Home Depot, Menards -- Williston, North Dakota Update

A reader sent this in as a comment. I posted it as a comment but am bringing it up here to make it easier to access and to search on google. The comment:

On KUMV-TV news: the manager of the Williston Home Depot satellite store said if business is good, they will potentially put up a full size Home Depot.  

Just an FYI. I have been following blogs on both Home Depot and Menards. Home Depot said they will decide on a full-size Home Depot in Williston after a 6 - 9-month review of business.  

Menards had Bid Letting on July 11th and ground breaking on July 21st for the new Williston Meanrds store. http://dodgeprojects.construction.com/Menards--Williston--ND-Home-Improvement-Store_stcVVproductId136953049VVviewprod.htm

From the Dodge Leader center bidding site (which, by the way, is linked at "Data Links"):

Menards (Williston, ND) Home Improvement Store

• Valuation: $12,000,000
• Owner Type: Private
• Location: ND (Williams)
• Report #: 201100561732 v. 7
• Dodge Report Dodge BidPro Report
• Description:
• This project consists of 3 buildings - The main retail building will be between 168000 - 201000 (approx) sf and will consist of slab-on-grade concrete floor construction - EIFS and masonry exterior walls - excavation - site utilities - asphalt paving - landscaping - large parking lot and paved access rood to loading and warehouse areas - steel framing - steel joists - steel deck - membrane roofing - Mechanical - electrical - plumbing - 2nd floor partial mezzanine - public restrooms - meeting room offices - painting - flooring - public restrooms - The ware house will be between 35,000 and 45,000 sf - - slab on grade concrete floor construction - wood siding - wood framing - wood trusses - wood deck - shingled roofing - there is a small guard shack that is wood.

********************************

USAF Procurement

This is really cool, and coincidental. I am reading a most interesting book on the development and procurement of the premier USAF fighter, the F-15. The book is written by Colonel (Ret.) Donn A. Byrnes, c. 2007.  I picked the book up, of all places, at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque, NM, on our cross-country trip from Dallas to Los Angeles. [I see the paperback is available for $64.29 (new) at Amazon.com. One can still get a brand new copy at the museum for much less than that.]

The F-15 is a single-seat fighter, noted for its ability, among other things to accelerate when ascending vertically, the first American fighter to be able to do that. There were a limited number of two-seat F-15's used for training with approximately one to two two-seat F-15s assigned to every F-15 fighter squadron, each of which had approximately 30 aircraft (at least overseas back in the 1980's and 1990's); I forget (or possibly never knew) the exact number. I was fortunate enough to have had almost exactly 100 sorties in the F-15D model over the course of about two years, all in Europe, mostly in Germany.

The book is an entertaining (to say the least) look at the procurement process in the US military and, most likely, the US government in general. Now, I see the process begins for a new US long-range bomber. The top story is being reported at Fox News: 

Not much is known about the Long Range Strike-Bomber project, which has been run as a classified program since 2011. But the bat-winged stealth bombers would likely cost around $550 million each, and the Air Force hopes to contract for as many as 100. That would add up to as much as $55 billion -- for a fleet of fighter planes the likes of which the world has never seen. Still, the pricetag would be lower than the B-2 currently used.

“The LRS-B is a top modernization priority for the Air Force. It will be an adaptable and highly capable system based upon mature technology,” Air Force secretary Deborah Lee James told the U.S. Naval Institute.

Any young captain working on this new LRS-B project might do well to read Donn Byrnes book on the F-15.