JackTales

The suckiest thing about national elections is that most of the drama is over by the time you reach the polls here. Of course, it’s the local stuff that was really important to me this year.

Not having voted for 20-some years, it was very different than what I remember, although I knew it coming in. Last time I voted, you still had those levers and cranks you had to pull. Paper boys were earning a little extra money by running back to the newspapers with the poll results.

This year I had the choice of a paper ballot or the electronic doohickey. My choice was clear once I asked the critical questions…”Which one is faster?” There was a line for the electronic doohickey, so I did a paper ballot. No chads here, just draw a line where you want your vote to go.

For me, the initiatives were important. Initiative 1000 provided the right to die with dignity (assisted suicide), and the other initiative was one eliminating the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes, which provides a special lane for vehicles with multiple passengers.

The rest was a process of the lesser evils, or in some cases, “the devil you know or the devil you don’t.”

I wasn’t too concerned with the Presidential election. For all the bullshit for what feels like the longest election process in history, it came out the way it pretty much always comes out. When there’s an incumbent, we’re reluctant to change, so the incumbent wins again. When there’s not an incumbent, people vote for a change in parties. Ergo, Obama was pretty much a shoe-in. You can talk about all the issues you want, but that’s the way it goes.

Well, that was exciting. Wonder what it’ll be like when I vote again another 20 years from now.

There was a minimal amount of snow today, so putting chains on all of our vehicle tires wasn’t really necessary, but if this new snow falling sticks around, it’ll be interesting. Snow in western Washington seems to mean car fires and rollovers on our highways. And I’ll probably end up rescuing professional mail carriers, drivers, with my Cadillac tomorrow. It’s pretty embarrassing when your commercial vehicle needs rescued by a guy in a red Caddy. But I come from snow country, so I’m more experienced than most of these folks.

The highway thing, well, these guys don’t give each other a lot of room between vehicles, and seem to keep their cars on cruise control. A recipe for disaster around here.

The new snow is beautiful. We were the first ones to trape around the block with our dogs tonight, leaving the first footprints on the snow. I’ve got a dog thawing with me in the garage as I smoke a pipe and write this.

Well, goodnight!

I have PTSD, and basically, when disaster looms, you either over-prepare, or curl up in a ball, and wait for the kick in the gut.

Western Washington seems to have developed Weather PTSD. After the flooding, snow, and the gail-force winds, now that some gusting is happening, and some snow is due, everyone is freaked about over-preparing. Hardware stores have booming sales of generators and kerosene heaters. Everyone is selling batteries like they’re going out of style. The stores are selling tons of bottled water, bread, toilet paper.

I’m starting to kind of like living in a totally paranoid place. Makes me feel right at home.