2.11.09

An interesting day, and it wont be the last one...

Today was a looong day.

RUN!!!
It started at 6am when my alarm went off. I had a little internal debate. I surprised myself even by actually getting out of bed to run. My new 5k race prep plan is called "run fast up hills". I only had a short time to run this morning, so I did just under 4 miles. Turning on the "elevation" feature will reveal, I was fairly serious about the "hills". None of them is too tall, but some are pretty long for being hills in my neighborhood. Side question: Why does GMaps have the bike paths but not the running paths on their maps?

School!
I took my mentee to her school but stop this morning. (Why does she need someone to drive her to her bus stop? It's not the teenager's fault but please don't get me started.) That's the reason I actually couldn't do a long(er) run. It's ok, it probably only cut off a couple miles.

Work, work, work
I was the second one in the office today, just after 8am. I pulled up and most of the lights were off but there was one car in the lot that I didn't recognize. One of my bosses got a new car it turns out. (Guess who was first at the office.) And I worked. And worked. And worked. My last home visit was at 5pm. And then I actually went back to the office for a little while.
One of the volunteers in our office (actually, our only office volunteer) had a death in the family so I left the office and went down the street to Sholom for the shiva. (Follow the link for an explanation if you don't know what I'm talking about.) It started at 7pm (that's right, I was working on hour 12 at that point...).

Toilet Paper!
Sometimes, a Target run is just what's required and tonight was no exception. I got coupons (probably everyone in Minneapolis reading this got the same coupons) from Target for their brand of, like, everything including toilet paper. When I got to the store, the shelves were completely bare of the Target brand. (That's how I know you all got the coupons too.) No worries, I successfully picked a different brand to meet my needs.
Also, I was happily able to buy beer tonight, so I'm chillin' now. (The fact that I can still type coherently tells you not to worry.)

Rest
Am now drinking a beer. Will go to bed soon.

What tomorrow holds:
1. Pick up the mentee even earlier than today (7:30a) becuase...
2. My first home visit starts at 8:15a tomorrow. (Now seriously, why did I schedule that?)
3. Which means I probably won't be able to vote until after work. I will feel naked all day without my "I voted" sticker.

Another note about voting:
Both of my posts (I've only written two) mentioning instant run off voting, otherwise known as ranked choice voting seem to draw comments from people who can't possibly read my blog on a regular basis. (If you're reading this as a "note" in Facebook, you'll need to head over to the actual blog A4bats to see the comments.)

I'll let you know tomorrow what I think about ranked choice voting. Although, it's possibly I wont let you know for several months becuase the City of Minneapolis is not allowed to use electronic ballot counters that are not federally certified. And there are no federally certified machines that can handle instant run off voting. (Iam not making this up...) Here's one place I read it:
Since there is no federally- or state-certified voting equipment capable of counting a Ranked Choice Voting election, the election will be hand-counted to determine the winners. Minneapolis election judges will begin working on the hand-count Nov. 4, and winners in individual races will be known as the count proceeds in the coming weeks. The hand-counting is tentatively expected to be complete by Dec. 21.

My ward is the second to last to have our votes counted. My thing is, if this is in multiple states, how do we not have a federally certified machine that can count my vote. A hand count? To save money? Although apparently in the next few years there will be a federal machine that can count votes this way. All I can say is, don't laugh my St. Paul friends. This question is on your ballots this year.

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