Another favorite part of Christmas in Bismarck-Mandan

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It’s December, which means that the North Dakota State Capitol is adorned with a Christmas tree shape in its windows. Whether it’s the new year, the 4th of July, or Christmas, the windows of the capitol have become known for being the largest decoration in the city.

I got to wander the halls of the capitol once with the fella who is in charge of making sure that the right windows get changed over (using colored or blank window shades). He has a map that goes floor by floor, a diagram of how things need to be done from the inside to look just right from the outside.

The star on top was airlifted by my friend’s dad in a National Guard helicopter – a Huey, if I recall – many, many years ago. It may be older than I am. If I recall, it has a twin on the back side of the building.

Christmas in central North Dakota wouldn’t be the same without this 18-story (plus the star) display every year!

Night at the Museum — well, capitol, actually — Part Two

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If you watched any of the local news stations, you probably know that the ceremony held for the lighting of the capitol Christmas tree took place today. Now when you drive by the capitol at night you’ll see the big tree lit up in the windows of the Great Hall.

I couldn’t help but whip together a quick post akin to my first “Night at the Museum” type post from a while back. Here’s a shot of what the tree looks like at night when nobody’s around, from inside the Great Hall. It needs a Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack in there…the acoustics would be really cool!

Christmas is in full swing in my family. Both of our little boys are two years old now, which means they can actually understand what’s going on. That makes Christmas even more enjoyable! I love watching them in their excitement, and I love driving them around town to look at the lights. Taking them places to see and experience different things is one of my greatest joys in life. Yes, they did get to see the giant capitol tree tonight, too!

One way to clean your camera…

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Just shoot in a class 10,000 clean room! A nice person in a sealed white suit will take your camera and clean its exterior so it doesn’t contaminate the room, while someone else helps you into your fancy white suit. Then, once nobody presents a threat of sprinkling dust and hair all over the place, in we go. Then you’ve got a nice, clean camera to use for taking photos of microchips and the like.

element: motion

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I took one of my little two-year-olds to the lovely Bismarck Municipal Airport to look at airplanes and ride the escalators. Since he was having such a blast going up and down, up and down, up and down…I decided to have a little fun of my own. I threw on a 10mm lens, set my camera on the floor at the bottom of one of the escalators, set a slow shutter speed, and voila! Fun.

I don’t think you can see it in the first photo, but yes – that balloon I posted about a few days ago is still hugging the ceiling. Here’s the proof. Then I put the camera back in my trusty backpack so I wouldn’t make security nervous, then took little Sparky for a couple more escalator rides.

Flyby

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I knew that the space station was going to be passing by tonight, because it has been doing so on a nightly basis. I perched myself on the University of Mary hill, got my camera ready, and had one shot at success. I was hoping for a little flatter trajectory, with an arc passing almost horizontally across the frame, but that wasn’t in the cards. I got the shot, however. I processed different areas of this photo differently to bring out the detail in each.

The ISS traversed the sky overhead for several minutes before fading into the dark night sky. Then I hopped in the truck, ran back to town and perused the Bismarck public library for a bit, then brought home a Lightning McQueen toddler bed for one of my two two-year-old boys. Ka-chow!

That last step is a doozy…will our Senators take it?

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I’ve probably featured a shot like this before, but never on such a glorious frosty November morning! Have a great weekend!

Oh…wait a minute. There’s something we need to do, or our nation will be stepping off a figurative, dangerous version of the top step in the photo above. The Senate plans to vote on their monstrosity of a “health care reform” bill this Saturday. We need to urge our Senators to vote NO.

Once again, they have thousands of pages of bureaucracy waiting for us, stripping us of our freedoms and turning your body into a budget item. Oh, and it gets worse:

This bill will require everybody to pay for publicly funded abortions, regardless of their convictions on the matter. Funds will be collected from all participants in the public “option” and dispersed to provide abortion services. This is not elective.

It’s amazing, considering that every poll out there shows that the people do not support the government takeover of health care. Opposition to abortion is at an all time high as well. Yet they continue to plow forward! This is not a representative form of government with the current bunch of idiots in office. Force them to listen; make your voice heard!

Have you ever called one of our congressmen to voice your opinion? It’s easy, it takes about thirty seconds, and their staff will note your call. They have to. You don’t have to argue your opinion or debate with the person on the other end of the phone; you simply tell them how you want the senator to vote. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s a shame it doesn’t get used more.

For reference, the bill in question is HR 3590. You can read it by downloading the PDF here (free Adobe Reader required).

You can find out the contact information of our senators by clicking here but I’ll give you the phone numbers as the senate website is already kinda slow.

Dorgan: (202) 224-2043, 250-4618 locally or email him at http://dorgan.senate.gov/contact/contact_form.cfm.

Conrad: (202) 224-2551, 258-4648 locally or email at http://conrad.senate.gov/webform.html

Don’t wait to to do it. Like I said, it takes thirty seconds, and they need to hear from us! Don’t let them strip us of our liberty in this unconstitutional power grab!