America is at war. Most Americans are not

Posted on by
Reply

I went through most of the day without realizing that today is September 11th. While I’m glad that the whole nation doesn’t drop everything on the anniversary of the dreadful terrorist attacks of 2001, because the terrorists’ goal was to bring the USA to a standstill, it brought something to mind today. America truly IS at war, but most of us are not.

Allow me to clarify…it just doesn’t FEEL like we’re at war, because it’s only the soldier and his/her family that are truly sacrificing, not the average citizen.

I support the troops. No, I don’t think that can be separated from supporting their mission. I think the men and women fighting for America at home and abroad are performing a commendable service, one for which few would volunteer. I want them to win in whatever combat theater they face. I wish I could send each and every one of them a Thank You card. Having said that, my life as an American is so comfortable during this time that I can actually FORGET that it’s September 11th, arguably the most memorable day in American history since November 22nd or December 7th.

In my family’s fire safe is a set of unused war ration coupons that were to be used to buy food for my dad when he was a child. When was the last time you had to ration anything? The greatest difficulty anyone has had to face in recent memory is the availability of the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3! We don’t deserve to have it so good. No, I’m not about to kick into any of the anti-American self loathing characteristic of the liberals. I’m just saying that we’re blessed beyond measure.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Who pays the cost of our comfort? Right now it’s people like my friend Roberta, who took over the chore of raising her two boys while her husband was in Bosnia. There are several of my friends in the National Guard and Army Reserves from Bismarck who have been mobilized as well. I think back to my friend Tony, who served in the first Gulf War and has some shocking memories from there as well. Or my friend Nathan from New York, who told me the stories of room-to-room combat clearing out Falujah, and what it was like to lose two of the kids under his command. He gave us some on-board video of an IED striking one of their Humvees…I don’t even know how to describe it.

To the greatest degree it’s the families of North Dakota soldiers who did not come home alive, those who had to say goodbye to a father, son, boyfriend, or husband. I bet they remembered today’s date. I was honored to make the gesture of participating in the Patriot Guard rides for some of these men…but when everything settles down, they’re left with the quiet emptiness of a soldier who’s not coming home.

I can’t reach everybody thru this quaint little website…but if you’re reading this and have served, or if you’ve had to pray for a beloved soldier to come home okay, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you not only for the safety and comfort my family feels today, but all the years of safety that have preceded this day. My little 8 month old boy is sleeping securely next to me while I type, and I have no doubt that it’s because there are guys all over the world with M-16s to insure that evil doesn’t get even one inch closer to our shores to harm him. God Bless America, and God Bless the Troops!

The flags pictured above are flying at the ND State Capitol today. I’m sure a bunch of the atheist peacenik crowd would love to try to sue to get that “God Bless America” flag removed, but hopefully they’re still too busy licking their wounds from the fight to remove the Ten Commandments from the city of Fargo. I think all peaceniks should be shipped to Afghanistan to put their “War is not the answer” stickers and magnets on Taliban vehicles! See how far pacifism goes with evil men, and get back to me when they’ve renounced their ways. In the mean time, I trust the valiant men and women of the United States military to keep the forces of evil at bay.

Oh deer, oh deer, oh deer

Posted on by
Reply

I haven’t had much opportunity for photography lately. Between freelance work, sinus infections, and family time, time behind the camera has been a pretty hard thing to come by. Tonight, however, little baby PJ and I struck out to see what we could find. We had played together on the living room floor for quite a while, and I guess I ran him out of energy; as soon as those big knobby tires got rolling, he was out. Oh well.

These deer were at the intersection of River Road and Burnt Boat Road, just across the street from the Ducks Unlimited building. I’d seen deer in people’s yards on the south side of town when we were just beginning our voyage, but the way these three stopped and lined up was too cool to pass up. I’m glad they were willing to stand still for a little bit, even despite a Harley-Davidson® rolling past. Once I’d snapped a couple, they moved on and tried to find a place to cross the street. Dusk is a spooky time along River Road if you have an aversion to hitting deer with your car…look out, they’re pretty bold!

Bison football Saturday

Posted on by
Reply


Here’s a view of the 50 yard line at the FargoDome from the press box. I got to be a tape/replay operator for the game coverage on FOX Sports Net this weekend, and NDSU had food spread out for us all the way at the top of the Dome. It was a long hike, but the Rice Krispie bars alone were worth the effort! Obviously the game isn’t even close to starting yet in this picture; there’s so much preparation involved in television coverage of a game like this, I had to take my pictures well in advance of the actual game/show.


Here’s one of the top cameras for the game. These are sweet, and worth a lot more than my house. I rarely operate a camera for shows like this, I’m almost always in the truck. That’s nice, though; I can sit down during the show and see ALL the cameras at once. The truck is the best seat in the house!

Through this helmet run the mighty Thundering Herd, otherwise known as your NDSU Bison. Or maybe just a tape/relay op with his pockets stuffed full of Rice Krispie bars and free Pepsi products on his way back to the truck. Take your pick, but they didn’t turn on the smoke machine when I did it.

The aforementioned “truck.” This one was out of Calgary. They roll in, crank out the sides of the trailer, and lock the inside counters into place. Then we hook up controllers for our equipment, power everything up, and get ready to make television. The camera guys and grips start stringing cable, and there is a LOT of cable to pull when doing football at the FargoDome.

This is the main control room of the truck we used. The computer in the lower left runs the “FOX Box” scoreboard at the top of the screen. To the left of it is the mandatory Bin O’ Candy…no show would be complete without a dizzying amount of sugar available! Ahead of that is the row where the graphics operator sits, and the Technical Director is at the top of the screen. Beside him sit the director and associate director. On the other side of that wall of monitors is my workspace.

This is where I camped out for the day. My replay controller and keyboard are on the lower left, deck controllers center and right, and of course a plethora of monitors. We used three of the four decks as well as six channels of replay. The replay producer / EVS whiz sat behind me at a console where he could compile highlights and stuff for game summaries while doing replays as well. He also taught me a lot about running the “Elvis” system, so I increased my knowledge quite a bit. I’m really thankful to get some bona fide training on this gear…last time I just had the manual! 🙂

And let’s not forget the swag. I love collecting passholder lanyards from the different shows I’ve worked. The passes are neat to hang on to as well, and remember where I’ve been over the years. I’ve come to the point that I feel weird going to a sporting event and NOT having something saying “Total Access” hanging around my neck.

This weekend’s show was a blast and I got even more time on the EVS replay system I’m learning. Since I can’t buy time on one and I have to learn as I go, this weekend was an enormous blessing. I learned enough about my workflow this weekend to feel competent at being an EVS operator in a second-seat capacity. That means as long as there’s a guy in back doing the stuff I haven’t been taught yet (like building highlight reels and interstitials) I’m good to go! Hopefully I’ll get more opportunities to expand my skills and become a full-blown “ElViS Operator” for more shows. This is a hard business to get into. I got into this work in the 1990s, and now that my foot is in the door I’m going to wiggle it around a little. It’s the best kind of work on the planet!

Grown over

Posted on by
Reply

As a bona fide “dude” I feel a twinge of melancholy whenever I see a tool that has been retired. This particular farm implement sits idle, gathering vegetation, in the middle of a field south of Mandan. It would be nice if it was at least in a visible location where it could serve as a work of art or tribute to days long past, but that’s not the case. Sadly, it sits inconspicuously in an obscure corner, destined to rust away. At least it’ll remain somewhat immortal in pictures.

Make $100 the easy way – but you’d better act fast!

Posted on by
Reply

Winning entries to the 2007 North Dakota Governor’s Photo Contest will each win $100. In fact, a friend of mine had three winning photos last year for a mathematically predictable $300 in prize money. The deadline for the contest, however, is September 7th. That’s Friday, folks…and since they want a print copy along with a CD of the photo (if digital), that puts the pressure on anyone who wants to enter but hasn’t.

I was pretty excited about this contest and looking forward to entering, until I saw the following text in the news release announcing the contest:

North Dakota Tourism will retain exclusive ownership rights to all winning photographs for use in the 2008 North Dakota Travel Guide, Hunting and Fishing Guide and on the Tourism Division’s Web site.

What they’re doing is actually getting cheap stock photography. If a person goes to a professional stock photo site, a single photo can cost in the hundreds of dollars. Even then, the purchaser does not get ownership rights to the photo! Since there are few North Dakota photos on the stock photo sites anyway, it makes sense to try to lure North Dakotans to send in their own for a meager prize.

I don’t sell ownership rights to my photos, period. I’ve sold prints for the $250-300 range, but even those have a copyright penned on them next to my signature. These days one can’t be too careful to protect one’s intellectual property, and I keep up on the legal ins & outs of doing so since I work in this business.

If you don’t mind signing away the ownership rights to one of your photos, and can get a print done overnight at Bob’s Photo and run up to the capitol before end-of-business Friday, enter the contest! A hundred bucks is a hundred bucks, after all. But just make sure you’re aware that they intend to own exclusive rights to that photo. It’s up to you whether that’s worth it.

Follow the rays home

Posted on by
Reply

I spent a good chunk of this weekend in the Fargo-Moorhead area, as I was the graphics operator for some good ol’ college football on TV. I had a blast despite feeling under the weather; I was a couch pilot Wednesday, Thursday, and Monday but had good days Friday through Sunday. I tend to get a sinus infection in the fall for some reason, and this weekend brought a really nasty one. I’m still fighting it, and I think all the stuff in the air is the reason why.

This sunset photo was taken from an anonymous overpass in eastern North Dakota…I don’t even remember where, but it was remote. I was hoping to get on the road in time to reach the Prairie Pothole lakes for the sunset, but sadly that didn’t happen. No worries, I was treated to an amazing sky nearly all the way home…and by the time it got dark, my windshield was so pasted with bugs that I couldn’t see much anyway! A quick stop at King Koin to pressure wash the truck took care of that once I reached Bismarck. Sometimes I take my Suzuki down to Fargo, park it in the KVLY garage, and drive one of their cars for the weekend. I’m sure glad I didn’t do that this time around! Cleaning bugs off my leathers and helmet is NOT fun.

Mandan should have one of these

Posted on by
Reply

This is a view of the Red River between Fargo and Moorhead. There’s a really cool recreation area just south of the Main Street bridge where people can wade out among the rocks and fish or just cool off. The banks are landscaped and, in some places, paved with concrete. It looks like a fun place to spend an afternoon.

Here’s a little closer look so you can see the foot bridge crossing the river upstream a ways. I think Mandan should do something like this on the Heart River; there’s a similar area beneath the Highway 6 bridge that would be perfect, and it’s already next to a developed park. Obviously this wouldn’t work with the Missouri, but the Heart River is just begging to be used for some recreation. Anybody got a bunch of rocks they wouldn’t mind dumping overboard?

Pink & Purple Power

Posted on by
Reply

My little boy and I were out in the truck the other night and pulled up to the Burnt Creek boat dock. The sun had already set, but it was still casting color to our sky, and it was a suitable backdrop for MDU’s power plant north of Mandan.

Remember the stereotypical image of stacks belching forth acrid black smoke? Those days are long gone, thanks to pollution control measures. In fact, the only thing you’re likely to see from today’s power plants is steam…which makes sense, because that’s all a power plant really is: a steam factory. Once they’ve made the steam, they force it through the turbines of some very large generators, but the process of the plant is the liquefaction and ignition of coal in order to heat water into steam. As cleanly and as safely as possible, I might add.

On Golden Pond… river, actually

Posted on by
Reply

Some nights you just can’t beat the cliffs of Double Ditch Indian Village for great shots of the river at sunset. This was one of them. I never tire of this view, but I really want to go to the bottom of the cliffs for a sunset. It seems I just can’t get myself out there in time, because the only foot path down to the river is on the south end of the park. By the time I get out there, I haven’t the time to hoof it to the water and thread my way north. Oh well, someday…

Logan County storm – check out this supercell

Posted on by
Reply

While out poking around south of Mandan the other night, I was astounded by this huge mushroom cloud east of the Bismarck-Mandan area. With cloud tops in the 60,000 foot range and a span that looked as big as the county, it was a formidable sight to see. I sure was glad I wasn’t on the business end of such a cloud! Thankfully nobody was hurt or killed by this storm, although it did quite a bit of crop and property damage.