Author Archives: Patrick Lamb

More than 50 years after I graduated from college, I still have occasional dreams about not finishing a final assignment in class, missing too many classes, flunking a final exam and not being able to graduate. I’m told that this is a fairly common phenomenon, probably because for the first time in our young livesContinue reading “Some things never change…”

—Mark Twain on a speaking tour of England in 1897 I’ve written two earlier blogs about people who were reported dead, even though they were very much alive. One involved our good friend Cheryl who discovered on her Ancestry family tree that she had been listed as dead since 2011. She is still very muchContinue reading ““The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated…””

I’ve completed my first week as a clerk in an early voting polling place at the Mesilla Town Hall. Everything has run smoothly, except for a couple of hiccups I created when registering people to vote. My fat fingers on a tiny keyboard didn’t help and some misunderstanding on birth dates and name spelling byContinue reading “Emilio Naranjo would be rolling in his grave…”

At my temporary job as an election clerk for the November general election, I’ve been tasked with doing same day voter registrations. We don’t expect many of them — at least at my polling site — but we do have to follow specific procedures in order to register someone on the same day. One ofContinue reading “This probably won’t work…”

During the next couple of weeks, my posts may be a bit sporadic — if at all. I decided earlier this year to answer the call for people to serve as election clerks in Dona Ana County and I’ve been assigned to do an early voting job in Mesilla starting Saturday, Oct. 22. By theContinue reading “The black widow spider voting conspiracy…”

Last weekend, I attended a reunion of the New Mexico State University rugby team, which I coached for many years starting in the early 1980s. I think I was coach for more than 10 years. During that time, I had one team which finished third in the national championships, several teams which won regional championshipsContinue reading “On being a coach…”

I read with amusement in last week’s Albuquerque Journal about some skullduggery by two contestants in an Ohio walleye fishing tournament. The two claimed to have won the tournament by catching fish that weighed more than those of any of the other contestants. After some eyebrows were raised because the winning fish seemed to beContinue reading “Big fish, no weights…”

The October 2022 issue of Car and Driver magazine arrived in my mailbox last week and included a story which triggered memories of another story which I helped circulate many years ago when I was New Mexico bureau manager for United Press International. The story in the car magazine talked about research being done onContinue reading “A different kind of black gold in New Mexico…”

This will be kind of a mish-mash of short subjects that occurred to me last week and during one mostly sleepless night when a late evening glass of iced tea was responsible for my caffeine-charged brain wandering around aimlessly in my skull. __________ The first involved a trip to the Southern New Mexico Fair, whereContinue reading “The Red, White and Moo — and other musings…”

You’ve got to give it up to the kids in Clovis. They know how to get in on the latest online challenges. And also how to get the attention of their school nurses. A report last week said that the nursing staff in Clovis schools had suddenly been inundated with treating kids eating a newContinue reading “Flamin’ Hot Cheetos are so yesterday…”

An article in this week’s Albuquerque Journal announced that the iconic slope in the center outfield of Isotopes Park was being removed. It was a unique feature that was installed when the park was completely redesigned in 2003 in an apparent nod toward eliminating the “cookie cutter” approach to baseball parks that had been pannedContinue reading “Thrill Hill no more…”

Be careful out there. There could be a baby alligator or tiger lurking somewhere in the state. Police in Albuquerque reported earlier this month that they had received a tip that a juvenile tiger was being held captive in an apartment in the city. When they checked the apartment, they didn’t find a tiger. TheyContinue reading “Is New Mexico the dumping ground for team mascots?”

I wrote a blog earlier about how a bunch of Atari video games had been buried in a landfill near Alamogordo as the company was slowly dying in the early 1980s. Sources say 29 truckloads or almost 800,000 games which could not be sold were dumped in the Alamogordo landfill apparently because the company wasContinue reading “E.T., Phone Alamogordo…”

Our semi-rural neighborhood has always had lots of critters running around in it — skunks, raccoons, foxes, squirrels and even an occasional javelina. It makes the place interesting as long as they don’t invade the house, spray our dog Chester or dig up the yard. Three weeks ago, we went on a week-long trip toContinue reading “We won’t get a great rating on our squirrel airbnb…”