This was another one of those days where I catch my self saying, "I love my polarizer!" On a nice sunny day, it gets rid of all that pesky scattered light and brings out the best in nature's colors...especially the blue of the skies. It also helped that the fields were full of what I'm told is golden clover, as seen behind this threshing machine north of Bismarck! Note the wind farm on the horizon.
After reading about the abandoned town of Arena, North Dakota, I decided to head up there and see what I could see. I saw what was left of an old elevator, the lone house in town, and the church next door. All were boarded up. It was a beautiful day, even in leather racing apparel, and I made some other photo stops along the way. The fields and the sky collaborated to give me lots of color Sunday, and I was able to enjoy the photography and the ride.
I suppose you could technically say I went "nowhere" since the town of Arena doesn't officially exist anymore, at least not as it once did. According to my GPS, I went "nowhere" fast...reaching 245 mph maximum speed! I'd like to take this occasion to say I WISH. I couldn't do 245 mph if I wanted to. I'm not saying how close I got, however. I'll keep that between me and the bugs splattered all over the visor of my helmet. As far as the other numbers on the display, well...they're worthless too. I forgot to stop logging the trip when I got home, so it sat logging all day. I don't know how long I was riding, how long I was stopped taking pictures, or even my top speed (244? hm...). Great day for photos and motorcycling, bad day for data acquisition. I guess I'll have to go do it again. Darn.
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( 4.6 / 5 )
No, I had nothing to do with it! There I was, minding my own business, driving down River Road on my way home...when I found two of Bismarck's finest blocking the road. Being the curious sort, I hopped out and asked what was going on. They gave me permission to go poke around...who could resist?
I guess a pretty big wall of water came flying out of the water treatment plant's grounds when this whole debacle started. When I left, they were still wondering whether River Road should be inspected to make sure it wasn't washed out underneath. Lots of dirt from the construction site of the treatment plant itself had been washed away, and there was a reddish brown streak in the Missouri River where the dirt was being deposited. The water was still deep in a few places, but had mostly spread out in about a 75 foot wide flow across the river and the bike path.
Boy, that's going to be fun to fix. And that isn't even the water problem! Upgrades to the water treatment plant have been taking place for a long time, and it looks like the road was about to be built. Now they'll have to do a lot more groundwork before that can take place...and that's after they repair whatever caused this mess in the first place!
Things got even more interesting; the officer I talked to said that there had been two water main breaks tonight already. I wonder if any of these things are related? Perhaps the water system is similar to an electric grid; when part is shut down, it causes more stress in other places. In any case, if you work for the City of Bismarck and have anything to do with water or digging, you probably got a call Monday evening. Those of us who are city employees but don't lift a shovel...well, I guess I'll just take pictures and type, as usual.
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( 4.7 / 3 )
Last Thursday I was able to take my family to the Friends and Family Day at the Northern Great Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory south of Mandan. As a kid growing up south of Mandan, I remember occasionally riding my bike toward town and visiting the facility. The people we talked to were cool, and gracious in explaining what they were doing to a curious kid. They showed the same sort of hospitality to kids and adults alike last Thursday.
Ever play Garden Jeopardy? Me neither. This was just one of several breakout sessions that were held throughout the day. They focused on subjects from soils to gardening to trees, and looked really interesting and informative. I watched one guy talk about "rain gardens" and how one can collect rain water and retain moisture in soil by how it's landscaped and the type of soil used. I didn't get to stay for much of it, though...
...because my wife and boys were waiting for me at the horse and buggy. I kept our infant and stroller with me, while little PJ and mommy went for a ride. He's 18 months old now and talking up a storm, and said "horses" a lot after this ride.
This was his other favorite stop. Daddy took him up into the cabs of a lot of these big tractors, but wouldn't let him touch any of the buttons. One of them even had the key in the ignition, as PJ pointed out, but I was a party pooper and wouldn't let him touch it. I don't think I'm insured for that kind of damage.
I'll admit it: this was Daddy's favorite stop. I absolutely LOVE those Cloverdale brats. I was able to keep from getting mustard on my camera, too. Thanks for the free lunch!
This was one of the activities for the kids. There was face painting and other fun going on, but this tunnel seemed especially cool. It's to show kids about what goes on in the soil underneath their garden or field. Note the roots and carrots sticking down. The kids got to wear a headband light too, so it wasn't too scary.
Not a lot of takers on the "greenhouse gas emmission" information. I'm not surprised; the farmers finally have a couple of good years, and now they're supposed to get uptight about the greenhouse gas emissions of their operation? The whole "greenhouse gas" nonsense is a political issue, anyway...not a scientific one. Too bad research grant money is given out by a political process.
These folks got a really cool ride! Rolling bleachers...I never thought I'd live to see the day. I wish I'd had time to hang around and take this ride, but I don't think the little boys would like it much and we had the stroller & stuff to worry about. Too bad, it's been a couple of decades since I really poked around out here. Perhaps next year I can take PJ on the ride. I'm sure he'll remind me about the horses and the tractors! Thanks again to the NGPRL folks for their hospitality in putting on a great event for the community.
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( 3.2 / 6 )
"If I had a boat, I'd go out on the ocean...and if I had a pony, I'd ride him on my boat..."
For the music reference title of this post I picked a Lyle Lovett song, but I'll always think of it as a JPL song, since my favorite version of it is done by my pals in JPL. Two of the guys are my frequent live-sports coworkers and employees of NBC in Fargo, and the third (J) is the brother of the other (L). They are extremely talented, and the best of their work isn't even on the Myspace page I have linked for them. Enough about JPL, though...this picture is of JCP: Jonathan, me, and PJ.
We spent an evening by the river this week, with PJ learning how to throw rocks into the river and calling out every airplane, boat, or motorcycle that passed our view. He really loves motorcycles, which he calls "norlkles", and can even turn the key and start one of my Kawasaki motorcycles if help him get up onto it. Imagine what he'll be like when he's two!
The river seems to be where it's at this year. The sandbars are now fully revived as a place to gather and spend a summer afternoon, despite the city of Bismarck decimating the summer sandbar scene when they carved up Sertoma Park many years ago. Nowadays one simply needs a boat (or a friend with one) to join; I don't, but considering that my little boy thinks they're so keen, I suppose it's time to shop for one! I never wanted one before because I didn't think I'd use it enough to justify it. I suspect that these two little guys would encourage me to take the boat out plenty. Hm...if I had a boat...
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( 4.5 / 4 )If you noticed the site loaded a little slowly this week, it's because I animated the top banner. Doing so involved a little bit of Javascript and Flash, and that stuff has to load the first time you visit the page. Once you've visited this site with the new header, it should load quickly in repeat visits. I had been playing with a few ideas for new banners at the top of the site and couldn't pick one, so I decided that I should just rotate them. I hope they're pleasing to the eye.
Now a reminder of an older, less frequently used feature. When I activated this feature a long time ago, I posted instructions on how to "Rate the Windbag." The number of regular visitors to the site has grown by leaps and bounds since then, so I'll post this again for those of you who are new. While older posts have rating counts as high as 400 or 500, I'm getting several times that many visitors on even a slow day now. So perhaps not everyone knows what those dots are for.
This is a 5-point rating system. If you like the post, click on the dot to the far right. If you think I'm out of my ever-lovin' mind, click on the dot on the far right. Just kidding. The dot on the left is worth 1 point, the one on the right worth 5, and I leave it to you to discern the values of the remaining three.
Each time a user clicks a dot it's added to the tally, the number on the right. The average rating is on the left. In the graphic above, 4 users have responded with an average rating of 3.8.
This diagram illustrates the difference between the way a designer sets up a web page, with how he thinks the reader will scan it in mind, and the way the average web surfer actually looks through the page. It's a pretty big difference, isn't it? By the same token, I tend to assume that those five little dots look like they're clickable... but apparently not everybody gets it right away. Oh well.
That's why, when you see the numbers at the bottom of the posts, things won't always make sense. I'll have a post with a low vote count, but with one comment, and dozens (sometimes hundreds) of comment views. So, while the post has been read between a thousand and two thousand times (that's how many daily visitors I get), only one person may have found reason to comment, and not everybody decided to read his/her comment. Even fewer decided (or knew how to) vote to rate the post. It's actually very interesting to see, especially in light of the server stats that I receive daily!
Of course, if you're reading this post on one of the websites that syndicate it, you're not eligible to vote. You have to actually come to bismarckmandanblog.com to do so.
Have fun. The old Democrat adage "vote early, vote often!" doesn't apply here.
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( 3.6 / 9 )
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