Good to be busy during this warm weather spell

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been out enjoying the recent warm weather and clear skies, just mostly with one or both of my toddlers instead of my camera. Of course I typically have the camera bag with me, but I’m just not out on photo trips right now. These little fellas get more fun with each passing day, and I look forward to them being old enough to go hiking and shooting and things with their Daddy.

Here’s a slightly more comprehensive list of ways to enjoy a warm, sunny break in the cold of a January winter:

– clean the Garage Majal. I even vacuumed in all the corners of my man cave, going through at least two movies on the DVD player. I put in a bigger TV, too…but the refrigerator needs to be stocked with fresh Dew.

– bring my wife a rose at work. Girls like that kind of thing! I’m still sneezing from the flower shop, though.

– remove ice from the sidewalks. Whether it’s by ice chopper or by giant torch, getting rid of stubborn ice spots now will pay off when it gets cold and blustery again. Especially with two year olds using the sidewalk!

– Work. Holy cow have we been busy. Now that I’m not in television, I mostly work bankers’ hours…but there have been some evening shoots lately. The winter sun can be a challenge, so if you can’t control it, wait for it to go away. I was shooting in a building with a lot of windows, and sunlight streaming in made it impossible to balance the lighting correctly. Thus I made the call to shoot after dark, and the results were fantastic.

– surprise my wife with a clean kitchen. She wasn’t feeling well and went to bed early. I have the kind of hard working wife who can’t shake the fact that there’s a chore left to do, so imagine the load lifted when she woke up and the chore didn’t need to be done!

– be Daddy. I took my two year old to the airport last night to ride the escamalators (sic) and watch a couple of jets take off. He carried around the miniature pack of M&Ms that I gave him, since he had to wait until after dinner.

– write. I haven’t done any blogging since the Monday announcement, but I have polished up a magazine article and wrote a brief outline for an op-ed I might shop around in a week or two. I also occasionally contribute to some video / photo / animation forums, and recently there have been some questions posted which I can answer.

– maintenance. I’ve spent a lot of time in the studio tightening clamps on light stands and tripods, cleaning cameras, tuning boom poles, and other basic maintenance. I also came up with an improvement for our crane rig, one which allowed me to get some unconventional shots you’ll probably see on TV in the next couple of weeks.

– exercise. I did this in the form of chopping all the compacted snow/ice off our driveways. Fun. It was a solid 45 minutes of work, got the blood pumping, and I left one garage door open with a movie going as entertainment.

– play in the snow. This one hasn’t been accomplished yet, but I plan to take my little towheads out sledding or to make a snow fort and snowman. I even bought two new purple snow-block makers to assist in the task. That may have to be a Saturday plan so I can take them out during the warmest part of the day.

– Photography! I’m itching for this one, too. With the holidays and other things going on, my hobby has taken a back seat. It isn’t that there’s nothing to photograph in Bismarck or Mandan, that’s for sure. Hopefully over the weekend I can venture out and find something neat with the camera.

Enjoy the warm weather! Compact some snow and throw it at someone you love, or build something, or just get outside and exercise. I’ll post some more fun photos soon, including some I’ve been sitting on: a homemade P-51 Mustang airplane replica that seats one and is powered by a Geo Metro engine!

Governor Hoeven’s running

Posted on by
Reply

It’s official: he’s in. I got there plenty early but there was no parking anywhere NEAR the Doublewood. The banquet room was so packed that they had to open a divider and fill a second room. I was on the press platform next to my friend Racer from KFYR TV and Scott Hennen from AM 1100 radio. One funny thing about Republicans, though…they don’t chant for long. Several times the chant was started to bring in the governor, but they had to be restarted. There was lots of applause and enthusiasm though!

It’s too bad all that ammunition against Senator Byron “Skybox” Dorgan won’t have to be used…it would be great to expose him for his true legacy. It’s no wonder he didn’t want to go against a popular incumbent governor, given all the baggage that is going to stick with our helmet-headed Senator forevermore.

Go get ’em, John! We’ll be keeping an eye on you.

Boston Globe can’t figure out why Senator Dorgan opposes his state’s interests so frequently

Posted on by
Reply

I read Senator Byron Dorgan’s book when it first came out. I’m a speed reader, and it’s really just a bunch of fluff and feel-good anecdotes wrapped around a singular premise, so it took me very little time. The summation: protectionism and labor unions. Period.

This Boston Globe Op-Ed article has the author scratching his head in bewilderment over Senator Dorgan’s protectionist position. There were some interesting North Dakota stats in here:

– One seventh of North Dakota’s manufacturing jobs are due to exports according to the International Trade Administration;

– Foreign companies employ 8,300 people in our great state;

– 900 of our North Dakota businesses earned combined revenues of $2.8 Billion from export sales in 2008 alone.

I’m scratching my head too, Senator Dorgan. In fact, many of your North Dakota constituents have been doing so for such a long time, its a wonder WE don’t have your hair predicament!

Visitor from the 4×4 Galaxie (pun intended)

Posted on by
Reply

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know that I take great amusement from seeing the different 4×4 creations and amalgamations that I occasionally spot around town. My boys and I were out in the truck tonight and spotted this creation just before sunset: a Ford Galaxie on a ’79 Ford F150 chassis!

I got to talk to the owner of this beast for a minute, and he said that the transformation took a mere four days due to a lot of planning. It’s a really nice piece of work, I must say. This creation was only recently finished, but I bet you’ll spot it around town soon!

I’d say this whole homemade 4×4 thing is getting out of hand…but isn’t that the point? I’d hate to discourage this kind of creativity and ingenuity. Besides, it’s exactly the opposite of what liberals want us to do, drive silly little death traps in a vain attempt to “save” the planet they worship.

For any of you who haven’t seen them all, here are a few of the other creations I’ve spotted in Bismarck-Mandan:

My boys and I spotted this rugged looking Ford Van conversion last year. Yep, it’s a dually; it’s got four tires on the back. I guess it’s ready for some heavy cargo, since it can’t pull a fifth wheel trailer. Interesting.

This little Gremlin conversion scores big points for the license plate: MOGWAI.
 

Nothing says class like a Mercedes sedan. Apparently if you don’t like the ride height, it’s possible to give it a little boost (along with some four wheel drive for good measure).

Equally classy is the Cadillac sedan, which happens to bolt on to a Suburban (by the look of things) chassis. The step rails are a bonus in my book. This is in the nicest shape of all the conversions I’ve seen.

Knight Rider had a lot of gadgets, but I’m pretty sure that four wheel drive and a Vortec V6 were not among them. There’s a ZR-2 model S-10 chassis underneath this Firebird.

There’s one other 4×4 I haven’t seen around here since the mid 1990s: a pinkish-red pearl El Camino, or possibly Ranchero, which was last seen on the used car lot at Cedric Theel. Who knows where it eventually ended up. If I spot that one, I’ll count my collection complete. Of course, that’s what I said before I saw the Gremlin.

ND motorcyclists: call your legislator and tell them to vote NO on the government healthcare takeover

Posted on by
Reply

I was sitting in Barnes & Noble as I’m known to do occasionally, reading some of those zany British motorcycle magazines that make our American mags look like vegan cookbooks by comparison. I was reading an issue of Visor Down and noticed an interesting tidbit in the “confessionals” section. I snapped a quick photo (above) of the reader’s submitted letter. The part that jumped out at me was:

After a trip in the big NHS taxi, I found myself in casualty, on a Friday night and it was packed. I was walking wounded so I was left in the corridor on a luxury PVC NHS wheelchair. After about 2 hours, and feeling a bit stiff, I decided to hop across the packed waiting room to the drinks machine.

This story takes a more interesting turn, but the fact that this guy took for granted that he could be stuffed into a plastic wheelchair and left in a hallway after crashing his motorycle is absolutely ridiculous. Motorcyclists are known to be a little more freedom-loving (and -exercising) than most…yet this guy, a product of European socialism, has been conditioned to think that his situation was acceptable.

Depending on your monitor size, the text of the article may or may not be legible in the photo above. Let me clarify: he didn’t write to complain about his experience at a government (NHS) hospital. He wrote in to say how embarassed he was that, during the “hop to the drinks machine” he mentioned above, he realized that the crash had ripped the butt out of his jeans and boxer shorts, exposing him to the people in the waiting room. As an freedom-loving American, I would like to point out that his REAL source of embarassment should be his nation’s government healthcare system!

North Dakota has a lot of motorcyclists, especially considering our weather. If you’re one of them, and think that the government won’t find a way to penalize you for riding a motorcycle under its “fair” new health care system, you’re deluding yourself. Call Dorgan, Pomeroy, and Conrad and tell them to vote NO on government health care!

I was discussing this with a nice gentleman from the Cato institute last fall, and he pointed out that motorcyclists should probably pay more for insurance because they present a greater risk. He didn’t state that as his opinion, just as a matter of the business of insuring against such risk. I agree from a business standpoint, because the free market will sort this out just like anything else.

Case in point:, in the 80s it was very difficult to insure a motorcycle like mine. Yet, the sportbike riders were out there, and enterprising insurance companies bucked the trend to shy away from them and be the only ones to offer reasonably priced coverage. Now it’s easy and cheap to insure a sportbike capable of 300kph like mine, even with a $100 deductible! The free market sorts things out and lowers prices like government never could. See what happens when motorcyclists band together?

Once again, I implore you to call Conrad, Dorgan, and Pomeroy to urge them to vote against government run health care. Your fellow bikers will thank you…we’re all in this together.

Change North Dakotans can believe in: Byron “Skybox” Dorgan ain’t comin’ back

Posted on by
Reply

This is good news and bad news. First the good news: Senator Dorgan will NOT be coming back next year as a US Senator from the great state of North Dakota. We won’t see any loss of representation, since he hasn’t represented North Dakota views in years. In fact, his Republican replacement will probably do a far better job.

The bad news: I expect him to vote with a “scorched earth” mentality in mind, since we don’t have his re-election to hold over his combover-clad head any more. Plus, I suppose he’ll dole out his four million dollar war chest to PACs set up to elect other North Dakota democrats across the various ballots.

With all the liberal Democrats that are announcing they won’t be running in November, I expect they’re all being bought off with promises of “czarship” or some other cushy reward within the bowels of the Obama administration. Kent Conrad alluded to as much already. That’s the way of Chicago thug politics: buy off and intimidate.

The major thing of note in Byron’s career, and this is why I refer to him as Byron “Skybox” Dorgan, was his involvement with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, something the media branded as a “Republican scandal” to shield their beloved Democrats. There is the Northern Plains Heritage Area debacle as well, which is still in the “unfinished business” category.

One question: does this mean he’ll “return” to his “home” at 1001 Central Avenue #8 here in Bismarck? Not bloody likely. Heaven forbid that we get another Democrat senator…but if so, will Kent Conrad rent this placeholder apartment out to them instead?

I guess Byron will have to remove this illustrious placard from his mailbox at good ol’ Apartment Number Eight. Think he’ll be able to cope without such luxurious trappings of office? I bet his home on the east coast doesn’t look this shabby!

Good Riddance, Senator Dorgan. Don’t let the door hit your combover on your way out.

The (ice) fog comes on little cat feet

Posted on by
Reply

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

I’m always giddy to use a line from my favorite Carl Sandburg poem, thus the title. And on cat feet it came, only this time it was ice fog instead of the traditional kind. It left just as slyly, leaving me only one location to try to grab a few shots of its remarkable effects!

With an otherwise crystal-clear sky, the airborne crystals of this ice fog turned any bright light source into a blazing spire piercing the darkness above Bismarck-Mandan. In some places with enough bright light sources close together, the sight was reminiscient of aurora borealis!

I noticed these by accident, keeping true with my typical modus operandi: stumble into the right place at the right time, with my camera in my possession. Why do you think my motto is, “it’s better to be lucky than good?” I had stepped out to run an errand for my wife when I saw this phenomenon in the sky, and I took quick advantage of it. I’m glad I was timely in doing so; within twenty minutes, the ice fog has gone. Little cat feet, indeed.

2010 from a different angle. A few, really

Posted on by
Reply

This is the fifth time I’ve done this. I got a camera in 2005 and started this website on January 1, 2006. You can see the first post here, which naturally features the capitol with “2006” in the windows. As a result, taking pictures of the capitol on New Year’s Eve isn’t just a fun pastime of mine, it’s also an anniversary of sorts.

After running a video camera at the Wizards game, I stopped up at the capitol grounds on my way home. Man, was it COLD out! I would take a few shots (with my remote so I could keep gloves on) and then sit in the nice, warm truck for a while before trying a new angle!

There were a lot of cars coming through. Many just stopped and looked up at the numbers in the windows. Some, however, were as insane as myself and braved the cold to get out and take a couple quick photos.

I used my 10mm lens for most of these shots, which gives the tower a unique bit of perspective distortion. It also allows me to fit it all into the shot, something that’s not easy to do with most lenses. I snapped a few and then bolted to my nice, warm home. Happy New Year!

A little experiment on the way home tonight

Posted on by
Reply

I decided to stop and play a little bit with my camera on the way home today. I was working pretty hard on an animation that had me really tired of staring at my monitors, so it was nice to get out in the brisk December air and click the shutter a few times. Okay, well…a LOT of times. This timelapse of downtown Bismarck is the result. It’s short but pretty neat. After all, it was pretty cold out there. At approximately 30 frames per second, it can take a lot of pictures to make even a brief time lapse happen.

It might look a little something like this

Posted on by
Reply


Photoshopped version of what 2010 might look like

One of the things that makes North Dakota, and Bismarck-Mandan in particular, feel so homey is the display of the Capitol building windows for certain holidays. There’s the Christmas tree currently on display, made with red and green window shades; the “4th” that appears on the front face of the building every Independence Day; and, of course, the numbers announcing the New Year. Those numbers will appear this week…but how will they look? It’s been nine years since we had a 1!

There are four possibilities, given the rows of windows on the face of the capitol building. I don’t think either of the outside rows would look right, so I guess it’s a 50/50 chance between the two center rows. Any guesses?

I know the guy who does these displays (he has help, of course) and was tempted to call his cell phone and ask…but it’s more fun guessing, don’t you think?