8-bit

Last week I went to see a movie at Fab Lab on 2nd Street. They have a Wolf Parade video on their website so they MUST be cool.. heh. Basically, its across from the Marble. Here is the blurb about the movie from their website:

“8 BIT ably chronicles the modernist and post-modernist tendencies in the relatively recent history of video game-based art, but also suggests that the bit- bending antics of the post-video game generation hint at a new current in the uncharted waters of 21st century art history.”

Yeah, that's what she said.


The movie was was a documentary about gaming hacks that make techno music. It traced the roots of people hacking early Commodore 64 games and putting sexy ladies on the intro screens, and followed that all the way to some current first person shooter games where the artist has imposed anti-war graffiti on the walls of a battle scene. Some of the techno created with a program for the gameboy was pretty cool and offered an interesting glimpse of electronic music as a bunch of geometric patterns. There was also some Hunter College professor who kept talking about the epistemology of Object Oriented Programming, I think she just learned the word and wanted to use it a bunch. Still it was sort of relevant to my work stuff. It was in a hip outdoor setting, and there was even a Nam Jun Paik reference to make my post modern heart go pitter patter.
I would see this again on netflix, and certainly recommend it to all my nerdly programmer friends.

Jemez Falls

Here is a statement of the obvious. It's hot in the desert and cool in the mountains. This particular June, my first in the land of Manana has decided to be particularly hot. The thermometer on my car read 105 when I headed north out of Albuquerque on I-25. I was heading to the Jemez Mountains to beat the heat. Growing up my grandparents had a ranch outside of Mora, so I spent a lot of time in the Carson National Forest, northwest of Santa Fe, but had never been to the Jemez. It seems to be the destination of choice for the Albuquerque set, so I was on my way. I took I-25 up to 550 in Bernallilo, tracking perilously close to the scene of the demise of the Cherokee at in the Ojito Wilderness. Then I turned on to Route 4 heading toward Ponderosa. It was fun to watch the temperature fall as I headed out of the concrete urban freeway sprawl of Albuquerque.
Using an actual paper map (gps and cell phone service suck in all the 'good' places here) I picked out a forest service road to head directly north to Jemez Falls and bypass La Cueva and Soda Dam. It was a pretty good idea considering there had been some forest fires up that way earlier in the week and the road was busy with fire traffic. Blindly picking a forest service road out of the blue can turn out to be a pretty big gamble. There are large graded serviced ones, and then there are others that go from viable two-lane dirt road to goat path a few miles in. Forest Service Road # 10 was excellent. I was able to go over the top of Redondo Peak all on a lovely graded dirt road that wasn't rutted or washboard at all.


It was easy to follow and we descended in to the lush piney Jemez Falls around 5 pm. Perfect timing to beat the heat, score a campsite and get set up for the evening. The Jemez Falls campground was pretty packed, but like most New Mexico campgrounds I've visited, the campsites were spacious and fairly private. Arriving earlier would have ensured a better spot, but no complaints. The evening was spent listening to music and drinkin some beer. Waiting for the stars to come up, and oh, did they.
The next morning was up with the sun... or Dixie, take your pick.


I packed up some water and drove to the Jemez Falls trailhead. There were a few false starts, down the wrong trail but it was easy to hear the sound of the rushing water, lots of steep ups and downs on a short trail, but with the elevation of the nearby campsites at 10,000 feet, a good workout was easily had.
After exploring the falls (I would very much like to go back and spend the day reading by the waterfall) I opted to not take on the hike to battleship rock and instead packed up the car and got on the road to get some coffee from Amanda's Country Store.
After coffee I wanted to get one more short hike in before the weather got too hot. I headed up to the San Antonio Hot Springs, but the gate was closed. It was almost 10 am, and with the gate closed, its a 5 mile hike each way. I turned around and headed back down Rt. 4 toward Jemez Springs and Albuquerque. Not to far past the La Cueva turnoff I stopped at Spence Springs. The trail was well marked, and even early in the morning there was traffic on the trail. After hiking about 20 minutes up a slippery slimey path.

I arrived at the two spring fed pools, nestled on the hill side, with a gorgeous vista, and immediately knew why other people had hiked out there so early.

The better (upper) of the two pools was already inhabited, mostly likely by naked strangers, so I settled for wading in the lower pool, took some pictures and was on my way.

The drive back to Albuquerque was pretty passing through the artsy town of Jemez Springs, with a mission church and a ranger station, and followed the river and the cliffs all the way back to 550. I'd certainly do this adventure again. The hikes were pretty straightforward and the forest road gave a real sense of the mountains and piney forests, without having to hike for miles at high altitude. I look forward to many more trips up this way in the future... did somebody say full moon hike at San Antonio Springs??? Stay tuned!