Election Follies

OK, so on the appointed Tuesday in November I dutifully trotted over to my local fire station cum polling place to vote for the US Representative candidate of my choice.  And as we all know the Good Citizens of this country pretty much told the Current Prez that We Are Not Amused.  Not that he’s listening, but we told him anyway.  For whatever its worth. 

Be that as it may, if you will think back to voting day, the weather was not the best.  Overcast shy, snow predicted (which did not materialize here at least), breezy and damp.  Not the best day for standing outside a polling place with candidate literature for the still undecided.  Plus there just the one item on the ballot, the US Representative post.  So I expected the League of Women Voters with their coffee pot inside the fire hall and a field of campaign posters outside the fire hall.  Imagine my surprise to find 4 separate tables with coffee, donuts and volunteers campaigning for their candidate.

That’s right folks, 4 tables of folks braving the cold to boost their candidate for County Treasurer in a Special Election to be held on January 11th.  Candidate #5 just had signs.  When candidate registration closed the following Friday there were 7 candidates for the illustrious post of Greene County Treasurer.  Who would have thunk it.  One candidate was actually a CPA, one was the current acting Treasurer, and the other 5 – well they could do arithmetic.  The Stay-at-Home-Mom promised to get “whatever training it takes” to do the job, the High School Math teacher held up his success in teaching algebra & geometry, 2 ladies offered their business management experience  as credentials and 1 women lauded her ancestor Gen. Robert E. Lee.  Near as I could tell the CPA and acting treasurer were serious contenders while the other 4 ladies and 1 gentleman were looking for a good paying job that lets you know a lot about other peoples business. 

Greene County wasn’t fooled by any of it.  They elected the CPA who currently is the assistant comptroller for the UVA Darden Business School’s Bequest Fund by 60.5% of the votes.  The Acting Treasures came in second.  Hopefully the treasurer’s office can now be capably run.  We’ve been plagued for the 18.5 years I’ve lived here with treasurers who refused to install computers, were constantly behind on required reconciliation statements, had tax mailing addresses and records that were 3 to 4 years out of date, and been audited by the Commonwealth Treasurer.  All in a county of less than 18,000 people with very low home ownership turnover.  Maybe we can get it done the right way now. 

November a Time of Quiet Rest ?

Has it really been 3 months since I've blogged ? Awk, so much for the idea that winter is a time of quiet rest.

The switch to an all digital phone & interwebs hookup has worked out just fine. I did get a Bluetooth hands free thingie so I can answer the phone in the car without needing to actually touch & hold the phone. I really really like being easily able to locate someone I'm out & about with by calling them. Makes getting separated while shopping, getting delayed on the road there etc. only a minor event. The plain vanilla basic phone I bought is wonderful. It has nice big number buttons I can see even with my glasses off, a camera and MP3 player. I've used the camera a time or two when my purse carry camera wasn't on me & plan to put Morning & Evening Prayer on the MP3 player. It gets charged at night when I sleep. I signed up for 600 anytime minutes, unlimited night & weekend minutes, 2 Friends links (unlimited calls to 2 numbers) & no outgoing text or internet hookup. I also get unlimited calls to other nTelos customers. This is proving to be plenty of phone time for my needs.

The Franklin interwebs connector from nTelos looks like a jump drive & plugs into a USB port. Its actually a cell phone for the 'puter. It works wonderfully well at the house and equally well when I've used it with my laptop when I'm out and about. Obviously it won't work well somewhere with poor cell coverage. The unit has am expansion slot for a micro SD card and I got an 8gb card for it. This allows the unit to function as a jump drive, which has proved to be quite useful. I've had no problems with it either up or down stream with the net.

November was a month of free music & trips to the local Goodwill store. UVA's music department continues to be an excellent source for free classical music, I was able to go to the Flute Student Recital and an All Mozart Chamber Music concert. Many of the department's offerings are on week nights, which is wonderful since I'm at work every other weekend. The local Goodwill got 3 boxes of clothes & 1 box of bed sheets etc. from my house. It took a couple of days to sort through my closets and various boxes from my Urchin's Chatham days, wash everything, inventory it for tax purposes and take it away, away, away. I also got 4 boxes of the Urchin's things to her apartment, books mostly.

I also decided not to send any Christmas cards out this year, the cost of posting the cards is just to high. I will be writing my friends letters instead, not a Christmas letter but personal letters on this and that as the new year unfolds. Sorta spreading the joy out as it were. I did go to the OVPR in October and various Wonderful Gatherings in December, but more on that when I have the pics to post. May you all have a joyous 2011.