Monthly Archives: May 2006

The great E85 lie

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I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about E85 fuel lately…in North Dakota especially it’s being heralded not only as a great alternative fuel, but also as a great source of revenue flowing into our state. Well, they may be right on one account. But E85 (or ethanol at all, for that matter) is a big loser. That’s the great big elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.

It’s easy to be on the “for” side of the E85 issue. After all, who wouldn’t want a nice plentiful alternative fuel…one that helps the farmers of America’s heartland? But that comes with a big catch. Set your feelings aside for a second and connect the dots.

The ND Public Service Commission released a report this week saying that they tested E85 fuel from two Bismarck gas stations. Fuel that’s being sold as “85% Ethanol” is actually allowed, by ND law, to vary by as much as 25%! That means you could be buying “E60” when you’re paying for E85, and it’s legal! Not only is that sad, but it’s not even the heart of the matter. Read on.

According to figures they released in a Bismarck Tribune article today, the two samples of E85 fuel tested at 79,580 BTUs and 89,830 BTUs. That’s a measure of how much energy is in a gallon of the fuel sold as E85 at those stations. The more energy in the fuel, the more that gets released when you burn it in your fancy new alternative-fuel capable vehicle. That’s quite a variance, in this case well over ten percent!

Have you ever had a dirty air filter? A fouled spark plug or cracked spark plug wire? Have you taken a road trip with underinflated tires? These things make a pretty serious difference in your gas mileage. So imagine the difference if someone took ten percent of the bang out of your fuel! Your mileage is going to go down far worse than any of the above.

But again, there’s that giant elephant in the corner that nobody’s talking about. Let’s refer back to those numbers for E85 fuel. On the low end they had 79,580 BTUs and the high end 89,830 BTUs. Conventional gasoline typically contains over 110,000 BTUs according to the EPA! So E85 is a thermodynamic DUD.

Let’s not forget that in order to get that precious gallon of energy-saving E85 fuel you have to plant corn, irrigate it, harvest it, transport it, process it, and extract ethanol from it. So you’ve already burned a ton of fuel just to get that gallon of E85 in the first place. Now you’ve got a gallon of something that has approximately 70% of the energy output of a gallon of gasoline!

As a motorcycle racer, I’ve heard all the myths about gasoline blends. I’ve talked to guys who think the octane rating is the same as a virtual “power rating” of a fuel. I’ve heard that race gas will burn up your engine (generally it actually burns faster, therefore cooler). I’ve also done the research and read a lot on it. And let me tell you right now, your best bet is to buy 87 octane Regular Unleaded. Don’t get the ethanol blend for the same price; your mileage will suffer. If you ride a car or motorcycle which requires higher octane fuel, get the Premium Unleaded. Your engine will thank you for it, and so will your wallet.

Speaking of wallets, the only way ethanol and ethanol blended fuels can be viable is if someone sneaks money out of yours. Your taxes have to subsidize this new miraculous alternative fuel; billions have been spent already on it and billions more will be spent due to the craze over the price of crude oil and gasoline. Subsidies will help build processing plants and subsidies will go to farmers growing corn…it’s subsidies all around, hop on the Ethanol gravy train!

I know this isn’t going to be a popular post in a rural state like North Dakota, but it’s the truth. I don’t care if it brings more ag revenue into the state, it’s a dishonest way to get it. Remove all the subsidies, let ethanol pay its own way, and then see how viable an alternative fuel it is. In the mean time, I’ll stick to burning the real thing, and getting my 110,000 BTUs per gallon out of it. In the motorcycles, I’ll be getting a lot more than that (for anywhere from $4 to $24 per gallon)!

Remember to look left…twice

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This is the intersection of Broadway Avenue and Washington Street, by the downtown Dairy Queen and Feist TV & Electronics. It’s also the home of a new waterpark built to replace the ailing Elks Pool. By day this intersection looks perfectly normal. But, like the rest of us, it hides a quirk.

The quirk has to do with the sign on the lower right of this photo. NO TURN ON RED. That’s a really good idea because the underpass to the left makes it very difficult to see oncoming traffic. Using this logic one could make a very strong case for a NO TURN ON RED on North 7th Street where it crosses Main Avenue. Can you see past the Bank of North Dakota? I can’t…not without poking out into the intersection and blocking the crosswalk. Anyway…

Late at night, when those of us who are getting old are tucked safely into our beds, the downtown stoplights change. They don’t grow hair and bark at the moon, but they do start flashing yellow and red. This particular intersection does the same thing, turning into a STOP sign for Broadway Avenue. But if it’s unsafe to stop and go during the day, why would it be safer at night?

One could make the argument that it’s easier to see headlights coming at night than a car without headlights during the day. I say that it’s dangerous no matter what, for the same reason that 7th and Main is dangerous.

So the next time you’re out after midnight and come to the flashing red at Washington and Broadway, be extra careful! This can be a dangerous intersection, no matter what time of day or night.

Strolling Strings season finale

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Saturday night the Bismarck Strolling Strings played their season finale in a special Friends & Family night at First Evangelical Free Church on north Washington. I took a break from destroying my bathroom to bolt up there, as my friend Monica (I like to consider her an adopted niece) was playing.

These talented boys and girls are junior high and high school age. They play classical, bluegrass, gospel and patriotic tunes while strolling around and singing. Thus the name. They’re very talented. At one point in the show they sing the tune “Baby Face” while serenading lucky members of the audience! It’s neat having dinner while they walk between the tables, playing and singing.

Led by Scott Neumann, these bright kids play only by request. For instance, they played at the Capital Credit Union member banquet I attended earlier this year. They’ve played at the Cowboy Hall of Fame and Medora Musical, the Harley Owners’ Group (HOG) Christmas party, as well as many other dinners, conventions and events. Some of them play with the Bismarck Mandan Symphony Orchestra as well.

If you ever get a chance to see the Strolling Strings perform, don’t miss it! It’s not easy to get that chance…in fact, they hold the Friends & Family night at the end of their season so that they can invite people to come see them perform. It’s a must-see event.

What a way to celebrate Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month

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I wasn’t sure how I was going to approach this, but while my drywall mud is setting I had a few minutes to think about it. This article comes (with permission to publish) from my friend Jason over at KFYR Radio News:

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) The Highway Patrol says man riding a motorcycle was arrested and ticketed for traveling 101 miles over the speed limit.
Troopers say 19-year-old Vitaly Poberezhnik (POH’-bears-nick) was clocked at 176 miles per hour Friday afternoon.
Captain Mark Bethke says the motorcycle was clocked from a trooper airplane, about 10 miles east of Bismarck on Interstate-94.
Bethke says the trooper who made the traffic stop said he could hear the motorcycle coming before he saw it. The trooper says it was just a blur as it went past.
Bethke says Poberezhnick was issued tickets for speeding and reckless driving.
Bethke says the fee for going 176 miles an hour in a 75 mile an hour zone is 505 dollars. He says Poberezhnik license is suspended, and 15 points have been charged to his license. That means he doesn’t have it any more.
Bethke says it’s the fastest speeding ticket he can recall in North Dakota.

So here’s my random thoughts on the whole deal:

It would be kinda hypocritical for me to be too hard on this guy, since I’ve done 176 mph on numerous occasions and been pulled over a few times for goofing around on one motorcycle or another. I could almost say I haven’t had a ticket this century, but sadly I did have a bit of an infraction in 2000. But we’re violation-free ever since. But there I go digressing again.

Apparently this guy was also involved in that multi-bike crash on March 8th over on the Expressway Bridge, but fled. That’s according to the Bismarck Tribune article I saw, if I remember correctly. On a brand new bike…a friend of mine owns the Kawasaki shop in town, and he has seen a lot of the bikes he’s sold come back wrecked within a week, such as one of the March 8th bikes. Sad.

One thing you don’t do if you’re a speeder: do it on the Interstate or Highway 83. It’s just too heavily patroled! They got this fella with the airplane, which I didn’t know they were still using, and officers on the ground. Talk about a bad day to test out the bike.

Then there’s the fact that you ruin a new engine if you take it to top speed within a certain number of miles. I have been breaking in new sportbike engines since the 1980s and have NEVER had a bad or weak engine because I break them in properly. You do it by doing lots of short rides, getting the engine up to full temperature, making it work under moderate load and medium RPMs, then let it cool. Heat cycles and moderate load are the key. Running high RPMs on a new engine like that will either score or glaze the cylinders, and then your engine is ruined (or will never reach its full potential).

I knew right away the guy was riding a Suzuki. I too have a Suzuki 1000 and it’s pretty much the only literbike out there that can even attain such a speed. The computer shuts down the fuel at 186mph but the speedometers are slightly inaccurate, so it would indicate 186 at 176. Yamahas and Hondas can’t attain this speed, and I don’t know of any new Kawasaki 1000’s out there yet. I wish I had one, the plan was in place until I found out I was destined for daddyhood. 3 bikes is gonna have to suffice for now.

I’ve seen a lot of new riders out there this year – no helmets. No protective eyewear. No jackets in many cases. No gloves or boots. Yikes. I’m a walking scar these days due to mountain biking and other sports, including a nasty crash that hurt me really bad despite the protective gear. These days I prefer to ride in my leather racing suit; it looks like I got dragged behind the bike for a couple miles due to a few crashes on the racetrack, but I have yet to get too seriously injured while wearing it.

While it’s easy to judge the flashy bikes that look like they’re breaking the law even while they’re sitting still, I still say the percentage of Harley-Davidson® riders in this town that misbehave is as high or higher. Their bikes are louder, and since Harley riders mistake noise for horsepower, they all grab as much throttle from stoplights as they can, in order to reinforce the “bad motor scooter” stereotype they spent tens of thousands to portray. But since their ranks include doctors and lawyers and real estate agents, they’re not as easy a target. I’ll say one thing, though: you always see Harleys lined up outside the bars at night – you never see lines of sportbikes parked out there. Ponder that one for a while.

Not to excuse the behavior of sportbike riders. I’ll admit that in my younger days, I was crazier than the rest. While I’ll never be one of those guys who “used to ride,” I have tamed down a lot. But when I see newspaper reports of a guy who flipped his motorcycle over backwards in a wheelie while speeding with someone’s drunk 14 year old daughter on the back (you think I’m kidding? That HAPPENED.) it reminds me of why people glare at me when I’m doing 24.9 mph in full safety gear through their neighborhood.

One thing that none of these guys – the sportbike guys popping wheelies in traffic OR the Harley-Davidson® riders roaring around as loudly as they can – understand is that they’re not impressing anybody. All they’re doing is making people angry, and adding to the numbers of people that dislike motorcycles. They don’t care if you held a wheelie all the way across the Expressway Bridge or hit the apex perfectly around Airport Road at 120mph. They certainly don’t buy into the fallacy going around out there among the H-D crowd that “Loud Pipes Save Lives!” either. All they know is they don’t want to have to hear it, see it, dodge it. I finally figured that one out in my mid-20s.


Yep, that’s me. I know the pic is grainy – it came from video

That’s when I decided to take it to the race track. Racing allows a guy to go as fast as he wants without fear of tickets, cars, curbs, chip-seal, and (most of the time, in Minnesota) wildlife. It’s the biggest thrill, and makes street riding seem dangerous by comparison, which it truly is. Try convincing your parents or girlfriend that going faster is safer…it doesn’t really work. But it’s true – the surface conditions are known, the traffic and obstacle problem of the street isn’t there – and the fact that a guy can go out and wring his throttle hand till it’s numb and come home with a smile on his face is testament to that. I’ve crashed on the track at speeds that would land me in jail on the street, and raced the next morning. That’s where the real riding is.

What the result of this arrest, and the resulting publicity, will mean for motorcyclists is a crackdown. Any leniency motorcycle riders used to have with law enforcement is certainly spent for the year. If these new rider nippleheads keep crashing their bikes before they have time to bolt a license plate on it, my insurance will continue to go up. Hey guys, try insuring six bikes sometime – it’s not fun, even with a clear driving record! I’m actually glad I sold a few right before I got married. So I expect now, after the radio/tv/print news has told us of the latest sportbike accomplishment, to have even more dirty looks from passers-by, more self-proclaimed know-it-alls telling me how dangerous “those bikes” are, and I’m sure a second look from any law enforcement personnel in the area.

Free stargazing tool

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As you likely know, I’m an avid stargazer. I love the night sky…I like to boogie…ahem. Anyway, when someone comes out with a really cool tool to assist in that stargazing, I’m in with both feet. Thanks to Lance for notifying me about the Stellarium project.

As you can see in the screenshot above, this program will display stars, constellations – with outlines and illustrations – and nebulae, planets, the works. You can display the ground, which changes lumination with the time of day. You can also display cardinal points of orientation, zoom in and out, change from current time to any time future or past, and turn all these features off and on. There’s also a “red” button which changes the graphics to red…this is handy for using the program in the dark on a laptop, so you don’t ruin your night vision.

You can find this program, which is a free download, at www.stellarium.org. For other neat stargazing and aurora resources that I’ve found useful, click on the Northern Lights link at the top right of this screen.

Wednesday night sunset

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This was the view from atop Hillside Park in Bismarck last night. I’d hoped to get a chance to stake out the sunset, but a 13-hour animating session kept me busy until just after 9 o’clock. After we checked the DVD master to make sure all was well, I dragged my tired butt into the truck and headed home, stopping by the park to grab as much as I could of the remaining color in the sky. This is the result of its waning moments.

Hillside Park in Bismarck is one of my favorite vantage points for photographing sunsets in our fair cities. A good sunrise, sunset, or aurora photo is lacking if it does not have a good foreground object, and the Bismarck-Mandan area is a foreground near & dear to my heart. If you feel the same way, join me on the hill sometime! Don’t be afraid to come on over and say hello.

The photo below is my favorite sunset photo taken from this area. I took it with a simple little $200 point-n-shoot digital camera in 2003. I believe it was mid-summer when the sun began to cross the horizon just behind the capitol building, it was a good catch.


Bonus: Click here to watch a video time lapse of this sunset (Windows Media format).

See, I told you so! (or, those darn turtles)

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It looks like the rest of the turtles, mostly Western Painted variety, have come out of hibernation in the backwater adjacent to Fox Island Road. As I drove past on other business yesterday I saw a whole pack of ’em lined up along the bank, sunning themselves.

I usually have a camera with wherever I go, so I decided to try my luck with ’em. Even with a 300mm lens I couldn’t get very close before they all dashed into the water. Then they sat there, heads poking out of the water in curiosity, taunting me. As you can see, there are dozens of the little buggers over there. If you look closer, even on a photo this small, you can see some rather large fish poking around in that pond too. They’ll be in big trouble if the water gets low; I saw one dried up on the sand already.

I remember a time in the late 80’s where a whole pack of us made a late night trip out to Fox Island on the motorcycles. We were in a pretty tight bunch and going at a rather brisk pace around the fun curves of the road. When we pulled up and parked at Fox Island, one guy pointed out that one of the turtles was walking across the road as we went by. By a miracle none of us hit him. That would have been bad for turtle AND motorcyclist.

New feature at Sertoma Riverside Park

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If you enter Sertoma park by the amusement park entrance, then take the one-way portion of the park road past the Dakota Zoo, you’ll see this new display near the park exit. It’s a medicine wheel with the traditional Native American colors of red, white, yellow and black. Different tribes ascribe different meaning to the four colors. Some nations use them to denote the four directions, other four elements, and others the four facets of health (spiritual, emotional, physical and intellectual).

There are four eagle sculptures positioned radially outside the medicine wheel. They’re pretty neat sculptures, not monstrosities like the big whatchamacallit up near the riverboat dock. The center of the circle has a tile mosaic on it. There are benches in the area for recreation and the whole display adds to the flavor of the riverside experience.

For those of you who have left Bismarck-Mandan and check this blog to see what’s going on in your old home town, the riverside areas have been transformed, mostly in anticipation of tourism due to the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. The walking paths have been expanded and repaved, there are cultural displays such as this one, a lot of signage has been added, and there are other little attractions too. In the future I plan to write some posts highlighting the changes around here…there have been many in just the past year or two.

Lewis and Clark passed through ND, were apparently made out of legos

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Two things that North Dakotans have all certainly heard ad nauseum: John Kerry served in Vietnam and Lewis and Clark stopped in North Dakota on their Voyage of Discovery. These three steel icons have become the face of the Lewis and Clark bandwagon for the 2004-2006 commemoration of that voyage.

The response I’ve heard over the chosen icons is that they’re a little goofy, but they really aren’t that bad. They’re somewhat of a departure from the traditional Lewis and Clark icon that you see on road signs marking their trail through the upper Midwest, though, so they’re going to take some getting used to.

One little tidbit about that whole ’04 and ’06 thing. Has it ever occurred to you that Highway 1804 runs along the Bismarck side of the Missouri River, and 1806 along the Mandan side? A little tribute to the Voyage of Discovery there for you, in case you missed it.

A suggestion for a new mascot, if it comes to that

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This UND Fighting Sioux nonsense is still dragging out, with the current leadership at Standing Rock voicing opposition to the “hostile” and “abusive” team name of the UND Fighting Sioux. This comes after members of the tribe have voiced their personal support and their tribe’s support, and tonight I even saw a photo on the news from when the school first adopted the Fighting Sioux nickname. Members of the tribe were present, proudly, adorned in ceremonial clothing. It was an honorable event.

I am not surprised at the change of climate, seeing how the tribal governments seem to have so much infighting and turnover. The current chairman, who claims at times to be a descendent of Sitting Bull, has called for the removal of another tribal leader who supports the nickname. While the reservations face epidemic suicide, meth and alcohol abuse, and sexually transmitted disease problems, they instead resort to fighting amongst themselves about a nickname they do or don’t like.

I’m willing to bet that most people who don’t like the UND Fighting Sioux nickname and are fighting for its demise have never set foot on a reservation. This is just more Political Correctness run amok. You want a target then, folks? Just let us make a few subtle tweaks to our mascot and then you can let your hatred fly:


This is my (poorly drawn due to haste) rendition of the logo for the UND Valiant White Men. We’re proud of our heritage and our perseverence as we, men and women of German, Norwegian, Slavic, and other descent made a home for ourselves here on the rugged Plains. To show our respect for such a hard-working people, we should honor them by choosing our team name/logo/mascot in their honor.

Of course, nothing could be more “hostile” and “abusive” to the PC crowd than a white guy. See, for so long it’s only been the Native American crowd, or at least vocal activists fighting in their name, who have been granted the ability to take potshots at the University which thought it was making a gesture of respect by choosing the name Fighting Sioux. This way, every minority can slap on their Victim uniform, march in unison, and rally against the evil aggressor, the oppressive white heterosexual Christian male. Join the fun, gang! It’s open season!

Personally, I agree with the people interviewed on the evening news tonight who said “let’s keep the nickname and the logo, and who cares if we host postseason play.” Tell the NCAA to get bent, kick butt in hockey, and fight for what we believe in.

You can read an excellent Letter to the Editor here.

And while we’re on the subject, maybe you would like to click here and see the DOZENS of programs that “hostile” and “abusive” University offers for Native American students. Recruitment programs. Retention programs. Incentives. Organizations. Publications. I have a friend who’s 100% Native American who went through the INMED program at UND, which helped him tremendously due to his race and afforded him opportunities he’d never have had otherwise. So let’s not make this the case of the Evil Big Bad University vs. the Poor Victimized Native Community. If the name and logo go, let’s pull the plug on these special favors with it! Sure, they do a lot of good and are worthy programs, but we don’t dare put the interests of one race ahead of any others…if that’s what we’re told we’re doing and must stop with the Fighting Sioux nickname, then certainly we can’t do it with something more important like higher education!