Columns – Page 18 – Dustin Monke

Downtown Dickinson revitalization a growing need

While in Bismarck on Saturday night, I decided it was time for Sarah and I to try something different and move our palettes beyond the growingly bland chain restaurants we have eaten at too many times.

When I started looking for a different place to eat and surprise her with, my first thought was to look up dining in downtown Bismarck. That’s when I came up with the Toasted Frog. I had heard a lot about it, but had never been there — much like many of the dining spots in our capital city’s downtown.

Before Saturday, I had never been in Bismarck’s downtown and thought, “Wow, what a cool atmosphere.” Despite rain, people were out and about and the place was vibrant. The Toasted Frog had great food, and the restaurant and its surrounding streets provided something we don’t have much of in Dickinson — a vibrant downtown atmosphere.

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Fall TV Preview

Every fall, a new TV season rolls around with an assortment of new choices and at least one show that you instantly fall in love with and almost as quickly gets canceled. Anyone remember “Lone Star”?
Well, here’s a list of possibly great, possibly horrible new shows you should at least try out this fall. But do it quick. Before they get the axe.

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Tales of a typical North Dakota harvest

combine — Combining south of New England.

Harvest in North Dakota can be a time of celebration, frustration and, if you get the crop in the bin or to the elevator, pure relief.

Once the crop is cut, there are no more worries about hail, thunderstorms or any other force of nature that can upset the fragile plants on which farmers’ livelihoods hinge. The stuff that makes the money is finally off the field and safely stored.

I spent eight of the last 12 days in August on what amounted to be a working vacation as I helped my dad and brother harvest their durum, spring wheat and canola crop. For those of you who don’t know my family or I, Monke Farms is located just west of the Enchanted Highway about 20 miles south of Gladstone and we farm land throughout northwestern Hettinger County.

Though my job here at The Press made me miss the start of harvest — my favorite part — I was able to experience more of it this year than I have since my first year of college.
Now any farmer will tell you that harvest doesn’t happen without hiccups. Ever.

This year wasn’t too bad though.

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School in August has never felt right

Tomorrow morning, kids in the New England Public School District will attend their eighth day of classes. By the time Labor Day rolls around, they’ll have been in school for 13 days.
In my mind, and apparently several thousand others, that’s ridiculous.

In fact, a group of parents from Bismarck and Mandan have come together in a grassroots effort to get North Dakota schools to start after Labor Day.

Within a month, the group will begin seeking signatures to get the issue placed on the November 2014 ballot in an effort to leave the choice of when school starts solely in the people’s hands instead of a group of school administrators.

I have long felt that North Dakota schools starting in August was absurd.

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Could Hyperloop be this century’s airplane? We can dream.

Last week, billionaire innovator Elon Musk revealed details about a secretive project he has been working on, which he claims could give humanity a “fifth mode of transport.”

The Hyperloop, as Musk calls it, is basically the same idea as pneumatic tubes used by banks to pass documents or money from customers to tellers at drive-through stations.

But instead of being 12 inches long and designed for inanimate objects, the Hyperloop would be solar powered and use forced air to move six human passengers in a capsule 4½ feet wide and a little over 6 feet tall at about 800 mph wherever its tubes run.

This may seem like something straight out of science fiction but it is a legitimate idea that, if it works and if it can be built, would change travel across the country and eventually the world.

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