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Monday, Feb. 21, 2005 - 2:22 p.m.

Another gray day�

Maybe it�s just me, but it seems like we are having far less sunshine than is to be expected so far this year. With all of the extra rain, I guess that is to be expected. But even on days when it hasn�t rained, clouds have covered the sun.

Driving around Mohall today really brought this into perspective for me. Middle of winter, gray skies, everything saturated from the 11+ inches of precipitation since January 1st- all set up a depressing vision for me.

Here are the facts- I was off work today (yes, another bullshit government worker�s holiday- but it�s the last one that I get that most other workers don�t until October), Lease and Codeman had to work, the high temperature was struggling to get out of the 30�s, and it was not only overcast, but also hazy?

Not a perfect day to play around with the camera.

Didn�t stop me from trying.

I had to return one of the fluorescent bulbs we bought on Saturday (a three way that was too dim, replaced with a higher wattage bulb) to Menards. As I walked into the store, this item caught my eyes:

Oh, I forgot to mention- I finally got around to installing the Photoshop Elements v2.0 program that came bundled with the digital Rebel. I have been playing around with it for the last hour, and I think this will end up being the one program I use to edit my photos. It appears to be much more complicated than either of the photo editing programs I have used in the past, but the end results are worth the extra editing.

Anyway�

This is the water supply line for the unlikely event that the store catches on fire. The contrasting surfaces (brass, steel, and rough concrete) stood out even more once I edited the shot. With the dull lighting I had to work with, saturation had to be adjusted with Photoshop, too.

Maybe a little over edited? You tell me...


Like I said- after I left Menards I basically drove around town, looking for something to point the camera�s lens towards, hoping for inspiration. I ended up stopping at the almost-completed new Target store on the north side of town for several shots. From there, I hit the construction site for our other new business, Best Buys. It is not nearly as completed as Target, but one thing about the site really stood out to me. More photos taken.

After that, I headed into town. Driving through some of the run-down areas of Mohall really saddens me. Many of the falling apart houses with cars parked in the front mud (no longer yards) were still decent family homes just a decade or two ago. We have lost several of our largest employers in that time span, and the good paying laborer jobs went with them. The largest employers in the city are now public schools (#1) and hospitals (#2 and #3). Few white-collar jobs have been added in recent years, and there haven�t been nearly enough new blue-collar jobs to re-employee all the displaced workers.

So�urban blight spreads rapidly, housing values decline, and many employed people move their families to one of the outlying communities. I don�t like to use the term �white flight�, because working class blacks are doing the same thing here in Mohall.

Yes, we still live in town. Our local area is still decent (if you can overlook Drug Dealing Neighbor next door). But that doesn�t mean we won�t be moving somewhere better in the future. At the rate the state of North Dakota is falling apart (higher taxes and fees, less services for that extra cash), moving out of state is beginning to sound like a good option.

Anyway�

I ended up driving by our biggest industrial employer (a very large grain mill), and shot a few pictures of their smokestacks, belching byproducts (and who knows what else) into the air. My windshield was covered with droplets that formed a sticky film that just smeared when I turned on the wipers of my truck. I can�t imagine what it must be like to live within a few blocks of this place. We used to live about 4 miles to the south and west, and on windy days Codeman and I could hardly catch our breath. Asthma was one of the big reasons why we moved to the west side of town. We rarely if ever smell the stench coming from the mills that were once a regular problem.

Just to the east of one of the mills is a public golf course. Well, it will be that for another 10 months. The property was traded to the factory for another parcel of land south of town with the conditions that the factory would construct a new �signature� course on the new site. The construction of the new course is well underway, so the property should change hands this fall.

I used to fish in the large pond located near the 18th green when I was growing up, many years ago. The pond was stocked with bullhead catfish, crappie, bluegill, and bass. Fishing was allowed, but very few people took advantage of it. About 15 years ago, the state took over the pond and converted it into a stocked trout area. Twice a year, the hatchery sends a shipment of 9� Rainbow trout to the pond. Fishing is off limits for a week, and then opens at sunrise the following Saturday morning. Most of these tame fish are then caught in just a couple of days.

I did buy a trout stamp and took part in this process the first couple of years, but didn�t find what was taking place there as being what I consider �fishing�. It was more like �harvesting the crops�. Since I don�t even like the flavor of trout, I just stopped taking part in the event.

Anyway (again)�

The road around the pond is set up high on a hill leading into the golf course. That�s where I noticed this:

There was so little color in the unedited photograph; I decided to convert it to black and white. Here�s another one, with the color left alone:

O.K.- I didn�t �leave the color alone� . I decided to saturate the color a little. ANd if you stopped by before right now, there was another photo posted in this spot. But after editing with the Adobe program, I liked this one a lot more, so....

More photos in the coming days. It�s time for me to take Bonehead to the vet to (hopefully) get his stitches removed and that damn Conehead thing taken off�

Antique - Futuristic


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