North Dakotans are proud of their wind chill. Given the latest bout of "American Made Global Warming" (ha), in the form of windy subzero temperatures, a couple of friends and I were having a discussion about the wind chill during our afternoon walk the other day. In 2001, the National Weather Service changed the method by which wind chills are calculated. This means that the wind chill temperatures we use to brag about our resilience will likely never be as cold as in years past.
According to this chart from NOAA, available in PDF format, it looks like we'll never see those pride-inducing wind chill temperatures of old. Given the arbitrary +5F temperature of the above graphic, the windchill temperature derived from the old system at around 25mph would only be achieved with a wind of around 100mph! We don't see too many of those winds around here, thankfully. All our snow would be in another state!
If you're wondering why we never seem to see those ultra-cold wind chills our parents and grandparents brag about, that's why. According to this article, the wind chill number was mostly used as a tool of exaggeration anyway. Given the way the media reports everything else, this should come as no surprise. And in light of the fact that climatologists have been caught using false data and putting temperature recording stations next to heat sources in order to get results favorable to the global warming agenda, we shouldn't be surprised that some methodologies will change from time to time.
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On my way back from a fantastic time at the ND Public Policy Institute, I noticed a couple of sundogs in the cold, blizzardy sky. Cold, wind, and a dusting of powdery snow tend to conspire to generate these. I knew just the perfect place to capture this one, then I headed home for dinner with my boys.
Other parhelion posts can be found here and here.
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I love camera phones; even when I'm out running errands with one or both of my little boys, one of whom turns 2 today, I can still snap a shot of reasonable quality if I see something like this. A lot of people go for humor in their personalized plates, and this one I found particularly funny in light of the hoax of "man made global warming." Actually, that's a misnomer. The environmentalist lefties ought to at least be honest and call it "American-Made Global Warming." After all, they care not a whit for the dictatorships and communist/socialist nations who disregard any semblance of responsible environmental policies. No, instead they resent their own country. Talk about delusional...
Back to the license plate. According to Wikipedia, North Dakota is among the top ten states in vanity plate registrations. I believe it; at $25 above the regular fee, they're a bargain. I have a few myself, actually...and many more in my garage that have expired or are from vehicles I sold. When you start licensing five or six motorcycles plus cars and trailers, the price adds up fast!
That reminds me of this plate I saw in downtown Bismarck. I don't know the owner, so I don't know if it's a stab at humor or if they were actually in the audience when Oprah decided to give away a bunch of cars. It's still eye-catching, though!
Do you have a personalized plate? If not...why not?
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If you're concerned about North Dakota issues, don't sit there like a bump on a log! Attend the North Dakota Policy Council's Public Policy Institute this weekend! I'll be there, naturally, as well as a lot of other concerned North Dakotans. The agenda looks something like this:
9:00 – 9:15: Welcome
Panel Discussions:
9:15 – 10:05: (Panel 1) Property taxes
10:15 – 11:05: (Panel 2) K-12 Education
11:10 – 12:00: (Panel 3) Higher Education
12:00– 12:45: Lunch (Provided) Keynote Address
Presentations:
12:45 – 1:15: Government Transparency
1:20 – 1:50: Economic Development
1:55 – 2:25: Taxpayer-funded Lobbying
2:30 – 3:00: Extraterritorial Zoning
Jake's Corner blog has this list of participating organizations:
ND Policy Council, Citizens for Responsible Government, SayAnythingBlog.Com, ND Hospitality Association, Land Owners Association of North Dakota, (Attending: ND Farm Bureau, NFIB, ND Petroleum Marketers, ND Stockmen Association.)
You can attend for free, and it'd be best if you were to RSVP by clicking here. These are important times for our state, so this couldn't have been timed more appropriately. I hope to see you there!
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This photo, titled "Thresher's Row", is one of my favorite pieces and has received some pretty nice complements at various gallery showings. I have a huge poster-sized print of it framed here at the house. I'm not sure if I've ever sold one, though. Anyway, I hiked up that hill east of Napoleon in the 100 degree heat, wearing a 20+ pound camera backpack, in a full leather racing suit. My Suzuki was parked down by the sign at the bottom of the hill (and was Photoshopped out of this piece). I did a gradient to black and white on the horizon to give the sense of these old threshers marching off into history.
I recently took a photo adventure with my friend Ken one early Saturday morning. This time I drove up along the fence line and hiked a shorter distance up the hill, albeit in the snow, to take another gander at the meandering line of old machinery. I didn't get the exact angle as the first photo, but that's alright. I was somewhat more appropriately dressed for a short hike this time, too; although I was decked out in proper attire for strafing rural highways on my motorcycle the last time I hiked this hill, I was in the hurtlocker due to the extreme heat! So far I have yet to visit this attraction when the temperature is in a comfortable zone. That's alright; I do it for the photos...and the story.
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