Bogieblog

Getting Closer to the Finish

The Iditarod front-runners have shuffled around a bit, but not too much. Jeff King is now leading the pack with the next 10 being: Martin Buser, Lance Mackey, Paul Gebhardt, Ken Anderson, Zack Steer, Ed Iten, Ramy Brooks, John Baker, Mitch Seavey and Cim Smith.

The 2 lead rookies are Sigrid Ekran, who broke her nose a couple of days ago and is running 18th, and Silvia Willis, who is running 21st. 63 teams are still in the race.

Lance Mackey could be the surprise winner of the race. The reason it would be a surprise is that a lot of his team is comprised of dogs that ran, and won, the 1,000 Yukon Quest about 3 weeks ago. According to Cabella's Jon Little, the Quest is a long grueling race (although it is shorter milage-wise than the Iditarod), where the Iditarod is more of a speed race. This year's Iditarod is turning into more of a endurance race as teams deal with high head winds and low snow amounts (resulting in rough gong), so Mackey's dog may have an advantage with their experience. I believe I read somewhere that no team has ever won the Iditarod after it has come out of winning the Quest.

Whoever wins, it looks to be race all the way to the end.

Meme From the Drum

1. What time is it where you are right now? (Include time zone, especially our overseas visitors) : 6:59 EST

2. What is your earliest memory? The creek behind the house in Seattle (or Christmas in Seattle or maybe Mt. Ranier - sometime in Washington state anyway)

3. What are you most afraid of? Becoming a vegetable

4. What is the most recent movie that you have seen in a theater? Twister (yes, it really has been that long)

5. Where were you born? Kansas

6. Favorite food? Some days it's Nachos, some days it's stroganoff

7. What’s your natural hair color? dirty blond or blondish brown (in winter more mousey brown)

8. Ever been to Alaska? No - dammit!

9. Ever been toilet paper rolling? no

10. Love someone so much it made you cry? Yes

11. Been in a car accident? yes

12. Croutons or bacon bits? bacon bits

13. Favorite day of the week? Saturday (that is when we go to the local diner and have breakfast)

14. Favorite restaurant? Nonnie's

15.Favorite Flower? Iris

16. Favorite sport to watch? football

17. Favorite drink? tea

18. Favorite ice cream? Coffee Heath Bar Crunch

19. Disney or Warner Brothers? Disney

20. Ever been on a ship? No - only boats

21. What color is your bedroom carpet? light blue

22. How many times did you fail your driver’s test? 0

23. From whom did you get your last e-mail? ODSN (opthamology site)

24. What do you do when you are bored? read

25. Bedtime? between 8 and 9 pM

26. Favorite TV show? Battlestar Gallactica (current) Babylon 5 (past)

27. Last person you went to dinner with? WS and Karen

28. What are your favorite colors? Blue

29. How many tattoos do you have? 0

30. How many pets do you have? 5

31. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? egg

32. What do you want to do before you die? See John Force race live (hey, everyone has to have something)

33. Have you ever been to Hawaii? no

34. Have you been to countries outside the U.S.? Canada

35. Time this survey ended? 7:09

Meme from Drumwaster.

Iditarod Update 3-9-07

This year's Iditarod was supposed to be a fast one, but many are finding it slow. No, the teams aren't moving slowly, it is just that trail markers are being swept away by high winds and many of the teams are taking wrong turns and having to backtrack. A particullarily popular place to do this is between Rainey Pass and Rohn. It seems that there is a snowmobile trail that leads to Ptarmigan Pass (which does go to Rhon - the long way) that is very inviting and many teams are taking that trail. For one team, whose musher did not realize the mistake, another 40 miles was added to the trail (he made it to Rohn). Another team headed out and turned around after going 22 miles because the storm conditions were too bad to see any part of the trail (adding, let me get out my fingers and toes; 22+22=44 extra miles).

The current top 10 are Zack Steer (where did he come from? He has been at or near the lead for a lot of the race), Martin Buser, Jeff King, Lance Mackey, Paul Gebhart, Ed Iten, Mitch Seavey, Cym Smyth, Ramey Smyth and Tollef Monson (I'm not familier with him either). The first 3 have already taken their madatory 24 hour rest, as has the 11th place contender, Ramy Brooks. None of them have taken their mandatory 8 hour rest.

There are still 3-4 days of racing left - still time for someone to come from farther back and make an outstanding move on the leaders.

Gell-O

It has been plenty cold the last couple of mornings. Tuesday morning it was -1 when I left for work (that left several more hours for cooling down and when I checked Hillsboro's temp at 7, it was -3. Hillsboro is usually warmer than we are). Tuesday I'm sure it never got out of the single digits at home since when I left work it was only 10 degrees then when I left class, it was 2 degrees.

Yesterday morning it was -7 when I left for work. At that point, the oil was jelling in the fuel filter and the fuel line. WS stayed had to work on the tank before he could go to work. First, he removed the fuel filter, but the cup wouldn't fill up as the fuel was gelling in the line. Then he went into town and got lots of antifreeze for the oil (like Heat for gas tanks). Once he got that mixed in, the oil started running and WS left for work a couple of hours late. To illustrate the temperature gradient between home and work, when I got to work, it was a balmy 4 degrees!

This morning it is obviously inthe negative numbers again and this region isn't supposed to get above the single digits. Tomorrow morning is supposed to be the same. then we are looking for 40's for the weekend (although a couple of days ago they said 50's - by the time the weekend arrives it might change to 20's, but we'll take it).

At least with the antifreeze in the tank, the heater is running smoothly again.

Early Scratches

Got a boat-load of talent heading the field in the Iditarod. Of course after only 30 some hours, there is no use in calling out the names of the front runners so I'll let you go look for yourself at the official Iditarod home page.

The big surprise is that Doug Swingly has scratched already. According to Cabela's, he had an accident and might have broken some ribs. Cabela's always has some good coverage, with lots of reporting on different aspects of the race that can be accessed from their front page.

According to ADN (Anchorage Daily News), DeeDee Jonrowe has also scratched due to an accident. Both those teams were slated for the top 10 if not the top 5 for finishing. ADN also has great coverage of the race off their front page.

I won't update probably until Thursday or so, so you'll just have to make do with the links I have provided.

Yuck

I made fish for dinner last night, as I do every couple of weeks (WS is not a big fan, but I have come up with an un-fried recipe that he will eat). I have dicovered that there is no more disgusting-tasting fish than Tilapia. I bought it instead of cod because I had heard that it was becoming really popular. The sause was great, the fish disgusting (not fishy or gone bad - just naturally horrible). My bad!

Uggh!

They're Off

The Iditarod officially started yesterday afternoon. 82 teams started the race, which is interesting because when I checked on Saturday, 83 teams were supposed to start (109 entered in all).

Good luck to all the teams. They have worked hard just to be able to start the race!

Anticipation

All the seeds I ordered a couple of weeks ago are in. They have been residing in the fridge since they arrived. Next weekend will be the time to start them.

Thru a happy coincidence, next weekend is a 3-day weekend and, I shouldn't have much homework. See, that next week is Spring Break at school, so the doors will be locked and it won't do me any good to show up (I have never been to a school that has spring break - or more accurately, the 8 week classes alway skirted the break). Any homework I have can wait until the next weekend - so the 3 day weekend is all about seeds (and getting the truck in for its 67,000 mile checkup).

Sometimes things just work out without any pre-planning.

Maine Quiz

I think this is better than being 40% Mass. However, I certainly don't want to live there!

You are 84% Mainah!

Born and raised and lovin it! You love Maine and don't want to leave (Unless you find a GREAT job somewhere else!) but don't worry, you'll be back!

How Mainer are you?
Make a Quiz

Thanks to Jay for the quiz.

Well That Sucked

After getting a whole bunch of snow early Friday morning thru Friday afternoon, it started raining. By the time I left for work at 5 AM, we had gotten 3-4" of snow. I don't know the total amount of snow we got, but by the time it had rained a while, and I got home about 4:30, we had 9.5" of totally sodden snow (measured off the trash barrels). Each tiny shovelfull was about 50 lbs (guess I dind't need to work out that morning).

WS had already been snowblowing for about 1.5 hours and had only gotten 1/2 the driveway done. He snow blowed a path from the deck to the stairs leading to the dog pen while I started shoveling the deck. After about an hour of shoveling, I had gotten about 1/2 the deck and the deck stairs done. The snow was so sodden that I had to bang the shovel against the railing to get the show off of every shovelfull.

While shoveling from the bottom of the hill to the dog pen, I was very gratefull that WS had snowblowed the pathway to the hill (usually I shovel most of it while WS snowblows other stuff). I had nothing to bang the shovel against to get the snow out of the shovel, so it was worse than shoveling the deck. I got enough of a path done that I could get the dogs to the house (the dogs, but the way, had waited patiently the whole time - without barking or whining as they usually do).