Dakota Today

**Architecture-- University Grotesque HodgePodge Style and Graffiti

First the graffiti.  I rant and rave about vandalism, but this bit of graffiti is just plain clever and
funny.  Not  sure of the source.  It was emailed to me with no references.

And, graffiti of an architectural kind on the University of South Dakota campus at Vermillion. The appearance may be an artifact of the alumni publication or the computer generated image. Whatever..the new student center looks like a dog's vomited breakfast.
Click on image for a larger view. Source the recent USD Alumni News. This looks like something from Grotesque HodgePodge School of Architecture... Toss together the plans for a confinement hoghouse add on a nursing home design, toss in an exposed stairway and something from the plans of a highschool gymnasium and hot lunch food service....mix in a large nonsense block of decorative brick and WOW!! Your perspective might be better and/or much different than mine, but sticking this building on the same campus with Old Main seems like architectural graffiti or vandalism

. **Stay tuned even if a blog is just a house of pixels blowing in the wind--- Doug Wiken

**Some useful and interesting software and an "edu" ultimate deal

In a previous post, I noted that Microsoft Vista is so huge and ungainly without significant improvements ...apparently...because The South Dakota Moderate dumped his PC in favor of a Mac after tangling with Mr. Gate's latest OS. In the other direction of huge and ungainly are the very, very small programs written in assembler language that do a lot.

The GUN is a very small text editor and viewer which dramatically contrasts with more than a few Microsoft programs. It isn't loaded with features, but does a lot considering its size. This would be a good simple text editor for USB flash drives. Check it if for no other reason than to see what a very small program can do.
New Window LINK to THE GUN Homepage and Download site

"GUN" is an acronym of some sort that has "Notepad" in the title, but I can't find the reference now. There are more programs and information at the homepage NWLINK to "High Velocity" software

Another program that just has an odd name, but works despite the name is "THE EGG" which is actually an "Easy Gallery Generator" for webpages with photos. Not huge and pretty basic, but it does work, but read the help information and keep your image size a bit smaller unless you want your readers to have to scroll to find the "Next" and "Previous" buttons.
NWLINK to "Ian's Homepage (with EGG info)

And while I am dinking around with odd software, you might as well take a look at "Space Jock's Software".
NWLINK to Space Jock Software

Take a look at YBOOK, YREAD, and YWRITE you might find them interesting and useful.

BUT, if you are a college student taking even an hour or two of course work but have a valid "edu" e-mail address, you may be interested in the "Ultimate Deal" from Microsoft. Apparently $670 worth of software for something like $67. Almost enough to make you wish you were back in college...well maybe not. Time may have run out on this deal or it may be soon over, so if you qualify and are even remotely interested, better check this deal right away.

NWLINK to Student Ultimate Software Deal for MS Office

And, how about Hillary and Obama and Bill in South Dakota? One would never suspect that they were in South Dakota by listening to their speechs which have strong links to South Dakota which I would guess all of them would soon forget about if they actually got into ..or were..in the White House.

**Stay tuned for more usual fare. I just haven't had the stomach for listening to much of the obvious pandering-- Doug Wiken

**Apple blossoms and Tim Johnson coms

Yesterday was sunny with a blue sky and white fluffy clouds. Apple blossoms were very striking and pretty. Got out the camera. There are other trees in town with white blossoms. Maybe a photo of them when it stops drizzling and the sun shines again.

And, in the e-mail info from the Sen. Johnson organization. They have a new campaign website. Take a look. I am still a Democrat, but I am also still more than a bit pissed at some of Johnson's votes. He should have known better and demonstrated more integrity. But, what have the Republicans given us in the last eight years?

New Window LINK to Tim Johnson dot com

**Stay tuned even if Hobson's choices aren't particularly appealing when we have to make them again and again.-- Doug Wiken

**They're baaacckkkk and so is Hillary

A few days ago, I missed one of those classic photos. A small neighbor girl and her smaller brother had picked some dandelions out of our weedy grass and were proudly walking up the sidewalk with their bouquet in their hands held out in front of them. Anyway, the yellow pests look good in photos even if they look like crap in the grass.

Meanwhile, she's baaaackkkk too. Hillary Clinton is scheduled to be in Sioux Falls today sometime around 2:15PM at an airport hanger as she flits from the east to the west coast..Oregon perhaps.

As anybody reading this blog for very long knows, I preferred John Edwards even with his southern accent compared to Hillary or Obama. My respect for Hillary has dropped more and more as she has campaigned more and more desperately with less and less integrity. Hillary is getting her high negative ratings the old fashioned way, she has earned them.

And, I do hope somebody in the press or in the crowd will ask Hillary why we should ever support her or anybody else who supported the Bush war powers in Iraq as a presidential candidate or any other kind of a candidate. That decision was so fundamentally wrong from the obvious facts and for the constitutional reasons that it cannot be justified retroactively and it could not be justified prior to the vote. The ONLY reason for her supporting the Iraq war was in the hopes of pulling in the wingnut loons of the right who are blinded by the flag they think waves only for them. It was a desperate expedient amoral vote and it will be that forever. Whatever legacy Hillary had, it disappeared with that vote. It had already been tarnished by her votes for big banks, big credit card operations, bankruptcy legislation, etc.

We do not need another president in the White House who will take any position on any issue simply in the interests of pandering to the loudest most well-financed groups.

***Stay tuned even if you love both Hillary and Dandelions--- Doug Wiken<

**Wet Snow in Winner April 25, 2008

So much for the mist and light possible chance of snow forecast last night. A couple inches of partly cloudy early this morning and it kept falling until around noon. Photo below shows some of it mostly before sun had done it's work. By now, the ground heat and sun has melted a lot of it. Must have been around a half inch of actual moisture in it. Photo below.

And, the snow shovels had already been packed away. South Dakota of all places...indeed.

***Stay tuned even if you don't think snow and weather is the cat's pajamas----Doug Wiken

**South Dakota ..Ins and outs going anywhere

Apparently even Black Hills cougars or mountain lions have heard about the SD GOP policies of garbage in and graduates out. A cougar decided apparently after some kind of advanced cougar degree in the mountain school of hard knocks took off for what seemed like something better...only to be shot in Chicago.

The story from Chicago and a photo of the "crime scene". Not sure how long this link will be any good however.
NWL to Black Hills Cougar travels 900 Miles?

Searching for Black Hills Cougar via Google turned up a site with a big pdf file from SD Game Fish and Parks and SDSU. I borrowed part of a good image there. You might want to look at the original and the information there as well.
NWL to Easter Cougars SDSU/SDGFP PDF

Below is some Dakota Today editorial use of the good image.

On the other hand, the Omaha World Herald today April 17, 2008 has an article titled "Tax Scofflaws--14,000 Nebraska cars registered in Iowa, S. Dakota". Hmmm? Build a crappy license and tax system and they will come. Be nice if they also paid sales tax on those "South Dakota" cars.

Actually, there are crappy laws in Nebraska and South Dakota...both in one way or another exploiting the poor for the benefit of the very rich...but then, graduates for South Dakota colleges and universities just like Mountain Lions, can go anywhere from here...and cars can come here from anywhere.

Now, I gotta go outside and shiver since as indicated in a previous post, I had my ears lowered a couple of inches.

***Stay tuned for more of the South Dakota ins and outs sooner or later, taters--- Doug Wiken

**Dakota Today--Mountain man, Mountain goat

With the weather in South Dakota on a roller coaster of warm to frigid for the past weeks and months, I have delayed on getting a haircut and neglected shaving. We might say it is a winter hair situation. But, even the Jackrabbits are loosing their white winter hair, and I will have to get a new drivers license from the great state of South Dakota. My wife didn't think forcing viewers of the photo ID to decide if the image was a mountain man or a mountain goat was a really good idea. So, you can see the before and after image below.

Unfortunately, unlike the jack rabbit, my winter hair and summer hair stays the same conspicuous old geezer white. Looked like the barber was sweeping up flour. They did recognize me even if it had been months since I darkened their door however.

I do hope the temperatures don't drop precipitously.

***Stay tuned for something more important

**Actual image reflected in Dick Cheney's Glasses

You saw it on TV, you've seen it in blogs, but you really didn't know what was reflected in Dick Cheney's glasses until now. See the real deal in THE DICK's glasses straight from Ludefisk Images compliments of Ole and Lena, award winning photographers.

Meanwhile, the rightwing, Hillary, and McAncient are trying to pin an "elitist" label on B. Obama for noting that some voters are "bitter" about the consequences of NAFTA and war costs on their jobs and taxes. Imagine that. I guess Hillary and McCain are so insulated from the real world that they just can't imagine we might be just a tad bit pissed off at their blunders, lies, and incompetence.

**Stay tuned, I may get around to noting the lunacy being spewed by RR (not Ronald Reagan) at the remnants of Mt. Blogmore--- Doug Wiken

Winner Spring Winter or Snow and Mud

I watched KELO weather for the last week or so with doom-filled projections for monstrous snows and thought their initial predictions would put most of it in SE South Dakota. But, I cleaned up most of the tools outside anyway. Then when the snow hit, there wasn't much...until it hit again and again. I don't know, there may be something between 6 inches and a foot of snow. A lot of it melted on the bottom making mud out of the township road and also making it very hard to move the snow off after my little Mitsubishi Eclipse proved it was not a snow plow. Anyway, I got it shoveled out and moved enough that I could clear off most of the snow with the tractor. Below is a photo I took this morning in Winner a few hours before they got around to blading the snow off the streets.

The sun is shining now and if the wind slows down a bit, the area would be pretty tolerable. Sounds like next week is going to be more like actual spring. This snow seems wet enough, most of it may stay where it fell which would be some good moisture for the area.

My son-in-law said he saw something like 20 cars and two semi-truck-trailers in the ditch along the interstate in eastern SD last night. The slush on the roads out here yesterday could have pulled vehicles into the ditch, but I haven't heard yet if there were any serious crashes around here. Electric power flickered off and on so that hospitals, etc. had to switch to standby power generators.

**Stay tuned. The weather is always a topic even if it is never interesting to anybody except the victims themselves--- Doug Wiken

**Blue sky, dry grass

My wife and I lived for a few years in Rochester, NY. While the rain and lack of dreadful dry summer winds made huge trees possible in all directions, those same trees meant the sun, sunrises, sunsets, and sky were seldom seen as on the plains of South Dakota. There were no broad horizons visible unless we looked across Lake Erie. Yesterday, the sky was mostly blue with some clouds. I hope you enjoy the photo below.

Sometimes, we don't know what we've got until we don't have it anymore. Click on the photo for a larger view.

**Stay tuned even if your view of South Dakota is impaired by the stench of factory farms or city lagoons-- Doug Wiken