One of the primary reasons I got into photography was astrophotography, or photographing the night sky. I've always been a big stargazer and have quite the equipment for doing so (even down to an iTunes playlist, which I will share soon). I got my first camera to take pictures of Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) in particular, and even got a few shots before the sunspots responsible for them fizzled. Since then we've been in a solar minimum, one with an in explicable lack of sunspots. I have been blaming myself and my camera purchase, of course.
Then I got my new camera and have had a very hard time finding some night skies. Usually when they were clear, the moon would pollute the scene with unwanted light. That or I just wasn't able to break away at night to try for some cool shots. This weekend I did get a chance to hang out with the new camera and some other gear. One of the reasons I wanted to upgrade my camera was for the new one's better performance in low light, and I was not disappointed.
This is one of my new favorite stargazing nooks, and as I grow accustomed to the features of the new camera I'm sure you'll see more of this lone tree or the hidden rural road featured in the first photo above. I was only out for a short time, but my friend and I saw LOTS of shooting stars and satellites. The Milky Way was quite visible until the moon started to rise on the east horizon. It was also getting cold and late, so we called it quits for the time being. Hopefully I will have plenty of stargazing photos to add to these over the rest of the summer!
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( 3.1 / 90 )
I haven't seen a crowd like this at the capitol Independence Day celebration in recent memory! It was a very uplifting sight. Just about everybody rose and stood at attention for the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The performance of this grand hymn was the most amazing one I've ever heard, with all the verses about Christ intact, and it was a breathtaking experience. The fact that thousands of my fellow North Dakotans stood to take it in as well made it even more special.
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( 3.1 / 101 )So how do those letters and numbers appear in the capitol windows every July 4th, Christmas, and New Year's Day?
Tonight some of these windows will be lit up with "4TH" as part of the Independence Day celebration on the front steps of the capitol. Every year the celebration features the music of the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra and finishes with a dramatic fireworks finale. Have you ever found yourself wondering how those numbers or colored Christmas tree shapes appear in the capitol building's windows every July and December?
That's where Bill comes in. He works for the Facility Management Division up at the state capitol, and it's Bill and his crew who oversee the window shade pulling (and opening) to make sure it's done right.
While Bill can pretty much do this by habit now, he does have an interesting aid: a diagram of the capitol with the relevant squares (the ones to be lit) highlighted. Facility Management and Bill were kind enough to let me tag along for this year's window shade operation.
Bill has his custodial crew of around thirty people close all the shades on the front of the capitol as well as the east and west sides. The idea is to have the sides completely blacked out for the celebration, with the "4TH" visible only on the front. Once the crew closed all the shades on those three sides, Bill and I roamed the necessary floors and pulled open the shades forming the text.
Some windows are in spacious offices, and some are in pretty tight spots such as narrow supply rooms. Some are in such tough spots that I got to lend my lanky arms to Bill's aid in order to snag & pull the cord. Because of that, I can lay claim to part of the 4 and (I think) the H!
The whole process took about a half hour, and I don't think I held up Bill at all. This was an easy one; the letters were small and compact, and only one side is lit. During Christmas there is the complication of colored shades and two sides to do. For New Year's there are four sides of the building to do. Also, for displays that are left up for more than one night, it's important to stay on top of things to make sure the right shades are up and down and lights left on.
I arranged this visit with Bill not only for this blog, but also for an article I'm writing for a future issue of the Dakota Beacon magazine. I'll let you all know when that issue becomes available. I do have an article of a different sort appearing in the upcoming issue, which just went to the printer on Saturday. Bill had some interesting things to say, and I hope to revisit them in the full article as well as an updated post right here on the ol' Blog!
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( 3.4 / 116 )
For this month's printable self-standing desk calendar, I chose a photo from last year's July Fourth Celebration at the lovely North Dakota State Capitol building. The symphony is performing in the lower left, and the skies are full of the rockets' red glare. This is a shot that is featured in pthe 2010 North Dakota Travel Guide, available free from ND Tourism or at most local gas stations and hospitality businesses.
If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed, you're good to go. It may take a little bit for the program to load, but the file should download reasonably quickly. Click on the icon below to download the free Adobe Reader if necessary.
When you print the PDF, fold along the lines and tape or staple at the bottom. You will then have a free-standing desk calendar with a reminder of the joyful celebration of Independence Day at one of Bismarck's most prominent landmarks.
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( 3 / 126 )
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
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( 3.9 / 47 )
Calendar
