Four Things I Want. No, Five.

Recovery options in Blogger, in particular their Autosave, suck. I think if there was one thing that would drive me to a different platform, that would be it. Speaking as someone who has once again lost most of a post because something I was typing got interpreted as Select All/ Delete/ Save!!! I wish I could just turn that stupid option off.

Today was Christmas for my daughter -- she is now the prime owner of a shiny new Dell Inspiron 1525 widescreen laptop. We promised her one for highschool, and this week, the old one essentially gave up the ghost. I spent the last hour configuring the new one -- thinking wistfully of the article I read today which said, essentially, yes, Apple's cost more -- but look what you get for it. It just works. I don't have current familiarity with a Mac, but seeing the Vista layout -- they really don't want you messing with the innards -- I think that their designers know exactly what a Mac looks like. To be fair, they did some things well -- and others, not too terribly well. Would it kill you guys to have user-customizable program menus? I keep saying next one's a Mac...

Tomorrow I see the oral surgeon again. He'll be taking out the emergency stitches he put in yesterday ( he didn't call it an emergency, but his nurse's eyes widened when she saw how much blood flowed from my mouth when I pulled out the most recent blood-soaked pack of gauze). He'll also be carving holes into my temporary upper plate so that it will fit around the four implants with abutments, and over the two that are just the implant. I hope this will mean I can eat with the damn thing. It seems like every time we reach a stage in this process, there's A Problem, and I lose whatever I was just able to do, for a while. For the last seven months, I could eat most things -- no hotdogs, nothing that required serious chewing, but just about anything else -- I wasn't supposed to eat with the thing in (here's something they don't tell you up front: when a dentist says 'you'll be able to use that temporary plate, ask if you can EAT with it. Odds are, the answer will be Oh, No.) but with it out, I could. Now, with four posts sticking out of my gum, I can't do either one. Dammit, I just want this the hell done.

I see where Bush is taking senior appointees and turning them into senior Civil Servants -- which means they can't be fired. Bastard. I think they all ought to become parking lot attendants and coffee-cart pushers. Oh, do I want him and his scurvy crew gone.

And Lieberman, too. That worm.

Blip!

The Look

Want to bet Sasha and Malia know it?

Dumbness and Compensation

I feel like buying something expensive to compensate for the flaming fandango that this implant thing is becoming.

I won't, because a) its a stupid idea, and b) I'm not a person who buys expensive things.

But I'd like to. Plasma TV (that I'd rarely watch). Very nice suit (that I'd rarely wear). Replacement stereo equipment for the den (that I'd rarely use).

Something like that.

Well, Heck

The good news is, of the eight implants, four worked. The bad news is, four didn't. The oral surgeon expected one, possibly two, would fail. Four struck him as quite unusual. Lucky me.

For all four implants that failed, the bone was augmented by bovine bone. Apparently, my body doesn't like that. Two were immediately replaced with human bone; for the other two, apparently that wasn't an option, though I'm not sure why. The device can work with six implants -- but its going to be another six or eight months until the new ones fuse with the bone, and the damn device can be installed. At least, until the next damn problem surfaces.

The sedative, that I was concerned about, turned out to be a total non-issue. I was awake, but in a different plane of existence.

Oh, and afterwards I learned -- don't let the dentist nick your palatal artery. It won't show up as an immediate problem, because epinephrine will effectively constrict it, and blood won't flow (who knew?), but afterwards, when the drug wears off, the artery will not stop bleeding on its own, no matter how much gauze you stuff in your mouth. Though the resulting muffled voice is good for doing Marlon Brando impressions.

Two stitches later, I'm okay, though, for some reason, rather grumpy.

Wheelin'

I'm not a user of the iGoogle interface....but for this, I'd almost consider it.

Medical Reading

The other day, I was talking with my daughter while we were going to color guard. She mentioned coming across a television program about surgery. I winced. I don't like to watch that kind of stuff, I admitted. She was surprised. "You read about anatomy and stuff all the time", she said. I demurred. "Only if its someone else. I don't want to know what someone is doing if they're doing it to my personal body. I don't even want to be in the room when they're doing it." She was doubtful.

Which is why, though I just spent the last half hour reading articles about Dental Implants and Abutments, including looking at pictures of jaws with little tiny pieces of metal sticking up from the tissue atop the jaw (ugh) so that I now can sound fairly knowledgeable about the process, I'm not going to tell her about it. It'll just be a secret.

I know what they're going to do, and I can see why it's likely not that big a deal. Still freaking out just a bit about it, though.

Loneliness

I've been enlarging the scope of the sites that I look at with the StumbleUpon tool. One that I just found is Vervephoto. This is one of the photographs on that site, and part of its caption.

Chad Stevens
“For my final project as an undergraduate photojournalism student, I worked on a photo essay on loneliness, trying to define it, see it, and, in the end, feel it.... Victoria, a resident of a nursing home in rural Kentucky, found the cure to her loneliness in a child’s doll. In this moment I saw the parallels of the beginning of life and the end of life, between death and birth.”

Seeing Victoria, I thought of the little girl she once was, and I felt sad. I wanted to do something for her.

Fascinating

Okay, geekishly fascinating, but still...

Expectations and Ruminations

My daughter's friend's mother said her daughter freaks if she doesn't get an A in everything, every time. Whereas my daughter.....

(sigh)

Walking and Talking

I just got back from a short walk with my wife. On the walk, we talked about an article I'm reading - finally - that was published in the New Yorker in September of this year, on the topic of General Petraeus and our strategy in Iraq -- the assumptions and calculations that drove and drive it. Towards the end, we segued into talking about the election, and the debates, mulling over the actions and statements of each of the contenders.

It was a most enjoyable walk.

Wimpin'

Proof of my essential wimpiness:

On Monday, I'm having some dental surgery done. This is the last step with the surgeon (though not the last in the process). He'll be opening my gums over where the implant sockets were installed, suturing down around the sockets, and installing a 'healing cap' into each socket to cover it while the gums heal from the cutting and suturing. Okay, fine, I've had worse done. NBD. Except for one detail.

This time, I'll be awake.

I'll be sedated, and they swear I won't feel anything, but I'll be able to tell when they're having at me. Any stray comments they make, I'll hear. What I'm hoping is that they're planning on giving me not just pain medicine, but actual I don't care, I'm not even here meds. The kind of thing when you really don't care what they're doing. Oh, look, they're coming at me with a huge knife! What a pretty knife! But I doubt it. I think I'll be very much aware of whats happening, and my hyperactive imagination will supply the pain that my body can't actually feel.

What a wimp.

Going for a Spin

Good Cop, Bad Cop

I learned years ago that when my daughter was seriously upset about something -- say, at the crying stage, or just before -- the best thing I could do would be to sit there, next to her, speaking quietly but not provocatively. After she stopped actively crying, I would try to get her to laugh, which eased her transition from the depression. When she got old enough to realize that I would do this, she'd refuse to let me into her room when she was unhappy, and I'd respect that -- but when it sounded like she was calming, I'd ask her innocuous questions through the door, and simply the effort of answering -- even Go Away! - would start her back toward normality.

I thought about that this morning when -- after a breakfast in which she was in a great mood, teasing and laughing -- she abruptly melted down because a) she could only find one pink Tshirt, and she knew she had put two others in the wash, and b) she could not find the pants-- you know, the grey ones! -- that she wanted. My wife tends to take the rational approach -- did you look in the pile of clothes I put on your pillow? how about downstairs? -- which only works if she's already calm. I stay out of it, but once she's already had the meltdown, I offer alternatives, all of which will -- I can count on this -- be rejected, but once again, will get her into the mode of thinking and responding rationally -- well, semi-rationally.

Just now, she's informed me that there was no way she could get to the school, where she needs to be by twelve, in time unless we left at eleven (its ten minutes from here to the house of the girl we pick up, ten minutes there to get her into the van, and fifteen minutes from there to the school). Once she'd expressed her amazement that we couldn't do the math, I quietly offered to pick up the girl first, then stop by our house, pick up my presumably-pants-wearing daughter, and get to the school. Grudgingly, she accepted that this might work. Meanwhile, my wife hunted through her room for the pants - which she didn't find, but two Sharpies we'd lost, as well as a scotch-tape dispenser, did turn up. Oh, and in there, calm again, she told us that she found one of the missing shirts. We didn't ask where.

Good parent, bad parent.

Ah, Capella

Comments

I think we leave comments to articles we care about to say 'I agree', or 'here is something you forgot', or 'I disagree, and this is why'. Sometimes, its just to say 'I was here', and sometimes, its to say something thats irrelevant to the topic but relevant in your own eyes.

I wish you could filter comments -- don't show me ones that have a high percentage of words like pitiful, failed, lame. And 'fucking'. That really doesn't add anything, guys. Or let me tag comments as 'don't show', with software to do a neural-net analysis of the post, and scrubbing ones that look a lot like it. Though I'd think that every so often it should show them anyway -- maybe a (64 similar comments) trailer after the first one?

Most personal sites, including this one, aren't able to be consistently interesting, let alone, worthy of comments.

Mean Santa

I've mentioned on occasion that I play Santa at a local hospital each year. Its not a big deal -- about three hours at a Christmas party for the staff and their kids. I used to do it at EDS, but stopped when I felt like they were using me -- they stopped thanking me for coming, and at the end of the session, they'd troop over for their own personal photos, and assumed I'd be willing to hang around for as long as those took to do. Multiple shots, too.

Yesterday, I was at EDS, having lunch with my wife, when the woman who organizes this (and was the prime offender in not thanking and such) saw me. She said that the guy who had been doing it for the last six or seven years had hurt his foot, and would I be willing to do it. Well, I still sulk a little about that, but what the heck -- I said I'd check my calendar at home to make sure it wasn't the same day as the hospital one. It wasn't, so I said I would do it. Then, in the reply, she said that she passed my name to someone else organizing a different event that had used the same guy. I didn't like that. I know, its unreasonable, but I felt that I was volunteering for one, not multiple. It would have been better to tell me, and ask if I would be willing, before passing it on.

Now I find that this other event is for kids in middle school who are homeless. And (I hate saying this) that creeps me out. Homeless kids? Part of it is, the idea of homeless people creeps me out, period. I hate that we've died so much as a society that this is considered normal. And then, kids being homeless -- holy crap, how is that even possible? Well, this is how: the idea of homeless kids creeps me out so much that I just don't want to do it. Oh, if they call and ask, I probably will -- I'll wimp out -- but the idea of it just -- argh. I don't even want to acknowledge that homeless kids is possible.

Which I'll bet is much of why we can consider homelessness to be normal.

Extending the Brand

An article in the Chicago Tribune addresses the issue of integration -- this time, of merging the Obama campaign network into the Democratic Party. As they put it, "(I)t is no simple task to convert an insurgency into a standing army."

The problem arises from the extraordinary allegiance and devotion that the crew of Obama supporters gave to Barack Obama and his candidacy. They likely would have voted Democratic anyway, most of them, but out of habit rather than enthusiasm. It was Obama who brought them out of their chairs, applauding, whistling, and stomping their feet, and thats who they admire and support, not the Democrats as a whole. Now the DNC wants to capture that magic for itself. They want people to view"Democrat" with the same adulation as they see "Obama"; they want to tap the extraordinary fundraising network that Obama built, and use it to fund DNC needs, including paying back debts that the DNC incurred on behalf of the Obama and other campaigns. The grassroots is not buying it; intellectually, they realize that its probably a defensible idea, but emotionally, it was and is 'Obama' that's the star, not 'Democratic Party'.

Its an interesting article, and an interesting problem. Make a good Harvard Business Review article, I'd say - and a good opportunity to see the Obama style of management in action.

Coffee

I'm not a big coffee drinker. I have more of it now than when I worked -- partially because, with only one of us hustling to get out in the morning, its easier for the other to make it. Partially, because the new coffee maker does it faster than the old one -- we can get two cups of coffee from zero to done in about six minutes, and since it also has a timer, we can set up the night before and have it ready when we come out.

When I worked, I almost never drank it at the office. I liked to say that I never did because it kept me awake there, which, unfortunately for me, was one of those jokes where the recipient knows that you're telling a joke, and they should laugh, but they don't see whats funny about what you said. Every so often, you'd see them think 'ooohhh...he said Keeps him awake AT THE OFFICE, I get it now', and then they really WOULD laugh, but not usually. Didn't help that the coffee at the office usually wasn't that good. Some of my wife's coworkers will bring in their own coffee, brew it in a separate pot, and just drink that, and they'll even have discussions about it -- So, what did you think? Ah, it was okay, but it was a little too acidic for me, know what I mean? That was about it. I know that coffee freaks can get way more intense than that.

With our old home coffee maker, we had a note taped to the machine about how much grounds and water to use to get two cups; this one, we usually have luck just doing what they said to do -- four cups of water plus three tablespoons of coffee will make two plus cups of coffee. (My cups are bigger than my wife's; plus, she likes to dump a lot of milk into hers.) The taste varies -- the 'mouth feel' is different, batch to batch, though we'd swear we made it the same way as the last time. If I believed in ISO9000 (which I don't), I'd think this would be a good test case for that process. As it is, we just do the ritual 'Coffee taste okay?' question each morning, and leave it at that.

Whoops, gotta go, its getting cold.

Sitting

Andy Kauffman used to do a comedy routine where he would talk about being really, really poor. His family took pride in the fact that they didn't have much, but they did have - a chair. "And then later", he'd say, "we got to go inside, and that was pretty good. Inside, and a chair too, imagine!"

We have four people living in this house, and we have a mess of chairs -- three at the kitchen table, four at the dining room table, two extras in the dining room, one in our bedroom, two in the spare bedroom (one of which is a repository for clothes to be mended), two in the den (one rocker, one pull-out couch), two in my mother's living room, plus a couch, and one in her bedroom. Plus three canvas-back fold out chairs that usually are in a hall closet. And this is just for four people.

I've been in two wealthy people's homes -- one, a local resident, and the other, my wife's uncle. Both of those had chairs all over the place, frequently arranged in artistic groupings, as if you'd be walking along with two or three other people and suddenly get the urge to just sit. In commercial settings, there's nothing so mind-numbing to me as the sight of a ballroom full of chairs that's set up for a presentation or conference. Where do they keep all those chairs, normally, I wonder. I think of some mammoth Cave of Abandoned Chairs, somewhere under the building.

Life will be different when we're genetically modified so that we can 'lock' ourselves into a stable position, and not need chairs any more, I think. Or when holographic load-bearing chairs are invented.

Until then - have a seat. Take a load off.

Choices

Okay, I'm weird. I think this is funny.

Contact Juggling?

I'd pay to see this in person.

Knelt

A little bit ago, I knelt on the carpet in the bedroom, and then stood up. A minute later I did it again. And five minutes afterward, again...though I did stagger, the last time. At no time -- well, except the third, at the very end -- did I lean on anything.

This is a moderately big deal. I have not been able to do that - get up from floor level without leaning on something - since last December, when I broke my hip. This afternoon, I thought Dammit, I'm going to try...again.

And this time, I did.

Spending

We have a small food processor -- a Kitchen Aid KFP350. It'll hold five cups, which is enough for about 90% of the things we want to do. Yesterday, while I was mixing the dough for the biscuits (turned out I could have just done it in the mixer, I think, or even by hand), I heard a little clink sound, and the machine wouldn't turn on. The little tab on the bowl that pushes down the interlock when the bowl's cover is on had snapped off. I was able to make the machine work by just holding down the interlock with my finger. Afterwards, I did a little bit of looking for replacement parts.

Well, first off, it looks like they don't make that thing any more. Hardly a surprise; we tend to keep things for a while. When something breaks, we try to fix it rather than get a new one. I checked out some sites that offered parts for it, and was surprised to find that the bowl was twenty dollars -- and a similar new model was only sixty! My wife was willing to spend that, but I wasn't. Twenty dollars, just to get a little bitty piece of plastic? (And how come its plastic, anyway -- why wasn't that reinforced?) So this morning, I got out the superglue (always dangerous, with me), and carefully glued the piece on, taping it in place. We'll see this afternoon if it holds up.

While I was looking, I glanced at some newer ones. Gee, I thought, that seven cup one for $110 is neat -- and the twelve cup one, for $200, that would be even better. This, for a family that normally needs no more than 5 cups? And isn't willing to spend $20 to fix it?

Sometimes, my economic motivations don't make sense to me!

Elegance

Achieving a balance between functionality and elegance can be done, but it's difficult. Most times, we err on the side of well, if one button is good, ten would be better... as this illustration, found here, shows quite nicely.

Biscuits

I was in the mood to bake today, so I tried a 'quick recipe' that I'd come across, which can be found here.

It's pretty simple, and overall takes about an hour. Basically, you mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugar, and cold butter cubes in a food processer, then mix in cold buttermilk to form a somewhat soupy dough that you then form into biscuits, coating them lightly with flour as you go. They bake for about twenty minutes at a high temperature. I've had better, but I've never made better.

I'd show you a picture, but they're all, um, gone.Expanding...

VDay

Today is Veteran's Day in the US -- or as a bumper sticker I saw said "If you can read this, thank a teacher...and if you can read it in English, thank a veteran". I wonder if the people who excel at communications via Twitter write bumper stickers in their spare time?

An article mentions that tickets to the inauguration, which are supposed to be free to the public, and are still locked up, are nevertheless being sold by brokers -- or as the article put it, 'the promise of a ticket' is being sold. For up to ten thousand dollars a pop. Selling something that's supposed to be free...that you don't actually have... for a huge amount of money -- now I know what the Wall Streeters are doing while they wait for their chunk of the bail-out money. I'm sure they regard this as just the market, baby!

Last night I dreamt that for reasons unknown, I had to answer four questions as part of a Jewish ritual; all four questions were answered by one word, same for each question, but for the first four letters of the word. I had no clue, so of course I went to do research in the Room of Bad Ideas, which was in a building that looking remarkably like the central branch of the New York Public Library, but was actually a combination temple, yeshiva, and sleeping area; the ROBI was where everybody documented things they'd done that wasn't a good idea. I was in particular looking for the ideas left by my friend who died a few years ago, since she knew what the words were -- only they'd rearranged the building, and I couldn't find it. Uh....

Got to stop eating those anchovies before sleeping.

You've Got Mail!!!

According to an article in today's Washington Post, the Obama campaign, whose email network exceeds ten million people, is working on a number of plans to change their web presence into an ongoing tool to inform as well as persuade. I found two comments in the article particularly interesting --

" The (email) list is considered so valuable that the Obama camp briefly offered it as collateral during a cash-flow crunch late in the campaign..."

I don't believe I'd have liked finding out that my contributions to and support of the Obama campaign made my contact information a commodity to be sold at will. I can get that kind of callous treatment anywhere.

"Accordingly, the president-elect's http://www.change.gov transition Web site features a blog and a suggestion form, signaling the kinds of direct and instantaneous interaction that the Obama administration will encourage, perhaps with an eye toward turning its following into the biggest special-interest group in Washington. Once Obama is sworn in, those backers may be summoned to push reluctant members of Congress to support legislation, to offer feedback on initiatives and to enlist in administration-supported causes in local communities. Obama would also be positioned to ask his supporters to back his favored candidates with fundraising and turnout support in the 2010 midterm elections."

I don't care too much for that idea, either. If they're using it to inform me about things that I've said I care about, or tell me generally what they're doing; cool. It's when it becomes the Voice of the Government that it sounds... scary. (I put it to my Bush filter: How would I feel if Bush did this? And the instant result was: Pissed off as all hell.")

Ding!

Hmmm......

Monday: Chill, Bill

Some minor events, minor thoughts.

I see where AIG is going to get yet another bailout -- apparently, they've managed to make a serious dent in the money they've already gotten. You've got to wonder how much of that is going to the lavish lifestyle their executives think is normal. As they used to say (decades ago) about Castro: If only Barack knew about this! I'd echo the comment made by one of the late-night comedians to the effect that it would be okay with me if Obama started work now. Which is unfair, in so many ways, to him; I do know that.

I see where Barack is abruptly a popular name for new children. Barack Timothy McShaughnessy, get in here and eat your pork and beans! It amazes me, how much faith we're putting into this guy -- and I'm a true believer in the cult of O. If he can pull it off -- if he can pull even a substantial portion of it off -- we ought to look into doing something really, really nice for him. I thought 'well, what about repealing the twenty-second amendment', but that'd likely not be a gift he'd want. First prize, two terms as President. Second prize, three terms as President. But really -- he's given us so much already -- has any other new President in recent memory given this sense of possibility?

Speaking of being Presidential (which used to be a good thing), I see where there's been a secret executive order for years saying that the military can attack Al Qaeda where ever they are, whether or not the local government says its okay. I have to so, thats okay with me. I am as un-fond of secret executive this and that as the next person; eight years of Bush's attitude have rubbed that raw. But in this case -- sure, go right ahead.

Partially Submerged, Somewhat Deranged.

If someone could tell me what the heck this picture is trying to convey, I would appreciate it. This one, too.

Flars

My wife liked what I did as a judge, and how seriously I took it.

Questionable Content

I like the QC strip, but this one, I really liked.

Are We There Yet?

So, its been four days.

I've seen articles saying that this is great, the millennium has come, peace and joy shall spread through the world. I've seen articles saying this is great, but it should have happened decades ago, and anyway there's still lots of intolerance and injustice in the world; what's Obama going to do about that? I've seen articles that say that Sarah Palin is clearly the future of the Republican party, and others that say she's the reason McCain lost. I just saw one that says Gingrich is the only one who can unite the party.

We surely do love our fast fixes, in this country.

From The Pain Comics:

I am now called on to experience emotions that have become unfamiliar and confusing from disuse, like pride in my country, and faith in my fellow man. My colleague Sarah Glidden told me she was thrilled to see a spontaneous crowd in the streets of Brooklyn unfurl a giant American flag and chant, “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”--a spectacle that has previously only repelled her, since for the last eight years it’s generally meant that someone, somewhere in the world, was getting killed. Last night I was walking through a rain-sheened Union Square and found myself thinking, I’m pretty sure for the first time ever: “This really is the greatest country in the world.” Watching Obama’s speech Tuesday night, hearing him talk about America as a beacon of hope, an example to the world—and knowing that the rest of the world really was watching, and that maybe just this once, it was really true--I realized that some part of me never stopped believing in all that crap. I am reminded, embarrassingly, of the one scene I found moving in the film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when the Pevensie children meet the earliest and greatest of childhood myths, Father Christmas himself, looking like some splendid medieval lord, and Lucy, the youngest, smiles with quiet vindication and says: “I told you he was real.”

Slick

I came across an interesting piece of trivia on the New Scientist web site.

According to this article, mako sharks, which can move very quickly, can raise welts on their skin, creating a rough sandpaper-like finish. When the shark is moving, these welts cause small vortices to be created in the spaces between the welts; the vortices, in turn, create a small 'buffer layer' of water between the shark and the great body of water, reducing the amount of turbulence between the moving shark and the mass of water. Since wake turbulence has a lower pressure than the rest of the water, it tends to slow the moving shark down; reducing the turbulence removes that drag, so that the shark can move faster.

Who knew sharks were so smart?

Bang, You're It

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — An 8-year-boy is accused of fatally shooting his father and another man in eastern Arizona.

St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick says the boy is charged with two counts of premeditated murder after the shootings Wednesday.

Melnick says the boy initially denied involvement but later confessed.

Now, you know the constitutional amendment that immediately comes to my mind, but I think hey. Cut them some slack. This is Arizona, where guns are more common than in other places. Having a gun, out there - well, it's just part of the culture. Hunting varmints, all of that. No big deal.

But why did an eight year old kid have access to it?

...and the results are in.

After a first interim report card where my daughter got a C in one course, and a second where she got a very low B, she managed to squeak by and get Second Honors for the actual marking period. And when I say squeak by, I mean it -- two As, and three B's that were at the absolute bottom for a B - one point less and they'd have been Cs. So, she still needs to improve. But she did do it, when I feared she wouldn't, and that pleases me. I know she was nervous about it, and I know I contributed to that nervousness.

I don't like scaring her, but I don't know what else to do. It seems to me (still) that in our schools, the kids and the parents are basically on their own to figure out what works, and what doesn't. Okay, all kids are different. But still. Why do you have to figure this stuff out (when you can) for yourself? Why aren't the 'guidance' counselors offering sage, time-tested advice based on their experience and knowledge of the school environment?

Bueller? Bueller?

Life? I have a Life?

Electoral Map

Futile ITIL

I used to get quite annoyed with things like this. In the current financial catastrophe, that I no longer have to even pretend to care is one of the few saving graces of not working.

From the ITIL Syllabus Site:

"The syllabus will guide the design, development and use of training materials as well as training aimed at raising individual’s understanding of, and competence in, IT Service Management as described in the ITIL® Service Strategy, ITIL® Service Design, ITIL® Service Transition, ITIL® Service Operation, ITIL® Continual Service Improvement, ITIL® Introduction and ITIL® Glossary publications. The syllabus has been designed with ease of reference, extensibility and ease of maintenance in mind."

ITIL. For people who like being anal retentive.... and think everyone should be.

Lachrymose

Okay, I admit it. I watched the Obama victory speech, and tears came to my eyes.

Baking and Reading and Thinking, Oh My

Some stray items:

Now I can get back to baking. First up: to try some of the recipes in the American Pie book. And some cookies.  Also, I can get back to reading -- both light reading and some heavy things.  Its been a while for the first and way too long for the second. How can I think of my self as smart if I'm not even trying?

I don't understand why Prop 8 passed in California.  I might understand it in a more conservative state, but California? What it suggests is that support for that issue isn't as widespread there as I thought (as distinct from 'they got their supporters out, we did not'), and that surprises me. There's certainly some hostility about it.

Reading some of the Newseum's archived front pages for the day after the election -- for example, this one  - is an enlightening experience.  That particular page is for an Alabama paper; Alabama went for McCain by 60%.  That's got to be a paradigm shift there.  I also notice that papers from conservative areas tend to refer to him as the first black president, while liberal areas tend to refer to him as the first African-American president.  I like the former designation -- the hyphen always makes me a bit edgy, makes me feel like you're saying you aren't so much an American as a subset, with divided loyalties -- but I gather I may be on the minority on that.

Responses

I listened to the McCain and Obama speeches that each gave last night. Obama's was his usual elegant and effective oratory -- though he did promise a puppyy -- and McCain's was pretty good, as well. What amazed me was the response of the McCain folks, who booed at the very mention of Obama's name. I suppose I can understand their disappointment -- I'm familiar with being on the losing side -- but their reaction was uncalled for. Not that it was new -- it was the sort of thing that became common on Palin rallies, and at a growing number of McCain ones as well. This time, though, McCain didn't nod and smile at the response; instead, he waved them down and kept going. I'd like to believe it was his native decency appearing again, after so long in the shadows. For some rabid supporters, though, I guess it's going to take a while.

Signs

I was surprised to see that no one stole my yard sign. We'll be taking it down today, I expect.

D'Judge

I don't have any great insights into the Obama victory. I'm very pleased, though. It makes me feel young again.

Being a judge was pretty cool. I had a good crew, and they seemed to meld over time. It wasn't so great when the doors opened at 7 and people streamed in -- we were learning on the fly, as things we knew in theory turned into actuality, people at the wrong precinct, people who weren't registered, people who were required to prove their name or their address, people who got in line and then bolted, one of whom (at least) came back. I helped an elderly Vietnamese woman vote who had never done it before. I saw two blind people vote, one of whom had never done it before, and one who'd sworn never to do it again because it was so hard for him. I saw families with strollers, women who startled me with how attractive they were (in our town?), and guys who startled me with how thuggish they were (in our town?) -- and yet both kinds were standing in line, waiting patiently to get the chance to vote. I saw people who weren't sure how to vote, and people who wanted us to just start the machine and get on our way. I saw people who hadn't voted in years, and people who were voting for the very first time. After each one, or as often as we could, we asked if they'd seen the 'thank you for voting' screen at the end. That was because thats what you see when the machine has registered your vote. Some people were surprised by our insistence, but they seemed to appreciate it.

We had about 350 people in the first two hours, and overall we had over a thousand, in a precinct with 1178 registered voters. At times, the line was out the door and up the hill; most times, it was about fifteen people deep, and there were stretches in the middle of the day when there was no one there.

I drank three cans of soda, and ate one half of a doughnut. This despite having a lunch out in the car. I just couldn't grab ten minutes to do that. I was too wired. My wife was rather ticked with me when she found that out. And when I turned all the stuff back in to the Board of Elections last night around 10, I was never so relieved as when they counted the absentee ballots, did it again, did it again... and finally figured out why they had a mismatch on the count. They took it very, very seriously.

It was a very long day. I'm glad I did it.

Yes, We Did

Very, very neat.

Results and Preparations

Results: My wife had her ultrasound and mammogram, and the results are good: it's a cyst. A big cyst, but a cyst.

Preparations: I decided to update the handout I'm going to give my team -- and found that apparently grouping sheets in an old version of Excel can cause a change on one tab to be replicated on another tab. Also, if you print, and the printer decides no, not right now, thank you, and you recycle, you end up with two sets of handouts. And then you wonder: do they all have the last batch of changes?

I am so ready for this election to be over.

President, Vice President, I Don't Care

Is it too late to switch?

Oiled

I usually snicker, just a bit, when I read about well-oiled processes. That's because my experiences with such processes are usually not all that well-oiled. They may be better than others, they may be better than I expected, but they're rarely as good as the articles and writeups make them sound. My wife likes to say 'There's a reason that they wrote that article -- its because (whatever they were talking about) is unusual.' You don't see articles about houses with indoor plumbing, or telephones, or a color television -- thats pretty common. You read about the lavish salle de bains, the nano-sized implantable telephone and internet browser, the HD3D telecube. They're not common, so people write about them. See them in person? Not too often. Not in my circles, anyway.

Well, I just encountered one. I just got back from ma,ing calls for Obama at a local supporter's home. My daughter said that she went outside to practice color guard, and coming back in, she said 'hey, nice door hanger'. What? So I went and looked -- there was a BIG nicely laid out Obama flyer, and on the back it had preprinted information on voting -- reassuring you that you COULD vote with outstanding parking tickets, or even if you'd been arrested in the past, and with a sticker showing exactly where we would vote, and what the hours there were. They had a team stop by the house yesterday, and apparently another team come through today.

Well-oiled, indeed.

Trick or Treat!

SUMTER, SC "An ex-convict who thought he was being robbed gunned down a 12-year-old trick-or-treater, spraying nearly 30 rounds with an assault rifle from inside his home after hearing a knock on the door, police said Saturday."

Assault rifle?

Oh, not to worry. Because its covered by the (sing it with me, now!) greatest of all amendments, the SECOND AMENDMENT!!!!!!

Yay.

Time Out

Electoral

Okay, it's official.

I have the two VOTE HERE signs and the one POLLING PLACE sign. I have the two heavy Black Bags, crammed with files, forms, and fol-de-rol. I have the massive Poll Books and the slender Numbered List of Voters. I have the secure case with the serial-numbered Seals and the wire cutters to remove them. And I have documents out the wazoo. And badges. Green for the clerks. Blue for the inspectors. And red for me.

I'm the
>>>Judge of Elections<<<

Every head bow, every knee bend. Cue the trumpets. No, not the strumpets, not the crumpets - the trumpets.

Sheesh.

But the day was not totally eclipsed by my current glory. I also got to delight a woman living in a predominantly Republican area when I called her -- she was so startled to hear from an Obama supporter, she stopped to tell her husband -- I'm on the phone talking to an Obama person! No, really! And later, I got to talk with a woman who said she's actually been to Wasilla -- spent ten weeks there, in fact. She said the town is tiny, the people are great, there's a big honkin sign about how many moose/car accidents have happened thus far in the year, and no, she couldn't see Russia.

Reading This, Reading That

This morning, I spent a little bit of time reading the McCain web site. I wasn't surprised to see that their view of the world was different than Obama's, and I took note of how often they held up something as obviously wrong, misleading, or an outright lie that I felt was actually right, not the full story, or in fact true. It made me wonder how much of what I believe is seen by them as lies. Problem is, it's almost impossible to talk about these things quietly -- even with people who are willing to discuss it, much of the discussion comes down to belief -- do I believe that my candidate is the best one. If I do, I'm going to put credence into what he says, I'm going to interpret the words, fill in the gaps, to create a tapestry that looks appealing to me. I suppose it doesn't really matter that my view of what the candidate means and plans isn't exactly the same as the next person's, but when it gets to discussion between people who don't agree on the central premise of who's the candidate, things stop pretty quickly; if they agree, differences are easily spackled over.

I'm sure whole courses have been written on that basic concept.

I also spent some time reading this article on the structure and functioning of the Obama volunteer effort. I believe that win or lose, the Obama effort will be used as a model for future political campaigns. Whether you support him or not, it's an interesting article. At least, this Obama supporter thinks so.

Candy

Every year, I do penance for our first Hallowe'en in this house, about two weeks after we were married, when we didn't know that it was scheduled, and for our second one, when we ran out of candy. Every year, I buy a little too much. This year, I bought a lot too much.... and we had three visitors. A teenage girl and her sister, from down the block, and a little girl and her parents, from across the street. And the woman who's husband is having some legal trouble, and her son. The girls were happy and cheerful; the little girl was way beyond the legal limit of cute, and the son -- well, he looked really good, made up as Indiana Jones, but you got the clear feeling that he really didn't want to be doing any of this.

But that was it.

My wife says we should freeze the candy. I'm thinking: hide it, keep it for the January party (January? Just around the corner...), and then pitch it. But not at someone: that tonnage could inflict serious pain.

Next year, one Hershey bar per kid.... I'll buy a six pack, and have some left over.

VFO

Now, This Is Dumb

It takes a lot for me to take the side of a McCain supporter. This does the trick, though. Its just flat out dumb behavior. And stupid. And unneighborly. And rude.

And the killer? All those adjectives are referring to Obama people. My side.

Here's the article.

Decision

This is an old video that I'd posted back when I just thought 'you know, this is an interesting guy...he could make a useful Vice President in a couple of years'.

Reading

Watch it to the end.....

Song

My daughter likes listening to country music. One of her current favorites has the line 'I can't believe this is happening to me'; another is 'I can't breathe'. Its about someone whose husband was killed in Iraq. Then there's the one about the woman who went out, got drunk, woke up married, and says 'I don't even know my last name'.

Holy hell.

Anthem

The Star Spangled Banner has four stanzas? Apparently so.

InSync

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Would you rather regret?

In four years, will we feel the regret over this election the way we feel now about the last one? Not if we make the right choice, we won't.

Old News

This is old, but I like it. It's about twelve minutes long. Maybe after the election I'll get tired of seeing him, but not yet. Not yet.




From the Wonkette site. Here's her text:

Here is that remarkable video from last night, just after the debate. The news channels quickly cut to their commentators and spin rooms and such, but the C-SPAN cameras stayed as long as there was a candidate in the room. Here’s what to watch for:

00:00:13 — Cindy McCain walks out to greet her husband, and follows him awkwardly around the room for 25 seconds, until 00:00:39, when McCain finally acknowledges her presence with a quick, one-armed hug and a split-second glance at the side of her head.
00:01:19 — McCain may have patted Obama’s back here. Impossible to tell what exactly he is doing with his left arm. But if it was a pat on the back, however patronizing, it somewhat negates the handshake snub. Somewhat. But not really.
00:01:20 — The snub. Obama reaches out to shake McCain’s hand. McCain makes a weird face and points to Cindy McCain. Nonplussed, Obama smiles and takes her hand, says some pleasantries, and returns to the voters in the audience.
00:01:34 — McCain glances at Cindy, nods towards the exit door, and gives a spastic little bug-eyed wave goodbye to … the exit door he’s approaching?
00:01:35 — That’s it, the McCains are gone.
00:01:36 — Tom Brokaw is in the room, talking to the audience members. Barack and Michelle Obama are in the room, talking to the audience members. It’s almost as if there was an agreed-upon protocol — you know, basic manners.
00:01:36 through 00:11:11 — For the next 10 minutes, Barack and Michelle talk to people, post for pictures, make jokes, have apparently serious conversations with people, sign autographs, shake hands, and otherwise engage with literally everybody in the room, a hundred people or more.

At 00:05:06, a woman slips under Barack’s arm and hugs him. He hugs her back, and she actually dances back to her seat, which makes a bunch of people laugh.

At 00:09:26, Barack starts talking to (we think!) the guy who asked the first question of the debate, the one about everybody losing all their retirement savings in the economic collapse. And he keeps talking to him, and keeps talking to him, and listening to him, for more than a minute.

At 00:10:42, a black guy in glasses and a gray sportscoat asks to have his picture taken with Obama, who motions up to the seats just out of view of the camera, and seems to say he was headed up there, but he’ll come back. At 00:11:15, he comes back to the guy and happily poses for the picture.

And that’s where this C-SPAN clip ends. The live video feed last night went on for another twenty minutes, because that’s how long the Obamas stayed in the little theater, working the room, their “body language” betraying no exhaustion or wish to get out of there and have a beer and relax.

The debate may have been a bore, but what happened afterward was extremely telling.

ObamaCanadian

Apparently, Obama is a Canadian at core. I've always said I like those guys, and now, even more. How about that?

Death

Kid accidentally kills himself with automatic weapon at gun show. Meanwhile, gun owners are stocking up just in case the Apocalype comes, or the election of Obama brings civil unrest, or the financial meltdown destroys society.

The more I see of that kind of thing, the more I think: you know what? We ought to do it. Give the gun owners something they've been clamoring about for years. What they secretly believe Obama's going to do. Let's do it. Let's take all the guns. Hand guns, shot guns, rifles, machine guns. Grab 'em all. Let people prove their right to have lethal weapons in their possession before they get them back. And the more powerful the weapon, the bigger the requirement of proof.

To which the NRA promptly responds Second Amendment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We're real sorry... but, you know, there was a firearms instructor right there! And even the kid's father! The instructor just made a ....little mistake. And did we mention the Second Amendment?

And another kid is dead.

=======
Updated to include link.

Every One?

This is a simple graphic of every presidential election ever held in this country (yes, every one), showing who ran, who lost, what the results were, which states were carried, the whole bit. Pretty impressive.

Transit

I hear that riding sluts can be good for the environment. No, really.

(Which makes me wonder: is slut a unisex term? If not, what's the male equivilent?)

Concern

One of the nice things about being retired is that I can take a nap whenever I want. As I did, this morning -- I had gotten up to have breakfast, was groggy, and said 'well, I can either take a nap or read that damn election stuff some more'. So....that was an easy choice. Though, as it turns out, perhaps I should have read the election stuff some more. I had a bad dream.

It wasn't the classic scary one -- more weird than anything, including being at some kind of store and seeing young, buff guys walking around as if they worked there, but they were all a) glistening like they'd been sprayed with Pam, b) wearing just baggy white pants and a purple sash, and c) with a tight-fitting purple mesh hood completely over their head. Yeah, right? I don't have any idea where any of those images came from, but I think the underlying un-ease came from my wife telling me last night that she was doing a self-exam, and she Found A Lump. Oh, crap.

So today she's going to see a doc -- not the nurse who we normally see, but an actual doc who's at the same practice -- and she expects that she'll have to go have a mammogram, and possibly a cat scan or MRI. She says she's only a little worried, and I did my best to comfort her. Which is why I got up instead of sleeping in. This morning, I was intermittently thinking Whats The Worst That Could Happen? Which is not a game to play when you're feeling a little down, because you can think of all sorts of things, all of which are in the I hope THAT doesn't happen range.

So we'll see.

=====================

Update: the doc's not sure, but she thinks its just a big cyst (she's had them before). Mammo and ultrasound, coming up.....

Pollin'

I was reading the three political polling sites that I look at, last night -- fivethirtyeight, electoral-vote, and presidential electoral forecasts -- when my wife came into the bedroom and asked me if I was seeing anything interesting. I told her that the general trend was consistant, but one thing that really surprised me was that whenever electoral-vote zigged, PEF zagged. In fact -- I brought up the graph and deleted the 538 line, just to be able to see the other two more clearlu -- it was exactly that -- like one was forecasting Obama, the other McCain. I brought up the Methodology section of PEF, and I read this:

This web site presents predictions of the 2008 presidential electoral college outcome (if elections were held today) based on state level polls collected by electoral-vote.com. At least once a day, a script fetches those site's polls table, computes simulations of election outcomes (details below) based on state-level polls and posts them on the front page.

Oh. So one of the three sites that I look at is using base numbers from another of the three. I guess that explains why they're tied so closely together. So much for getting differing views of the same race. But - why inverted? And that, I still don't know.

Gripping Picture

Guess what this is!

Answer can be found here.

Reading

I am reading the documentation for the election process. I have now gone through the fifty-one pages of instructions and the twenty-six pages of Exhibits about four times, and I'm in the middle of the fifth iteration. I have a spreadsheet with about fifty lines of 'this is what happens, during what block of time', another page for 'this is what the exhibits are and where they are', and another for nagging questions.

My conclusion is that this documentation is what they say they do, what they try to do, but that no one can guarantee it's what they do do. As much as they can, yes. Absolutely? I wouldn't bet on it.

Last run through for tonight.

Sunday Morn

It was wet, last night, and cold -- and again this morning -- but that turned out to be a good thing.

My daughter's color guard routine is called 'Above the Clouds', wherein they move through multiple iterations, eliciting that feeling. This time, the fog had rolled in just before their performance, so that when they were doing it, they literally looked as if they were above the clouds. And when they were done, the fog rolled out again. This was taken as a good sign by the crew, and indeed, they won. This morning, when I headed out to church, it was again foggy, which meant that I got to see the sunrise over the wetlands wreathed in plumes of steam. Quite nice.

Reading the paper, interesting things show up. One's an article wherein some Republicans are warning the people at their rallies that if the Democrats do as well as now appears possible, they'll not only have the majority in both houses as well as the White House (should that be referred to as The Third House? Used to be called The People's House, but last time I was there, they wouldn't even let me in the door), but they'll have a filibuster-proof majority, at which point, the R's can just stay home for the duration. I actually share that fear. I hope that the Democrats do not get a filibuster-proof majority. One protection that they hadn't mentioned: when the R's controlled Congress, back in the Gingrich days, they voted in lockstep, as a block, and effectively shut the Democrats out (its memory of that which makes this so sweet, and weakens my opposition to a filibuster-proof Democratic majority). When the D's are in power, though, they don't herd nearly as well, so it'll be like two or three parties -- and smart Republicans will pick them off to make deals and compromises. We've already seen how good Pelosi isn't at controlling the troops in the House.

I spent about two hours last night reading through the election material again. My feeling is that I'm about halfway to feeling confident about what I need to do, and what I need to do it with -- ie, who does what, what materials are used, etc. As I tend to do, I'm writing a checklist. Once I'm happy with it, I'll offer it to the elections bureau, but I'll bet they reject it. NIH, you see.

There are flocks of crows dive-bombing the cornfield next to our house, and every so often we can see a single bluebird industriously pecking away. Must look like an all-you-can-eat operation, to them. I tend not to notice whats going on in the field -- they run about three cycles of crops through, here and in the fields around our development and along the road that leads to my daughter's school -- but this is the first time I've ever noticed this many birds all at once. Well, except for one time about ten years ago when the field was barren and a whole flock of birds -- looked like about two hundred of them -- was hopping around on the ground when something startled them -- and all at once there was this great WHUMPH as they all lifted off at the same time. Impressive as all get out.

This morning, we had bacon, waffles, peaches, and coffee, all of which turned out well. I derive a slight pleasure from ensuring that the three main components are all ready within about two minutes of each other -- about eight minutes for the coffee, five minutes fifteen seconds for the waffles (cooking time), and between fifteen and twenty minutes for the bacon. Something additional today, though -- we have a stick of butter on the counter, softening -- I'm going to try making buttercream icing. I've done it before, and wasn't too pleased with the result. Ironically, we just ran out of the small amount of whole milk I'd gotten for a recipe. Sometimes my timing isn't so good!

A Voice From Missouri

Babies Don't Lie

That's true, they don't. They tell you exactly what they think. Like these little guys....

Talking Politics

I spoke to a woman the other day about the election who said that she still didn't know who to vote for. I told her that she should pick two or three areas that are really important to her, hear what each of the candidates says, and see which one sounded more like what she thinks ought to be done. I also said that you have to temper that with how believeable the candidate is -- ie, are they just saying it to get my vote, or do they really mean it. I was surprised to see that she seemed to be thinking about it. Surely, that'd be obvious? Not always, apparently.

Mentor

One of the problems that I had last year being a mentor was that I didn't know what exactly I was supposed to do. They had a lot of feel-good phrases, but very little practical advice or guidance. While I was thinking about this new mento that I've got, I decided I needed a Plan that would guide what I would do. I mulled it over before I met him, and then, as part of the getting-to-know-you, I laid it on him.

I told him that I was there for three things:

First, to listen, to whatever he wanted to say. It could be simply how his day was going, it could be a complaint that he couldn't make to his parents, or teachers, it could be pleasure at some accomplishment, or fear about something that was happening. Whatever, I was there first off to just listen, and to talk with him about it if he wanted me to do that.

Second, I was there to be an advocate. I told him that I was there because of him; that he was, effectively, my boss, and my goal was to help him in whatever he needed. If he couldn't quite get a teacher to listen to him, I'd talk with the teacher on his behalf. If he didn't understand the point that a teacher was making, I'd talk to the teacher and find out, then work with him on it as much as I could. If he just wasn't connecting, I'd do what I could to make that happen.

And third, I was there to give structure and feedback on school itself. I told him that this didn't mean I was a snitch; I wouldn't call his parents and say your son is having problems. It meant that I was there to tell him things that I thought he needed to hear, and to help him learn to do things, or do them better, that he needed to be able to do. I'd help him keep track of projects; talk about how to prepare for tests and learn from them; help him be a student. I asked, for example, if he used his agenda book, and he shrugged, saying 'usually'. I told him I knew exactly what he meant -- they gave him the tool, they told him how to use it, and then they figured they were done. I'm going to work on that - touch on it every week. Not to nag, but to keep both of us abreast of how he's doing, what's coming up, all of that. I'm big on structure, on planning; I think it's important.

He seemed surprised by some of it -- particularly the part about me working for him -- but it seemed to help. He knows what to expect of me, what's going to happen when we meet -- what the parameters are, the boundaries, the expectations. And I know what I want to do. Maybe it'll work, maybe not, but I'll have structure, just as he will. I hope that it'll help him. I hope it'll help me.

We'll see.

Costume

One of the Hallowe'en costumes I don't expect to see around here. (Its actually from Carnival, apparently...)

BCLK

I like to bake. I'm an okay baker, nothing special. There are people who are intense bakers -- they're the ones who make cupcakes with an inch of buttercream frosting and delicate shavings of chocolate curls atop.

And then there's Big City Little Kitchen, which combines elegance with simplicity. That's the kind of baker I'd like to be.

Republicans

I've mentioned that I don't trust the leadership of the GOP, but that I think ordinary Republicans are just as likely as ordinary Democrats to be decent people. I was struck by this, from the Daily Kos site:

My wife and kids were driving home Monday night, when they noticed someone standing in our driveway. As they turned to pull in, they saw it was one of our neighbors from down the street, who ran quickly with his dogs across our lawn and into the woods. That was when my wife noticed that our Obama '08 yard signs, which were right where he had been standing, had been pulled down and torn up. My daughter, who is 5, was especially upset since she was proud to have some of the only Obama signs on the street.

Well, my wife immediately made up a hand-lettered sign to replace the destroyed ones. It stated that we were going to buy another one with the money helping Obama's campaign (thanks to whoever came up with that idea by the way), and described the neighbor who had done it and asked if anybody knew who he was (he was walking a couple of pretty distinctive little fluffy white dogs).

First thing that happened, our next-door neighbors (big McCain/Palin supporters, many yard signs) came by and expressed their outrage over what had happened. They said that everyone has a right to support the candidate they want, and when we got our new sign they'd keep their eyes open to make sure no one bothered it. Well, they are a very nice older couple, so I wasn't at all surprised by this, but it made us feel good all the same.

Here's where it gets kind of shocking. Next thing we know, on Wednesday, somebody is knocking on our front door. My son answered, and it was a couple of neighbors we didn't know. They introduced themselves and said they lived down the street. They explained that were Republicans, but they had gotten so upset about what had happened that they went down to Obama headquarters and bought us a new sign. That's right, they knowingly contributed money to Obama, and they explained that they wanted to make sure we knew that not all McCain supporters are jerks or thugs.

Finally, on Thursday, the guy who had vandalized our signs came and apologized, sort of. He asked us if we could take down the sign describing the damage since, although "he wasn't the guy" who had torn the signs down (he was, by the way), his neighbors thought the description matched him and were giving him a hard time about it. He said he was sorry it had happened, and he'd keep an eye on our signs when he was out walking his little fluffy white dogs. I figure that's a pretty fair apology from somebody crass enough to vandalize someone else's property, so I thanked him and took down the extra sign.

So, now we have our yard sign back. We have a safer situation for the sign, since we're surrounded by people who are keeping an eye on it. We have a lot of respect for our neighbors, who are very decent people willing to do something about bullying and harassment. And I have remembered that, even though I strongly disagree with the political philosophies of my neighbors, they are mostly good people. Sometimes I forget that when I'm all wrapped up in the latest Republican outrage, but I'll try to remember that the hate-filled right-wingers we hear about in the news and on the blogs are exceptions to the rule. At least they are in my neighborhood.

Reading

I'm reading through the materials for the judge. And getting nervous. Here's my notes thus far. Some are redundant, and all, I hope, will be answered after I have read through them a couple more times.

Election notes

Where do you get the text to do the swearing in
Where do you note that the swearing in was done
What does 'after the election board is organized' refer to
What are the cards of instruction
Where are the sample ballots and other materials that are to be posted
Where should the sample ballots and other materials be posted
How do you ensure that the voting machine is 'properly prepared'
What are the 'returns' that are to be posted outside of the polling place afterwards
How long must the 'returns' be posted
If one set of returns must be brought back to the county, how are the posted set generated
Do I need to arrange for the voting machine delivery people to get access to the building
Do I need to arrange for the voting machines to be put into a secured room overnight.
Who actually has to come to the building on the day before the election
When does the crew vote
What if people come in the front door right into the voting area (instead of in the back, where the line is)
Is the 'numbered list of voters' the books that the voter signs in on?
When is a provisional ballot used
Where is the 'County Poll Workers Checklist' >>>>in the judges materials
Contents of 'small manila envelope' to go with judge to country is not clear
who physically starts each of the machines?
When and how many zero tapes are printed?
Who actually cancels the vote for the runaway voter


MASKING TAPE NOT DUCT TAPE for holding up signs

how will we get into the building the day before the election, and when
how will we get into the building on election day at 6AM
how will i remember to periodically sum the total voters per machine plus runaway
individual lunch, dinner?

Basically, I'm trying to sort this mess into some kind of coherent order. And I'm glad I've got several days in which to do it.

Don't SuperZap Me, Bro

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before they are used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

Callz

I just got called by the county voting office. They said that the Minority Inspector said she hadn't heard from me yet. I replied that I didn't know I was supposed to call her. Oh, yeah, they said. Call all of the clerks, let them know when to be there, and what you want them to do when they get there. Oh, and you need to decide how to handle lunch -- do you want to do a pot luck or bag your own or whatever.

Geez, guys, nice of you to mention this in advance.

D-D-D-Dance!

Ope? Nope.

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Obamaworld

I'm not sure if mentioning this is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, but I found a part of the Obama web site that doesn't work in a clean, efficient manner. After all the talk of how slick the site is, I'm a little ticked. I mean, good lord - This is the A team we're talking about!!!

Plug

Living the plugged-in life......

Campaign Money

I'm a little puzzled by the Obama campaign's attitude toward money.

Apparently, they've raised a gihugic amount, last month, and would like to have raised even more, this month. They've got so much that some people have joked they have a money problem: where to spend it all. I gather that it isn't infinite, or they'd have stayed in North Dakota, but still, its a pretty massive number, and easily outweighs what the McCain campaign has. They want to be able to make life difficult for McCain everyplace where they have even a chance of winning, so he and they cannot take anything for granted. That seems to be working, but its not a knockout.

So they'd like more money. In fact, I got an email saying that they'd noticed there is a gap between the magical $2,300 max that you can give to the campaign (you can give more, but it goes to the national commitment to spend as they see fit) and what I have given, and wouldn't I like to address that? I was startled. Don't you guys realize that this is ten times what I've given in the past? Well, no, they probably don't, but even if they did, so what, they'd likely say. That was then, this is now. I think I'd feel differently if they said they would return what they didn't use, but somehow I can't ever see that happening.

Course, when I look at poll numbers, which are now hovering in the mid 330s (the lowest I see consistently is 264, the highest, about 370), I twitch a bit, and I think well, maybe I could squeeze out a couple bucks more...but not the amount they'd like. For that much, I not only want Barack and Michelle over for dinner, I want them to hang around and help with the dishes afterward. And none of this pawning the work off on the help, or the Secret Service, as McCain likes to do. Okay, I'm guessing about that one -- but it does seem likely.

I guess I'll give them a bit more. Because, seriously, the alternative is just so much worse.

Mento

Well, I'm going to try to do it again.

Yesterday, I got a call from the middle school to say that they had a mentoree for me. They told me the kid's first name, and said I could meet him today. My daughter was in the room when the call came. Once we were done, she remarked that the first name was an unusual one, and she thought she might know him. If its the one she's thinking of, he was left back last year.

On one hand, I'm thinking this is a kid who's been around a little while, so he should be more 'formed' than the sixth grader I had last year. We should be able to get right to what we want to do. On the other, I don't know what we want to do, and if he's doing so badly that he was actually left back, thats not an encouraging sign. Of course, it isn't the National Honor kids who show up in this program, either.

Guess we'll see.... again.

Thinking and Baking

I was thinking about the election, this afternoon. I am apprehensive that something malign will skew the results. Whether its Al Qaeda issuing a warning not to elect McCain (thus driving the unthinking to his arms), or the Rethuglicans issuing nasty tricks (most Republicans don't fit that definition, but the ones at the top, the ones who light candles at the unholy Grotto of Rove, yes, very much so), or something else -- the results could be unpleasant. We could end up with McCain as President (which would not be worse than Bush, what joy) and Palin as Vice President, which thought literally causes the gorge to rise in my throat. Excuse me a moment.

How fucking STUPID can people BE?

I'm back. So, to distract myself, I thought I'd bake something, and here's the recipe I made. I found it here.

Danish pastry apple bars

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening
1 egg yolk
milk
1 cup cornflakes
8-10 Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced (8 cups)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Egg Wash:
1 egg white
1 tablespoon water

Topping:
sifted powder sugar or whipped cream

Hardware
Large bowl
2 x small bowls
1-cup glass measuring cup
Pastry blender (optional)
15x10x1-inch baking pan
Rolling pin

Step 1: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Step 2: In a large bowl, stir together flour and salt.
Step 3: With a pastry blender or knife cut in small pieces of shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Step 4: Place egg yolk in 1-cup glass measuring cup; lightly beat with fork.
Step 5: Add enough milk to egg yolk to make 2/3 cup; mix well.
Step 6: Add egg yolk mixture to flour mixture; mix well.
Step 7: Divide dough in half. On a lightly floured surface roll half of dough into an 18x12-inch rectangle.
Step 8: Place dough into bottom of an ungreased 15x10x1-inch baking pan.
Step 9: Sprinkle with cornflakes.
Step 10: Top with apples.
Step 11: Combine granulated sugar and cinnamon in small bowl; sprinkle over apples.
Step 12: Roll remaining dough into a 16x12-inch rectangle. Arrange over apples. Seal top pastry to bottom pastry. Cut slits in top of pastry.
Step 13: In a small bowl, beat egg white and water. Brush mixture over pastry.
Step 14: Bake for 50 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack. Serve warm or cool. If desired top with powdered sugar or whip

I should note that I made a couple of changes -- mostly, I didn't use nearly as many apples as they suggested -- more like 2 0r 3 -- and even then, I got a thick, stuffed pastry. And, I used a smaller pan -- 9x12, not 10x18. I can only assume that the people who came up with this can roll dough way thinner than I can. Oh, and that combination of juice and sugar makes a hell of a sticky glaze, so next time I'm going to put it on greased aluminum foil -- this time, I had to nuke it to get the cooled pastry out of the tray!