Category Archives: election

election, halloween

The Halloween That Was

3 Comments

Like most things in my life for the past few weeks, this post is a bit late. It should have been posted on All Hallows Eve, but instead you get to enjoy it now. At least Pink Floyd’s Time is playing in the background to make sense of the utter disregard for chronology this blog shows. So play this as you read. {*grin*}

I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but Halloween here was a bit lower key than normal just because of the day.  Since the merchants and the city and the nursing homes all ran their celebrations on Friday, there seems to have been less incentive for the little tricksters to be out and about on Sunday for the official event. Normally we see between 40-70 trick or treaters at the front door before we shut the lights off at ~8pm. This year we only had 31, somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the normal total.

There was also a discernible difference in the composition of the visitors. Most years we see a fair number of teens and tweens in groups of 4 or more interspersed with a lot of sibling groups of 1 or 2 under the age of 10. This year, it was almost all youngsters in various sized groups with the parents standing out at the street watching. When Molly the wonder dog and I would answer the door, it left a lot of them in shock. It took them a few moments to remember that they were supposed to say trick or treat. Some just wanted to pet the doggy, some just wanted to hide from the doggy, and some were heard to say “dad, he gave us snickers!” as they departed for the next house. At least I didn’t have to put this sign up to excuse Molly’s behavior this year:

The smaller crowd also means that I have several bags of candy left over. It should make L happy when she journeys home this weekend. I’m just happy that it is all in un-opened bags so that it doesn’t tempt me!

Time to go vote. Make sure you do too. Vote that is, not go.

election, pundit, trivia, widows

Monday’ish Wednesdays

1 Comment

Why did today feel like a Monday all day? It just had that feel. Started off cool and damp from the melt of yesterdays snow flurry. Then warmed up and turned a bit windy. For some reason it just felt like a Monday all day long.

The walk down to the radio station for the weekly show was uneventful and the report of yesterdays council meeting was short and to the point. Only a few items on the agenda. The trivia question was surprisingly hard for people to guess in spite of the numerous hints we gave. The question was: “10% of men have never done this, what is it?” The answer is in the first comment.

This afternoon was a disaster of sorts. I had an abrasion on my leg start bleeding again and it wouldn’t stop so I could put on long pants to go to a meeting. Nothing like a little squishy blood in your sock to make the day complete! It was just a little nick, but it had that annoying drip … drip … drip persistence at a time when I was already in a hurry.

In other news, I finally got my wife’s old laptop at least partially resurrected from the dead. Even as I write this, the poor beast is doing a backup of all it’s contents to one of my servers. That way if it heads to the land of the dead again, we’ll at least have all the information from it in an accessible form. I suspect that it is more than just one problem with this machine, so the current revival may not be one for the long run. I had forgotten just how painful Windows 98 was to work with and network. Guess I have just gotten to used to XP, Linux, and Solaris. It did remind of the old days of Windows 95 and even {*gasp*} Windows 3.x. I may actually be one of the few people willing to admit that saw and even attempted to use a copy of Windows 1.x back in the 80’s. Now that really lets you know you’re getting old.

Off to prepare for my chance to be a pundit tomorrow. What *will be* the implications of the elections results. It will be interesting because this area is one of the few in Colorado that voted overwhelmingly for McCain and Schaeffer. Almost everywhere else went for the Democratic candidates of Obama and Udall. (It is amusing that blogger’s spell checker thinks Obama is wrong, but has no suggestions of a better word. Is blogger a closet Republican?) Ta-ta.

election, politics, president

We Have a Winner

1 Comment

I just saw that McCain has conceded to Obama and they are awaiting Obama’s speech. I can’t say that I am surprised – I felt that Obama expressed a vision (and had the better oratorical skills) whereas McCain merely reacted. People in crisis are always more in favor of visionaries than those who merely react.

One thing I liked was that McCain’s concession speech was classy, complementary, and heartfelt. It was one of the best speeches I have ever heard him make. I hope that Obama and McCain can work well with each other in the coming years. It might help heal some rifts.

Obama’s victory speech reminded me a bit of some of Martin Luther King’s speeches. It wasn’t his best speech, but it was a good speech none the less. The problem with victory speeches is that you have to thank so many people – the loser doesn’t have quite the same onus to thank the troops.

And best of all? The blasted telephone calls  and negative tv ads will stop!

council, election, politics, radio

And now …

1 Comment

The city council meeting last night was not too bad.  It ran a little long, but it didn’t turn into a 6 hour marathon like they sometimes were before I became mayor. Thank heavens for small miracles!

Today was a Wednesday, and like every other Wednesday, I have a show on one of the local radio stations early in the morning. I am a brave soul and take all callers on an open mike (live, no less) about issues or complaints in the city.  Generally tends to be pretty quiet since things got under control a few years ago, so now I mostly use it to keep the community appraised of what happened in the council meeting and the issues of interest to the area. I am not noted as being one to call a spade a “portable entrenching tool” and my approach seems to work well with the people here.
The League of Women Voters gave a program on the ballot issues this year at a local church this evening. I was there to address the charter amendments for the city on the ballot this year. This is one of the longest ballots in local history with initiatives and proposals covering 46-59 and L-O on the state part of the ballot and a similar number of items related to the city charter on the municipal side. Add in the presidential, congressional, and county commisioner races and the ballot is beyond hefty.
One major concern is that people may not be able to complete their ballot in the statutorily allotted 15 minutes. We are all encouraging people to take their crib notes with them to the polls, utilize early voting, and use mail in ballots. Because of the presidential race, local congressional races, and all of the above, voter participation may be very high (some predictions in the >90% of all registered voters range.) This should be interesting. I’m certainly glad I’m not a county clerk who has to make sure all this runs smoothly and certify the results rather shortly after the vote.
I’m off to make my crib sheet for the election before I forget all the good information from the League analysis. {*grin*}