Thursday, January 17, 2008 - Bottomless Lakes State Park, Roswell NM
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Dawn at McDonald Observatory, from the trail above Davis Mountains State Park, Fort Davis, Texas, January 13, 2008
Baby it's cold outside
At least it warms up fast in this southern sun. By nine am the sun is beating in through my big windows strong enough I can turn the heat off. It may be chilly outside in the shade but in the sun it feels nice and warm and toasty.
I can see I'm going to need to make some home improvements if I'm to be comfortable in these wintry conditions. Or bite the budget bullet and move to Arizona for a month or so.
Arrrgggg what a slow connection
To the internet that is. Too slow in fact to load big websites like West Marine and Apple. Or even Google Adsense to check on my ad revenues. For some reason these sites won't load on a slow connection. But least the connection is sort of useable. Unlike the constant drop-outs I had at Brantley Lake State Park. I can do some basic maintenance here at coxontool.com.
Now I've done it
In my haste to reorganize my backup drive to free up some space on the iBook hard drive I went and erased the wrong partition - wiping out my older photo archives. All of them. I don't keep them on the Mac iBook anymore - they take up precious space I need for new stuff. I think I backed them all up on an older drive I have back home. I sure hope so. If not they are gone for good. Be careful out there boys and girls - it's easy to push the wrong button.
That new Apple Time Capsule is looking mighty good at the moment. So is the new laptop for that matter. Drool.
Today's journey: None, I stayed put.
Night camp
Bottomless Lakes State Park, Roswell NM
- Verizon cell phone service - Access is via Extended Network, roaming and the signal is weak
- No Verizon EVDO service - access is via the Extended Network and I've found service very slow.
- Go to Bottomless Lakes State Park website
- Locate to Bottomless Lakes State Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
Disaster and the Failure of Authority
Disasters are almost by definition about the failure of authority, in part because the powers that be are supposed to protect us from them, in part also because the thousand dispersed needs of a disaster overwhelm even the best governments, and because the government version of governing often arrives at the point of a gun. But the authorities don't usually fail so spectacularly. Failure at this level requires sustained effort. The deepening of the divide between the haves and have nots, the stripping away of social services, the defunding of the infrastructure, mean that this disaster—not of weather but of policy—has been more or less what was intended to happen, if not so starkly in plain sight.
The Uses of Disaster Rebecca Solnit, Harpers.org, September 9, 2005