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I feel a little bad for people that had to stand in really long lines to vote – my experience was really easy today.

I left work at 3:30 and I was at the polling place in about 15 minutes. There were no problems with parking and there were signs directing people to the entrance.

I was in line for maybe a couple of minutes before I was able to get checked in – and the check-in took maybe two minutes.

I had my checklist so the voting process was easy. I tore off the stubs for the ballot and only waited a minute before I was able to feed them into the machine. I got my sticker and headed out – I was home by 4:00

There was a bit of drama in line behind me – one guy couldn’t vote because the records said that an absentee ballot had been sent to his address. He claimed he had never requested one – but they had no way of knowing if he had sent it in or not. So, he had to cast a provisional ballot.

Otherwise, pretty uneventful.

later…

It’s November. The leaves are still falling and Halloween is done for another year. I had a really great time with my costume on campus and I think the people I visited had fun too. I got a few screams and lots of laughter – and a surprising dose of awe that I’d made the mask myself. That was pretty cool. I sometimes wonder if I should keep doing this – but I got such great feedback this year that I’m encouraged to keep going.

Election day is tomorrow and I’m planning on leaving work a little early to get to the voting place. I’ve got my notes and my map and a good book picked out – should be fine. I’m not expecting any problems, but woe be it to anyone who challenges my right to vote.

I heard a news story about a woman who refused to give out candy to children – or presumably their parents – who didn’t support McCain. What kind of a wanker would bring their political views into Halloween treats with kids? How fair is that? I would have lied to her about my political affiliation to get extra candy – then egged and TPd her house just for spite.

I went to give blood today and the drive was doing some kind of time survey on a little card that you carried from station to station where they noted the time. So, I thought I’d play along to see how it was going. Here’s what I had – and I actually had to correct one guy (more on him later) since he filled in the wrong boxes at his station.

Arrive at blood drive location: 4:03 PM (my appointment was for 4:30 – not that it matters)
Enter the history area: 4:35 PM (already we’ve got a problem)
Leave the history area: 4:56 PM (I had a trainee)
On the table: 5:04 PM
Start the prep work: 5:16 PM (the other table had a problem and no one came to help the staff person)
Needle in: 5:26 PM
Off the table: 5:36 PM

At first glance, it would seems like today was not a good day for them to be checking the time it takes to process a donation. With a little thought, however, maybe it was a good day. These times are an indication that they were understaffed – though I actually thought they had enough people, they just weren’t being utilized well. Maybe next time they’ll have more than enough people to make up for the times and things will go quicker.

So, let’s talk about the trainee. It’s fortunate that I’m an old hat with blood donations – he would have scared me off otherwise. He had to repeat the steps a few times, had trouble with the finger stick, got some of the info wrong, had trouble with the blood pressure/pulse and just generally made me nervous with his manner. I know a lot of that comes from practice, but a little more ‘non-donor’ practice would have suited me fine. I got through it, but it could have gone smoother. How to I keep ending up with the trainees? Seems like the law of averages would help me out sooner or later. Or maybe it’s for the best since I’m not going to get scared off and they can practice on me for the new donors.

In other news… I swam a mile today and that – along with my blood donation – should help me sleep well tonight. My arm was still bleeding with I took off the bandage – which is a little worrisome. So, I put it back on and I’ll keep it covered for the rest of the night.

I guess that’s it for now… already getting sleepy.

(yawn) later….

On Friday, I did my annual walk-around on campus and had a blast. This year:

Cthulhu

I had a blast with this. Scared some people, got some laughs, visited some friends. And won first prize at a costume contest!

I’m still recovering… and already starting to think about next year.

later…

The Obama infomercial was on last night – I didn’t watch it though I’ve heard it was well done. Still, who was it directed at? The undecided voters? I have a difficult time understanding why someone – even after the inundation of the media – would still not have made up their mind. One argument I heard was that they wanted to have all the information before voting. Well, I have news for you. It’s all lies. Or policital speak that sounds like truth depending on who you are. And as far as not really liking either of them – another argument I heard – well, it’s not about liking them, it’s about picking the one least likely to make things worse. I mean, seriously, make up your mind and go vote.

A few months ago – I guess it would have been sometime in the spring – I built a framework of wood and plexiglass and hung it over the urinal in the men’s room so we could put the twice a week student paper there to read. You know, while we were “otherwise” occupied and standing there.

I made it my job to keep this up to date until the summer when the paper wasn’t published. In the fall, I started up restocking it with new issues – but I noticed that the “old” paper wouldn’t be there when I went to add the new one. It would just be an empty frame. It got so bad that the paper would be gone within a few hours. I decided that someone was either stealing it – which made no sense since the paper is free and easy to get – or they really didn’t like the paper and was throwing it away.

I finally got tired of the futility of keeping it stocked and took the framework down a couple of days ago. The double-sided foam tape didn’t come down well and each time I use that urinal, I take a moment and scrape a little more off.

Kinda disappointing. I dunno who was removing the papers – and I haven’t asked since I didn’t ask permission to put it up in the first place.

Work has been busy and frustrating today. Looking forward to tomorrow to make my annual rounds.

later…

It’s snowing today here in Akron. Not a lot, just a little in the air. I was still okay in my lightweight jacket, but I may have to hang that up soon and switch to my winter coat. There have been a few people I’ve talked to that have been somewhat astonished at the snow – which has me thinking, “remembers last year? when it snowed? It’s just like that.” And seriously, it’s Ohio. If we had a 90 degree temperatures in December in or snow in August, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

With my video game system back up and running, I’ve been going back through my games and replaying a few. Dawn of Mana didn’t last long before I put it in the “to be sold” pile, but Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is pretty good. I got stuck last time with a boss battle and lost my patience, but I’m giving it another go from the beginning and enjoying the acrobatics of the title character.

The costumes are essentially done – for both myself and my room-mate. Which means I can reclaim my half of the garage that had been designated as the spray paint area. Which is good since I despise scraping off my car in the winter. I mean, seriously despise. Can’t stand it. Most hated part of winter. You see where I’m going with this. I’d rather drive in a freaking blizzard or shovel snow all day than scrape off my car in the morning.

Well, looks like I’ve got a couple disasters to deal with here at work – better get back to them.

later…

I’m in a better mood today. No headache – and it’s pretty quiet in the office. Looking forward to a long lunch (the boss is out of town).

I updated my fortune cookie webpage today – I was 6 fortunes behind. I think I need to do something different with this page – it has the potential to get very long and unwieldy.

Went for pizza last night at CiCi’s. The food was pretty good – but the place was almost dead. We were the last two customers in there and wondered if they would still announce “Cheese Pizza on the Buffet!” if there were no customers at all. (if a tree falls in the woods…?) It also appears that they don’t always say good-bye to customers with a hearty “CiCi you later!” though all the employees said normal goodbyes when we left.

Not much going on here… later…

Finally got my video game system back up and running. Switched out the TV for my old one – I had been using one that my room-mate got from his dad’s place. I was looking for a new stereo that would do the job of my old one – but they were either too expensive or didn’t have the right connectors. So, ended up using an old audio receiver that my room-mate had. It all works, but it’s not ideal. The DVD player doubles as the CD player. The cable TV sound can’t play through the stereo speakers – it has to come out of the TV. But, I’m playing video games again and that’s the important bit. Besides, who wants to watch TV anymore?

The political ads are getting worse. I saw one the other day that had a single mom begging us to vote Issue 6 – because she was going to lose her current job and her only hope was getting one of the 10,000 new jobs at the casino? Seriously? That’s your only hope? A casino job? Right…

The news clips on the internet are worse. I saw one where a man was losing his job and was going to vote for Obama because he had a better economic policy. His wife was asked who she was voting for and she said “I’m voting for the one with the most faith in the Lord, just as everyone should,”
When asked what if that meant her husband would lose his job, she replied, “the Lord will provide for us,” She also expressed astonishment that Obama’s mother was an atheist – assuming that he should have been disqualified on that alone. I try to keep an open mind about religions and respect people’s beliefs – but isn’t there something about God helping those who help themselves? Or a separation of chuch and state in the constitution? There was more to the clip, but I couldn’t watch it.

Worse still is the story of the girl with the McCain campaign who made up a story about being attacked by a scary black guy that was supporting Obama and carved a letter B in her cheek when he saw her McCain sticker on her car. Totally made up. She faked the whole thing and cut her own cheek (the B was backward even).

Finally, I saw a clip of a family at a McCain rally where they were all chanting Nobama over and over. Then the little girl pretended to be a monkey.

(crickets chirping)

Yes. It was exactly that bad. This election is really bringing out the worst in people – or maybe that has always been there and the election is just making it visible.

My neighbors put up another sign in their yard – “Another democrat for McCain”. I have, thus far, resisted taking it down. Mainly because I would need to take down all the signs in my neighborhood to throw off suspicion. And because people are entitled to their own opinion – even if it’s wrong.

In other news… I’m getting a headache this morning. Might be what’s making me cranky. Can’t tell yet if it’s a migraine. If it does go that way, I’m so out of here. It’s already been a Monday all morning.

Finally, I got a water bottle this weekend. Partly because the water bottle I get from Giant Eagle have been reported to have higher levels than usual of some toxins. It also makes sense from an environmental standpoint. I got the BPA free bottle at Dick’s Sporting goods and while it looks cool, the only way to drink the water out of the spill-proof bottle is to bite down on the silicon end and suck the water via the straw in the bottle. It’s kind of odd. But it works and I was able to drink 24 oz this morning – which means I need to hit the bathroom now.

later…

I just finished going through all the issues on the ballot for this year’s election – as well as all the candidates. I wasn’t as thoroughly prepared last time around and had to fall back on:
1) unseat the incumbent
2) go with the democrat
3) pick the woman (since I know how guys think and frankly, we really shouldn’t be given any more power)

But that method didn’t always work – so, I spent about an hour on the internet going through everything and taking notes. I’m ready to go this time around and should be in and out of the voting booth in record time.

I bought some more spray paint tonight for my room-mate’s costume. I think I’ve put more work into this than he has – but I’ve got more experience and apparently more time. A few people at work are trying to get me to tell what my costume is – but I’m not breaking. They’ll just have to wait.

Finally, got some photos of this year’s jack-o-lanterns. Mine is the lower one – it’s a smiley emoticon. Because I’m a geek.

I didn’t have a lot of time yesterday for my swim, so I hauled ass in the pool. 30 laps, in 33 minutes. I don’t know if that’s a new record for me since I usually don’t pay attention to the time, but it felt pretty fast.

Carved some pumpkins last night. Well, I mostly scooped out the guts and my room-mate did more of the carving. He did a pretty cool vampire face on his – on mine I did a smiley emoticon. It was clever, but not my idea. We tried to get some photos, but couldn’t turn off the flash on his camera – time to read the manual, I guess.

And when I went outside around 10:00 to put something in my car, I saw… something.

There was a bright light in the sky – several times larger than a star. There was no shape to it, just a very bright light and a faint contrail behind it. It moved across the sky in a straight, horizontal line. Very very fast and totally silent. It flew over my head and I had to turn around to see it. And then it was gone.

I tried to talk to my room-mate about it – he’s pretty much Mulder Jr. on the subject of UFO’s – but he was strangely dismissive. Here I was, a Scully who’s trying to believe and he writes it off as a shooting star. Then we got into a minor argument about sonic booms and I dropped the issue. Whatever it was, it was pretty weird.

later…

I was watching a bit of TV recently – which I’ve been trying to avoid until the election is over and the ads are stopped – and while I usually tune out the increasingly strident commercials in general, my attention was drawn to a new migraine medicine. It promised to offer relief – and then went on to list the dozens of potentially serious side effects. The side effects sounded terrible – and what about the poor people who helped test this stuff? I think I’d rather have a migraine.

My room-mate went in for allergy tests – the doctors thought there might be an allergy that is causing his occasional wheezing. According to the allergy clinic, he’s allergic to a ton of different things. And the recommended “treatment” is 5 allergy shots every week for a year. And then five more every month for another year. He said the doctor has to be in the room when they give him the shot since it’s essentially a dose of allergen and the the reaction could kill him. Potentially. The end results – after a couple years and thousands of dollars – will most likely be a lessening of the allergy. Maybe.

Sounds like the doctors and drug companies need to learn how to “help” and not hinder. Granted, hindering is more fun, but it’s also kinda mean if you’re serious about it.

I’m wrapping up my costume – just a couple more details to go. Also, I’m helping my room-mate with his costume again this year. It’s more work, but I can make better use of the ‘dry-times’ by going back and forth. I’m really starting to get into the spirit of Halloween again – bought some candy last night and I think some pumpkin carving is in my near future.

Finally, I left my car out last night and this morning I had to scrape off the windshield. Winter is on the way…

That’s it for now… later…