Color me disappointed. I was hoping that the State Capitol building would be adorned with colored windows to form a Christmas tree, as is typical for the Christmas season. I had expected it to be so the day after Thanksgiving, but sadly that was not the case this weekend. Hopefully that situation gets rectified soon.

As I drove through the capitol grounds, I noticed that the Sakakawea statue was getting a face full as the snowfall began to intensify. I set up my camera in the middle of the road with a clamped aperture and long shutter delay, set the timer, then splashed the statue with light from a handheld flash unit to fill in the shadows. I’m quite pleased with the way it turned out. Then it was on to one of my favorite Christmas destinations:

You can always count on the folks of Northview Lane to make sure that the Christmas spirit is alive and well! Even without a whole lot of snow on the ground, this street is a winter wonderland every year. I’ll probably take my family through it tonight, now that we’ve had a bunch of flurries overnight!

There was already plenty of traffic; the locals know when this display goes online each year, and there were plenty of people driving up and down the hill. Friendly hint: TURN OFF YOUR HEADLIGHTS and just use your vehicle’s running lights if you want to enjoy the show and make it more pleasant for others. It’s hard to enjoy the lights when someone’s high beams are blasting you in the face; that’s what happened to me last night.

This tree is a lot bigger than the photo implies. It’s also adorned with some of the coolest Christmas decorations I’ve seen, and the yard sports a lit menagerie of Christmas characters and critters.

Atop the hill is this house, which has an elaborate animated display of lights that keep time with the Christmas music broadcast on 107.5 FM. There are often people stopped near this house with their car radio going, watching the different lights (and MERRY CHRISTMAS spelled out on the lawn) flash and twinkle in time with the music. I found out that a motorcycle friend’s father-in-law owns the house, which was pretty cool. Josh and a few friends were out on the sidewalk across the street with a boom box and Santa hats, waving to passers-by. Josh told me that on the 20th they’re going to have elves out there, giving candy to kids that come by, so save the date on your calendar! Tell them I sent you. I’ll probably be there with my little boys too, as one of them will be turning two.

Until (and after) they get the capitol lit for Christmas, make sure you frequent Northview Lane this Christmas season! Oh, and if I may make one last suggestion:

Pick up this CD. Keep it handy for Christmas. I actually dubbed mine to MiniDisc™, since the stereo I put in my truck plays MDs instead of CDs. Once the snow flies in the fall, I put this disc in…and it doesn’t come out until the snow’s gone for good in the spring. Of course, I also have my iPod connected, but that’s another matter.

That’s all for now. Put in your Vince Guaraldi disc, get some hot chocolate, and head for Northview for a dose of Christmas spirit!

This year brought something different for our family on Independence Day. I was hired to take photos for Cycle Hutt, our church didn’t do a float this year because of our new building project, and my wife and I thought it better to keep the two little boys at home on the hot afternoon. That means that I didn’t sit and watch the parade go by like last year; rather, I took lots and lots of photos of the goings-on at Cycle Hutt and around & on the float for the parade.

There are around 1800 photos overall, but I pared it down quite a bit into a few image galleries:

July 3rd: Practice, brief Stunt Show

July 4th: the main stunt show, the crowds, the fun.

The parade float, complete with a burnout stand and other fun stuff.

July 5th: Another stunt show, wrap-up with the SPEED Channel crew, and a brief group ride afterwards.

Local Riders – These guys got lessons from JasoN Britton!

Enjoy! Prints are available, if you’d like. Just find the “Contact me” link on the upper right of this screen, and we’ll get you the details.

I’m sure you remember the Paul Schaff House, which I jokingly said could be seen from space at Christmas. While others have held the title of most popular and extravagant Christmas display in Mandan in the past, he has reigned in recent years. According to this report by KXMB, he’s hanging up the lights. No, not on his house…hanging them up for good.

While he says he will hang some Christmas lights next year, just not fifty thousand of them, he’s probably going to miss the notoriety…albeit not as much as we will miss his annual holiday displays. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something in particular that took the wind out of his sails. Perhaps this addition to his Christmas display for 2007 holds a clue:

One of the garage doors was adorned this year with the message, “In loving memory of Ann. Wife, Mother, Grandma.” I am guessing at the punctuation, since it’s probably pretty tough to do with rope lights.

This isn’t how I originally intended to show you this photo. I had planned on writing a simple message of condolence to Paul Schaff that I doubt he’d ever read, but one I felt compelled to put into words. While I haven’t met Mr. Schaff, I’m one of many people who derived a great deal of joy from his labor each Christmas season. Now, however, the photo accompanies the sad news that we won’t have his Christmas displays any more. But the real loss is that of a wife, mom, and grandma.

I hope it isn’t intrusive to mention this openly. Since he put his words into the area’s most popular Christmas display, I’m guessing Paul Schaff doesn’t mind that we all know of his loss. This is simply a way to share kind feelings back toward him for the joy he’s provided .

So…we’re sorry for your loss, Mr. Schaff. We’re also sorry for the loss of the special touch you put on Mandan’s Christmas each year. Like your display said this year, you’ve got loving memories of Ann…and we’ve got loving memories of your Christmas cheer. Thank you for the thousands of smiles you’ve brought each year, and for all the faces you lit up along with your home.

After working the Wizards game tonight I braved the cold and snapped some photos of the state capitol building with 2008 lit in its windows. Brrr!

This marks two years of blogging. It’s too late to get into too much detail, so I’ll post some stats later on in the day. But here are a few numbers I can paste right from my reports:

689 entries using 226,483 words;
750 comments using 74,632 words;
147,691 votes stored in 13,612 bytes;
1,019 photos stored in 373,866,496 bytes.

I can’t believe I’ve written 689 of anything! I’m even more astounded at all the cool photos I’ve been able to take, over a thousand of which were deemed “blogworthy.” I’m truly blessed in that I get to take all these pictures and write about what I see, and then that people actually take the time to read and view them. Crazy. If only I was able to make money this way…

It’s late and I want to cuddle with my wife. I’ll summarize some site stats and stuff later on. Happy New Year!

You may have noticed some lights atop the hill at Fort Lincoln lately…not every night, as I discovered this weekend, but most nights. They’ve got one of the blockhouses adorned with white Christmas lights, the one that sits on the edge of the hill nearest the river. It’s quite easy to see from Fox Island, actually. I could take a picture of it from there…but that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?

Thankfully my friend Ken was willing to take a hike up the hill in the single digit temps and wind to take some pics of this event. We dressed warm, stowed our camera gear in my truck, and made our way south. State Parks pass firmly affixed, we entered a serene and completely abandoned park and began our walk at the bottom of the blockhouse hill.

The hike itself was great, and not even cold, other than the fact that my Airwalks wanted to kill me. They’re great shoes, but apparently use anything other than a dry surface to try to pitch me on my head (or worse). Once we got to the top, however, it was a matter of parking the tripods in the right place and snapping away. I’d get the shot set, activate the shutter, then stuff my hands into my gloves for a few seconds. We got a pretty good variety of photos and were able to have free run of the place until we finally started getting cold. That wind sure does bite!

We walked back down the hill (okay, I skated as much as walked) and hopped into the nice warm truck for a drive past the Schaaf house and back into town. Neither one of us had done our fair share of photography lately, so this was a great time for both friendship and our favorite hobby.

If you’re in the mood for a hike and have five bucks or a state parks pass, hoof it on up to the blockhouse! I recommend swinging through Fox Island recreation area first and looking across the river, just in case their generator ran out of gas. It would be a real bummer to brave the cold for nothing!

If you’ve traveled east Boulevard Avenue in the past week or two, you may have spotted this truck parked at the intersection with 14th Street. 14th is appropriate, because the guy I talked to says this is the first time in 14 years that he’s done this with one of his trucks. I’m glad I was there taking pictures when he pulled up!

Plastic Santa at the wheel, with snowman riding shotgun. I hope Santa has a CDL and keeps a valid log book!

I’m told that the only casualty of this unique Christmas display is the bear perched atop the truck. He snagged a low-hanging wire while the truck was backing in, snapping his brittle plastic head off. A little duct tape and some ingenuity got him back on duty, and you’d never know the difference. I guess you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs!

Make sure you drive by 14th and Boulevard to check out this big rig!

Outdoors, of course…it’s not like I’m peeking in people’s windows or anything! This one you’ve probably seen…it’s on Northview Lane, which is quite a popular place for people to troll along and enjoy the view.

I’m sure you’ve seen this one, too! It’s at the busy intersection of 4th Street and Divide Avenue. Personally I wish this one would stay lit all year. It’s fantastic.

There are a lot of fun places to go looking at Christmas lights. Marina Bay used to be a hot spot, but I’m not sure that’s the case any more. The limo companies used to offer packages to cruise around in a limo and look at lights, but I haven’t heard much about that lately. Hopefully it’s still going on, because there are great displays if you know where to look.