That's where I met Jeff from Watertown, SD. He's working for a company that is going through parts of the sewer system in Bismarck and preparing it for maintenance. The city will be putting polymer sock liners in some of the sanitary sewer lines around the city. But when someone builds a house and taps into the sewer line and weld their pipe to the main line, part of their pipe protrudes into the main line. That's a problem for anyone trying to stuff a liner down the pipe. That's where Jeff's company comes in.
He's operating a motorized camera/light rig that drives down the pipe. From the other end of the neighborhood are the rest of the crew, driving up a machine that spins inside the pipe, flinging 3 lengths of chain and driven by 2000 PSI of water pressure. The machine grinds away the protruding lengths of pipe or any other obstructions so that the liner may be applied to the pipe later. Jeff's job is to use his camera/ light to spot protrusions and give the other guys directions to hone them out of the pipe. They communicate by 2-way radio and he tells them which way to go back and forth until the pipe is honed clear.
This machine does a pretty slick job. Jeff's got computers and a tape machine, and they record and log everything they do. They can then provide the city with a diagram of the length of pipe they've serviced, labeled as to where they encountered obstructions, what they looked like, how they were dealt with, and what the pipe looks like after they've cleared it. He showed me printouts of all of that stuff. It's really pretty slick.
Thanks to Jeff for the explanation. He's also got a couple of Canon digital SLRs like me and enjoys wildlife photography, so we had a really nice chat. It was quite gracious of him to explain everything he's doing and take time during his busy evening to show me all the stuff that they do.
So just remember...the reason everything works the way it does is because the city's got guys like Jeff and his crew that help maintain and upgrade the system. And they've got cool machinery to enable them to get that job done.
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( 3.1 / 611 )The Bismarck City Commission meets on Tuesday nights in the basement meeting room of the City-County Office Building on 5th Street in downtown Bismarck. You can view their agenda for upcoming meetings online in PDF format by visiting their website* using the link from the Links section of this page (upper right).
If you cannot make it to the meeting and you would like to hear what is said, you can view it online in real-time or when it's replayed by visiting the Community Access TV website at www.freetv.org. The same is true for all their content, by the way. Check their schedule.
Windows Media stream from CATV
City government is something in which we should all take part. Have you heard the phrase, "All politics is local politics?" Well, in this case you can be heard personally. I've been able to get things done in and around my neighborhood simply by going and making the commission aware of problems that simply needed attention.
* Pet Peeve: When someone says "log on to their/our website" it really irks me, unless that website requires you to actually log in. If you are not required to enter a user ID and password, you're not logging in. Get it right, TV journalists! :-)
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( 3 / 538 )
That's right! The Cinderella story that was the Holy Cross Crusaders' post-season has come to an end with a crushing defeat by the Fighting Sioux. Now our beloved boys in green head to the big show, along with such worthy company as Wisconsin and Boston College.
Last night's round of games were produced by ESPN but since they didn't televise it, they syndicated it. So the Fighting Sioux game was picked up by FOX Sports Net and broadcast. Tonight's game, however, was on ESPN-U, the college sports channel. Which for some reason I didn't have. One quick call to DirecTV fixed that. Then it was hockey, pizza, and wings as Casa del Clint.
You can find the brackets for the NCAA post-season here. My coworkers tell me there's also some college basketball going on right now too, but I'm really not too concerned about that.
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( 3 / 553 )
This is the trolley bridge in south Mandan, with the thawing Heart River beneath. And the Friday night sun. Yeah, I posted it Saturday...but this is last night's sunset. I'm all about full disclosure on this site.
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( 3 / 447 )
After an intense game, #1 ranked U of Minnesota is OUT. 4-3 in first OT. Holy Cross is probably saying "holy cow!" That game was followed by a 5-1 blowout of Michigan by the UND Fighting Sioux. Yeah, that's right...Fighting Sioux. Sioux. Sioux. Sioux.
I didn't know the slightest thing about hockey until 1998, when I worked my first live TV broadcast of hockey. In the downtime I got bored and went into the arena to watch a game...I was blown away. I've been a hockey fan ever since!
There's a hierarchy I follow in hockey tho; I was offered free Bobcats tickets tonight but dashed home from running around with the camera to scarf pizza and watch UND play. I got home just in time to catch a recap and the start of the first overtime period in the HC-UMN game.
This tournament wraps up Saturday night, with the winner going to the Frozen Four. If you get Fox Sports Net North, that's where you can find the hockey. I've got satellite, I don't know where they are on cable. By the way, one of the sportscasters for FSN is a lady named Marney Gellner, who used to work in local television right here in Bismarck.
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( 3 / 439 )
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