Instead of meeting constituents, Pomeroy meets with a few dozen hapless Democrats, admits who he represents

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You may remember this YouTube video in which I berated Congressman Earl Pomeroy for not holding any open public meetings with his constituents. Well, some events actually showed up on his website this week, as shown above! I decided to pop in and see if I could ask a question.

I found out, as did other people who attended similar “meetings” across North Dakota this week, that it was not any sort of public meeting, “town hall”, or other such event. This was a Democrat political rally, period. It’s not depicted as such on his website, but that’s exactly what it is. Apparently Conrad and Dorgan are going to show up and endorse him over and over again at these things. Yeah…that should really drum up support.

Speaking of support, it doesn’t look like Earl’s enjoying any. I showed up to find plenty of parking at 6:20, ten minutes before the start of the event. Around 6:28, people started trying to get the few participants to bunch up in front of the stage to at least look like there were some attendees. Heidi Heitkamp made repeated pleas for people to come up toward the front. It was embarassing.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the nearly empty room. Also empty was Ms. Heitkamp’s rallying cry, which consisted of so many uses of the phrase “failed policies of the Bush Administration” that I was ready to yell “DRINK!” at the sound of the next one! By this time we were ten or fifteen minutes into the event, and it was obviously a flop. None of our notorious Congressional delegation had showed up yet, I had church at 7, and it was obvious there wasn’t going to be any Q&A for me to ask Mr. Pomeroy my question. I decided to give up on my chance to get a free t-shirt for spotting Earl Pomeroy and left to go to church.

As I left the Elks building, I saw this black beast parked out front. I couldn’t help but think that it looked like an industrial strength hearse, an appropriate metaphor for the way Earl Pomeroy’s campaign for reelection has been going this year. I might add that there’s the possibility that then entire group from inside the building could fit into this one truck!

By the way, if you read the text of Congressman Pomeroy’s “events” website, you’ll see that he loves meeting with “the folks that I represent.” You can now see who those “folks” are: Democrat Party first, period…just like in Washington. This same Party was apparently unable to even wrangle more than a few dozen people into getting all Hopey-Changey for Pomeroy on the night of his big endorsement by Conrad and Dorgan.

If it wasn’t so good for North Dakota, it’d almost be sad. Who knows? Maybe Earl was able to bring in a few hundred loyal union fans fifteen minutes late, after my camera and I had split the scene. Not likely.

Don’t worry, I’m sure the Congressman will get some cushy insurance job once he’s bounced out of office…after all, those evil insurance companies are his biggest donors.

Local fire departments put on an amazing event, if only I could tell you what it was

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After finishing up some business at the Bismarck Police Department (more on that another time), I called a friend of mine who told me about an amazing event going on at the Mandan Fire Department. Of course I bolted straight over, and of course my camera was with me.

I checked the local newspaper and TV websites, which are really good at telling you about things that have already happened, and didn’t find any information about the goings-on. I also looked on the City of Mandan’s website with the same luck. It was apparently a great kids’ fun night, with all sorts of demonstrations

Among all the items on display were fire engines, ambulances, and even this beast – a SWAT vehicle for police department use. I would love to have one of these! I wonder if they come in any other colors…

About the coolest possible thing ever for a little kid would have to be a fire truck ride! There were multiple trucks driving around with groups of happy kids inside. Too bad my little toddlers were already in bed…if I’d known about this event in advance, this would have been worth staying up for!

Lines of little kids awaited their chance to use the fire hose and spray out a “fire” with the help of one of the firefighters!

I’m going to have to figure out just what exactly this event was, and how I can find out about the next one in advance, because I know two handsome little towheaded boys who will be begging their Daddy to take them! You can bet I will.

Lone fisherman

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What a day. I knocked off early today, grabbed my toddlers for a trip to the flower shop so they could come back to Mommy with some daisies, and then had Boys’ Day Out at the Pumpkin Patch. We followed up by bolting back home again, grabbing Mommy and her freshly-stocked picnic basket, and headed out to Harmon Lake for a picnic.

After a great dinner we went wandering around a little bit and took a dam walk. As the temperatures were dropping and the wind increasing, I noticed this guy out fishing near the boat landing. With many of the trees already leafless, it’s things like this that grab my eye. It looks like we’re not the only ones trying to avail ourselves of every warm weather opportunity before the cold sets in for the season.

Visit early, visit often – Papa’s Pumpkin Patch

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The most fun fall attraction in the area keeps getting better every year. Slides, tunnels, mazes, pyramids…and oh, yeah, pumpkins!

I can’t remember if these wooden toys were here last year, but we sure were happy to see them this year. If you look closely you can see my two-year-old peeking up from inside the “hopper” of this wooden combine. It’s accessible from the “intake” in the front. There are tractors, trains, and all kinds of fun.

Autumn moves pretty quickly in North Dakota, so you’d better head out to the Patch before the opportunity passes you by! I know how it goes; everybody is really busy these days. We didn’t get out to the Patch as soon as we would have liked, and it’s taken me even longer to post about it! We’re not done visiting it for the year, though…my little toddlers would love to go back a few more times.

More information on their hours, location, events, and even their pumpkin launcher is available at www.papaspumpkinpatch.com. Tell ’em I sent ya!

Angry Earl Pomeroy claims “dozens of meetings” …but with whom? Not the public

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Since my last YouTube video (which has had roughly twice the views of the Pomeroy campaign ad it parodies) was so fun, I thought I’d do another one to have some fun with a very serious matter: Earl Pomeroy’s unwillingness to meet with the public. This comes after he’s had closed-door meetings around the state, including one at Aetna here in Bismarck, with maybe one or two approved questions being asked.

My summary of the debate as a whole:

– Earl was ANGRY. Wow.

– Rick Berg essentially said, “Washington is spending too much money, money it doesn’t have. I want to help fix that.”

– Pomeroy essentially said, “Look at all the millions I bring back to North Dakota! And Rick Berg wants to drill in the Badlands.”

– Pomeroy continues to try to accuse Berg of “voting to privatize Social Security”, something that I believe Pomeroy once supported, even though Berg (as a state legislator) could not vote on. He did vote on a non-binding state resolution to urge President Bush to address the concerns that Social Security is in trouble.

UPDATE: RJ over at Regular Guy Rant has done a commendable job of documenting Earl Pomeroy’s support for privatizing Social Security. Check it out! I can’t believe the hapless Earl Pomeroy would even want to mention Social Security with a record like this one…

– Rick Berg got Pomeroy to admit that Social Security is in the red. This after Pomeroy spent the entire debate insisting that it was just fine, that there were no problems with it, and even that it’s OVERfunded.

– Pomeroy clearly lost this one, and I think it’ll be interesting to see what he does for the next one. In the mean time, enjoy the video. I had fun making it.

Yeah, they work nights

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On my way home from an afternoon-evening photography trip, I saw something from Highway 83 that had me whipping the truck around and bolting down some gravel roads. I have a hiking model GPS and maps that show me section line roads and fun stuff like that, so I enjoy a good gravel road adventure. I was able to get very close to this site: a wind turbine whose blades were being unloaded from the transporters.

It was actually very windy, so I’m surprised I got nice clear shots. I’m also surprised that the crane operator could be as smooth as he was, given the fact that he’s lifting an eighty foot piece of carbon fiber that’s designed to catch wind. If the operator is a she, my apologies.

Boys’ night out

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We three dudes decided to head across the river for a sunset bike ride by the blockhouses at Fort Abraham Lincoln. My 2 and 3 year old boys had an absolute blast, and Daddy got to play with the camera a little bit. We couldn’t have asked for e better evening; great weather, no bugs, and the place to ourselves! They pedaled and pedaled, Daddy pointed out various local landmarks out across the way, and it kept us all out of trouble until dark.

Badlands traffic jam

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These wild horses are not averse to pavement; in fact, they’re quite fine with it, if it takes them where they need to go. Over time they’ve even become remarkably tolerant of people with cameras standing in the road as they saunter past.

There’s one trademark Badlands shot I wanted to get on this trip, a line of horses at full gallop with a glorious fall Badlansd background. It was not to be. They did plenty of other things for my camera, including hugging the center line for a stretch, however.

Earl Pomeroy casts deciding vote to adjourn the House instead of passing a budget, extending tax cuts

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“I’m Earl Pomeroy, and I serve the Democrat Party – NOT North Dakota!”

Despite his recent ads where he tries to seek credit for voting with President Bush on the unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug entitlement, Earl Pomeroy is no friend of George W. Bush (and, as it turns out, hard-working North Dakotans).

Here’s the roll call of the votes to adjourn the session instead of passing such things as a budget, any of the 20 or so appropriations bills floating around Congress, or extending the Bush tax cuts (which are so popular that they were trying to call them the Obama tax cuts when there was a possibility of them passing).

Notice that if Earl Pomeroy had voted in a way corresponding to his latest ad campaign, this would not have passed. At the end of the day, you can always count on Earl to be a good Democrat lap dog and vote the Pelosi way.

By the way, despite the credit that Earl seeks for supporting President Bush, you may want to listen to this audio of Earl I grabbed from 2008 at the Dem-NPL convention in Grand Forks:

Let’s not forget that time a few years back when Earl Pomeroy called President Bush a clown, when he didn’t realize he was on camera:

So…I guess we can discern the following about Earl Pomeroy:

– when he thinks nobody is watching, President Bush is a clown;

– when he has an arena full of Democrat cheerleaders, President Bush perpetuated a “man-made, self-inflicted disaster” upon our nation;

– when his political career is on the line, Earl Pomeroy feigns support for President Bush hoping we’ll be fooled by his lies.

Sorry, Earl…we’re not buying it. Your days of acting one way in Washington and portraying yourself another way back here in North Dakota are OVER. Get used to civilian life, sir…it’s only weeks away.

It’ll always be the tallest manmade object in my heart

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While on the notorious Cold War Mancation™ we made a brief stop at one of North Dakota’s largest landmarks: the KVLY TV tower near Blanchard. If you know what you are looking for, you can actually see this tower from Interstate 94. You can also see its counterpart, the KXJB TV tower, which is relatively nearby and only three feet shorter.

I am no longer employed by the company that owns and/or operates these towers, but I do get to work with them from time to time. It’s been years since I’ve been inside the big reinforced building that houses the transmitter for this beast. In fact, I had to find a new way to get here since the old gravel road is currently flooded. The last time I was here, there was a crew working hard to make some adjustments or repairs to the main transmitter and get it back online. At least they didn’t have to climb the tower!

This beast stands 2,063 feet tall. It has been the tallest manmade object in the world for years. At one time I believe a tower in Europe took the title, but sadly it was unable to bear the load and collapsed. The title then reverted to KVLY’s tower until the recent construction of the “Burj Khalifa” in Dubai. One could be nitpicky and point out that it’s the tallest manmade object in North America, or even in the free world.

By the way, there’s a tiny elevator about the size of a phone booth that goes up the center of this tower’s triangular structure…but not all the way. At some point, you’ve got to get out and climb. No thanks, I’ll just enjoy the view from below!

I could give you all kinds of amazing stats about the miles of supporting guy wires or million pounds of steel, but I think KVLY’s own website does a great job of that. While this tower gets all the glory, it is noteworthy to point out that the second tower, built by former rival and current sister station in the Valley News Live family, is merely three feet shorter. Not only does North Dakota hve the tallest manmade object outside of the oppressive Middle East, it’s got two of ’em.