moreover, the court has rejected a “mechanical” analysis of vertical departures. United States v. Taylor, 88 F.3d 938, 948 (11th Cir.1996) (the sentencing court need not justify its decision to reject intervening levels in a vertical departure). Other circuits have required the sentencing court to “specifically articulate reasons for the degree of departure by us[ing] any ‘reasonable methodology hitched to the Sentencing Guidelines to justify the reasonableness of the departure,’ ... including using extrapolation from or analogy to the Guidelines.” United States v. Collins, 122 F.3d 1297, 1309 (10th Cir.1997). However, some courts have abandoned this approach after the Supreme Court’s holding in Koon. See, e.g., United States v. Sablan, 114 F.3d 913, 918-19 (9th Cir.1997) (en banc) (<HOLDING>) cert. denied, — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. 851, 139
holding that almendareztorres was not overruled by apprendi holding that schlitz was overruled to that extent holding that prior circuit caselaw requiring district courts to gauge the extent of a departure by drawing analogies to the guidelines was overruled by koon holding that koon overruled prior circuit law to the contrary holding that the mere mandatory application of the guidelines  the district courts belief that it was required to impose a guidelines sentence  constitutes error