Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with the sculpture. It’s not like it’s a monstrosity or anything, like the Thunderbirds debacle up by the riverboat dock. It’s actually quite neat; in fact, it allowed me to get this interesting sunset picture:
Nicky Hayden, one of three roadracing and dirt tracking brothers from Owensboro Kentucky, has been racing in the most advanced series in all of motorcycle racing for a few years now, and his hard work has finally come to fruition with a world title. This has been an up and down year for him, with tbe biggest downer last week: while in the points lead for the championship, he was t-boned by his own teammate and didn’t score any points at all. He basically had to win or crash this weekend, and had to beat his championship rival by a certain number of positions to wrap up the title. And he did. Misfortune plays no favorites at this level, and his rival, Valentino Rossi, crashed early in the race. While he was able to get back on the bike and continue, he was unable to catch up and earn a points position that would preserve his lead. Nicky had a disaster last weekend, the tables turned this weekend.
Don’t get me wrong…any Northern Lights are a treat. This one I’d hoped would be a little extra special because one of our friends who came along is from “the South” and I was hoping for a spectacular show for her. While we saw a lot of shooting stars, likely stragglers from the Orionid shower last week, the auroras didn’t really live up to any of my stories of past experiences. Bummer.
I take stargazing pretty seriously. I tend to measure and schedule things in 15 minute increments, and within one of those periods I can have the truck rolling with my standard stargazing setup:
– Camera equipment
– Folding camping chairs
– Jackets and gloves
– Cooler of water, Dew, or Red Bull from the fridge in the garage
– Speaker system for the iPod
– Inverter & extension cord to power ’em
– Maglite
– Sunflower seeds, jerky, etc.
– Can of spare fuel from the garage pump (in case we go crazy)
– GPS receiver, now that I finally have one
I have a standard set of stargazing music ready to go on the iPod, too. We stood outside the truck with the music going for a while last night, just looking at the amazingly clear view of the stars and exclaiming when a meteor would zip past. All was not lost. But I really hope for an opportunity to show Jenny and my other Southern friends what the Northern Lights can really be like here in North Dakota.
I had this grand idea about how the sun, since it now travels so low in the sky, would be perfectly framed if I stood at one end of the historic railroad bridge and it appeared at the other end. A combination of fatigue, sky conditions, and a reluctance to be a tresspasser changed my mind. But I did find a couple of really nice sunset photos from the bike path up on the hill.
In her article, Ms. Sandstrom talks about the history of this building and its importance during Bismarck’s railroad days. She’s got some neat historic photos to accompany her research and a few neat odd facts to boot.
If you haven’t picked up an issue of the Dakota Beacon yet, you don’t know what you’re missing. There are complementary copies available at many Bismarck locations, including an honor-system box in front of the Post Office on Rosser. I highly recommend that you read and subscribe to this magazine – I do! You won’t be disappointed.
Patrick Kellar is a friend of mine from back in the 80s, although we haven’t spoken a whole lot lately. He’s a newspaper publisher in New Castle, Indiana now, having run newspapers in Valley City and Connersville, Indiana. But in 1987-88, he was my best friend. We worked at the Dan’s in Arrowhead Plaza that summer, he had a cool little Opel GT. He’s one guy who showed me that even a 17 year old kid can put his mind to something, see how it works, and just do it. He was good at auto-mech and bodywork, savvy in politics, well-read… my kinda guy, and probably my youngest role model.
Whoops! See what looking into a box full of memories does to a guy? Back to the story. Pat had been cited for going 45 in a 35 zone on River Road, right at the point of the sign where the speed limits change. As you can imagine, he was quite put out by this. So, we set our minds to seeing how we could get out of it. We found ourselves at the law library in the legal wing of the State Capitol, looking every which way at the ND State Century Code as it pertains to traffic law. We were certain we could find some little snippet to exonerate Pat, or at least allow him to wriggle free of this citation. Nothing doing.
Then the Clerk of County Court handed Pat a Get Out of Jail Free card in the form of his summons. As you can read in the image above, Mr. Patrick Kellar had been summoned to court at 4:30 AM instead of PM! If there’s anything he remembered from the time spent up at the capitol, it’s that there is in fact that elusive snippet of Century Code waiting to be wielded in his favor. As it turns out, he found an entry that allows for a traffic case to be dismissed if the prosecution does not show up. Obviously the City Attorney wasn’t present at 4:30 in the morning; heck, he had to ring the doorbell of the courthouse repeatedly until a jailer came down! But once he did find someone, he had all the ammunition he needed. He got the name of the jailers he talked to and went home to go to bed.
Patrick could best tell the rest of the story in detail, but I do remember the Clerk of Court trying to get him to appear when he called them to request a dismissal. He politely declined, quoted the law and cited his meeting with the representatives of the Burleigh County Sheriff’s Department. The case was, in fact, dropped, and once the article you see above hit the wires, he was even getting calls from radio talk shows. He had to decline an on-air interview in some big city because it was time for him to put on his apron and bow tie and get up to Dan’s, bagging groceries. Ah, what a situation.
I don’t know if the law’s been changed; perhaps one of my curious readers will look into it. Of course, it’s only valid for traffic offenses, not criminal ones. If you’re considering trying such an escape from a ticket, just remember: you need a summons with a typo first. Somehow I doubt the Burleigh County Clerk of Court staff will let another one slip through.
I got the idea for this impromptu post because I heard *ahem* from my wife in the living room a couple of times during Kevin’s weather. Being a video guy, I’ve naturally got my editing/graphics machine hooked to my entertainment center in the other room…so I grabbed an example.
The story behind these arrows is that…well, I made them. Whoopee, right? There are actually a few things still airing on KFYR that I made before I left there three years ago. It’s just that I annoy my wife with these. Accuweather had just shown up to install their brand new top-of-the line weather system, the Galileo. KFYR has two of them now, by the way. Anyway, the Accuweather guy was dismayed to find out that wind arrows were missing from among all the graphics in the machine. Kevin and I had already made sure that all the “First Warn” stuff had been made, so I dashed into my office and belted out some quick & simple arrows. The rest is history.
Now that I think of it, the Accuweather guy took the CD with those arrows on it, probably to use for future Galileo installs. Funny, I never saw a royalty check…
I had sauntered down to Fox Island to get some river shots, which I may post down the road…but then the sky caught my eye and I snapped this one. It was nice to have clear skies, having had nothing but clouds for the Orionid meteor shower this weekend. But the sky wasn’t done with color just yet…
The temps may be a little low for my liking, but I’ll take those dramatic autumn skies. Soon they’ll be replaced with the dreary gray of winter, and it’ll be interesting to see what we shutterbugs do then!
You go to the Geocaching website and find a cache near your location. Then you grab your trusty GPS receiver and head out to find the cache. But for many of the caches, that’s just the start.
Many of the hunts on the site are “multi” caches, involving multiple stages. For instance, you may find a cache at the first set of coordinates that contains a clue for the second location. It may be a “virtual” cache, which means you need to look for visual clues at the coordinates and use them to find the next location. In any case, it’s fun.
Once you’ve found a cache, there’s a written log inside each one as well as some miscellaneous trinket items. It’s customary to leave something of your own and perhaps take something from the cache as well. There are little items called “Travel Bugs” that you take and place in the next cache you find. Then you go back to geocaching.com and mark the cache as found, report on the bug if you found or placed one, and discuss the cache. You can also report a missing or damaged cache and read comments by other people who’ve found it.
I’ve always wanted a nice GPS unit and this was a major reason why. Even better, it’s something my wife and I can enjoy together. There’s a guy with the handle “Agent 6” who has written some really entertaining caches involving North Dakota history. We’ve done a couple of them and they’re really neat…especially if you love this area like I do.
So yeah, Jason…you were right. One of those caches led us up to Grant Marsh’s gravestone. For the rest of you, who might not know what Geocaching is, I hope I’ve been an enlightenment. I also hope to have convinced you to try it for yourself. And just in case the photo above makes you wonder if I always go geocaching at night, wearing a suit…no. Neither. It was just a good opportunity for the photo.