Posts from — March 2009

Five teams arrive at Rohn

1 Paul Gebhardt (15)
2 Sebastian Schnuelle (34)
3 Rick Swenson (8)
4 Aaron Burmeister (56)
5 Hugh Neff (55)

Melissa Owens (30) is doing very well in her second Iditarod. The 19-year-old from Nome is currently running in 6^th place. Last year she made it back to Nome just in time for school.

Karin Hendrickson (29) is the leading rookie musher, back in 39^th place. The hard part is scheduling rest. There will be a lot of different groups taking the lead as people tend to cluster based on similar rest patterns.

Note that I am counting only the days of the actual race, and don’t include the pre-race parade in the count. Also note that I change days based on Central Daylight Savings Time, not Alaska time.

[10:45am CDT] Updated list of mushers out of Rohn below the fold. There are still 4 teams in Finger Lake.
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I am beginning to like Tom McLaughlin. He’s the reporter for the Northwest Florida Daily News who has been following the Charlie Morris [the local Sheriff] saga. His lead sentence in his article today, Morris appears in court, requests public defender, was snark worthy of a blogger:

PENSACOLA – Suspended Sheriff Charlie Morris, a retired Air Force major who until recently was pulling down six figures as Okaloosa County’s ranking law enforcement officer, can’t afford a lawyer.
…

Morris affirmed what U.S. Magistrate Judge Miles Davis read from an affidavit – that he was no longer working and that all his real estate holdings were “totally encumbered.

“I have no liquid funds at all,” Morris told the magistrate.

I forgot that Charlie was retired military. He would be drawing half-pay for a major, plus a number of other benefits, like health care, that should enable him to live comfortably in this area with no other income. Having been Sheriff for a dozen years, he would have made about a million or so dollars in salary from the county on top of his retirement.

It should be interesting finding out where all the money went, and why he obviously needed more.

Update: Lance Mackey decided to it was time and was the first into Rainy Pass. There is snow falling, so you want to get through the Pass ASAP.

Update 2: Arrivals at Rainy Pass

1 Lance Mackey (47)
2 Bjornar Andersen (18)
3 Ramey Smyth (16)
4 Aliy Zirkle (24)
5 Hans Gatt (25)
6 Jeff King (41)

Quest winner in Finger Lake.

1 Sebastian Schnuelle (34)
2 Cim Smyth (37)
3 Robert Bundtzen (51)
4 Linwood Fiedler (28)
5 Sonny Lindner (42)
6 Wade Marrs (48)^R
7 Harry Alexie (67)^R
8 Nancy Yoshida (3)^R
9 Lou Packer (43)^R
10 Laura Daugereau (45)

Sebastian Schnuelle has obviously decided he wants to get through Rainy Pass as soon as possible, and his dogs want to run. The trail on packed snow will get worse as the teams use it.

Harry Alexie is showing his sprint skills, moving from the second to last start up to number 7.

Rachael Scdoris (58), the visually impaired musher from Bend, Oregon, has moved up to 15.

The city of Pensacola has its own retirement system that is really a collective 401k with employer/employee matching contributions. As the Pensacola News Journal reported: Pension costs pinching City of Pensacola. Big surprise, the investments aren’t doing very well.

So today the PNJ runs an editorial: City’s pension system is no longer supportable

… It needs to be changed and brought into line with the kind of retirement plans private businesses provide.

And in the private sector, the defined benefits plan that issues a monthly check to retirees is all but dead — because businesses can’t afford it.

Neither can government.

Today, defined contribution plans — like 401(k)s — have become the norm. They don’t impose long-term future liabilities on businesses (or taxpayers), are portable when employees change jobs, and cost less to administer.

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The leaders arrived at the Yentna checkpoint:

Rick Swenson (8)
Paul Gebhardt (15)
Ryan Redington (13)
Nancy Yoshida (3)^R
Ray Redington Jr (10)
Michael Suprenant (11)^R
Jake Berkowitz (12)
Ed Iten (4)
Aaron Peck (2)
Warren Palfrey (7)
Allen Moore (6)
Rick Larson (5)

The Destin Log ran an article about personnel changes at the Sheriff’s Department:

The fallout that began with Sheriff Charlie Morris’ arrest Friday continued Wednesday as interim Sheriff Ed Spooner eliminated two employee positions and reorganized several administrative offices.

Maj. Sabra Thornton, Morris’ chief of staff, was informed her position had been “discontinued due to the lack of current needs of the agency,” a news release said.

Randall Holcombe, the assistant director of administrative services, was told “his services are no longer needed for that position as it has been eliminated in order to streamline operations and reduce costs,” according to a second release.
…

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While alpha releases usually are somewhat functional, beta releases are recognized as buggy. IT people have a tendency to refer to really bad software as gamma releases. Well, this weekend I dealt with an aptly named delta release of a transportation provider.

There was a time when, if the initial flight was running late, the airline would hold the connecting flight. Now the connecting flight leaves early to ensure that passengers don’t make it. When fog delays a series of flights into a small airport with limited gates, why would anyone reschedule to ensure that twice as many planes are going to arrive as there are gates to handle them?

We had a very nice visit and the local weather cooperated, but every time I have to deal with airlines I become more convinced that I don’t ever want to board another plane. If you think TSA is a PITA for you individually, stand back and watch what they make people with babies go through: it is theater… of the absurd.

Oh, the FAA suggests that parents traveling with children caution the children not to make jokes about bombs. I would assume that whoever wrote that advice has never actually dealt with children, or they would know that even bringing it up will almost guarantee a problem.

The Starting Grid:

Aaron Peck (2)
Nancy Yoshida (3)^R
Ed Iten (4)
Rick Larson (5)
Allen Moore (6)
Warren Palfrey (7)
Rick Swenson (8)
Blake Matray (9)^R
Ray Redington Jr (10)
Michael Suprenant (11)^R
Jake Berkowitz (12)
Ryan Redington (13)
Gerry Willomitzer (14)
Paul Gebhardt (15)
Ramey Smyth (16)
Jessie Royer (17)
Bjornar Andersen (18)
Matt Hayashida (19)
Trent Herbst (20)
Mitch Seavey (21)
Judy Currier (22)
Robert Nelson (23)
Aliy Zirkle (24)
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The Anchorage Daily News reports on the official start of the Iditarod, which is more of a pre-race parade. The racing actually begins tomorrow at the re-start in Willow.

Two areas to watch are around Rainy Pass because of all of the fresh snow on the trail, and then between Nikolai and McGrath because of a large increase in moose in the area. While trail conditions are better than yesterday, they can change with a snow storm or a wind shift.

The BBC History feed for today contained this:

1836: Mexican troops massacre the American garrison at the Alamo, an event that has entered US mythology.

The people in the Alamo were Texans, not Americans. They were residents/citizens of the Mexican province of Texas in revolt against their government. The event is history, not mythology, unless you insert the bit about there being Americans in the Alamo.

Texas became an independent republic before it joined the United States in 1845, just in time to provide an excuse for the Mexican War in 1846.

Update: Before someone brings up Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie – they were essentially what we would call “illegal aliens” today, or possibly “enemy combatants” if you were the Mexican government.

Tomorrow is Susan Butcher Day in Alaska which signals the start of the Iditarod, but all they are going to do tomorrow is hold a parade. The real race begins on Sunday at 2PM [AKDT] which is 5PM [Central DAYLIGHT SAVINGS Time].

Yes, under the new benighted system, Daylight Savings Time starts at 2AM Sunday morning, which instantly becomes 3AM. You lose an hour of sleep.

We have some kin dropping by for the weekend, if they ever get here. I was supposed to be picking them up right about now, as a matter of fact, but their plane to Atlanta was late, while the plane from Atlanta left early. That’s the sort of planning that results in the current economy. They have been told they will be on a later plane, and I didn’t want to bum them out with the truth that “later plane” is a rather indefinite guarantee.

Weekend blogging will be spotty.

Ringo Ringer

Go away! I’m hiding!

[Editor: I featured this guy eating and hiding back in September. It’s getting so that I have to look twice to be sure it’s not Ringo, because both have light green eyes.]

Friday Ark

The Miami Herald reports that 1 in 5 Florida mortgage holders behind on payments.

The real news is that this includes people with normal fixed-rate mortgages, not just the variable rate sub-prime junk loans. The new spike at the end of 2008 is related to job losses.

Of historic note: the term “depression” was coined by Herbert Hoover. He felt it sounded better than the previous term used, “panic”. There really is a reason I call it the “GOPression”, besides snark, of course.

How many of you can say you actually, personally, know someone “featured on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann as the worst person in the world”?  The Northwest Florida Daily News once again features the antics of local whacko, Larry Ford.

For picky people, that was a tour de force spelling-wise for Mr. Ford, only one word misspelled, it’s amazing. He really needs a fund-raiser to get a new flag of the Army of Tennessee, his old one is extremely tattered.

In case you’re wondering, the entire world is out to get him because he’s the only “real American” left in the county or state.