Posts from — March 2009

The answer is simple: These are retention bonuses, so you don’t retain these people.

There are a lot of unemployed people who didn’t lose $60+ billion, so you say goodbye to those who want bonuses, and say hello to those who want jobs, at lower than previous salaries.

If they want to get nasty about it, those people who are due to get bonuses could legally be denied unemployment benefits as losing that much money surely counts as an unsatisfactory job performance and justifies firing them for cause.

AIG is a very public company at this point with the taxpayers as its largest single investor, so the corporation really is required to justify the retention of these people after their dismal record.

Don’t retain them and don’t pay the bonuses. That is the way real businesses operate in the free market.

I don’t think it would work.

Lance Mackey (47) is on the trail beyond Shaktoolik, having left Unalakleet just after the chase arrived. Sebastian Schnuelle (34) and Jeff King (41) are again the pursuers with an ever widening gap between them.

There is vacation weather for the race this morning, i.e. it is time to find someplace to take a vacation that doesn’t have a 20 mph wind out of the North and a wind chill of -40° [which is the same temperature on everyone’s thermometer – too damn cold].

The trail to the coast has a crosswind and blowing snow to cover the trail, while those heading North have headwinds and frostbite in their future. The dogs love it.

Lance is just about out of the wind and will be enjoying a balmy -20° most of today. He is currently the only one on the course not affected by the wind.

Update: Apparently Kurt Reich (59)^R and his dogs had a meeting at Don’s Cabin on the trail between Ophir and Iditarod and decided that -30° was not in the contract, so they went back to Ophir to scratch. Kurt and his dogs are from Colorado where it gets cold, but not COLD. His record indicates a really bad time around Rainy Pass and a drop off in speed afterwards.

Lance is still in Unalakleet and Mitch Seavey (21) and Hugh Neff (55) showed up at 12:20 AM CDT, 6 hours after Lance.

They are showing that Kurt Reich (59)^R scratched in Ophir, but they haven’t released any other information. He left earlier and must have come back.

Harry T Alexie (67)^R and Karin Hendrickson (29)^R have been racing all day against each other, but Harry is down to 12 dogs while Karin still has 14. Chad Lindner (26)^R was in the mix for a while, but he has dropped back this evening. There are a lot of races within the race that can be more interesting that the main event.

The “red lantern” is in Iditarod, but there is no obvious holder and the last group have also been racing with each other.

The Current Standings:

[Read more →]

Lance Mackey (47) picked up another $2,500 in gold nuggets for being First to the Coast in Unalakleet, and he’s planning to leave before Sebastian Schnuelle (34) gets in. The temperature dropped to -30° which is a normal winter temperature for his kennel in Fairbanks, so his team reacted to the temperature by picking up the pace.

It’s hard for people who don’t live there to understand, but +30° is a problem for dogs raised in the interior. The temperature drop helped him widen his lead. This race is his to lose at this point.

… at the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.

The Daily News reports that Two sheriff’s jobs hinge on interviews:

Chief Deputy Michael Coup and Technology Specialist David Yacks — Teresa Adams’ brother — are both on paid administrative leave.
…

Jim Murray, who had been with the Sheriff’s Office as a staff attorney since 2001 and began contracting to do its legal work in 2006, was notified March 5 that his services were no longer needed.

It would appear that the interim sheriff is unhappy with many of the things he has found in the department.

I would be interested in knowing if “Technology Specialist” Yacks has any connection to the $500K earmark for “Okaloosa County Law Enforcement Technology” that Congresscritter Jeff Miller stuck in the budget bill that was just passed. It would certainly be embarrassing if they had to return the money, the bulk of Miller’s earmarks, to the Federal government.

Remember: this is the Bible belt; these are all Good Christians®; these are Republican patriots who all wear their flag pins and emblems proudly.

Ellroon has certainly found the greatest car commercial ever.

I would note that don’t assume you know when it’s over, just wait for it to finish.

Lance Mackey (47) has a two hour lead on Sebastian Schnuelle (34) on the trail to the coast. Sab is apparently interested in pairing his Yukon Quest win with an Iditarod win. The other leaders are still in Kaltag. This is a 90 mile leg of the trail, so they will have to stop at some point to feed and rest the teams, if nothing else.

Rob Loveman (50) did not scratch at Ophir, he was withdrawn under “rule 36” for not showing sufficient zeal apparently. We’ll have to wait to find out what that’s all about, because they pulled the plug on him while he was taking his mandatory 24-hour stop and he had only recently dropped to the “red lantern” position.

At midnight these were the top six:

1 Lance Mackey (47)
2 Hugh Neff (55)
3 Mitch Seavey (21)
4 Jeff King (41)
5 Sebastian Schnuelle (34)
6 Aaron Burmeister (56)

Sebastian and Aaron have been chasing Lance all day, but they needed to take their 8-hour mandatory rest on the Yukon, so Hugh, Mitch and Jeff have taken over the pursuit. We are in the end game.

Lance has a 3½ hour lead and more rest at this point than the chasers. If his team maintains their pace the only way of catching him is with taking less rest, but if you are tired you make mistakes, as Lance found out earlier. If your team doesn’t get enough rest, there is no way of catching him. It is 70 miles to Kaltag, and then 90 to the coast at Unalakleet. Today should be interesting.

[Read more →]

Nigel, the missing sled dog from the Nancy Yoshida (3) team that had the crash on the 10^th, showed up at the Talavista Lodge in Skwentna on Friday, having apparently decided that the “wild life” was not for him.

Lance Mackey (47) is back in the lead, and has made it to Eagle Island, while the group behind him are taking their 8-hour Yukon breaks.

The back of the race is finishing their 24-hour stops in Ophir.

Harry T Alexie (67), the National Guard team, has moved up to 26^th place and becomes the leading rookie. Karin Hendrickson (29) has been the leading rookies for most of the race.

Melissa Owens (30) has been running very consistently in her second Iditarod, and has been staying in the top half of the teams.

The ADN reports, and the GPS tracking confirms that Lance Mackey (47) lost up to two hours of lead when he missed a turn on the trail from Shageluk to Anvik. [The guess is that he fell asleep on the trail.]

He is now running in fourth position, but he has completed the mandatory 8-hour stop on the Yukon, while the three teams in from of him and the three teams behind still have to take theirs and he is less than a half-hour behind the current leader, Jeff King (41). He can make it up, but that’s a lot of time to lose.

The back of the race is in McGrath, apparently taking the mandatory 24-hour stop.

The Current Standings [12:10 AM CDT]:

1 Jeff King (41)
2 Sebastian Schnuelle (34)
3 Aaron Burmeister (56)
4 Lance Mackey (47)
5 Cim Smyth (37)
6 Sonny Lindner (42)
[Read more →]

3/14 is Albert’s birthday and

Π Day.

I assume you have all shopped for the perfect gift.

To get you started: Π ≈ 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419
716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211 70679…..

The Washington Post has an article about South Carolina Governor Mark Sanborn’s reaction to the stimulus package

Asked whose mission it is to help the widening pool of people in financial pain, the governor said that such aid “has to be leveraged through church, civic and private hands. . . . If you take care of the need in government circles, you dissipate the ability of civil society to take care of that need.”

Timothy Ervolina, president of the United Way Association of South Carolina, worries that the web of philanthropic and nonprofit groups may not be able to fulfill the governor’s expectations. Ervolina has watched fundraising fade at United Ways across the state, even as calls pour in to their crisis hotlines.

“Policymakers have said, ‘You guys are just going to have to step up to the plate.’ I hear that,” he said. “But when I step up to the plate and no ball even is coming at you, it’s pretty hard to make a hit.”

The governor is mirroring the words of Herbert Hoover as the nation slid into what is now called the Great Depression, and he fails to provide any attribution, or to explain why he thinks this plan will be any less of a failure than the last time it was tried.

When the preamble to the US Constitution delineates the purposes of government, it includes “promote the general Welfare”. It says that is a reason for establishing any government, and the government of the United States in particular. There is no mention of non-profits, or churches: it is a function of the government.

If you are Lance Mackey (47), it’s a seven course meal. Josh Rogers at Iditablog tells us What’s for Lunch in Anvik? Oh, yes, the Millenium Hotel, which provides the meal also hands the First Musher to the Yukon 3,500 one dollar bills. [It’s a tradition, it doesn’t have to make sense.] There is a mandatory 8-hour stop on the Yukon, so he really could stop for a lunch like this.

The back of the race is finishing up their mandatory 24-hour stop in McGrath.

Whatever the trail conditions are for others, the Super Sixteen that haul Lance from place to place don’t seem to mind.