Comments on: more notes from west texas

By: ultimatum

ultimatum — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:26:48 +0000

Those pictures are amazing, I wish I could go mountain biking there. I like extreme situations and mountains like those. Great images. Thank you and keep up the good work.

By: Michelle/chelpixie

Michelle/chelpixie — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:54:36 +0000

Sounds like you’ve found a place that feels like home.
I recently discovered the same for myself. It’s a pretty beautiful thing.

By: Susan

Susan — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:26:38 +0000

Airstreams are a great way to stay out there since they help force you to conserve water unless you enjoy frequently dumping your black water tank.
It’s beautiful how that part of Texas puts the lie to most assumptions about the flatness of the state.

By: eolai

eolai — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:42:44 +0000

I wonder if you’ll remember the pull when you really need to, some time in the future when you have too many meetings scheduled in London?

By: Chris Weige

Chris Weige — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:58:44 +0000

Hugh,
For a guy with plenty of great ideas, this is one of your best yet. Great thread throughout. More power to you.
Chris

By: Brian Clark

Brian Clark — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:26:37 +0000

But Hugh, didn’t you hear? Michael Arrington says that you have to be in Silicon Valley to matter.
You know, I’m starting to think that the only people who get it are outside the Valley. But please don’t invite them to Alpine.

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:38:12 +0000

Good point re. Oil, Candice. Thanks. Updated the blog post accordingly.
Re. the desert. The first time I drove through it I made sure to pack a few gallon bottles of water in the trunk of the car. We never needed them in the end, thank god, but in retrospect it was a good and wise thing to have them.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:14:26 +0000

As someone who has wandered the Grand Canyon and surrounding country in a Geology class I am inclined to disagree. We have fossilized sand dunes and nearly everytime of rock formation imaginable up in our region.
Now if he is refering to just driving to the Rim and then leaving sure, but we have some amazing stuff in Northern AZ Hugh!
Have to defend my home turf. If you want to avoid tourists and visit the canyon that’s child’s play you just drive to the North Rim, it gets hardly any tourists and South Utah has some great geology just North of their as well.
End of my geology rant.

By: David Burn

David Burn — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:08:18 +0000

Speaking of Airstreams, it takes a village... http://davidburn.com/blog/2007/10/28/vintage-ecotopia-takes-root-in-west-texas/

By: JTH

JTH — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:43:58 +0000

Hugh
1) desert living: you might want to check Edward Abbey
http://www.abbeyweb.net/
2) love the desert in spring, use to attend PCForum, best when it was in Tucson, and we’d get outside town
3) ultra-rural living, discovered the same some years ago. We live on a lake, surrounded by national park, seasonal folks are here about 3–4 months, otherwise traffic is seeing another car on the road.
Cable-internet and wifi’d the house
Working to bring high speed internet to other parts of our county. Imperative for ex-urban knowledge workers
4) you might a chuckle:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/travel/escapes/22cabin.html?scp=1&sq=cabin&st=nyt
Keep up the good work
JTH

By: candice

candice — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:55:43 +0000

Big Bend is cool. Went there on a long roadtrip in the early 1990s with my parents, just after a rain, so we got to see it green. My dad was born in west Texas and wanted to go back and see it.
Stayed at the lodge, and it was the first time I’d ever been in a hotel room without a TV.
(Also. Oil business mentioned in the last post? Doing what?)

By: vicequeenmaria

vicequeenmaria — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:18:59 +0000

When you find a place you resonate with, go for it!
Prickly pear is well-known in alternative medicine and as a food & beauty item (health food stores). Even so it seems it can’t be over-harvested!

By: Anna

Anna — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:47:02 +0000

I was once stranded in the desert of Utah — car trouble. In the heat of summer. Alone. You do, at such times, realize the awesome expansiveness & potentially unforgiving nature of the desert — though in a somewhat beautiful kind of way.
Your ghost town visit — so interesting to learn about. Thanks.

By: Jim S.

Jim S. — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 05:07:37 +0000

When we first opened our Joplin, MO office a few years ago I joked that it was “a truck stop with a zip code” and figured we’d never really be able to hire for that location. Turns out I was wrong. We were able to tap into a vein of folks ready to move back from the edges into the heartland. Time to fill the positions was longer, but we managed to attract really good people.

By: cmoreno

cmoreno — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:04:22 +0000

interesting notion that the small towns and the iconic down-home “american” community might see a resurgence.
since i moved out of silion valley and in to part of america’s heartland here in tulsa i’ve really grown to love the “real-ness” of folks that live out here. i’ve seen a lot of people from the coasts give up on the rat race and settle in tulsa, in other parts of oklahoma, texas, etc.
i know i myself am more grounded, more sane, more connected to the people around me and the community that i live in, after living a decade here. it’s a great place to raise my daugther. i am much happier knowing she’ll grow up here than in the plastic frenzy of san jose.