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More Background On Scratches — Why Now?
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More Background On Scratches

The Anchorage Daily News provides some more information on two earlier scratches:

… Jason Barron of Lincoln, Mont., scratched Thursday morning in McGrath because some of his 14 dogs were sick. Barron, 36, has finished seven Iditarods with a best of eighth place in 2006. He was 14th last year.

… Cliff Roberson scratched in Rohn after injuring himself lighting a propane stove. “The cooker blew up in his face, and burned both of his eyes. He said it blasted so hard it almost knocked him over,” said Suzanne Roberson, who spoke to her husband by satellite phone Wednesday afternoon. “If he went back out and completed the race, he’d probably end up with permanent damage to his eyes.”

I had assumed Jason Barron’s dogs had gotten sick, because that has been the pattern. Dogs are ailing because of the temperature, rather than the strains and injuries of last year.

They reported earlier that Roberson had eye injuries, and I assumed that he had gotten whacked by a tree limb while he was moving along the trail. Having a propane stove explode in your face is fairly scary, even if you weren’t alone in the middle of a whole lot of nothing and nowhere.

10 comments

1 hipparchia { 03.07.08 at 10:07 pm }

i was just reading that article. pretty impressive:

When DeNure first arrived in Alaska six years ago, she didn’t know how to start a campfire. Now she’s driving dogs in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

and she’s 58th at the moment.

my first thoughts on reading about that propane stove explosion were essentially unkind ons i hate to admit, something along the lines of darwin awards and note to self: check name of neurosurgeon before agreeing to next operation. but yeah, that would be an extremely scary thing.

i’m sorry kim franklin is out. i was rooting for her to at least finish.

2 Bryan { 03.07.08 at 11:46 pm }

It sounds like the stove was broken, and leaking fuel. You have to use them, because there are vast areas where there is nothing to burn in a campfire, and even if there were, if you start one on tundra, you might not be able to put it out – think frozen peat bog.

It is too bad, but fortunately they located the dogs.

3 Michael { 03.07.08 at 11:51 pm }

btw, the name service is still intermittent.

4 Bryan { 03.08.08 at 12:16 am }

It is better than yesterday when the only way I could get in was through Google. It must the .US registrar.

5 Michael { 03.09.08 at 3:55 am }

Probably so. Do you think .by.net would be a good TLD for a name registry?

6 Bryan { 03.10.08 at 1:07 pm }

The TLD would have to be something like .by_net, as .by.net is a sub-domain. There are few two character [by] sub-domains available on .net or .com.

.by is Belarus.

Trying to get a TLD approved is a major PITA. I’m waiting for .blog to lift the load.

7 Michael { 03.11.08 at 1:11 am }

Maybe something not to be discussed here. .by.net is what I meant, though.

8 Bryan { 03.11.08 at 12:49 pm }

You were thinking about setting up a sub-domain set-up like dumka.us. This is whynow.dumka.us, but there is also http://www.dumka.us, and I can create other sub-domains if I choose.

The problem is that you can’t control the domain name servers with a sub-domain, that right belongs to the official registrars of the top level domains, like .net, or in my case, .us. The official databases are mirrored throughout the ‘Net, but they are controlled at a central point.

9 Michael { 03.11.08 at 11:31 pm }

Yes, I know all that.

10 Michael { 03.11.08 at 11:34 pm }

Some things don’t need more explanation.