Columns

Pastor Granillo: Finding Happiness

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By Pastor RAUL GRANILLO

Los Alamos

Charles Spurgeon said, “It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.” I dare say most of us can relate to that. As I put more years behind me, I find that I appreciate what I have more than I used to and that I make a greater attempt to enjoy those things I do have before I lose them.

The romantic love that caused me to pursue my wife, the moments that my kids want to hang out, the ability to comfort friends; all these things mean more to me now than they used to and as such they also make me happier. But I also know, like the rest of the world, that these things Read More

Smart Design With Suzette – Projects With Best Return On Investment

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Smart Design with Suzette 
Projects With The Best Return On Investment
By SUZETTE FOX

When a client invites me over for a consultation, one question inevitably comes up, “What renovations should I make to get the best return on investment?” Here is a list of upgrades with percentages attached so you can learn what makes the most sense.

Plan Your Remodel

Give yourself time to live in the home. Make a list of updates you need to make and how long you will live in the home. If you are planning on selling in the future, talk with a realtor and/or designer about a selling plan. Determine the cost of updates, Read More

TALES OF OUR TIMES: How Safe Is ‘Safe?’

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By JOHN BARTLIT
New Mexico Citizens
for Clean Air & Water

How Safe is “Safe?”

Though less gripping than murder scenes, news stories often cover safety issues. The pattern is standard: The first expert claims that something is not safe and another says the safety is top-notch.

Are airlines safe? Is a new medicine safe? Are we safe from terrorists?

The two experts hammer away at their unerring, inscrutable points, then go their separate ways, having said nothing useful about safety. 

What does it mean to be safe or unsafe? Let’s begin with something as safe as walking to work. Thousands Read More

Solo Traveler: Zoos Around The World

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A coati (or coatimundi) at the zoo in Belize. Photo by Sherry Hardage
 
A spider monkey at the Belize Zoo. Photo by Sherry Hardage
 
Solo Traveler
Zoos around the World
By SHERRY HARDAGE

While on a family trip to the Dallas zoo, in the late 60s, my father spotted a man cleaning out the yak enclosure. He asked if he could have a small bag of yak poop. The man looked at him in horror, as if he imagined those little round balls might end up as a joke in somebody’s spaghetti sauce.

I was in junior high at the time, and got away from that conversation as fast as I could. My father seemed to delight in finding Read More

Hannemann’s Music Corner: The Sustain

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Hannemann’s Music Corner
By RICHARD HANNEMANN
Los Alamos

The Sustain

One of the truly neat things about the guitar is its natural sustain. Play a note and then sit back and listen to it roll.

There are very few instruments that have this characteristic, the two most notable being the piano and the orchestral harp. The downside to the natural sustain of the piano is that it can be thunderous. Push down the sustain pedal on your piano and play a lot of chords and notes; it becomes a very flood of cacophony, and a powerful one at that, which overwhelms the melodies, counterpoint, harmonies, notes in a tsunami Read More

This Week At The Reel Deal

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By JIM O’DONNELL
Reel Deal Theater

We had 25 contenders and only one winner for our second annual Reel Deal Academy Award Contest. If Boyhood would have won instead of Birdman, I would have had to award about 20 six-month passes.

Birdman, the quirky but original film was a bit of surprise but maybe the Academy is looking for original, non-sequel films. This is a good thing as the days of four, five or even six sequals are getting real old.

Having said that I am also convinced the Academy is becoming more disconnected with movie patrons. If it was up to moviegoers, the winner list would look very Read More

Real Estate Corner: 10 Tips To Purchasing A New Home

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Real Estate Corner
By CARRIE MONTOYA-PEGG
10 Tips to Purchasing a New Home

Buying a new home is exciting and a big commitment, both emotionally and financially. These 10 steps of the home buying process can help you make the best decision possible so you can purchase with confidence:.

  • Step 1: Find a Mortgage Lender. Your mortgage lender can pre-qualify you for a mortgage and provide with the price range you should be looking at in your home search. A pre-qualification letter will be issued to you by your mortgage lender.
  • Step 2: Find the right Real Estate Professional. A Realtor ® can help you find
Read More

How The Hen House Turns—Chicken Moxie

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How the Hen House Turns
Chicken Moxie
By Carolyn A. (Cary) Neeper, Ph. D.

Last week I reviewed our experience building the Hen House. What amazed me then, and still resonates now, is how the birds adapted to our ideas.

They laid eggs in the nest boxes. They entered the House at dusk and sat on the roosts to sleep. They drank from water jugs (cut down gallon plastic jugs), re-supplied their gizzards with oyster shells to grind their food (LA tuff doesn’t provide good hard pebbles for grit.), and ate their lay pellets laced with cracked corn.

Over its 40 years of intermittent occupancy, the Hen House provided Read More

Food on the Hill: A Lighter Eggplant Parmigiana

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FOOD on the HILL
By FELICIA ORTH

I know that if I ask the husband what he wants for dinner, he is likely to say “vegetables in curry” or “eggplant parm.” (Either answer, of course, is better than “I don’t care,” which I find annoying and unhelpful, even if his intention is to convey that he’s flexible, or something.)  

Although I’ve been cooking since I was a child, I had never prepared eggplant parmigiana before our marriage. When I did finally try to make it for dinner, I was put off by the amount of cheese, bread crumbs, frying oil and active time necessary to prepare it. Over the years I tried to reduce Read More

Yang: Smart Technologies…May Need Some EQ

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Yang: Smart Technologies…May Need Some EQ (Emotional Intelligence)
 
By ELENA YANG
Los Alamos

There is always tension between wanting to be apart from others, asserting our individual identity, and desiring to belong to a collective, be it an organization or a culture. And this tension is more evident and acceptable in some societies than in others. 

For instance, in Chinese culture, the desire to be more individualistic is certainly not encouraged and often actively suppressed, whereas in the States, coexistence of individualism and belonging seems to be ubiquitous. Perhaps Read More