"I'm here to impart my wisdom, so they can have the benefit of my experience from the very beginning, rather than starting from square one. It's not such a bad job at all. All the people who do this are children at heart. Dinosaurs are cool, and some of us never grow out of that phase."

- Stephen Begin, an expert on extracting fossilized dinosaur specimens from rock and other material. He is in Bismarck for a time to help staff at the state Heritage Center in the beginning phase of recovering the mummified remains of a duckbill hadrosaur discovered near Marmath. Its finder, Tyler Lyson, who grew up in the area where he found the fossil, now is studying for a doctorate at Yale University. Lyson wants the dinosaur display to stay in North Dakota.

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"She sounded like a 90-year-old smoker. It was scary. The first thing the doctor told us was if she needs to be admitted, all the beds are full in Bismarck, and she will have to be transferred to Fargo."

- Jason Wald, who brought his 18-month-old daughter to the emergency room at Medcenter One in Bismarck on Tuesday and discovered the full-up status in the pediatrics unit, actually the case in both hospitals. Most of the bed occupancy by the very young is due to a virus, respiratory syncyntial virus, also called RSV, that causes serious illness. Wald's toddler, Jenna, turned out to have croup, but nonetheless needed to be transported to Fargo for treatment.

* * *

"… losers from North Dakota."

- So said the Web site of WDTW-FM radio in Detroit that is trying to organize a crowd large enough to strip the Guinness World Record for mass making of snow angels. The standing record is 8,962 people who gathered on Feb. 17, 2007, at the state Capitol in Bismarck, dropped to the snow-covered ground and made snow angels simultaneously.

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"I just had a senior moment one day and thought … 'I'll see how long it's going to grow.'"

- Bern Tolosky, a Basin Electric employee, who sports shoulder-length, salt-and-pepper hair. But not much longer. Basin employees are volunteering to be shorn or shaved in a couple of weeks, meanwhile raising money from sponsors to take the baldness challenge. All will donate their take for childhood cancer. Tolosky had a $500 goal; so far people have pledged $1,375 to see him bald. Ten women are among those signed up.

* * *

"She was a great player last year, but this year she exploded. I think she grew up. She really matured and took all that raw talent and skill and got it really focused. She was great as a team captain and as a leader on the squad."

- Coach Kevin Mahon of the Bismarck High School Blizzards girls hockey team, commenting on Miranda Glatt, who is this year's North Dakota "Miss Hockey."