2015 Pictures Dump

            So I spent another summer working construction observation. As always, I was sure to keep my camera handy. Same as last year, I think got enough interesting shots to deserve a picture dump.

            I was on a project in the Bakken Oil Patch. They say work has slowed down, but it still looked plenty busy to me.

There were always a couple drilling rigs nearby

Work didn't stop after the drilling was done either

            The work I was observing was the rebuilding of about nine miles of county road. There was plenty of earth moving and paving to provide photo opportunities.

Lots of Caterpillar equipment

Scrapper high jinks

Hours were generally long

            The project ran from May to November. I was up there long enough for this:

Brand new box culvert

            to go to this:

Frozen box culvert

            Such is life on the road. Everything take on a special perspective.

Special mileage milestones

Cooking pizza in the testing shack

Pink paint got on everything

One day the wind blew at least a thousand tumble weeds through site in about an hour

This was my hotel receipt at the end of the year

             I also took plenty of pictures of little things that happened to catch my eye.

I didn't paint this

The fact that this single pylon had a complete covering of mud intrigued me

Something about the symmetry

North Dakota still has it's old timey charm

It's like Chinese New Year

Textbook mud spatter

Work rarely stopped

  

I had to take some more flare pictures

            And of course I had to photograph all the wildlife I saw.

Cow of both the Red and Black Angus varieties

Plenty of seagull, just not a lot of sea

The Birds

Pheasant and Fiber Rolls

I learned this year that they're ground squirrels, not gophers

They don't have the teeth to be gophers

My pet, snakey

Muddy turtle

A little green frog

Crawfish crawling back to the water

 

The clam couldn't crawl

Fuzzy Caterpillar

Bug on my clipboard

            Sometimes I didn’t actually see the animals.

This isn't even a barn

Sinister raccoon tracks

  

            And the animals weren’t always alive when I found them.

This is not snakey

Didn't smell as bad as it looks.

Not all baby birds learn to fly

Not wiley enough

This one was still pretty fresh

            And that does it for this year’s work pictures. I only made it snorkeling once over the summer. Pictures were sub-par compared to last year, but I guess I can throw the best one in just for continuity.

High fish count, low visibility

            No ducks this year. I was upset too.

More Duck Facts

Needs more duck facts.

1. Ducks have five stomachs and they can convert matter directly into energy.
2. When dropped in a vacuum, a duck feather will fall faster than a bowling ball.
3. Ducks have this thing called a cloaca that serves as an all-purpose orifice for their urinary tract, intestines, and reproductive organs. This isn’t all that special, but I think it’s neat. Also, they defecate and micturate at the same time in one semi-solid blob.
4. Duck sneezes are a powerful stimulant that can be dangerously habit forming. Be sure to call your doctor if symptoms persist more than four hours.
5. Ducks are terrible drivers.
6. The brain waves of a duck are mathematically perfect.
7. A lone duck singlehandedly held off over 500 men at the battle of the Daisy Park Bridge.
8. They can smell if you’re not having fun.
9. Jeff Goldblum is friends with several ducks.
10. Ducks exist across six spatial dimensions. 
11. According to classical mechanics, duck flight shouldn’t be possible. It only occurs due to the cumulative effects of quantum tunneling. 
12. I’ve seen a duck punch through a concrete wall.
13. Duck bills are a 14 on the Mohs Hardness Scale.
14. That creaking sound that you hear at night; that’s a duck in your walls. It’s checking for bad wiring, because only ducks can prevent house fires.
15. Duck feathers are a fractal pattern down to the atomic level, and have near infinite surface area.
16. Nervous tissue from ducks is a room temperature superconductor.
17. Ducks are allergic to ska music.
18. The morality of ducks is based around if actions will make someone smile.
19. The nose that fell off the sphinx was actually a duck bill.
20. The universe only exists within the mind of a duck.
21. Life started on Earth when a duck traveled back in time and pooped in the primordial ooze. We evolved from duck poop is what I’m saying. Also, the duck came first, not the egg.
22. The English unit, foot, is actually based on the Welsh word for duck, “fwtl” (also the origin of the word “fowl”), and not the anatomical feature. The distance was originally based on the length of a prototype duck, which is mummified and kept in the basement of the Tower of London. Now it’s based on how far light travels within a specific fraction of a second, which is lame.
23. Your dragon style is no match for my duck style kung fu.