Posts from — March 2016

Éireann go Brách!

Well everyone agrees that he died on March 17^th, but the year is subject to debate. This is his feast day on the Catholic calendar. Enjoy as you are wont.

Wikipedia has more on Saint Patrick’s Day, if you need more.

No one I voted for won anything – that’s par for the course.

After reading Donald Trump predicts riots if denied Republican nomination: “In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Trump said if he got a large number of delegates yet was denied the nomination: “I don’t think you can say that we don’t get it automatically. I think you’d have riots. I think you’d have riots. I’m representing many, many millions of people.””

I think this little story sums up the Republican primary battle.

[Note: it’s from Australia where all of the native wildlife will kill you. Take away the eucalyptus leaves for a few hours and see how ‘cuddly’ koalas are when sober.]

I might disappear for a while.

I’m moving some equipment today and my ISP may not do what it’s supposed to do, which will leave me off line. They say that it will be seamless, but I doubt that’s true.

Update: Things seem to be working… hopefully for a while.

Ellen and the Red Lantern are beyond Nulato this morning as almost two dozen teams look forward to a hot shower and a bed.

If you want to see some really pretty puppies, Rob Cooke (56) & Lisbet Norris (7) are running all Siberian teams.

Standings at 9:30PM CDT

Finished at Nome
11 Noah Burmeister (39)
12 Richie Diehl (38)
13 Robert Sørlie (37)
14 Paul Gebhardt (55)
15 Jessie Royer (3)
16 Ken Anderson (81)
17 John Baker (66)
18 Travis Beals (28)
19 Ray Redington Jr (18)
20 Brent Sass (32)
21 Kelly Maixner (17)
22 Hugh Neff (70)
23 Sigrid Ekran (27)
24 Linwood Fiedler (41)
25 Michelle Phillips (30)
26 Geir Idar Hjelvik (79)^R
27 Mats Pettersson (36)
28 Ketil Reitan (6)
29 Lars Monsen (68)^R
30 Dag Torulf Olsen (35)^R
31 Katherine Keith (85)
32 Allen Moore (5)
33 Ed Stielstra (50)
Beyond Safety
34 Nathan Schroeder (4)
35 Jason Mackey (67)
36 Jason Campeau (24)
[Read more →]

As usual there was no one else voting when I went at 10AM. Two precincts use the town hall for voting, but I have never seen a crowd.

There was a new system. I gave them my ‘photo ID’ and they stuck it in a scanner attached to a laptop and had me do a signature on a small touchscreen. I miss the old lineprinter 14 inch green & white paper ledgers that you had to sign with actual ink, but at least I still get a paper ballot to write on, so my vote will probably be counted.

Super Tuesday II,”The Judgement of Mario”, really is Rubio’s Last Stand. If he doesn’t win Florida his campaign is toast. It is all irrelevant because there is no lesser evil among any of them. Kasich is better at pretending he’s not a fascist whack job, but that is all that is left.

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

That was Barry Goldwater in his acceptance speech as the 1964 Republican candidate for President. This isn’t a new phenomenon for the Republicans. The only thing that changed was their rhetoric until they had to suck up to the “Tea Partiers”.

The top finishers were both named Seavey – Dallas first, and his dad, Mitch, second. It looks like Ellen will pick up her third Red Lantern. She is at Galena this morning.

Dallas finished in 8 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes, and 16 seconds of racing with an average speed of 4.74MPH. [Take the total time and subtract the mandatory time spent at checkpoints.]

At 9:00PM CDT:

Finished at Nome
1 Dallas Seavey (16)
2 Mitch Seavey (19)
3 Aliy Zirkle (13)
4 Wade Marrs (33)
5 Peter Kaiser (11)
6 Joar Leifseth Ulsom (31)
7 Nicolas Petit (12)
8 Ralph Johannessen (77)
9 Jeff King (61)
10 Scott Smith (62)
11 Noah Burmeister (39)
12 Richie Diehl (38)
Beyond Safety
13 Robert Sørlie (37)
14 Paul Gebhardt (55)
15 Jessie Royer (3)
16 Ken Anderson (81)
17 John Baker (66)
[Read more →]

Tomorrow is Florida’s primary election and every registered voter who is a member of either of the two major parties should definitely go out and vote. It is going to be an historic event, because you have to go back to the 19th century to find this much hatred openly expressed in a Presidential primary.

Marco Rubio is running ads saying that voting for Cruz or Kasich is a vote for Trump. Marco doesn’t understand that Florida Republicans have already given him one job he hasn’t done, so they aren’t likely to give him another.

Someone will pass under the Burled Arch today. Dallas is running his usual ‘no rest’ end game, but it’s up to his puppies to make good on his gamble.

So far, Dallas’s puupies are making him look good.

Ray Redington Jr. is carrying the family colors alone as Robert scratched at Galena. Robert was in 46th, which is good for a rookie run. It wouldn’t be the Iditarod without Redingtons, Mackeys, and Seaveys running.

Ouch – Lance scratched at Galena, and Cim Smyth & Jim Lanier scratched at Kaltag. Lance’s puppies have been having some GI problems. A lot of injuries early on are beginning to ache.

Someone, probably Dallas, will be in Nome in the early morning hours.

The standings at 9:15PM CDT:

Beyond White Mountain
1 Dallas Seavey (16)
At White Mountain
2 Mitch Seavey (19)
3 Brent Sass (32)
4 Aliy Zirkle (13)
Beyond Elim
5 Wade Marrs (33)
6 Peter Kaiser (11)
7 Joar Leifseth Ulsom (31)
8 Noah Burmeister (39)
9 Ralph Johannessen (77)
10 Nicolas Petit (12)
11 Robert Sørlie (37)
12 Michelle Phillips (30)
13 Jeff King (61)
14 Scott Smith (62)
[Read more →]

3/14 is Albert’s birthday and

Π Day.

I assume you have all shopped for the perfect gift.

To start: Π ≅ 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399
3751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679….

After only 8 days I have managed to install Windows 10 on the ‘Big Box’ and I’m already pissed off about it. All I wanted to do is copy a file from a directory to a flash drive and there is no obvious way of doing this.

I will install the Classic Shell tomorrow and that may help. I turned down their offer of using the ‘Express Settings’ and ‘Express’ly answered OFF, NO, 0 to each of their suggestions. If you answer ‘yes’, you are sending all of your information and everything you do on the computer to Microsoft.

I got ESET reloaded and it is current running a total scan on the disk.

The Error Code C1900101-20013 came up with the first installation attempt using the DVD, but the DVD installer said it occurred in Safe_Mode. Obviously the problem had to be with the Bios on the motherboard. I went a got the latest version from ASRock and flashed the EEPROM. This was in direct opposition to ASRock’s recommendation “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Their attitude being if everything is working, why chance it? An error while flashing the Bios could result in having nothing work.

So, you have to uninstall your anti-virus software.
Remove the start at boot switch from all your software.
Update all of your firmware.
Update your operating system.
Burn an IOS image DVD.

And you might get Windows 10 installed.

Now I have to figure out how to shut the computer off….

Brent was first to the Norton Sound with the top three arriving in less than 2 hours.

Ryan Redington scratched at Ruby leaving Ray Jr. and Robert to represent the family

At 9:00PM CDT the standings:

Beyond Shaktoolik
1 Dallas Seavey (16)
2 Brent Sass (32)
3 Aliy Zirkle (13)
4 Mitch Seavey (19)
5 Wade Marrs (33)
At Shaktoolik
6 Noah Burmeister (39)
7 Peter Kaiser (11)
8 Joar Leifseth Ulsom (31)
Beyond Unalakleet
9 Ken Anderson (81)
10 John Baker (66)
11 Robert Sørlie (37)
12 Jeff King (61)
13 Ralph Johannessen (77)
14 Michelle Phillips (30)
15 Nicolas Petit (12)
16 Hugh Neff (70)
17 Paul Gebhardt (55)
18 Ray Redington Jr (18)
19 Scott Smith (62)
20 Jessie Royer (3)
21 Kelly Maixner (17)
22 Richie Diehl (38)
23 Travis Beals (28)
[Read more →]

I started “upgrading to Windows 10” last Sunday and have been trying various things to get it working. Today I think I made some progress. I created a DVD that is supposed to contain every thing I need.

The reason I feel better about it is that after the ISO disk image was downloaded, the software actually verified it. Then I burned and verified a DVD. I’ll wait until tomorrow to try it, but the DVD should work for both my Win 7 machines without waiting around for Windows to download several Gigs every time.

A minor annoyance is that every time I boot the big box it says it has installed another update. At this point I don’t think I could honestly say I had installed all of the updates to Windows 7 if I hadn’t just finished checking.

Fairbanks News-Miner has a bare-bones report of the incident:

“Race officials said [Aliy] Zirkle, currently running in third place, was approaching Nulato when a person on a snowmobile repeatedly attempted to harm her.

One dog on her team received injuries that officials described as non-life-threatening.

[Jeff] King, a four-time Iditarod champion, was behind Zirkle and fared worse.

King was 12 miles from Nulato when three of his dogs were hit by the snowmobile.

Nash, a 3-year-old male, was killed. Crosby, another 3-year-old male, and Banjo, a 2-year-old male, received injuries and are expected to survive.”

Nulato is a small community so “a suspect has been identified” and I would guess that “chemicals” were involved.

If you read the rest of the article, there is confusion: Dallas Seavey won the race last year and he is the son of Mitch Seavey, who is leading at Noon CST in Kaltag.

Update: One Arnold Demoski, 26, of Nulato is currently ‘enjoying the hospitality of the Alaska State Police while helping them with their inquiries’. Mr. Demoski said he was drunk.

Nash and Crosby were part of the same 4 puppy litter. Their other litter mates were Stills & Young.

Just to screw up your life, don’t forget that Congress is stealing 2:00 to 2:59AM Sunday from you. They should at least have the decency to wait until the equinoxes to do this sort of thing. There’s barely enough daylight to do what needs to be done, much less save.

It’s a government conspiracy to make you late for church 😈