Yeah…about that “ninety-nine percent” thing

UPDATE: Click on this link to see who is supporting this “movement.”

This afternoon on my way home from work I spotted three hapless kids holding anti-capitalist signs at the top of 7th Street. While the urge might be to try to hurl some common sense their way while waiting for the red light to change, these useful idiots are not worth the time or effort. They’re there because it fills an emotional need, not because the content of those signs bears any resemblance to reality.

I had a fun idea: make a parody of the handwritten sign meme recently made popular by the “Occupy” protests (the term “occupy” itself is funny, because it’s another retread term from the failed “revolutions” of the 1960’s).

I looked at the notes posted in photos by many of these protestors: many hiding their faces, most scrawling notes about tens of thousands of college loan debt for meaningless majors and worthless liberal arts degrees, all wanting someone ELSE to do something about it. That is so contrary to how North Dakotans tend to view themselves and the standard to which we hold ourselves that I felt moved to make a little note of my own.

Here’s a larger version if the one above is hard to read on your screen. I simply wanted to highlight that I believe the exact opposite of what those greedy protesters are all “occupying” for. I call them greedy because in my mind what they’re doing, demanding that someone else give them their property, is far more greedy than some rich guy wanting to keep what he’s earned.

A friend of mine walked around one of the Occupy Bismarck protests and asked people about their signs and what they meant. Most couldn’t answer the questions, and used “I didn’t make this sign” as an excuse. That makes perfect sense, even if the leftist cliches on their signs do not. Clearly these people aren’t the real 99% of anything except maybe the Democrat Party.

It could be a while before your next Fort Lincoln Trolley ride

Hiking north of Fort Lincoln reveals trouble for the Fort Lincoln Trolley, one of my favorite local attractions. Most people haven’t seen even a small fraction of the devastation caused by the Flood of 2011 south of Mandan, and this is just one of many tragic stories.

This particular section has left a long stretch of rail, along with whatever ties were strong enough to remain attached, literally hanging in open air.

While the rails have not broken, they’ve certainly bent and are in serious need of rescue. The dark spot to the right of the tracks in the upper right portion of this photo is an enormous crack in the earth.

This isn’t the first time that the trolley folks have had to deal with erosion of the hills upon which their track resides; however, I don’t know whether previous damage was anywhere near as serious as this. Not only has a lot of the hill let go, but there are still major cracks in parts of the hill that remain. It looks as though plenty more dirt is waiting for an opportune moment to plunge toward the river as well.

As you can see, a large section of the hill simply separated and tumbled toward the river below as the hill was eroded from its base by the overflowing river. I used my monopod as a makeshift jib to suspend my camera in the air over the tracks for this treacherous shot.

I don’t know what it’ll take to get these tracks back to operational status; it looks like a trellis system might be required, because I don’t think it’s feasible to try to rebuild and reinforce this section of the hill. Hopefully something can be done for next season, because this trolley ride is one of the more fun ways to spend a summer afternoon! I shot some video of my last ride…I’ll have to put a little something together and post it here.

I’m sure glad the rumormongers didn’t get a hold of this

The last twelve months haven’t been exactly stellar for the Army Corps of Engineers. They’ve been far worse for thousands of people who’ve had to deal with the results of their pooch-screw policies in regard to management of the Missouri River System. Their lack of credibility with people in the Dakotas was validated when the Argus Leader newspaper uncovered emails with bombshells such as Todd Lundquist’s quote saying, “I’m headed home. I no longer look people in the eye and tell them the forecast is 85,000 cfs from Garrison.” Later releases would reach nearly double that rate. While there was a lot of rumbling and grumbling going on, I stumbled upon a another sort of rumble:

I was surprised to find this event on the USGS earthquake watch website, an 3.5 magnitude quake west of Fort Peck which hit on July 1st. This was a day or so before an oil pipeline burst beneath the Yellowstone River far away near Billings, an event which grabbed all the headlines for a few days. While I don’t think this quake was directly related to the spill, I remember seeing some other quakes much closer to the pipeline leak at the time. What was interesting was that nobody spotted the 3.5 shaker and either tried to connect it to the pipeline failure or use it to sensationalize the possibility of a failure at Fort Peck.


Remember, this was about a month after environmental activist Bernard Shanks published a guest commentary on the St. Louis Today website outlining his fear of a “domino effect” on the Missouri River System. His nightmare scenario began with the failure of the Fort Peck Dam. While his article was very timely, it also coincided with one other important event: his publishing a book on the theory. I doubt that was a coincidence, but the whole thing gained a lot of traction in the Dakotas as we were already learning not to trust the Corps. Mr. Shanks appeared on local radio and links to his article were flying around Facebook rather furiously.

Then, of course, you have to wonder about this: an emergency bid being put out for the material which reinforces the Fort Peck Dam, the very one Mr. Shanks claims is the weak link and which was at 111% of capacity.

Naturally the last thing I wanted to do was contribute to any hype, so I just sat on my little discovery. I don’t deal in sensationalism and reliable information was already hard to come by in weary communities already made nervous by the fluidity of facts. Therefore I resolved to wait until the flood waters had receded and the threat of Mr. Shanks’ domino effect abated with them. I’ve watched as the river levels have fallen past the 9.79 feet of January 1st, 2011 and settled in the six-and-a-half foot range. While I think the event is certainly noteworthy, I certainly don’t think it was worth hysteria.

Here are a couple of links to the event for the curious. Its ID is event 11948206 for those of you who want to dart straight to Google for your own research.

USGS Earthquake event website entry

USGS Shakemap web page for #11948206

Now let’s hope that the management of the Missour River System doesn’t put us in the same precarious position next year. In the unfortunate event that we find ourselves in a flood fight again, I hope the Corps will be more forthcoming and that people will resist the urge to play loose & fast with information. Events like this are far harder to endure when sensationalism runs amok as well.

Hiking at “oh dark hundred” pays off

I alluded earlier to a hike I took before sunrise with my friend Matt in order to get some nice sunrise photos. The skies were clear when we departed, but by the time we’d hiked up the hill to the blockhouses of Fort Lincoln there was very little clear sky available. Nevertheless, the sun came through for us as it maximized the sliver of unobstructed sky to the east, beaming color through in dramatic fashion.

After grabbing shots from several different angles, I decided to do an abbreviated time lapse. Since I had other things going on, I was not prepared to get the entire sunrise, but I could see that the sun was going to emerge through another slender gap in the clouds. I hastily set up for it and, although it’s short, I thought it looked pretty decent when looped a couple of times:

Between the photos and this short little time lapse, not to mention great company, rolling out of bed at 5:30 in the morning was well worth it. I think I’ll sleep in tomorrow, though…it’s been a long week!

Well, I never noticed that before

Of all the time I’ve spent in various parts of the World War Memorial Building, I don’t recall ever taking notice of this interesting feature tucked up in near the ceiling over the edge of the basketball court. I don’t know if there were seats on both the north and south ends of the gymnasium, but they’re only on the north side now. I was sitting with one of my little boys having some lunch when I noticed this little box up in the rafters. The “KFYR” sign in the windows gives its purpose away.

The narrow wooden walkway to this booth remains intact, but whatever stairway or ladder provided access to the walkway is long gone. I imagine it’s been a long time since anyone ever called a game from this press box, but it’s probably more hassle than it’s worth to try to dismantle it and take it down. As a result it remains up above the gymnasium, just in case someone ever needs to get a birds-eye view of the haps down on the basketball floor.

Wayne Sanstead’s DPI folks training to coerce your children’s view of sexuality

Yes, that’s right: they’re at it again. The last time Wayne Sanstead’s staff at DPI tried to get away with this, parents and others spoke out and got it cancelled. It was only six months ago, but they’re back.

According to the NDEA website, DPI is going to be presenting at an NDEA “Own the Change” conference this week (where have we heard that word “Change” so often before?) at Century High School. Its keynote speaker, Jo Anderson Jr., “has a background in community organizing” and spent time in Illinois (as did our president) “working particularly on efforts of the union” before landing a cushy gig as an Advisor to the Secretary of Education.

Well…Hope™ and Change™ come to North Dakota public schools! That’s no surprise given the NDEA’s involvement; however, DPI’s is even more perverse:

Sandy Tibke, one of Sanstead’s own staff, is going to be training teachers on normalizing “LGBTQ” behavior among our children. By the way, notice they’ve added the “Q” for “questioning”. That means if your child gets confused about sexuality issues, guess who’s ready to do the advocating counseling? Not you, I’d bet. Notice, by the way, how they keep adding letters to the acronym as they attempt to normalize additional deviant sexual behaviors. How long until they add a second B for Bestiality, or who knows what else? Maybe Ms. Tibke has the answer.

We’d like to think that North Dakota is resistant of all this Hope™ and Change™ – but Wayne Sanstead’s DPI is persistent in trying to fly it under our collective radar. Here’s my post from the last time they tried to sneak this garbage into our schools. The groups they affiliate themselves with are the same cadre of twisted freaks who got busted teaching “fisting” and “rimming” to school children in Massachusetts in 2009.

How do you suppose you “start creating a safe school environment” for deviant sexual behavior? Easy: tell the other kids that their parents are hateful bigots, their religion and faith are wrong, and that the perverts are the normal ones. Undermine parental authority and the free exercise of faith and religion guaranteed by the First Amendment, and squelch any opposition to the advance of the queer agenda in our school system. Intimidate the kids and the parents with threats of “discrimination” and “gender bias” and you’re free to do whatever you want!

The only ones dealing with children’s sexuality should be their parents – but that’s apparently not the way DPI sees it. I hope this comes out in future elections, by the way. Homosexual advocates tell us to “stay out of our bedrooms” but they’re hell-bent on getting into our childrens’ classrooms!

THANK YOU to Janne Myrdal of Concerned Women for America for posting this on the Say Anything Blog. As she points out, you can call the DPI at 701-328-2260 or e-mail wsanstead@nd.gov to urge them to abort this “training” and keep the homosexual agenda out of North Dakota’s public education system.

Oh yes…here’s where I back it up. Here are the PDFs from the NDEA:

Program for the “Own the Change” conference (PDF)

NDEA website describing the event (PDF)

Hot Air has a disturbing look at where this sort of thing is headed: “Do safe schools require an iron fisting?”

Colorful confluence

I celebrated the weekend by hiking up to the blockhouses at Fort Lincoln with a friend and our cameras. We took off at 6am and got there just before the sunrise, which was a case of perfect timing. While the sky was perfectly clear upon departure, clouds filled most of the sky by the time of our arrival at the top of the hill.

As the color began to fill the sky, we began exploring all the angles to get the best view of the remaining sliver of clear sky as well as those photogenic old forts. As the different elements of sunlight, color, photography, and friendship began to converge, we got some really cool shots from a variety of locations. Then, as quickly as it came, the dramatic effects of the sunrise left behind the advancing clouds and it was time to hike back to the truck and head home.

Kid’s Day at the Mandan Fire Department

This week my little boys and I were able to take a field trip to learn more about the firefighters who keep our cities safe. The Mandan Fire Department (with other local agencies) hosted a Kids’ Night with plenty for all to see! Bismarck Fire Department, ND Highway Patrol, Metro Area Ambulance and others helped out to provide an evening of fun, education, and hot dogs. The boys got little plastic fire helmets to bring home as well as some safety activity books to do with Mommy and Daddy.

Among the activities we took in were use of fire extinguishers on a real fire, using a real fire hose to hit targets, watching a Jaws of Life extrication demo, and of course the fire truck rides!

If this event looks cool and right now you’re saying, “Why didn’t I know anything about this?” don’t despair; it’s a regular event, scheduled for the second Tuesday in October every year. Mark your calendar for next year!

This year’s Greg

We always have plenty of bunnies on our property due to the abundance of habitat for them to hide and play in…this year is no different. Each year I find one particular bunny that stands out and dub him Greg, after the FOX television show Greg the Bunny. I loved that short-lived show and so, in an homage to its puppet star, I employ the name each year by assigning it to one of our family’s cohabitants.

Photo walk results

Well, the gang all met up last weekend for the Bismarck-Mandan portion of the Worldwide Photo Walk, and a grand time was had by all I talked to. Followed up by a brief gathering at Mocha & More, the walk consisted of meeting at the historic Depot and then wandering around on foot for two hours. Here’s an eclectic mix of the things I found that morning:

I found this really neat antique stroller in front of a little antique shop on Main Street. I applied a little bit of a vintage treatment to the photo.

This aging cross sits atop a church near downtown, I think a Presbyterian congregation if I remember correctly.

The aforementioned antique shop had a stack of picture frames outside on the sidewalk, so I grabbed one and took a quick photo of the Mandan Depot.

I call this one “Rural Amalgamation” – only in a small midwestern state will you find the American flag, a pristine John Deere tractor, and a mystical wall painting all in the same spot.

I found this really cool droopy tree just a couple of blocks north of Main Street. I parked myself on my back under the tree with a very wide angle lens to get the shot.

The way the tendrils of the tree drooped toward the ground was very eye catching from afar, but the best angle to capture then was directly underneath them.

Mandan’s historic downtown buildings have some interesting features, many of which are better viewed up close.

Something a little more modern, this six-pack of windows formed a nice geometric progression.

Next year we’ll do it again, I’m sure. Last year’s walk was in July, we’ll see what we come up with for 2012. It’s interesting to walk around your own town and try to come up with something unique that may be interesting to others around the world. We grow so accustomed to our own surroundings that forcing yourself to see it is unique and interesting is a very worthwhile exercise.