Monthly Archives: January 2012

Sanstead mulls re-election bid…could it hinge on voters discovering his department’s pro-homosexuality agenda in public schools?

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The Bismarck Tribune recently ran this article stating that Wayne Sanstead hasn’t decided on whether or not he’ll be running for another term as head of North Dakota’s Department of Public Instruction. He asserts that health and tradition play a factor. I’d like to see another very important factor come into play.

Wayne Sanstead’s DPI is persistent in trying to fly a pro-homosexuality agenda under our collective radar and into our children’s classrooms. The groups they affiliate themselves with are the same cadre of twisted freaks who got busted teaching “fisting” and “rimming” to school children in Massachusetts in 2009.

Here’s my post from the first time they tried to sneak this garbage into our schools. People found out about what was planned to take place, they notified their legislators, and the DPI folks colluded with their out-of-state partners to hunker down and wait for the legislative session to come and go. And that’s what they did.

Here’s my post about when they actually pulled it off, just like they’d planned. The Bismarck Tribune, by the way, printed a glowing article making DPI’s Sandra Tibke look like a cross between a martyr and a modern day Mother Teresa. It’s no wonder that, if you try to comment on the Sanstead story highlighting things that concern you about this garbage taking place during his term of service, those comments never reach the light of day.

I admit, I only visit the comments section of the Bismarck Tribune website very infrequently…and only when I find myself with a few dozen extra IQ points I want to shave off by subjecting myself to the comments posted therein. But this time, when I decide to chime in with something that doesn’t fit the agenda, it never got posted. The Bismarck Tribune is very transparent on where they stand on the issue.

If Wayne Sanstead does choose to run for re-election, this needs to come out. Regardless of your views on homosexuality, is the public school classroom really the place for advocacy? Do we really want to put our teachers in that position, whether they want it or not? Do North Dakota parents want to cede parental authority in matters of morality and sexuality to their children’s schools, whose view on these matters is obvious and agenda-driven? Under Sanstead’s leadership, DPI’s position seems to be in the affirmative on all counts. We need to stop this, and put an end to his term as head of DPI.

Not what I was looking for, but satisfying nonetheless

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I love old pieces of equipment like the one pictured above. I was out on a photography mission, one in which I came back empty-handed, but I spotted this little gem beside the road during my travels. As it turns out, I caught it just as the sun was starting to splash its pre-sunrise color across an otherwise dreary landscape.

My photographic mantra is that any photo trip is a success if I come back with even one image that I like. That holds true for trips like this one, where I was looking for a very specific shot but couldn’t find the location…I came back with a few different shots that I really like, so I don’t really mind that they weren’t the one I was looking for.

The photo I originally sought evaded me, but only because I got a late start. The sun sets pretty early right now, even though the days are steadily growing longer. Next time, I’ll head out earlier and hopefully get lucky, stumbling upon the photo I’m chasing!

A special calendar…just for me?

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I really appreciate when local print shops do certain things such as in 2011, when Image Printing made those posters with the American flag on them and distributed them around town. One other thing they do, and this is a good business tool as well, is distribute free office calendars as a promotional item. They’re very handy, high quality, and should be appreciated as a valuable gift.

I was taking down my calendar from last year (although I discovered it had 2012 on the back) to replace it with a new one, when I spotted something interesting: at the bottom of 2011 it also had smaller boxes containing Janaury and February 2012, for those of us who don’t change our calendars on time! Wait, what? Janaury?

Yes, mine had January misspelled on it. I checked the back to see if the same quirk existed on the 2012 side (with little January and February 2013’s on it), and it did! As a proofreader I found that noteworthy, so I checked other calendars in the building which hadn’t yet been replaced. As it turns out, I’ve got the only one with the error. Hmmmmm…that’s odd.

In addition to the giant poster-sized calendar, I also had an 8.5×11 version. That had the misspelling of January as well…yet I couldn’t find another calendar with the same typo anywhere! Weird.

I’m one of those people who could look at a printed page and have any typo errors leap off the page at me almost instantly, as if I was looking at one of those 3D computer-generated posters. As a result, I find it appropriate that I seem to have the one calendar with this particular feature.

Before any conspiracy theories abound, I’d like to point out that this calendar was hung three months before I moved into the office where it was hanging. I don’t believe in fate, but if I did I would surmise that perhaps this calendar and I were meant to find each other!

One more time, with feeling

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I had lots of fun family time this weekend instead of roaming with the camera, but I did want to sneak in a quick 2012 shot. Since I began this blog site in January 2006 I have always found a way to nab a quick shot of the capitol with its windows declaring the new year. During that time I’ve just about shot every available angle of the thing, but I was able to grab something a little different this time around.

I did go out after midnight, chuckling at all the other like-minded souls roaming the capitol grounds with their cameras, but I found the experience lacking this time around. The reason for that is the clear sky; it doesn’t reflect any light on the capitol, so in order to properly expose the windows one must underexpose the building even more than I’d like. That almost gives the 2012 an appearance of floating in midair. Here’s where my “technical creativity” kicked in: I figured I’d let the sun help me out.

I packed up my gear this morning before sunrise, got into position, and waited for the sun to give me just enough scattered light in the atmosphere and on the capitol tower without competing with the 2012 in the windows. It was a fine balance, and I actually set an intervalometer to sit and take shots every 30 seconds so I could catch the right window of time, and that was that.

The shot above has the windows lit with the new year, the tower and town are visible, the sky is a nice blue, and it looks like everything worked as planned. Also important is that I think, out of all the people who photographed the building, I have a very unique photo.

Happy New Year!

In a word: Busy.

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Busy. That would describe my 2011 in as concise a way possible, yet in as verbose a manner as necessary. The photo above? I had to Photoshop the windows in last year’s photo because I didn’t get the time to take a real one…yet.

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions; however, I do hope to make better use of my time in the future. That should allow more opportunities for what’s important: faith, family, fotography, motorcycles… 🙂

Happy New Year!