Well…not really

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This contraption sits atop a hill near Double Ditch. At a glance from the highway, it looks like a well. Upon closer examination, however, it appears to be something else entirely. I’m not sure what…but what looked like the spout of a well is actually a brush. I’m sure it must have some sort of ranch-related use, but I’m too much of a city kid to surmise what that might be.

Everyone knows it’s windy

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I heard the forecast and knew it was going to be windy. I didn’t know it was going to be THIS windy! Not only did it make things inconvenient for an outdoor videotaping session today, I also noticed this while driving away from where I was taping.

This power pole is adjacent to the Bismarck Expressway, near Capital RV. The lines held, and the pole seems intact, so it’s just a matter of getting it upright and reinforcing the soft ground. I would not want to be the guy in the bucket truck that had to lean over that thing and attach a tow line to it!

Heavy lifting

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This poor fella stands along south 12th Street, sort of an agricultural Atlas who refuses to shrug. I bet he’s cause some serious rubbernecking, though!

Hat tip to Brucellosis for featuring this on his blog. You beat me to the punch! I took some photos of this a while back but hadn’t posted them yet, and I’m glad I waited to catch him in the snow. It helps with the fact that the background’s pretty unappealing.

This is part of a political campaign display, and is accompanied by a sign for a hopeful candidate. His message: help keep District 30 strong! I’m not showing the sign, though…no free advertising. Especially considering that our three representatives down here are Republicans, so this challenger is presumably a socialist, I mean Democrat. Same difference.

I have since found out that Arnie Zent was vying for a Republican nomination for a vacated seat. My presumption was wrong, as is often the case. That drives home the old lesson: When you presume, you make a pre out of you and me!

Someone always kisses the lightpost

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Gateway Avenue is the street that goes past Basin Electric on its way from State Street to 19th Street. At the crest of this hill the road curves to the left a little, and it’s off camber as well. Naturally it becomes very treacherous when icy, as a couple of people found out tonight.

I’ve never made contact with either the lightpost or the tree, but I did discover the danger of this curve early on in my driving career. Thankfully I filed that information permanently in my melon, because it was particularly slick there tonight! In fact, I saw a 4×4 go by all stepped out as they tried to avoid the curb. Unlike the people whose wheel tracks appear in this photo, they were successful. The person who connected with the lightpost left some parts behind!

Legacy in a can

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Apparently my bout with influenza B isn’t over. Thursday I started coughing pretty heavily, which was really awkward considering I was the tech for a studio recording session. I soldiered through it, but managed to spike a fever of 104 degrees by Thursday night. Bleah. Therefore, I’ve been a couch pilot for the past two and a half days, leaving me with plenty of time to explore the ‘net and my satellite TV. The former is where I found out about this story: the creator of Spaghettios has passed away.

Since my days in television, I’ve been notorious for keeping a locker full of various Chef Boy Ar Dee, Franco American, or Hormel products. Much of that was the result of working long hours with no real breaks, so I could just nuke something and eat while I work. I still prefer to do so now that I have a job where I get a lunch break. While I don’t have a locker like I did at KFYR, I have a plastic rolling bin with lots of cans in it.

Anyway, about “soup guru” Kurt Eberling, I’m grateful that he came up with Spaghettios. I have a feeling they were the start of a lot of the funky pasta meals served in a can over the years. But the guy was also a scout leader and an artist, and it seems like he was a nice guy. When I get back to work, I think I’ll crack open a can of Spaghettios in his honor.

Welcome to Bismarck. Restrictions in effect. Only one catch: you 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 saw these signs go up last year and thought they were pretty funny. Obviously 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 and wedged a little “Load” in there that the signs made sense:

This is how the corrected signs looked last year. I was actually surprised to find an unmodified one posted up along Divide Avenue this afternoon. The top two pictures are from today, the bottom picture from last year. In a 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!

These branches don’t run

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You can see this tree near another popular Bismarck tree; it’s in a yard along Burleigh Avenue, between Washington Street and the Fox Island area. This is a large tree, too…although you can’t get much of a perspective from seeing it lit in the dark, this is an ENORMOUS tree!

I would have presented a better view of this patriotic display, but I can’t. I was out and about with little 3-month-old Jonathan, who just couldn’t seem to fall asleep. He was crying until I hoisted him into the truck, then we two dudes drove around and watched Bismarck go by. I started reciting two of PJ’s favorite storybooks, since I’ve read them enough to have them memorized, and my mastery of the art of storytelling put him gradually to sleep. I was about to head home when I saw this tree.

I did have my little 3.1 megapixel backup camera with me, so I set the timer and held as steady as I could. It always kicks into “Slow Shutter” mode in low light, and it’s difficult to pull a non-streaked photo when in that mode. Fortunately it turned out okay. I tried to get a shot of it again the other night, and the big sign in front of it had blown over. It’s since been fixed, but some of the lights were out when I drove by on my way home Sunday night (probably damaged by the tip-over). Hopefully it’ll be restored soon, and you can swing by to see it as pictured above!

State “A” in the books

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This weekend I worked the championship night at the State “Super A” here in Bismarck. Mandan continues their girls’ basketball dynasty, keeping our minds off their football history. Rather than go home completely empty-handed, Bismarck High finished off the Bruins for a boys’ championship.

This is a LONG stretch for the guys on the NBC North Dakota TV crew. The Bismarck folks start off with bowling in February, then members of the team from over the state make treks to Grand Forks, Fargo, and Minot for state hockey and the three basketball weekends. That’s a lot of nights in hotel rooms, a lot of long work days, a lot of miles traveled, a lot of cables coiled. Oh, and a lot of Applebee’s every night. I was on a different crew this weekend, which means no free food for me. Darn.

The TV crew isn’t the group most inconvenienced by this, though. Back when the switch was made, in order to avoid a lawsuit from parents of volleyball girls if I remember correctly, it put a crunch on the smaller schools. Girls’ coaches would referee boys’ games and vice versa, because their seasons were not simultaneous. All of a sudden they were playing at the same time, putting a strain on the system. That also made gymnasium space harder to come by in some places as well. All to make a few kids and their parents happy. North Dakota had watched South Dakota fight a similar lawsuit until its resources dwindled and it finally settled. Now we have two Class B tournaments and the Super A each spring.

What…you mean you DON’T have your own fragrance?

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One could accuse me of a clever Photoshop, I’m sure…but these are legit, folks. When I was a kid, Avon came out with a “Clint” line of products. Thankfully my mom scarfed up a set for me, and they’ve remained in my souvenir box ever since. There’s soap, talc, cologne, after shave, and roll-on deodorant.

What do they smell like? I couldn’t tell you right now; I’m still getting over the flu, so my nose as stuffed as a Democrat ballot box. I don’t recall the fragrance exactly, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t smell like me. That would never hit the market!

Ice, ice, baby

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I have this crazy friend (okay, I have several, and they have me) who told me how cool it is to drive out on the ice of Lake Audubon. Not only is it a big lake, the ice is very thick, and there are islands to explore. Because boats are not allowed out there, the only way to get to these islands is to drive there during the winter. They’ve got beavers, coyotes, and who knows what else on them. I decided to take him up on the idea of a voyage out there. We didn’t see any critters, and the clear skies turned cloudy on us, but we did come upon a HUGE pressure ridge. Enormous slabs of ice had pushed straight upward in a line stretching almost completely across the big lake!

The sky took a dramatic, ominous look as we climbed up onto the ridge. There was no danger of breaking through the ice; it’s frozen so thick this year that people are bottoming out their ice augers trying to get a fishing hole! The point of the ridge that we chose to explore was on the shore of one of the aforementioned islands as well, not in deep water.

I’m close to six feet tall, but this blue slab of ice was about 1.5 times as tall as me. I climbed up on the ridge to get a decent look at it. I’m told that before the last warm-cold cycle, this ice was all colored blue and lit up on a sunny day. It’s as if Superman dropped a crystal from his ice house, if you know what I mean!


Another spot of color out on the open (albeit frozen) water was this green pool of water. While the ice itself is frozen to a thickness of a few feet, the surface does tend to melt on those warm days. It refreezes when the temperatures drop again, but on a day like today we had plenty of water puddles on top of the ice. We lamented that fact as we walked over to the ridge, as we weren’t wearing waterproof shoes! We parked quite a distance away and walked, in case the ice was weakened near the pressure ridge. We needed the car to get home, after all.

One of the things we really wanted to see was wildlife. Aside from a glimpse of a running coyote on the horizon, we saw nothing. Of course; the presence of a camera jinxed it, I’m sure.

This is a really cool trip if you have the opportunity, especially if the lake and the sky comply. In our case, we were fortunate in that the ice is incredibly thick and stable. The sky is pretty dynamic, of course, and I’m glad that it clouded up for us instead of the hard light of a clear, sunny sky. Despite the absence of critters, we call this trip a success…thanks to the sight of this giant ridge of broken ice.