I found these along the river the other day, along with a couple hundred of their friends. The intricate shapes and grain of these ice crystals were pretty neat, even if they were uncomfortable to hold for more than a few seconds. They almost look like clear wood chips! How fun would it be to have a playground lined with them?
Simple Minds gives me the musical reference for this post title. I was out on the Heart River last Friday for a while after verifying that the ice disc I photographed earlier was still frozen solid. I had a photography pal with me, and we decided to work the river for a little bit.
I found a couple of pretty neat ice chunks protruding from the river, and the lighting conditions were changing every few minutes or so. The coolest thing about the ice was the lines where it had melted and frozen. The photo above kinda shows some thick “veins” running down the slab.
In the shade, and with a little off-camera flash, you can see a couple of sets of striation lines in this ice. Some run vertically, probably from melting, and others run horizontally, most likely as the slab froze thicker and thicker. But something else about this feature caught my eye.
My boys think this looks like some sort of sci-fi sword. Maybe it looks like a shark fin to some. I was just glad to find some sort of neat looking protrusion that wasn’t discolored by river sand. I decided to play some angles and experiment with off-camera flash while the lighting did various things.
Looks like a sculpture, doesn’t it? Maybe a golf trophy or something.
The brilliant blue sky turned to gray and even a little purple at times (we dudes don’t know terms like “lavender” or “periwinkle”. With that, the reflectivity of the ice changed (along with the color of the slab).
Here you can see the lines of the slab. It looks like a chandelier – a five hundred pound one, at that. I tried time and time again to do them justice, but I simply could not.
I feel like I won a Longest Drive contest or something!
And then the blue skies came back. We sauntered up river a little ways to start pointing the cameras at some gnarly trees or something, and it’s a good thing we did. The standing water atop the ice was encroaching upon our position, meaning that things were starting to melt. I’m not one to take a lot of chances on river ice. Even though the slab we were on was incredibly thick, I wasn’t about to let my guard down.
Soon there won’t be any river ice to photograph. I have to say I’ll miss it a little now that I’m getting more camera time again, but then again…not so much. It’ll be back before we know it.
So I couldn’t help but pay the Heart River ice disc a visit, since, I heard that it was frozen in place after the recent cold spells. That’s true; it’s frozen in place. But I have a hunch.
I spent a couple of hours in this area taking various ice and tree photos, and saw the area of open water spread dramatically. The friend who was with me surmised that the area will be thawed in the next day or two. With low temps remaining above freezing, I think he’s right.
The thinnest part of the ice will melt first, and that is the perimeter of the disc. If that holds true, the thing could be back spinning before we know it! Only time will tell. Whether it spins again or not, the ice in this area won’t be around much longer..
I was trucking down South Washington Street with my little boys tonight when I spotted this sign. In the past when I’ve driven past Cornerstone I’ve noticed other humorous witticisms, but this one I found particularly funny.
I know we all hope there isn’t much winter left, but I finally decided to put together some links to the songs on my current Winter Playlist. Thanks to that lovely Internet, I can share these songs with you either via YouTube or iTunes. If you find a broken link, let me know.
In looking over the list, I realized a couple of things:
I figure a lot of this is because it gets dark early during winter, and it’s more a matter of how the darkness affects my mood. Some of these songs, though, have a sentimental attachment from my time working for Mountain Operations for a ski resort out in the Rockies. Snowboarding for a living when you’re in your late teens and early twenties is a real blast if you can pull it off – just make sure you get back to college after your sabbatical!
Anyway, here’s the list. No particular order. If you don’t like one, move on to the next. Feedback appreciated.
UPDATE: I forgot a couple of songs, so I’ve added them to the beginning of the list.
Grouper – “Vessel” (I originally forgot this one) LINK
Spiritualized – “200 Bars” (One more tragic oversight) LINK
Junip – “Far Away” LINK
Kid Loco – “Relaxin’ with Cherry” LINK
Kitchens of Distinction – “Mad As Snow” LINK
Nasty Rox, Inc – “10th Wonder” LINK
Télépopmusik – “Breathe” LINK
The War On Drugs – “Comin’ Through” LINK
One Dove – “Breakdown” LINK
Mac-Talla – “Griogal Cridhe (Beloved Gregor)” LINK
Lost Lander – “Wonderful World” LINK
Minks – “Everything’s Fine” LINK
Lord Huron – “She Lit A Fire” LINK
The Besnard Lakes – “We’re Here For A Good Time (Not A Long Time)” LINK
The Sundays – “Here’s Where the Story Ends” LINK
The Nightgowns – “Narwhal Aerobics” LINK
JEFF the Brotherhood – “Heavy Days” LINK
Steve Mason – “All Come Down” LINK
Royksopp – “Remind Me” LINK
Big Spider’s Back – “Terminal Seat” LINK
Big Spider’s Back – “Brigette Bombay” LINK
The Innocence Mission – “That Was Another Country” LINK
Sin Fang Bous – “Melt Down the Knives” LINK
Miko Mission – “How Old Are You” LINK
Lower Dens – “Brains” LINK
Phenomenal Handclap Band – “Following” LINK
Chad Valley – “Fast Challenges” LINK
The Octopus Project – “I Saw the Bright Shinies” LINK
Blue Sky Black Death – “Sleeping Children Are Still Flying” LINK
Lindsey Buckingham – “Trouble” LINK
New Division – “Starfield” LINK
The Lonely Forest – “Coyote” LINK
Pink Floyd – “Learning to Fly (Live version)” LINK
Trentemøller – “Snowflake” LINK
Dapuntobeat – “0 (Dospuntocero)” LINK
When Saints Go Machine – “Fail Forever” LINK
Kruder & Dorfmeister – “The Lick” LINK
Midnight Masses – “Walk on Water” LINK
Pixies – “Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf Mix)” LINK
Iska Dhaaf – “All the Kids” LINK
The Ocean Blue – “The Planetarium Scene” LINK
Yello – “Sometimes” LINK
Mint Royale – “Always Welcome” LINK
Ian Brown – “Northern Lights” LINK
We Were Promised Jetpacks – “Keeping Warm” LINK
Thomas Dolby – “Leipzig is Calling” (Live) LINK
808 State – “Pacific 202” LINK
Suuns – “Up Past the Nursery” LINK
Spiritualized – “I Think I’m in Love” LINK
José González – “Heartbeats” LINK
Nicola Conte – “Bossa Per Due” LINK
Nitzer Ebb – “Let Beauty Loose” LINK
Slowdive – “Rutti” LINK
Rupert Hine – “With One Look” LINK
The Future Sound of London – “Papua New Guinea” LINK
Dreadzone – “A Dream Within A Dream” LINK
Active Child – “I’m In Your Church at Night” LINK
BØRNS – “10,000 Emerald Pools” LINK
So, there ya have it. That’s what I like to have playing when out driving around looking for photos or hiking in the snow. Of course, it’s about time to start looking for a Spring playlist!
I couldn’t resist. I felt like the last time I was here, the time was too short. I’d visited once with my cameras and once with my boys, but I never really felt like I got to bond with the spinning ice disc on the Heart River. So, after work on Monday I decided to bolt over and grab some stills and video of it at dusk.
I got the perfect match of dusk and cloud cover, bathing everything in very nice, flat, even light. The absence of hard shadows allowed me to capture detail that would otherwise be lost in glare or contrast.
I decided to put together a brief video of the evening:
I have to admit that my curiosity will take me back there again a time or two. I can’t help but wonder how long that rotating disc will survive the ups and downs of this unusual North Dakota winter. Whatever I find, rest assured I’ll share my finds here.
After we got done with the video gig for the bull riding last night, I decided to get a photo of this giant spinning ice disk. A friend with Mandan PD told me where to find it, so I ventured out to get a nice nighttime shot of it. I’ve seen video of it on TV and Facebook as well as a few photos, but I wanted to see if I could add my own perspective to it. Pretty cool!
It’s supposed to be warm today…I wonder if this will survive the warmth?
So this weekend I saw a Facebook link to web article expressing outrage at a video in which Oprah purportedly makes the comment portrayed in the graphic above. Well, that’s provocative. While it’s implying something she didn’t mean, it also highlights something that Oprah isn’t counting on. First, let’s point out what even the article admits she said:
“There are still generations of people, older people, who were born and bred and marinated in it, in that prejudice and racism, and they just have to die,” she proclaimed.
So what Oprah isn’t saying is that all white people should just die. We get that. But she’s still tragically mistaken.
What she’s saying is that there are generations of people alive right now who grew up with racism, and that they’re probably never going to see things differently. Her hope, as I infer from the quote, is that when those people eventually pass away that racism will die with them. Sounds like a plausible idea and a reasonable hope. But there’s a problem.
Liberal progressive leftist Democrats have instituted a replacement for that racism in the form of modern day Racism™. Race is an industry now, and business is booming. These days, simply disagreeing with a leftist of any origin is immediately Racist™, and actual race doesn’t even need to be involved. It’s gotten so bad that Godwin’s Law may have to be clarified to add “Racist” alongside “Nazi” as a reflexive insult when someone is losing an argument.
The generation(s) to which Oprah is referring will be gone someday. Unfortunately they will have been replaced with a battered and fatigued generation of Racists™ who may not even understand the history of race relations in the United States. They certainly won’t be living in realization of Dr. King’s dream, where people are “judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”. Sadly, you can thank the left for that…the very people who claim to be the most compassionate and the most color blind. From inside Oprah’s bubble, I doubt she’s got the slightest clue what’s coming.
Over a month ago I was poking around with my camera at Double Ditch and forgot to mention that there’s a car at the bottom of the hill. You don’t see that everyday.
Chevy Cavaliers normally don’t sit like this. Looks pretty serene, covered in newly fallen snow, doesn’t it?
What do you do if you’re an idiot and you find something on the sandbar by the river? Well, you light it on fire, of course…which is apparently what happened to this vehicle either when it met its untimely demise or when someone with a lighter found it.
Naturally there’s nothing left of the interior. What wasn’t stolen before the fire is gone now.
Naturally I called to report this as soon as I found it. I’m sure someone had already done so, but I wanted to make sure. As if a flaming Cavalier (well, more flaming than usual) wouldn’t have attracted attention long, long ago…
I’m accustomed to finding decades-old cars, or remnants thereof, at the bottom of these cliffs, but I never expected to find a modern day econobox car. I haven’t been back since that November day, so I don’t know if anything’s been done about it. I just wish people would treat the area with more respect.
It’s been longer than I can remember since I’ve been out to capture a sunrise. It’s about time to start doing that more often, and yesterday was a new beginning for me. I was initially discouraged since the sky was mostly covered with dense clouds, but the horizon held some promise. I stopped for a cappuccino at B&J and headed east. This is what I found developing.
Even though there was a mere sliver of clear sky on the horizon, it was doing its work to difract beautiful red, pink, and orange colors on the clouds above. I set up shop and waited for the drama to start…
Although the purple and red sunrise photo was enough to make my day a success, I hung around a little bit to see what would happen before the sun climbed past the available window. I was not disappointed. The blazing orange sky that resulted was nothing short of breathtaking. The ripple of low clouds between the sun and me became a perfect reflector for the fiery hues.
Looks like rolling fire, doesn’t it? This is the most dramatic part of a sunrise and also the most fleeting. I’ve seen photos of this pop up all over Facebook, rightly so. The intensity was amazing.
After a couple of minutes of this, the colors began to wane and I headed back to town satisfied. This was a fantastic way to start getting back into the swing of things. I’m going through my selection of GPS waypoints and other notes to recall suitable foreground objects for sunrise silhouettes, and as the sky cooperates I hope to bring more sunrises home with me.
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