Ramblings from a relaxing Independence Day

Posted on July 5, 2014 by Clint

For such a low-key Independence Day, I must say that I really enjoyed myself. Nothing really over-the-top exciting happened, but it was simply a good day. Here are a few highlights:

Due to continued recovery from surgery, my wife was stuck in the house with no plans to attend the parade. I’m still regaining my mobility, so the idea of taking my little ones to the Mandan Parade and lugging along supplies wasn’t really an attractive prospect. Nevertheless, for the kids’ sake I loaded up the truck. As we left for Mandan, the skies looked fishy to me. A check of the radar led me to want to call it off. Once we got to our secret spot, which provides a great view with very little pre-planning, the rain and wind stepped up and even the kiddos decided to do something else. Then my wife called with news of the cancellation. The nice thing is that my boys weren’t disappointed or let down. Whew.
I looked up a few remote geocaches that were right beside the road, took my boys out to find a couple, and had a nice afternoon without pushing my body too far. Then we stopped at a friend’s fireworks stand and got ’em some of those little snappers you throw on the ground. They’ve wanted them for a while, so now we’ve got a bunch.
I got a NAP. A serious one. Oh, rest does the body good. Apparently that and medications do as well, because my sweetie was able to come with us to view the capitol fireworks! Thankfully our usual spot doesn’t involve much walking.
We went to the best place to watch the capitol fireworks, the lawn across from Job Service and the Gold Seal Building on the north side. The fireworks look like they’re almost right overhead, and they’re very close. The weird thing about last night was the wind from the south; we got a little bit of debris, to my kids’ enjoyment. How often do you get a strong southerly breeze on a July evening in North Dakota?
As we waited for the show to begin, there was a nice sunset (pictured above). One big cloud looked like it was trying to achieve enough lift to storm, but it ran out of energy and the top sheared off. Made for a nice photo. I did not bring a camera with me, but thankfully phones do pretty well these days. This is actually part of a panorama.
Just before the show began, a car drove by with the worst timing ever. A passenger was holding a Roman Candle out the window, shooting multicolored balls into the air. People were cheering, but the cheers turned to jeers at the end of the next block. A Bismarck Police car was waiting to turn onto Divide, and the officer hit the lights and pulled over the offender. Fireworks bring a Class C Misdemeanor in this town, which can be up to $500 and some jail time. The funny thing was, as they pulled over, the colored balls were still shooting into the air. It’s not like they could just switch it off!
The din of Mandan was breathtaking last night. I don’t think I have ever heard such a ruckus, even on a nice Mandan night on July 4th. It was non-stop, loud, steady, and big. The sustained intensity of obviously large explosions was impressive. A friend said it took him 25 minutes to traverse The Strip, and that visibility in places could be measured in mere feet. Party on.
I didn’t miss my 20-pound camera bag…I’ve photographed the heck out of July 4th in Bismarck-Mandan, have been on a lifting restriction from my docs, and wanted to watch it with my family instead of through my viewfinder. It was great.

As far as the cancellation of the parade goes, this wasn’t a couple of people in a booth making the call based on some pusillanimous fear of passing thunderstorms. There were multiple people from various backgrounds making informed, professional decisions based on the information at hand. As I’ve posted in a few Facebook comments: This storm, while short-lived, had a LOT of lightning. ONE lightning strike in that crowd turns into a mass casualty situation immediately. And with the congestion and resulting chaos, responding to it would be nearly impossible. The various people and organizations that came together in agreement to cancel made the right call. If they’d simply postponed it, people would have hunkered down in place…exactly what safety crews didn’t want them to do.

Our party happens tonight. Some friends run a fireworks business, and they host an hour-long show at their home, far from Bismarck. It should be a real treat.

Thursday night sunset, despite my limitations

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Clint

It’s no secret that I’m a recliner pilot, recovering right now from a “robot attack” – surgery via daVinci robot – and as such I’m gone a little stir crazy. It didn’t take long; I was pretty close already. As Waylon used to sing, “I’ve always been crazy, but it’s kept me from going insane.” Tonight I chased a little piece of sanity as I captured a tiny portion of an elusive sunset.

I used to do “Thursday Night Sunset” posts all the time on this blog. Then real life took over and those posts began appearing more sparingly. Well, here’s a Thursday Night Sunset – taken from my porch as one of the few unobstructed slices of the sky from my point of view. I ventured out briefly in my post-surgery garb, pulled in some fresh air, and snapped a few quick cloud shots.

When I first had this surgery on December 31st, it wasn’t a problem to stay indoors and pilot the recliner; it was twenty degrees below zero. Now, however, it’s torture. I knew this would be difficult when I scheduled the “do-over” of my December surgery, but some things just have to be done. Now, I have a lifting limitation of less than half the weight of my monster camera bag, and get exhausted if I’m out of the recliner for even a short time. At least it’s made for a more active Twitter feed.

Here’s to a quick recovery and some bona fide sunset shots in the near future! I know the term “near future” is going to have to be relative, but I’m committed to taking it easy for once and making a proper recovery.

Why “The LEGO Movie” should have been released on Freedom Friday, not Taco Tuesday (SPOILERS)

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Clint

Today was a long awaited day in my house; the LEGO Movie came out on Blu-Ray today! My boys and I had “three dudes time” to see this at the luxurious Grand Theater and were eager to watch it with Mommy. Tonight that dream came true.

Let’s get one thing straight: This is a DAD movie. I knew this from seeing it in the theater, but the point was driven home again tonight…strongly, considering all I’ve gone through lately and the fact that Father’s Day was two days ago.

With that in mind, I’d like to point out why this movie should have been released last Friday, in anticipation of Father’s Day, not today. There are spoilers here, so you’ve been warned to come back after you’ve seen the movie.

. (spoilers below)

I was surprised when the film switched to live-action, but impressed how they bridged the happenings in the LEGO universe with the play of the young boy. Where the whole point of the movie gets driven home, however, is when the boy’s father appears. We conservatives are used to Hollywood movies having leftist agendas, so when the villain was named Lord Business many people automatically thought it was an indictment of capitalism. No, guys…it’s not. It’s an indictment of dads so wrapped up in work and order that they are no longer capable of playing with their little boys. I’m pretty sensitive about this subject, and I have been since I was a kid, so I caught on right away.

So did the boy’s father, the instant he found the President Business figure. At an hour and twenty-eight minutes into the movie: denouement. The father gets a heart-wrenching lesson from his boy: it’s important to remember to play. Realizing how he has figured into his little boy’s play world, Will Farrell’s character is convicted in his heart. The loving, contrite way in which he opens up to his boy is a perfect lesson every dad needs to see, and of which we should be reminded regularly.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the structure of our lives and forget how to play. There’s always one more thing to be done, there are always demands at work and at home, and innumerable distractions try to worm their way in between a Daddy and his children. As one of my favorite Grasshopper Takeover songs says, “You can never get it back…you can only let it go.” That, my friends, is the real lesson behind the LEGO Movie, the sweet message that I think too many have completely missed, and the reason why I think it should be a Father’s Day staple from this day forward.

Okay, it’s a little weird getting FOX on “Channel 5” – but it isn’t really 5 anyway (UPDATED)

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Clint

A while ago I posted that the local television landscape would be undergoing even more changes as the Hoak Media stations such as KFYR were being sold again, as was the KNDX cluster or stations owned by Prime Cities. Then, to complicate things, the company that bought the KFYRs, KVLY, and KSFYs signed a tentative agreement to operate the KNDXs. Whee. I bet that’ll make for a busy control room.

Well, tonight I finally decided to watch 24 on KNDX instead of the web (I turned it off halfway through, though, to play a game with my little boy) and noticed that I wasn’t getting 26.1 anymore. I knew the transition was coming, but I watch so little television these days that I hadn’t rescanned yet. Sure enough, I picked up FOX on what my television calls “5.2” and no channel 26 could be found.

In case I didn’t mention it here, although I think I did on my blog’s Facebook page, the scuttlebutt I’d heard was for KNDX to move to 5.2, MeTV to eventually move to 26.1, and BEK Communications programming to reside on 26.2 or 26.3. MeTV is still on 5.3, but I don’t expect that to last long. The reason is that any TV station like KFYR only gets 6MHz of bandwidth for their TV signal, and the only way to fit more on it is by compressing the signals digitally – decreasing the picture quality.

I decided to make this rudimentary graphic (engineers, don’t freak) to give a broad overview of how TV signals are different these days. On the left is the same old snowy analog signal that we grew up with, and on the right is the new digital DTV signal which provides that high definition picture. Both use the same 6 MHz of bandwidth, which means the frequency range for their signal to modulate (think vibrate) in.

Note all the ups and downs on the left. That’s because an analog TV signal was actually three different signals: You had the picture, which was an AM signal (like the radio in Grandpa’s car, sorta). This was actually black and white. Then you have the color subcarrier, which put the color information into the picture, also AM. Finally, spaced away from the video carrier by a specific offset, was the audio signal – but this is an FM carrier (like the radio the kids used to listen to in the 80’s).

On the right, you simply have one monster signal, going full blast like a fire hose from end to end (Note: engineers, I don’t think the readers want to hear about sideband right now). What this signal is doing, rather than delivering actual pictures in wavy format, is trying to spew forth as many error-free ones and zeros as possible. What the TV station does with those ones and zeros, however, is where the magic happens.

Say you’re Prairie Public, for example. You put four channels on it: 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4. Or perhaps, like KX, you put up one HD channel and one weather channel. KBMY has recently started doing the same thing.

What KFYR has done up to this point is put out a 1080i HD signal for KFYR and a 480i (standard definition) signal for MeTV. This makes sense, as the programming on MeTV was produced for a 4×3, standard definition broadcast picture. But for the time being they now also have a 720p HD signal for KNDX running on the same data stream, meaning that their 6MHz bandwidth has to fit a lot more information on it. I’m sure they’re eager to get MeTV moved over to 26 as soon as it’s technically feasible.

One other thing that’s noteworthy about Channel 26 vs. Channel 5 is that it is actually Channel 26. When the federal government mandated that stations begin broadcasting digitally only and abandon their analog signal, many stations had to change frequencies. In our area, “Channel 5” is one of these.

As you can see in the FCC table above, stations with frequencies already within the newly defined broadcast TV spectrum such as KXMB, KBMY, and KNDX were able to keep their existing channels. KBME and KFYR, channels 3 and 5 respectively, weren’t so lucky.

Obviously these stations, and many like them, have spent fifty or sixty years identifying themselves with a channel number, and they’d rather not start from scratch. No worries, though; they’re allowed to identify themselves as their old channel, even though the radio frrequencies they’re using to broadcast their signal are nowhere near that actual channel number. As the chart above indicates, KFYR is actually Channel 31 and KBME is actually Channel 22. You’ll never see them come up on your television that way, however.

The transition from analog television to digital television has been pretty weird. The economic picture of terrestrially-based broadcasting has been equally spooky, with all these stations combining resources to remain viable while spending millions in capital expenses to adopt the new technology. Thankfully, all you have to do to continue receiving the signals over the air at this point is to rescan every now and then to pick up any channels you’ve missed or, in rare cases like this, may have moved.

Update: I’ve been told that there will be no Channel 26 in Bismarck, 24 in Minot. That means what I’d heard through the grapevine about a MeTV/BEK thing on 26, 24, and the low-power stations in Williston and Dickinson is not happening. Channel 5 may be a little more crowded, but all three pictures still look great…so I doubt they’re stressing their available bandwidth.

I forgot to mention the sideshow

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Clint

A while back I posted about the riverboat being hoisted into the Missouri River to begin its season, but I didn’t tell the whole story. You see, while all this coordinated action was meticulously taking place, there was another show going on in the river behind us. Here’s the video…the noise you hear is the crane crew and the image stabilizer on my telephoto lens.

I don’t know what species of bird these are, but they’re hilarious to watch. It was cute to see them dart underwater in large groups. They’d all go under for a little while, then gradually resurface a few at a time about ten meters or so from where they disappeared. There were at least two enormous clusters of them slowly making their way upstream, undeterred by all that was going on around them.

If you know what kind of bird, please leave a comment. Enjoy!

Challenge accepted

Posted on June 14, 2014 by Clint

This goes out to my online pal Jason, who challenged me a while back to deliver a) a windmill photo, and b) a broken-down farm building photo. What I haven’t posted, due to things being a little busy around here, are my responses – acquired on May 26th, 2014.

First, I’d like to present the windmill above. This is one of my favorite windmills, but I didn’t just dart out to it in order to satisfy a request. This was actually on the return leg of the previously posted trip with my little boys, when I had my youngest out southwest of Mandan. In fact, I have already posted an additional windmill photo from that trip, the one with the damaged fins…but I’ve been meaning to share this one just because the colors were so dynamic.

Next is this old house and the remains of its garage, which sit along the road to Fish Creek Dam. That’s where I took my little guy to show him the bench out on the lookout point – if you don’t know about it, I’ll have to post a little explanation later. I’ve wanted to approach this house for a while, and the land isn’t posted, but there are currently cattle on the land. I guess I’ll have to wait, and let this shot from the road suffice for a while.

I’m on the mend now, and while I act as a recliner pilot and nurse the wounds from my most recent DaVinci robot attack, I’m going to try to dig back through the hard drive for shots like these. I have dozens of photos I’ve taken with every intention of sharing here, but have somehow neglected or forgotten over time. I think I’ll find some gems in there, and for the next few weeks I’ll have plenty of time on my hands to work with ’em.

Stay tuned!

Farewell post

Posted on June 10, 2014 by Clint

Sadly, this is pretty much the last hurrah of one of my favorite sunset photo subjects: the post at the northwest corner of the Double Ditch site. I visited the site last night for a long overdue sunset photo, and found that it’s barely hanging on.

I posted last year about how this post was endangered by the erosion which was causing the cliffs of Double Ditch to collapse. At that time, it still had a little bit of dirt holding it somewhat in place.

I hadn’t actually done anything really stupid lately, so I thought I’d hold my camera out over the top of the post. As you can see, there’s nothing holding it from tumbling into the Big Muddy except the strands of rusty barbed wire which tether it to the metal posts further from the abyss.

Here are some of my favorite sunset photos taken from this location, for comparison:

As you can see, this has been a photogenic and dependable subject for me over many sunsets over the past nine years.

Again, you can see that the only thing holding it up this far is the tenacious grip of that rusty barned wire. Well, you had a good run, faithful post. It’s sad to see you go. I’m glad I could get one last sunset photo in before the inevitable happens.

Yes, I know that title should probably contain a comma.

Somebody else wants in on the action

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Clint

On Memorial Day I was able to take not one photo trip, but two. Each time I took a different boy with me, and I was able to see their photography talents emerging. They did great, and we had some fun “two dudes” time as father and son. Well, my young gentlemen now understand what a Website is, and at their behest I’ve agreed to post some of their work for the world to see. Here are a few shots from my oldest boy:

This was one turtle who didn’t dart into the water right away as we approached. He was patient enough to let us put a 300mm lens on my boy’s camera and snap away for a while.

These geese didn’t like us much. They swam over to the far shore and got out to walk away. The funny thing is, they came to the end of the land and had to plop back into the water anyway.

Then there’s this guy. He posed for us briefly before taking off. He had a pretty nice perch until we came along and made him uncomfortable with all the cameras pointed his way.

Then I took another boy for a trip in the opposite direction! We didn’t approach any water at all, but we did find plenty of scenery.

He didn’t have a wide enough lens to get the whole church in Almont into the frame, but he did frame a nice level shot. I didn’t have to crop it or anything! There are plenty of grown-up would-be photographers who can’t frame a level shot.

One of his favorite subjects: Daddy. This is that old piece of farm equipment I posted recently. This one was taken from the truck, as it was getting late and we were running out of snacks.

We ventured out to Fish Creek Dam, where we were a trio of kayaks and this fishing boat. You can see from the background how the clouds were pretty spotty. There were long periods of shade as enormous clouds passed over.

I was so happy to get out with my camera not once, but twice. I was even more happy to do it as a father-son trip, also twice. I haven’t been able to use my cameras for a while, so to get back into the swing of things for now has been very therapeutic.

Some days, I know how he feels

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Clint

This Morton County windmill has seen better days. I spotted it in this condition while driving by with my littlest boy. He wanted to go home after a good afternoon of photo hunting, so I didn’t take the time to get any closer for a shot. I switched to a 300mm lens and snapped this from the road, then took off for home (and dinner).

I’ve actually got this particular item marked in my GPS from before, and it seems to be deteriorating more rapidly than I remember. I’ll have to make it back sometime soon, perhaps for a nice sunrise shot! That is, after I get some of my things resolved…

Here’s how you get my vote for City Commission

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Clint

Disclaimer: This is not a photo of my yard.

I was lucky to stumble upon a yard with these two signs side by side, because these are the two people I recommend you vote for in the upcoming City Commission race. I’d be happy to explain why.

First off, Mike Motsenbacher has a consistent record as a fiscal conservative, unlike anyone on our current city commission. He’s been involved with conservative activist groups in town as long as I’ve known him, he’s got business experience as well, and I just plain like him. You and I can trust him to be prudent in his decision making and not share the same fetishes as the current commissioners.

But here’s the newcomer (to me, anyway): Duane Pool. A friend of mine received this letter from him, and I’ve received permission to reprint it. Upon reading this letter I became instantly convinced that I’m voting Pool for Commissioner in the June election:

I want to thank all of you for your varying levels of support, influence, council and inspiration leading up to this last week of the Bismarck City Commission Election. I know not all of you a Bismarck residents but thank you anyway. If you are a resident, I encourage you to vote or stop by the City-County building and turn in an absentee ballot if you are not able to vote on Tuesday, June 10th.

This election is about choosing a city commission that reflects your values and values your input. I hope I have shown myself capable of doing so and deserving of your support. I strongly encourage you to watch the League of Women Voters forum on Dakota Community Access or online at freetv.org.

My Core Values:

I believe Government should be transparent: The public should be informed and a genuine part of the process both within the Tom Baker meeting room and before the issues gets there. People should have access to information and they should know their input into the process has meaning and influence.
I believe in the Democratic Process and I believe in my community: Democracy is a responsibility and participatory process. We are obligated to participate:
As Candidates
As Voters
As Citizens in public meeting and forums.
People engaged in the process should be treated with dignity, sincerity and respect.
Once elected you still need to honor the will of your constituents, both those who supported you and those who did not since you represent them all.
Planning is a key to efficient and sustainable growth: I have been involved in planning for much of the last 15 years. I think as a community we need to really focus on a vision of what we want to be 10 and 20 years from now and plan our community efficiently around that goal. (healthy, growing, safe, educated, happy, economically stable with a good standard of living)
Economic growth and efficiency are highly desirable community characteristics: I have taught economics at both the under graduate and graduate levels for over 25 years. Including the principles of economics into public decision making will make for efficient and logical decisions for both the short and long term viability of our community infrastructure as well as business environment.

My personal focus:

Infrastructure to support growth. How and where we plan it, scalability, cost and liability.
Public Finance. Government provides services necessary to our safety, security, business and social networks, education, and health.
How much service is provided must be balanced with the cost and how we pay for it. Public spending is not synonymous with public investment and we need to assure the public that when we do responsibly spend their tax dollars the services and benefits are necessary and desirable.
Existing and future investments must be sustainable from a fiscal perspective.
Focus on the future rather than reactionary spending. EX: The Civic Center expansion was denied at the polls, yet the existing Commission voted to spend ~10-15% less on a revised plan. Paraphrasing the City Commissioners rationalized this as “…they voted against the higher cost expansion, not the new proposal…”. Subsequently when the public reacted the Commissioners voted to do a study regarding future Civic-events Center locations, expansion and needs. This was either the cart before the horse (study first then spend based on an informed decision) or a disingenuous attempt to quell the public outcry with no intent to change course. In either case the public will was discounted. If the process were inclusive of a long-term community vision the study would have preceded the decision and the urgency to begin construction would not have overridden an open public process nor blatantly disregarded public opinion.
A focus on planning and vision for the future will aid in efficient long-term spending to build and maintain an adequate community infrastructure.
Public safety and health: As our community grows, demands on police, fire and public health resources will increase. These services are vital to an attractive and vibrant social and business culture. The culture and economic opportunities in Bismarck are what makes our city attractive and provides the backdrop for growth.

I hope I have your support at the polls on Tuesday!

Respectfully,
Duane B. Pool, PhD.

The Civic Center thing struck a chord with me. I’m a Civic Center employee, but I was firmly against pouring more taxpayer money into the expansion. I outlined my reasons in a post here. So were most of the rest of you. That was not enough to prevent our commissioners and mayor from diverting taxpayer moneys from elsewhere and proceeding anyway. For that reason, they need to go. Their cavalier attitude and fetish for downtown, “green space”, and the Civic Center expansion need to be their ticket out of office. Duane Pool gets it.

I may have some other research to pass along regarding the vote this week (if you early vote) and next. Stay tuned, and vote Pool and Motsenbacher for City Commish!

Bismarck-Mandan Blog

Photography , musings, and a love of North Dakota