Category Archives: Around Bismarck-Mandan

Boys’ night out

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We three dudes decided to head across the river for a sunset bike ride by the blockhouses at Fort Abraham Lincoln. My 2 and 3 year old boys had an absolute blast, and Daddy got to play with the camera a little bit. We couldn’t have asked for e better evening; great weather, no bugs, and the place to ourselves! They pedaled and pedaled, Daddy pointed out various local landmarks out across the way, and it kept us all out of trouble until dark.

Just in time

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This is the first year that I’ve been able to enjoy a State Parks vehicle pass in my truck. Don’t ask me why it’s taken this long…I can’t explain it. In any case, I’ve got one now, and plan on putting it to good use yet this year! For instance, this recent bolt up to the blockhouses at Fort Abraham Lincoln. I got there just in time to catch the fleeting sunset.

Some of the tourists there looked amused as I rolled up in the Monster Truck™, grabbed my tripod and camera bag, and ran out into the middle of the forts to get the right angle. Later, as I was wrapping up, a couple walked by and asked how the sunset turned out. Thankfully, as you can see for yourself, it turned out just fine.

A shot of the twins

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I took a ride on the Fort Lincoln Trolley this weekend with my lovely bride, and the trolley operator told us about a pair of twin fawns that have been spotted (pun intended) around the tracks from time to time. I was out at Fort Lincoln since then and saw them for myself around dusk, playing around and walking with their mom. They didn’t seem to be alarmed by my presence and gave me plenty of opportunities to photograph them before bounding off into the trees.

WorldWide PhotoWalk wrap-up, Bismarck-Mandan edition

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This weekend I was able to participate in the Bismarck-Mandan section of the third annual Worldwide PhotoWalk. I didn’t get an official count, but there were close to thirty participants from as far away as Jamestown. It was a blast, and the Bismarck walk was coordinated by Brian Matthews of BisManPhoto.com. There were a lot of really amazing photos posted, far better than mine I think. But what the heck, here are my favorite photos so far:

This old log has some new beginnings contained therein. I was shooting handheld so I didn’t get to stop my aperture down to get the depth of field that I wanted. I still like the way it turned out.

More new beginnings as this plant climbed up the rotting remains of an old stump, with the bud at the top catching a beam of sunlight from the early morning sun.

Another of the many statues which adorn the stretch from Sertoma Park to Pioneer Park (and a few points between). I like the range of colors in this one. It was in the shadow of the trees so I had to crank my fill flash and get creative in how I bounced it to eliminate those pesky shadows.

This cranky Sandhill Crane was soon mollified after I let him peck my monopod a few times and began talking to him. As a bird lover I have a way with ’em, and soon he was fluffing up his feathers and even showing off his wing for me!

I’m old enough to remember the actual Clyde. This statue in his honor towers over the inside of one of the Zoo’s buildings (I think it’s called the Discovery Center). I extended my monopod as far as I could, propped it on my shoulder to get it up to the level of the statue, and used my remote to trigger the shot. Note that he must have a wicked migraine, as the wood has developed a big crack in it.

We had two hours to walk and started outside the Dakota Zoo entrance an hour before it opened, so naturally most of us ended up at the big cat exhibits for our last few minutes! I chose to lay on my back with my widest (10mm) lens and point straight upward at this cat. Then one of the girls on the walk poked her head in to get some shots of her own, and she was just the ingredient my composition was missing.

As I said, I think the other participants blew my shots away. You can venture over to BisManPhoto.com to check them out. Sign up for an account and wait a little while until you’re approved. New members are screened manually to avoid spammers. Once you’re on, you can participate. Hopefully you’ll be intrigued enough to join us on future photo walks!

Put me in, coach! Put me in

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If one could feel a sense of pity for an inanimate object, it would likely happen during a sight like this. With an ample harvest approaching in the verdant field ahead, this poor broken down piece of equipment is reduced to spectator status. Its glory days have passed and it has been relegated to being an ornament, a placeholder on a hill. It will now be forced to watch as newer, larger machines – machines with closed, air conditioned cabs and GPS receivers – perform the duties it once enjoyed. See? Kinda sad, isn’t it?

There are 10 kinds of people…those who can read binary and those who can’t

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I spotted this “leetmobile” in a parking lot a while back and had to nab a quick cell phone shot of it. I couldn’t actually tell you if the binary code thereon means anything, since I haven’t remembered how to read binary code since the 1980s. While I’ve blurred out the license plate, I can tell you that it’s a ham radio operator plate. That means the owner of this car is likely quite tech-savvy, even beyond spraying ones and zeros across the hood of his little Ford.

Here’s a little more information about binary code. It’s basically a way of breaking down letters and numbers to the simplest form, combinations of ones and zeros. “10” means 2, which is why I made the joke in the title.

I actually spent way more of my time as an old Apple II geek using hexadecimal numbers and can still convert it to regular numbers in my head (although not quite as quickly as I could back during the Reagan era). It’s commonly used to program website colors, which is why I like the joke “Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base, are belong to you.” That’s also only funny if you get the corny 80s video game reference.

Okay, now I’ve illustrated my geekdom. No, it’s not my car. 🙂

One of the world’s biggest lies is posted near 3rd & Rosser

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I suppose it’s appropriate to have a whopper like this near the offices of professionals like Earl Pomeroy, Byron Dorgan, and Kent Conrad. This billboard is part of an orchestrated campaign to fool people into supporting “The American Power Act” – by not letting you know that it’s a repackaging of the Kerry-Lieberman “Cap & Trade” act, designed to decimate our nation’s energy industry. Energy…say, isn’t energy a very significant part of North Dakota’s economy?

Not only is this bill a total disaster for North Dakota and the nation at large, but it has another few interesting flaws:

The “Renewable Energy World” website, which is vested in the sorts of “green energy technology” bandied about by liberals bent on killing the energy industry, has an article titled “American Power Act Contains Little Direct Support for Renewables.”

The “World Climate Report” website, which purports to be “the Web’s longest-running climate change blog”, has an article posted which calls the American Power Act “climatologically meaningless.” For instance, even if this bill worked like clockwork (which never happens), they might lower temperatures by a couple hundredths of a degree over the next hundred years!

The folks at American Thinker have an article posted which points out that the Act is merely “a sugar coated version of Cap and Trade.”

Hey, guess what? It gets better! If you actually visit “PassTheAmericanPowerAct.com” you’ll get the site above. Looks pretty conservative and jingoistic, doesn’t it? The only thing it seems to be missing is a flattering photo of George W. Bush. There’s only one problem: It’s a sham.

That web address actually bounces you to the servers of DemocracyInAction.org, a liberal activist group that apparently hosts all kinds of different websites for “progressive” causes. Here’s how they describe themselves:

“DemocracyInAction, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization itself, believes technology can be a decisive force for social change. We exist to empower those who share our values of ecological and social justice to advance the progressive agenda.”

Operated by a company called Salsa Labs, and oriented around the same sort of “community organizing” as our hapless President. Here’s a list of their clients, which includes a bunch of liberal nonprofits like Code Pink and a bunch of liberal Democrat political campaigns.

If I had the money, I’d simply rent the billboard next to it and put up something like this. It wouldn’t take much, and it would help put some truth right next to the Big Lie that is trying to kill jobs and take control of more Americans’ lives in the name of the Global Cooling Warming Climate Change hoax.

A dash to one of my favorite local sunset nooks

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Bismarck and Mandan have plenty of cool places from which you can observe and photograph our wide open skies. Last night I took the opportunity to bolt over to one of them, a secret little spot out in the middle of nowhere. I had to be careful because the recent rains could have turned it into a muddy mess, and I didn’t want to get my truck stuck.

Shortly after I arrived, the colors in the sky began to change. The golds faded and the reds and purples emerged.

As the sky behind me turned pink, I spun around to take some quick photos of the line of stoic power line towers leading over the horizon.

Most of these are new towers; the old ones which previously stood here were decimated by the spring ice/slush storm which deprived many area citizens of electricity for a long time.

The sky’s last display was for the remaining clouds to turn brilliant orange, then fade to a dull gray. The sun had finished the day’s work and dusk was here. I turned the truck around and headed for home, pondering the multitude of colors I’d seen in such a short span of time.

Memorial Bridge musings

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This was the sunset scene from the Memorial Bridge last night. It was a very colorful scene, especially from where I was standing. It wasn’t the golden-hued blast I was anticipating, but definitely a nice bit of God’s handiwork to appreciate.

This brought to mind the fact that this bridge is fantastic in every way EXCEPT for the absence of a sidewalk on the north side! Thanks to this omission, it’s darn near impossible to get a clean sunset photo during the summer, since one must look northward to do so. I say “almost” because I still have my ways…

By the way, you may have noticed these sections of the old bridge as they’ve now been placed in memorial parks on either end of the new bridge. Cool, huh? The parks are not yet completed but I think they will be soon. The overlook on the Bismarck side might be a nice sunset viewing spot too, by the way!