Oh! Christmas Tree?

Timothy Price2 Comments

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People have been asking if I took photos of our Christmas Tree. First of all, Laurie and I have never had a traditional Christmas tree. The closest we ever got to a traditional tree was a tiny, live, pre-decorated tree we got from a fundraiser. Otherwise, we normally decorate a houseplant, indoor tree (ficus or norfolk pine) or more recently our large bonsai ficus. This year we got as far as lighting candles, although there is one gold ornament laying at the base of our gnarly, bonsai ficus from last year (last photo).  Laurie did a lot of cooking, so the candles reflecting in the stockpots and mixing bowl made nice decorations.

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Rail Yard Cats

Timothy Price8 Comments

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Merry Christmas! You have probably heard of “junkyard dogs” — rail yards have cats. I stopped by the yard where the Santa Fe 292 locomotive is being restored, and there were lots of cats in the rail yard. Most of the cats hid when they saw me approaching the fence —  one cross-eyed kitty was curious, two sat at opposite ends of an old loading dock, while two others watched me from the safety of a stack of railroad ties.

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Dinner with Santa

Timothy Price5 Comments

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If you are wondering where Santa was on the day before this Christmas eve, he was having dinner with Laurie, me and a group of friends and making kids worried as to why he was at El Patron’s eating with the likes of us instead of preparing gifts and tending to his reindeer and sleigh.

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Love on the Seine

Timothy Price7 Comments

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The sky was overcast and gray all day for solstice, which reminded me of Paris. Looking through my photos taken from a riverboat on our last day in Paris back in June, I noticed that there was lots of love along the Seine despite the gray sky and rain.

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Fire Watchers

Timothy Price8 Comments

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When I saw the people standing in the openings in the parking structure watching the building burn, the image reminded me of a scene from a Fellini film. Then there’s the three arson investigators that are reminiscent of Van der Weyden’s “Decent from the Cross.” The last two photos are time lapses of sorts. The penultimate photo is the tile mosaic façade of the burned out building at 12:08 PM and the last photo is what’s left of the tile mosaic façade of the burned out building at 5:13 PM.

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Burning Down The Block

Timothy Price12 Comments

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I am posting my blog very late today, because I got home late from the fire. The flamenco studio on the end of our block caught on fire yesterday afternoon and it turned into a major fire that threatened the rest of the block. Patrician Design was the most immediately threatened business, and fortunately the firewall between PD and the flamenco studio held. Our offices above Gold Street Cafe got a lot of smoke, but late, after they had the fire out and the power was restored, I opened up the office for some firemen and women who brought a big fan in and blew out as much of the smoke as the could from those offices. While they were blowing smoke out of the offices upstairs, I went downstairs and got all the servers fired back up. After that, the fire marshal gave me permission to secure the office, set the alarms and go home. The photos show the progression of the fire and the last photos are of Patti of Patrician Design celebrating that her boutique didn’t burn down. The fire caused a lot of excitement and anxiety for what started out to be a rather lazy afternoon.

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Turn, Turn, Turn – Winding up my Wankel

Timothy Price5 Comments

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I finally replaced my 2006 Mazda 5 the insurance company totaled with with a 2009 Mazda RX8. This little beauty only has 28,500 miles, and has a 1.3 liter Renesis/Wankel rotary engine that pumps out 238 HP. The car is solid, perky, responsive and really fun to drive. It’s not as fast as Laurie’s Speed 3, but now we have two red Mazda sports cars. Laurie took these photos of me in the RX8 with her iPhone in the Credit Union’s parking lot. The car was halfway in the shade of the building so the color is a little off.

I got a great deal on the car from the owners of Pho 79, a Vietnamese restaurant located at 2007 Candelaria NE, for those of you who live in Albuquerque. We haven’t eaten there yet, but Tom, the owner, gave me a cup of Vietnamese iced coffee after we finished the deal (the coffee was wonderful). I’m planning on going there for lunch later this week. Pho 79 got a great review by “Trip Advisor” that called it a “hidden gem.”

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