Over a month ago I was poking around with my camera at Double Ditch and forgot to mention that there’s a car at the bottom of the hill.  You don’t see that everyday.

Chevy Cavaliers normally don’t sit like this.  Looks pretty serene, covered in newly fallen snow, doesn’t it?

What do you do if you’re an idiot and you find something on the sandbar by the river?  Well, you light it on fire, of course…which is apparently what happened to this vehicle either when it met its untimely demise or when someone with a lighter found it.

Naturally there’s nothing left of the interior.  What wasn’t stolen before the fire is gone now.

Naturally I called to report this as soon as I found it.  I’m sure someone had already done so, but I wanted to make sure.  As if a flaming Cavalier (well, more flaming than usual) wouldn’t have attracted attention long, long ago…

I’m accustomed to finding decades-old cars, or remnants thereof, at the bottom of these cliffs, but I never expected to find a modern day econobox car.  I haven’t been back since that November day, so I don’t know if anything’s been done about it.  I just wish people would treat the area with more respect.

Yes, that’s what I saw on the drive home Friday evening: a cool kit roadster and a flaming yellow ragtop, the driver of which was wearing a banana costume.

Maybe 6pm is Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

Two days in a row I was treated to views of people lifting very, very heavy things with machines that look right out of my boyhood Matchbox collection.  This time around was actually a crane lifting a crane, as the sections of a big tower crane were assembled for some ongoing work at St. Alexius.

By the time I’d taken the first picture in this post, they had already attached the main part of the crane to the tower.  That just left this 200-foot boom to attach.  It was assembled in pieces on a set of stands, which had to be detached, and then carefully lifted without getting snagged on the tree (right), hitting the stoplight (left), or getting hooked on the streetlight (center).

That’s not distortion in my lens, apparently.  I could see the boom of the yellow crane bow visibly under the weight of its payload at that extension.  I pointed it out to one of the crew and he saw it too, so either we’re both nuts or it actually bowed a bit.

This is an enormous undertaking, but I’m told that this tower crane will have plenty of work to keep it busy this summer.  In order to even erect this crane, footings had to be prepared for it to be mounted.  It’s self-supporting with no guy wires or anything, so its stability has to come from deep underground.

I actually have some more really neat crane footage that I shot years ago that I may have to re-share here.  I’ve got a lot of respect for these operators, mostly because I could never be patient enough to do their job.  It obviously takes a cool head and a lot of focus to be in control of these cranes, because one mistake could be very expensive and possibly fatal.

So there ya have it…after a long dry spell, I got the camera out of the bag two days in a row!  Not a bad way to round out the week.

As part of another First Day of the Rest of My Life, it was a blessing to have a date night with my sweetie as our boys went out with their grandma.  After a satisfying Italian dinner we went for a little cruise and saw that the riverboat was about to be hoisted into the Big Muddy.

The gigantic crane from CJ (I like those initials, obviously) was already in place, and the conditions appeared to be perfect.  It suddenly occurred to me that, even though I’ve been unable to wield it in a while, I had my camera in the truck.  Since my wife is among the most gracious of women, she agreed that it’d be fun if we stopped to watch and take a few photos.

Nothing happens quickly with a crane; when heavy things start moving quickly, damage occurs.  After all, mass x velocity = FORCE.  That’s the last thing one needs when balancing a load high above the ground.  Slowly but surely the crew eased the big ol’ boat into the river and held it in place until the pilot could get all systems up and running and power it out into the channel.

You may notice a gap in the sequence of my photos.  That’s because, as a video guy, I felt the urge to actually shoot some video clips of the event.  A time lapse would have been nice, but the dock’s undulating movement from passing watercraft made that more hassle than I’d prefer.  So here are a few video clips I slapped together this morning:

You can view it in high definition on YouTube.  I also saw something else from the dock that was pretty cool, but I’ll be posting that later.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love that Kawasaki Green.  I’ve been a diehard Kawasaki fan for decades and have owned many green bikes over the years, including two of my bikes now.   I have lots of lime green possessions as well, many of which have little or nothing to do with motorcycles.

That’s one reason why I spotted this car from a LONG distance yesterday.  I’m sure many of you saw it making the rounds, or parked at Hu Hot, or wherever else it was cruising around.  Awesome. Lamborghinis have been among my favorite cars since junior high school (I’m sure most boys agree), but they’re a rarity around here.  Maybe the Bakken boom has something to do with their appearance.  Out of respect for the privacy of the owner, I obscured the license plate – but I will say that it was a North Dakota plate.

I heard an unconfirmed report of an orange one in town too, but I’m not sure if that one is very credible.  In any case, they sure do add to the scenery here in Bismarck-Mandan!