I went to the polls, as have many others today.

Along my way, I saw this sign:

Campaigning sans "G." 

@SaintVI tells me it's been there for a number of years, and suspects it's some sort of deal between a relative and the town council. She may be right. Many of the prominent citizens in our small town are related to each other. 

As for me, I thought about 2 billion dollars in campaign spending, and it's come to this - a sign with no "g."

Can you imagine a world with no "g"?

"Good" would be "Ood" ... A Dr. Who alien.

"HogWarts" would be "HoWarts," which sounds like a discount magic store ... or worse, depending upon your enunciation.

"Magnify" would be "Manify," which would really twist the intent of many church songs, but might play into to Viagra advertising ... hard to say.   It would also put a Dr. Who twist on "Give Me that Old Time Religion" (or Reliion, in this case.)

"If it's ood enouh for Dr. Who, it's ood enouh for me."

This doesn't sound like something we need for our country. So I opted to use my constitutional right to vote and wrote in my choice for this election -  "G"

Now I can feel confident that guitar strings and lingerie will be safe for another four years.

...so I've got that going for me, which is GOOD!

My Jack-O-Lantern

A couple of cute poems to go with the theme:

A Pirate Wench I Be

The Pirate Wench

All in all ... not bad for a no-template carving!

@SaintVI is sick.

It came suddenly upon her, and looks like it's going to linger a while.

 Take a moment to send her a "Get Well Soon!" comment and maybe a mini!

Caught this photo of my work place:

The leaves haven't quite turned, but I love the lighting.

Do you have a nice autumn photograph of where you work?

I just found out that Hope, a young friend of mine, got a text from her husband:

"I dnt luv U. I wnt a DVORCE!"

Nice.

They were sweethearts since early Jr. High for 6 years, and have been married for 4 years.  Every time I've heard her speak of him, it has been in adoring ways, even though he pretty much bankrupt them by hiding financial issues last year. 

Now, he has a better job and says he's ready to move on and leave all the painful things behind ... including his wife.

She's devastated, obviously, and wondering how she'll get by working in a nursing home for $300/wk.  Fortunately, no kids in the mix.

Guess a lot of people break up by email and text these days.

Seems cowardly to me, but then, is there a good way to say "We're done!"?

A few great pieces on the shenanigans that are being played regarding voter fraud. 

Bottom line: 147 million registered voters and only 867 documented cases of fraud since 2000.  

Even if only half turned out on average for only federal elections that's 73.5 million people x 6 elections which = 441 million votes.  867/441 million = 0.002% fraud, or 99.998% legit.

Or put it another way: 867 cases / 50 states = 18ish per state. Divide by 6 elections = about 3 frauds per state per election.

Meanwhile, thousands of Americans are being deliberately hindered from exercising their most fundamental, democratic, and patriotic right of citizenship - their right to vote.

http://electoral-vote.com/

While the Republicans have raised an enormous furor over in-person voter fraud, nobody has said a word about another illegal practice: vote buying. The price of a vote is thought to vary from state to state. In West Virginia $10 gets you a vote. In Arkansas, a $2 half-pint of vodka does the job. In court cases, it has been revealed how cheaply some people will sell their votes, especially in the heart of vote-buying country: Appalachia.

A recent study of voter fraud by a consortium of journalism schools found only 867 cases since 2000 where someone had admitted guilt or been convicted of fraud--out of 146 million registered voters. From the vote buyer's perspective, the safest way to buy a vote is to get the voter to request an absentee ballot, sign the envelope, and give the ballot and signed envelope to him. The buyer then fills it in and sends it back to the designated address. Occasionally someone gets caught, but it is rare. In one case in Tennessee, a candidate for the state legislature won his primary by eight votes, taking 85% of the absentee ballots but a much smaller fraction of the in-person votes. It is this kind of situation that raises a red flag but it is still hard to prove. Absentee-ballot fraud is the preferred method because if someone promises to vote a certain way in return for a certain quantity of a selected beverage, the buyer has no proof that the voter did what he was supposed to do. When the buyer gets an absentee ballot in his hands, proof is so much easier. None of the voter ID laws deal with this problem. As an aside, a great deal of computer science research has gone into devising electronic voting systems that (1) guarantee voter privacy while (2) at the same time deterring vote buying as much as possible, often by making it possible for the voter to fool the purchaser. For the technically savvy, Google "Tanenbaum Paul trustworthy voting".

A new study from a civil rights group called the Advancement Project says restrictive voting laws passed in 23 states could deter or prevent up to 10 million Latino citizens from voting in November. The laws aren't the same in all states. They do things like purging voters from the rolls (frequently including legal voters), requiring photo ID to vote, reducing early voting hours, and so on. Many of these laws are being challenged in court now, but it is doubtful that all the challenges will be resolved before the election. The intent of the laws is to suppress turnout of Democratic-leaning constituencies. If large numbers of voters who are not allowed to vote ask for provisional ballots, in close contests there could be court cases over these ballots after the election and the ensuing chaos could make the 2000 election in Florida look like a Victorian picnic.

The numerous lawsuits attacking the laws that were designed to reduce voter turnout are still ongoing. For example, tomorrow a U.S. Court of Appeals will hear arguments about a law that deals with counting or not counting provisional ballots filed in the wrong precinct due to poll-worker error. In 2008, there were 14,355 of these in Ohio alone. Also at issue in Ohio is the state's law shutting down early voting the three days before the election except for military voters. Democrats are arguing that since the polls will be open to allow soldiers to vote, there is no reason not to let civilians vote as well. There are about a dozen other suits pending in various states. Unless decisions come down quickly, there could be chaos on election day.

In 2008, an organization called ACORN registered a million low-income voters, some of whom were nonexistent. The Republicans screamed about this even though none of the nonexistent voters actually voted. The problem was the minimum-wage workers who were paid per voter they registered, so some of them made up false names.

 Now the shoe is on the other foot. The Republican Party hired a Virginia firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, to do voter registration in four swing states (Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, and North Carolina), and now it is being accused of precisely the same thing as ACORN was: fraudulent voter registration. The scandal was uncovered by the Palm Beach, FL, County Elections Supervisor who flagged 106 questionable registration applications bearing similar signatures and incorrect addresses.

and one more ...

Today's news: A panel of federal judges blocked a new law in Texas, saying the state had not proved that the changes would not disproportionately harm minorities. State judges in Wisconsin stopped the statute there. South Carolina’s measure is under federal judicial review, with little time for implementation even if it is approved.

At work, I have to use IE. I feel age creeping upon me EVERY time I have to boot it up. But, I remind myself I get paid for waiting.

I had an affair with Mozilla Firefox, until it kept packing on pounds of add-ons. I hate clutter, ergo, it went.

I have Chrome now. She's so very, very fast!!  But - kind of impersonal. 

This got me to thinking about what other people think of their web browsers.  Turns out I'm not the only one with similar thoughts:

(I'm thinking about giving Opera a whirl.)

Which web-browser is your fave??

I am now a productive member of the Operations Training staff. This photo is me watching a crew in the simulator. I'm operating the controls that run the simulation. Although I don't have a photo, I've also finished presenting my first course to the 5 crews who run the control rooms. I was well received, and am thankful for that. 

I had my birthday on Aug 24. The weather vane is what I bought with an Amazon gift certificate from my mom. It's very cool. The cups spin and the hummingbird arrow turns in a fairly light breeze. The other photo is one of my butterfly garden earlier this month. If you squint, you can see the giant pumpkin in the back. The asters are now in full bloom.

This is an odd one. I've had this Hoya Carnosa plant for a few years. It's vinelike, but never produced more than a few waxy leaves. I finally got it into some more direct sunlight and the vine grew quite a bit. One day, I noticed color around the leaves. I honestly thought I was seeing some artificial flower that was hiding behind the real plant, but no - it actually bloomed!  The blooms have almost no fragrance and are very waxy (fake) looking in appearance. Interesting.

Ministry world continues to go well. Our Saturday services continue to be well attended and deeply appreciated. We are frequently getting supportive comments about how some residents ONLY come to our Lilac Ministry services because we lack a particular critical air that others seem to have when they preach in those facilities. Our desire is to present a service that "creates dwelling place" for the "alien, orphan, and widow." 

On Wednesday evenings, we hold a Bible Study at one of the residences. It's a small room that should only hold about 8, but we routinely have 12 plus or minus a couple any given week. The interesting thing - at least 3 - 4, not counting Donna and me, are people who are NOT residents, but make a point to attend. It's been a real spiritual blessing.

The photo above is our new location for a monthly silent meeting we hold. We moved, since this location is closer to where those who have an interest in our Quaker-styled silent prayer meeting. We tried it out in September, and expect more to come in October.

@SaintVI and I went geocaching with @murisopsis and @olddogsparky not too long ago. I saw these few unharvested stalks of corn in the middle of the field. Don't know why - but it seems an interesting picture, kind of like there's a parable in it somewhere.

Yesterday, Vi and I went geocaching on my last vacation day. I found my "official" 300th cache here!  Except for @SaintVi and @Joyouswind ... none of it would be logged, as they are the ones who keep up with the geocache website.

A beautiful sight. I blogged not too long ago that I had finished painting/sealing the basement. This is the storage shed we had about half filled. After some diligent sorting and disposing, the shed is now cleaned and returned to the owners. And we are now free of that $70/mo bill. Amen!

Took a trip to Arkansas to see Melinda's nephew, Nathan marry his beloved Maggie. Along the way, we stopped at the George Washington Carver National Park. That man was one of the most humble and talented and brilliant men ever born into our nation. In addition to his scientific expertise, he could knit, paint, write, and speak inspirationally. He was also an incredible man of faith, making a point to rise at 4 AM every day to talk a prayer walk in the forest with his Lord.

I think @SaintVi may have already shared this story. Behind her is the "Funk Rest Area Cache" where she did the Funky Roach dance singing "Get it off me! Get it off me!" while @joyouswind kept a safe distance and I attempted to brush the wretched creature off her butt, and then off her pant leg, and then off her shoe while not getting stepped on in the middle of her dance.

The bug was about this size ...   Well, maybe not, but from the song and dance, one would've thought so.  Best laugh I've had in a while.  Oh, and Val ...there really were spiders in that cache.

Stealth shot of my best buddy, and in-law bro, Danny. We were at the pre-wedding, post-rehearsal dinner. The photo is funny, because neither of us are anywhere near that serious most of the time.

The wedding. Everything seemed to go very well.

HAH!  I have the ONLY photos of the bride and groom LEAVING the wedding reception. So there.

And speaking of weddings, we did a trip down memory lane after leaving Fayetteville. This is a sign at the place where Vi and I tied the knot. I really liked seeing what was written on it:

Dedicated to teaching Christians to share Jesus Christ and to inspire persons to wholeness.

I think that captures a great deal of my own spiritual heart.

We also went by the apartment complex where I rented my first apartment back in 1979. By golly if it wasn't only there - it was in pretty good shape!

And finally - a photo of me on Dickson Street in Fayetteville after the wedding. The few remaining family members at the time didn't know where I was. When Maggie spotted me, she said: "It's just like looking for 'Where's Waldo!'"

If  she only knew ...

When worlds collide:  

From Nerdy White Boy,

I'm nerdy in the extreme and whiter than sour creme
I was in AV club and Glee club and even the chess team!
Only question I ever thought was hard
Was do I like Kirk or do I like Picard?
I spend every weekend
at the renaissance fair
I got my name on my under wear!  (Weird Al Yankovic)

To Nerdy White Boy Pirate:

I'm "Belay that!" nerdy in th' extreme an' whiter than sour creme 
I be in AV club an' Glee club an' blastedly even th' chess team! 
Only question I e'er thought be salt-blastedly hard 
Be do I like Kirk or do I like Picard? 
I spend ere weekend 
at th' renaissance unseaworthily fair 
I got me name on me under wear!

Or Nerdy White Girl ...

Would you like to talk like a pirate today?  

Would ye like t' talk like a pirate today? 
"Walk Yon Plank An Be Quick About It!" in goin' to this website:

Welcome to http://translate-pirate.com "Blistering Barnacles!"

In recent years I've grown one giant pumpkin in my garden.  @saintvi likes to have a contest for the person who can guess the closest girth and weight when we harvest the ginormous gourd. 

2009 was a good year at 80 lbs and bigger around than our 60" tape measure.

2010 was a fake-out. I grew a white pumpkin instead of a giant one.

2011 was not-so-much a giant at 38 lbs and 44" around.

What do you think the pumpkin this year will weigh?  If you're the closest, I'm betting @saintvi will mail you a jar of jam.

(This one is growing 2" around each day.)