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I still get the chills every time I watch this video of a guy walking the “El Caminito del Rey”:

This is a partial screen grab from Google Finance’ news section about the NASDAQ, reported one hour apart:

The whole financial news reporting needs a serious overhaul. We go from gloomiest gloom to brightest bright in a matter of hours regularly.

I am really ashamed to admit it, but it was the first time we took the Rail Runner two weekends ago. Pia, Oakley and I boarded the 11:20am train to Albuquerque on Sunday. The plan was to visit the zoo and then head back on the 4:44pm train. We had attempted to take the same train a day before, but had used the weekday-schedule and for whatever reason, there’s a ten minute departure time difference between weekdays and weekends, which meant we arrived ten minutes late at the train station.

Our bags were full with snacks and it took only a few minutes before the picnic-table was filled with our lunch. The train ride to Albuquerque was nice and it was good to see the landscape from a different point of view. Pia had been bugged by a wiggling tooth for the longest time already and, of course, it had to come out on the train. Sorry for the bad photo:

Missing tooth

At the train station in ABQ we planned to take the bus to the zoo and while the girls were in the bathroom, I looked at the bus-schedule. To my surprise I had to find out that there was no bus service to the zoo on Sundays. Say what?!?! The one day (other than Saturday) when people have time to go to the zoo, there’s no public transportation?
So, we walked outside and looked for a cab. No cabs. We walked down Central for a while in order to find a cruising taxi and, again, not a single one in sight. 10 mins later we gave up and I called a taxi only to be told that we would have to wait between 5-20 mins. Luckily it was only 5 mins waiting time and we had a really nice driver. We were smart enough to ask the driver to pick us up again at 4:00pm.

The zoo was a success, as always, especially because it was a really hot day and Pia got to get wet at the fountain.

At 4pm we got picked up and 15 mins later we were at the train station. Our train left at 4:44pm and we made sure to sit on the other side of the train. 30 mins into the ride, Pia announced that she would have to use the bathroom. Oakley and her left the seats and looked for the bathroom. Two minutes later they were back and announced that there was no bathroom on the train. That was the 2nd “Say what?!?!” moment of the day. We were 1hr away from Santa Fe and I knew Pia was in trouble. We couldn’t get off at one of the train stops, because there was no later train coming. Poor kid had to cross her legs for the rest of the ride and I was very proud of her when she made.
Back in Santa Fe, we ran over to Border’s and she used the bathroom there – needless to say it was very, very last second …

Early in June, I signed up for an account at Betterment after reading about their recent launch. Betterment is one of the new breed of online investment tools. Your money is spread between a pool of stocks and treasury bonds and you decide what percentage is going towards one or the other. When stocks don’t do well, then bonds usually do and vice versa. You can change the percentage allocation at any time without incurring extra cost.

My initial $500 test deposit didn’t do too well, but now it seems that things have turned around. I did not change the allocation since I first set it at around 60% for stocks and 40% towards bonds.

Betterment has some neat tools that allow you to graph your money in a lot of different ways and play through “what if” scenarios, where you can see what different allocations would have yielded.

Just yesterday I received a “refer a friend” email from them and if you are planning to sign up for an account, get in touch with me and I may be able to get you a $25 credit for a new account with a minimum deposit of $500.

On Friday evening we had our minds blown to bits and pieces while watching Christopher Nolan’s new movie Inception. I had seen some previews of the movie and when the first reviews came in late last week, I was convinced that I would love the movie. And I did.

I don’t want to tell you too much about the movie, because it is something that really needs to be experienced personally. The plot revolves around the concept of people being able to infiltrate others’ dreams and either extract information or implant ideas during those shared dream sessions. Add multiple layers of dreams (dreams within dreams) and time-expansion, which happens when you go from one dream layer to the next and you have an amazingly original idea. Then mix the whole lot with a killer cast, a gripping Zimmer soundtrack, mind-blowing visuals and you end up with a 2.5 hrs movie that is refreshingly different from the usual Hollywood fare.

The only problem: I need to see it again …

PS: There is significance to the photo I posted. Wait until the very end of the movie and you’ll get it.

At least once a week I had to carry a case of sparkling water home from the grocery store. And at least once a month I had to make a trip to the Transfer Station to recycle the plastic/glass bottles.

Months ago I saw a SodaStream unit at a friend’s house and was immediately sold on it. SodaStream is a product that allows you to turn plain old tap water into carbonated water. It comes with two hard-plastic bottles and a variety pack of flavors.
You fill the plastic bottles with water, insert them into the SodaStream unit and press a button on it a few times. The button releases CO2 from the 60L container and injects it into the water. A loud hissing noise will tell when enough gas has been added to the water. Depending on how often you press the button, you can make the water more or less carbonated (I’m more on the less-side). You release the bottle and end up with carbonated water. If you feel like it, you can add one of the many flavors to the mixture.

Now that it is hot outside, I make (and drink) about three bottles full of carbonated water a day and it’s great that I don’t have to schlepp those bottles home from the store and back to the recycling center.

The Pia and Tobias verdict: highly recommended.

I just discovered a whole new world right here in New Mexico. Oakley had told me about that place in Albuquerque called “Ta Lin Market” (“World Food Fare” it says in their logo). She said that it sells all sorts of weird and exotic food items. On Sunday we went down to Albuquerque and spent more than 2 hours roaming around the isles.

It’s a feast for the eyes! And nose! And taste buds! They really seem to cover a large portion of the world with their food products, all neatly arranged by region. I think we looked at every single item in the store and, by the end of the tour, had a nicely filled shopping cart with all sorts of goodies. Reminds me a lot about the Chinese supermarkets back in the Bay Area. And best of all: the prices seem to be much lower compared to the ones here in Santa Fe. For example: I recently bought some rice papers for Vietnamese spring rolls in Santa Fe. For the same amount of money that I spent on 300gr of rice paper, I purchased 1kg at Ta Lin. Soy Sauce, Sesame Oil, Kim Chi – everything is cheaper there.

I have a feeling that I’m going to be a regular visitor from now on …

At least that’s what VISA told me last week. Apparently I purchased $370 worth of clothing at 4am Eastern Time one morning last week. A few hours later my phone rang and I received an automated message from VISA’s fraud prevention department. The message listed two suspicious transactions – one of them was legit and the other one caught me by surprise.

Somebody had used my credit card information to place an order for men’s clothing at www.hackeet.com. It was the first time I even heard about them, which cemented the fact that I did not place the order.

I called VISA right away and asked for more details about this particular order. The customer service rep was only able to tell me the exact time of purchase, the place and the amount, but nothing else. When I told him that I did not place the order, he pushed the red button immediately and the card was invalid from that point on.

It seems we caught the fraudulent order early enough, because I never saw the charge hit my account.

Those of you who know me, know also how careful I am with online purchases and using my credit card in general. I have no freaking idea how my card details were leaked and I have to assume that one of the places that has my card on file, had a leak that gave the fraudsters access to my details.

Now I’m on a crusade to figure out the source of the leak. My first step is to get in touch with Hackeet in London and see if we can get more details about the order that was placed on my behalf. I want to get the billing and shipping address that was provided for this order. Perhaps that gives me a clue where to start looking for the bastards. If you have any other ideas, please let me know.

Yesterday was soak-in-the-hot-tub evening at Ten Thousand Waves, half way up the ski mountain. We had a reservation at 7pm and checked out an hour later. The guy at the register told us that there was a motorcycle accident just down the mountain and that the only road into town would be closed for several hours. We tried our luck and drove down Hyde Park Road and, sure enough, a minute later we were at the end of a long line of cars.

The prospect of sitting there for a few hours with nothing to do did not resonate well with Oakley and me. Luckily we remembered Upper Pacheco Canyon Road. That’s the only other way down the mountain if Hyde Park Road is closed. We turned around and drove up the mountain. Just before hitting the ski area, there’s a turn-off to the left and a slightly bumpy road will bring down towards Tesuque where you get dumped onto 592.

Without further comments …

On Saturday evening Oakley and I decided to leave the kitchen behind and have somebody else cook for us for a change. I haven’t gone out to restaurants lately, because I usually prefer to cook at home. Besides being easier on the wallet, it also has the added benefit of having left-overs that I can pack for Pia’s lunch the next days.

That said, I do enjoy going to restaurants and dissecting the dishes. After our first tastes of a dish, we sit there and try to list all the ingredients and how things were prepared. It’s like a foodie crossword puzzle.

Saturday Restaurant Martin was on the menu. Given past experience, we decided not to make a reservation, because we expected Martin to be moderately busy like most places in town. To my surprise, we did not get a table and ended up eating at the bar. I don’t mind that at all, in fact sometimes I prefer the busy environment of the bar over a quiet table.

Oakley was delighted when she spotted the “Snake River Farm Pork Belly” on the Appetizer menu. We added the lamb ravioli to round things off. Pork Belly is really hard to come by in Santa Fe. We asked all around town and there’s a slim chance that the pork guy at the Farmer’s Market will have some good news for us next weekend. The pork ended up being the dish of the evening, especially with the divine Cauliflower Mousseline which performed a happy-dance on our taste buds.

The appetizers were followed by some perfectly cooked Maine Diver Sea Scallops and an order of the Maple Leaf Farms Duck Breast. Both dishes were fine, but if you look for vegetables to go with your dish, you may want to order some extra sides.

And just because it was Saturday, we threw in one order of the Bourbon Vanilla Grand Marnier Creme Brulee to share, which was satisfying, but not more.

Restaurant Martin has re-visit written all over it. We had a delightful dinner and will most certainly try it again.

I have a hard time visualizing what those numbers up there really mean. I know a barrel equals 42 US gallons and I also know that this roughly equals 159 liters. The official estimates are in the range of 35,000-60,000 barrels dumping into the Gulf every day. And that’s where the numbers just get too big for me.

I looked up the standard dimensions of a real metal barrel. You can see a British barrel here (it has three more gallons, but I ignore that at the moment): 50cm wide, 50cm deep and 90cm high. So let’s take a day’s worth of barrels and line them up next to each other. You end up with a line of barrels that is between 17.5 km and 30 km (10.9 miles – 18.5 miles).

If you started at midnight and placed your first barrel on the Plaza, then continued placing barrels along the shortest route to the Santa Fe ski area during the day, you would place your last barrel for the day close to the ski area’s parking lot. For the high estimate, you would almost make it back down the mountain again. And you would have done that every single day since April 20.

Now let’s take a look at how much has spilled in total into the Gulf since April 20. Start lining up barrels again at the Plaza in Santa Fe, go down to Albuquerque, go West on I-40, cross the entire state of Arizona, head into CA and then head up north to San Francisco. For the whole drive of about 1000 miles you would see barrels lined up on one side of the road.

Now those numbers above make more sense to me …

Bloomberg says that you can now get on the waiting list for one of the $90K Martin Jetpacks. Now I almost wish I would work at an office in town and use the jetpack for my daily commute …

Now we are getting somewhere:

CNSP came out yesterday to upgrade my wireless Internet connection. You can see the (so far) best speedtest.net test result displayed above.
Then I noticed this morning that the speed had dropped down to previous levels. I decided to wait for a while, walk the dogs and then get in touch with them. To my surprise I was met by the installer when I returned from the dog walk. CNSP had noticed that my speed had dropped and concluded that the radio on the roof must have moved slightly (it was windy here last night). 15 mins later things are fixed again – kudos to CNSP.

And if you are looking for a high-speed provider other than Qwest and Comcast (both of which are not available where I live), then do give them a call.

If there is one, single statement that puts the Deepwater disaster into the right perspective, it has to be Rachel Maddow’s statement from yesterday evening: