Neat things attached to Bismarck-Mandan vehicles

I’ve seen a few things lately that caught my eye, and a few of them have one thing in common: they’re attached to vehicles. Let’s start with this bumper sticker, which made me smile.

Amen to this one. As you know, I’m a cheerleader for our men and women in military and law enforcement service. I have the opportunity to run around with my camera and post drivel on the Internet because there are people stateside and abroad willing to put their lives on the line for my safety.

As far as humor goes, I probably saved the best for last. This inventive chap found one way to haul his extension ladder on the ol’ Merc: roll the windows down and strap it to the side!

I have quite the collection of oddities and cool stuff bouncing around in my cell phone, maybe I’ll throw a few more up here from time to time. Even though I have my big camera with me most of the time, the cell phone cam turns out to be pretty handy when time is short.

One more time, without the bugs

Bummer that I have to resize these photos and videos to 500 pixels wide, because they’re really cool full size! For instance, yes, there IS a guy standing next to the hook on that crane. Someone has to guide things into place. Naturally the crew takes lots and lots and LOTS of safety precautions for their workers and innocent bystanders like me. Which reminds me, I’ve got a new hero: the guy running that big white crane. The precision of this crew was amazing, and when time is compressed their work on these wind turbines becomes apparent as clockwork that it is. I took some HD equipment with me from work so I could grab a time lapse video Too bad I don’t have room here to show it at 1080p!

Again, that crew was amazing to watch. I wanted to applaud after they got that second unit assembled; it was in such a cramped position that the crane operator actually had to roll the crane back a little bit on its tracks! I bet that made him nervous. In any case, both of the assemblies that I watched appeared to go without a hitch, and I’m sure it’s due to good planning and a talented crew. It was a real joy to be along for the ride, even at a safe distance. I stayed along the main road and chatted with the landowners whose land I was parked on. A representative from the company doing this work told me that these sites and the access roads leading to them are off limits to the public. Take note of that if you decide you want to see any of this action for yourself.