Monthly Archives: February 2016

I’m clawing my way back – so bring on the windmills

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It’s no secret that the photos have been fewer and farther between for quite some time now.  First I and every single member of our family had major health issues to deal with.  Then after we circled the wagons and worked on treatment and healing we took on building a new house, and still have lots of thing in bins and a new Garage Majal to get whipped into shape.  Additionally, my little kids have grown up to a point where they want more Dad time (not as much “Daddy”) and I’ve had a hectic freelance schedule.  Whew.

Well, I decided to knock off a little early on Friday and actually head out with my camera and some new gear I purchased with some of the aforementioned freelance money.  I didn’t want to make a major voyage out of it, but just work the outskirts of town and let the stress of the week melt away.  What better way to get back into the game than to go with my trademark: windmills!  I found a trio of ’em.

 

windmill_36601I have photographed these before, but they do change over time.  This one has lost more than half of the blades but is still standing tall.  I chose not to remove the power lines in the background this time.

 

windmill_36608A wider shot may have portrayed this windmill standing alone in a vacant prairie better, but in reality there was a pole just out of the frame on the left where power comes in…presumably some sort of stock tank heater or something.  The lettering on the vane (yes, that’s what it’s called) says “R. R. HOWELL CO MINNEAPOLIS”.  It’s an interesting Google search if you have time on your hands.

 

sunset_windmill_36661Sunset came quickly, and I once again cashed in on the real Secret of My Success when it comes to photography: being in the right place at the right time, often due to absolute blind luck.  I had a couple of minutes to wait for the sun to set in the silhouette of the water tank next to this windmill, adjusting my tripod to the side periodically to track the sun as it slid down and to the right of the frame.  The way it reflected off the wispy clouds above added to the feel of the shot.

It felt SO good to be out roaming again.  I didn’t even have a potential target when I set out; I just settled on windmills after coming upon the first one.  It was simply therepeutic to get out and start clicking photos again.  All the while I had a Nick Lowe song repeating in the back of my head:

 

I am determined for my own sanity to get out with my cameras more.  Maybe not as much as in the old days, because I want to be a good husband and dad.  Bringing the kids with on my photo trips will help, and maybe even kindle in them a love of roaming photography.  Meanwhile I hope to have more to share than simply political rants, which don’t take much road time at all.  Back to my love of North Dakota and sharing it online.  Maybe the next song going through my head will be Back in the Saddle Again!

Watch that last step

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fallen_farm_50066When I first started venturing out for my Fallen Farms series of photos I discovered that there are more of these than I would have expected.  I suppose they were harder to demolish and either haul away or bury.  Whatever the reason, they do look pretty neat in a wistful way.

Frosty four wheelin’

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frosty_4x4_36458Lately the temperature swings have made for some cool frost.  Not the long spiky kind, unfortunately, but frost just the same.  This is one knobby on the tire of my truck, and it caught my eye as I was getting ready to head out with my camera the other day.  This was before the current warm stretch, of course.  I hope I can start getting back out with my camera more, just like the old days…

It’s not supposed to float away until they put it back in the water

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riverboat_36470Crews spent some time lashing the Lewis & Clark riverboat to the shore this weekend as the river level jumped up in the area.  The park is closed and water is high due to ice packing in downstream.

 

riverboat_36507Every year they take this boat out of the water with a huge crane and set it on some heavy duty cribbing until spring.  That’s all fine and dandy until the water rises to the level of the boat anyway.

 

riverboat_36515Even the ice machine wanted to get into the act.  That’s a pretty decent seal, although I doubt that water is going to do the compressor or electrical components any favors.

I didn’t take a look at the water level indicator further down River Road, but I did notice some water in the ditches and low lying areas further north along the road.  Hopefully we don’t have to deal with more flooding this year, in Bismarck or anywhere else in North Dakota.

EOW 2-11-2016

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peace_officer_memorial_36388-90_HDRFargo police officer Jason Moszer has passed away due to injuries inflicted by one of the citizens he’s sworn to protect.  Domestic violence calls can be the most unpredictable and volatile situations, and this proved true on the night he was shot. This cowardly act on the part of the shooter was senseless and deprived a community and a family of their hero.  I drove to the capitol yesterday and stopped at the Peace Officer Memorial to ponder for a second.  The thought of another name being added to that wall is infuriating.

There’s a donation campaign underway.  If you want to help out Officer Moszer’s family, please consider going here and donating.  I’ve been on the receiving end of financial help from others when we were going through our family’s avalanche of medical and other issues, and it’s an enormous blessing.  Here’s the link:

https://www.crowdrise.com/fargopoliceofficermoszersfamilybenefit/fundraiser/aaranjoneson

Pray for the family and comrades of Officer Jason Moszer.

Why you’re swimming in both kinds of music: country AND western

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kbmr_36383This little bugger is known as 1059580, which to the average person is KBMR 1130 AM.  It sits over on East Rosser Avenue, right in the backyards of some Bismarck residents.  And it’s putting out 10,000 watts of your favorite country classics.  Unfortunately it’s putting it in some rather troublesome places.

Anecdote: when I was working at a local TV station years ago, our on-air talent began complaining that they were hearing “country music” in their IFB earpieces.  At first we thought they were nuts (after all, they are broadcasters) but eventually had to switch to wireless earpieces.  One of the station engineers figured out that the offending signal was coming in through the power lines.

I recently came across this situation again with an audio mixer that proved susceptible to this phenomenon.  When I’d adjust the microphone preamps I would be treated to a twangy jam instead of the audio source on the other end of the wire.  I ended up switching to a different mixer to get rid of the result.

I’ve also had instances east of town where I couldn’t leave a microphone cable on the concrete floor without picking up KBMR and had to switch to wireless.  What a joy.

A friend of mine who used to work over by the Coca-Cola plant said he could hook up to his filing cabinet and get his dose of the classic country.  I don’t know if he could feel his teeth tingle, but maybe that’s just reserved for the people who live right next to this tower.

I’m just a layman and possess no engineering or electrical degrees, but I think I know the issue:

 

kbmr_towerThe image above shows KBMR’s tower, which these days is located behind the studio building, in relation to two big electrical junctions: the Western Area Power Administration and Montana-Dakota Utilities.  Remember how I said the engineer traced the interference to the power coming into the building?  By the way, those are people’s homes in the left edge of the photo.

What I’m wondering out loud is whether it’s a good idea to be throwing 10,000 watts of radio frequency energy into the local electrical grid.   In one of our trucks, if I drive alongside the power lines on the south side of Century Avenue, KBMR even bleeds into KFYR 550 AM.  Not an ideal situation.  It seems as though being adjacent to two substations turns the electrical wires into a giant antenna array.

My understanding is that KBMR’s daytime tower (they go low-power at night) used to be east of Menoken.  When Anderson Broadcasting began building 710 AM KXMR, they moved all operations of KBMR to the in-town stick and used the Menoken tower as part of a directional array for 710.  I can’t find an online paper trail of this using the FCC’s page, because their site and search aren’t very intuitive.  But that’s my foggy recollection.

 

kbmr_2My contention is that if KBMR’s full-power signal was beaming 10,000 watts on 1130 kHz from this site east of Menoken, people wouldn’t be picking up Merle Haggard in their dental work and houses on 35th Street wouldn’t require filters on their telephones.  But that’s just me… I’m just a simple caveman when it comes to this stuff.  As a video professional, though, I sure wish I didn’t have to chase this signal out of my microphones when recording within the Bismarck city limits.  I grew up listening to classic country & western music with my dad, but there are times I wish it would only come out of my radio and nothing else.