Monthly Archives: June 2006

City of Bismarck resumes annual program to maim motorcyclists

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…who knows, maybe this year they’ll kill one!

I’ve got a really big chip on my shoulder, and my arms, and my legs, and my helmet, and a few other places about this issue. The issue is called “chip seal,” and it’s an extreme hazard to motorcyclists.

I took photos today to illustrate my story, which transpired last night. I was out for a leisurely cruise on the big bike when I came around the corner at the south end of Sertoma park…

Note the absence of any signs indicating that trouble might be lurking around the bend. Note how far from the actual corner the streetlight is placed. A motorcyclist would have no apparent need to think that anything is amiss in this corner…would they?

Here’s what greeted me at the exit of the corner. I will be the first to admit that the photo is underwhelming. It’s just not possible to convey a patch of gravel like this, especially not in a picture 500 pixels wide. But put a motorcycle on it, especially one that is leaned over coming out of a corner, and it’s like throwing a guy on a sea of marbles and giving him a good shove. Imagine how much fun that can be…especially with all those curbs around!

I was seriously injured in an accident due to a similar situation: chip seal gravel spread several inches thick on the crest of a hill, in a corner, where there was no illumination from streetlights. I was the first rider in a group, the only one without a passenger. I hit the gravel leaned over into the corner and almost saved it, but the bike went out from under me. I won’t give you a description of my injuries, because they’re pretty nasty. I’ve got photos and horrible scars to prove it. If I had not been wearing my helmet I would certainly have died…I slid straight toward a curb, hitting it hard enough to take a chip out of the concrete. I was able to push away from the bike at the last instant, thankfully. The gravel rolled up the sleeve of my riding jacket, allowing lots of damage to my arm. It also sliced right through my pants, and that was even worse. The rest I’ll leave up to the imagination. Thankfully we had a doctor, and RN, and a surgical technician there that night…I think God was really taking care of us that evening.

So, along comes the City of Bismarck, spreading gravel in dark corners with no signage. They own thousands of dollars worth of big orange signs saying “FRESH OIL – LOOSE ROCK” but only put them up in well lit areas around downtown. They won’t put them where real danger exists. A couple of years ago I saw a crew chip-sealing Fox Island Road, including the tight unlit corner at the end. I saw the foreman sitting in his truck, rolled up on my motorcycle, and asked if they were going to be putting signs up at either end. I explained that the gravel is dangerous to motorcyclists who can’t see it that easily in the dark. He gave me some smart-ass answer and just stared at me with a stupid grin. These are the people entrusted with our safety, and I guess the signs stay on the truck.

This is an annual thing, obviously. Those of us with a lot of motorcycling experience know that mid-June means surprises are even more likely around every corner in town. How many new riders know that? They stand to learn a very important, possibly painful, lesson that motorcyclists must always be twice as vigilant as your average cage (I’m sorry, car) driver out there.

With all the rich folks riding Harley-Davidsons™ these days, it’d be interesting to see some high-priced attorney lay down his Hog on some unmarked gravel, then heal up just enough to sue the living pants off the city. I’m not a fan of liability litigation, but I’ve been making noise on this matter for over ten years. Nobody’s listening. So if you’re a motorcyclist and are reading this, be warned: the City of Bismarck, in its negligence and carelessness, is setting the traps for you. Pay extra attention when you’re riding out there.

Yellow is the perfect color for this magnet

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An elderly die-hard Democrat in my neighborhood is sporting this yellow magnet on his car among his Dorgan, Pomeroy, and ND Peace Coalition stickers. It’s no wonder to see this sort of thing from the ND Peace Coalition; after all, they’re pretty misguided.

Their website indicates that they believe such moral gems as “…one person’s terrorist being another person’s freedom fighter” or “Terrorism ranges from crackpots or right-wing conspirators such as a mailbox pipe bomber to Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, to anthrax postal terrorists to hijackers crashing airplanes into skyscrapers, all the way to actions by governments who employ large numbers of troops and weapons.”

Of course, you won’t find any mention of ecoterrorists anywhere in there, only right-wing crackpots. For instance, when I worked for ski patrol at a ski resort in the Rocky Mountains, we had to inspect our ski lift towers for sabotage from people like this. Loggers had to inspect trees for large nails, put there to make saw blades explode in the faces of loggers trying to support their families, before cutting. But those aren’t crackpots, I guess. Would the peacenik clowns trying to sabotage a ND missile silo last week fall into that category? Of course not…they’re part of the agenda.

Think of the cowardly silliness in this magnet. Protect our troops by bringing them home? What kind of creampuffs do these idiots think our soldiers are? We aren’t sending the Girl Scouts overseas…we’re sending some of the most courageous Americans on our behalf.

I’ll use Alex, a young man from our church, as an example. He’s in basic training right now. He enlisted because he wants to serve and protect his country and its citizens. When he announced his decision, he didn’t say “but I sure hope they keep me somewhere out of danger.” None of the men and women of the Armed Forces did…they volunteer to face danger of all kinds so we don’t have to. I think they’d be offended and insulted if you told them we were bringing them back to US soil so they wouldn’t be in danger.

I’m proud of people like Alex who, while our country faces casualties in war overseas, volunteers because he wants to help and loves our country enough to risk his life for it. I don’t see any of these peaceniks risking their lives for anything…they just sit back and enjoy the freedoms that people with real courage earn for them. Deranged, yes…but it’s their right.

Pelicans and Potholes

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As I drove through the “Prairie Pothole” region east of Bismarck, I noticed that the water levels in a lot of these tiny lakes are VERY low. We need rain badly. I also saw a lot of these big white fellas. They were apparently in a pretty good mood, too, because normally I haven’t been able to get near them with my camera. I’ve tried at a number of wildlife refuge areas around North Dakota.

Pelicans are neat looking birds, and large ones too. These guys were hanging out in a lake just east of Medina. Monday was a pretty nice day, sunny and lightly breezy…perfect for swimming and flying, I guess. While the birds kept a reasonably safe distance, they weren’t as shy or skittish as the ones I’ve encountered in the past. Still, I pushed my telephoto lens to the limit to get these shots of them.

Something so big can still look pretty graceful, can’t it? Notice how his feet are tucked in behind him…he’s got retractable landing gear! My little lovebird, Scooter, does the same thing when he flies. It’s pretty cool to see. This pelican circled around quite a bit, gliding and flapping those enormous wings. He looked very graceful…

Until he augered in on the landing. That would be me if I were a pelican…as soon as a camera comes along, I eat it trying to land in calm water. “I meant to do that,” as Pee Wee Herman would say. Oh well, I still think he’s a remarkable creature. He was able to compose himself and glide proudly along, preening his feathers as he bobbed around in the water. And I hopped in the truck with a smile on my face, ready to continue back home to Bismarck.

Canadians responsible for global cooling. er, warming. er, Climate Change™

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Al Gore would say it’s the percentage of gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs driven by North Dakotans, but it’s actually those darn Canadians. You see, this isn’t smog…it’s Metric smoke from the fires burning in northern Saskatchewan. The natural wind currents bring it down across the upper Midwest region of the United States, which means we’re now in the smoking section for a while. If you’ve had headaches the past couple of days like I have, this is likely the reason why. People with allergies and asthma are going to have a fun ride.

Apparently the Canadians have their own version of FEMA as they’re not seeing a whole lot of response in the area and are crying out for more help. It can’t be a lot of fun to fight a raging forest fire on the border of the Northern Territories, so I bet they’ve got their hands full.

In the meantime, it’s going to be a bit hazy as long as the wind brings the smoke in our direction. It makes for some neat sunsets but the haze brings more problems than anything else.

Clowns attempt sabotage at North Dakota nuclear facility. Really.

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Taken from this DefenseTech article:

Clowns attempt to sabotage nuclear missile near White Shield, ND!

Ya know, it takes all kinds. And I guess even North Dakota’s got ’em. After all, we’ve got a Bismarck Democrat comparing South Dakotans to the Taliban and then denying it, and removing his original post from his blog when he announced his candidacy for state House of Representatives.

As far as the clown wackbags, they’re lucky. I’ve heard tales of people who got their kneecaps shot out trespassing at nuclear facilities, and I think the rules of engagement are pretty serious up there if you pose a definite threat.

I’m not sure what to think about the Catholic priest playing the part of activist. He chose to quote the Bible, and out of context at that. I would politely point him to Ephesians 2:8-9 then, and ask him why he’s preaching that sacraments are necessary for getting to heaven. Or I Timothy 2:5, and ask him why he’s trying to usurp the role of Jesus. Perhaps he should spend more time reading his Bible instead of trying to paint missile silos.

Protesting is one thing, but this is treason. Free speech is one thing, trespassing on a nuclear facility is another. If you think treason and its prescribed punishment are too harsh, imagine if they could have possibly done some damage to the facility. That’s part of our nation’s defense system, a system that has helped preserve the right for these buffoons to be so stupid. Hang ’em high, I say.

Hopefully our new bridge will be this cool…or cooler

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This photo was taken on the bridge between Fargo and Moorhead, on Main Street. If you remember the old bridge, it was downright spooky. The new one is very nice and was well overdue. It’s also got a wide pedestrian area and the nice lit architecture shown in this photo.

There’s something similar planned for the new Liberty Memorial Bridge between Bismarck and Mandan. I can’t remember exactly how it’s going to look, though. My friend Alex did the architectural drawings for it, and I got some footage of it while videotaping the dedication ceremony, but I’m not sure where I put the pictures.

Because our bridge is a memorial to veterans, there will either be a monument in the middle, or one on either end. I’m fighting a migraine this morning, so I’m unable to think back far enough to remember.

In any case, it was neat to spend some time hanging out on the bridge in Fargo; it’s not just a walkway across the river, it’s a wide open area. There will be something similar on our bridge, and we’ve got a much nicer view than the muddy ol’ Red River.

Chasin’ the Station

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My friend Jerry mentioned today that he had seen the International Space Station pass overhead last night. That piqued my curiosity, so I decided to look up on NASA’s site to see if it was passing overhead again tonight. It was, at 10:20 pm and 11:56 pm.

The sky was simply too bright to get a decent picture at 10:20pm, so we decided to meet up again at 11:30ish. This time it came in at a different angle, passing right over the top of the Capitol building. I had the shutter set to stay open for 30 seconds, so you get to see the streak. Obviously this station travels very quickly; it passed quite a long ways in those 30 seconds. That allowed us a window of 2-5 minutes to see it if we’d been able to see both horizons, but really only a matter of seconds from the wooded Capitol grounds.

I did “push” the exposure a little bit to help get the streak to show through better. The lights of the Capitol were blinding and they shut off right after the ISS slipped out of sight at midnight.

Wednesday night sunset

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This was the view from Hillside Park Wednesday night. Stacy and I decided to take a nice leisurely drive up there after church, only to discover that it was a pretty popular spot. There were a couple of benches available, so we grabbed one and watched the sun go down.

Hillside Park is great for sunsets, frisbee golf, tennis…the works. There were a lot of people partaking in all those activities tonight, and the skate park was full. It’s a blessing to have such nice recreation areas!

It lurks beneath the surface…in a little stream east of Bismarck…

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I was walking across a foot bridge over the stream running along Bismarck’s east edge…minding my own business, if that’s possible with a 300mm lens. I glanced at the water below as I casually made my way back toward my truck…but wait! The water moved in a very peculiar fashion, or part of it did, anyway. I swung my camera over to get a closer look.

The water’s pretty low right now, and dark as well. There’s a bit of moss, algae, and debris that add a lot of clutter to the surface in the shallower parts of the stream. That’s where I saw a familiar shape gliding along slowly, leaving a muddy trail of swirling eddies in the muddy current behind it. It was a HUGE snapping turtle.

I tried to hold the camera steady as he eased to a stop and poked his head out of the water. His head alone was at least the size of my fist if not larger! His jagged shell stayed obscured by the water, and his head blended in with the debris almost perfectly. Had I not seen his slow movements a moment before, I’d never have spotted him.

He looked about for a minute or two, although it certainly seemed like a much longer time. I leaned on the railing of the bridge and snapped away, hoping to get at least a couple of clear pictures. When a lens is zoomed out that far, it’s hard to be steady enough without a tripod or monopod. I had neither; they were back in the truck, of course.

His curiosity satisfied, he eased his head back into the water and began to swim under the clutter. In doing so he lost some of his muddy cover, and it was then that I got a fleeting glance at his shell…just before he disappeared under the plant cover for good.

Watch your fingers and toes in the shallow water east of Bismarck!

Bike to Work Week this week in Bismarck

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Time to get healthy! I have yet to really get into the routine of biking to work; in fact, it’s only been a couple of times this year. But this week should be extra motivation for all of us to push a pair of pedals other than the accelerator and brakes! This is Bike to Work Week in Bismarck.

Riding to work always seems so easy to do, yet so hard to get motivated for. I like to run around with my camera or run errands after work, so it’s better to be on my motorcycle or in my truck. But that bike isn’t riding itself; I’ve gotta start doing it. I’ve got just under 2,800 miles on this bike and a little over 2,000 on my other one…let’s just say that under a hundred of those miles have taken place in the past year. So perhaps riding to work would help me get back in the swing of things!

The week is organized by Activate Bismarck-Mandan, a program run by the YMCA. You can find read their announcement and browse their website by clicking here.