The moon…it’s a matter of perspective

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My friend Petey often says, and I’ve adopted this as my personal motto, “Some days it’s better to be lucky than good.” Luck accounts for a great number of the finest photographs out there, since the one element completely out of the photographer’s control is the convergence of time and place to formulate the perfect moment. The photo above is one of those moments.

I’m sure many of you have noticed that magnificent full moon we have had the past few nights (Brucellosis, I’m talking about YOU). It’s a fun photographic subject, but without a telescope or a very expensive lens it’s hard to get any really impressive photographs of it. The true beauty of such a moon, however, lies in its relationship to objects below.

I was bummed about missing Sunday night’s sunset by only a short moment. As I came up south Washington Street, I noticed the moon rising in the east, and it looked quite cool. I bolted up to a hill in northwest Bismarck, and caught that nice moon in a nice relationship to the state capitol building!

It ain’t easy getting a shot like this. Monday night I tried to better it, hoping to get a photo of the moon right beside the capitol, and was unable to do so. I realized that without roof access somewhere, it’s nearly impossible to get such a shot. The reason is that one has to be far enough away from the capitol to make it appear small in the shot, having a good relationship with the moon, but also be positioned in the correct angle. Frankly, there aren’t many positions in Bismarck that fit the bill. Either there’s a power line, tree or building in the way, or the angle is just plain wrong. As it turns out, Sunday night I was lucky. Good.

Tiger from below

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This is the view from one of the cooler parts of the new cat exhibit at the Dakota Zoo here in Bismarck. The tiger exhibit is finished, the tigers are laying around like cats do, and one of them decided to soak up the sun from atop the glass viewing portal.

This enclosure is cool in that you can look all around, and you have to duck to walk through a kiddie-sized tunnel to get to it. Naturally the kids love it, at least mine do. It’s just tall enough to push our stroller through without scraping my knuckles. If the cats aren’t doing anything exciting (let’s face, it…they’re CATS) the kids will probably like dashing around in the tunnels.

The snow leopard part of the “big cat” exhibit is still under construction, part of a campaign of expansion and enhancement at the zoo.

Sunday morning steeple

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I don’t expect anyone to guess the church beneath this steeple, since it’s not in Bismarck-Mandan. I took my little boy up to Lake Sakakawea this weekend. I had three objectives: check out our place and see how tall the grass was (and if my new key works), see how 18-month old PJ does with spending the night in a tent, and run around the area to let my boy see the lake, the dam, the fish, the birds, and any other sights we could find.

Not only did I succeed on all counts, but PJ loved the tent and my new key works in the lock. We also have a lot more water up there than we did the last time I ventured north. I’m told that the big lake has been coming up at a fantastic pace recently.

I also had the chance to do some photography in the area, so this is the steeple of the little lutheran church southwest of Pick City. When I took it, PJ was in the passenger seat of my truck saying “Happy!” over and over. I think he likes camping.

Golden Dragon

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This is a great time of year to hit any small body of water and check out the dragonflies. I’m sure they love all those little annoying bugs that do so well in this type of weather. I think they eat mosquitoes…if that’s the case, they’ve got plenty of food available!

This year hasn’t been so good as 2006. That year I saw so many different types and colors of dragonflies and damselflies, it was amazing. Hopefully they come back in equal numbers sometimes soon; they’re pretty interesting to watch!

The not-so-mysterious face on the Memorial Bridge

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No, I’m not talking about anything that Richard Hoaxland found on Mars’ Cydonia region… this is simply evidence of someone putting some joy into their work, and it’s sticking out of the side of the approach to the old Memorial Bridge.

You can see it as you approach it from east or west on the new bridge; simply look at the end of the beams holding up the approach to the old bridge on the Mandan side. What I figure is that it was necessary to cap the end of the old beam with concrete when they tore down part of the approach to make room for construction. When putting the concrete in place, I suppose a worker with a sense of humor added the smiley face.

Hat tip to Brucellosis for spotting this back the rest of us were still confined to the old bridge. He spotted it while on a walking tour of the bridge, and I’ve been waiting patiently to see it for myself. Thankfully it was still there once the new bridge opened; I’m not about to go trespassing. Now one can see it simply by driving by, but be careful! You don’t want to have an accident while rubbernecking, do you?

Consolation and blessed memories

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Last week I took my 35,000th photo with this camera. What more suitable way to chalk up such a milestone than by documenting a fun time playing with my son? I was feeding our 19 month old, PJ, while his little brother Jonathan, now almost 9 months old, played with his toys on the floor nearby. Little “Sparky,” as Jonathan is often called, gets the honor of being the 35,000th picture.

I just got done spoon-feeding Jonathan tonight, as one does with such a little baby, and it reminded me of a story I heard this weekend.

Click on the dreaded Windows icon to hear two brief examples of consolation.

I know, I am no huge fan of Microsoft or Windows. If you have a Mac and want to listen to it, simply click here to download the components to play Windows Media files in the Quicktime Player on your Mac (free). I use them to listen to ASX, WMV, and WMA files on my liquid-cooled, quad-core G5 Mac at work. They are fantastic, and they are free.

Back to the audio. Touching stuff, huh? As a relatively new daddy I was floored by these two stories. They were spoken by a missionary to the Pacific who visited our church this weekend. I’d love to give him direct credit, but some of these guys take a risks being in the field, often political and sometimes physical. Putting their names on the Internet can sometimes cause unintended harm and I’d hate to do so.

Hopefully by electronically enabling you to hear this man’s words, which moved me as I struggle to be a good daddy and provide my little boys with blessed memories, I can pass along some of that consolation he was talking about.

The hardest part about being a chalk muppet? The giant ants, of course

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This was one of the more eye-catching displays I caught during my brief romp around the Capital A’Fair today at the state capitol. I refer to it as the “Capitol A’Fair” with an o instead of an a because it’s on the capitol grounds, but I suppose they could use an a because it’s in the capital city.

Saturday was muggy as heck, and Sunday looked like it might have some rain in store, but it actually turned out to be a perfect day for perusing artwork at the capitol. Canopies lined the road surrounding the capitol mall, the food court occupied its familiar spot in the west lot, and turnout looked to be pretty good.

This was a really neat display: concrete molds of giant leaves, coated in a number of different finishes. Many were pearlescent, and some even glowed in the dark. The process is shown on the signs adorning the front table (right side of photo).

Kindred spirits Ron & Kathy Linton were there, featuring photography from the Black Hills. I met them last year, when Ron noticed I had the new Canon 10-22mm lens on my camera. He’s since bought the same lens and really likes it. I took a few minutes to say hi and chat, but had to move on because of a Superbike race I wanted to catch this afternoon.

I didn’t know in advance that the A’Fair was happening this weekend. I suppose that’s because I don’t read the paper, rarely watch television, and don’t spend much time around a radio. Thankfully I was able to make a quick trip up there this afternoon and look around, find a couple of neat sights to investigate, and enjoy an afternoon walking around the capitol grounds. Next time I’ll try to find out about it earlier, so I don’t have to skip the snow-cone stand in order to save time!

The last car to cross the old Liberty Memorial Bridge was a motorcycle

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That’s right. As a big proponent of motorcycling in North Dakota, I’m pretty happy to say that a motorcycle closed the books on “civilian” travel over our beloved bridge. If I may digress for a moment, I’d like to point out that this bridge was scary/fun back on a motorcycle back when it had the metal deck! Not only could a rider look straight below and see the water, but the gridwork made motorcycle tires “swim” back and forth in a manner most discomforting at first. Digression aside, those fine folks in the picture above were blocking off public traffic on this bridge forever. Maybe they sensed that I am a former DOT employee, maybe they were just being polite…in any case, they allowed me to park my motorcycle off to the side and wait to be the last guy across.

Someone in a white Ford Thunderbird actually got in behind me after I took off across the bridge from the Bismarck side. At that point I thought I’d missed my chance to be the last person across the bridge, and resigned myself to simply being the last motorcycle across. But an idea struck as I reached the Mandan side: turn around. Not only did I want to take more pictures, but I had to get back to work! I’m very busy and didn’t have a very long lunch break. So, when I got to the Mandan side, I did a quick U-turn and headed back. That made me the last motorcycle and last vehicle to cross.

This is what it looks like to have the Memorial Bridge all to yourself…that is, if you’re on a customized Suzuki with a camera hanging around your neck. This will live on as my last view of the bridge I’ve known all my life, even when I was living in Montana as a kid and looked forward to the “humming bridge” when we’d come to Bismarck to visit family.

My sources tell me that someone called KFYR-TV after their newscast to complain that he was the last guy across. That would have to have been either the person behind me in the white car, or the last person to come across from the Mandan side (before I did my u-turn). In any case, nobody came across from the Bismarck side after the white car and I, and nobody came across from the Mandan side after I did. I know because I sat at the red light on the east end of the bridge for what seemed forever, since I was wearing leather riding gear and was very hot. Nobody came up behind me. Sorry, whoever you are…the reports are accurate.

Farewell, beloved bridge. I’m glad I got to say goodbye.

Just as I got to drive on the Expressway Bridge shortly after it opened (I had my permit, my mom let me drive) I got to ride on this bridge right before it closed. I know, it’s odd to be so sentimental about local landmarks…but what can I say? I love Bismarck-Mandan. I always have. That’s why I started this website in the first place. I’m just thankful that I have a camera and can run around after things like this. It’s cool to document Bismarck-Mandan history and provide a viewpoint for the record.

By the way, I noted again today that Brad Feldman seems to have the same sort of sentimentality for our town. I really like his Around Town segments on KX news, as well as his knack for local information. I could tell from the tone of his report on the bridge closing on tonight’s news. It’s cool to see someone who has a love of their community and what’s going on here. Hopefully people who read my ramblings here will catch that sentimentality, then things like this bridge closing will seem a little more significant.

Clint’s Fantastic Supercell Adventure

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This was the scene as I headed out tonight, looking for some overdue sunset photos. At this point we were barely over a week since the last supercell flew past Bismarck, as documented in an earlier post. But oh, another one was on its way.

While running around with my boy this evening, I noticed a few key ingredients for some meteorological action: heat, humidity, and odd clouds, as shown above. As I ventured out in my truck, I noticed quite a few other people parked along the way, cameras in hand. I bet they got some great shots, but alas…none of them had my favorite vantage point!

I ventured up to one of my favorite windmills to get a shot of the weird, marshmallow-like clouds that were hovering overhead. By this point already I could see that some damage was looming on the northern horizon.

Here you can see the last remnants of the evening’s sunset on the left, and the pure nastiness that was brewing on the right. This was a textbook supercell, just like last Saturday’s, and it was on the move. Quickly. If you look closely you can see the headlights of a truck heading south in an effort to flee the storm. As they passed me, I realized two things: the storm was bearing down on me incredibly quickly, and I was a LONG ways from my truck.

So there I found myself: on a hill, beneath a tall metal object, with a nasty storm overtaking me faster than I could ever hope to run. I’m sure after my post on homosexuality, there are plenty of people who would have liked to see some lightning enter this story, but such is not the case. This storm came so fast, I literally RAN, with my camera still on the tripod, toward the truck. I was past the rusty windmill when I heard a nasty, metallic sound. I whipped around to see that the wind had spun the head of the windmill around, and that’s when the blast of cold wind hit me. It almost knocked me off my feet, but I have to admit the cold air felt good. So of course I took some pictures. Oh, come on…you would, too!

Then I REALLY dashed for the truck. I ran several different events in track back in high school, but none were this frantic. By this time the wind was almost pushing me over, and the rain was starting. I dashed to the truck, did a hasty Rockford after what seemed like an eighth-mile in reverse, then booked it back to town. I stopped along Highway 1804 to take this shot, then hurried back home. By this point I was seeing horizontal rotation on the leading edge of the storm, and some funnels dancing along the edge as well. By this point, however, it was obvious that the storm would miss Bismarck.

As I post this, I got this PIX message on my cellphone of the tail end of the clouds. Looks like quite a system! Once again I got an eyeful of a major storm development, a few pictures to boot, and managed not to catch a lightning bolt or a hailstone. People have told me that North Dakota thunderstorms are among the most beautiful of sights, and after tonight I think I’d have to agree.