Petit team doing well

 this above is my friend MK...she got to be an iditarider at the ceremonial start.  these are just from that day..lots of fun.  just a party atmosphere in town.

 this guy below had the task of trying to keep the street cleared so the teams could come through and start.  he seemed to  pride himself in his ability to scream pretty loud.  i think he has a great time out there every year.

 takes a lot of volunteers to make this happen...thanks to all of them.

 aside from snow and wind...nothing too out of the ordinary, the trail seems to be fairly stable so i think most teams are having a fairly good run of it.  Brad is looking good somewhere in the 30's.  Petit out of Girdwood has been burning it up this year and improves each year...perhaps it will be his year this year.  he was ahead of Joar and Mitch Seavey but they are all in Kaltag right now and last i looked Joar and Mitch had closed in on the lead Petit had before.  his team easily passed them before per his interviews so perhaps he can keep them at bay.

 Mitch's lead dog is out as i guess there was a bit of a dog fight on his team.  intact males, females that can go in heat...you never know out there.

 i just finished my 3 nights.  this week was PICU, ER hold hell and then ER- where i sat for a few minutes, then floated helping out all over and then got some holds so went fine. 

 this little kid was all cute in the sled.

 i try to be patient but sometimes there are patients that test your patience!!  impossible to please some, especially when they are not as there with you because of medical reasons...just frustrating.

 like all the action going on.  must be crazy for the mushers, who i suspect spend a great deal of their training just out there with their dog team in the wilderness. many are probably more on the introvert side, preferring smaller groups to crowds...but us introverts are often capable of mixing with the other humans and doing just fine...as long as we get our alone time later. out there on the trail to Nome, they will all get plenty of alone time.

 we are closing in now.  it's been nearly a week since the start and sleep deprivation can play a role.  a few of them were interviewed about their hallucinations....it does happen out there on any of these endurance type events.  one reported ducking because he was seeing low over passes or something like that, then he'd turn around and of course, there were no overpasses.  he said he'd just laugh at that point realizing his mind was playing tricks on him.

 more of my friend below

 she is always fun.  she's joined on a few trips...before the kids came i think.  she has 4 now.

 met friends for dinner then we headed over to the Lake Front, which is the official Iditarod hotel here.  looks like they were planning on getting some dropped dogs. i should stop by tomorrow and see if there are any to visit.

 we met up with Bradley Farquhar's mom and step dad...they are as lovely as he was to hang out with.  so that was fun.  super nice folks...her adventurous son has made her adventurous by default.  haha. they are off to Nome in the morning for the finish. 

 more of the downtown scene.

 i always love all the stories of the folks that end up out there on the trail.  how they came to decide to attempt this and prepare for it.  how they manage out there on the trail with all those dogs and lack of sleep and the wind..always the wind.

 it is quite the cast of characters out there.  many faces that have become familiar mixed with new faces.  some will just do the race the one time, others will make a life of it. 

 the dogs come and go as well. 

 you would think i would bore of taking pictures of dog after dog but i haven't yet.  just like moose i guess, i never tire of any and all things Alaska. 

 we all make leaps in life.  most of the time, when you look back, you are happy you make the leaps.  can't imagine not leaping and allowing fear to prevent all that i have enjoyed.  I'm not always going to make every big leap...haven't up and decided to run the iditarod.  we all make our own leaps in life though.  some more thought out or less dangerous i guess...

 anything worth having is worth taking the risk for, even if it's a calculated risk. putting the work in adds to the value of what you strive for.  rewards are not always what you think they will be but in the end we are generally rewarded for making leaps in life. 

 always better, in my mind, to try, to go for it. 

 the more you do the more you realize you will survive. 

 so many allow themselves to be driving by fear and anxiety.  change is scary,  new things are scary. if you never feel scared in life you are doing it wrong i think.

 pups and i hit the dog park the past few.  always easy.

 the dogs know it well, i know it well.  they like it there. 

 so it's the easy place to go.

 kitchen will be a good place to start with a good clear out of house hold crap.  crap builds up where ever we live.  do not wish to allow stuff to take over life.  i always think i will just "move out" of one room at a time and start over.  doesn't always happen that dramatically, but it does really feel great to rid yourself of crap. 

 most of us have too much stuff and it does start to weigh you down.  like the idea of simplifying, like the tiny house movement.  not that I'm ready to move to a 300 square foot place...with pets i do enjoy having a bit of space.

 i do think things have gotten crazy in our nation . people feeling they must live in these huge spaces...fill them with more and more crap.

 Aliy isn't out front this year, i think last i looked she was in 11th spot for the moment.  Royer seems to be up there in the top 10 or close each year...she is just there, not really one of the mushers that gets much attention, but she probably deserves a bit more.  she may be happy to just let Aliy get the attention and quietly work her way up in the standings year by year.

 both my pups are chilling in the office here with me. i really need to get stuff done this week. 

 was happy last night as i got all my quarterlies done on the mannequins at work...we have to do quarterly activities for BLS, ACLS and PALS...those are all CPR courses.

 i stopped by the soon to close Sears today to look at their fridges, didn't see anything that really struck me....did crack seeing bins of arms of other mannequins...everything is for sale there, displays, mannequins... i felt the need to sneak some photo's there. 

 i didn't buy any arms or legs or torso's though. 

 guess there have been coyotes killing pet dogs in Seward.  hadn't been aware of this when i was in Seward recently.  the article was saying there were loads of rabbits in Seward and now they are none really..figure the coyotes came in and took the rabbits but once they ran out of rabbits they are looking for other prey.  occasionally, we have had wolves here take pets i the state. that would be awful.  i heard wolves one day when i was out, they were howling, but it's really hard to tell how far or near they are when they howl....we retreated.  better to be safe.

 more and more information seems to leak out.  there is some major crap going on with this administration and it just keeps getting deeper.   still many would rather ignore the truth of the abhorrent level of corruption in exchange for getting an agenda through.  no agenda is worth the destruction of our democracy. 

 was remembering the other day how so many on the right were disgusted by Clinton and his horn dog ways...the same who seem to give our current iitoo a total pass on his horn dog behavior.  had Obama or Clinton paid off a porn star to keep her quiet about an affair a few months before the election they would be going ballistic about the lack of morals and how that makes them unfit for office...now they just look away. we need more women in office.  tired of these men, on both sides who use power for their own gain..not that women are above this but it seems less likely. 

 I'm always shocked and even a bit impressed at the absolute arrogance of some men.  they do such brazen things and assume they will just get away with it.  this is true on all sides...some women tolerate it...that is their choice, i hope that i wouldn't tolerate it.  i just feel  a wee bit for Melania... the iitoo was having an affair while she was pregnant.  i mean i believe she had an affair with him while he was married so she shouldn't be too surprised. i guess both sexes can have that arrogance...many assume that a cheater will somehow change their ways once they have you...the prize i guess, but mostly the adage of once a cheater, always a cheater seems more likely i guess.

 people stay for different reasons.  the sex in the oval office was just as stupid and arrogant.  some women stay because in the end, these events assure them power in the relationship that they hadn't felt they had before. I'd rather be alone though than in these seemingly screwed up relationships. 

 does make the peepee tapes more plausible when you hear the current iitoo was involved in much hanky panky while his wife was pregnant.  i just find it the most reprehensible when men behave this way while someone is carrying their child.  it's the lowest of lows.

 just hope it all gets exposed and dealt with soon...what a mess. 

 I'm probably rambling a bit tonight, it's late and i am getting sleepy. 

 Scott and family and Karen enjoy their time at the Anchorage Iditarod party....

grateful for: A.  that even though i was losing my patience with my patient my co-workers came through for me  B.  that i have good health over all  C.  distractions