Category Archives: Vehicles

Out at the boneyard

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In what was perhaps Jonathan’s first photographic trip with his daddy, I captured a photo of the boneyard out at the Mandan Airport on a cold, windy day. Obviously it wasn’t during the super-cold snap we’re experiencing this weekend; I wouldn’t take a baby out in such weather. I think this was about a week ago, when little PJ was visiting his cousins and Jonathan and I took mommy’s new SUV out for a spin.

As you can see by the horizon, it was a pretty bleak and dreary day. I figured that would be a good time to capture this pile of aircraft parts. I took some of the color out of the shot in Photoshop to help the effect.

I’m adding to a boneyard of sorts myself this weekend, one of computer parts. My system drive on my video/graphics workstation in my home office is full, and I have a new stompin’ video card to put in it. That involves prying my computer tower out of its niche in my work area, blowing dust out of it, removing the old system drive and video card, putting in the new ones, and installing EVERYTHING from scratch. Fun.

So far I’ve got the new hard drive and video card installed, a couple of cooling fans replaced as well, and everything blown dust-free. I’ve got Windows re-installed along with the networking essentials: Firefox, Thunderbird, and iTunes. Sunday I’ll start working on my application software.

I have a computer tower with room for lots of hard drives, and I just about have drives A: through Z: now! My workstation has three 200GB drives, one 300GB drive, a 40GB “temporary files” drive, two 300GB external drives, and a 250GB external drive. I have a big server tower in my basement that helps heat the laundry room, too. One can never have too much hard drive space! When working with video and high-resolution photos, most days it’s hard to have enough.

Buggies ‘n’ Blues 2007 – a few notable cars

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I took my boy to walk the Buggies ‘n’ Blues last weekend and peruse all the cars and trucks on display. He’s only five months old, so I’m not sure what he gets out of it, but he sure was rubbernecking the entire time! So I guess it was a worthwhile effort. I can’t wait until he gets old enough to appreciate this stuff, because I’m going to take him EVERYWHERE.

There were a lot of vehicles on display this year. Everything from unremarkable Hondas whose owner had taken the time to Krylon the brake calipers to painstakingly restored works of automotive art. There were even some “motorcycles” there as well. I’m not a car guy…I mean, I never met a Corvette I didn’t like, but I’d be the last one in the world to sink a ton of money into something with four wheels. High performance motorcycles, though? That’s another matter. Anyway, here are a few vehicles that caught my eye over the weekend:

This 1930 Ford Model A has been given a bit of a hooligan treatment, so I thought it had a lot of character. It isn’t bristling with chrome or a high-dollar paint job, but it looks like it would be a blast to get in and drive it like I stole it! Nice work.

I want a convertible for some reason, and this Fairlane really stood out. My wife thought it looked like fun as well, and I think she’s right. I think it’s that gigantic mechanical hard top that does it. Sweet!

The orange and cream color of this Pontiac instantly won our hearts, especially because I grew up scarfing Dreamsicles back in the Rocky Mountains in the 70’s. Do they still call them Dreamsicles? I think they quit doing that in the late 70’s. The paint job on this car made the difference for us; if it had been any other color, I don’t think we’d have stopped.

Despite years of ridiculing all things Chrysler, I must admit my respect for the Cuda. Especially one that’s Kawasaki Green! Mom didn’t say anything as my boy and I were magnetically drawn to the shiny green car, but this wasn’t just about paint. This is a mean machine that just happens to be green. Just like Kawasaki, it takes a bit of boldness to make something such a blazing, in-your-face color, and I like it. There are only three cars in the history of Chrysler that I’d even give a second glance, and this is at the top of the list. And it’s in my color, too!

There you have it. An extremely unscientific and pretty much random look at Buggies ‘n’ Blues. A guy could put up a whole website about the event; the lime snow cones we had, the cars which represent thousands of dollars and hundreds of restoration hours on the part of the passionate folks who brought them, or even just the idea of getting out and walking around Mandan for an afternoon. It was a blast, and I like to see that many people pour into Mandan for a weekend. I’m really glad we were able to attend, and we look forward to next year’s show!

Ooops – dry cleanup, aisle 3

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This is the reason the intersection of 3rd Street and Memorial Highway was closed for a while this afternoon. The person driving the semi apparently cut the corner too sharp, catching the guard rail and ripping open one of the belly chutes of his trailer. The contents began to spill out, which is why you can see another truck on the other side (armed with an auger) assisting with the cleanup.

We’ve all had days like this, haven’t we? Everybody makes mistakes, it’s just that the guys with the CDLs (Commercial Drivers Licenses) that tend to make the really big ones. After all, they drive the biggest vehicles!

Now if I could just find a way to bolt it to my motorcycle

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I wonder if they make a Suzuki or Kawasaki interface kit? This engine is on display at the Fargo Air Museum, which I visited after a freelance job recently. I believe this particular engine may have come from an F-4, but that’s just a guess. When I went to NDSU they flew F-4s in Fargo, and I was able to get some extremely fun time on/in one. I haven’t been any closer to an F-16 than your average airshow patron, however.

There are lots of other engines, planes, and memorabilia to explore at this museum, including a library of aviation books and periodicals. There are plenty of aviation geeks on hand, too. I use the term “geek” in a good sense…there are motorcycle geeks, photography or video geeks, and many other kinds of geeks. We can spot each other a mile away. Geeks tend to know as much about their field of interest as an avid sports fan, and can rattle off airplane facts as if they were quarterback stats.

I’ve wanted to visit this museum forever and never took the opportunity. So, when the TV station I was working for got me a hotel room for an extra night, we ran around Fargo and played for an extra day. Yes, I took my wife with so she could hang out with other TV wives while we were broadcasting college football. That made the weekend into a paid vacation of sorts!

For sale: one low-mileage cow, rear wheel drive, $500

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“Interesting trades considered?” No, I didn’t see that on the sign…it’s just that I’m a Seinfeld fan, and have to put that in there. This interesting item was parked along the highway and merited a second look. I’m not sure if it’s a two-seater or what kind of mileage it gets. If you have any questions, contact me and I’ll give you the phone number.

Something you don’t see in Bismarck every day

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I love Ferrari automobiles. Cars as a general rule are pretty lame and boring, but not those fancy Italian machines. So when a guy is out taking pictures and spots a bright yellow 355 Spyder sitting there, that’s an event. Not only are such cars a little rare in western North Dakota, that yellow is very eye-catching.

Of course, even driving around in the truck with my open camera bag on the passenger seat can’t prepare me for every picture. There was a time in Sibley Park where I glanced over to see an owl taking off with a snake in its claws…there just wasn’t time to get the camera steady before he’d flown off. The same situation happened with this Italian machine.

This is the picture I actually got. Street signs are quite useful but tend to get in the way whenever a guy tries taking pictures downtown. No worries…it’s removable quickly and easily. But with all the buzz about Photoshopped pictures in the mainstream media these days, I like to be open about mine. There’s a great sense of satisfaction in getting a unique photograph, and I’d hate to have any speculation about whether any of mine are real. There are plenty of sites you can go to for doctored photographs…this is not one of them.

I miss Perman’s

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This former Sinclair station fades into obscurity along east Main Avenue in Bismarck. While it’s not really in prime real estate now, this station had a long history. And, after paying six bucks a gallon for race fuel the other day, I miss it more than ever.

I bet that local motorheads all miss Perman’s for a variety of reasons, the most recent of which is the fact that they sold VP race fuel right at the pump. A guy could whip into the station with a trailer of bikes and gas ’em up right there, fill the spare cans, and put normal gas into the truck as well. And it was at a very nice price…of course, even regular street gas was priced pretty low the last time I was able to fill up at Perman’s.

Nowadays the options for race fuel are more expensive, and a guy can’t do it himself. I don’t know of many other store operators that would be willing to allocate one of their tanks to VP, Power 110, or the Turbo Blue that I use. The next nearest that comes to mind is in Brainerd, right outside the track.

I have a friend / former coworker who’s an old motorhead from way back… I suppose I can say the 1960’s if I don’t mention his name. He remembers the station from a long time back as well. While I don’t have the long chain of memories of the place, I share his sentiment in missing an establishment that provided a service for us performance-minded types that few would.

Say…if there are any Wannenbergs reading this post… does it give you any ideas? Please?

Big digger

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I got to see something you don’t find everyday while traveling north of Beulah the other day. A very large piece of equipment was making a slow, steady journey from one part of the Coteau mine to the other…what made it interesting was that it had to cross the highway. How does something so big, with enormous metal tracks, pull that off?

The first neat thing you should know is that this baby’s electric. Yes, that’s right…no engine. See that trailer being pulled behind it by the road grader? That’s a generator, a very large one at that…it’s kicking out enough DC current to drive that behemoth.

Now that’s a big extension cord! The operator of the grader gets to pull the generator just fast enough to keep up with the guy in front of him and maintain slack in the cable. Once they reach their destination at the other part of the mine, they’ll plug into a cable running back to the power plant. In the case of a “mine mouth” power plant such as this one, where the mine is located adjacent to the mine from which its coal is supplied, the power plant itself drives the diggers. That goes for those big draglines that you see from the highway as well as a smaller (yet still huge) digger like this one.

The section of road they cross is made of concrete, not asphalt; otherwise it wouldn’t survive something like this. Even so, they have big rubber mats that they pull across the road using a little skidsteer loader. I call it little because it isn’t even as tall as the track on that thing. See it down there in the foreground?

Anyway, they have a couple of trucks hold highway traffic from either direction, inch this thing across the road, and pull the mats back over to the side until they’re needed again. The whole process takes several minutes…a machine that large still moves very slowly.

I would have loved to have seen them take the big dragline crane across Highway 83 when they did that a while back…those don’t have tracks, they have giant feet that “walk” from one place to the next. Oh, and the cord is a lot bigger, too! They have a tractor dedicated just to tugging that cord around behind the dragline as it moves. Someday I’ll get pictures of that, too.

Bike to Work Week this week in Bismarck

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Time to get healthy! I have yet to really get into the routine of biking to work; in fact, it’s only been a couple of times this year. But this week should be extra motivation for all of us to push a pair of pedals other than the accelerator and brakes! This is Bike to Work Week in Bismarck.

Riding to work always seems so easy to do, yet so hard to get motivated for. I like to run around with my camera or run errands after work, so it’s better to be on my motorcycle or in my truck. But that bike isn’t riding itself; I’ve gotta start doing it. I’ve got just under 2,800 miles on this bike and a little over 2,000 on my other one…let’s just say that under a hundred of those miles have taken place in the past year. So perhaps riding to work would help me get back in the swing of things!

The week is organized by Activate Bismarck-Mandan, a program run by the YMCA. You can find read their announcement and browse their website by clicking here.

Trifecta!

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Finally! I knew this car was out there, but never had the opportunity for a photo. In fact, I haven’t seen this car since I got my camera…until Tuesday. What a work of art (and patriotism)! Call it what you will, hate it or love it, but you must admit this is a unique vehicle.

In the past I’m sure you’ve seen my posts about the 4×4 Mercedes :

and of course, the 4×4 Firebird :

And the acquisition of the Cadillac photo completes the trifecta. Or the hat trick, if you happen to be a UND Fighting Sioux Hockey fan. I know we’ve got a bunch of those out there!