Tomato happiness
I brought a couple of tomato plants back with me from my last trip to Kansas in June and gave them to my boss. One of them had a small green tomato forming on it that had started growing back in my old state.
My boss brought that same tomato into work yesterday. It was small and rich, deep red with a sore through the middle. The tomato was like me: it started in Kansas and became something better in North Dakota. I thought that was kind of cool.
So I ate it.
No grocery store tomato could even come close to how delicious that little sucker tasted.
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 25, 2008 at 1:36 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Worth Repeating
"That confirms it. I'm getting old. So I'll be 10-24, 10-8."
-member of Jamestown Police telling dispatch he completed his assignment (10-24) and is in service (10-8). I have a list of 10-codes at my desk now, it's so handy.
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 24, 2008 at 8:16 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
I can has laptop?
My new-for-me laptop has arrived, and I am pleased. Here it is:
I say it's new-for-me because it's actually four years old. It's refurbished, though, which means it's like new, just not. It's got a lovely screen, a keyboard that I love and was cheap enough that I can tinker with it without fear of serious consequences.
I've already installed a RAM upgrade (How nerdy is it that I had spare RAM modules sitting around the apartment) and updated the operating system. I've also added plenty of software that I can use on the go, including the latest verson of iTunes. That means I can rent movies on it for going on flights and long trips and such.
So far the only real problems I've had with it was that the power settings need to be tweaked to better suit my lifestyle, which isn't really a problem at all, and that Areavoices doesn't work with it, which isn't a surprise because Areavoices doesn't work with any computer but the one I have at work. This is widely different from the last two laptops I have owned.
The first was a Sony I bought for college that brought my mountains of problems, many of them stemming from lies told me by the lying liars at Best Buy. As a result of all that, I will never by a Sony computer ever again, nor will I ever buy something at Best Buy that I could get somewhere else.
The second laptop I owned was an HP with Windows Vista that I bought about a week or so before I moved up here last year. I returned it after two days because it was dropping drivers like hot potatoes and was clearly only going to get worse. I have to give Office Depot credit for allowing me to return it without any serious problems, and I still go there from time to time and don't feel bad about spending money with them. But no more Windows Vista. Ever.
So that brings me to laptop No. 3, which after two days is hunky dory. No sudden loss of data, no ridiculous failures, none of that. It just works. I like that.
Now I just have to keep The Sun's Webmaster from stealing it. He is clever, you know.
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 24, 2008 at 2:20 PM | Comments (3) | Permalink
A tease
I have been asked by a reader of this blog about where my next Discovering Dakota destination will be. This is a poorly kept secret here at The Jamestown Sun, so I won't announce it here. Instead, here is a picture that was taken close to that town. See if you can figure out where it is. If you guess correctly, I will confirm it.
The photo:
Good luck, everyone.
Update: Not even 30 minutes after I posted, Doug Leier has figured it out. You'll find his answer in the comments section. Geez Doug, how?
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 24, 2008 at 1:43 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink
Yep, I got wet
I got myself thoroughly soaked to bring you this video of the heavy rains we just got. I hope you're happy.
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 23, 2008 at 2:04 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Worth Repeating: After the Storm
"Oh, excuse me, I'm floating! I was wondering what I was doing."
-a Jamestown Police Officer responding to advice over the scanner to avoid getting water in his engine's air intake after the heavy rains we got today.
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 23, 2008 at 2:01 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Oh boy, look at that rain
The rain is really coming down hard right now. The gutters are flooding and a river is roaring down the alley behind the Sun building. I'll have a 3-minute video up in a while of what it looks like out there.
Update: Now it looks like a blizzard outside. And our roof is leaking. This video should be interesting.
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 23, 2008 at 1:24 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Bonsai: Lord knows how long later
I can't remember how long my bonsai plant has been growing now, but it seems to be doing well. Here, have a look:
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 22, 2008 at 4:23 PM | Comments (5) | Permalink
I want my laptop!
FedEx is supposed to deliver my laptop at any minute now. I've been waiting patiently since last week for it to arrive but now I really just want it to be here. It's silly, I know, but this comic from XKCD really illustrates my mindset for the past five days:
Update: It's here!
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 22, 2008 at 12:12 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink
If fonts were people
This is just so funny, although in part because I use a lot of fonts (This is Arial here). The fine people at Collegehumor.com asked themselves "what would fonts be like if they were people?" Now we know:
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 22, 2008 at 11:56 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Discovering Dakota: Gackle stands on the straight and narrow
The following column was originally published in The Jamestown Sun on July 21, 2008.
If not for the strong wind coming out of the northwest, I could have just let go of my steering wheel and taken a nap as I drove along the 19 miles of asphalt between U.S. Highway 281 and Gackle, N.D. This stretch of road on North Dakota Highway 46 really is that straight.
The travel Web site www.roadsideamerica.com and other online sources describe this as the longest stretch of straight highway in the U.S. I believe it.
It was too bad the wind kept me from trying to drive my car on autopilot, but the view made up for it. For miles around me I could see stalks of grain being blown in waves down the prairie, creating stripes in the fields that raced across the ground. I stopped to take a picture; the wind hit me so hard I could barely hold onto my camera.
I arrived in Gackle without any problems, parked the car and set out on foot down Main Street. The town seemed quiet as I set out, though the wind was anything but. There was the Krieger movie theater, with showings every weekend. There was the Gackle Public Library, where the librarian had left her phone number in the door should anyone want a book after hours. And there was Tastee Freez, which was just what my growling stomach needed.
I stepped inside the little white building with red and blue trim and was glad to see the owners had the good sense to arrange the seating area with more booths than traditional tables and chairs. The special was a broasted chicken dinner. I ordered that with a chocolate milkshake and learned from a sign on the wall that the restaurant let locals set up charge accounts.
The lady at the counter, Shelly Anderson, noticed my camera and notebook and asked about my profession. When she learned I was a journalist, she told me her daughter is a college student in Moorhead, Minn., who is studying the very same field.
Anderson joined me in my booth to talk about careers in journalism, and I did my best to tell her the truth without scaring her. She said she doesn't normally work at the restaurant; she was there covering for another daughter who had gone to Medora with some friends.
The conversation shifted to Gackle, and Anderson told me a bit about the city. She said the town is the duck-hunting capital of North Dakota, and every fall hundreds of hunters come out to the many bodies of water near the town to fill their limit.
I mentioned the little library I'd seen just a moment before, and Anderson told me I should call the librarian to ask for a look inside.
My food was ready a moment later. The shake was thick the way milkshakes are meant to be, the chicken was moist and tender and the fries and coleslaw were just right. I thought it would be -- a restaurant won't last in a small town unless the food is worth coming back for.
I went back outside and wandered east and found Lehr Park, where I met Delores Johnson. She was sitting on a bench there watching her great-granddaughter, Jade Yaeger.
Johnson spoke with pride about the park, telling me it was a lot of hard work from many people in the community that made it so nice and clean.
"It's a nice little town," she said. "Better if we had a grocery store."
We talked a little more before I said goodbye and continued east, where I found Gackle Public School. The school's mascot, a giant oriole, stood proud under a tree by one corner of the building. I paused, took a couple pictures, and headed back west to see about having a look at that library.
I found the librarian's number on the door and called to ask about an interview. She came right over.
"We're very fortunate to have a library in a town this size," Librarian Nedina Denning told me as she took out her key, a hint of what sounded like German heritage in her voice. "Not too many small towns have libraries anymore."
We stepped inside. The building couldn't have had much more than 1,000 square feet of floor space. The walls and shelves were packed with books and films, and there was a TV with a video player toward the back.
Denning told me there were about 4,000 volumes in the library when she did a count this past spring, along with 290 videos. The collection is always in flux, though; there were about a dozen new audiobooks on the table she said she'd just received, and there were a few boxes of books in the back she hoped to sell because they were doubles of books already in the collection.
The library is open for a total of six hours spread across three days each week, plus any time Denning comes over to open up for someone who couldn't fit into the schedule (like me). She gets about eight or so visitors on most days, but Wednesdays are busier and sometimes there will be as many as 20 stopping by. Those numbers go up in the wintertime when people need something to do indoors.
"I get all the company I want in here," Denning said.
She said she had lived in Gackle for 28 years and been the librarian for the last eight; she took over the job when the previous librarian got cancer.
Denning told me she had something very special she wanted to show me and slid a small door out of the way. She reached in and pulled out "An Illustrated Story of the Great Civil War," a book that was copyrighted in 1896. That's just 31 years after the war ended. The binding was in rough shape, but the pages looked wonderful, especially for being 112 years old.
Denning had a couple other books from that time period, too, including a book of photographs that was printed in 1894. She said she's thinking about getting them insured. She also had plenty of newer books, including several Calvin and Hobbes collections.
I thanked her for her time and left. I drove north on Main Street to the edge of town and turned to the west at Highway 46.
Just as I got outside of town, the road, the straightest highway I'd ever seen, bent into a giant S-curve.
(Logan C. Adams is the assistant editor of The Jamestown Sun. He operates the Sun's news blog at www.areavoices.com/adams and can be reached at 701-952-8451 or by e-mail at ladams@jamestownsun .com)
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 22, 2008 at 7:00 AM | Comments (1) | Permalink
More Gackle bonus materials
Here are a few more pictures from my trip to Gackle, N.D., that did not make it into the paper. First is a picture of a field on North Dakota Highway 46 a few miles west of U.S. Highway 281.
This next one is of the Tastee Freez in Gackle where I had a lovely chicken dinner.
Finally, I couldn't help but notice how friendly people where as I walked around the town. Countless people made it a point to wave as they walked or drove past. Heck, even this rock had a friendly message for me.
For anyone who might have missed the column, it will be posted to this blog Tuesday morning.
Posted by: Logan C. Adams on July 21, 2008 at 4:00 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
