Not too long after getting my driver’s license in 1977, or maybe even a bit before, my father entrusted me with perhaps the single sexiest vehicle in automotive history. It looked almost identical to this: The “wood-paneled,” “station wagon” Vega was just one of a melange of not-so-great vehicles my dad rotated through, seemingly because… Read More Burning Down the Chevy Vega

Note: This Week in “Better Burque does Duke City Fix” we look at an old professional wound that continues to fester… Before I started bothering people here at Duke City Fix and elsewhere in that greatest of roles for people who wish to be bothersome, the “semi-retired person,” I was a full-time professional bother as… Read More When APS Says “Reorganize,” Watch Out: The District and Gifted Education

After a truly carnage-filled 2016, New Mexico traffic fatalities in 2017 continue to hover somewhere between the record high of last year and the increasingly apparent outlier low of 2015. Here are the monthly figures through April: While the overall numbers this year are significantly down from last year, the rate of pedestrians killed in New Mexico… Read More Observations From the April 2017 Traffic Fatality Report

Rosalie Rayburn’s fine story at the Albuquerque Journal on Olivier Kamndon, the Central African Republic refugee struck while walking across Montgomery near Carlisle, illustrates the importance of personalizing pedestrian crash victims. Mr. Kamndon’s story of successfully fleeing, after incredible hardship, the war-torn C.A.R., only to be nearly killed by a driver in the NE Heights, is compelling,… Read More Deepening Understanding of the Pedestrian Epidemic: The Story of Olivier Kamndon

Touring NE New Mexico, Summer 2011: Somewhere Near Trementina, NM Every Summer since 2009, with one exception, I’ve gone on some length of bicycle touring either here in the States or through parts of Europe. These tours have included rolling along a few hundred miles of the Mississippi River, getting from Pittsburgh to D.C. and then… Read More A Short Primer on Why You Should Take a Bicycle Tour

Having been a teacher in Albuquerque for over 20 years has had its ups and downs, and the greatest “up” has been the chance to work with some of the smartest, most inspiring young people on the planet. Yes, here in Albuquerque. Example: A colleague and I were discussing some of his current work involving… Read More Graduation Time in ABQ; Get Out Your Lassos