Category Archives: Uncategorized

Albuquerque Sandia Foothills flowers blooming (video)

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In Albuquerque in August of 2004, a perfect coming together of elements occurred, the rains, the season, the temperature … and the Sandia Foothills blossomed!

This 3 minute video was created in July/August 2010, 6 years later. Since 2004 there has been no similar set of circumstances and no similar blossoming.

I literally did not know when I took these photos that I was capturing such a singular or once-in-a-long-time event. I hope you enjoy watching this video as much as I did making it.

If you do like it, please click the “like” button and leave a comment.

Thanks, and happy Fall 2010.

Arizona border lands article

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This from STRATFOR 2011 –  “In the first half of the 19th century, it was not clear whether the United States or Mexico would emerge as the dominant power in North America. The U.S. had a sliver of land on the east coast and a vulnerable, export-dependent economy.  Control of New Orleans (and Florida) would be the key to a new economic foundation: Until the Mexican-American War, it was not clear whether the dominant power in North America would have its capital in Washington or Mexico City.Mexico (which gained independence from Spain in 1821) was the older society with a substantially larger military.
The United States, having been founded east of the Appalachian Mountains, had been a weak and vulnerable country. At its founding, it lacked strategic depth and adequate north-south transportation routes. The ability of one colony to support another in the event of war was limited. More important, the United States had the most vulnerable of economies: It was heavily dependent on maritime exports and lacked a navy able to protect its sea-lanes against more powerful European powers like England and Spain.
The War of 1812 showed the deep weakness of the United States. By contrast, Mexico had greater strategic depth and less dependence on exports. “The American solution to this strategic weakness was to expand the United States west of the Appalachians, first into the Northwest Territory ceded to the United States by the United Kingdom and then into the Louisiana Purchase, which Thomas Jefferson ordered bought from France in 1803. These two territories gave the United States both strategic depth and a new economic foundation. The regions could support agriculture that produced more than the farmers could consume.
Using the Ohio-Missouri-Mississippi river system, products could be shipped south to New Orleans. New Orleans was the farthest point south to which flat-bottomed barges from the north could go, and the farthest inland that oceangoing ships could travel. New Orleans became the single most strategic point in North America. Whoever controlled it controlled the agricultural system developing between the Appalachians and the Rockies.
During the War of 1812, the British tried to seize New Orleans, but forces led by Andrew Jackson defeated them in a battle fought after the war itself was completed. Jackson understood the importance of New Orleans to the United States. He also understood that the main threat to New Orleans came from Mexico.
The U.S.-Mexican border then stood on the Sabine River, which divides today’s Texas from Louisiana. It was about 200 miles from that border to New Orleans and, at its narrowest point, a little more than 100 miles from the Sabine to the Mississippi. (Jackson earlier had realized, as James Madison had before him, that Spain controlled both sides of the vital Florida straits, i.e. Florida and Cuba, and so threatened U.S. interests with possible blockade of the straits, choking off American trade from New Orleans seeking the ports of the Atlantic; hence the botched Patriot War of 1812 and Jackson’s incursion into West Florida in 1819 before its eventual purchase. Ed.)
Mexico therefore represented a fundamental threat to the United States. In response, Jackson authorized a covert operation under Sam Houston to foment an uprising among American settlers in the Mexican department of Texas with the aim of pushing Mexico farther west. With its larger army, a Mexican thrust to the Mississippi was not impossible – nor something the Mexicans would necessarily avoid, as the rising United States threatened Mexican national security.
Mexico’s strategic problem was the geography south of the Rio Grande (known in Mexico as the Rio Bravo). This territory consisted of desert and mountains. Settling this area with large populations was impossible. Moving through it was difficult. As a result, Texas was very lightly settled with Mexicans, prompting Mexico initially to encourage Americans to settle there (in part, as a buffer against the Comanche). Once a rising was fomented among the Americans, it took time and enormous effort to send a Mexican army into Texas. When it arrived, it was weary from the journey and short of supplies. The insurgents were defeated at the Alamo and Goliad, but as the Mexicans pushed their line further east toward the Mississippi, they were defeated at San Jacinto, near present-day Houston.
The creation of an independent Texas served American interests, relieving the threat to New Orleans and weakening Mexico. The final blow was delivered under President James K. Polk during the Mexican-American War, which (after the Gadsden Purchase) resulted in the modern U.S.-Mexican border. That war severely weakened both the Mexican army and Mexico City, which spent roughly the rest of the century stabilizing Mexico’s original political order.” (George Friedman, Arizona, Borderlands and U.S.-Mexican Relations0

Albuquerque International Airport at 70 – New Video

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The Albuquerque International Airport 70th birthday video is finally finished and uploaded to YouTube. It turns out it is really the story of four airports: Oxnard Field, Western Air Express Airport, Albuquerque International Airport, and Kirtland Air Force Base.

And when you throw in the Santa Fe Railroad, a New York air transportation promoter, Charles Lindbergh, Mayor and Governor Clyde Tingley, the WPA, WWII and the Manhattan Project, and you end up with  a fascinating eight-minute narrated video.

Albuquerque International Airport at 70 Video

I hope you enjoy it, and look forward to comments or suggestions you might have on how to improve a possible second version, and please feel free to let others know about it, too.

DAR Community Service Award for creating The Albuquerque Tricentennial Timeline

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I was greatly pleased and honored last Wednesday, to be given the DAR Community Service Award for creating  the Albuquerque Tricentenial Timeline.

Casandra Meyers-Warner, New Mexico State 1st Vice Regent and Past Regent of the Charles Dibrell Chapter presenting the certificate.

From the program notes: “The Charles Dibrell Chapter of the Albuquerque DAR is pleased to present Tom Miles the DAR Community Service Award for his creation of the Albuquerque Tricentennial Timeline. The timeline itself depicts 600 years of Albuquerque history in a large 4 foot x 16 foot poster-format piece mounted in the East Wing of the Albuquerque Convention Center and the Passenger Waiting Lounge at the Sunport. It depicts and relates interesting historical events throughout the world as well as describing the many and varied ethnic and cultural arrivals and contributions to Albuquerque over this 600 year period. The Timeline Project took two years to complete and required Tom to meet repeatedly with the University of New Mexico History Department, the State Folklorist, the State Historian, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, the Spanish Colonial Research Center and the National Hispanic Cultural Center. For graphics, Tom worked with Sandia Labs Graphics Department. The timeline was considered to be sufficiently interesting and valuable that the Tricentennial Committee contracted for the printing of a number of smaller, 2 foot x 4 foot, copies which were given to the Albuquerque Public School, Parochial and selected private high school and middle schools throughout Albuquerque to facilitate teaching Albuquerque, New Mexico, US and world history and Social Studies. It is impossible with a photo to show the importance of this work. You may want to  view on line two very informative YouTube videos produced  by Tom:  “5 Perspectives on Albuquerque, NM” and “Mexican Immigration Through New Mexico and the Southwest.”

Great Albuquerque/Coronado History Read

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Cities of Gold PPBKCities of Gold
A Journey Across the American Southwest in Pursuit of Coronado
Douglas Preston, 1992

463 richly researched and documented pages detailing 450 years of southwest adventure and discovery! Very hard to put down!

Douglas Preston literally takes you in his saddle bag on two 900-mile horseback/roughing-it odysseys with his cantankerous Santa Fe artist friend Walter Nelson. Two journeys cover the same geography: Coronado’s 1540 epic exploration from New Spain/Mexico through Arizona, New Mexico and Kansas.

The chapters and episodes are written from multiple viewpoints: New Spain’s (Mexico’s) culture, Coronado’s expectations in planning and leaving New Spain, Coronado’s experiences en-route, various and numerous native American initial encounters with white Europeans – Mexican Aztecs – and black Africans, And last, but not least by a long shot, … Doug and Walter’s experiences and observations of both what had changed and how little had changed in the intervening 450 years.

I found this a tremendous context piece to open my understanding and appreciation of the nearly complete uniqueness of New Mexico in particular and America’s great southwest in general. You will be exposed to amazing repeating patterns of history from 1540s Spain and New Spain right up into today’s New Mexico business and politics.

Cites of Gold is a thoroughly charming, entertaining, amazing, irritating, enlightening, frustrating, and fulfilling read! Check it out for yourself!

Great Albuquerque Adventure Read

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Clearing CustomsClearing Customs, by Martha Egan (July 2009), is a new and rollicking good read!  And a lot of it takes place in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

It is worthy noting that this story takes place in 1988-99, long before the Patriot Act’s privacy invasions became commonplace.  The book’s protagonist and heroine is Beverly Parmentier, owner of a small Latin American folk aft and antiques importing store in Old Town.

How Beverly finds herself and her store under surveillance by U. S. Customs Service is a humorous happenstance of President Reagan’s Central American policies and a relentless and opportunistic Customs Service Albuquerque Station Chief. The story shifts into high gear from there and never lets up until the last pages.

Beverly (Martha) relates in detail her surveillance as the story careens from Albuquerque across the country.  They include Customs Service employment of Vietnam Vets and taxpayer funded junkets to “surveil” Beverly from Albuquerque’s Old Town, North Valley, Santa Fe, Washington, D. C., a Colorado river raft trip, and a Caribbean island “getaway.”  You’ll howl both in laughter and in anger, over the ineptness and relentlessness of the federales abuses of power.  And then you will smile wickedly at the justice of the finale.

Lots of familiar territory and names and places throughout should make Clearing Customs a particularly enjoyable read to everyone familiar with Albuquerque, Santa Fe, New Mexico … or U. S. Customs.