We’ve all had days like this, haven’t we? Everybody makes mistakes, it’s just that the guys with the CDLs (Commercial Drivers Licenses) that tend to make the really big ones. After all, they drive the biggest vehicles!
I wouldn’t consider Taco Bell to be Mexican food, at least not authentic. Taco John’s is at least honest and calls their food “Tex Mex” in some of their signage. Taco del Mar, however, is a lot more authentic. They’ve got an enchilada sauce that I’ll probably dream about after I get done typing this and go to bed!
Patrick, the owner of this franchise, and his wife moved here from Fergus Falls. I had the opportunity to meet them and let ’em know how much I love their restaurant, and they’re really friendly folks! Tell ’em I said hi if when you visit their restaurant.
You can check out the menu at www.tacodelmar.com. Of course I tend to mix ‘n’ match anyway, getting the two taco combo with enchilada sauce on it. But they’ve never had a problem getting it right! Even though I live by my stomach, don’t take my opinion for it – visit Taco del Mar at your earliest opportunity and you will not be disappointed.
The Frozen Four will take place in St. Louis on April 5th. I wish I could say I’d be there, but sadly I’ll be confined to my couch and satellite dish. In any case, I’ll be cheering wildly for the Fighting Sioux.
Actually, as I remember last year…Buffalo Wild Wings on south 3rd Street was the place to be for Fighting Sioux hockey. I couldn’t find a parking spot within a block, and the place absolutely erupted whenever the Fighting Sioux would score or pull off a good play. It was sweet to see all the UND apparel being proudly displayed and the sense of unity and spirit in the place. Perhaps I’ll be enjoying the games over a hot basket of chicken tenders instead! See you there!
If you’re one of those ridiculous “hostile and abusive” UND-hating types, well, this is your invitation to bring home some Starbuck’s, kick off your Birkenstocks, and watch Dr. Phil. That or just sit around trying to figure out how the rest of the world should live their lives. In the mean time, the rest of us will be enjoying ourselves. I know that must really rub the PC crowd the wrong way, but that’s pretty much liberalism in a nutshell: trying to spread the misery around instead of hogging it all to yourself. Pretty sad, really.
To get this kind of effect, simply crank down the aperture on your lens (I used F/18 here) and then adjust your shutter speed to get it suitably dark (I used 1/1000th sec). It’s that easy!
Both of my Spooky photos were taken on very pleasant days, yet they have a dark, forboding look to them. Learning to do things like this by using my camera’s controls is really fun! Give it a try.
The work in this show spans pretty much every medium that you’d imagine. I watched Nebraska artist David Belitz talk with show patrons while bending a spool of wire into a rose for them. There are sculptures in metal and ceramic, paintings, photography, cloth…you name it, it’s there. Artists have come from the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. Student artists from local schools have participated as well. One can walk the halls of the Benedictine Center from one end to the other and enjoy rooms of artwork along the way.
The show runs from 1:00 to 10:00 Friday afternoon and 9:00am to 9:00pm on Saturday. A variety of musical entertainment will perform from 1:00pm to 4:30pm on Saturday, with a bell choir concert at 5:00pm.
I’m told that the show was started by artists who had submitted work in other art shows but were overlooked, despite their quality, most likely because of their Christian theme. Here’s a show where the whole point is to give glory to God, and the work can be judged on its merits as well as enjoyed. Don’t miss this opportunity!
This is the third episode of the Beacon to use one of my photos on the cover. Sweet! I’m glad I can help out Mr. Cates, as I know the Beacon is his passion just like taking pictures and posting them here is a passion of mine. I also appreciate having my work appear with that of local authors I admire, many of whom are respected educators in the Bismarck-Mandan area.
There haven’t been many good photo opportunities lately, as you may have noticed. The skies have been gray, the temperatures inhospitable, and I’ve been really darn busy. I’m really excited for things to green up and for the wildlife to start flourishing again. I have a feeling that this is going to be a great season for running around with a camera!
If you want to see Bismarck-Mandan differently, buy a camera and start photographing everything that catches your eye. You’ll find a new appreciation of our fair cities. Last night, as my wife and I took baby PJ out for his first stroll along the river, something caught my eye in the trees to our right. Since I was carrying my camera, I swung it over toward the trees and aha! Bunny. Hopefully he doesn’t have “a mean streak a mile wide!”
If you have a Canon camera and want to try out this lens, go to Bob’s Photo and try it out – they’ve got one in stock. It’s really quite good for the money. Or buy my old one, it’s going on eBay in the next couple of days!
When I first started at the now-extinct Meyer Broadcasting in 1990, the employee handbook boasted the KFYR AM 550 tower as the tallest free-standing radio at the time it was built. I don’t know how it stacks up now, but it’s a pretty tall structure. The “stick” towers you see held up by guy-wires are much much taller, but that’s because they have lots of additional support. These beasties here are built on top of big insulators and have no wires helping them stay upright.
AM radio towers are different than others in that the tower is the antenna. An FM or television “stick” is simply a tower with an antenna at the top of it. So you don’t want to be anywhere near an AM tower while the transmitter is operating!
The little tower is an interesting feature. AM radio signals travel using “ground wave” propagation during the day, but at night the sky’s ionosphere changes and reflects AM radio waves back to earth. That means an AM station can be heard a LONG ways away. So what if there are two 550 AM stations? There are actually a lot more than two, but two high-power 550’s near each other’s range of operation could run into problems if their signal areas suddenly grew at night and overlapped each other. That’s why many stations, including KFYR, “go directional” around sunset each night.
The little tower is energized and “pulls” the signal toward Bismarck (away from Canada, rather) so that it does not cause interference with the other 550s north and east of us. By controlling the power to each transmitter, the engineers can “shape” the signal area in such a way as to avoid interference. Pretty cool, huh?
These days, the transition back to “non-directional” happens during the PH Phactor in the mornings. As sunrise comes earlier, that’ll start to get done before Phil takes the board. But you’ll know the switch is happening when you hear a burp of static for a second or two, then the signal returns to normal.