Author Archives: todd

The Myth of Ubiquitous Internet

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Apple will release OS X Lion tomorrow. From all advance information it will be available only as a download directly to your computer through the Mac App Store. This underscores something I’m seeing a lot these days: they myth of ubiquitous internet. Companies assume all locations have access to broadband internet when it’s just not true. For example at our home in the Davis Mountains we have internet but it’s not broadband (it’s satellite). Download speeds are okay, not really fast, the latency is excruciating, but the real problem is the bandwidth caps. We get 17GB per “rolling 30 day period” – a stupid and confusing method of doling out bandwidth – and typically, even though we do not download movies, do file sharing or anything else that would be bandwidth intensive, we are almost constantly hovering at 75-80% usage. If something makes the usage trip the 90% mark our connection is throttled to below dialup speeds (we can’t even use our bank’s bill pay service at these speeds). We have three Macs at the house and I would like to upgrade each of them to Lion. Can’t do it. Sure I can take our laptops to town but what about the Mac Pro? How do I update that machine?

Unprepared

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Bird the dog went ballistic this afternoon at the door. I looked up from my desk and saw three guys with backpacks on my porch. This is strange for at least a couple reasons. First my place is 3/4 mile from the highway behind a locked gate. Second, we had experienced three guys with backpacks coming through here a couple months ago but they weren’t hikers, they were almost certainly drug smugglers. These guys were white and looked benign but you never know. I opened the door and they said they were lost. They said they had been trying to find the quaking aspen trees on the Nature Conservancy preserve and got lost going back to their truck, which was parked at Madera Canyon roadside park. They said they had been walking for 8 hours, that they had to stop and rest under a Ponderosa pine somewhere up canyon. They were wearing tennis shoes. I gave them water and told them I’d drive them back to their truck. Still… I put a pistol in my pocket as I got my keys. On the way to the truck I stopped and said, “I just gotta ask: You guys didn’t have a map?” “No” “A compass?” “No… I guess we didn’t think it was that big a deal… We were kind of unprepared…” While driving them back I told them they were lucky nobody took a shot at them, that we have had smugglers in this area and that there was an article in the paper this week about a rancher in Hudspeth County who shot two guys trespassing. That they would have been fine had they gotten permission from the Nature Conservancy, checked in and got a map. They were lucky nobody got hurt.

It’s amazing to me how people get out in nature and have no idea what to do, how to prepare, how to get out of situations. You hear about it on tv all the time. Sometimes it seems like people have lost a certain human know-how that we, from another generation, seem to take for granted.

It’s cold

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Coldest day ever here at Elbow Canyon, at least the coldest since I’ve been here (10 years almost).  Pretty sure it’s a record; will have to check.  Real temp -2 this morning; wind chill -11.  The whole North side of the house has no water; I’m sure the pipe is frozen in the ground.  South side is okay.  Kind of struggling to heat the place; have the heaters and the wood stove going strong but it’s still in the low 60s inside the house.  Light snow falling and no sunshine so I’m having to run the generator for a while, and it was pretty hard to start.

There are many wonderful things about living up here and living off-grid (rest of Texas and much of the US is enjoying rolling blackouts for electricity) but we’re really not well suited for these kind of extreme temperatures.

Music has changed

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Over the end credits on “Dexter” tonight (yes, I’m about a month behind) they played “I’m Your Vehicle” by Blood Sweat & Tears. I asked Anjela if she remember that song and she said it was a little before her time… I was listening to the horns on the TV speakers and was taken back to Jr. High listening to that album. Really loud on the “good stereo” in my parents’ living room. Where the analog notes would reverberate through your spine. The horns! That bari sax! A true wall of sound!

And then I thought how different our interaction with music is today. Digitized. Shrunk into little ear pods that cannot possibly reproduce sound properly. I realized I don’t even have a good stereo in my house any more. Me! The guy with 10 feet of vinyl and a few hundred CDs, not to mention about 15,000 songs on my hard drive. That’s just not right. Gonna have to fix that. I still have the gear, just no good speakers any more.

We used to sit down and listen to music. Now music is either a soundtrack to our daily lives (if we are lucky) or an event we participate in at great expense (a concert). Or if we’re lucky an experience where you get to be in the same room with one or more talented musicians and hear them make good, handmade music on fine instruments in a good setting.

That’s what we like to do with the Border Blasters. It’s what we do best, really.   

Cenizo Journal

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Last month I spent an embarrassingly long time talking about myself with Jim Glendenning who was writing his portrait article for the Cenizo Journal; the spiritual successor to the wonderful Desert Candle quarterly arts magazine for the Trans-Pecos. I picked up the issue and read the little blurb about me.

It’s strange to read about yourself. Even stranger to see an hour conversation about your life history distilled into a few paragraphs in print – sort of like reading your own obituary written by someone who doesn’t know you real well. Jim did a fine job, don’t misunderstand, but it’s just a little odd, y’know.

And I want to clarify one thing that isn’t completely correct in the article: I did not launch the Harvest Moon & Tunes Festival here in FD. Yes, I suppose it was mostly my idea and I worked really hard on producing the music part of it, but there were so many people who actually took the “Hey, this would be a great place for a small music festival” idea and made it a reality. Lanna Duncan produced basically everything besides the music part, and I’ll get into trouble if I try to mention others because I’ll forget somebody. It’s time for something like that in Fort Davis again. I’ll produce the music again if we can get enough backing to make it viable.

The Social Network

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Just saw The Social Network. Not only is it a well-crafted film but it is a snapshot of our American culture today. Where riches are made overnight on an “Idea” (and in this case someone else’s idea!) – not by years of hard work, or actually making something you can touch, see or hear. Zuckerberg’s character comes across as pathetic, lonely, no social skills, impressionable by the “cool guys” and quite probably amoral, perhaps bordering sociopathic. If there is a human villain in the movie it is Sean Parker’s character, who is yesterday’s news trying very hard to remain relevant and sees an opportunity. But the true villain is greed. Greed for power, status and money of course.

It’s a brilliant social commentary and you don’t have to be a computer nerd to get it.

Like I’ve said before we have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. If there were another open-source place that did it right it would leave Facebook in the dust. With Facebook you are not the customer, you are the product and don’t ever forget it.

That trickling down you feel…

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Even George HW Bush knew that tax cuts for the rich was the worst possible return on economic growth. He called it “Voodoo Economics”. It destroyed our economy in the 80s and, golly geewhilikers, did the same thing in the 2000s. And yet the Republicans are convincing Americans that unless the richest 2% of citizens get to keep the Bush giveaway of our economy then we are in for disaster. Uh, I got news for you: We are in a disaster and you guys caused it.

It’s a robbery, plain and simple. They are robbing you to give to their campaign donors. Keep repeating that until it sinks in. These robbers have engineered the biggest shift of wealth from the middle class to the top 1% in a century. It is recreating the conditions that led to the first Great Depression.

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When the rich are taxed our economy grows because they would rather put their earnings back into growing and expanding businesses than pay it in taxes. All economists know this. Don’t let the Richie Rich Party sell you on the myth that someday you will be in the top 1% of income earners. You won’t be, I won’t be, not if we let them push the middle class down.

That trickling down you feel is the GOP pissing on you.

Sharon & Kelly

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Goddammit, we’ve lost two friends in the last week.  I just heard that Sharon Faulkner, friend and local paramedic, was killed in a air ambulance airplane crash last night.  Our hearts go out to Jerry, Casey, Seth and all her family.   Last week Kelly Fenstermaker lost her long battle with cancer. Kelly was my next door neighbor before we moved to the ranch and a co-volunteer at Marfa Public Radio.

Both of these were treasures of human beings.  They both touched humanity in their own ways.  Sharon literally made people right, helped them through the hardest traumas.  Kelly was a window to life and the land and people.

When my daughter told me of Sharon’s passing today she texted, “ok, well now i feel the need to tell you how much i love you and i’m incredibly thankful to have you in my life.”

Whether it’s by text, by phone, by a handwritten letter, or looking them in the eye, it’s never too late to tell those who matter to you, even those with whom you are just friends, that you care.

It’s Sunday.  If your mom is still around give her a call.

Last night in Elbow Canyon

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At some point I’ll get the galleries the way I like them. I’m going to try and upload new photos regularly – good, bad, mediocre – just new photos.

Sitting outside last night while Anjela upstairs reading Aiden to sleep. Tossing the ball for Birdie, enjoying a breeze, looking at the big clouds on the horizon, and these little guys over the ridge turning orange, then magenta, then grey.