What we celebrate this weekend

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But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

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He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:3-12)

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Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

…For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.

Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
(Romans 5:12, 17-18)

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My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (I John 2:1-2)

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The Bible is very clear that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). So how does one get to heaven and commune with a perfect, just God? Well, there’s nothing we can do to achieve the kind of righteousness His just nature requires. We can, however have the righteousness of Jesus Christ, who was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15) imputed unto us by faith in Jesus as the son of God.

Nothing we can do — no good deed, sacrament, or anything else — can negate our burden of sin. Jesus paid the penalty for that sin, however, “once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). We need only to accept the free gift mentioned in Romans 5:15.

There are millions of people out there trying to work their way into heaven. The fact of the matter is that the price of our salvation was paid once for all when Jesus died on the cross and rose again. We need only to put our faith in him rather than ourselves or any earthly institution. That’s why eternal salvation is referred to as a “gift” by Jesus himself and apostles Peter and Paul. My wish this weekend is that everybody reading this would take those Bible verses to heart, do some Bible reading on your own to see that the verses quoted above are only the tip of the iceberg, and accept that free gift of eternal life through the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf.

Here come the planes

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“Here come the planes……..they’re American planes. Made in America…” That’s how Laurie Anderson sings it in “O Superman” anyway. My little boys, particularly my 2 yr old, love anything mechanical. PJ loves watching airplanes land and take off, so I decided to take him to my favorite spot. This is where, if the wind is right, planes come really close overhead while landing. I had my camera bag, of course, so I grabbed my wide angle lens and used a fill flash to document his encounter with the jet.

He was actually scared as it went overhead, which was surprising because he hasn’t been before, but then asked for “one more airplane” after it had passed. His 1 yr old brother took it all in stride, and gave me a bonus when he started to say “Daddy!” for the first time, and kept saying it as we drove around in the truck. What a summer this is going to be!

Watching the waning

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I took quite a few photos of this arrangement with my wide angle lens, kneeling in the snow. Even though I was getting cold, I knew the cardinal rule of photographing sunsets: much of the drama of a sunset occurs after the sun goes over the horizon. Thankfully I had this solitary windmill to keep me company. I prefer to think of this photo as capturing the windmill as it witnessed the setting of the waning sun.

These beautiful colors lasted mere seconds as the sun hit the perfect point, splashing color and shadows simultaneously across the clouds. This is the sliver of time that makes North Dakota sunsets so memorable, and it requires some keen timing and a bit of preparation. They’re still the finest sunsets I’ve ever seen, which is why I never tire of chasing them and posting them here.

Eat at Space Aliens tonight, help out a new arrival to this planet

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This is a one-time chance, folks. My friends have a third member of their family, baby Charlie Smith. The handsome little guy was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, which meant he had to be born in Rochester and has already endured some pretty amazing surgeries to keep his little heart functioning. I’m told he’s got a couple more to go, as well. In the mean time, he and his mommy and daddy have to live in a strange place and will be coming home to some big medical bills. That’s where you can help.

You need only to do two things: first, download and print out a copy of this PDF document. Second, take it to a Space Aliens Restaurant near you and present the printout when you pay for your meal. They’ll donate 25% of the bill to benefit baby Charlie and his loving mommy and daddy.

Isaac and Elysa are truly great kids, and I want to do what I can to help out with this fundraising. If you are unable to make it to SA this Monday, you can also call American Bank Center and inquire about the Charlie Smith Benefit Fund. The address of the fund:

American Bank Center
attn. Tina Valeu
320 N 4th St
Bismarck, ND 58501

Here’s the link to the PDF document one more time.
If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed, you’re good to go. It may take a little bit for the program to load, but the file should download reasonably quickly. Click on the icon below to download the free Adobe Reader if necessary.

When you print the PDF, don’t forget to take it with you and present it to your server when you pay for your meal! This is only valid for April 6th at the time of service. Thanks in advance if you’re able to help on Monday. You can also download the PDF file and email it to others if you think they’d be interested.

Stranded and stoic

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These four statues sit stranded on an icy island south of Bismarck. There’s no telling what might be buried beneath the crust of the ice between them, at least not until we get one heck of a thaw. The stark blackness of these statues seemed fitting for today’s cold, overcast day. The one huddled on the right looks especially appropriate.

I suspect these stoic figures were waist-high in water and ice a short while ago, if not worse. Even now they stand in the middle of a sea of ice, making it really frustrating for photographers like me. I couldn’t get the angle I wanted no matter how hard I tried; unless I felt like slogging through the ice and water, I couldn’t find the ideal arrangement of statues and trees. It is what it is, I suppose. It was still a nice find.

Connection broken

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I had the opportunity to jet out in search of a suitable sunset object last night. While I opted for one of my favorite old windmills, I did catch this pole along the road north of Bismarck with the waning sun casting some nice color its way. I had to do a quick u-turn and try a few angles before moving along to my intended destination.

One interesting thing about this pole is that the glass insulators are intact. I recall that these are collectibles, at least the ones that haven’t been shot to pieces by some idiot. This pole stands alone beside the road, short strands of wire intact, wound around a perfect pair of antique glass insulators. It’s beautiful in its own way, a mere stone’s throw from the current city limits, and I hope it stays right where it’s at.

Kick out the jam…it’ll all pan out

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In my last post I mentioned visiting a friend who lived just downstream from the ice jam north of Bismarck. I didn’t get much of a view of it from Fox Island, as it started downstream from the lookout, but from my friend’s backyard the view was a little bit better. I grabbed my camera and banged out a few shots, which I assembled into the panoramic shot you see above. It’s actually pretty hard to see much, although the ice does pile up more on the right side of the shot.

Obviously the photo for his post ain’t the real deal, man…unless you have microscopic vision! The real version is 6000 pixels wide, weighin in at 1.75mb. I don’t want to force anyone to have to download a 1.75mb picture every time they come to this post, so instead I’ll post a link:

Click here to view/download the panoramic image (1.75mb).

If you want to save it to your computer to view in something other than your web browser, simply right-click on that link and use “Save As…” to download a copy.

This is the ice jam that everyone feared during last week’s flooding; the idea was that if this ice jam were to let go, it would send a surge of even more ice and water into an already bad situation downstream. For a while the word had actually gone out that this ice jam had let loose, but fortunately that turned out to be untrue. So far it remains intact, and hopefully it won’t cause any further problems once it lets go. In the mean time, however, it is starting to back up more water and ice behind it, causing distress for residents living upstream.

What a difference a few months makes

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Double Ditch is one of my favorite sunset spots, particularly this spot next to the fencepost on the north end of the park. The warmth of those summer evenings sure seems the antithesis of today’s scene.

This ice jam is quite nasty, and we sure hope it stays right where it’s at for a while. The last thing we need right now in Bismarck-Mandan is more ice and water coming down the way!

There were plenty of folks with the same idea I had. Double Ditch is a great place to go for some open air regardless of the season, but a spectacle such as this brings even more visitors. You can see some of ’em at the lookout point in the upper right of this picture.

This ice was crackling while I stood at the shore level. That’s kind of spooky considering the force involved in such a wall of ice. I saw that firsthand at the Heart River last week at this time. Again, hopefully this ice jam stays jammed until the river clears up downstream a ways.

I stood in a friend’s back yard today, on the shore near the start of this ice jam. The water level has gone down nearly six feet at his place. He related that these ice jams break free quickly but take a little while to work their way downstream. Sometimes they jam up again. In any case, we’re all hoping for the best here. With more snow on the way, I’m not sure Bismarck-Mandan is out of the woods yet on this whole flooding thing.

Since we’re talking about ice…

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I can tell from my site stats that when people come to this blog, they usually view a few pages. I don’t know how far back they go, but probably not far enough back to find some of my favorite photos and/or posts. This ice talk, along with the fact that I have NOT risked getting in the way of law enforcement and emergency crews in order to get photos of the flood or ice jam, gave me the idea of reposting this icy encounter from last year. I hope you enjoy.


Ice, Ice, Baby (Originally posted March 1st, 2008)

I have this crazy friend (okay, I have several, and they have me) who told me how cool it is to drive out on the ice of Lake Audubon. Not only is it a big lake, the ice is very thick, and there are islands to explore. Because boats are not allowed out there, the only way to get to these islands is to drive there during the winter. They’ve got beavers, coyotes, and who knows what else on them. I decided to take him up on the idea of a voyage out there. We didn’t see any critters, and the clear skies turned cloudy on us, but we did come upon a HUGE pressure ridge. Enormous slabs of ice had pushed straight upward in a line stretching almost completely across the big lake!

The sky took a dramatic, ominous look as we climbed up onto the ridge. There was no danger of breaking through the ice; it’s frozen so thick this year that people are bottoming out their ice augers trying to get a fishing hole! The point of the ridge that we chose to explore was on the shore of one of the aforementioned islands as well, not in deep water.

I’m close to six feet tall, but this blue slab of ice was about 1.5 times as tall as me. I climbed up on the ridge to get a decent look at it. I’m told that before the last warm-cold cycle, this ice was all colored blue and lit up on a sunny day. It’s as if Superman dropped a crystal from his ice house, if you know what I mean!


Another spot of color out on the open (albeit frozen) water was this green pool of water. While the ice itself is frozen to a thickness of a few feet, the surface does tend to melt on those warm days. It refreezes when the temperatures drop again, but on a day like today we had plenty of water puddles on top of the ice. We lamented that fact as we walked over to the ridge, as we weren’t wearing waterproof shoes! We parked quite a distance away and walked, in case the ice was weakened near the pressure ridge. We needed the car to get home, after all.

One of the things we really wanted to see was wildlife. Aside from a glimpse of a running coyote on the horizon, we saw nothing. Of course; the presence of a camera jinxed it, I’m sure.

This is a really cool trip if you have the opportunity, especially if the lake and the sky comply. In our case, we were fortunate in that the ice is incredibly thick and stable. The sky is pretty dynamic, of course, and I’m glad that it clouded up for us instead of the hard light of a clear, sunny sky. Despite the absence of critters, we call this trip a success…thanks to the sight of this giant ridge of broken ice.

Thoughts of a sandbagger

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I heard the call for volunteers go out on KFYR radio, so I was ecstatic when our boss called an impromptu staff meeting first thing this morning. Anyone who wanted to go help fill/load sandbags could do so on company time. Needless to say, many of us bolted directly to the Civic Center.

I did not take my camera. I wasn’t there to take pictures or blog anything. I had my cell phone, which is how this shot came to be, but that’s all. In fact, other than the Heart River ice jam, I have not pursued any photos of this whole flooding ordeal. It just seems a little too much like capitalizing on a situation that is very miserable for a lot of people. If you have read this site long enough to know what I think of ambulance-chasing news reporters, you’ll understand my sensitivity in this matter.

Here are a few thoughts and observations from the day:

When I arrived, there were so many volunteers it was an emotional experience. Some were bringing in cases of water along with their shovels. National Guard personnel were briefing us on what we needed to do. The line of trucks waiting to pick up sandbags went all the way up 7th Street to Rosser Avenue when I arrived, so there was plenty of work awaiting.

I watched as Mayor Warford helped re-stack a pallet of sandbags that had spilled. He’s had a very busy day due to all this flood-related business, but I was impressed that when he saw something that needed to be done, he did it. He is a rancher, after all.

Everybody was really cheerful and polite. There were lots of “thank yous” and “good lucks” traded between volunteers and drivers. I went where the work was, as different parts of the Civic Center were busier than others from time to time and I hate standing around. In doing so I worked with all kinds of different people. All were friendly and hard working.

There was plenty of hospitality, too. I was up until the wee hours of the morning last night cleaning sidewalks and driveways until my snowblower quit (presumably with a failed drive belt). With very little sleep, I needed a break after only a couple of hours. There was an area with lots of refreshments and snacks. I had a great sugar cookie and a couple of glasses of OJ, thanked the Salvation Army workers, and it was back at it. I saw a couple of National Guard soldiers with a box of donuts and bottles of Powerade, which they were giving to the dump truck drivers as they came in through the tunnel.

There were more volunteers than there was work. That can actually gum up the works a little bit, but I heard tonight on KX News that organizers were pleased with the efficiency given the overwhelming number of people who showed up.

The best feeling in the world is when a group of people come together for a common cause and set about doing it with total commitment. That’s why I like working on live TV broadcasts so much. It was so cool to be a part of this whole operation for a good chunk of today, and I couldn’t be more proud of Bismarck-Mandan citizens of all walks of life.

This is my first experience with such a disaster situation. I’ve seen plenty of news footage of things like this helping elsewhere, but it finally hit home. How anyone (ahem, Michele Obama) could say they aren’t proud of their country is beyond me. Skinny high school girls worked next to big tattooed biker types as if they’d been long time teammates.

Those who couldn’t lift sandbags sat and tied them shut once filled. I helped one such lady who couldn’t lift the bags out of her lap after she’d tied them, but she tied them so quickly that there was a new bag ready every time I turned around from stacking the last one. I saw older folks, kids, folks in ripped jeans like me and some in pretty expensive clothing. The variety of folks that showed up with their shovels and their elbow grease encompassed every sort of category you could try to shoehorn a person into. And it ain’t over yet.

If I wasn’t so sleep-deprived and didn’t have a wife and two toddlers, I’d have gone back down there after church tonight. I actually considered it out loud, but my wife brought me back to earth. If you haven’t pitched in at one of the sandbagging stations, even for a short time, go give it a try. It’s very fulfilling and you can take some ownership in this community’s battle against the “Flood of ’09.” It’s a 24/7 operation at this time, we’ll see how things progress as the Big Muddy gets cleared of all the ice jams.