Category Archives: Events

Mandan 4th of July Parade: an eclectic mix of random thoughts

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I like this scheme a LOT better than the silver.
 


Someone at Prairie Rose Dentists has quite a sense of humor!
 


According to liberal journalists, a flag-painted vehicle is just fine unless you’re Sarah Palin.
 


My little boy PJ likes this trailer.
 


General and Mrs. Spry.
 


My little boys understand that soldiers protect & defend our nation.
 


Dunkie. His posture indicates that this is his last year in the Bizzo.
 


The biggest tow truck my boys have ever seen. Take that, Mater!
 


Savvy Skate & Snow shows some construction ingenuity.
 


Okay, these are cool…we’ve come a long way since the Honda Odyssey!


Giving Grandma a brief sitrep.
 


Miss North Dakota, Arianna Walker. I’ve been friends with her dad for 20 years.
 


Why do you put googly eyes on a combine? So you know where you stand with it…
 


Your boyhood Hot Wheels collection comes to life.

I was surprised at how short this year’s parade seemed, but I’m glad it took place. We typically only stay for a little while because we need to limit exposure to the sun, so we were caught off guard when the end of the parade passed us. It would be interesting to compare the number of entries this year compared to years past. Nevertheless, a 500 year flood won’t prevent Bismarck-Mandan from celebrating Independence Day!

Anachronism

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This post isn’t just an anachronism because it documents an event held by the Society for Creative Anachronism. No, it’s also an anachronism because I took these photos weeks ago and am only posting them now!

We had just held a little party at Barnes & Noble for my 4 year old because of a reading milestone he’d reached. A picnic was planned to follow, so we took all the friends and cousins over to Sertoma Park to enjoy the day. That’s when we found these folks grillin’ food, swingin’ swords, and generally having a grande olde tyme.

Craftsmanship is key when making a set of armour such as this. I couldn’t help but think “None shall pass!” every time I looked at one of these helmets or other garb. Naturally any Monty Python jokes are well worn at an event like this, so I just held my tongue.

Coat of mail to go with your shield, anyone? This is hand made and very cool. It’s heavy, yet flexible. There were plenty of other creations on display as well, but I’m sure this sort of thing always gets the limelight.

A map of the world, SCA style. It looks like something you might find on the Strange Maps blog, and has some interesting delineation. Just in case you were wondering where we reside in all this:

Look just south of Lacus Sakakawea and you’ll find our general region. It doesn’t look like, according to this map, we’re in dragon territory. Must be all the flooding and shortage of caves.

This local bunch of SCA folks was very friendly and hospitable, and it looks like they were having a great time. Want to learn more? Click here to view a map of the Kingdom of Northshield, the SCA region in which their group resides. Tell ’em I sent ye!

They’ll need a crane (UPDATED)

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It’s been a while since I’ve dropped a lyrical reference in a blog post title, so I thought I’d give a hat-tip to one of my favorite songs by They Might Be Giants. If you found yourself on the far eastern reaches of the capital city today, you probably spotted this flag flying high above the industrial park.

This is an enormous flag, flying high atop an enormous crane. But what was the event? Something I’ve been eagerly anticipating for quite some time: the Case Triple Threat Rodeo, held today at Titan Machinery in Bismarck.

I was lucky enough to come visit this event over my lunch break, and so were my little boys. What could be more fun than hot dogs, big machines, and a sunny day? We’ll get to that in a moment.

There are multiple components to this rodeo contest: skidsteer, backhoe, and loader. Participants negotiate an obstacle course and perform skills of coordination while competing for the best time. The wind made it a challenge, I’m sure! At the end of the drill pictured above, the operator had to try to dump that little soccer ball into one of three waiting garbage cans.

As if watching big machines working wasn’t enough fun for little boys, there was also a big inflatable skidsteer loader-shaped bouncing pen. Believe me, they got PLENTY of use out of this thing. They were still bouncing with Mommy when I left to return to work.

According to the schedule on the Case website, there will be an event in Fargo today and in Minot later this year. Click here to check it out. It’s fun to watch. If you’ve got better loader skills than I have, you can register and participate!

One important thing I forgot to mention is that this event has also helped to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in support for Habitat for Humanity. You can click here to read more, and freewill donations are accepted at the event. Cool, huh?

If you’re Val Kilmer, this is where you were this weekend

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One of my all-time favorite actors (easily top five, if not top three) came to Bismarck this weekend. While his primary visit is to take part in the AIHEC conference at the Civic Center, my sources indicate that he also took in the Impact Fighting Championship event on Saturday night.

I was directing the video feed of the IFC on Saturday night but didn’t see Mr. Kilmer on any of my cameras below. That’s okay; it was dark, and the camera guys were focused on the contents of the ring. That includes a thrilling victory by local favorite Leo Kuntz in the main event. I took the photo above while we were setting up our video cameras and preparing for the event.

So even if he wasn’t at the fights, Mr. Kilmer has been performing at the Civic Center himself in promotion of his Mark Twain project. He’s also been involved with issues facing the Native American community for many years.

I sure wish I could meet him, but I doubt that’ll happen Oh well, when Hollywood options my life story I’ll insist that he get the part…

Traumatic April Fool’s Day experience

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I have the sweetest, most wonderful, beautiful wife…BUT yesterday she pranked me hard. I came home from lunch to find her sitting on the couch, crying. Confused, I attempted to figure out what was wrong so I could “fix” it. I am a guy, after all. She simply sobbed, “I left something on the kitchen table for you.”

Even more confused, I made my way to the kitchen to find the above: a CUTE little photography-related onesie with a little pink stick laying on it. Huh? I looked at it, saw two lines, read the writing on it, and internally FREAKED. Putting on my best calm, reassuring husband facade, I came back to the living room to assure her that everything will be okay. We’re all going through a lot of lifestyle changes right now, including her becoming a stay-at-home mom, so really this isn’t as scary as it could be. Of course, inside my head are all the flashes of guy-type panic, but I’m not going to let her know that.

That’s when, through her genuine tears, she sobbed, “April Fool’s, honey!” And started laughing. I was so shocked, I didn’t know how to react! Internally, of course, I felt enormous relief…but I was still off-balance emotionally from trying to process the idea of a Baby Number Three.

Of course, I can appreciate a good prank as much as the next guy. I wasn’t angry (again, probably due to relief) and simply gave her a hug and assured her that even if it HAD been true, I’d still have been okay and that I love her very much.

I later found that she borrowed the stick from a friend who’s expecting. You’ve got to love a girl who will go the extra mile for a little fun. Thank God that this day only comes once a year!

Luke Graner at the Belle Project

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My pal Luke Graner got a great opportunity last weekend: performing at the Belle Mehus civic auditorium as part of the Belle Project, an effort to bring local musicians to the auditorium. Naturally I took the opportunity to stop in with a couple of cameras.

If you aren’t familiar with Luke’s music, you don’t know what you’re missing. Using a Boomerang digital looping device, he redefines the term “one man band”. He’ll lay down multiple tracks of percussion, vocals, guitar, or even didgeridoo until he’s constructed an elaborate song. Sometimes he’ll peel back the layers at the end, and sometimes the song ends cold with all the Lukes in unison. I learned a lot about music simply watching this process.

One new treat was eldest son Jaxon chipping in for a couple of tracks. He seems quite comfortable on stage, even a stage such as this. As a dad myself I can only imagine how proud Luke must be that his boy can come up and partake in his passion on stage!

I don’t make many endorsements on this site. One that I will make is Luke’s music, which you simply must experience for yourself. In the meantime, you can visit him at lukegraner.com and find links to his MySpace page. Keep an eye out for his next performance, because you won’t want to miss it!

Wallbuilders’ Rick Green visits Bismarck for all-day Constitution class

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Many thanks to New Song Church for hosting Rick Green, one of my favorite podcast personalities! On the 20th of January I attended an event where Rick spent the day teaching us about something we should all study more: American history. In particular he gave us a few hours of background on the mindset of the nation’s founders and authors of our founding documents, using their own writings to put some context to their work in creating the framework for this great nation.

The rest of the morning and the afternoon session consisted of step-by-step study of the United States Constitution. There’s some extremely interesting stuff in there, and our country has gone down the wayward path it’s on largely because of our ignorance (average citizen and politicians alike) of this document.

I bought a lot of books by various authors and also won a couple, as Rick occasionally rewarded people who could belt out answers to tough questions. One I got was means for addressing judicial misconduct (impeachment), and the other was John Quincy Adams’ signature issue, one which he pursued as a member of Congress after serving as President: abolition of slavery. He was one of only two Presidents to return to public service in Congress after his term, by the way.

I cannot give enough of an endorsement of Rick Green and David Barton and the work that they do. Rick is a former legislator and full time Texan, by the way. I told him that I can’t be a Texan, but at least I married one.

You can learn some very interesting things about our nation, its founders, and the documents which created these United States by tuning into the Wallbuilders Live podcast, a free daily half-hour podcast featuring David Barton and Rick Green. They give a lot of interesting news and background on what they call “the intersection of faith and politics” and refer back to the words of those who wrote the framework of our great nation.

Click here to visit the Wallbuilders website.

Click here to visit the Wallbuilders Live podcast website.

Here’s a link to Wallbuilders Live through iTunes.

Fix the Tax meeting

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Last week I attended a “town hall” style meeting for the Fix the Tax movement. I was interested in hearing what they have to say, and to me it makes sense: keeping North Dakota’s oil extraction tax competitive with other states will keep the oil companies drilling here, which in turn generates revenue and jobs (in other words, prosperity) for North Dakota.

On the panel above are radio host Scott Hennen, Dustin Gawrylow (ND Taxpayers’ Association), former Governor Ed Schafer, Brett Narloch (ND Policy Council), and Grover Norquist. Each had something very interesting to say from a different standpoint.

After each presented their ideas about the extraction tax, microphones made their way around the room for people to chime in. There were plenty of stories about rigs moving to states with lower taxes, even now. Governor Ed made the point that North Dakota only sees revenue when oil is extracted from the ground, not when one pilot well is drilled.

The math would seem to be in their favor: where one well is being drilled now, three or four would be drilled with a lower extraction tax. Knock off a percentage point in order to compete with Montana, for instance, and triple the output, and the result is more revenue for North Dakota. That means more money for infrastructure, et cetera.

Want more details to make up your own mind? Visit FixTheTax.com to hear what they have to say.

The Big Event

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Last weekend we took our little boys to The Big Event, which is a free event held annually by Child Evangelism Fellowship. They’ve done this for four or five years now, although this was only our second time attending. It was fantastic, just ask the boys!

This event is staffed and supported by many local churches and helps collect donations of food for charity from participants. It takes up the entire Convention Center portion of the Bismarck Civic Center with an enormous variety of activites and prizes for the children.

Naturally the kids love the inflatables the best! Mom and dad are pleased with the way the kids get tired out from all the running, bouncing, and climbing…making for some very peaceful naps afterward!

There’s nothing like a couple of hours of padded obstacle courses to harness a little boy’s energy. You can keep an eye out for next year’s event by visiting the website, bigeventbismarck.com.

I can’t believe I took this long for legislature photos

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But here they are! I spent some time breaking in my press badge while perusing the legislature last week. This photo is from the House…

and this is the Senate. This was during a normal day’s business, but I’m hoping that the legislature decides to participate in an event I’ve enjoyed during the past two sessions: Citizens Night at the legislature.

Curious? Check this link and this link for more.