So how cold is it, anyway? Depends on when you asked

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North Dakotans are proud of their wind chill. Given the latest bout of “American Made Global Warming” (ha), in the form of windy subzero temperatures, a couple of friends and I were having a discussion about the wind chill during our afternoon walk the other day. In 2001, the National Weather Service changed the method by which wind chills are calculated. This means that the wind chill temperatures we use to brag about our resilience will likely never be as cold as in years past.

According to this chart from NOAA, available in PDF format, it looks like we’ll never see those pride-inducing wind chill temperatures of old. Given the arbitrary +5F temperature of the above graphic, the windchill temperature derived from the old system at around 25mph would only be achieved with a wind of around 100mph! We don’t see too many of those winds around here, thankfully. All our snow would be in another state!

If you’re wondering why we never seem to see those ultra-cold wind chills our parents and grandparents brag about, that’s why. According to this article, the wind chill number was mostly used as a tool of exaggeration anyway. Given the way the media reports everything else, this should come as no surprise. And in light of the fact that climatologists have been caught using false data and putting temperature recording stations next to heat sources in order to get results favorable to the global warming agenda, we shouldn’t be surprised that some methodologies will change from time to time.

Parhelion II

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On my way back from a fantastic time at the ND Public Policy Institute, I noticed a couple of sundogs in the cold, blizzardy sky. Cold, wind, and a dusting of powdery snow tend to conspire to generate these. I knew just the perfect place to capture this one, then I headed home for dinner with my boys.

Other parhelion posts can be found here and here.

Another funny personalized plate

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I love camera phones; even when I’m out running errands with one or both of my little boys, one of whom turns 2 today, I can still snap a shot of reasonable quality if I see something like this. A lot of people go for humor in their personalized plates, and this one I found particularly funny in light of the hoax of “man made global warming.” Actually, that’s a misnomer. The environmentalist lefties ought to at least be honest and call it “American-Made Global Warming.” After all, they care not a whit for the dictatorships and communist/socialist nations who disregard any semblance of responsible environmental policies. No, instead they resent their own country. Talk about delusional…

Back to the license plate. According to Wikipedia, North Dakota is among the top ten states in vanity plate registrations. I believe it; at $25 above the regular fee, they’re a bargain. I have a few myself, actually…and many more in my garage that have expired or are from vehicles I sold. When you start licensing five or six motorcycles plus cars and trailers, the price adds up fast!

That reminds me of this plate I saw in downtown Bismarck. I don’t know the owner, so I don’t know if it’s a stab at humor or if they were actually in the audience when Oprah decided to give away a bunch of cars. It’s still eye-catching, though!

Do you have a personalized plate? If not…why not?

What a difference a hundred degrees makes

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This photo, titled “Thresher’s Row”, is one of my favorite pieces and has received some pretty nice complements at various gallery showings. I have a huge poster-sized print of it framed here at the house. I’m not sure if I’ve ever sold one, though. Anyway, I hiked up that hill east of Napoleon in the 100 degree heat, wearing a 20+ pound camera backpack, in a full leather racing suit. My Suzuki was parked down by the sign at the bottom of the hill (and was Photoshopped out of this piece). I did a gradient to black and white on the horizon to give the sense of these old threshers marching off into history.

I recently took a photo adventure with my friend Ken one early Saturday morning. This time I drove up along the fence line and hiked a shorter distance up the hill, albeit in the snow, to take another gander at the meandering line of old machinery. I didn’t get the exact angle as the first photo, but that’s alright. I was somewhat more appropriately dressed for a short hike this time, too; although I was decked out in proper attire for strafing rural highways on my motorcycle the last time I hiked this hill, I was in the hurtlocker due to the extreme heat! So far I have yet to visit this attraction when the temperature is in a comfortable zone. That’s alright; I do it for the photos…and the story.

That big blue atomic looking glow at the Capitol? Yeah, that was me

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This was an exercise in photography the other night, before the big blizzard blew in. I set my camera up on a tripod and set it up for a long exposure (20 to 30 seconds), then ran out in front of it with a blue LED keychain. I wore black, so I didn’t show up in the picture. I made a number of different attempts at this photo, resulting in blue streaks of light that drew patterns, bounded around on the lawn, or simply traced lines across the frame. This was my favorite.

One guy who’s probably okay with today’s winter weather

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Yes, I’ve been out wielding a shovel (in vain, mind you) in this morning’s blizzard. I grew up in the Rocky Mountains, and later moved back out there to work for a ski resort, so I actually like shoveling snow. It’s nostalgic in a way, and great exercise. Having said that, I so wish I had a snow blower right now!

One thing that has always amazed me is Bismarck’s apparently lackadaisical approach to clearing snow. I had an epiphany when I moved to Fargo for school back in the 1980s. I looked out of my window during a blizzard to find snow removal equipment working…and it hadn’t quit snowing yet! By comparison, it seems that Bismarck’s crews are told to wait until the snow stops falling. Well, using that logic, why not wait until May, or even forsake clearing the streets at all? Snow tends to melt in the Spring, after all…

Anecdotal evidence and asking around indicates that people think Bismarck is doing a worse job at winter street maintenance every year. I couldn’t agree more last week while skating down an unsanded ice rink called Washington Street over my lunch hour, literally driving around fresh traffic accidents while watching people skate sideways in my rearview mirror.

All grousing about my beloved hometown aside, let me direct your attention to the aforementioned abominable snowman. You’ll probably recognize him from the Rankin/Bass television Christmas specials that air on CBS this time of year. You can see him, along with the Grinch and other characters, in a highly decorated yard on the east end of Kennedy Avenue in northeast Bismarck, just a stone’s throw from the famous Northview Lane. If you head up 19th just a couple of blocks, you’ll find Longley Avenue temporarily renamed “Snowman Lane.” If you’re near the All Seasons Arena or YMCA area, head over to Sioux Avenue and drive down Toyland, one of Bismarck’s oldest neighborhood Christmas displays.

While it seems decorated homes get more sparse every year, these attractions (not to mention Christmas in the Park) are still in place, waiting for passers-by to share in a little Christmas cheer. Just make sure that the Public Works Department has managed to clear the roads, so you don’t get stuck in Winter Wonderland!

Obama deflection campaign sets its sights on North Dakota, land of corruption

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By now you’ve heard of the latest wildfire of indignation to hit North Dakota since that pinhead from National Geographic had the nerve to besmirch the name of our beloved state: this USA Today article calling North Dakota the most corrupt state in the nation.

Well, we do have Byron “Skybox” Dorgan who was embroiled in the Jack Abramoff scandal a while back. The media played that as a Republican scandal, but Dorgan (who’s on the Indian Affairs committee) was seen in Abramoff’s skybox at the MCI Center four years before he claimed in a press release that he’d “never met” the man. Next thing you know, he’s returning the money he never got from the man he never met…no worries. The lapdog ND media gave him a pass.

Now we have Senator Kent “Countrywide” Conrad, who is under investigation for getting a sweetheart mortgage deal on property in Bismarck. He too claims he had no idea what was going on, but an NBC News special report interviewed the guy whose job it was to MAKE these politicians know that they got special treatment. I actually lived in the 8-plex he got a loan for; Countrywide’s policy is to loan on no larger than a 4-plex.

Conrad owns this apartment complex near the capitol and claims it as his legal address so he can continue to live on the east coast complements of ND citizens. Even better: he provides another apartment in this complex to Senator Dorgan! I never saw either of them at this apartment building when I lived there, leading me to conclude that they keep those addresses on paper only so they can continue to run for reelection as North Dakotans. Oh, and Conrad gave some money to Habitat for Humanity as penance for his unwitting cronyism, and the KFYR’s and Bismarck Tribune’s of the state sucked it up like always.

These two alone have enough corruption for the entire state. As far as the USA Today report goes, we in ND have fewer people than other states, but plenty of government. The ratio is tipped. Besides, we prosecute our criminals (except for Conrad and Dorgan, we send them to Washington) when they abuse their public office. This whole thing is irrelevant, though; it’s just a ploy to deflect attention from Illinois, the state of the Obamessiah, who the media helped elect and will continue to shield as long as he’s able to hold office.

Previous posts about Conrad’s and Dorgan’s “residences” can be found here and here.

All is the way it should be, finally

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It seems like it was only a couple of days ago that I lamented the fact that the capitol hadn’t been displaying its Christmas colors. I expected the familiar Christmas tree shape to light up on the day after Thanksgiving, for some reason. I’m not sure where I got that idea from, but in asking others I found that many of them had the same impression.

I was about to wonder if they’d be skipping it this year, given how atheists all over the place freak out at the sight of something representing Christmas or Christianity and try to sue it out of existence. Look how they tried to sue the city of Fargo for having a Ten Commandments monument on city property! But then I got a note on Facebook from Attorney General Wayne Stehnejem saying that December 9th was the night the windows would light up. I waited eagerly, and tonight the windows (and star above) were lit. Fantastic.

It just seems that little bit more like Christmas now that Bismarck’s most prominent landmark is part of the display. Familiar things like this are what make a hometown more lovable!

Kira’s Tree

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This tiny little tree really appealed to the camera last Saturday, as I visited my friend Bruce and his family to wrestle with Windows on their behalf. I’d wrapped up a cleanup day at our church after an early morning photo trip with Monte, a new photography friend who I met while working as a ringside boom operator for a SHOtime boxing broadcast a while ago. The morning was VERY frosty. When we drove across the new Memorial Bridge, steam was literally billowing over the bridge, swept downriver by the cold, blasting wind.

This little tree reminds me of the tree in Charlie Brown Christmas; perhaps that’s why I like it so much. Standing just over a foot tall, it’s a tough little conifer. My friend’s daughter planted it as part of an Arbor Day project from school last summer, and it has since survived encounters with the lawn mower and an uncle’s tractor tire. It’s a beautiful little tree, especially decked out in a fresh coat of thick frost.

There were many other varieties of trees in Bruce’s yard, each with a different type of needle sporting jagged white frost. I took many photos, and some may appear later, but this was one of my favorites. The frost along the river was VERY thick, but in town there was nothing of the sort.

This is one of the sights Monte and I saw early in the morning. This fencepost juts out of the frozen ground at a neat angle, just north of Horizon Middle School. The top of the post remains parallel to the ground, however, which is why it caught my eye. A thick wood parallelogram with frost-covered loops of rusty barbed wire is a great ingredient for a winter morning photograph!

Regardless of weather, I love getting up and chasing down unique photos. This frost didn’t hang around forever, and it was provided by just the right conditions of warm river water and cold, harsh wind. I may not take the best photos in the world, but I try to make each one indicative of a moment that was unique at the time my shutter clicked. There are plenty of those moments to be had in Bismarck and Mandan, and I’m going to continue to capture my share of them.