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Seanski and a very sodden Bald Eagle size each other up. If the eagle's feathers are too wet it can't take-off from the water and must swim to shore. Bald Eagles are far more graceful in the air.
Pete, Sean and I earning our turns at Tincup backcountry area on Turnagain pass. That upper bowl was oooh-sooo-sweeeet!+-+Version+2.jpg)
Unloading the skis from the boat, that's so cool.
The newlyweds on the ski into their wedding ceremony.
It seems from the news that re-votes in Florida and Michigan are becoming increasingly likely. This seems to be a good thing, because it is simply preposterous to seat the delegates from those states based on their January primaries. Since Clinton is so fair, maybe she will agree to have her name taken off the ballot in Michigan this time around, that way she and Obama each have their names on the ballot the same number of times.
Punditry aside, here's what happens to the math when FL and MI delegates are added back into the mix. Combined, the two states have 313 pledged delegates and 54 super delegates. Some of these superdelegates have already endorsed a candidate, otherwise I will assume that all new delegates are up for grabs. This makes 4,415 total delegates and the goal for party nomination increases to 2,208.
My current estimate has Obama with 1,624 delegates compared to Clinton's 1,509. To reach the new goal of 2,208 delegates, Obama needs 584 more while Clinton needs 699. Percentage wise, these numbers make Hillary's job much easier with Obama needing 46.5% of the 1,256 delegates remaining on the table. Meanwhile, Clinton needs to secure 55.6% of all remaining pledged and super delegates to secure the party nomination.
The upshot, if FL and MI are reinstated then Hillary has more votes to contest with her newfound 'momentum'. Her chances go from nearly impossible to somewhat possible. In all reality the two states will produce a draw, MI will go to Obama and FL will go to Clinton with any gains in delegates for either candidate virtually canceling each other.
Update: Florida re-vote won't happen so this post is meaningless. Michigan is looking 50/50ish.
We flew the first Atlas V off the west coast this morning. It launched from Vandenberg AFB at 3am PDT.
Photo credit: Gene Blevins - LA Daily News
It is increasingly difficult to get a clear and unbiased picture of what is going on in the Democratic Party Primary. Everyone's delegate totals are different and in most cases they don't even add up to the number of delegates already decided. To get a clear picture, I did a little research on my own and came up with some numbers that make sense. I compiled totals of pledged delegates for each state based on CNN, NY Times, AP and candidate estimates. I averaged superdelegate estimates from AP, DCW, and CNN.
My current estimate, including yesterday's Mississippi delegates, has Obama with 1,619 delegates compared to Clinton's 1,493. To reach the current goal of 2,025 delegates, Obama needs 406 more while Clinton needs 532. In terms of percentage, this is a significant difference with Obama needing 44.6% of the 911 delegates remaining on the table. Meanwhile, Clinton needs to secure 58.4% of all remaining pledged and super delegates to secure the party nomination. History is not on her side. Hillary currently has 46.6% of the pledged delegates allocated and has only exceeded 60% of pledged delegates in AR, OK, RI and American Samoa.
I believe that the superdelegates will not overrule the will of the people if one candidate leads by more than 100 pledged delegates going into the convention. To close within 100 pledged delegates of Obama, Clinton needs 314 of the remaining 566 pledged delegates or 55.5%.
Here are some more complete numbers:
| Pledged Delegates | Superdelegates | ||||||||||||
| Primary | Caucus | Current | DCW | CNN | AP | Average | Total | Needed | % Needed | ||||
| Obama | 1099 | 312 | 1411 | 207 | 206 | 211 | 208 | 1,619 | 406 | 44.58% | |||
| Clinton | 1078 | 172 | 1250 | 245 | 238 | 247 | 243 | 1,493 | 532 | 58.38% | |||
| Edwards | 12 | 14 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 26 | |||||
| Total | 2189 | 498 | 2687 | 452 | 444 | 458 | 451 | 3,138 | |||||
| Total | Allocated | Remaining | |||||||||||
| Pledged Delegates | 3,253 | 2,687 | 566 | ||||||||||
| Superdelegates | 796 | 451 | 345 | ||||||||||
| Total Delegates | 4,049 | 3,138 | 911 | ||||||||||
| Goal | 2,025 | ||||||||||||
The super high resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter happened to capture this image of an avalanche near the North pole of Mars. I just think it is so cool to see something dynamic in a place we think of as unchanged for millions of years.
Speaking of high-resolution images, there will be a new digital SLR waiting when I get home today! Mel and I decided on a Nikon D80 with the Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens.
One of my favorite new bands, The Hackensaw Boys, is playing The Goodfoot Lounge in Portland on March 13th. If you appreciate good Americana, this will be your thing.
Update:
Another one of my favorite bands, The Wood Brothers, is playing two shows in Oregon. First they will be at the Doug Fir in Portland on 4/18 and in Eugene at the WOW on the 19th.
Garrett, Josh and Graham in the skin track.
Last weekend was Lou's surprise bachelor party at Alta. It was awesome! Josh and I picked Lane up at DIA Thursday afternoon and started the drive to Utah. We had the little subi packed to the max with the three of us, our gear, and 10 gallons of quality Colorado 9% beer. All necessities for a fun weekend with a dozen dudes in a state with 3.2 beer and awesome skiing.
Garrett spooning my tracks
Friday, everyone that had made it surprised Lou and made lap after lap of leg burning turns until the lifts closed and we started partying. Every day I have ever spent at Alta ranks among the best ski days of my life and this day was no exception.
Me, can you see my smile?
On Saturday, Josh, Graham, Garrett and I headed into the amazing Wasatch backcountry for some exercise and giddy shriek inducing skiing. It was mostly sunny, stable and deep. We toured four bowls and found awesome untracked powder stashes on north facing slopes. 4000' of vert later we were back at the car and barely able to move, so we just sat around, drank beer and watched the sun go down. From there we moved to the bar and from the bar to the hottubs at the Peruvian lodge where we weren't staying. Somehow we managed to clear out all the paying guests and make some great snow angels in the process. It kept on like this until 4am, but I crashed out early with a migraine.
Most of the crew minus Louie, he is taking the picture. Someone in this picture needs to get married every year for the next 50 years so we can keep having awesome ski weekends.
Sunday it was a little rainy up at the mountain since a warm front had moved in so we went out to brunch and played cards until it was time for us all to head off to our respective states.
I went to see Barack Obama at his rally in University of Denver this morning. The place was packed! The official estimate was 14,000 - 18,000 with almost half in overflow auditoriums. I managed to get great seats in the main auditorium right behind all of the media. It was by far the rowdiest political rally I have been to and I was quite impressed by seeing Obama in person. Obama was introduced by none other than Caroline Kennedy who invoked the memory of her father as a unifier for the America. Obama's speech stayed pretty much along the lines I have come to expect from seeing him debate and stump on TV.
Change and unification continued to be the primary themes. There were a couple of things about today's speech that stood out to me. First, Edwards withdrew from the race today and Obama had nothing but praise for his former rival. He devoted a significant amount of time saying that he will carry out the primary foundation of the Edwards platform, including education and health care for poor working class Americans as well and getting corporate lobbyists out of Washington. This was a blatant attempt to lure former Edwards supporters and it was great to hear some of my favorite aspects of Edwards' platform included in Obama's.
Second, Obama clearly made two cases for his cause over Hillary's without mentioning her by name. His argument that we need a candidate that will not unify the Republican party against us particularly appealed to me. The Bush/Cheney administration has unified a majority of the country firmly against them and the next Democratic administration can learn from this mistake.
"That's how Democrats will win in November and build a majority in Congress," he said. "Not by nominating a candidate who will unite the other party against us, but choosing one who can unite this country around a movement for change."
Obama also came back to the fact that he was against the second Iraq war back in 2002 and outlined a plan to end the war. he was clearly referring to Hillary when he said, "It is time for new leadership that understands that the way to win a debate with John McCain, or any Republican who is nominated, is not by nominating someone who agreed with him on voting for the war in Iraq, who agreed with him in voting to give George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran,"
Obama finished by blasting the current administration for being, "Strong and Wrong" and pledged to be "Strong and Right." I am pretty excited that the Democratic National Convention will be held here this summer.
Cota was acting a little cold so I threw him in my pack.
He really seemed to know that this arrangement was for the best.
Breakin' trail for the dog. I personally think this is a gear catalog worthy picture. Thanks to Ben Hayes for capturing all of these great images!
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I got assigned to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and LCROSS missions today. This image is taken from the NASA website. As you can see, we are going to crash a Centaur upper stage into the moon! How cool is that? The plume of polar moon material is expected to reach 30 miles in altitude. Check out more info here.
Cota gets a little chilly when we go skiing, so I have developed a number of methods to keep the little guy warm. On Saturday he was fine as long as we were moving, but when we stopped he started shivering, so he wore my jacket while I froze. We also did the backpack trick for a while, except this time I dropped him in while wearing the DAS parka. I think he really liked that.
I just completed one of my wonderful three day weekends. Dane was in Summit County staying at his parents place in Frisco while on break from teaching NOLS courses. The Sherstads were kind enough to share their beautiful home with me for the weekend. I headed up Thursday evening straight from work. In order to accomplish this I took Cota to work with me for the day on Thursday. He was a big hit at work and quite well behaved.
On Friday, Dane and I skied at A-Basin for the grand opening of their new Zuma chair. At 11 o'clock there was a line about 100 wide and five deep waiting to drop into the new lift-serviced bowl. When the patrol cut the rope, the ensuing Chinese downhill was quite entertaining. Picture hundreds of skiers varying in ability level trying to get to the powder first. I did fairly well and my prize was waist deep freshies in the trees near the bottom of the run. Everything was completely tracked out in about ten minutes. A-basin is by far the best ski area I have visited in Colorado, it has a nice gritty feel to it, slow lifts, good skiers, and solid terrain. I bought a ticket Friday, but since it never got scanned I have another day there at any point before the season ends.
Saturday, Josh and Ashley joined us for some backcountry skiing on Mt. Baldy. It was a really mellow area with deep powder and no risk of avalanche. After a couple of laps, we decided to build a kicker over a cabin. Initially Josh and Dane favored a minimal construction effort jump, but I set in motion my plans for a slightly more elaborate kicker. Once they saw the light in my visionary plan, a few minutes of work created the best jump I have ever had the pleasure of hitting.
On Saturday, we built a real nice booter over this cabin. Here I am mid-back-flip. The landing was a little on the flat side, but it didn't really matter because the snow was so deep.
Sunday Josh, Dane and I returned to Lincoln Falls for more ice climbing. We did the two pitch central gully. I lead the first pitch, my first ice lead, at a moderate WI3 and Dane did a great job leading the vertical upper pitch. later in the day, I made the mistake of leaving my wallet on the roof of the car when we drove away. Some other ice climbers found it and of all the ways they could have contacted me, they latched onto Boulder Rock Club membership card to track down my number. I had some cash in my wallet to cover postage and it should arrive in the mail tomorrow. I am really happy that there are still nice people in the world.
For once I wasn't the one with the camera! Ben Hayes takes great photos and skied with the Dickman brotheres and myself on this pow day at Tumalo. Look how far apart those Oregon trees are!
Last year finished nicely with two weeks of not working. My company is kind enough to close it's doors and send everyone home for the holidays. I like my job for sure, but I enjoy not working way more. To celebrate, Mel and I drove out to Oregon.
The drive out was smooth and we arrived in Corvallis a full six days before Christmas with a majority of our holiday shopping completed. We filled this time eating to train for Christmas day and working out so we could eat more. We also had an EPIC ski day at Meadows with 13" of new, sunny skies and minimal wind. I had a new pair of fatties that absolutely rip although I don't recall making too many tele turns. Josh and I made liberal use of the kleenex trick and kept befriending the folks 3-5 spots up in line to keep the waits short. We finished a great day with a couple of pints and about 20 friends at the Laurelwood brewery in Portland.
Christmas was wonderful! I got a pair of beautiful bookshelves crafted by my parents. They look gorgeous in our bedroom and I am totally jazzed to have somewhere to put my books. The next day, Mel had to return to Boulder for work, so I picked up Phil and we went skiing. Another EPIC day, only 10" of new this time around, but it snowed another 8" or so while we were there and the ample wind insured that we got fresh tracks every run. We found a couple of great lines in the trees and made laps until we could take no more.
On my return trip to Colorado I stopped through Bend and visited with Josh and Cate. Their new house is spectacular and it was great to catch up. The brothers Dickman were also in town and we had a BC ski day on Tumalo and some midnight sledding to keep us entertained. I then began the long drive back to Boulder. The roads were pretty bad everywhere except Idaho and I saw a lot of vehicles in the ditch. I had the immense pleasure of driving I-80 east of Laramie in full conditions.
Just for the record I want to include the daily snowfall history for Meadows during the period I was in Oregon. It simply does not snow like this in Colorado. Thats 12 feet of new in 13 days. Snowfall is represented in inches.
17-Dec 14
18-Dec 15
19-Dec 9
20-Dec 20
21-Dec 7
22-Dec 4
23-Dec 4
24-Dec 13
25-Dec 11
26-Dec 14
27-Dec 6
28-Dec 10
29-Dec 18
Monday night people from Florida to Canada got an interesting view as our Centaur upper stage completed it's first orbit after a launch two hours prior. After the Centaur separates from the payload, extra fuel is jettisoned at the end of the mission. We empty all of the hydrogen and oxygen so that the Centaur does not turn into a space bomb if it is struck by a meteor. The space explosion itself wouldn't be so bad, but it would make thousands of little pieces of space debris that could interfere with operational satellites.
