LarryC’s World

As we were driving through Western Nevada on Hiway 93, the air seemed very hazy. In fact in Hawthorne, it was so bad I could barely make out the mountains just a couple of miles west of town. When we got to Fallon, I mentioned it to the locals and they told me it was smoke from the California fires.

Today, as we drove over the Sierras on I80, it was pretty clear in Reno, and Truckee. But when we got down to Placerville, the smoke was thick. And it stayed smokey all the way into San Jose. While driving to Nevada, we did notice a rather large fire in the mountains southeast of Tucson. Then one of the neighbors in Fallon told us there was a fire near Phoenix. Coupled with the fire we had near Las Cruces a week ago, it seems that the west is on fire!

Oh, a quick gas price update… gas was $3.72 in Lordsburg NM; $4.15 in Vegas; $4.49 in Tonopah, NV; $4.03 in Fernley NV (between Fallon and Reno), and when I got to San Jose it was $4.53!

We are in Fallon Nevada today. The trip from Las Cruces was pretty easy. Stopped over in Vegas Tuesday night before moving on to Fallon on Wednesday. We head on to San Jose tomorrow .

I think I found the photographer of that photo. Here is a link to a site with more photos: More Organ Mountains Fire Photos.

Well, I wasn’t going to post this photo until I found out who took it. But, so far I have been unable to track down the photographer, and it has been sent to me by multiple people. So here it is:

I do not know who took this picture, but from the exif data on the photo I know it was taken around 1:00 AM on June 15 with a Nikon D3. It appears to have been taken from the east side of A Mountain and is looking East at the Organs. The lefty edge of the fire is the Dripping Springs Natural Area, and the right edge is Soledad Canyon. Our house is somewhere near the bottom right edge of the photo. This was obviously a time exposure because of the star trails in the sky. Also, the full moon was on the 18th, so the moon was pretty bright Sunday morning. You’ve got to admit it is a dramatic picture.

As I write this, the Weatherunderground gizmo says the ‘official’ temperature in Las Cruces is 102! The thermometer at my house reads 100! Needless to say, it is hot. It is also dry. The humidity  has been in single digits, and never above 20%.  Of course my swamp coolers are very efficient at that low level, they’ve been keeping the inside in the 70’s. Even though we live in the desert with little vegetation, these high temperatures and low humidity have made the little vegetation we have very dry and the fire danger is high. Saturday (6/14) afternoon, a grass fire started in the Dripping Springs Natural Area. It quickly spread over the ridge into Soledad Canyon, and appeared to be heading down the canyon towards our area.

Saturday night we were treated to the sight of a line of fire, heading down the mountain. And, Sunday morning the flames appeared to be very close to the houses nearest the mountains. By Sunday afternoon though, a wind out of the Northwest blew the fire back on itself, and with the help of backfires set by the fire fighters, the advance towards our neighborhood was stopped. The fire did blow up over the mountains and into Ft Bliss. When it headed east, it sent up an impressive smoke column. I have posted a few photos in my gallery, in the “Views Around the Neighborhood” album. Here is a link.

Fortunately, no houses were damaged, and only a few homes closest to the mountains were evacuated. I was never worried, but I was concerned. If the fire had gotten into the housing area, it could have spread faster and might have threatened the whole neighborhood. But, that never happened. A friend of mine sent me a great photo of the fire taken Saturday night. I will post it as soon as I get permission.

In my post about DirecTV, I alluded to the fact that I had purchased a new TV.Well, here it is: Philips 42″ flat screen.

It isn’t a high-end set, but it is pretty nice. It is possible to spend close to $3,000 for a 42″ flat screen TV, but frankly for a guy who wears bi-focals, and isn’t getting any younger, I could not see a significant difference between those high-end ones, and my lower-middle priced model. It is a full 1080p model, but a recent study I read said that the average person cannot tell the difference between 1080 and 720p models. I liked the clean look of the set. The speakers are hidden on the back (and have pretty decent sound). In the store, the picture was comparable to the more expensive brands.

The other feature that appealed to me was that it had a full compliment of inputs. In addition to 4 HDMI ports, it also had 2 component video, and 2 s-video ports, and has an s-video, and HDMI port on the side for attaching portable devices. It also has a USB port. If you aren’t familiar with all of the terminology, you need either HDMI or component video to get HD programming to the TV.HDMI is preferable, because it is a single digital cable that carries both video and sound. Component video requires 5 coaxial cables (3 for video, 2 for sound). USB is a data port that is common on computers.

While I’m talking about cables, if you check the price of cables at the local Best-Buy, a six foot HDMi cable will set you back 50-70 dollars!. Order your cables online! You can buy the same Belden(brand name) HDMI cable that the stores sell for $50, for less than half that price at Blue Jeans Cables. If you don’t mind using made-in-China generic cables, they cost even less at Monoprice.com. I have linked to both of those web sites.

Oh yes, you may have noticed that I mounted it on the wall. I used 2 8 foot HDMI cables, 1 for the Dish receiver, and 1 for the DVD player.

Finished up the Links page. It’s listed on the top, and has lots of links. Check it out and feel free to send me suggestions.

I guess I am obsessing about gas prices cuz we’re planning a trip to California in a few weeks, and it looks like we are going from a place of relative low prices, to some of the highest in the country. If you look at THIS MAP, you will notice that El Paso, has the lowest prices in Texas, and Las Cruces prices are moderate (less than $4.00 per gal.). This map is courtesy of Gasbuddy. Gas Buddy does a pretty good job of listing local prices, but they don’t show every filling station in town.

While our prices may be hovering near $4.00 per gallon, across the border in Mexico, gas is $2.19/gal. Some of the local service stations and repair shops are warning about buying “Foreign” gas. That’s like the warnings about buying Canadian prescription drugs. Near the border here, most of the gas they sell in Juarez and Palomas is from Western refining in El Paso!! Besides, the cars they drive in Mexico are all made in the USA (well at least as much as any car is made here now), and have those foreign names like Ford! They have the same gasoline requirements that our cars have, 87 or 86 octane, I’m not planning on driving over just to fill up my tank, though. Driving into Juarez is easy, but the return can involve lengthy waits at the crossing. What is the sense in filling up your tank with cheap gas, if you use half of it while in idle at the border crossing?

Well here’s a quick link to Gas Buddy in a gizmo. I wanted to put it on the front page, but it is not resizable like the zFacts gizmo is, so I will just add it here. I’ll also put it on my ‘Links” page, when I get the page finished.

Search for gas prices by US Zip Code

Just in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve added 2 new gizmos to the web page. On the left, I’ve added a box that lists the latest average gasoline prices by State. Remember that they are the state-wide average, and your local price may vary. The gizmo cycles through all states alphabetically. If you don’t have the patience to wait for your state, you can type in the 2 letter state abbreviation and it will list that state and stop the cycling.

On the right, I have added a gizmo that reports the current cost of the war conflict in Iraq (remember it is NOT a war because the US never declared war). These numbers, by the way, are the official government count. There are those economists who claim that the current cost of Iraq is closer to 3 Trillion dollars, not the 500 Billion that the count shows. Just in case you were wondering where your tax dollars are going…

By the way, both of these gizmos are compliments of zFacts.com, a very interesting web site with lots of economic data. If you visit, check out the article on the waste that is corn-based ethanol.

DirecTv and I have parted ways. And, it was not an amicable split. We’ve been contemplating replacing our TV for several months, and that meant going HD. A few weeks ago, I called DirecTv and asked them about HD packages. I was told, that to get HD, I would have to buy an HD receiver box for $99, and pay an additional $10 a month for the programming. I looked at online offerings, and if I were a new customer, they would give me an HD-DVR, and the cost of the package would be less than my current bill. Dish Networks had similar offers. I did a little research, and found that DirecTv’s DVR was not that great. TiVo was generally considered better, but since TiVo and DirecTv no longer worked together, there were some drawbacks, and it would cost more. The Dish DVR got better reviews, and seemed like a good compromise between DirecTv’s DVR and full TiVo.

Last week, we got around to purchasing our new TV. I didn’t go high end, but it was a decent set, and had 4 HDMI inputs (HDMI is the new standard for carrying both digital video and audio signals). The number of inputs is important when you want to attach multiple devices to your TV, like a DVD player, or a game console. After getting the TV home and setting it up (yes, standard def looks better on an HDTV), I once again called DirecTv. The customer service rep, gave me the same story. When I complained that I could get the box free if I switched to the competition, I was told “Well, the HD box used to cost $199, so you are saving $100!”. I told the rep, that if they couldn’t do better, I was going to go elsewhere for service. He said “That’s the best that I can do.” I told him “too bad”, and hung up. I then called Dish and ordered the same package I had from DirecTv. They gave me there 2 room DVR, HD programming, and all of the channels I currently get. The price is $5 a month more than DirecT, but With the free equipment, and the 3 free months of service, it is still a better deal.

Today the Dish installer came to hook things up. After he finished, I called DirecTv and cancelled my service. Less than 4 hours later, I got a call from DirecTv’s “Customer Satisfaction” department. This lady told me they would match Dish’s offer, free DVR and upgrade to HD, and wave the first year HD charges. I was ticked off. I asked why they didn’t offer that before I cancelled? She said the rep I talked to wasn’t authorized to make that offer. Too damn bad lady. If that is how you treat a customer who has been with you for 8 years, I don’t want to stay. Why didn’t the first rep direct me to someone else? Why don’t they have offers for existing customers? I would have stayed if they had just given me a break. If they had offered the HD receiver for free, not the DVR. But they didn’t, and now I am no longer a customer. I may be switching back in 2 years, but I noticed that on the Dish web site they have a tab for “existing customer offers”. That looks promising.

Comparing the 2 services, DirecTv has more HD channels than Dish. But when I did a channel by channel comparison, Dish had all of the HD channels I would watch. I mean who needs the Home Shopping Network in HD? The big difference is sports. Dish has exclusive deals with the NFL and Major League Baseball. But, since I am a 49er fan, there is certainly no reason I would pay extra to watch those pathetic souls, and baseball lost me when they cancelled the World Series several years ago. So, It’s Dish for me now. It will take a while to get used to the new channel numbers. But, I got to watch TopChef in HD tonite!!