Author Archives: Patrick Lamb

A New Mexico man’s plan to buy an airplane in Wisconsin in 2018 proved there should have been a little more flight planning than just checking the weather. The would-be purchaser had asked another man, from Portales, to fly with him to Wisconsin to pick up the aircraft after it was purchased, then fly itContinue reading “A flight plan that hatched, then fell out of the nest…”

A story in last week’s Albuquerque Journal about Tesla opening a factory outlet in New Mexico led me to reflect on a somewhat similar set of circumstances in the state several years ago. Both involved efforts by trade groups to protect their turf in the Land of Enchantment. The Tesla outlet, the Journal reported, willContinue reading “They got more than they wished for…”

Last Saturday, our excessively affable and energetic Golden Doodle, Chester, encountered a skunk in our back yard.  Although Chester was apparently interested in making a friend, the skunk would have none of it.  Luckily ,Chester didn’t get a full frontal blast on his face — just a glancing blow on his side.  I had justContinue reading “No, Chester hasn’t been smoking pot, he’s just high on life in general…”

During the 1999 New Mexico Legislature, a resolution was proposed to give New Mexico an “official state question.” I remember hearing an interview on National Public Radio with the late Sen. Ben Lujan, father of our current U.S. Senator Ben Ray Lujan, explaining why the question “Red or Green” was important to the state. TheContinue reading “It was a pretty good question…”

Every spring/early summer, the New Mexico State University experimental garden just down the street from our house sells various plants that they have perfected/raised from seed and put in planting containers for sale to the public. This year, I bought three medium heat chile plants and two Big Jim chile plants to put in ourContinue reading “Chile confidential…”

Yeah, I know almost every one of you readers has cute grandkid stories. But bear with me on this one — it’s about what a class of pre-kindergarten kids had to say after one full week in school. Last week, students in my youngest grandson’s class were learning about each other and the families ofContinue reading “Pre-K perspectives…”

An adult black bear, apparently thinking it needed to cool off during the summer of 2005, wandered into the lobby of a Holiday Inn in Raton. It walked past a terrified front desk clerk, then ambled down the hallway to the swimming pool area. While taking a dip in the pool, the New Mexico GameContinue reading “Raton is a great place… especially if you’re a bear.”

Three stories I dug up in the 2013 Albuquerque Journal had explosive topics. In the first, officers were called to Conchas Lake State Park in northeastern New Mexico to investigate a loud explosion, followed by a plume of black smoke. The culprit? It was a portable outdoor toilet whose contents — likely a mass ofContinue reading “2013 was an explosive year…”

It was late spring 1963. School would be out for the summer in a couple of weeks and many students had probably mentally checked out for the rest of the school term. A group of young kids,  friends who were probably feeling their independence growing, were wandering through the Mesilla Park neighborhood on this warmContinue reading “History in concrete…”

People who have lived in New Mexico a while are always a bit amused and annoyed when they see maps, postcards and other kitsch showing a saguaro cactus in the state. Many years ago, at a tacky curio shop I ventured into during a gas stop, I found a kitchen magnet in the shape ofContinue reading “Maybe it got lost…”

My first reaction to a story in last week’s Albuquerque Journal was, how do you manage to lose track of this much stuff? The story involved the loss of $2 million in ball bearings from White Sands Missile Range. The missing ball bearings, which officials said weighed about 230,000 pounds or 115 tons, ended upContinue reading “Missing metal…”

I ran across an interesting article in my BMW Car Club of America magazine,  Roundel, regarding car ownership and vehicle dependency rates by state. A car shopping website called Co-Pilot, lists the top ten states in terms of number of cars owned per person, along with other statistics. New Mexico ends up being ninth onContinue reading “Why New Mexico might be on this top ten list…”

I was skimming through the day’s top news stories on the internet last week when I came across this surprising headline from Reuters: “New Mexican vigilante group’s sympathizers set fire to government offices, businesses.” As you might expect, I was rather stunned to read this news about our state and wondered where the burning ofContinue reading “Headline headaches…”

Two years ago today, a surgeon stitched a pig heart valve into my heart to replace a  recalcitrant aortic valve that hiccupped along for more years than it should have lasted. I’m still doing fine, maybe slowing down a bit, but that’s probably just age related. All of us Boomers feel like we’ll never getContinue reading “Two years and oinking along…”