In The News (Updated)

Slip-Sliding Away Dept: Three Anchorage women have qualified for the American cross-country ski team for the Olympic Games in Sochi ... Kikkan Randall, Holly Brooks and Sadie Bjornsen earned their spots on the team in an initial selection process, based on an international points list.

U.S. Kikkan Randall celebrates winning the ladies World Cup sprint event at the Lahti Ski Games on Saturday, March 9, 2013 in Lahti, Finland. (AP Photo / Lehtikuva, Markku Ulander)

Randall, Brooks and Bjornsen all train with the Anchorage-based Alaska Pacific University club team. Randall and Brooks, both 31, competed in the 2010 Olympics in Canada; the 2014 Games will be the first for the 24-year-old Bjornsen.


It Makes a Bad Impression Dept:  A man was hit over the head with a shovel and then grazed by a bullet during a fight in Chugiak Monday afternoon, police said.

... Police found that two men were involved in a verbal argument, and one of them had brandished a firearm, Castro said. In the scuffle that followed, a woman whacked one of the men over the head with a shovel, Castro said. Then the gun went off multiple times, and a bullet grazed that same man in the shoulder, Castro said. 


You Always Hurt the One You Love Dept:  Heard on the local news, but no link available - two brothers scuffled over a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, until one pulled a knife on the other.  Police were eventually brought in to smooth things over (see what I did there?).

It's unknown whether the fight was complicated by the brothers sticking to the roof of the house ...
heh.


It Was His Lucky Day Dept:  A trash collector got a surprise Monday morning when he picked up a trash bin at an East Anchorage restaurant and dumped it into his garbage truck: a man fell out, landing in the truck's collection unit ... The man and his backpack landed in the truck's storage compartment, [a spokesman] said. He was not hurt, but he could not get out...

The scene of the, er, non-crime

Meeting An Olympian & One Walk Down,

many to go. It felt good to get out & stretch our legs again, without worrying about ice & snow on the trail.

We stopped at a place called The Skinny Raven to get new walking shoes for yours truly. A young lady on a bike arrived at the same time, and as I held the door open for her, I realized it was Kikken Randall, silver medalist in the World Nordic Ski Championship. I've mentioned that Anchorage is a big "small town", and I've worked with Rosie Fletcher, but it's the first time I've seen Ms. Randall. I don't think I ever crossed paths with Olympians before relocating to Alaska; you never know who you'll run into, up here.

The walk in Taku Lake Park was refreshing. It was windy enough to prevent the Olympic-sized mosquitoes (our state bird*) from feasting, so the only issue was my own out-of-shape body. That will soon cease, and I'm determined to keep the winter/too many hours behind a desk/lazy flab off, this time.

The girls went with a friend to see the new Robin Hood movie this morning, and are due back any time now. My wife is going to grill some hamburgers for lunch, so have a great afternoon!


*Not seriously. At least, I think not.

Alaskans at the Winter Games

The local paper refers to it as "rail, fail, prevail". Let's see...

The Winter Olympics came to a crashing halt for Girdwood snowboarder Callan Chythlook-Sifsof on Tuesday, but for biathletes Jeremy Teela of Anchorage and Jay Hakkinen of Kasilof, it's clean-slate time.

As for Palmer's Kerry Weiland, she and the U.S. women's hockey team are rolling toward the semifinals and a possible medal.

The day at a glance:

• Teela dropped from ninth place to 24th place and Hakkinen slipped from 54th to 57th in the 12.5-kilometer men's biathlon pursuit race, with Teela's race marred by a mistake by race officials, who sent him onto the course too early;

• Chythlook-Sifsof crashed in both of her qualifying runs in women's snowboardcross and failed to advance beyond the preliminaries;

• And Weiland was part of a 13-0 rout of Russia in pool-play action, clinching a spot in Monday's semifinals.

And our other all-star skier, Kikkan (Keek'-un) Randall:'

Randall placed fourth in the first of two semifinal heats and then had to wait through the second heat to learn if her time of 3 minutes, 45.9 seconds was fast enough to put her into the six-skier finals that will decide gold, silver and bronze.

It wasn't.

Instead, four skiers from the much faster second semifinal posted times that vaulted them into the finals. Only the top two skiers in Randall's heat qualified, while the No. 3 and No. 4 finishers in the second semifinal claimed the two "lucky loser" spots.

Randall's semifinal time was 4.7 seconds off the time needed to match the sixth-fastest semifinal time.

We're not doing so well. We'll see how the biathletes do ... and that leaves us with a question:

What's more lame: "biathletes" or "snowboardcross"?