Category Archives: Funny/Unusual

ND Peace Coalition urges withdrawal from violent North Dakota quagmire

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(This ain’t the Onion, but I couldn’t resist a little satire. After all, it doesn’t take an intellectual giant to make these people look silly. They do 99% of the work themselves.)

(Bismarck) The North Dakota Peace Coalition called for immediate withdrawal from North Dakota this week, after describing the situation here as “a quagmire with no end in sight.” In light of numerous homicides and other violent crimes in 2007, said NDPC representative Karyn Van Possum, “the continued cost of the North Dakota occupation in the lives and health of our citizens is exceeding our expectations…not that the deaths of North Dakotans should have ever been within our expectations.”

When asked if a resolution in the state legislature along the lines of the Mathern/Kretschmar Pacifism Resolution was being considered, Van Possum indicated, “…that’s certainly a possibility. What better way to demonstrate support for our citizens than to get them out of harm’s way? Staying in North Dakota will not work and is not worth the price.”

Van Possum continued: “The list of atrocities committed in North Dakota include: an asphyxiated newborn in December, the high profile killings of two college coeds in Minot and Valley City, the beating to death of a man in Grand Forks in October, and the April slaying of a Sykeston couple in which their home was burned to the ground in an effort to conceal the crime. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Even now, the local news is reporting a possible kidnapping in central North Dakota. In August, someone hit a young man in the head and tried to run him over with a pickup. Obviously North Dakota is not safe for North Dakotans. We need to keep our citizens safe. We support North Dakotans, just not their mission. It’s time to bring them home…er, well, somewhere safe, anyway.”

When not busy fighting to end all fighting, many of the ND Peace folks keep busy by forming an endless array of coalitions, councils, and other “dot orgs” to champion such causes such as deviant sexual practices and preferences, pseudo-peace through capitulation to all enemies of freedom, and the worship of the Earth rather than its creator. Populating these organizations, attending the occasional protest and/or drum circle, and standing in black in front of the capitol keep many of them too busy to find a productive place in society. “But we care,” stressed Van Possum, “and that’s the important part.”

While they concede that our presence in North Dakota is unlikely to diminish any time soon, the peaceniks vow to remain resolute. “There’s no giving up on giving up,” Van Possum said. “It takes courage to stand up for running away.”

“Expert” claims that Minot AFB nuke mishandling is part of something bigger

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Tonight I was driving home when I decided to check out what local radio had to offer. KFYR had Coast to Coast AM on, as usual. I’m sure it’s a big hit with local Ron Paul supporters! Anyway, there was a fella by the name of Charles Ostman who theorized that the mishandling of nukes from Minot AFB was part of a “False Flag” operation or other surreptitious activity. He’s trying to tie such a theory to Iran’s nuke program and the latest National Intelligence Briefing. I listened for a few minutes, in which I heard a couple of things that blew this guy’s credibility:

1- He pronounced Minot with a short i, as in “minnow.” For a guy who claims to have all kinds of knowledge about nuclear weapons handling, you’d think he would know how to pronounce the name of an Air Force Base that has been a critical part of our nation’s defenses for fifty years.

2- He claimed that the NIE is available for anyone to read. The last I heard, the full text of the NIE is available only to someone with the proper clearance, or a congressman serving on the appropriate committee. There are in some cases declassified “versions” of NIEs, or summaries that are public record; but by no means does an NIE lay all our cards out on the table for anyone to read.

Aside from having the worst web page I’ve seen in recent memory (heck, the conference links are five years old), I see nothing to indicate that this guy has the slightest bit of credibility whatsoever. It’s bad enough that such a serious lack of protocol took place at MAFB, but for the conspiracy theorists to have fun with it doesn’t help. Fortunately they only appear after midnight, where they belong.

I don’t want to do this, but I can’t help myself

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I was out poking around and noticed this sign for a local insurance agency, located on the east end of The Strip in Mandan. The mischievous part of me noticed something about this sign that had me dashing for Photoshop:

What a resemblance, eh? I dare say it’s…breathtaking. I’m a big Austin Powers Fan, so it wasn’t a huge stretch for me to envision this little prank. I don’t mean any disrespect, I just thought that this would be a funny comparison.

So that’s where all the office supplies went

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Happy Bosses’ Day, Linda! This car, parked in the Aetna lot in north Bismarck, got completely covered with Post-It Notes on Tuesday. Presumably it’s for the holiday, although that’s just a guess by my friend Jerry. He’s the one who took these pictures, and the only person whose pictures I post here other than my own. He works near Aetna and this car caught his eye. How could it not?

As I typed this my wife just poked her head into my office, saw the photos on the screen, and said that she has a friend who was in on the gag. I guess it was the car owner’s birthday. Neither my wife nor her friend work at Aetna, so I guess it wasn’t merely a Bosses’ Day prank. Stacy doesn’t know how many Post-Its were used, but she thought she remembered someone saying “thousands.” I wouldn’t doubt it. There must be 200 or so on each door!

Thanks and props to my friend Jerry for the photos!

Lewis and Clark’s Sudsy Adventure

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I hoped the bridges might be fogged in this morning, so I hopped in the truck with some donuts and Dew to investigate. Things weren’t as I had hoped, but I made the best of it. As I pulled out of the Merriweather’s parking lot, however, I noticed something that made me chuckle: the fountain with the Lewis and Clark statues in it was a bit…foamy.

There’s a fine line between vandalism and mischief, but I think this probably falls on the safe side. It appears as though some prankster(s) put dish soap or shampoo in the fountain overnight. Large clumps of suds were blowing around, and there was a pretty good head on the water in the base of the fountain. Clever.

Judging by the water and suds all over the tile and rock here in front of the statues, I bet this was pretty spectacular when it first got off and running! Presumably the water for the fountain is simply replenished if it overflows. I imagine the suds will be gone before long, too. If this was done overnight, I’m surprised they lasted this long. That’s probably because of the weather.

I wouldn’t advise stunts like this, because I’m sure there’s some sort of criminal mischief statue that would cover it! An impish night of fun might turn into more than you bargained for. Trust me, I played my share of pranks back in the day!

Vultures circle the state capitol building…I hope that’s not a sign

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In a scene reminiscent of the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz, the tower of the capitol building was circled by a flock of turkey vultures this week. I’m certain there was no wicked witch on the observation floor commanding them to do their bidding, because that’s closed until later this year for renovations. Nevertheless, the vultures circled the area lazily as if waiting for something. Hopefully they don’t know something we don’t!

I bet they had an interesting view from the capitol’s upper floors! In this photo, the birds actually look like they’re departing from the top of the building on a sinister mission. If I had to wager on a political implication, I suppose I’d point toward the way the last legislature spent like drunken sailors, turning a tax surplus into an excuse for a budget so bloated it would certainly attract airborne scavengers!

Lurking in the deep grass

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I have to congratulate these guys on being sneaky. While driving home along south Washington Street, I noticed something white in the tall grass behind the trees. Sure enough, it was a clever deputy with his trusty radar goin’ on!

I took a diversion through Sibley Park because I remembered seeing an owl kill and fly off with a snake there last year. Of course it happened before I could get the camera ready! Ever since, I like to take a cruise through there occasionally to see if I can spot Mr. Owl again. No such luck, by the way. Anyway, on my way out of the park I saw those flashing lights: the deputy had caught himself a speeder. Stealth…what an ally. Unless, you’re the leadfoot, that is!

In this picture, a second sheriff’s dept. car had shown up. It’s a lot easier to see with two of them. Apparently it’s like a good fishin’ hole…when they’re biting, other fishermen are likely to show up!

Steve, life on the red planet, and those strange lights over Bismarck

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Quite some time ago, the local TV stations upped the ante in their competition over weather coverage. While they’re quite competitive in local news, weather is really where it’s at. I don’t remember who’s first, but I remember I was working at KFYR at the time. The station held a contest among employees to come up with a name for the new camera. My entry: “Steve.” Obviously it didn’t get picked, so I didn’t in whatever swag they were giving away for the winning entry. But during the newscasts, on the control room headsets, we still referred to it as “Steve” for some time…at least until the novelty wore off.

You may notice that at night, Steve’s picture takes on a rosy glow. A pinkish hue. And that’s all the Seinfeld references I can come up with. In addition to the appearance that it’s on Mars or some other red planet, it starts to get wavy lines in it. Why, you ask, does the picture change? Good question…and it’s got a simple answer.

Steve resides atop the historic Patterson building in downtown Bismarck. It’s a great vantage point from central Bismarck and pretty much the highest feasible location from that part of town…plus, it’s a stone’s throw away from the studios. There are only two problems with that: the corners of the building have red obstruction lights on them that activate at dark, since aircraft landing at Bismarck Municipal Airport fly directly overhead. The camera automatically color-balances itself continually; when the world around it turns red, so does its picture.

How about the wavy lines? Note all those antennae you see around the camera (which is highlighted in red). Those are low-power FM antennas and other such radio gear. With that much radio frequency energy buzzing around it, Steve’s picture sensor picks it up and you see it in the form of wavy lines. Bummer. Try it yourself with your home camcorder: make a call on your cell phone, hold it next to your camera, and you’ll see the same sort of thing. It won’t be as pronounced, because your cell phone is not as powerful as several FM radio stations.

Now for the weird, spooky, Art Bell part of the post. While working late one night, I noticed this odd photo on the Skywatch camera. It captures a frame at a time over regular intervals and uploads them to the website to continually refresh it. This particular frame had just grabbed, so I saved a copy out of its computer right away. It shows an array of lights over Bismarck, over the Cathedral tower. From the camera’s perspective, it’s looking northwest. If you’re into conspiracies, perhaps you’ll think it looks like this phenomenon:

These are the notorious Phoenix Lights, a pattern of lights that appeared over Phoenix in the mid- to late 1990s. They caused an enormous uproar, as they were seen by an overwhelming number of people. Even local government was involved in trying to figure out what they were. Some people swore they saw a giant, silent floating triangular craft with those lights along its edge, others I think saw multiple UFOs. In any case, it’s never been explained to everyone’s satisfaction. I don’t endorse any particular theory, I just sat back and enjoyed the chaos that ensued after the event. So…did Bismarck have its own eerie phenomenon, one that went largely unnoticed by most of Bismarck-Mandan’s population…but not by the watchful eye (sensor) of Steve? And, I suppose an attentive control room operator. I guess we’ll never know.

I did some reporting for Art Bell’s “Coast to Coast AM” program during the 1997 flood, but I never sent in this photo. Now that the Phoenix Lights phenomenon is a distant memory, I doubt any of the UFO community would be interested in this picture anyway.

So, that’s it…the story of Steve. Time for me to bolt to work…have a great Wednesday!

I guess a bent bolt will still work. Oh, and an odd thing about the FargoDome

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In the early 1980’s the radio tower for KQDY-FM took a nasty spill in the middle of the field where its replacement stands northeast of Bismarck. The tower fell, damaging an adjacent stick and ripping the corner off the transmitter building. It’s not the only such tower to do so; in the big blizzard of ’97, the KXJB television tower near Blanchard also took a dive…for the second time. What I thought was unique about the KQDY tower is that the new one’s screwed to the base using the same old bolts.

See the bent bolt sticking out of the concrete base? Apparently that’s not a problem. I guess a guy just has to break out his big honkin’ wrench, jam the nut on there as tight as she’ll go, and rely on the other three to take up the slack. So be it, I guess if the thing were to fall in that direction again it would only disturb the gophers.

As many of you know, I’ve spent the last – wow, almost 20 years – involved in broadcasting and/or video production. I keep my ear to the ground regarding that sort of thing, and thus I picked up this little tidbit about the FargoDome. The ‘Dome has just received an electronic facelift, including new a new sound system. I’ve never attended an event in the FargoDome, although I’ve worked plenty of them and scaled the catwalks high above it and run around on the roof watching the F-16’s. Friends who have attended events in the FargoDome have said the acoustics aren’t that great, and the buzz I heard reveals a possible reason why.

When the old loudspeakers were cut loose from the ceiling beams and lowered down, a shocking discovery was made: over half of them were stuffed with masking material! It seems that they were black when they were put up there, but later on they were painted Bison Green along with much of the gridwork up above. The drivers were stuffed with masking material so they didn’t get coated in paint, and – oops – apparently most of them were never unmasked.

If you thought the ‘Dome sounded a little muffled or muddy…well, perhaps that’s why. But hopefully it isn’t being held together with any of KQDY’s bent bolts.

Oh yeah, my favorite part of the FargoDome: the catwalks. They have long, steep ramps from the stair access along the outer wall to the inner ring of catwalks up above. Those ramps are about an arm’s width across and very long & steep. The catwalks get very dusty, and therefore very slippery. While carrying equipment up to the catwalks I’d often have to just use one hand to carry, with the other used to steady myself up using the handrail. When I was done mounting camera equipment etc. for whatever show I was working up there, I would enjoy taking a run and surfing down the dusty ramps. It was like being on rollerblades, but VERY high up above the ground. WOO HOO! Sometimes I miss my adrenaline junkie days…but then I remember the scars and the creaking noises. I guess memories will have to do for now.