This only happens twice a year

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My friend Pat gave me the heads up this week: for one night only, when viewed from his front porch, the silhouette of the capitol building appears centered on the sun. That night was tonight. Even though I had to stretch the limits of my longest telephoto lens from his house southeast of town, I think things turned out pretty well.

This also happens a little bit before June 21st, the longest day of the year. I wasn’t able to catch it at that time. Last year the weather conspired against me and I wasn’t able to catch either occurrence, so tonight was a pretty good treat.

I actually tried last night, but the sun was still a little above the horizon when it crossed the capitol building. It looked like a lollipop of sorts. I may still try to get another shot tomorrow night, with only a portion of the sun behind the capitol building. I’ll have to do it one minute earlier than I did tonight, however; we lose a minute of daylight every day now.

One of the coolest things I saw all weekend, because I’m a geek

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I took too many photos this holiday weekend to sort out right now…about 1,800 of them, in fact. Why? Two reasons: first, I love cameras and motorcycles. Second, I was getting paid to. Gotta pay off this camera gear some day. Until I get the rest of my holiday photos sorted out, here’s a treat I’d like to share…

If you were born in the 60s, which I was (depending on which time zone you were in), you probably drooled all over one of these. This is an all-original 1971 Schwinn “Pea Picker” bicycle. It was ridden by my friend Justin this weekend at the Cycle Hutt extravaganza, and I was blown away when I saw him come wheelie-ing out with it.

The SPEED Channel guys and I were taking a break and appreciating this relic. I suspect it’d be a very popular eBay item, if one was silly enough to part with it. One of the cameramen had just bought his replica a silver version of this bike, called the Grey Ghost. Schwinn started making the replicas in 2004.

I don’t know what would be cooler…the banana seat with sprung rear sissy-bar, the slick rear tire, or this: the Stik Shift. Ah, the 70’s. Who says they were all cheese?

I got some really amazing photos over the holiday weekend, all of them centered around the Cycle Hutt event and Jason Britton’s visit. Jason told me he didn’t mind how close I got when he was stuntin’, so I got some really sweet angles of him and Tony doing their thang. I’ll post pics from the weekend down the road as I sort through them.

How much courage does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

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These guys are hanging the lighting beneath the new Liberty Memorial Bridge. Rather then try to do it from below, which would be pretty tricky in most spots, they got themselves a contortionist truck and went over the side. Better them than me.

I don’t care much for scaffolds, ladders, and the like. I didn’t like heights at all in general until I spent some time working at the Big Sky Ski Resort back in the late 80s and early 90s. Countless trips on various chair lifts and gondolas solved that. I’m still a bit leary of things like bucket trucks, though…so to have to venture over the side of the bridge like that would freak me out.

There’s only one exception: if I’m holding a camera, of course! My friend Chris and I spent some time atop a fully extended Datsun forklift over at Cycle Hutt this weekend. It was a little wobbly in the breeze on Friday, but otherwise was fine. Saturday I worried a little bit about lightning, as some wet-looking clouds rolled in. I just kept my eye to the viewfinder and kept shooting.

Howdy, ma’am…

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Some call it a brakestand, some call it an endo, but it could simply be called entertainment. Or talent, as Jason Britton is in town. He’s hanging out with the folks at Cycle Hutt over the 4th, giving tips to riders and performing Saturday at 1:30pm in Cycle Hutt’s giant lot on the Strip in Mandan.

He’ll also be taking part in the Hutt’s parade float Friday morning, so don’t forget to keep an eye out for the flashy green Kawasaki! Then hop on something with two wheels and head over to Cycle Hutt for the 1:30 performance and some fun that will last throughout the night. Anyone on a motorcycle will be invited to hang out and watch the fireworks after dark.

There was a lot going on at the Hutt today, too…I have hundreds of photos of course, which I’ll post in due time. There was free pizza and Dew, so I was pretty much in heaven; pizza, Dew, sportbikes, and photography. Wow!

Don’t forget to take part in the festivities at Cycle Hutt! They’ve really gone out of their way to do something fantastic for fans of sport motorcycles in Bismarck-Mandan.

NEWS ALERT – all wars have ended; someone held a concert

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Apparently this is what a “concert for peace” look like. Pretty vacant, isn’t it? When I went to the park for the eagle statue pics (see previous post) I noticed some handmade signs declaring a “Free Concert for Peace” from 1:00 to 4:00 and a stage at the south end of the park. At this point they were about a half hour or so into the concert according to my watch, but it didn’t look like anything was really going on. So maybe they weren’t able to put a stop to war after all, really.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the peaceniks have every right to their feelgood events, bumper stickers, and PEACE signs in their yards. That’s what America is all about, and it’s their right of expression. I just think they’re horribly naive and have a tenuous grasp on reality, and that’s my right as well.

Let’s take Africa, for instance. Do you think the murdering thugs in Zimbabwe, Congo, or the Darfur region of Sudan care one iota what a bunch of pacifist liberals in the USA think? They’re already murdering, raping, dismembering, and torturing their own people. Feelgood liberal attempts at “dialoguing” with someone like that will have little result. Not only are the people subject to violent oppression worldwide oblivious to the choice of bumper stickers affixed to your Prius, they’re also unaffected by it.

Evil people understand only one thing: consequences for their actions. If all they have to fear is some finger-waving UN adviser or tie-dye wearing liberal peacenik, then there is no fear. Consequently, the violence goes on unhindered. All the concerts, awareness campaigns, and other such nonsense have zero effect outside the idealistic bubble that these folks have made for themselves.

I suppose this is the product of so much humanism, secular and otherwise. In order for a peacenik utopia to ever take form, there would have to be an inherent goodness in man. Guess what? It ain’t there. And if you remove that item from these folks’ ideological house of cards, the whole thing comes crashing down.

Well, I hope the folks at the concert had a good time. They sure had the right weather for it. I also hope nobody walked away with the illusion that this was actually “for peace.” Even if they persuaded a hundred people at a concert like this, it wouldn’t make a single difference; the only people whose hearts need to change are the murderous thugs all over this world, and you’re not going to do that with a guitar.

Gopher it

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Chances are if you spend any time around the parks, diamonds, or zoo here in Bismarck, you’re going to see these little guys darting around. They especially like the grass at the Dakota Zoo, where they scavenge bits of food that fall out of reach of the animals. That’s where I spotted this little guy.

Power to the people

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I always say, if you can’t avoid ’em, use ’em. That in regard to the ubiquitous power lines that span the North Dakota prairie. I was all set up for a great sunset shot, but had to hoof it a little ways from the road because of the power lines running parallel to the road. Sometimes, however, they make a fine subject for a photograph. For instance, the shot above would probably be far less appealing to the eye without a foreground object to give it some perspective. I took this photo before hiking to the base of the tower so I could shoot northwest of it.

Wow…what a rain!

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The heavy, heavy rain that blew through south Bismarck today was a real eye-opener to the new robins in our yard! I was washing dishes when my 18 month old boy called to me, yelling “bird!” in baby-talk and pointing out the window of the screen door. I toweled off and came over to see what he was so excited about, and found this little guy huddled on our railing. He was fluffing his feathers over and over to get rid of some of that nasty rain. After a very short while (before I could really get the camera set properly) he was gone. He flew away in an unknown direction while I changed out the mostly-dead batteries in my flash unit.

It’s good to know that some of our baby robins survived. Hopefully they’ll grow up quickly and have a happy home here. I’m grateful he didn’t have to endure a hailstorm at this point in his early bird life!

After another storm that completely missed Bismarck

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Yet another storm promising nasty hail, wind, and heavy rain split in two and circumvented the capital city. I kid friends who work at the refinery and the power plant north of Mandan, saying that whatever they put into the atmosphere must be working!

I headed north with my camera and a friend who’s in town for the week, and spotted these cool clouds to the east. They were the type of weird rolling clouds known for hail, but failed to drop any on us. That’s good, actually. One of the clouds to the northwest was casting a shadow on them, as you can see on the left side of the photo. It made for a pretty unique sliver of time, caught on my camera sensor.

It’s hard to do the scene justice with only 500 pixels from left to right, so you can click here for a larger version.

Overwhelmed with relief? No, not really. Let me tell you why

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We got good news in our house tonight. Our 18-month old had undergone some testing to determine whether or not he was at risk for Neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that involves tumors on the nervous system. It can be hereditary or simply a mutation. We were tipped off by some light blotches on his skin, called “cafe au lait” spots, which are linked to neurofibromatosis. The test results came back negative today. Praise the Lord! More prayers answered.

I’m adopted and was born in the 60’s, so even before I ever imagined myself married I worried about the potential of passing some sort of mystery ailment along to my kids. I had no real medical history, and (aside from breaking bones and incurring concussions in various extreme sports) have always been healthy. I inherited the characteristics of my biological parents which were listed in the “history” on record with the adoption agency: tall, thin, blond hair with blue eyes, and striking good looks. Okay, maybe I added the last one. But there was no history of heart, cancer, or mental development problems in either parent’s history. But was there something I might not know about? There was a time when I worried about that.

Through this particular ordeal, however, in which we awaited test results, I have to say that neither my wife nor I were stressed. It is for that reason that I can’t be overwhelmed with relief, and neither can my wife; we were not distraught in the first place. There are plenty of reasons why.

When we were expecting, we prayed. Our prayer was that there wouldn’t be any hereditary surprise from my unknown past. Prayer answered…we have a wonderful little boy. A few months after he was born, our poor little fella developed pneumonia. God saw him through that VERY quickly. Then there was the time I walked into his bedroom at night and couldn’t detect breathing from my cold little son, and had to try very hard to wake him. The doctors put him on a sleep monitor with little electrodes which we called “his wires” for several weeks. Despite several false alarms from the machine in the middle of the night, our little guy little was perfectly fine.

After bonking his head (not very hard) he was doing this thing where his eyes would retain focus, but he’d bob his head a bit. We were scared that he had a concussion or worse, so we took him in. Prayers in the ER were answered: no problems, and he quit doing it shortly thereafter. I’m sure I’ve probably forgotten some things too, unfortunately, but I think you get the point.

Then there’s our little 7 month old. We haven’t had anything scary with him, really…at least not since he was “in the tummy.” My wife was diagnosed early on with a severe case of Placenta Previa, a complication where the placenta forms and attaches below the baby. The problem there is that as the baby grows, its weight presses down on the placenta and can cause a host of severe problems. My wife would have to go on bed rest for months, we’d lose her income and need a caregiver, and there would still be a risk for mom and baby.

We (and many friends and family) prayed relentlessly for a miracle, although the doctors said such a severe situation would not reverse itself. They were wrong. At a followup appointment, tests showed that the condition was completely absent. My wife had a textbook pregnancy, short labor, and perfect delivery of another wonderful little boy! Prayer answered BIG TIME.

(I was just reminded that both times we went to the hospital in labor, we were still under the impression that the baby was breeched. Our first one was a flipper, but had eventually “insisted in standing on his own two feet,” as I put it. Yet in the case of each boy, we found out that they had flipped head down at the last minute and were ready for delivery. Even more prayers answered. We need to keep a journal!)

I love to quote Psalm 66:16 when witnessing or talking about the Bible, but in this case I will give verses 17 through 20 too:

Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.
I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue.
If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:
But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer.
Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.

What it comes down to is this: after the way that God has shown himself faithful time and time again in the lives of my boys, I have no excuse for doubting him when trouble comes along. I’m a pretty thick-skulled guy, and often have a hard time letting God get a message through, but the way He has answered pretty much every single prayer I’ve uttered in the life of my boys is undeniable. Yes, I’m quite happy that we got a good result from this test. I can’t say I’m surprised. I certainly can’t say that it relieved any overwhelming fear or anxiety. As the Bible says in Philippians 4:6-7,

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

I just thank God for giving me the faith to trust in Him through what could be a scary ordeal, especially for a guy who worried about just such a situation for most of his adult life. I’ve felt that peace that passeth all understanding. I will declare what he has done for me and my beautiful family. Amen.