Greetings loyal readers! I realize it’s been a while since I last posted.
I’d love to say that’s because I hit the lottery and was off enjoying a nice vacation in Europe.
Of course that would be a lie.
Truth is, I’ve just been a bit busy lately. Not good, I’m having fun busy – more like, business is down so we’ve had to downsize at the office, now I’m doing the work of three people busy. Considering the fact that I actually still have a job with the way the economy is, I guess I should just be thankful.
I spent an hour and a half in line to “early vote” the other day. While it’s a pain in the butt to stand there, I actually see the lines as a good thing. No matter who they vote for, at least people are getting out and voting. There is way too much apathy in the voting ranks these days.
Now personally, I think it is the voting method our leaders have chosen for us that slows down this whole process.
I loved those touch screen models we used for a few elections. They were nice and quick. Want to vote for someone? Just touch the square next to their name. When you have made all your selections, push the button that says “VOTE”. Nice and simple.
Now there were a few problems. First, there was no “paper trail” of the votes. In theory, the computer records could be lost or manipulated in some way, and there would be no paper records to fall back on. My simple solution was to install a printer on each machine that would print out a receipt of your votes, which could then be dropped into a box and kept in case a paper trail was needed.
This didn’t seem too difficult to me. However, our esteemed leaders decided that this was an expensive – impractical solution.
Well, that and the fact that apparently a large portion of the population was too stupid to use the computerized voting machines.
So now we are stuck with voting by bubble. Remember all those standardized tests from your school days? Well now you get to relive that horror while you vote for President. They don’t even have all of the answer bubbles lined up so that you can try to make a neat pattern when you fill in your selections.
This would be ideal for me because I don't know who to vote for in half of the races on the ballot anyway. I'll admit that I have no idea who should sit on the local water commission. I also don't really care if the city amends its charter to allow the commissioners to adjourn a meeting without a roll call vote. These decisions would be so much easier if I was trying to complete a snake or a Christmas tree pattern. (For those of you who didn't get that joke, ask your kids - they'll understand)
I thought it somewhat suspicious that I was given a black pen to fill in my bubbles at the polling place. Everybody knows you need a #2 pencil to fill in the bubbles. I tried to protest this fact to the lady who directed me to my booth. She apparently didn’t have much of a sense of humor though. Neither did the supervisor she called over because I was causing a “commotion”. Well, once the supervisor confirmed that I could in fact exercise my voting rights with an ink pen these days – and that I should hurry up and do so because there were about 5000 people behind me in line – I began to bubble my selections.
It was at this point I realized that despite my years of experience in filling in bubbles, that this was a pretty tedious process. Whereas touching a box on a screen took a fraction of a second, this whole fill in the bubble thing takes time. Put that together with the fact that a ball point pen actually sucks for this purpose, and you can begin to understand why the line is so damn long.
After about 20 minutes I fed my ballot (4 pages front and back) into the "scanner", got my little "I voted" sticker and went on my merry way. I don't know what the deal is with the stickers, but don't try to get out of there without getting one. I recognized the guy handing them out as the greeter from the local Wal-Mart, so at least the elections department took the time to make sure they had an experienced sticker dispenser for that position on election day.
Well, I thinkI’ve rambled on enough for the moment…
As far as my “training” is going, I’m doing 10 miles at a time now on the bike in around 37 minutes. I’m not out of breath when I climb stairs anymore, so I guess I’m making progress. The scale at Publix is still holding out on me. I’m going to go with the whole I’m-building-muscle-and-muscle-weighs-more-than-fat-so-I-haven’t-lost-weight-even-though-I’m-in-better-shape theory. (man I hope that’s true)
I have some other things I'd like to get into, but I know you have other things to do, (such as buy logo merchandise from my site over there on the right) so I'll end for now.
Just as a reminder to myself – Next time don’t forget Halloween and why adults shouldn’t jump on trampolines.
Monday, November 3, 2008
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