A Review of Islands of Abandonment In this excellent book, Cal Flyn uses the word “island” in the metaphorical sense of “a thing or place resembling an island, especially in being isolated, detached, or surrounded in some way.” Her main accomplishment is a rejection of the gloom and doom attitude about the future of the environment so prevalent in the … Read More
Judging the Green Chile Cheeseburger Challenge
Yesterday I judged the Green Chile Cheeseburger Challenge held at the Agricultural Building at the New Mexico State Fair. I joined eight other volunteers in order to determine which restaurant in the state made the best spiced-up cheeseburger. I must say that all of those entered were delicious, but one, shown above, was clearly the best. Why? Well, see those … Read More
Science T-Shirts and a Homecoming Queen
I’m always looking for new, clever t-shirts, so when I received an email about new engineering- and science-themed shirts, I had to make a decision. I liked these two: But here’s the cleverest one, which I bought: If you like these shirts you can buy them here. And because my grandniece Rachael–the volleyball star with a 4.1 grade point average–always … Read More
2021 Garden Harvest Report
Image Above: A small fraction of all the ‘Punta Banda’ tomatoes grown. As usual, the growing season in the South Valley of Albuquerque was hot and dry and in general our garden did okay, but not great. I’m still spoiled by the summer a few years ago when the garden produced 302 pounds of tomatoes; that will probably never happen … Read More
Beauteous Bougainvilleas
The two spectacular plants above are tropical bougainvilleas that are thriving in New Mexico because I winter them over in my small greenhouse. They require constant pruning because they are vines that must be tamed in order to behave like normal house plants. As you can see from the first photo below, these plants are very determined to be vines … Read More