The news helicopters got to the bridge site pretty quickly last night and all the stations were running as many live shots as they could before they cleared the airspace for rescue helicopters.  It was in one of these live shots, finally a wide perspective from above, that I realized how much of the bridge had gone into the river.  I asked Karen, "what’s that going to do to your event this weekend??"  She just shook her head – clearly, there would be no canoes and kayaks going through that stretch of the Mississippi.

The Coast Guard has closed the river from mile 848 to 857 (mile 0 is the gulf).  I think 857 is right about at the end of the channel that the Corps of Engineers keeps clear to a 9 feet depth for barge traffic, so the northern closure is essentially at the end of the navigable river.  The south side (see map at right) is just two miles north of Fort Snelling — the intended overnight halfway point for the Challenge — near the Ford Lock and Dam.

This afternoon the Corps of Engineers worked to lower the river at the bridge collapse site by opening some of the roller gates at the Ford Dam.  This sped the flow upstream and dropped the water level 2 feet for recovery workers trying to get access to the debris, and I imagine it means the downstream side of the dam will see a similar rise in level.  Apparently that section of the Mississippi is only at 15% flow right now anyway due to drought, and this would put it closer to non-drought conditions.

So FMR was faced with a decision: cancel the entire thing, change the route, or do a partial event — and then wait for the Coast Guard to approve whatever new plan they came up with.  From their site this afternoon:

"We are sensitive to the range of emotions that follow tragedies like this — we are feeling them with you. We understand that some of you may no longer have the desire to participate in the Mississippi River Challenge this year, but we are also hearing from many paddlers and volunteers who do want to continue with the event this weekend — and that we understand as well."

Their website is yet to be updated, but I just heard from Karen that they have heard back from the Coast Guard and decided to go forward with the second half of the paddle as planned, putting in at Fort Snelling on Sunday morning.  There will be more details forthcoming, but I feel like this is the right decision — for a number of reasons, but primarily because of their transparent, sensitive, and very deliberate considerations during the decision making process.  It’s going to be an emotional journey down the river, but I think it’s important to go forward — albeit respectfully and carefully.

Arggh.  The stupid survey plugin I was using turns out to suck!  Despite testing it, once launched it seems to have not recorded a single submission!!!  So…  If you RSVPed online, we don’t know.  And I can’t find in the logs who might have done so…

We’ll shoot an email if we don’t hear from you, but meanwhile if you read this — please shoot US an email with the RSVP stats.  Dag.  Stupid plugins.

Karen doesn’t think I should swear on the blog.  I think there are some situations where there is no other way to start a post — this is one of those situations.

5:59 – Sierra (Nate’s sister) crosses the Mississippi river on the I-35-W bridge.
6:05 – the bridge collapses.

We never watch TV, but we’ve been glued to it tonight, watching the scene unfold.  This is one of those "should never happen" situations – the bridge had passed all recent inspections, we’ve all driven over it in the last few days.  Now they’re inspecting the rest of the bridges, but to what end?  This seems so random, so unpredictable, so outside the realm of "predictable" — what’s the point?  Should we stay off all the bridges?  Should we stay in our house forever?  Or should we take appropriate precautions, wear our helmets on our bikes, seatbelts in our car, and just do the best we can?

I do know that tonight I’m thankful for all the phonecalls and concern.  We’re fine, and everyone we know seems to be safe.  Karen sent an email that hopefully covered everyone who doesn’t read the blog so they’ll know we’re ok.

Much, much love to you all.

I had sort of an American Beauty "life is too beautiful" moment today while reading the comments on all the fundraising sites…  (on the right, still not too late to give!)  On one hand there’s the stress of planning the wedding, the heat, Boo Boo getting stung by a bee, a flat on my bike on the way to work today, the humidity, last minute contract work I’m trying to finish, nonstop plans for the foreseeable future, and, oh, the heat…  Not to mention the world.  But on the other hand: I’m getting married to the most amazing woman I’ve ever met!  And we have an awesome house with a kegerator in the basement!  And the best dog in the world!  And – as indicated by the comments and donations – there are still wonderful people in the world who care.  It’s weird, the things that give you perspective…  Duoteam is more than a wedding.  Can’t wait to see everyone and freaking celebrate!!!

… and to that end, I’ve gotta go brew some beer.  Sweet.

Justin and I got back today from a whirlwind trip to Chicago – left early Thursday morning to the Grandparent’s house, hung out for a bit with them and my parents, and then headed to Laurel’s show.  It was awesome to see her on stage again, one of the last things I can remember seeing her in was Stop Kiss back at Bas Bleu in Colorado.  Stop Kiss is such a different show it’s hard to compare the two, but it really seems like she’s taken a big step with her acting in terms of being more real in the moment on stage — not that she wasn’t before!  Just that it’s one thing I think I notice is better now.  A really fun show overall, I think everyone had a good time.

Friday I slept in a bit, ate Grandpa’s waffles for breakfast, then we all sort of puttered around the house getting yardwork done – mowing, window washing, and trying to get Grandpa’s old car running.  I know Rick took pictures so I hope he writes that up, it was fun to get to play with an engine that’s about as straightforward as it gets.

That night after dinner I went to meet up with the Chicago boys and Laurel, it was good to see everyone even if just for a night.  Noah, if you’re brave enough to click that picture, is ironing a crease in his pants — while wearing them.  I believe he put a book in there first to help shield the heat, and Rick V.T. was kind enough to offer the tip of waiting for the zipper to cool before removing the book.  Ah, I miss those boys…  :)

Justin and I left at 5 this morning to get him back for a noon meeting.  Whew.  It was fun driving with him, some good time to chat, but man am I tired!

Even if I had been able to call up the weatherman and order a perfect day to kick off the grilling season I don’t know if I could have done better than yesterday.  Just gorgeous, it was reading 73 degrees when we went out back to light the charcoal.

After last year‘s Hawaiian cake, this year Karen returned to her natural instincts: chocolate, and a lot of it.    She made a triple layer chocolate stout cake using my homebrewed bourbon oak barrel Imperial Stout…  and it was Truly.  A.  Mazing.  You can see me flexing to hold the thing up.

I also found a recipe for wild rice veggie burgers, which ended up being a big hit.  I need to refine my technique for grilling them, I had to pre-cook them a bit indoors so they would stay intact, but I think there might be a better way.  We also used some natural lump charcoal last night which I’m still getting used to — it burns hotter and faster and is much more responsive to airflow.  But less carcinogens!  I also want one of those chimney things to help light them, I don’t want to keep using lighter fluid…

After eating and drinking for a while, I busted open a sweet present from Scott and Shannon.  The pictures speak for themselves — you’ll notice we’re both out of nerf darts in our guns but still desperately pulling the trigger.  (And safety glasses on tight, natch).

Lastly, I got some Stranahan’s — and can happily report it’s as awesome as I hoped!  And for a grand finale, Karen got the siblings to go in on a long-overdue pint club membership at Town Hall!!!  That means $1 off every beer I buy there, and free drinks from 4-5 on Saturday!!!  Say goodbye to Saturday afternoons, my friends…  Nate’s going to Town Hall (with Karen – she got one too).  Yay!

Like an enormous python, I’m still digesting the cake I ate last night… Yum.  Happy birthday to me!

Hello from San Francisco!  I’m out here for a conference, and so far so good – we had ouu workshop this morning and it went really well.  Ended up running out of time — 3.5 hours always sounds like so much so we pad things out, but last year I think we ran out too.  Which sucks for the last guy (not me ;) ’cause he had some great material that we sort of had to skip over.  Ah well.

Wrote the next bit earlier but am posting it here:

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I’m writing this while in-flight on my way to Museums and the Web 2007 in San Francisco. Jealous much??

Last Wednesday I got my first (ever!) laptop, a Darter from System76. They’re a pretty sweet company selling preinstalled Linux machines – Ubuntu, in this case. I’m still tweaking the settings to get it the way I want it and getting used to all the little differences – I work with Linux all the time at work, but really only from a remote command line. This is my first Linux desktop, and I gotta say I love it. The desktop (Gnome) is awesome, I’m still adjusting to the file browser, and the sheer number of FREE apps available is just awesome. And it’s way, way better than Windows, or even OSX.

The next real question is battery life – I’ve got the LCD brightness cranked waaaay down right now and it’s still usable, and that seems to really help the power usage. Looks like I’m averaging about 14 watts at the moment with other 2 hours left. Sweet. Maybe watch a movie on the next leg of the flight.

Like I said, jealous much?

Feast your eyes, my friends, on a bottle of Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey.  "What?!" you may say, "how does that work?"  Well, the Denver Daily News has a good writeup about the whiskey and the process that makes it unique – basically they use 4 kinds of barley grown in the "Northern Rockies" and ferment their wash at the Flying Dog Brewery.  (Sort of the reverse process for the amazing 1488 ale we had in Scotland – they use the wash from a distillery to make beer)  The wash is put in a holding tank at Stranahan’s and they distill on average three barrels per week in their unique combination pot / still column.  The whiskey is then aged for a minimum of two years (CO (or US?) law says it can’t leave the distillery until it’s 2 years old) in new charred American white oak barrels.

So basically we’re talking about an all-malt American whiskey made just an hour or two from my hometown using delicious Rocky Mountain water and a wash from a totally kick-ass brewery!  It’s different from other American whiskeys in that it’s all-malt, no corn or rye, and different from Scotch in that there’s no peat smoke.  I’m intrigued.  The Mmm, Whisk(e)y blog has some tasting notes that make me very, very excited to try this.

(Luckily I immediately chatted my mom in Fort Collins and not-so-subtly hinted this would make a fantastic birthday present.  I think someone’s going to be very happy when his 30th rolls around…  :)

Got a snow day today (Karen will hopefully post about the huge snow storm we’ve been getting) which is awesome – gave me time to finish up the caskerator!  (Still debating that name…)  First shot is the saw hooked up to the shop vac, a super nice configuration that lets me do work indoors on crappy days like this.  At right is the basic frame constructed.  Essentially I built a frame with plywood and bracing to get the shape, then started slapping 2" foamular insulation on it. 

At left you can see the corner detail.  I ended up just using wood glue to attach the foam to the plywood, seems plenty strong, and the interior bracing is good.  The whole structure firms up a ton once the back foam is attached.

Here’s me in my "project" shirt trying to figure out what’s next.  Those playing along at home will notice the kegerator is in the laundry room now – I knew the caskerator piece would be big but as I got it framed I realized the whole thing would be better out of the now-fancy-ish basement.

At right I’m cutting holes for the fans and an extra one on the left for gas and beer tubes to run.  By sizing the holes under a bit I could attach the fan right to the foam for a good seal.  My biggest concern in all of this, and a problem I didn’t solve until late in the project, was how to attach the caskerator and the kegenator.  I was planning on just running a 4" piece of duct between them, but I couldn’t figure out how to seal it tightly and still account for the shift when things moved – I need to pull them off the wall to fill the CO2, adjust pressure, etc…  Eventually I ended up with what you see at left – a built out 2" set of foam with some softer foam insulation attached.  Also you can see the hacked thermostat unit that controls the fans.

The basic idea is to take advantage of the angle in the floor.  At right you can see I’ve anchored the caskerator to the kegerator at the base to act as a pivot point. 

At left you can see how I’ve shoved little shims under the front wheels to push the soft foam into the kegerator.  It ends up producing a really tight seal and still provides movement so nothing breaks when I move them.

Here’s the kegs inside before closing it up – you can also just make out a wood and foam shaft I built to direct the air intake to up near the top.  I wanted every connection into the kegerator to have the cold air on the downhill side so it didn’t fall into the caskerator and make it too cold.  We’ll see how that works.

Finally, success!  I’ve only got a british bitter on tap right now, but I’ve got a Scottish 80 Shilling standing by as soon as a tap frees up!