Los Alamos

Well Los Alamos, it’s been real.

Our first trip here way back in May filled me with so much excitement. There was the gorgeous drive up the hill from Espanola, and while it was always the same road, the view constantly changed. I could never consider it boring. I was always the little kid on the passenger’s side, staring out the window, gasping in awe at the never-ending mountain ranges and red and orange cliffs.

But there was the struggle of meeting new people and getting to know you; convincing your safe, protective town that we really were just two student journalists, desperate to be its friend. There was the downside of unreturned calls, privacy, vacations…everything that we should have considered before we headed out to the field, but never did. And while I still can’t understand why the town shuts down before 8 p.m. everynight, I kinda dig the incredibly relaxed, chill environment you live by.

But if it’s possible, I’m not afraid to admit the obvious: the novelty of all of this began to wear off the second time around. I could lie and say that it was because I couldn’t get excited every morning by the drive, since we actually stayed in town this time. But I know the truth.

Gradually, I realized that this wasn’t just an all-paid for, getaway vacation. There came a time when I had to stick my head back in the car and not get distracted by the beauty surrounding me. We were actually here to work. To get our stories. Because our goal was not necessarily to make friends, though I’d like to think we made quite a few.

Like the Begnaud family, who allowed me to basically invade their home throughout my time here in Los Alamos. I documented as much as I could, and it was during this new experience for me, and for them, that I realized that no matter how much I wanted to be everyone’s “friend”, sometimes it wasn’t possible when I was sticking a camera in their face 24/7. It was a learning experience for me, and for the Begnaud’s, and I am extremely grateful that they welcomed me into their home and life as a strong, loving family.

The slow-paced atmosphere here also allowed a lot of “me” time. I went through ups and downs, break-downs, and stresses, which of course in time just had to lead to a brief sickness. But through those horrible moments when I thought the day would never end, I questioned a lot about my future in this field: Did I still want to write? Would I ever want to pursue a career in multimedia? Could I take the stress and emotional roller-coaster any more than I had over the course of the summer? If I could barely last two weeks away from home, was I more of a home-body than I had originally thought? Is this how it’s going to be when I actually start my career?

And I have to admit…I never did reach any conclusions while out here. Believe it or not, I’m still learning. Learning about the journalism field, this country, and perhaps most importantly, myself.

So, I’ve got some thinking to do. But first, one last adventure while here in the wild, wild west. Going on a four-seater plane tomorrow morning to get an aerial view of northern New Mexico and the sun rising. I know what you’re thinking…by all means…be as jealous as you’d like to be.

Melissa and I just got back from dinner with the Kendrick family. It gave us the chance to see 16-year-old Alexander’s underground cave radio that he’s 99% sure can send text messages from 1000ft below the ground. He let us into his laboratory, which is the “guest room” only in name because, well, just look at the picture:

Alexander Kendrick and the makings of his cave radio.

He also showed us his poster that “explains” the project. I put the word explains in quotation marks because, to me, most of it might as well have been written in Sanskrit….I have next to no idea what the squirming little esoteric symbols meant. So I asked him to explain his invention like he was talking to someone of my level of intelligence:

But the poster itself….ohhhh, the poster. Now, I’m not a science guy, and I don’t often–er, ever–find myself at academic conferences, but his poster was bigger than I expected. Like it needed its own zip code.

From left to right: Ira Glass, poster, Alex Kendrick

Which brings up the question: just how does one move a poster of that size? I mean, Alex and his radio are now a hot item and he needs to travel with the poster that explains it. The Intel International Science Fair (which took place in May and got him a 1st place prize) was held more than 1000 miles away, in Reno. So how did he get the poster there?

After that we started training for our cave descent. We practiced by “rappelling” down the stairs on their back deck. I quickly realized how long it had been since I last climbed and how much I’d forgotten. It was embarrassing, actually. I really thought I’d retained more of my skills than I actually have. I’ve got some training to do over the coming months, especially if I’m going to be able to effectively use the documentary equipment that will be strapped all over my body as we do a 300ft underground rappel in December.

About all I'm capable of using my climbing equipment for at this point: standing around talking.

As some might know and some might not, I soon begin work with Alex Kendrick, a young man who created a device capable of sending text messages from underground. Something that brought him a top prize at the Intel International Science Fair last May (read more “here). It’s pioneering work that, with further development, will surely lead to the saving of lives in both the recreational caving and underground mining communities. In December he will test the unit from deep within Carlsbad Caverns, nearly 1000ft below the surface of the earth. His device has successfully sent messages from ~600ft below ground, but this will be the deepest test yet. He says his calculations show it should work, but there’s no guarantee of success.

I will accompany him and a team of cavers on that journey, so part of what we’ll be doing this week is training for that “climb.” I’ve brought along some of my climbing gear, but I’ll be relying on Alex’s father, Brian, to bring me up to speed. I was already psyched to be a part of this, but when I got this image in my email inbox from Brian…

A subterranean view of Lechuguilla Cave, near Carlsbad Caverns where the radio test will take place. Photo by Brian Kendrick and Peter Bosted.

…I about had to change my underwear.

Often I wish I could just be “normal” and get a well-paying job with a nice desk and a mortgage (seriously, which one of you picket-fencers out there stole that gene from me? Do you really need two of them?), but at times like these I’m thankful for my restless spirit that gets me into these kinds of situations, and thankful there are people like the Kendricks who appreciate having a guest on such a journey.

-Brad

Hi Los Alamos. I’ve created this strange little video from the July 4th fireworks show at Overlook Park down in White Rock. I’m not sure why I created something so weird…..maybe it was hearing the soundtrack that played during the light show? That was a first for me. Did I hear a reenactment of a Civil War speech between the bangs and crackles of the fireworks?

Anyway, our time here is going well. Mostly I say that because we weren’t killed by the hailstorm today. Five hours later all the hail still hasn’t melted! Is such a thing common here?

Got to get to some video editing so I’ll stop here. I hope none of you were injured in today’s assault from the sky.

-Brad

Remember when you were that awesome high-schooler and going on a scavenger hunt was the cool thing to do on Friday nights?

…No?

Well, maybe it was a Delaware thing. Anyway, the lists would order you to do or find ridiculous things: Take a picture of you and your friends dancing around a car stopped at a red light. Walk through a drive-through at a fast food restaurant and order something.

You know, things that at the time were considered hilarious and mischievous, but now you look back on those memories and cringe in embarrassment. Just a little bit.

Well, “tweens” (now that word makes me cringe), teenagers, and adults are all about a new-age type of scavenger hunt that’s actually cool. And … wait for it… It involves technology: Geocaching!

You’ve probably heard of it. Sometimes I feel like I’m living under a rock, because I never had until a few days ago, when Eric Begnaud’s mom invited us to go geocaching with the whole family on Friday.

Incase you’re like me and it’s the first time you’ve heard of geocaching, it’s a whole scavenger hunt system that’s set up online. People provide information on how to get to a certain spot, where they have hidden a cache that others try to find with the help of a GPS. Like a treasure hunt, only this time technology plays a big role in helping you find the X that marks the spot.

Those doing the hunting put the coordinates in the GPS and as they get closer to the spot, the device beeps. Some people take something and leave something from the cache, but you don’t have to do that. Each container contains a little notebook and pen or pencil, and the finders can sign the book, proving that they found the “treasure”.

Then, you can log on to the main website and share your experiences with others online. Some people post photos of their hunt, others provide tips on what to avoid while on the hike (ie, on our hike the description said to stay clear of a wire fence where the skin of a deer was hung. Of course we all walked right by it, with Eric’s little brother Daniel poking away at it with a stick. Oy.)

The first geocache the Begnaud’s found was right on the side of a cliff, overlooking the canyon. The second one was a little ways off and was hidden in a tree. The whole treasure hunt ended up being a little over 4 miles. It was great to get outdoors and shoot some footage of the hike and the beauty of Los Alamos.

But I think the best part was that this all took place just a quarter of a mile from Eric’s neighborhood. That’s one thing I like about this area: You can walk just a few steps from your home and be in the middle of a beautiful nowhere. It’s not like New York City or Philadelphia, where one has to drive hours until (s)he reaches that sort of nature.

(Although, hiking plus filming plus keeping my eyes on the trail proved a bit difficult. I may or may not have walked through a patch of cacti on numerous occasions…ouch)

Here is a short video of our geocaching experience. It includes Brad’s photography, and I included audio from the video footage I shot, as well.

Hello, hello again!

We’re back here in lovely Los Alamos. And I can proudly say that for once, I did not bring any bad weather with me. The sun has been shining every day, and incredibly blue skies and a perfect breeze welcomed us back to LA with open arms.

The awesome Bouquin family has allowed us to stay in their home as they travel around Alaska for the next two weeks. (AKA Brad and I get to play with Chance the dog all day.) It’s nice to be living in a house rather than a hotel room for two weeks.

Yesterday I wasted no time in getting back in the groove. I had the chance to meet Robert Dryja, a math and sciences teacher at Los Alamos Middle School. Bob worked closely with the self-proclaimed computer geek Eric Begnaud for New Mexico’s Super Computing Challenge. It was great to get an outside perspective on not only Eric, but on the youth in general here in Los Alamos.

After my insightful meeting with Bob, I headed over to the Begnaud’s and spent some time just catching up with Eric. As I spend more and more time with Eric, I’m finding that there is so much more to this 13-year-old than just his talent for computer programming and video games. There’s a human story within the technology story, and I am excited to delve into that throughout the rest of my time here.

The days may be going slow, but it also allows Brad and I to get a lot of work done. And it doesn’t hurt that we have a beautiful view of mountains, cliffs, and a canyon as our backdrop.

Gotta run, I hear Chance’s collar tinkling toward me!

Melissa and I will be back in chile country next week Monday, June 29th. You can look for the flashbulbs at the Albuquerque airport–that’s how you’ll know it’s us. We’ll probably be hunkered down working on our stories with the Boquins, Begnauds, and Kendricks. But we’ll also be out and about, prioritizing nice trails, good green chile, and cheap sources of caffeine.

The past few weeks we’ve been working on stories in El Mirage, Arizona, a mostly-Hispanic community just outside Phoenix. I worked with a family that loved their laptop, but really wove it into the tapestry of their lives without giving it much priority. To show that, I asked each member of the family to choose the one item they couldn’t live without, then I recorded them telling me why they made that choice. I created a preview out of two people in the family. Here’s that video. Disfruta-lo.

-Brad

Here’s a little snippet I put together from our interview at Los Alamos high school a couple weeks ago. It will be added-to….but here’s the start of more to come. -Brad

We’re back in New York, and never has it seemed so…..flat. Flat in every way. New Mexico is a powerful place and I was starting to get used to it. The only problem is that we had to leave.

I already miss the red earth mountain chile burn, sparkling eyes of flowering chamisa and a thousand salvias, clouds and stars and skies so big that their weight is like a twinkling cosmic blanket. No wonder I drove back to my house last night with a lump in my throat, a traveler banished from the nexus of the West.

In thinking back over the past week and a half it’s hard to pick out the single best part of the journey. Was it struggling and then succeeding to find interesting stories to tell? Was it coming over the hill from Pilar to find the Rio Grande Gorge? Was it seeing the west through the first time eyes of Melissa?

Maybe it was the kids of Los Alamos that made things so special. In a town where guarded secrecy is a staple of life the kids there eschew caution and embrace things like a mesquite plant on the side of a canyon.

It was those things. Sort of. Mostly, though, it was the Boquin family. For our last several days in Los Alamos Melissa and I were made a part of their family. We laughed together. We hiked together. We at a lot of ice cream together. And we made media together.

Twelve year old Sarah started work on a podcast about young peoples views of technology both inside techie-as-all-get-out Los Alamos and also down in the valley in Chimayo, a sacred town of prayers and chiles along the Rio Vista Run River. It was there that Sarah interviewed Erica on land that’s been in her family for generations.

And while I’m handing out appreciations I need to appreciate chile culture. “Red or green?” is The State Question we were told many times and I think that should be the National Question. Before hanging out in New Mexico I would have hesitantly defended southern food as the best in the country. But any place that can serve up a supermarket salsa and chile selection this big…..

…..deserves to sit atop the regional cuisine pile. Yes, the chile section goes all the way to the basket at the end of the shot.

You made a couple new fans, New Mexico. Not that you care all that much. You all live in paradise and I can tell you’d be happy if the world never found out how good you have it. While the rest of us scramble to and fro, little ants in the crumbling concrete jungles of our minds, you all burn your smudge sticks and know that you’ve arrived at a destination much sweeter than anything Madison Avenue can dream up. My hats off to you all.

My last thought isn’t mine. It’s a line from one of my favorite movies, Off the Map, set outside Taos, NM. “The moment I saw you, Mrs. Grodin, the very first instant, I knew my life as I had understood it was… I’d been up since sunrise. My second night in the car, I was completely lost. I must have walked ten miles to a clearing, to your garden. To you, standing there in all those vines, those vegetables. I saw you and pignon trees behind, and the hill, and everything completely still. So beautiful. It was almost unbearable, it still is.”

-Brad

Today Brad and I set up for our last 50 People/1 question at the Mesa Public Library here in Los Alamos. I was skeptical that any teenagers would show up, seeing as the school year is ending this week, and I for one never went to the library to hang out after school when I was in high school.

I was proven wrong. The library here isn’t your typical “SHHHH!”-ing, quiet building filled books with a fine layer of dust on them. As Melissa, one of the librarians said, the library is “like the hub” of the town. Maybe it was because it’s finals week, but teenagers and middle schoolers were milling about. I thought we would be the ones making noise, but it was really everyone around us that had to be shushed so we could record.

Later in the day I shot some video and photos of 13-year-old Eric Begnaud at his Taekwondo class at the local YMCA. I have been meeting with Eric and his family for the past week, after Brad and I met him at Los Alamos Middle School during our second 50 people/1 question session. Eric is quite a character; he has this personality that relates so well to the topic Youth and Technology it’s almost too perfect. As an 8th grader who skipped 7th grade, he is the epitome of a techie. For about 4 hours on Monday Brad and I sat with him in his home as he played all of the computer games that he has created and/or edited “to make better.”

Eric Begnaud: Future Nintendo Employee Hopeful

He hopes to make video games for Nintendo when he grows up, and is the go-to guy at his school when teachers have a tech problem. From what I’ve learned from him so far, he’s a great kid, and good at heart. He loves to read, and there’s a slight smile on his face when he reads his science fiction books for the second time. But as it is with any young person who is smarter than his peers, and would rather create video games at home than send 100 text messages a day, it’s clear that sometimes he’s just misunderstood. Regardless of how smart the Los Alamos youth are, some are still just misunderstood.

Nevertheless, there are two days left for us here in Los Alamos, and thus two more days left with Eric. Even though time is flying and we’re getting rained on everyday, there is always that light at the end of the tunnel. For example, those random rainbows in the sky on a short drive down the street.

Amid the rain, two rainbows. Not too shabby.