There’s still something missing…

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Fantastic new bridge we’ve got. One question, though: why haven’t the lights on the supports been turned on? If you don’t know the lights of which I speak, look to either side of the “V” of each of the concrete bridge supports. There are lights located there, and they’d be a remarkable addition to the new local landmark.

I was so sure I saw at least some of them on way back when the bridge was brand new. It’s been about a year; isn’t it time we turn ’em on?

BusinessWeek: “Korea’s Biggest Foreign Deal Ever Bites Back”

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That’s the title of this article I found in my BusinessWeek magazine this afternoon, so I dug up the link to the online version for you. To summarize, Doosan (the company which bought Bobcat) is in some dire straits and needs to cut costs. That’s an obvious fact to many Bismarck-Mandan families, but this article explains a little bit about why those cuts are occurring.

I thought it was interesting because of a few key bits of information I was able to pick out of the article. One is that Doosan was one of multiple bidders for Bobcat…sure, they closed the Bismarck plant, but a different bidder could have decided to abandon North Dakota entirely. Another is that the financing deal on this purchase requires Doosan to accelerate their loan payments in the event that Bobcat’s cashflow declines, which it clearly has.

This also reminds me of this article, which describes the moving of some Bobcat operations to the old iMation plant in Wahpeton. It looks like it’ll be some of the hydraulic and cylinder shop jobs. They’ll be paying $416,000 a year in rent. I wonder how that compares with the cost of owning facilities in Bismarck, and paying the property taxes thereon? A “nonprofit development corporation” owns the Wahpeton facility, which probably means that the taxpayers are eating it on the place in the name of “economic development.” Don’t get me started on that boondoggle; That vast empty Northern Plains Commerce Center southeast of town cost $4.7 million taxpayer dollars, with Bobcat its only prominent tenant. I haven’t heard of them packing up their operations there, but it raises the question: might they abandon the NPCC now, too?

One thing I didn’t hear mentioned in any of this articles: labor unions. Someone told me that the Litchfield, MN plant is non-union. I’ve also been told that the Wahpeton facility will be non-union. I don’t think it’s a stretch to connect those dots, in light of another anecdote I heard from a union meeting in Bismarck a while back. As the story goes, someone stood up and mentioned that he makes more at Bobcat than his wife at a professional job with a college degree, and dissatisfied Bobcat employees might want to consider that. While plenty of good things have come from workers getting together, I think the modern labor union is sorely off track, disregarding the best interest of their members, and probably played a significant role in hundreds of Bismarck jobs moved only two to three hours to the east.

There are probably more interesting observations and deductions you can make about the economy, the Doosan/Bobcat deal, the economic development canard, and labor unions…I’ll leave that up to you. I just wanted to share the observations I got when I flipped open the October 26th issue of BusinessWeek this afternoon.

Ethics investigation of Sen. Kent Conrad takes an interesting twist when Democrats change the lock on the hearing room door. Seriously

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Senator Kent Conrad has scored a few victories in dodging investigation into his Countrywide mortgage on the property he owns in Bismarck. He and Senator Chris Dodd have been under investigation for getting “sweetheart mortgages” for quite some time until the Democrats won the majority in the Senate and dismissed the matter. Republicans are still trying to get to the bottom of this, and want to issue subpoenas to get some answers. The Democrats have been working to stall that process.


This article describes the crazy lengths to which they’ll go: changing the locks on the door to the committee meeting room where the decision to issue subpoenas would be made. They then informed Republicans that only the Democrats would have the keys.

The article goes on to explain that it’s a retaliatory trick that the Democrats are using after being busted for canceling a meeting on the matter, lying that they had conflicts in their schedules.

The larger crime here, in my opinion, dwarfs the sweetheart mortgage deal on the property. It is my firm belief that Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan claim this apartment complex as their “residence” so they can remain eligible as North Dakotans on paper for reelection and get sent back east, where Senator Conrad has little real estate gems like this $1.4 million beach house.

If you want more information on this little bit of “inverse carpetbagging” on behalf of North Dakota’s members of the United States Senate, just click here.

The older I get, the faster I was

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I turn the big four-oh this week, and suddenly 40 doesn’t seem so old. I’m still pretty darn fast on a motorcycle, I’m throwing around my toddlers like a young dad, and I just had a tickle fight with my wife Sunday night (which I won). Age is in the heart.

I brought home a 4,000 DPI slide scanner from work to go through a pile of my racing slides from a few short years ago, which is where the above photo came from. I’ve got a bunch more to go, now that I’m done with a mega photo scanning job of old family prints. Slides go MUCH more slowly, even if the guy on them is going pretty fast. Boy, do I miss racing.

Saturday night sunset

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I arrived late to a friend’s tailgate party southeast of Bismarck last night due to some freelance video work in the afternoon. I knew it would be getting cold, so I stopped at home to exchange a motorcycle for a truck (besides, motorcycles don’t have tailgates) and work my way out of town. When I got there I simply had to hike to a suitable vantage point for this sunset. I could see it beginning to develop before the sun even got to the horizon, so I waited with my 10mm wide angle lens.

I was hoping that the color would cast across all the wispy clouds at the top, but that wasn’t the case. No matter; it was still a very dramatic show! I hung around until the colors began to wane, packed up my gear, and proceeded to find a warm place to restore the feeling in my fingers. It was a fantastic treat so witness such a nice sunset, something that’s been missing in my life lately. I’m not the only one who saw this, as I’ve seen some other pictures pop up on Facebook and elsewhere. I’m glad we all got to share it!

Cell phone photo stream part 4

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This is a picturesque section of the Badlands National Park near the entrance in Cactus Flats, South Dakota. Right after this a wind storm blew in that literally ripped campers and motorcycle trailers apart on the interstate as we drove toward Pierre! I have pics of those, too.

Eight bucks is just too darn much for a movie ticket, but if you’re going to spend eight bucks it had better be at the Grand Theaters. At least they built a facility that gives me the impression that they value my eight bucks. They make going to the movies an experience.

I ran top camera as well as ringside camera for the Mixed Martial Arts thing that came to town. It was quite a ride. Two heavyweight fighters rammed into the chain link wall of the Octagon so hard that it bowed out far enough to bonk my video camera! Thankfully the viewfinder didn’t give me a black eye…we’ll save those for the guys inside the ring.

North Dakota continues to have the best skies. Of course, I give all the credit to the God who created them for His pleasure (Revelation 4:11).

A couple of Christmases ago I was able to ride my motorcycles and document the occasion. It was a little icy in places but that’s no problem.

I built this little electonic “cricket” that chirped until it sensed light. I then deposited it at a friend’s house, who proceeded to check all his smoke detectors and stuff like that before finally discovering it. I score myself pretty highly on this one, but the victim is actually the guy who gave me the idea when he built one a long time ago to use on our coworker. Things came full circle for him, and now I’m the one watching my back!

Of course I’ve got to have a picture from the handgun range. I don’t spend nearly as much time here as I did when I was young and single, but I’m still quite handy with a pistol.

I did lots of photography for the event when Jason Britton (of “Superbikes” on the Speed Channel) came to town. He and his buddy Tony did lots of stunts during the July 4th Parade last year and I was along for the ride. This is after the parade, riding the Cycle Hutt float back to the shop with Jason. That’s Amos (of the 5-Oh variety) in the foreground.

I’m all for a funny license plate; I’ve had a few myself! Guess what? We’re all CO2 emitters. Climate change is a hoax. And some people are able to have a sense of humor about it. Good on ’em.

The Red Dragon. No, I’m not referring to the Thomas Harris novel. This particular dragonfly stood so still at the Game & Fish Headquarters OWLS lake that I was able to take pics with my camera and my phone.

That almost exhausts my noteworthy cellphone photos. Almost As luck would have it, interesting and quirky things present themselves to me on a daily basis (especially the mirror) and I try to capture them the best I can. More to come…

“Hostile and abusive” UND Fighting Sioux win the Hockey News title for best jersey

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You can see a graphic of the bracket results by clicking here.

I guess the fans and readers of Hockey News didn’t get the memos sent out by the politically correct busybodies at the NCAA and various UND campus organizations, eh? By the way, according to this Hockey News fan and reader poll, the Fighting Sioux jersey won by 58% to 42%. That’s a greater margin than the last Presidential election. If Barack Hussein Obama can claim a mandate with 54%, then so can the Fighting Sioux with 58%!

It’s been a long time since I last posted on the subject, so I thought maybe I would go ahead and show some photos of other “hostile and abusive” logos in central North Dakota:

Perhaps you’ve seen one of these lately, hopefully not after a fender-bender from yesterday’s slippery roads. But look closer:

Uh oh. “Hostile and abusive” according to the NCAA! Good thing they can’t threaten our law enforcement like they do our University!

Suppose you want to take a nice drive along the Missouri River on the Bismarck side. You get all loaded up in your Prius with your favorite Garrison Keillor CD and head for the highway, when…*gasp*…you guessed it:

“Hostile and Abusive” Highway. Is there no place for a politically correct self-righteous multiculturalist to flee the evil oppression? Apparently not. Of course, such a malady is self-imposed.

Thankfully there are a lot of hockey fans out there who see through the faux anguish of the politically correct few who wring their hands over the bold Fighting Sioux logo. I am confident that, when put to a vote, this logo will win acceptance with both tribes and we can keep it.

Previous post on this subject, #1: link

Previous post on this subject, #2: link

Bountiful iNDeed

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I’m easing into a project of scanning some old family photos that have recently arrived from a relative who now lives far away. This one of my grandparents particularly caught my eye so far, even though I have many to look through. I don’t know when it was taken, although I know it was taken prior to 1955. It’s a particular treat to me because I’ve seen relatively few photos of my dad as a kid and can’t recall ever seeing a photo of his father, who died when my dad was a boy.

Remember a bridge blowing up or something? Watch it in detail online

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A friend of mine was on the Discovery Channel video crew for the show “The Detonators” during the demolition of the old Liberty Memorial Bridge. Their crew followed around the guys in charge of bringing down the old bridge as they sized up the job, rigged their explosives and shaped charges, and pulled the trigger on those big explosions. It may also answer a couple of questions for you as to why they dropped the spans the way they did, and whether things went according to plan.

An excerpt is available here on Discovery Channel’s website.

If you’re like me, you will want to download the full episode for $1.99 on iTunes. Here’s the link (you must have iTunes installed, which is free).

If you have visited this site for a while or watched the news, you may recall that I was the last person to drive across the old bridge before it was closed to the public. The last vehicle to cross the bridge was a motorcycle!

The demolition guys gave me a couple of strips from the shaped charges used to bring down the last part of the bridge. Oh yeah, they’re ranked highly on the list of things in my big souvenir box!

In my conversations with guys from this demolition crew, I found out that they were VERY concerned about wind, something that’s addressed in this episode. For a really neat perspective on the crew that pulled off this impressive feat of demolition, and how they did it, check out the episode! $1.99 is cheap for a souvenir about such a prominent part of Bismarck-Mandan’s history.