Kerner.net

Santa Fe: Bandelier National Monument

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Originally uploaded by kerner.

Bandelier is a monument for the cliff-dwelling Native Americans about 40 minutes NW of Santa Fe fairly close to Los Alamos. The dwellings aren't reconstructed as they are at Mesa Verde, but the park gives a good overview of the people who lived there. There are several places where you can climb ladders to various hollows in the cliff face, one that involves several climbs and an ascent of over 200 feet (as seen in the photo).

Santa Fe: Cowgirl BBQ & Cafe

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Originally uploaded by kerner.

Wednesday night we had dinner at Cowgirl BBQ & Cafe one of the few restaurants in Santa Fe that is open later than 9pm. After Bandelier and a very late lunch at Sugar's dinner after 9 was a requirement. We sat on the patio which was a bit chilly, but there was live music and it seemed to be the happening place to sit. Sarah ordered an exceptional vegetarian chili and I ate a buffalo burger. Sarah especially liked the chili because it had garbanzos in it. I'm usually a bit leary of buffalo because it tends to be dry, but this burger was quite good. We accompanied our meal with pale ale from the Santa Fe Brewing Company.

Nokia 6682: Car Blogging

I've been needing a new cell phone for quite a while. Partially to switch my number to the Springfield area and partially just because I'm a gadget freak and my Siemens phone was getting old (almost 2 years). My criteria for a phone has been: Cingular, bluetooth, and Flash. Which basically means I needed a Series 60 smartphone. I've been waiting for the Nokia 6682 to ship and it arrived on Monday. You can get this phone from Amazon for $99 with a new service agreement.

The Series 60 platform is outstanding, I'm loving this phone after less than a week with it. The camera takes decent pictures and the bundled lifeblog application easily uploads them to Flickr. It syncs smoothly with iSync on my Powerbook. Best of all with the EDGE connectivity I'm able to use it as a modem for the notebook. This post is being written/posted from the passenger seat of my car on I-44 between Springfield and Lebanon. The unlimited data plan from Cingular costs an additional $19.99/month, but after having used 25mb of data in a week it's a lot better than the metered approach.

There is a wealth of software available for this phone. I haven't installed the Macromedia Flash Lite player yet, but plan to shortly. So far I've installed:

• AgileMessenger -- AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber instant messaging from the phone. This is actually more useful than I thought it would be and I was happy to pay the $23 after just one day using it.
  
• ProfiMail -- POP3 and IMAP email client. If you want email on a Series 60 device, profimail is the way to go. It does violate the standard S60 UI rules to expand screen space, but I think this is a wise decision. The current version supports SSL and T9 for text input making email easy, quick, and secure.
  
• eeMame -- Multi Arcade Machine Emulator. Why play a crappy java game on your phone when you could be playing Frogger or Ms. PacMan.
  
• GoBoy -- GameBoy color emulator. Allows you to play GB roms on your phone.
  
• JJkeylock -- I looked at a lot of auto keylock applications and I think this is the best.
  
• Oggplay -- Music player for all built in file types and Ogg files. I'm mostly using m4a files from iTunes. I'm still looking for a good way to sync files.
  
• Opera -- This came bundled with the phone, but I've since installed the free version 8 upgrade.
  
• Putty -- a great SSH client which is very useful.
  
• s60Zip -- allows you to open zip files.
  
• Torch -- a simple application that lets you use the large, bright screen of the phone as a flash light.
  

As I said earlier I still want to install FlashLite and I'm looking for a good file sync tool for the Mac. Overall this phone fits every need I have for a PDA: connected to the web, email, IM, and synchronization with my address book and calendar. The only thing I would really want is a Blackberry style thumb keypad. I will probably need to get an MMC card bigger than the 64mb one that ships with the phone, but for now I've got about 20mb free.

Santa Fe Posts Will Resume

I'm not dead, and I'm still going to write up the series of posts about Santa Fe. I've been swamped working on some fairly major changes in my life. Can't say yet, but hopefully Monday I'll have an update that is fit for posting. After that posting about daily life should be much more frequent.

I'm going to try to write up all of the vacation posts this weekend. They'll be filtered into the site over the next couple of weeks to fill in the slow spots in my posting.

Moxie!

If you're sick and tired of the crap movies that get shown at the cineplex there is one easy solution, The Moxie. Sarah and I went to last night and had a great time. I'd wanted to go opening night but with things at church and figuring the theater would be swamped we decided opening weekend was good enough. The Moxie is a theater like Springfield has never seen.

I've always been a fan of lesser-known films. In high school I spent most of my movie budget at the Tivoli. When The Ragtag opened in Columbia I was excited. The Ragtag experience though leaves something to be desired. The more I've learned about The Moxie the more excited I am to support it. Dan and Nicole have built a real theater with the Moxie unlike Ragtag where it seems thrown together and you sit on furniture that feels like it was collected from the curb the Moxie has real (albeit old) movie seats. The Moxie unlike every other theater in town also has leg room -- a welcome, and comfortable feature. When you enter the Moxie you feel like you're going to the movies in the era of big theaters -- you are greeted by a collage of movie images and the hallway is lined with local art.

Theaters die without concession sales and the Moxie has one of the best selections I've seen. They serve popcorn with 10 different flavored toppings, classic movie theater candy, and high quality soda. The Moxie is also the only theater in town where you can get beer or wine to go with your movie. Sarah and I enjoyed the popcorn with white cheddar topping and both drank cream sodas. My only real complaint would be a situation Dan is aware of, the lack of cupholders on the seats.

Currently the Moxie is showing Me and You and Everyone We Know next week they'll open Murderball. I didn't know anything about the movie before we went to see it last night but it's great fun and certainly worthy of the awards it has won. I'm excited to see Murderball, which means that the Moxie will get me in the doors for their first two official films. I know there are plans to show cult classics like Office Space as well that will be a huge hit in the college town. I hope Dan can also be convinced to show some classic films that we don't have the opportunity to see on a big screen in Springfield.

If you haven't been to the Moxie you should certainly go soon and go regularly. Oh, and buy some snacks.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Ahoy!! Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day and in honor o' this great holiday I thought t' followin' poll was good. Learn your pirate name, and make anybody who won't use it walk t' plank.

My pirate name is:

Captain Sam Flint

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Santa Fe Update

There may be more posting later today, but stay tuned over the next week or so for a full write up of the various things that have been going on during the vacation.

A brief preview:
1. Cowgirl BBQ & Cafe -- not too shabby
2. Bandelier -- ladders are fun
3. Sugar's -- so good we went two days in a row
4. Ghost Ranch -- hiking to chimney rock
5. Taos -- the why Taos sucks series, because one post isn't enough
6. Sanctuario de Chimayo
7. Restaurante Rancho de Chimayo

Today's agenda includes: breakfast burritos, Maria's, beer, and whatever else we end up doing this afternoon.

Santa Fe: Tomasita's

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Originally uploaded by kerner.

Last night for dinner we went to Tomasita's. A restaurant that came highly recommended. It didn't let us down. The wait was a bit longer than any place we've been in Santa Fe, but the food was great (and afordable). The restaurant posts warnings that the chile is spicy and that they're not responsible if your meal is too hot. We took this as a good sign.

Sarah ordered their tamales and I had the special which consisted of a chile relleno, a taco, and a chicken enchilada. We did order the chile on the side which meant we got small dishes of both red and green chile sauce. It wasn't too spicy, so we both used quite a bit of our preferred chile sauce (I prefer the green, Sarah the red). Our meal also came with sopapillas and honey butter which completely cooled the mouth. Accompanied by Mexican beer it was quite a good meal.

Outside Santa Fe

Today we're driving to several Native American pueblos, Bandalier National Monument, and Ghost Ranch (where Georgia O'Keefe lived). There will be lots of nature photos today, we're hoping to take enough that we can put together a good grouping. We're also stopping for lunch at Sugar's BBQ & Hamburgers. Today will be a day without New Mexican food.

The Shed

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Originally uploaded by kerner.

Today for lunch we took the advice of Ranse (one of the partner's at Sarah's firm) and several people we spoke to in Santa Fe and had lunch at The Shed. The Shed is famous for northern New Mexican cuisine, particularly using red chiles. The Shed has been a Santa Fe establishment since 1953.

The atmosphere like most things we've found in Santa Fe is incredibly laid back. The main restaurant is located in the back portion of a building (there is seating in the courtyard).

For lunch today we had what will be the first of several green chile stews (a write up of all of them will happen later), chips with salsa and the best guacamole I've had, and carne adovada.

Carne adovada is a dish of slow stewed pork cooked in a red chile sauce. It was served with rice, beans, posole (a pork and hominy stew), and a cheese enchilada with a blue corn tortilla. In keeping with The Shed's long tradition this was served with toasted french bread. The bread was actually a great accompaniment as it was the only thing on the plate that wasn't spicy.