Posts from — January 2014

These are the mushers who will be starting the Quest tomorrow:

Quest Winners
Allen Moore (8)
Hugh Neff (14)
John Schandelmeier (17)
Veterans
Normand Casavant (1)
Brent Sass (2)
Jerry Joinson (4)
Dave Dalton (5)
Ken Anderson (6)
Mike Ellis (7)
Brian Wilmshurst (9)
Cody Strathe (10)
Jean-Denis Britten (15)
Hank DeBruin (18)
Rookies
Curt Perano (16)
Matt Hall (3)
Mandy Nauman (11)
Tony Angelo (12)
Torsten Kohnert (13)

The numbers after their names are their starting position.

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Fairbanks 440 feet [134 meters] Start
Chena Hot Springs 1550 feet [472 meters] 72 miles [116 km]
Rosebud Summit 3640 feet [1109 meters]
Mile 101 Steese Highway 2250 feet [686 meters] 42 miles [68 km]
Eagle Summit 3685 feet [1123 meters]
Central 435 feet [133 meters] 33 miles [53 km]
Circle City 597 feet [182 meters] 74 miles [119 km]
Eagle 880 feet [268 meters] 159 miles [256 km]
Dawson City 1050 feet [320 meters] 100 miles [161 km]
King Solomon’s Dome 4002 feet [1220 meters]
Pelly Crossing 1558 feet [475 meters] 202 miles [325 km]
Carmacks 1722 feet [525 meters] 73 miles [117 km]
Braeburn 2326 feet [709 meters] 77 miles [124 km]
Takhini Hot Springs 2089 feet [637 meters] 70 miles [112 km] Finish

The total distance is approximately 900 miles [1450 kilometers]

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Dining in the Dark

Nom..nom..nom.

[Editor: While Ms Underhouse eats Froggy waits. I had to use the flash because the cats have only just decided to come out of hiding.]

Friday Ark

Year of the Green Wooden Horse

Chinese New Year
[Spring Festival]

Finally, after two days, the temperature moved above freezing. It hasn’t reached 40°F yet, but the ‘sugar coating’ has melted from the landscape and the sun is shining.

Tomorrow it is supposed to reach the 60s and stay there all day, so I may finally warm up. I noticed that the three points on the Quest trail are all in single digits, so a somewhat normal winter has returned.

The activity on the blog will increase since I can take off the mittens for extended periods now.

The Yukon Quest has changed the trail in response to the effects of the recent ‘heat wave’ in Alaska and the Yukon.

The start was moved from the Chena River to Second Avenue in Fairbanks. The river is not considered stable enough to support the teams and spectators. Snow will be hauled in to cover the road for the start.

The finish has been moved from Whitehorse to Takhini Hot Springs, about 18 miles North, as there is no snow in Whitehorse.

For the second year in a row the trail over the American Summit is impassable, so the trail has routed around it.

The changes has reduced the length of the race to just over 900 miles from the normal 1000 miles.

In local news, the bridges, airports, schools, and government offices are closed and will remain closed until noon tomorrow at the earliest, which is anticipated to be the soonest the temperature will get above freezing and melt the ice that coats everything.

There are no plows, salt or sand trucks, snow tires – hell, there aren’t even windshield scrappers down here. I had to break the ice to open the garbage can which has a frosted flake look to it.

The local emergency management officials and government agencies at all levels took this storm seriously, so we haven’t had the mess that Atlanta is experiencing. People are staying home and off the roads, realizing that with the bridges closed you can’t go anywhere.

What a fabulous life! What a great American! Pete Seeger performed, wrote, conserved, and resurrected American folk music from the Great Depression to the Occupy movement, and sang to protest what he felt was wrong. He inspired a host of people to take up the cause of folk music, and to protest inequality and social evils in all their many forms.

Steve Bates is correct in pointing out the really decent article about Pete Seeger at Wikipedia. Mustang Bobby has the meat of the NYT article on his passing.

Digby located the transcript of Mr. Seeger’s appearance before the House Unamerican Activities Committee that contains this response from him:

I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.

That response is an encapsulation of most of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, and clearly demonstrates who was acting ‘unAmerican’, and it wasn’t Mr. Seeger.

At his place Charlie Pierce has a nice piece about him and his contributions to the country.

The music is his immortality.

Update: Via Badtux in comments: Peter Yarrow on Pete Seeger’s final night

January 28, 1986

Commander:
Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Pilot:
Michael J. Smith, Commander, USN

Mission Specialist:
Judith A. Resnik
Ronald E. McNair
Ellison S. Onizuka, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Payload Specialist:
Gregory B. Jarvis
Sharon Christa McAuliffe

This showed up last night when I checked my local weather:

Winter Storm Watch for Coastal Okaloosa, Florida

… Winter Storm Watch remains in effect from Tuesday morning
through Wednesday morning…

* timing… a wintry mix of freezing rain and sleet may impact most locations generally along and south of the Highway 84 corridor and north of the immediate coast Tuesday morning… while a mix of snow and sleet will be possible over interior portions of southeast Mississippi and southwest Alabama. Precipitation may transition to a wintry mix of freezing rain… sleet… and snow near the coast Tuesday night… and to sleet then light snow across interior portions of the region. Precipitation should gradually come to an end Wednesday morning.

This watch actually runs from Central Texas along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Coast of the Carolinas, all of those ski resorts, like Houston, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Cinco Bayou, and Myrtle Beach.

January 27, 1967

Virgil “Gus” Ivan Grissom, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Edward Higgins White, II, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Roger Bruce Chaffee, Lieutenant Commander, USN

This is going to be the smallest field ever for the race, only 18 teams. The primary reasons seem to be a dismal economy and the weather.

It is expensive to maintain a team for a thousand miles, so the money has to be found, and that has been more difficult since the economy took a dive. Sponsorship money has dried up as more businesses cut their expenses.

The weather all winter in Alaska has created another problem for people who might want to race. This has been a warm and wet winter in southern and central Alaska, so a lot of mushers have been left with little time to train and condition a team for a thousand mile race. You can’t really give dogs much of a run if the temperature is too warm.

On Friday I saw a picture of downtown Whitehorse. There is no snow, there isn’t even slush. Of course, a wind change and temperature drop could happen overnight, but there is no snow pack for a trail. Temperatures are dropping, but it is going to take a least a couple of days of sub-zero weather to freeze over the rivers and creeks and firm up the ground. The current conditions don’t bode well for the Iditarod.

Update: Yukon Quest issued a statement that the race will start on Saturday, but the trail, including the start and end points, is definitely subject to change based on reports from those monitoring the trail conditions.

Celebrates the establishment of the Republic of India on January 26^th, 1950 when its new Constitution took effect.

The parade at New Delhi is, bar none, the most colorful military parade in the world. Hopefully this year the elephants are behaving, so they will appear.

Here’s the official site, and, as the Wikipedia entry is really pathetic, here is a tourist site with more information.

The anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet under Captain Arthur Phillip at Port Jackson in New South Wales on January 26^th, 1788.

Here’s the official site, and more information at Wikipedia.

Via Corrente, a long Edward Snowden question and answer session that involved anyone who saw the notice and posted their question.

It gives you a good feel for who he is and why he did what he did.

Then Digby has the wisdom of the former Director of NSA, and then the CIA, General Michael Hayden.

General Hayden believes that the biggest threat to networked computing is not governments or criminals, but hackers, who he characterizes as dwelling in their mothers’ basements, and who are anarchists.

After reading the two posts consider this question: who would you trust with the power of NSA – Snowden or Hayden?

Aside: just once I would like real confirmation that someone, somewhere actually does something while wearing their pajamas and using a computer in their mother’s basement. Extra points if Cheetos are included.