Here’s a shot from betwixt the two Liberty Memorial Bridges. The bridge on the right is straight as an arrow. Solid. Strong. Holding way more concrete on its deck than was ever intended when it was designed. You’ve got to admire that old world craftsmanship. The bridge on the left is designed to arc across the Missouri River. But was it designed to look so wavy and uneven?

I threw this shot of the north side of the new bridge into Photoshop and put it to the test. The red line follows the edge of the bridge’s beam and its curves. The green line follows a smooth arc over the same relative path. I used the path pen tool in Photoshop, so I know my curves are accurate.

Here’s the same story on the bridge’s southern side. Certainly they were capable of putting together a better bridge than this? The thing looks like it’s going to be the highway equivalent of a kiddie coaster! The wavy ups and downs of the beams are not worthy of a bridge of this importance to our community. Call me old fashioned, but I expected a smoothly arcing bridge across the Missouri, as the original drawings portrayed. Maybe once they tighten all the screws, everything will fall into line. Ya think?

Edit: First off, I replaced the word “wobbly” with “wavy” because I thought wobbly indicated a structural instability. I don’t mean to imply that.

Secondly, a friend whose opinion I trust in matters of engineering told me that it looks intentional. It’s true, when you look at the spans closely you’ll see that the upward bow of the beams forms a pattern. Perhaps it’s just unflattering from this angle. That was the point I was trying to make in this post, that it looks pretty weird from below. Once the old bridge is removed, we’ll see how it looks on its own.

First off, let me wish everyone a blessed and happy new year! Ours is off to a great start; snow, baby, bird…this is a happy house. This also marks a rather special time for me personally; it was one year ago that I decided to embark on this little labor of love I called the Bismarck-Mandan Blog.

It was with a post featuring a photo of the capitol lit up with “2006” that I first started this website, which is convenient timing. Every anniversary of the Bismarck-Mandan Blog I can just post a picture of the latest capitol!

Now, on to the shocking stats. I’m both flattered and humbled by the stats counter on my site…not the ones the blog keeps, but the server stats. I get very detailed information about visits to this site, and it’s pretty amazing to watch.

As you can see, the number of people visiting this site has climbed pretty steadily in the past twelve months. I broke a record again this month with 125,572 hits! I also set records for numbers of visiting users at 19,828. November was the busiest month for page views, when people looked at 46,181 pages from the site. Coincidentally, my biggest day was November 14th with 11,171 hits. Wow. I think that was a day I posted about the Fighting Sioux…apparently I’m not the only one with a passion for that issue.

One thing that has puzzled me somewhat is that fewer people rate the posts than read them. Clicking on the dots allows people to enter a rating of 1-5. Another one is comments. Relatively few people leave comments or read the comments. At work we went through a study of how web page users view the sites they visit, and it’s never the way that the designers intended. I guess this site follows suit in that regard.

Thanks again for everyone who has helped with word-of-mouth publicity for this site. I’ve never advertised it — although Phil and Jason have graciously given me mention on KFYR-Radio a couple of times — yet between 500 and 1000 people come to read it every day.

I’m a big privacy nut, so I originally set out to be somewhat anonymous on this blog. I was a hacker in the 80’s who narrowly escaped some big trouble, and failed to escape other big trouble, so I keep my personal information pretty private. I have a family to think about now as well, so that’s why I’m reluctant to post that kind of thing. It wasn’t until late in the year that I actually let a couple of pictures of me hit the web…I guess I’m relaxing just a little bit. I didn’t know if the comments fields would start to fill up with nonsense I didn’t want, or if I’d get flooded with hate mail about some of my opinions, and thankfully that hasn’t happened. So I’ll probably post a little more personally in the future…just a bit.

I was approached this year by the KX network and asked if they could syndicate my blog on their site. I agreed, and we’ve had a good relationship. At the bottom of each of my posts as they appear on KX network sites around North Dakota is a link to my original post on this site. Judging from the referral stats, people like to see the original post, probably because the pictures are shrunk down on the KX sites. Their site sometimes truncates my posts, too. So if you’re reading this on a KX Network site, hop on over to the real deal!

I originally figured this site would just be another voice in a vacuum, a place to park my photography and rekindle my love for writing. To have people find it worthy of their time to view it on a daily basis is pretty amazing. Your support leaves me speechless, really…all I can say is that it feels really great. I look forward to providing more pictures, noteworthy community tidbits, and the occasional inflammatory opinions in 2007 and beyond.

It looks like the Wizards are off to a decent start – the Civic Center was hopping pretty good Saturday night with good attendance. They didn’t look to be in the best of form, but they were able to perform a buzzer-beater win over the Skyforce. With the talent pool they’ve got and Coach Joerger at the helm, I’m sure they’re going to gel quickly.

One secret to the Wizards’s success as a franchise is the way they get local businesses and fans involved in the games. There are plenty of little promos they run during time-outs and quarter breaks to keep the fans entertained. In an area the size of ours, with fans as fickle as ours, that sort of thing is necessary. The Wizards have done very well at it. I’ve got a short memory, but I’d credit Jane Link and Kim Mueller with developing really fun game-day attractions for the fans. The new crew looks to be continuing in the same fashion, so fans shouldn’t be disappointed.

It’s interesting to see how the minor league sports are received here in Bismarck-Mandan. Does anyone remember the Dakota Rattlers? Or the Bismarck Blaze / Roughriders? For some reason they never quite took off. Travel 200 miles east and baseball flourishes, while the basketball flops. But it’s obvious that indoor football doesn’t, and never has, belonged up here in a state where people would much rather enjoy the shorter summers outside.

People really seemed to be enjoying themselves as always at last night’s game, and the numbers usually hang right in there if the team’s season is going well. I spent a lot of time showing cute kids and that kind of thing on the big screen. We don’t have a Kissing Cam promotion this year, so you’re safe! I had made a 30-second animated whizbang to kick off the season, but we actually didn’t have time to run it. That was kind of frustrating since I spent a while animating and remixing music for it, so I’m going to see if we can’t get it going before the starting lineups at the next game. Otherwise I got to be part of the most fun in the place, as our video crew is a group of professionals from around the area that get together and do the Civic Center gigs as a way to hang out and have fun doing what we love.

Actually, the night could have been a real bummer for me: I left the dome lights on in my truck! Fortunately, Lee Timmerman spotted it when he got to the Civic Center. He came and told me and, since I was busy running camera, went out and shut ’em off for me. For some reason my truck’s dome lights (there are many) drain my battery in almost no time.

Don’t forget to check out the Wizards games this year – they’re quite fun. The next home game is Tuesday, December 5th. You can check out their schedule and stats at DakotaWizards.com, which will redirect to their NBA Development League site.

You could fit a whole bouquet in a thimble! I’m not sure what type of wildflower these are, just that they’re very small. My wife loves daisies…I could get her hundreds of these daisy-looking plants and not have a problem carrying them!

From what little knowledge I’ve compiled pertaining to women these past three decades or so, I’d recommend leaving these on the prairie and going for something big, long-stemmed, and expensive instead. It’s best to stick with what works!

Not that I’m a huge T.S. Eliot fan, but one ought to make a literary reference whenever the opportunity presents itself. This picture pretty much shows the state of fireworks stands in the B-M area this year; a multi-county burn ban took the wind out of their sales almost as soon as the first tent stakes had been pounded.

I know a couple of guys who ran fireworks stands this year. The only real business they had was from people who were on their way to Detroit Lakes for the big events there, or headed to other parts where fireworks were still legal. Most of these guys are entrepreneurs, and this is going to hit them pretty hard.

Even the big fireworks at the State Capitol and the Mandan Rodeo were in jeopardy this year; there were several cars and trucks of fire department staff parked in a huddle on the east side of the Capitol last night, as marshalls and chieftans weighed the decision of whether or not to go on with the big show. Only at the very last minute was approval given to launch the display…the possibility of a strong breeze exceeding 15mph had them worried about the danger. Well before the show, the grassy area to the east of the Highway Department and Capitol buildings was hosed down, especially around all the launchers. Fortunately the breeze died down and we were able to go on with the show.

That’s right…someone woke up the cottonwood trees. These trees provide us with lots of pretty green and cool shade but they also shower us with that nasty cotton. It’s snowing in June now, as the cotton flies and piles up all over the place.

For those of us with seasonal (or year-long, really) allergies, this cotton is not a welcome sight. I’ve actually had a couple of pieces fly up into my motorcycle helmet…yuck!

It’s also time to watch the cooling fins on your air conditioner and keep them free of cotton debris. That stuff will plug up the fins quite quickly. In years past I’ve used a porous foam wrap on my AC unit but I don’t have any for this year.

On that note, it’s time to go find a Claritin tab or something.

Jump on! If you’re an Internet junkie or frequent the blogosphere at all you’ve probably run into the Four Things Meme. What’s a “meme” you ask? According to the Wikipedia, it’s a piece of information traveling from one mind to another, with an analogy of “language as a virus.” That pretty well describes the “Four Things” phenomenon.

So, here are my answers to the list that’s going around:

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:

1. Ski patrol at a famous ski resort
2. Undercover shoplifting investigator
3. TV news technical director
4. Law enforcement

Four movies you could watch over and over:

1. Real Genius
2. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
3. Paulie
4. Top Gun

Four Places You’ve Lived:

1. Montana
2. North Dakota
(that’s all I’ve got…various places around each state)

Four TV shows you love to watch:

1. Boston Legal
2. 24
3. Seinfeld
4. Miami Vice

Four Places you’ve been on vacation:

1. Deals Gap, NC
2. Disney World
3. Glacier Park
4. Brainerd International Raceway

Four blogs you visit daily:
1. Tween
2. XPLSVtv
3. FARK.com
4. Any of the fine blogs (mostly ND) listed on the panel to the right

Four of your favorite foods:
1. Italian Sausage Pizziola Pasta at “The Walrus” in Bismarck
2. A&B Pizza – italian sausage with black olives
3. Applebee’s boneless buffalo wings – heavy on the sauce
4. Bourbon Street Steak

Four places I’d rather be:
1. Bed
2. Racing my motorcycles
3. SCUBA diving in warm caribbean water
4. Snowboarding the top of Challenger

Four albums I can’t live without:
1. Vince Guaraldi: “Charlie Brown Christmas”
2. Tangerine Dream: “Pergamon”
3. Seal: self-titled
4. B-52’s: “Naked on the Moon”

Four vehicles I’ve owned:
1. Nine motorcycles, several at the moment
2. Chevy Astro van with a stick shift
3. Chevy Luv pickup with a tendency to get airborne
4. Snowboard “Mavis”

Four people to be “tagged” who have to complete this:
(Consider yourself “tagged” if you’re reading this.)