2011 Iditarod Standings, Day 4 (March 9, 2011) - For me it's 9am on Wednesday, March 9th, and for the Iditarod mushers, they're on Day 4 of the race that started Sunday afternoon in Willow, Alaska. (Technically the Ceremonial Start to the race was Saturday in Anchorage, but I'm not counting that.)
The lead Iditarod mushers have passed through the checkpoint in Takotna, 370 miles from Willow, and then they're on the way to Ophir (25 miles) and then the town the race is named for: Iditarod (90 miles from Ophir).
Last night I realized that I left Kentucky one year ago yesterday, and began the long drive to Alaska. I actually left Kentucky twice. I left once around March 2, 2010, to see my family in Illinois, then came back to Kentucky to see one of my dogs one more time before I left.
2011 Iditarod News (March 8, 2011) - I'm open to people having their own opinions, and I generally support a lot of things that PETA stands for. But when they start saying the Iditarod race needs to be ended, I think they're plain wrong.
In regards to a very dumb thing a dumb person in Canada did in killing their sled dogs when their business suffered because of the bad economy, the Anchorage Daily News reports a PETA "senior campaigner" as saying:
2011 Iditarod prize money FAQ: How much money does the Iditarod race winner win?
I've been digging around, and found some more 2011 Iditarod prize money ("purse") information. As mentioned in my earlier Iditarod prize money article, the total Iditarod purse for 2011 is $528,000. This is down from a record high of $875,000 in 2008. (This information came from the MSNBC website.)
2011 Iditarod News - March 8, 2011, 4:35pm - I just read that three Iditarod mushers have just scratched from the race. Here's the quote from the APRN.org Twitter feed:
"Paul Gebhardt now out of Iditarod; stops in Nikolai. Zoya DeNure and Melissa Owens scratch in Rainy Pass."
2011 Iditarod News (March 8, 2011): When I was without electricity earlier this morning, I was able to read on my phone that Lance Mackey was down to twelve dogs, and I was concerned that something really bad had happened. Now I'm glad to read some quotes from Lance Mackey about his dogs, and what has happened.
Here's a quote from the story on the Anchorage Daily News website:
... three dogs weren't pulling or eating well. They seem sore, Mackey said.
Iditarod Standings, March 8, 2011: Now that my power is back on ... I read on my iPhone this morning that something happened with Lance Mackey, and he is down to using twelve dogs. In the current standings he's fallen back to sixth in the 2011 Iditarod race, and Mitch Seavey (one of my favorites) has moved up to seventh place.
Yikes, half of my apartment electrical power has been out all day, including power to my computer systems. I was baking some tollhouse cookies in the over this morning, and next thing I knew, all the lights were out.
Fortunately I have a UPS system connected to my computer, and it kept it from any damage. The electrician showed me what happened about twenty minutes ago: A breaker switch outside exploded. He said the lights flickering right before the outage had to do with some arc-ing in the breaker before the explosion.
2011 Iditarod Race News: Digging around between the Official Iditarod website and the Official Iditarod Race Guide, I've reproduced the table below of the Iditarod race checkpoints and the distances between the checkpoints.
There are a couple of differences in the Iditarod checkpoint distances between the website and the guide, so I've used the distances from the official website wherever there was a discrepancy. I'll try to figure out which source of information is correct.
2011 Iditarod race standings: Four-time defending Iditarod champion Lance Mackey took the lead in the 2011 Iditarod race on the run from Skwentna, Alaska to Finger Lake, and then left Finger Lake 15 minutes ahead of Robert Bundtzen. This is according to the Anchorage Daily News website.
2011 Iditarod photos: I just ran across this photo from my Iditarod photos collection, and couldn't resist adding a caption to it. If you've ever seen the movie Up!, or just tried to train a dog, I hope you find it funny also.
Lance Mackey 2011 Iditarod news - Some times you're just in the right place at the right time. Here's a video of four-time Iditarod Champion Lance Mackey taking off from the starting gate at the 2011 Iditarod Restart in Willow, Alaska, on March 6, 2011:
2011 Iditarod photos: I spent a lot of time watching the Iditarod sled dog handlers today, and after seeing a lot of sled dogs coming out of their trucks, I was curious what the inside of the trucks looked like. So, after some serious wandering around I found these photos.
First, here's one sled dog in the process of getting back into its truck:
2011 Iditarod photos: I just got back from my first-ever Iditarod start, the 2011 Iditarod restart in Willow, Alaska, and despite having a little cold myself, it was a blast. The weather was terrific, and I'm very glad I went.
I'll try to start trickling some of my favorite photos out here, and hopefully some videos as well. I happened to be at the Iditarod starting line right when Lance Mackey was taking off, and I hope some of that video works out well.
2011 Iditarod Race - Here's a close up view of the sled dogs for Team #4 at the 2011 Iditarod restart in Willow, Alaska, on March 6, 2011. Sled dogs sure do love to run!
I'm a little behind schedule, but nonetheless, I am getting my new computer programming and web design business set up in Palmer, Alaska this month. The business is currently named Mat-Su Valley Programming. The reason for the delay is that some of my websites are doing so well, I need to upgrade my web servers to keep up with the increasing traffic. The devdaily.com website gets millions (and millions) of page views every year, so it's usually the big one, but my other websites are doing very well also.
Wasilla/Palmer, Alaska fireworks, March 5, 2011 - Okay, I really need to pay attention to local news more often. We just had a really nice little fireworks show here in Palmer, Alaska on the evening of March 5, 2011. I'll assume it's partially related to the Iditarod race, but since it appeared to be coming from the direction of the new Carrs here in Palmer, I'll guess that it's related to their grand opening.
A funny thing related to my recent move to Palmer, Alaska is that last night as I was moving some boxes around, I lifted the lid of the boxes to see what exactly I was moving, and I laughed when I saw the contents.
Right before I moved to Palmer -- and I do mean right before I moved -- life found me in Anchorage, and whenever I'm in Anchorage I go to the big Title Wave used bookstore. On this particular trip I was interested in buying used movies, and that's exactly what I found in that box last night, the used DVDs I bought and forgot about.
