Bell Ranch

I spent a full 24 hours on Bell Ranch this week. The 250,000-acre ranch is amazing. It's for sale right now at $115 million. The people there were great to work with. I so wish I could have gone on a trail ride around the property. From the center of the ranch everywhere you looked was part of the property. The sunset and sunrise were amazing and the amount of stars you could see at night was like no other. All in all it was a great experience.

Veterans Mass

Quite a few veterans turned out and current service men and women. One of the parishioners was being deployed to Iraq on Tuesday (which was yesterday). So the entire church prayed for him and his family and called his family up to the altar. His wife, holding their 10 day old son, was crying so hard I couldn't focus on her. I did for a second and started crying and decided that wasn't the important part of the story even though it showed the most emotion. I felt the community standing in front of them with their hands in the air and how they almost resembled a holy family standing up there praying for safety was where I wanted to focus. I wish I could have gotten more hands in the air in the frame but I see that looking back now.

Writers Strike

Soccer Jump

Indoor soccer winter training...

Santa's air landing

Santa came to town in a helicopter!

Oscar

Oscar is 98 and still going strong. It must be something in the New Mexico air, but there seem to be the most active and healthy seniors in this city. And I came from Florida, the land of retirees!

Against High School Recruiting

Engine 21

A dog always makes a press conference better. This one was up for adoption and they dubbed him "Engine 21."

Global Warming

Press conference on the weather.

More high school basketball

K9

Obedience competition for law enforcement K9s.

Snow and basketball season

These are all from last week... we had some snow up in the mountains and I had fun falling on the slippery ice at Sandia Crest. High school basketball is in high swing and so is wrestling apparently. And finally the last photo is my ode to not having a Christmas tree this year. It was funny though that the lot selling the trees had a fake one all decorated and lit up.

Catching up...

Somehow I've fallen behind in the blogging and now it's December. How did that happen? Thanksgiving is in the past and Christmas is a short 23 days away. So here are a few images from two to three weeks ago.

Senior citizen that reminded me of Ginger because of her spunkiness.

Colorful prescription pills that APD was going to burn.

Photo illustration stuff.

Motorcycle toy run where I met the real Santa Claus.

Exchange student from Korea.

Disc Golf Feech

A nice warm day almost two weeks ago and some friendly people.

Scenes from a Male Pageant

Piano Portrait

Portraits, portraits, portraits...

Dancing Sandhills

Felt like I was back in Florida with this assignment. Guess the birds and I like the same kinds of climate.

Matchmaker

There is one certified matchmaker in Duke City. I was sent on a couple's first date.

Recycle

Soccerfield Sidelines

For a story about soccer bringing family together and teaching life lessons.

Clothes I Can't Afford

Business portrait photo, the clothes were gorgeous... and expensive.

Playground Raising

New playground constructed in less than 24 hours.

Sour Grapes

This little guy was ready to be out of his costume. Mom made, it earned first place in a costume contest. He couldn't reach his own face with his little hands and kept bumping into people while walking around. His brother is the box of fries in the background.

Soldier Silhouettes

Two photos for two very different stories done weeks apart and yet very similar. The first was from a yellow ribbon ceremony for New Mexico Air National Guard's 150th Fighter Wing deploying to Iraq and the second was an illustration for a story on women veterans shot at the beginning of October.

Staring at the sky

So it's been a bit longer than normal since the last post. Since then this photo of grass along the Rio Grande has been making me happy as my new desktop. Blue skies here are like no where else. And on a side note, the photo in the last post "Arabian Nationals" was named AP photo of the month for New Mexico.

Arabian Nationals

Arabian Nationals are in town. Today was our first really cold day here. Four layers later and sheltered from the wind in a horse stall I was still struggling to feel my hands after an hour. It seemed some of the horses were coping better than others with the windy weather.

Another Car Show

Farewell Balloons

By now all the out-of-town balloonists have left Albuquerque. Here's just a few more balloon photos from last week.

A Visit from the Dark Side

This year's balloon fiesta had a new visitor. Darth Vader. It was most likely the crowd favorite since it easily attracted the largest crowd each morning it took off and had many children and adults carrying around light sabers all day long. A few of us photographers decided to put together a group Soundslides on the Darth Vader balloon and decided to wait until Special Shapes day to do it. It was a long day but worth it in the end. And I got to practice my French with the Belgian crew that flew the balloon. It was some butchered French but who would have guessed I would get to use French in New Mexico.

Thanks Benoit Lambert and crew of Darth Vader!

For anyone wishing to figure out how to post Soundslides to a blog I'm going to try and type out how I'm doing so soon.

Sandia = Watermelon

I'm slowly learning Spanish words I never knew before... this soccer feature was plain cute until I learned that "Watermelon" translates to "Sandia," which just happens to be the name of the school these girls had just beat during a soccer match.

Cabezon Peak

The adventures here seem to never end. Last week I was sent on a "hike" with a reporter for our GO section. The reporter is writing it first person so I used him in most of the photos as a reference of scale. Little did anyone tell me how desolate the area we were going was. The trail was barely marked with rocks and oh did I mention it was up hill? It was more of a climb than a hike. I survived though and signed the log book at the top wondering if I was the only Floridian to conquer the peak so far. It's not a well known place just yet and only sees visitors every few days and even then it's one or two people a day. The most common sentence written in the log book was, "Beautiful view, don't know how I'm going to get down."