Category Archives: Signs, Logos, Typos

Free pass to Fort Arbaham Lincoln. Wait, what?

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I was perusing a magazine last weekend when something caught my eye. I’m a speed reader and I have this disorder where typographical issues jump out at me as if I’m viewing one of those Magic Eye 3D images. Did you already spot this one?

Fort Arbaham Lincoln. Hm. Okay, so my disorder doesn’t end there. I figured perhaps there might be a legitimate use of Arbaham somewhere, so I typed “Arbaham” into Google and got some interesting results.

Most noteworthy is a book titled A Man of the People: a Drama of Abraham Lincoln. This stood out right away, so I went to Barnes and Noble’s site to see if it really was listed under that title. Yup.

Borders has this book by Thomas Dixon listed twice on their search engine. Both times it’s with Abraham, not Arbaham.

I found listings for Arbaham on Amazon, Biblio, Alibris, and others. So who’s right? All of them, sorta…

A quick search of the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) these folks are using for Thomas Dixon’s 1920 book, #9781140264811, shows a typo in the ISBN registry listing for this book. That means whoever relies on the ISBN entry as their source for correct information on this book has a problem.

Since this book is in the public domain, you can read it online for free or even download it in various formats and note that the cover page has the correctly spelled title, meaning that Borders has it right. However, since the other sites are using the “official” title of the ISBN registry, can you blame them?

Anyway, we all make little slips from time to time. It happens. Sometimes it’s funnier than others, sometimes it goes completely unnoticed for decades. While this book was written in 1920, the ISBN has only been in use for a little over fifty years. Hopefully my typographical errors and misspellings will live on in infamy as well for someone to discover later. Have a great weeekend! 😉

Welcome to Bismarck. Restrictions in effect. Only one catch: you may have to guess what they are

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It’s that time of year again: the ubiquitous “Restrictions in Effect” signs are popping up around the periphery of Bismarck. Restrictions of what nature, you ask? If your only source of information is these signs, I suppose it’s anyone’s guess.

I first saw these signs go up three years ago (and every Spring since) and thought they were pretty funny. It’s because of the load restrictions on Bismarck roads, which I heard about on the radio, but the signs are vague enough to omit that detail. It’s only after someone figured out what was missing (maybe they read this blog) and wedged a little “Load” in there that the signs made sense:

This is how the corrected signs look. I was actually surprised to find an unmodified one posted up along Divide Avenue this afternoon. As you can see in this post from last March, I was almost second-guessing whether I’d even seen the signs without the word “Load” inserted. Today’s sighting of one of the original signs is a bit of a vindication, I suppose. Now someone’s going to have to dash up to Divide Avenue with another “Load” sticker!

This billboard is truly 3D

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My friend Amy clued me in to this billboard Friday so I had to take a look. It’s pretty eye catching and at a killer location. At first you’d feel really sorry for the poor individual who got stuck up there to put up a sign in this bitter cold!

Of course, closer inspection reveals that this worker is either milking the clock, frozen solid, or something else entirely. That something else? A mannikin. Clever! It certainly draws the eye, anyway.

Looking back at the first photo, I think this is a good eye catcher for rolling out a new image. I just hope that when it’s revealed, it doesn’t contain another doggone leaf!

Rusty

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I wonder how long it will be until this rusty homemade sign will be sticking out of a snowbank? It resides along the dusty gravel road that is Highway 1806 north of Mandan. That’s a fun road to wander on when you’ve got the time (and a camera). I made a trip up to Cross Ranch a while back to check out the foliage, but sadly all the leaves were already on the ground. It was a surprise because the leaves here in Bismarck-Mandan were only beginning to turn.

To help prove they’re out of touch with North Dakotans, Dem-NPL adopts new Hopey-Changeyâ„¢ logo

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I know you guys probably don’t go to the website for the Democrat party here in North Dakota, but I got a tip on this from a friend. Visiting the site gave me a hilarious sight:

A new logo! Of course, given the line of work I’m in I pay keen attention to logotypes and branding. That’s why I have a “Signs, Logos, and Typos” category of posts here on the ol’ Blog. As I often do, I whipped together a little comparison:

As you can see, it’s a recycled version of the Obama “O” logo, which is certain to get plenty of positive response in a state that didn’t vote for him for President and is fed up with Democrat policies in Washington…oh yeah, and who rejected Obamacare quite handily! Keep it up, Democrats! Good luck with all that recycled Hopeâ„¢ and Changeâ„¢.

Of course, if the Democrats were really so proud of their young President, maybe they could incorporate it in their campaigns. Not likely. They could have some starry-eyed kid intern run around and put stickers on all the O’s of the Pomeroy signs out there (as I’ve done in Photoshop above). After all, I’ve looked around and noticed that there are NOT VERY MANY out there. Lots of Berg and other Republican signs dot the landscape, though! But let’s go back to the Democrat Party website for a second:

Here’s a list of press releases on the home page. Apparently they’re sending Conrad and Dorgan all over the state to endorse, re-endorse, and re-re-endorse Pomeroy in the hope that something will stick. Riiiiiight. Hey, just a second…I have evidence of how well THAT is working:

I took this photo ten minutes into an event listed on the Pomeroy website (I’ve made a shortcut for you at www.tinyurl.com/no-events, named for the year and a half in which it was left blank as he hid from his constituents). The “event” turned out to be a Democrat Party rally, with Conrad and Dorgan scheduled to attend, and you can see the enthusiasm filling the room. Nope, actually that’s just empty air filling the room. Here’s a link to the larger version, click and count the people. Considering half of them were probably staffers, it’s a pretty good show of the pathetic level of support and turnout enjoyed by Earl Pomeroy and his Democrat Party.

I had to leave for 7pm church, but I hung around long enough to see if a crowd was going to develop. It didn’t. I did get an earful of Heidi Heitkamp trying to rally the few by decrying “the failed policies of the Bush Administration.” She used that tired keyphrase so often that I was about to yell “DRINK!” on the next one. Then again, the logo proves that NEW IDEAS are not something that rattles around in the vacuous head of a North Dakota Democrat.

You can put all the logos on the Democrat (not Democratic) Party that you want, it’s still going to remain the home for displaced leftists, communists, marxists, and anti-American wackbags. Pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-government, anti-defense, rabid-environmentalist, anti-religion…all those things define sects of the Democrat Party…an organization and ideology so out of step with North Dakota and America in general, all they have left to do is try to rebrand themselves. Now that Americans, including North Dakotans like me are paying attention, we’re not going to fall for it. Ever.

Good luck on the facelift, Democrats…see you in two weeks.

Appropriate use of space

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I had to chuckle the other day when I spotted this gem, since it thumbs its nose at an intrusive federal and state government. Apparently this space is off limits for advertising, so the owner decided to make it serve a good purpose. Declaring a Constitutionally protected right ranks right up there in my book!

Here’s a closeup of the sign along with an explanation of why the declaration is being made. Overspray issues aside, I think this is a fantastic landmark and that there should be more of this sort of thing all over North Dakota. How ’bout that Bill of Rights, eh? I think people need to be reacquainted with it and our other founding documents. You’d be surprised how many rights the state and citizens have and how few the federal government does…

One of my new favorite signs around Bismarck-Mandan

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I spotted this sign on the way back from Sibley Park last night. Obvious punctuation issues aside, it raises an important point about ethanol blended fuels that nobody wants to address: they are inferior and smart consumers don’t want them. Naturally, the entrepreneurial spirit kicks in and some businesses start catering to the desires of the consumer. Amazing how the system works.

I have friends who own FlexFuel vehicles. They’ll tell you that by the time they fill their tanks with E85 fuel, deal with the loss of acceleration and passing power, and figure out the horrible mileage the fuel delivers, they break about even. That is NOT counting the tax subsidy that you and I pay on each gallon of E85, whether we use it or not, in order to keep its price competitive at the pump. That also does not include the higher food costs we pay because so much corn is going into the production of said “renewable fuel.”

A long time ago I made this graphic to illustrate one more point, and a real deal-breaker: Even if you have an engine that could extract every bit of energy available in a gallon of E85 fuel, it still is WAY down on gasoline. E85 simply does not have the BTUs (measured units of energy) locked within its chemistry to compete with traditional motor fuel when it’s burned and the energy stored in those hydrocarbons’ chemical bonds is released. (Yes, I majored in chemistry in college at one point.) Simply put: E85 is a thermodynamic loser. Even worse, we’re forced to subsidize it.

Personally I have to burn high octane fuel in my motorcycles and our trucks recommend it. I burn regular in the lawn mower and stuff like that. Even so, I will not buy ANY fuel that has an ethanol component to it. Thankfully I can now jet down to Unistop along University Drive if I want some ethanol-free regular gasoline.

I wunder if spelling is on the kerickyewlum (and a graveyard experience of a different sort)

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I’ll admit it: I have a disorder. If I’m handed a sheet of paper filled with text, the typographical and spelling errors will typically leap off the paper, grab my me by the ears, and divert my attention toward themselves. It’s like putting on a pair of 3D glasses. It’s a suitable disorder, as I’m a proofreader and former city & county Spelling Bee champion. Sometimes I find some fun ones, like the sign above.

I derive no glee from pointing out the typos of others. While I don’t believe in karma, typographical or otherwise, I can’t help but wonder if I’m about to make a similar mistake while writing about the errors I find. Uh oh. It is 2:45 in the morning, after all (I woke up hungry). Is it unreasonable, however, to expect schools and learning centers to proofread their signs for obvious spelling or punctuation errors? I think not.

This reminded me of something I spotted a week or two ago, as I was hiking back from what used to be Hillside Park. While attempting to approach the top of the “park” I figured that the best I could do was to park in St. Mary’s Cemetery and hop the fence. On the way back to the truck I got an eerie feeling. My “spider-sense” was kicking in, so I stopped and turned slowly. Yep…there it was: a typo.

I’ve intentionally obfuscated the name on this stone, which actually sits in the middle of several markers of the same last name. Since I pretty much have a King James Bible handy as often as I do my camera bag, I grabbed one and compared the text on the stone to Psalm 107:

He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. (v20)

Uh oh. The stone clearly says “DESTRURTIONS.” Dang.

Well, I’m sure I’ll go ahead and make a ton of typographical errors now. Feel free to point them out. I’ve earned it. While I don’t believe in “typo karma” I do have a strong appreciation for irony! In the mean time, I’ve shoveled enough Frosted Flakes into my head to choke a donkey…and now it’s time to return to bed.

UPDATE: We have a winner! Kudos to my friend Ken, who spotted a typographical error in the very first paragraph of this post (and called to verify that I didn’t plant it there on purpose). I didn’t remove it; rather, I just put a line through it and corrected it for the world to see. See? No one is immune from the sinister typo…especially those of us who point them out in other people’s work!

Dawn found the second one. Sigh…