Time To Share Some Pictures!

Guadalupe Trail NW. Walk from Montano Rd. to my house. This was from summer of 2010. Nice road to walk every day. Ok, this is not Guadalupe Trail, it's a road to someone's house off of Guadalupe Trail. I walk on the trail from Griegos Rd to Montano. South of Griegos I walk along the irrigation ditch to the street I live on. It's much shorter than walking the streets to get home. Yeah, I go to Montano Rd to catch the city bus when I need to get around town. This one (#157) takes me to the mall, Cornado or Cottonwood. Other bus lines near where I live is close by. I can walk to Griegos Elementary School and catch the 12th Street bus on San Isidro Rd. That bus goes around by Old Town and to the Alvarado Transit Center in downtown Albuquerque. From there I can catch other buses to my destinations. The other bus would be the 4th Street bus. That takes about 25 minutes to get to, though. That would be my last choice to get to. They run more than the other two lines. So if I need to be somewhere quick, it's the 4th Street bus to get. 12th Street runs once an hour!!

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New Mexico Rail Runner! This is at the Los Ranchos station. I enjoy riding the train. It cost about a dollar from one end of the city to the other, if you buy ticket online! It's an all day ticket. Rode to Santa Fe once and it was pretty nice ride. Lots of people commute via the Rail Runner, between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The train starts and ends in Belen, NM and Santa Fe, NM. There's talk about extending service down south to El Paso, TX but that's probably and 10 to 20 years before it actually happens. Our current governor isn't in favor of the extension until the state budget gets back in order.

Aww, Momo and Sparky. Momo belongs to my niece and Sparky to my nephew. They live at the grandparents house. They enjoy it as they have lots of room to run around and play. They enjoy barking at other dogs, with other dogs and at each other. They enjoy barking at the hot air balloons, too. Every morning the balloons are up and flying and they can hear them from afar and ready to go out to bark at them. They love Grandma because she feeds them good! Momo came with lots of toys, mostly stuffed animals she 'stole' from Jimmy, the cat. Jimmy is my niece's cat and he took control over her stuffed animal collection. Then Momo came along and took over Jimmy's stash. They fought over who had what. Jimmy finally grew up and let Momo have them all. So there are stuffed animals and parts in the yard. Grandma picks them up and tries to mend them only to have them torn apart again. Momo has this baby bird (stuffed bird, as in stuffed animal) she sleeps with. Such a cute thing to see her carry the bird to her bed. Sparky has been trying to take it away from her but hasn't succeeded. Animals can be funny.

March Madness madness.....

WOW!!! A lot of people were saying that Gonzaga was going to beat the 'you-know-what' out of BYU!! The Cougs had the last laugh by beating the Zags by 21 points!! Woo hoo!! Then Butler beat #1 Pitt. Last year Butler went to the Final Four and people were saying they couldn't do it again. So far, they are winning! Pitt could have won but they blew the last free throw and then went and fouled Butler when time was running out! It could have gone to OT if that foul didn't happen. Cincinnati is trying to oust the #3 UConn but we'll see. 10 minutes left to go in the game. They are like 1 to 3 points difference throughout the game so far. Any one of those teams could win it.
ON TO THE SWEET SIXTEEN!!!
It's been 30 years since BYU has gone to the Sweet Sixteen. Gosh, that's a long time ago!! Guess what? That was when I was enrolled at the Y!!!! Yikes!! Am I really that old????? Naw................... I'm actually one of those few lucky ones who finished school much earlier than my peers and went on to college at a very young age...................

March Madness continues.....

Lots of upsets and lots of winners!! I am cheering on the Mountain West Conference teams. We had 3 teams but UNLV was unable to win their game yesterday. So it's just BYU and San Diego State going for that Final Four!! San Diego State just beat Temple in double overtime!!! What a game that was. I am so happy the Aztecs came out on top. Now the Cougars are playing Gonzaga. Cougars are ahead at halftime. Hope they keep it up. Watching the other games as well. My team, George Mason has to keep winning to the end. If they do, I win tickets to the Big I 10th birthday bash with Alan Jackson. It took them a whole year to get this 10th anniversary together as they will be celebrating 11 years on the air in July. We'll see how GM does. But I hope the Mountain West teams go all the way. They do have that opportunity to do so. We'll see............... Go Cougs!!! Go Aztecs!!

Spring

JU - aaachooooo - JUNI - aaaaaaccchhhhhoooooooo, aaaaaacccchhhooooooo - JUNIP -aaaccccchhhhhhoooooooo - JUNIPER -aaaaachhoooooooo. Boy do I hate Juniper. Need to head to the drug store for more kleenex. Aaachhhooooo.............

March Madness

It's that time of the year once again. March Madness is on. The Mountain West conference has 3 teams vying for the top spot. Hopefully all 3 teams will make it, but one will have to opt to be the 3rd place team. Hopefully my team, the Cougars, make it to the top!! Yep, just dreaming. Whoever comes out on top deserves the top spot, who ever it may be. I will be cheering on my team as well as SDSU and UNLV. And then if they don't make it all the way, then I'll have to choose a team to do that! GO COUGARS!!

Talking about Earthquakes

This morning the radio station I was listening to were talking about earthquakes. Asking who's been through an earthquake. I've been through a few. First one happened about 40 years ago. We had no idea what was going on but it wasn't a big one. Just shook the house for a few seconds. Then it was over. Not too bad. About two years later, same time of year (New Year's) we had another one. This one was bigger!! We were watching TV and there was a bomb that exploded and we decided that the show wasn't that interesting and decided to go to bed. So my aunt and her kids were here visiting. My brothers and cousin, Vincent were in the bedroom playing around and would throw each other against the wall. I was already in bed and soon thought my sister was kicking my bed. My mom was standing in the hallway, ready to turn off the light and go to bed. My aunt was in the living room sleeping. That's when the house was shaking. It lasted longer than the one before. My mom thought she was dizzy, my sister and I thought the other was kicking the bed, by brothers thought it was because of them hitting the walls. My dad, well, he slept through the whole thing. My aunt had no idea what was going on. When it stopped she looked out the window to see if all was ok. By the time it stopped we all ran in the hallway wondering what was going on. We turned on the TV and radio but nothing was said about what's going on. Pretty soon we heard there was a mild earthquake. We ran outside to see if there were cracks in the street or sidewalk. None that we could see. It was dark, the middle of the night. We went back inside and went to sleep. Next morning it was all over the news. People near the mountains had it stronger. They had broken dishes, windows, etc. But not too much damage. That was the last time we experienced something like that here in the city.
There was another time that I had gotten home from work. Was getting ready for bed. Finally got into bed and was watching Benson before I go to sleep. Suddenly the antenna was shaking back and forth and I wondered what was going on. I could barely feel the bed shake and I thought EARTHQUAKE!! But it stopped before I could say anything. Hmmm, wonder if it was down in Socorro. It seems there's more quakes that start in that area. You don't really feel anything here in the city. So the next morning I watched the news and sure enough there was a quake centered in Socorro. And many people felt it here. No one else in the family felt it or were awakened!! My brothers said to wake them up next time there's one!
So that brings me to one more story about an earthquake. This time I was up in Provo, Utah, at BYU. My roommate, Sharon, had just left for Southern California with the Lamanite Generation for a tour. They were gone for 2 weeks. When she got back we told her of the earthquake that hit Provo. She was so mad because she thought they would experience one when they were in California!! She said, "AWWWW, I missed it??? OMG, I missed it!!!" She's pretty funny. Anyway, this happened about 3 AM. I was getting up at 4 but was awaken by my bed shaking and I could hear the beds in the other rooms hitting the walls. I had to hold on to the mattress so I wouldn't fall out of bed! I was waiting to hear if anyone got up but all I could hear was the beds hitting the walls. I don't remember how long it lasted but it was at least a minute. Then it all stopped and there was silence. Then I went back to sleep because I had to get up in an hour. I got up at 4, got ready for work and left a note on the mirror for my roommates asking if they felt the earthquake. I was listening to the radio as I got ready and they did say there was an earthquake in the Provo area. Registered around 5.0 or so. Can't remember. Anyway, I met my friend downstairs and asked if she felt it and she said NO. I told her what happened and she said none of them woke up. She wasn't sure if I was telling the truth. She heard about it once we got on campus. It was all around campus by the time classes started. Later I got home and my roommates told me I should have waken them up. How could I when I wasn't even sure why the beds were shaking and was pretty scared to get out of bed, I might have fallen down. Here we are on the third floor!! We also found out that the girls in the other building, next to us, had more damage than we did. Most of them were thrown out of bed, dishes were falling out of the cabinets, etc. I was glad I was where I was. I don't know what I would have done if I were over there. I guess few people had damage done to their homes. Sharon comes home and hears all this. After that, no earthquakes. I don't know if she's been in one since.
Here in Albuquerque, you can feel the shakes, lightly, when there's an earthquake down in Socorro area.
Another time I was in California with my friend and we stayed at her friend's house in Santa Barbara one night. I felt the floor move when I was asleep. I woke up and heard nothing but silence. I thought I would hear someone get up and ask if somehing just happened. Nothing. Next morning while eating breakfast, we heard on the news there was another aftershock (there was an earthquake earlier that week). I said "I wasn't sure if that was what I felt during the night!" Everyone looked at me and said "Why didn't you wake us up?" I told them that it was over before I realized what it was. And it wasn't that big of a aftershock. It was enough to wake me up. Me? I'm a light sleeper. They said next time wake us up even if it's over. Well, we didn't stay there after that. Haven't been back there, either.
Those are the ones I remember going on. I hope those in Japan today are ok. It's sad to hear how many lives were lost, to see all the damage done. We can just pray for them and everyone else on earth.