What a way to celebrate Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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)

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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!

Return of my vexation (or, WOW turtles are FAST)

Posted on by
Reply

One more sure sign of spring is the march of the turtles. There are only three in this photo, but don’t let that fool you. By mid to late summer there will be thirty or so turtles hanging out on this bank, sunning themselves lazily.

They will, however, be keeping one eye on the nearby roadway…watching for my truck, apparently. Every time I got within 75 feet of these little buggers, they would sprint into the water! And they’re quick!

Then all you see is a pool of water with little heads poking out like this:

We played that little cat-n-mouse game all summer last year. They may be a little less skittish this year because of improvements in the area. You see, these guys occupy the backwater on the south side of Fox Island Road, and last year the city paved a sidewalk along the side of the road. Prior to that it was just an embankment, weeds and a culvert. But with regular foot and bike traffic going past, perhaps they’ll grow accustomed to it. That will allow photographers to get somewhat nearer to them.

Live from ShoBOX

Posted on by
Reply

Friday was a fun day…Showtime was in town (well, New Town) to televise a North Dakota installment of their ShoBOX boxing series. You may have heard it promoted on the radio. I was on the TV crew as a ringside boom mic operator, so I took the day off from my regular job and headed north.

I wouldn’t choose any other line of work; video production is the greatest. LIVE video production is by far the most fun. I’ve been on crews for sports on NBC, CBS, FOX Sports Net, ESPN Sportscenter, Outdoor Life Network, and now Showtime. In the past I took photos of our jobs but didn’t have a blog to post them on! So we’ll start with this show. Here’s a little photo diary of the day.

These are the trucks we used to produce and uplink the show to Showtime. The big one is the rolling production studio, the little one is a separate satellite uplink truck.

This is the production area of the truck where the directors and producers sit, along with the graphics operator. For most of the shows I’ve worked in the past I’m at the graphics position, but I wouldn’t qualify for this show. Besides it’s neat to be in the arena during the telecast too! Note the bag of candy, open can of Dew, and bin of licorice whips. You can NOT do a show like this without a lot of sugar.

This is where all the tapes and replays are done. There are a ton of tape machines and an EVS (commonly called an “Elvis”) which is a hard-disk based replay system. There are multiple operators recording multiple cameras to make sure there are replays to show the viewers. There’s also another similar area to this one where all the cameras are controlled…not the focus and zoom and that kind of thing, but the balance of color balance, iris and other detail settings. That’s what makes a TV show look so good, even the pro cameras need constant tweaking for quality and consistency.

This is a separate area of the truck where the audio operator(s) work. There’s a lot of equipment above that wouldn’t fit into the shot. In addition, there were big mixers like this inside the arena and stuff too. The audio guys show up a day or two before the rest of us because they also take care of all our intercom headsets, hang microphones…it’s very complex.

A couple hundred grand worth of camera here. These cameras take two people to assemble; just the body and lens are a foot high and a foot tall, and a foot or two long. They’re enormous. But that’s how ya get the good pictures from a distance! There were two of these cameras on a platform south of the ring, as you can see.

That’s all I have for now; obviously I was there to work, so I could only take pictures over lunch. The truck is so full of people and so busy while we prepare for the show and during the show that there’s no room for pictures then.

Another cool perk (short for perquisite) is the “swag” as the kids call it. That being the t-shirts and hats and stuff. After all, we’re a Showtime crew. Gotta look like one. So these get added to my collection of shirts and hats with different station and network logos. Cool, huh?

One cool thing about a job like this is that everybody works hard. If you don’t, your phone doesn’t ring the next time the network is in town. It’s easy to get a reputation in any business, and you can’t screw around with a live TV show. The lighting guys take two days to set up, audio almost as long, and the crew that I was on started stringing cables, cameras and monitors nearly twelve hours before the show went on the air.

Everybody enjoys what they do, we’re very well fed with pizza, sandwiches, and enough free Mountain Dew to crystallize a kidney. Plus it’s fun to talk about other shows we’ve worked, swap business cards, talk about North Dakota with guys who’ve never been here before, and just have a good time. At least three times over the 14 hours a guy in charge would come by and say, “stop working, go eat” or “take a break” or “finish your pizza before you do that.” It’s all very professional and everything is well looked after.

Much of this event was staffed with video professionals from North Dakota, guys I’m proud to hang out with every time we do a show. Plus, it’s not every day that we can hang out with friends from Fargo and Grand Forks, so these give us an extra opportunity to visit. The local component of these crews is a great core of guys who I’ve learned valuable lessons from over the years. Having started in broadcasting as a kid in the late 80s, I’m the junior guy on the crew.

I taped the show and was told that I was on the air a few times (how can you not be, sitting ringside?) but I haven’t watched it yet. We didn’t get back to Bismarck until this morning, and I went straight to bed. It’s always fun to come back home and see what the show looks like, because on the crew, often we have no idea. And as long as we’re told “good show!” at the end of the day, that’s good enough for us.

I am “Big Oil” …and so are you

Posted on by
Reply

No, I didn’t drive out to the coast for this. It’s a first – I used someone else’s image (aslo.org) for a variety of reasons. But the picture’s not the point.

I don’t know how many of you look at your 401(k) statements from work, or picked your own funds, or have personal retirement accounts of your own. Maybe you invest in mutual funds outside of retirement plans. I have some 401(k) and independent IRA plans that I manage through work and on my own, and they’re all doing quite well, thank you very much.

I invest in aggressive funds. I’m a young guy. I also made a ton of money on my previous mutual funds through KFYR and cashed them out to buy my house, a motorcycle, and my fancy graphics and video equipment for my home studio. So it’s time to get back to making money fast. Thankfully I pulled my money out right before the big Internet pucker of the late ’90s. Now I’m invested in aggressive funds again.

Where do you suppose those funds go? They all invest in “Big Oil” to some extent. If you’re young, and you follow the investment advice you’re given, they invest heavily in such stocks. Why? Because they stand to make you a lot of money. So when the government starts talking about breaking up the “monopolies” or taxing “unfair profits” you will see it in your bottom line.

That goes for anyone who comes out of college with a skull full of nice little liberal “anti-corporation” ideas. The fact of the matter is that, in this modern economy, everything is linked together. The prosperity of everyone is linked. If you want to be an “anti” and badmouth the corporations that keep this country going and fuel your mutual funds and 401k, you’d better just pull that money back out and live up to what your mouth is spouting.

Then again, if you have a nice union job, you can be like GM workers who basically get a paycheck for life. Then you won’t have to worry about retirement. That little perk means the rest of us pay an extra $1500 for every GM vehicle purchased in order to fund that nonsense. But I digress.

Maybe the fact that I’m used to paying $5-8 a gallon for race fuel for the motorcycle has desensitized me toward gas prices. It’s either that or the fact that I think the cell phone companies are gouging us far worse than the Wannenbergs are. Either way, just remember that oil companies are publicly traded stocks, owned by people like you, me, and Al Gore. So be careful before you slap a bullseye on your own back.