Dallas Seavey wins Iditarod!

Dallas Seavey was the first musher to cross the finish line in Nome, AK this morning, taking his third victory in four years.

His dad Mitch is following in second place but still on the trail, with Aaron Burmeister running third, Jessie Royer running fourth, and Aliy Zirkle currently in fifth place. These racers have all cleared the White Mountain checkpoint, with just Safety between them and Nome.

Martin Buser is 21st and still in Elm, the Berington twins are 30th and 31st and still in Koyuk, Allen Moore is way back in Shaktoolik in 43rd place and Lisbet Norris is still back in Unalakleet in 58th place.

Iditarod 2015

I know that Rev. Paul is going to be covering this much better than I, but the race is off and running, with 79 Mushers leaving Fairbanks on a 1,000 mile run to Nome, AK.

Like many others, I was betting on Brent Sass, recent winner of the Yukon Quest last month, to finish strong here. Imagine my surprise when he got disqualified at the third checkpoint for having an iPod with him because Wifi devices are verboten. Damn, Brent...Your dogs are going to be pissed at you.

Alan Moore, who was second-place finisher in the Yukon Quest, is still in play here though. Currently he's in 34th place.

First pace right now though is Ailiy Zirkle, one of my favorites. She's been running dogs for a long time now and I think that her experience is gonna reap dividends this year. Someone up there was supposed to get me her phone number (you know who you are) but apparently that didn't work out.

Just as well though. I've got me a new obsession in the form of twin mushers Anna Berington (currently 26th place) and Kristy Berington (23rd place). They're young and cute and did I mention TWINS?

I wouldn't count Dallas Seavey out though. He won it last year and he's currently in 4th place with his father, Iditarod legend Mitch Seavey, right behind him in 5th.

Should be an interesting race indeed.

Tough guy beats girl and dog. Police respond with tougher dog.

In Anchorage, Alaska, Oscar Villa beat up his girlfriend and her dog, then he rammed two police cars attempting to flee the police. But the police had a dog, too, a Belgian Malinois named Aerie. And Aerie whipped his ass.

Charges: Man who beat girlfriend and her dog nabbed by police canine

Now this is how justice happens. And I love how they always get all big and bad once they're in handcuffs and the fight is over. "I'll kill that dog..." Dude, you already lost to that dog. In a perfect world, police should be able to un-cuff guys like this and give the dog another go.

Good job, Officer Brown and Aerie.

Idiots demand that police learn to "shoot to disarm".

OK< first I'm thinking "Polynesians in Alaska?" I mean, isn't that like Eskimos in Kuwait? But that aside, they're still proving how dumb that they are as a group when they rally to convince the Anchorage Police department to "shoot to disarm rather than shoot to kill."

Rally planned in wake of police shootings

Yep. Because two different mental defectives challenged and attacked police officers with weapons, resulting in their being shot, some of the locals, instead of supporting their community police, want to force them to take classes on how and when to shoot weapons out of people's hands or some such nonsense.

Anyone with even average intelligence who has been taught to shoot knows how stupid that is. When faced with a threat of immediate deadly harm, you shoot to stop the threat. Period. You don't try to be Roy Rogers and shoot the gun out of the other guy's hand--you aim for the largest part of that other guy (the torso) and you shoot him there until he stops presenting a threat. And if that means that you keep firing and shoot him to the ground, then so be it. Nothing in the law requires you or I or a police officer to accept a stab wound or a strike from a blunt impact weapon because "that's less than a gun", just like nothing requires any of us to stop an attacker and ask to examine his handgun to see if it's really a functional firearm or just a realistic-looking BB gun. Sorry Alaska Polynesians and other misinformed people...that's not how it works. The idea is for you, the defender of your life, (or the police officer) to go home safely at the end of it; it's not to ensure a fair fight that evens the playing field and gives the aggressor a sporting chance.

When Alaska's half-dozen Polynesians show up at this "rally", someone of average intelligence should really be on hand to explain it to them. Just remember to use small words and talk slow.

EDITED TO ADD: Guess they'd better add the Alaska State Troopers to their protest now, seeing as how they just aired another one out on Wednesday.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Another reason to go live in Alaska

The local government sells guns.

Confiscated Items Sold at Fairbanks Police Auction.

All the auction items came from the police department's evidence locker and were confiscated as evidence in criminal investigations or had gone unclaimed, though the history behind auction items was not provided.

It was the first evidence locker auction in about 10 years, the city's purchasing director, Tony Shumate said. The money raised goes into the city's general fund, he said.

The guns were laid out in a row on tables in front of the flatbed truck Schultz was standing on. Pictures of each gun appeared on the TV screen as they came up for bid. Gun buyers were required to have background checks before they could take possession of any firearms they purchased.

Now that's how it works when the government serves the people instead of the other way around...you know--the way the Democrats run things.

Crazy Chick report, Alaska edition.

In Alaska, nothing says "true love" like kicking on your ex-lover's door and firing a pistol...except possibly doing so while drunk and bringing your eight year old child and his rifle for back-up.

FAIRBANKS — A North Pole area woman is accused of trying to kick down the door and firing a pistol into the air outside her former boyfriend’s house Wednesday night.

Diana M. Andre, 25, faces misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass and weapons misconduct.

About 7:27 p.m., her ex-boyfriend called troopers to report Andre was outside his house on the 1900 block of Wallace Court. Her 8-year-old son also was there with what looked like a rifle, he said. Her ex-boyfriend called troopers from a neighbor’s house because he said Andre sent him a threatening message after he turned down a lunch invitation, according to the criminal complaint against Andre.

Troopers later found Andre at another North Pole area home because one of the phone calls to her ex matched a land line.

She told troopers she fired the shots because her ex-boyfriend had threatened her. She gave troopers a Glock .27-caliber semi-automatic pistol she said she had used.

She appeared intoxicated and later registered a breath-alcohol content of 0.275 using a preliminary breath-alcohol test, troopers said.

And here she is, in all of her Myspace glory:
Wow--a gal with a house messier than mine who can function with a BrAC of almost 0.30, and she appreciates Glocks. Where do I find a woman like that?
No, seriously--someone tell me, because I want to stay along way away from that place.

Critters

OK, just when you thought that you were safe, here's more Alaska pics.

This time it's animals.

My biggest hope was to see another moose. Last time I was up, they were everywhere. But this time, it seemed like I couldn't find a moose with a sack of moose crack and a moose call. So here's a bear instead. I already posted the Grizzly Bear from Denali once, but it was just so cool that I'm posting it again.


Then there were these caribou that were just swimming in Summit Lake, near Paxson.

Close, but no moose. Still pretty damned cool though.
How about that up in the tree? Is that a moose? Nope--it's a Bald Eagle.
These guys were pretty thick along the southern coast, but this was the only one that stayed still long enough for me to get good shots of him. I'm thinking I need a few of these guys around the Lair to help Murphy deal with the feral cat problem.

So ok, last day of the trip. 1400+ miles driven and I haven't seen a moose. Maybe they're all gone. So I'm now in freaking Anchorage (A suburb of Seattle that's just a short distance from Alaska) and what do I see on the airport road?

A MOOSE! Right there at the airport to see me off, too.




My trip was now complete. The last thing on the "to do" list had been checked off. A moose had been seen and photographed, with literally two minutes to spare. Rock on, Bullwinkle! (OK, it's a chick moose, I know...)

More planes

One thing I like about Alaska is the number of aircraft that are always out and about. Everywhere you look, there's one sitting off in the brush next to a dirt strip, like this one I found by a lodge near the Edgerton Highway junction with the Richardson Highway.
Or these guys on an airfield near Glen Allen (with the Wrangell-St. Elias range in the background.) Note the fact that the vast majority of them are tail-draggers, which are preferred up here because they're better suited for grass and dirt strips where a bump or hole could put a regular tricycle-geared plane's prop into the ground. (Ouch!)
Even Fairbanks has aircraft, like this neat subdivision we visited, with signs laying out the right-of-way rules.
This neighborhood is built around a grass runway and every yard has at least one plane in it. I SO need to live someplace like this.

Then there was this nice Cessna 180 belonging to Wrangell Air just outside of Chitina. I'd take this one home in a heartbeat.
Here's a cherry Piper Super Cub at the Alaska Aviation Museum in Anchorage.

And of course float planes, like this Maule.
ONe thing's for sure: Being up there in a state with more pilots per capita than anyplace else in the country makes me want to quit slacking and get up in the air again real soon...and maybe buy me a tail-dragger of my own before too much longer.

Maybe a Stearman?

More plane goodness...now with secret stuff!

Eilson is not just home to KC-135 tankers. They also have the super snooper version known as COBRA BALL, an airborne intelligence platform that, among other things, tracks missiles (ours and theirs). My first inclination was not to post on it so as not to give stuff away, but then when I saw all of the info on the internet about it, including stuff put out by our own Air Force, I figured that I wasn't going to be disclosing any national secrets...especially since they park it right outside where anyone driving by can see it "blending in" with all of the tankers.One of these things is not like the others...
Still, as we're driving by the fence doing police stuff, Tom says "Why don't you try to get a picture of that COBRA BALL aircraft? Just do it inconspicuously."
So I roll the window down and steady my camera on the door, and he says "Is that what you call inconspicuous?" So I had to take the pictures on the fly while pretending that I wasn't taking pictures.
I mean, Geez, man...if they didn't want it photographed, maybe they should have put a tarp over it, or just put it inside, you know? But they didn't. And here it is.

Pity I don't have a recording of Tom in the background predicting that we were both going to be in Gitmo for this. In fact, I've tried calling to tease him about his worrying, but every time I dial his number now, no one answers. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

Ladies and Gentlemen...COBRA BALL!


Oh, and here's some F-16 fighters.
The lead two were taxiing as we were driving by. Very nice.

Eilson AFB and The KC-135

Our visit to Eilson AFB got us in and around this wonderful 1963-vintage KC-135. For those of you not in the know, that's a tanker based on the Boeing 707 airframe. It gives gas to other aircraft in the air.
This one's up on jacks for landing gear work. It weighs 115,000lbs empty.
Here's that bit again. Cycling the gear five times to make sure it works right.

The business end of an aerial tanker.

Or the view that one or two readers might be more familiar with:

Now THAT is an engine. The KC-135 has four, but can remain flying on JUST ONE.

The cockpit. Note the newer glass display panels. The old Flight Engineer position has been eliminated as well.
People often forget the "C" in KC-135. They haul cargo, too. Here's the cargo hold.
Always take pride in who you are and what you do.

Back in the boom control cockpit. The boom operator works these controls while lying on his stomach on a special bench or couch.
A bit more complicated than your average self-serve pump.

Looking back from out on the wing.
It was an excellent opportunity to see one of these classic workhorses up close, and my only regret was that they would not let me take it for a hop or two around the pattern.

Special thanks to the 168th Air Refueling Wing.

More Alaska

Leaving Denali was hard, but I was way late as I was supposed to be in North Pole, AK (yes, really...) for a bonfire. Still, how can you not stop to take pictures of scenery like this?
Or things like this? A Huey delivering a small bulldozer to a highway construction site. Only in Alaska...
Here's the Alaskan Pipeline as it passes through Fairbanks.
This thing runs eight hundred miles, from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. Hippies and greenies hate it, but all of America relies on it.
So now I'm getting set to go play Alaska State Trooper. Nice car, huh? Here we are, pulling out of Tom's garage and getting ready to go fight crime.
And here we are, going to resolve yet another domestic resulting from the usual source, even in Alaska: Baby Mama Drama.
The voice you hear in the background is Super Trooper Tom.

Oh--and here's that big golf ball that was guarded by the two security goons "construction workers" in a pick up truck. Really blends with the surroundings, doesn't it? Masters of camouflage, those Alaskans.

Alaska after-action (with promised pics!)

OK, I'm back, am somewhat rested, and I've sorted through the latest Picasa problems which kept me from putting pics up yesterday. I have a lot of pics, so I'll do a few here and a few there for a while. To start with, welcome to Talkeetna, Alaska. Nice place when it's not overrun by hippies.
My lodging for the night.
A few stars short of four-star, but after hitting all of the local pubs, I really didn't mind this quaint room (with bathroom down the hall).
The Talkeetna airport. Here are some float planes on a lake just off the Talkeetna road. Alaska has a lot of these. I'm thinking that I need a float plane.
Look--dogs. These are the National Park Service sled dogs used at Denali National Park in the wintertime. Betcha didn't know that your tax dollars paid for dogsleds and sled dogs, didja?
Woof.
They even have puppies, and a webcam where you can watch them.

And here's the bear I met a short time later. Kinda wish those dogs were handy because my .40 wasn't up to the challenge.

But bear or no, Denali's beautiful. I was a bit bummed that I didn't see any moose though.



Thanks again to Liz for the hook-up with the dogs, the tip on the road being open, and the rice and spinach salad you made for lunch...also for the trail mix that I snacked on all the way back to Anchorage.