Randomosity

• A LifeMed Learjet carrying a patient skidded off a runway after encountering icy conditions on its descent into Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport Monday night. There were no injuries, but one of the jet's wings was damaged.

• Iditarod update, 9:30 a.m. -- Aliy Zirkle pulled into Nikolai at 9:14 Tuesday morning.
  
  Defending champion John Baker was second to the checkpoint, arriving at 9:36 a.m. Four-time champion Lance Mackey was another 23 minutes back, arriving at 9:59 a.m. in third place.  Zirkle, who made the 75-mile run from Rohn in 13 hours, 48 minutes, is traveling with many dogs that carried her husband, Allen Moore, to second place in last month's thousand-mile Yukon Quest.

•  Alaska Republicans today will select their favorite(s) in a bid for the 27 delegates we muster. Would I be off-base to guess they'll vote for "none of the above"?

•  We had a small earthquake last evening: a 3.4-magnitude tremor (not very strong at all) but only 27 miles east of town & only 17.7 miles deep. That's fairly close to us, or we'd not have felt much at all. Meh.

•  Ron Paul appeared in Anchorage on Sunday evening, speaking to a middling-sized crowd at the convention center. A piece in the Anchorage Daily Fishwrap described the crowd as "under 40 and casually if not roughly dressed."  Apparently, there's a dress code; doesn't that violate the Libertarian creed or something?