Glad to Live There No More

The People's Republic of Arlington, Virginia is so far left this is how they plow snow.

A Special Tribute this St. Patricks Day

On this St. Patrick's Day, we give special tribute to my widowed great, great grandmother Margaret (nee Roach) Foster.    

Margaret Foster hailed from the Townland of Mota Bower, Parish Carnew, County Wicklow, below Dublin in the southeast of Ireland. She had been widowed on October 1, 1837 when her husband, Isaac Foster, passed away, leaving her with five minor children. They were tenant farmers, living on land owned by the Earl of Fitzwilliam, called the Coolattin Estate. 

On April 18, 1849 Margaret, along with children Harriett, James, Elizabeth, William (my great grandfather) and Isaac, boarded the ship Bridgetown from New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland, during the throes of the Irish Potato Famine. On June 1, 1849 the ship landed in Quebec, Canada and the Foster family's adventure in the New World began.

And a special shout out today, to my Albertan cousin and his wife who have so assiduously tracked down our heritage, and kindly shared the fruits of their labors. 

Erin go bragh!

Forty One Years Ago Today

On March 16, 1973, spring was in the air, and we were on the ground in Boston, Massachusetts, not to partake in the St. Patrick Day festivities, but on a road trip to the NCAA National Hockey Championship (in subsequent years known as the Frozen Four). We had driven 20 hours straight from Madison, Wisconsin to root the Badgers on in their semi-final game. It was a notable trip out, followed by a dramatic tournament, and a trip home (read this post to the end) that we would never forget.  

The semifinal game was scheduled for Friday night. The Wisconsin Badgers hockey club, a young up and coming team that had yet to win a national championship, were slated to face off against the powerhouse Cornell Big Red, winners of the NCAA tournament two of the previous five years. Cornell had recently graduated Ken Dryden, a goalie who went on to win the Conn Smythe trophy, as the most valuable player in the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs, during his pre-rookie year with the Montreal Canadians.  Dryden is probably best known to the casual fan as the announcer who did the color commentary, during Al Michael's dramatic play-by-play call of the the U.S. hockey team's "Miracle on Ice" victory over the Soviet Union, at the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980. Cornell was heavily favored. Wisconsin was heavily supported by its fans.

Montana Corned Beef

Note to self. Remember, come St. Patrick's Day next year, and each year thereafter, to simmer the corned beef an extra hour -- we are at 4,887 feet you know.

Icing Over Small Business

The Forrestal Building, 1000 Independence Ave., Washington
DC, regulator of small businesses everywhere.

Obama's minions are working the pens and phones -- and the Federal Register I might add. Here is the latest from my old work neighbors in the Forrestal Building Energy Department Headquarters, across from the National Mall at L'Enfant Plaza in Washington, DC. Ninety seven percent of the people who work in that building have never produced anything of tangible value in their lives, but they love to dictate to the rest of us.

Post by Grady Foster.

The federal government regulatory regime is hellbent on destroying small businesses like The Ice House (see picture below), 997 Story Mill Rd., Bozeman, MT. They will not stop and will not be happy until all that are left are big government and their big business corporate cronies. Most of you have voted for this insane form of government. God help us all.

And the Sequester Had to End? That Is Insane!

The hue and cry from Dear President and his adherents was that they couldn't manage under the budget sequester.  It was cutting to the bone and beyond.  BS!  Lies! Look at it -- 65 percent waste, self-perpetuating bureaucracy, dysfunctional, and secret, autocratic and unaccountable. Here is what one of Obama's insider, true believers has to say as he walks out the door.

The director of the U.S. government office that monitors scientific misconduct in biomedical research has resigned after 2 years out of frustration with the “remarkably dysfunctional” federal bureaucracy. David Wright, director of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), writes in a scathing resignation letter obtained by ScienceInsider that the huge amount of time he spent trying to get things done made much of his time at ORI “the very worst job I have ever had.” 

**** 

It is actually worse than it looks.

David Wright writes that working with ORI’s “remarkable scientist-investigators” was “the best job I’ve ever had.” But that was only 35% of his job; the rest of the time he spent “navigating the remarkably dysfunctional HHS bureaucracy” to run ORI. Tasks that took a couple of days as a university administrator required weeks or months, he says. He writes that ORI’s budget was micromanaged by more senior officials, and that Koh’s office had a “seriously flawed” culture, calling it “secretive, autocratic and unaccountable.” For example, he told Wanda Jones, Koh’s deputy, that he urgently needed to appoint a director for ORI’s division of education. Jones told him the position was somewhere on a secret priority list of appointments. The position has not been filled 16 months later, David Wright notes. 

OASH itself suffers from the tendency of bureaucracies to “focus … on perpetuating themselves,” David Wright writes. Officials spent “exorbitant amounts of time” in meetings and generating data and reports to make their divisions look productive, he writes. He asks whether OASH is the proper home for a regulatory office such as ORI, noting that Koh himself has described his office as an “intensely political environment.”

A committed, competent, intelligent and fair minded President could get rid of half of the federal bureaucracy and the only differences we would note is the government would improve.  But you all blessed us with Dear President.  God help us all.

Oh! For you low information voters out there, HHS is the department that gives us Obamacare. Sweet.

More Avalanche...

This is really getting old. Be safe people, be prepared and stay off the steep slopes -- always.

GROVE CITY, Minn. -- Students and staff in the Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City School District are mourning the loss of high school senior Zach Junkermeier, who was killed Tuesday in an avalanche in Montana.

Junkermeier, 18, of Lake Lillian, was snowmobiling with friends -- including others from the Atwater and Lake Lillian community in west-central Minnesota -- when he was swept away by an avalanche near Cooke City, Mont.

Zach Junkermeier

"Today is the day everybody's numb and in shock and at a loss for words," said Superintendent Sherri Broderius.

"Students don't know what to do. Teachers don't know what to say. Nobody does," said Broderius, who had little sleep after being notified Tuesday night by the Atwater police chief that Junkermeier had died in the accident that afternoon.

Local ministers and school counselors with the Southwest/West Central School Crisis Response Team were at ACGC all day Wednesday, meeting one on one with students and staff.

They also met with small groups of people involved in activities with Junkermeier, including the football team, track team and Spanish club. Junkermeier had been scheduled to travel to Puerto Rico in a couple of weeks with other Spanish students.
Broderius said the school was doing everything it could to support students and Junkermeier's family, including his brother, an eighth-grader at ACGC.
"There is no greater loss than the death of a child," Broderius said. "We're here to support the family in any way we can."

Crown Butte avalanche photo. GNF Aval. Center.

According to the Park County Sheriff's Office in Montana, Junkermeier was riding with six friends in the Daisy Pass/Crown Butte area when officials with the Yellowstone National Park Dispatch were notified at 4 p.m. Tuesday that a snowmobiler had been buried in a large avalanche estimated to be 500 feet wide, 600 feet long and 20 feet deep in areas. 

In a brief interview Wednesday, Park County Undersheriff Scott Hamilton said Junkermeier was stopped midway up the slope and another snowmobile and rider were crossing above his location when the avalanche was triggered. 

The Associated Press reported that Junkermeier was trying to start his snowmobile at the time.

Hamilton said all members of the snowmobile party were from the Atwater and Lake Lillian area.

Broderius said she was aware that some ACGC students had been snowmobiling in Montana and that some had returned home.

But Broderius said she did not know if ACGC students had been with Junkermeier when the avalanche happened and did not know whether any ACGC students were still in Montana.

Junkermeier, who was not wearing a rescue beacon, was found around 5 p.m. Tuesday under 6 feet of snow near the toe of the debris field, according to the Park County Sheriff's Office. 

Rescuers performed CPR but were unable to revive him.

 Here are the Avalanche Center's aftermath videos.






You can get lucky, if you are prepared.



But don't depend on it.

Overnight

Spring recoiled.

Eighty Six Years Later, Doctored Photo?

The 1928 photo of Main Street in Manhattan just cannot be.  There wasn't nearly enough carbon dioxide in the air to cause extreme climate events back then.

Post by Pioneer Museum of Bozeman.

Post by BELGRADE NEWS.

Real Climate Change

Sunday.

Post by KBZK TV.

Friday.

Post by KBZK TV.


Monday.

Post by US National Weather Service Great Falls Montana.

Why Obamacare Doesn't Work

It's really not complicated.  This was highly predictable.

I have spoken with a number of generally healthy, hard working, responsible and uninsured individuals (or previously insured in the individual market) with moderate incomes who are not going to sign up. They sat down, worked out the numbers, and decided no. The community rated, mandated liberal math, that underlies the program, does not work for them. They will wait to sign up until they are sick, or reach an age or a state of health that raises their risk, to the point that signing up is financially feasible. 

This is a big fucking deal.

It's really a fraud to call Obamacare insurance because it is not insurance anymore. It is not even prepaid medical services. Rather, Obamacare is a program that institutionalizes and deeply ingrains an individual's right to pass along healthcare costs to others.

At one time or another, most of you have voted for this.  God help us all.

Obama Still Pushes the Myth

Post by Grady Foster.

Sometimes We Gloat

On January 5, we posted Epic Freeze for the Great Lakes Coming: Water Levels Already Back to Normal, looking ahead to what was to come. Among other things, we prognosticated that Lake Michigan was "headed for 90 percent plus ice coverage."

Great Lakes ice concentration 3.4.2014

At the time, Lake Michigan's surface was covered 18 percent by ice. The Great Lakes as a whole had an ice cover of 23 percent. Now the latest daily readings are Lake Michigan is 93 percent ice covered, and 92 percent of the entire Great Lakes system is under ice (see table below). 

The Lake Michigan seasonal high ice mark matches the record of 93 percent coverage set in 1977. The Great Lakes aggregate is second only to the 1979 record of 95 percent. In late February, gale force winds churned and broke up ice packs and stacked surface ice against lake shores and floes on top of one another.  The winds pushed Great Lakes ice coverage down from 85 percent on February 18 to 62 percent on February 23 (see table below). If it had not been for that interruption, this season's ice coverage likely would have smashed previous records. Lake Michigan could have totally frozen over. As is, we are number two.

In the single variable world of the global warming alarmists, we were warned prior to 2013. Great Lakes water levels were receding due to years of lower than normal ice coverage.  It was said by such luminaries as Al Franken (D Minn.) that global warming was causing water levels to decrease.  Open winter waters increased surface evaporation. Al said give me money to address the climate change scourge -- big money.

Lake Michigan ice concentration 3.5.2014

Obamanistas warned of near term water level declines of between two and four feet. There would be areas along Lake Michigan where enough new shoreline would be exposed to open up the Midwest's version of a Daytona Beach speedway. Ecological and commercial (due to fishing and shipping impacts) Armageddon was in the offing. Except, Great Lakes water levels recovered to near normal late last year, before there was hardly a lick of ice cover on the Great Lakes.   

This winter exposes the Great Lakes water level scare tactic for the fear mongering political statement that it was.

Now we are warned of severe flooding. From Bill's WOOD TV Blog, here is the scoop on national snowcover and massive seasonal snowfall totals in lower Michigan. 

 The map/graphic on the right is snow cover across the U.S.  On Tuesday 53.9% of the U.S. had a snow cover.  That’s the highest total this late in winter since 1978.   The average depth in the snow covered area is 6.8″.  That’s a lot of snow and a lot of potential for spring flooding. 

Season snowfall:  Holland 148.8″, Muskegon 129.4″, Grand Rapids 110.7″, Kalamazoo 104.6″

Snow packs are deep around four of the five Great Lakes this year. Lake effect snowfalls, one after another, were caused by interaction of frigid winter air masses with the lakes.  

Meanwhile, the towering snowpack rimming the watershed will melt this spring and much of the water will flow into the lakes or the streams that feed them. The runoff is expected to be so bountiful that some areas will be in danger of flooding, a prospect that could be worsened by ice jams on swollen rivers. 

"Any additional rainfall on top of that snowpack would add to that flood threat," said Keith Kompoltowicz, hydrology branch chief with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers district office in Detroit. "We're certainly paying very close attention to the weather in the next few weeks."

Look out for the floods -- we can't wait to capture the first opportunistic politician, climatology nut, United States President or mainstream media propagandist who correlates the upcoming floods to global warming, aka, climate change. They miss few opportunities. We will let you know about their new fantasies as soon as we see them published.

Note: 3/7/2014, the coverage is a March record.

Note: 3/11/2014, two days after this post Lake Michigan officially set the new record.

Lake Michigan Ice Cover Reaches Record Coverage!

This last stretch of cold weather during late February into the first week of March caused ice concentration on Lake Michigan to rapidly increase. The Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) in Ann Arbor Michigan measures the ice concentration on the Great Lakes daily.  On March 8th, the ice concentration on Lake Michigan was measured at 93.29%.  This sets a new record ice coveron Lake Michigan.  The previous record was 93.1% set in 1977.   The period of record dates back to 1973. 

    

Five Years Ago Today

Five years ago today, a natural gas explosion and ensuing fires devastated the center section of a city block on Main Street in Bozeman, Montana.  The anniversary is a where were you then and what were you doing when you heard it and felt it event for the locals.

The Rocking R Bar is rebuilt, back in businesses and going strong, put on a Mardi Gras bead contest last night. Darn, I missed it!

So too is the American Legion bar rebuilt.

There are plans for rebuilding on the two adjoining lots. Construction should begin sometime in 2014. But there is no way to replace the loss of Tara Reistadt who lost her life that morning for no other reason that she showed up early for work.  God rest her soul. Following are several contemperaneous reports.

BOZEMAN, Mont. - A natural gas explosion and fire rocked downtown Bozeman on Thursday morning, collapsing three buildings, prompting evacuation of a two-block area and leaving one person missing, officials said.

Crews were allowing the fire to burn because officials hadn't been able to completely shut off a natural gas line.

Assistant City Manager Chuck Winn said there were no reports of casualties, but said the rubble of the collapsed buildings was not yet safe to search.

"There's so much damage there and so much fire still that we cannot get our crews in," to search the rubble, Winn said.City officials said four businesses were destroyed — a restaurant, a bar, a gallery and a children's store — as well as an American Legion building.

The blast shook ceiling tiles at Schnee's Boots and Shoes three blocks from the explosion and knocked down shoes that were on display, said Dawn McClelland, who had just reported for work.

"The whole building shook," she said. "I thought somebody had rammed (a car) into the back of the building. The people up front thought the ceiling was falling in."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/bozeman-montana-rocked-natual-gas-explosion-3-buildings-collapse-1-missing-area-evacuated-article-1.369523#ixzz2v6e0on1G

Minutes after explosion and before fire spread to neighboring buildings.

http://newwest.net/city/article/explosion_in_downtown_bozeman_destorys_two_bars_evacuates_two_blocks/C396/L396/

Update Monday, March 9: Authorities have identified the one casualty of the blast as 36-year-old Tara Reistad Bowman, who was working at the Montana Trails Gallery at the time of the explosion. Bowman’s body was recovered from the rubble on Sunday.

There will be an auction and fundraiser for all those affected by the explosion on Saturday, March 18th from Noon until Midnight at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds. Drop off points for auction items include: The Country Bookshef at 28 West Main, Downtown Antiques at 122 East Main, and Artistic Images at 25 North Willson. Donations of money can be sent to First Security Bank at 208 East Main. Checks should be made out to Downtown Bozeman Association for the downtown recovery fund.

Update Friday, March 6: Bozeman officials said at a press conference this morning that one person remains missing. Otherwise there were no injuries. The gas was turned off late last night and the fire is now smoldering and under control. National guard troops helped secure downtown last night. Fire crews are now beginning their investigation. Air quality from the smoke plume is a concern, and most of Main Street – from Rouse to Wilson – remains closed, though part of it is open to pedestrian traffic. Officials are checking the structural integrity of buildings in vicinity one by one. Business owners and others can call a hotline at 406-582-2300 to get the latest information.

Thursday, March 5th: An explosion early Thursday morning in downtown Bozeman destroyed several businesses, including two bars, an art gallery and the American Legion. Police officials confirmed this afternoon that only one person is unaccounted for and there are no reports yet on injuries.

The explosion happened at 8:12 a.m. at Boodles bar and restaurant and spread from there, destroying the nearby Rockin R bar, the Montana Trails Gallery, Lilly Lu’s and the American Legion. Starkey’s Deli is where the fire ceased; the popular lunch spot sustained extensive smoke and water damage but is still standing. On the other side, where the Rockin’ R was burned, crews worked to stop it from spreading into the Rocky Mountain Rug Gallery, which sustained mostly water damage.

City officials said at a press conference this afternoon that the crews have stopped the fire at Starkey’s Deli and have it contained at the Rockin’ R.

The fire is still burning, but Assistant City Manager Chuck Winn said this afternoon it will go out once the gas gets shut off. Some lines were still burning — left so intentionally to make sure there was no build up anywhere. The governor said the gas will likely be shut off by 4:30 p.m.

The natural gas line that exploded dated back to the 1920-1930′s, said a representative of NorthWestern Energy, and didn’t have an emergency shutoff valve. NorthWestern Energy closed the valve on Black Street after digging it up, and was currently working on installing a valve on Rouse Street in order to isolate the exploded line.

The heart of natural gas service for Greater Bozeman is centrally located downtown, therefore downtown’s natural gas system could not be shut off without major implications for thousands of residents and buildings.

Crews haven’t been able to get into rubble to check for injured people or casualties. Winn said this morning: “There’s so much damage there and so much fire there that we can’t get our crews in to assess at this time … to do the kind of searches we typically do.”

NewWest.Net Bozeman editor Lucia Stewart says there’s glass shattered out of storefronts as far as four blocks away on Willson, and debris is spread in at least a 200-foot radius. Winn said this afternoon that cinderblocks from the site were found some two blocks away. Strangely, the window of the City Hall building where the press conference took place was also shattered, and actually framed the billowing smoke from the explosion site.

Main street is closed off from Rouse to Willson, but officials said parts of downtown may open late in the day. The 100 block of east Main (Rouse to Bozeman) is likely to be closed for several days, however.

Many business owners on Main Street cannot access their stores at this time, with many worried merchants curious about the security of their inventory now that the glass is broken out and inclement weather is expected to move in tonight. There are also concerns of frozen water pipes, since now that the gas is expected to be shut off by the late afternoon.

And from the New York Times,

BOZEMAN, Mont. — In the struggle to keep its historic core viable, this city, with throngs of college students, Yellowstone-bound tourists and wealthy second-home owners, has defied the trend of declining downtowns. Main Street is a bustling place.

Multimedia

Slide Show

Explosion Wounds Montana Town

The New York Times

But a natural gas explosion nearly two weeks ago ripped a hole in the heart of Bozeman’s downtown, killing a woman, leveling five historic buildings that contained thriving businesses and damaging several more whose condition will not be known for some time. Dozens of plate glass windows on Main Street were blown out.

Concern about the future of the historic downtown, a five-block stretch of Main Street and a block on either side, grew last week when investigators said the cause of the explosion was a leak in a gas line to one of the destroyed businesses, Montana Trails Gallery. The line was more than 70 years old. The woman who died, Tara Bowman, the gallery director, was working when the explosion occurred. City officials say that no estimate of damages has been released.

Beyond the obvious destruction, the blast delivered a deep psychic blow to the business district, which was already going through some difficulty because of the declining economy.

“The explosion has significantly rocked this community,” said Chris Pope, a commercial real estate agent and the owner of a severely damaged building. “People are holding their breath. The stark realities of doing business in 2009 is in the front of everybody’s mind. There will be businesses that leave downtown.”

A Sign of Spring

I kind of feel like I am the last one to know, but we noticed something today for the first time -- snow fleas.  Not a few but thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and I am sure, millions of them are out there, just in our little corner of the world.

The temperature spurted to a warm and sunny high of 47 degrees F today, yielding a welcome respite from the below zero temperatures and blizzard conditions of last weekend. Massing on top of the softening snow were brigades, divisions and armies of the fleas. There were dozens, even a hundred or more in a single square foot.

Snow fleas are seen here as little black dots in foreground.

Snow fleas are part of the food chain that decomposes organic matter and returns nutrients to the soil.

Snow Fleas are not fleas at all, but a type of insect called a springtail. Springtails get their name because they have two long things that look like tails sticking from their abdomen (back body section). The "tails" can fold under the body and are held by two hooks under the body.

When the springtail releases the hooks, the insect goes flying in the air.

Snow Fleas are very small, about 1/16 inch long. They are dark blue, have short antennae, and have two eye clusters (with 16 eyes in each).

Snow Fleas, and other springtails, live in soil, leaf litter, mosses, fungi, and along shores of ponds. Sometimes they can be found on the surface of ponds. Since they are so light, they can walk on the surface without sinking.

They eat old dead plant matter, bacteria, fungi, algae, pollen, roudworms, rotifers, and sap. Roundworms and rotifers are tiny microscopic animals.

When I realized those little black dots were fleas I thought here today, gone tomorrow. But not so. The little buggers manufacture their own antifreeze.

Snow fleas in particular are able to withstand the bitter temperatures of winter thanks to a “glycine-rich antifreeze protein,” as reported in a study published in Biophysical Journal. The protein in the snow fleas binds to ice crystals as they start to form, preventing the crystals from growing larger.

Approximately one square foot of flea covered snow.

Why are they called snow fleas?

During very cold Winter days, Snow Fleas are not very active. But if it warms up, Snow Fleas will become active and look for food. They may even crawl out onto the surface of snow. This is how Snow Fleas get their name. People notice large amounts of them, like black dust...

And so it goes.

More Evidence of Global Warming

In the latest indicator of extreme climate variation, proving the human caused global warming theory with certitude, the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin, West Potomac Park in Washington, DC, will bloom ultra late this spring, perhaps even beyond the extended three week run of the Cherry Blossom festival. Thanks to Al Gore and Barack Obama for warning us this was coming. How about some of those climate change impact funds for DC, don't you think?

Cherry trees around the Tidal Baisin damaged by this year's severe winter weather. WTOP/Radio.

Student Loan Program Running Amok

Come one, come all, get money without standards, merit or real recourse. Borrow government money to live on. Once you get into a hole too deep to get out then defer the debt bomb by borrowing more. All the while, grease the pockets of Elizabeth Warren's cronies -- we have talked about this before.

The latest data are highlighted in today's Wall Street Journal.

The debt continues to skyrocket, now near $1.1 trillion. Student loan delinquincy rates are bumping up against twelve percent, which understates the degree of the problem due to hundreds of billions of repayment obligations being held in abeyance.

Today's story is that student loans are being used to pay for non-educational needs (I worked to support myself, except for a few months, throughout my seven year college career, and had an excellent, even outstanding academic record). And students are re-enrolling to rack up new debt in order to suspend paying previously incurred debt that could not be paid. The student loan program is throwing bad money after bad.

Some Americans caught in the weak job market are lining up for federal student aid, not for education that boosts their employment prospects but for the chance to take out low-cost loans, sometimes with little intention of getting a degree.

Take Ray Selent, a 30-year-old former retail clerk in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was unemployed in 2012 when he enrolled as a part-time student at Broward County's community college. That allowed him to borrow thousands of dollars to pay rent to his mother, cover his cellphone bill and catch the occasional movie.

"The only way I feel I can survive financially is by going back to school and putting myself in more student debt," says Mr. Selent, who has since added $8,000 in student debt from living expenses. Returning to school also gave Mr. Selent a reprieve on the $400 a month he owed from previous student debt because the federal government doesn't require payments while borrowers are in school.

The essential flaw is that colleges and universities decide who gets the money and how much. Yet they have a conflict of interest because they are ultimate recipients of most of the trillion dollars of loan money outstanding.  There is no recourse available against the colleges and universities when the loans are not repaid.    

If this system is to be retained the institutions who approve and administer the loans should be required to cover the defaults and backstop delinquincies.   That will clean up the mess, pronto.

One Hundred Fifteen Years of Difference

My aunts Grace, Bina and Florence circa 1899. 

Our girls circa 2014.

Saturday Pictures

Saturday Pictures

March 1, 2014

(click to enlarge)

Big wind, big snow, big drifts and big below (zero that is), today March 1, 2014.

Before the storm, the original "Ted's Montana Grill" on Willson and Main, Bozeman, MT, with the Bridger Range in the background.

Sticker says"I am the NRA and I vote," and he clears snow from your parking lots and driveways at all hours.

Another relative perhaps? 

Look, the lady is smiling!

February Top Posts

A cold stock, frigid cold weather and Bathgate, North Dakota led the way in February at Along the Gradyent. Seeing as how the temperature has dropped below zero in Bathgate during fifty out of the last sixty days, we can chalk the Bathgate stories up into the cold column as well. Here are February's top ten most popular posts, ranked by page views. Thank you readers for your loyal support.

1. Last October, in "To Invest in a Bank," we reviewed our decision to invest in Glacier Bancorp (GBCI) while the financial crisis was still being resolved in 2009. It eventually paid off. But GBCI hit a couple of bumps in the road in late January and early February, drawing attention to our post. We wrote a quick update to help readers identify the forces that caused the pavement to temporarily buckle.

2. Isaac J. Foster is my grandfather. He died two decades before I was born. By all accounts, he was an epic figure. Ike was a farmer, stock man, auctioneer, real estate broker, insurance agent, civic activist, county sheriff and all-around business man. Along the way he had eleven kids. "On the Road to Bathgate Act 4e: Isaac J. Foster's Civic and Public Lives (Part 1)" is the first of a three part series on Isaac's public life. This first post describes a time when Isaac confronted and rebuffed a chilling accusation that, if had been true, would have destroyed all that followed.

3. We posted "Epic Freeze Coming for the Great Lakes: Water Levels Already Back" on January 5. We were early predictors --  at the time ice covered only 22.7 percent of the Great Lakes surface area.  Ice coverage since peaked at 88 .7 percent on February 13th. Winds subsequently blew apart large sections of the ice pack but as of yesterday coverage had recovered to 85.4 percent. In the next few days we will be flirting with the highest ever recorded coverage. Stay tuned to see if the frigid air mass or the winds prevail. Whichever wills out, we have already proven Al Franken myopic and wrong. Hallelujah for that.

February 28, 2014 ice cover.

January 5, 2014 ice cover.

4. I never met my uncle Lyndon R. Foster, but I feel like I know the man after researching and writing "On the Road to Bathgate Act 4f: Lyndon R. Foster -- Veteran, Publisher and Politician." Uncle Lyn's life and career were explosive -- literally.  Read this post to learn about a man who almost sacrificed his life exercising his First Amendment privileges. "Red" Foster is the dude.

5. In "The Foster Family: Politicians 'R Us" we found relations as we surveyed the landscape from the Great Lakes to the Pacific, and from Canada down to Texas. We got it covered.

6. In "On the Road to Bathgate Act 4c: By George We Got It" we relate how a story our research uncovered in the May 31, 1911 Bathgate (North Dakota) Pink Paper positively identifies the subjects in an old family photo.  My dad is the little guy in the wagon -- really cool.

7. There was a lot of talk about the Polar Vortex during this incredibly cold winter, so when we thought of a way to illustrate the mechanics, we posted "To Understand the Polar Vortex." If you have ever looked at a lava lamp in operation, you have an inkling.

8. We posted "On the Road to Bathgate: Norval Baptie Champion Skater" last April.  The post became timely during the Winter Olympics when the Baptie's legend was refreshed.  If there were a winter olympiad back in his day, Bathgate's most famous citizen would likely have won at least three gold medals.

9. "On the Road to Bathgate Act 4e: Isaac J. Foster's Civic and Public Lives (Part 3)" looks at Ike's three terms on the North Dakota State Livestock Sanitary Board. I uncovered handwritten meeting minutes from the 1910s and 1920s.  How cool is that?  Look at Part 2 as well, which details Ike's life and times as Pembina County sheriff -- alleged murder, embezzlement, a posse and a hanging, it's all there. 

10. In Washington DC, when it comes to getting work and support, it's not achievement and merit that count; it's leverage and influence. In our decades of residence inside the beltway, likely as not the source of the was "It's that Fella Across the Street."

Here is hoping to a great and pleasant March for everyone, though with a below zero high today and blizzard conditions, we are not off to the best of starts.



Love Lane, just West of Bozeman, March 1, 2014.

And midday road conditions up at Bozeman Pass, ten miles up the road.

Status

Sfc

Sub

Air

RH

Dew

BaroPs

Precip

Intens

Rate

Vis

SpdAvg

DirAvg

Ice Warning

Bozeman Pass I-90 MP 321.8 - WB lane MP 321.3 (564002.0)

03/01/2014 11:11 (MST)

Site Map Camera History

-2.2F

17F

-16F

77%

-21F

-

None

None

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-

21 mph

E

There is an Interstate in there somewhere.