultimately arriving almost two hours later than I was supposed to. But I made it and a really cute boy was waiting for me when I came down the stairs to baggage claim.
I didn’t sleep well on the trip, so was glad to sleep in my own little bed, and sleep I did. Woke up Sunday morning MUCH refreshed. The Good Man fussed over me and that helped get me right, too.
Back to “regular” work today. While making the drive in this morning, I was thinking about what made the Florida trip fun, and I hit on a thought.
I got to drive.
Now, don’t gave me that doggy head tilt look. Let me explain.
“Back in the day” living in New Mexico, one of my best stress relievers was to get in the car and drive. Not always with a destination, sometimes just driving, watching the white lines roll by.
Since I went to school in Las Cruces and my folks lived in Carlsbad, I had a LOT of hours in the middle of NOWHERE, hum of the tires as my companion.
I got a LOT of good thinking done during those drives.
Meditation. That’s really what it is.
Well now living here in a densely populated area, just getting in the car and going isn’t all that meditative. With all the traffic, it is stress inducing.
When I lived in Albuquerque, I could drive for a half hour in pretty much any direction and be OUT of the city, humming along at 75 mph, and letting the stress float away.
Here, I can drive a half hour and be ever more mired in humanity.
So I enjoyed the fact that, last week, I got some road time. The ride on I-4W to Clearwater Beach took about two and a half hours all in. It was a little densely populated around Tampa Bay and that stressed me, but had moments of a peaceful ride. It got really good when I got off I-4 and into the small roads winding through Clearwater and over all the causeways.
The trip to Cocoa Beach was only about an hour and was PERFECT for highway meditation. (see, I still can find NOTHING wrong with Cocoa Beach). SR-528E is pretty rural, away from people, not heavily trafficked on a weekday. The tolls do take a bit away from that trip, but even they are manageable. You get a rhythm of hitting the various toll plazas and you know they’ll be there (kind of like having to stop at a Border Patrol station…so it’s all good).
And during those two drives a lot of thinking got done. Some useful (i.e. where should I emphasize success criteria for my team this year), some not (i.e. why do so called “80’s” radio stations only play the cheesy “hits” like “Jump” (both Van Halen and Pointer sisters), and not the deeper cuts from bands like Depeche Mode or The Cure?).
Getting all that thinking done is healing. I find I’m in a better mood today than when I left. Like I’ve grown from my journey.
I sure wish I could more easily hit the open road from where I live to think things out.
Oh well, just another reason to miss my fair New Mexico.
I am quite thoughtful today. It is an anniversary of sorts, but not the happy kind.
It was three years ago today that my dad passed away in Albuquerque. In some ways it was like yesterday, how fresh the hurt is. But in other ways it seems like a million years ago.
It wasn’t a surprise when he died. It was expected. He’d been sick and we knew it was inevitable. It was, actually, in many ways a relief when it did finally occur.
Losing a parent is, in my opinion, among the hardest things an adult must deal with.
I didn’t have much of a relationship with my dad, but he was my dad, after all. He was cranky, cantankerous, Type A, driven, rigid, incredibly intelligent, hardworking, a loyal friend to his friends, never lazy, handy, proud, insecure, funny, a thinker, and unstoppable.
In other words, an imperfect human.
For me, the things that needed to be said were said before he moved on. I don’t have any open issues there, and I count myself lucky in that regard.
So today, I feel a bit of sadness, a bit of thoughtfulness, and the drive to keep moving ever forward.
I’m way too late to this party, but that’s ok. Here’s the old news:
The venerable Albuquerque Tribune published its last edition on Saturday, February 23.
Albuquerque’s afternoon paper had been around 86 years. Quite a run, actually.
I always liked the Trib, their comics were way better, at least back in the day. Plus, when I was home after school, but before my folks got home, I could dash out, read the comics, fold it back up right and all was good. I always got the morning Journal after it has been thoroughly read and smudged by both parents and siblings. Kind of a weird memory, I admit.
I found the writing style and layout of the Trib more accessible then the ABQJournal. I admit it was often the “light” news source, but it was my preference.
We may see it again in a different incarnation, but for now, it’s a story that goes quiet.
Goodbye, old friend. Sad to see you go the way of many other dailies that couldn’t make it work in this Internet era.
*sigh*
It’s a lovely thing. It’s a way to bind people together (and not in that “I can’t breathe kind of way”), a way to identify each other, a way to mark time.
In my life there are plenty. Cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Posole at New Year’s. Ham at Easter.
Noticing a theme here? My traditions do tend to revolve around food.
Fair enough.
When I was living in Albuquerque and working at Sandia Labs, the Friday tradition was happy hour at Gardunos over by Winrock Mall.
Delicious margaritas, happy hour tasties, and Mariachi as a way to end the week. That can’t be bad.
Today I’m enjoying a Bay Area tradition. Observed by most restaurants in the area and also by the cafeteria where I work.
Clam chowder.
: slurp slurp :
Oh yeah, baby. I know it’s Friday when there is a steaming pot of chow-dah at the Cafeteria. As far as I know, it’s homemade on site. This week’s batch isn’t as tasty as last week, but that’s ok. It’s still all kinds of yum on a cold rainy day.
The engineers will line up in droves, often the only time all week they toddle out of their black hole labs to see the light of day. I get in line with my unwashed brothas to savor the aroma.
Lop off a slice of sourdough, and that’s a little bit of heaven right there on a plastic tray.
So, ya’ll entertain yourselves, I’m enjoying a tradition over heah.
Happy Friday to all.
