Well, here we go, gang. If only today was going to be the end of it. May you live in interesting times...
85 thoughts on “November 3, 2020: Reckoning”
Your title in this post contains a word I used in a text to a fellow citizen last night. I will not expand on it due to respecting the forbidden zone. I work today until 5, then will have a beverage with some friends at the local brew house. By 7 I will be on the couch and turn on live news for the first time in about 5 months. I took tomorrow off and will watch the morning news feed for about 30 minutes before enjoying a day off in 60+ degree weather. If I can find an open golf course I will play a round of golf. If not, I will bag up some leaves and do other outside chores. Either activity is soothing for my soul. I am glad I took the day after the election off. I do hope and pray for those of you who live in areas that are prone to civil unrest. I pray that cooler heads prevail and for your safety.
It's the opposite for service industry workers, but it's frustrating that not only is voting on a day when most people work, the day after is also a day when most people work. Glad you're able to recharge tomorrow.
Without putting a lot of thought into it, I think election day should be a national holiday. Possibly there are reasons I am not thinking of, but on the surface it would make sense. More people would then become eligible to be election officials. You could have more polling places. People could celebrate their right to vote. It would also be good for my business. 😉
But that would lead to [forbidden zone consequences]!!!111one111!!!
All I can do is say, "This too shall pass."
Perfect.
I am suddenly in favor of accordions in marching bands.
I forgot how fun that video is. That felt nice.
Indeed. Never saw that one. What this world needs.
I already voted, but I had to pick up some school stuff for the kids so I drove by city hall. There was a long line wrapping around the building, although I think its roughly the same number of people as normal, just socially distanced. I've never been there this early in the day, though, so it could be considered long and I would expect the after work line to be way longer. Good thing the weather rocks right now.
I tried voting early a couple of times in the last two weeks, but there were always long lines well out of the building. Went in on voting day and was in and out of there in less than 5 minutes. I was thrilled.
There was no line at all when I voted today. But then, if the whole town came in to vote at once there wouldn't be that long of a line.
All right, who has good election day music suggestions? I'm trying to keep the stress at bay; yesterday I was soothed by Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony.
I've been trying to figure out whether to play calming tunes, or lean into the feeling and blast frantic anxiety inducing music.
I only have one type of music so I'll either blast that or maybe try to get some Among Us going. I also anticipate not feeling great tomorrow morning.
Ha! I feel like either could work.
Go for calming.
I've been relying on a mix of indie folk (Jenny Lewis, Neko Case) and Southern Gospel these last few weeks. Life savers.
I went with calm, but I went with The Field. Very repetitive, almost entrancing electronica.
I would agree, but my suggestion would be to pick the soundtracks of your favorite movies which fit the mood you'd like to be in. A couple off the wall suggestions might be The Adjustment Bureau OST (esp. "None of Them Are You") or this is also good.
I've got "Cutting Grass" going right now. Probably a few more times today.
I blazed through that last night. And I listened to the album.
That album is pretty sweet.
I've heard that listening to podcasts is a good distraction. I happen to know of one...
"We Just Disagree"--Dave Mason.
If there was ever a time to just dive into your own "guilty pleasures" artists or songs, this is it. I am listening to a lot of artists that many on this site would probably laugh at, but today is about me feeling better. So: Hello Weezer, U2, Radiohead, Pearl Jam (Ten), Soundgarden, Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash, Temple of the Dog, Journey, Foo Fighters, Black Keys, etc.
Agree with the sentiment and my music tastes are on the same page as yours. I'll have to fire up my ancient iTunes "3 stars and up" playlist once I get a webinar out of the way.
The Secretary of State updates election numbers every 15 minutes on their website.
I built a Python script that runs every 15 minutes, copies the data, publishes it to a Postgres database that my map then auto-queries and updates. I'm pretty pleased with the skills I learned in making it.
Wow!
Is there a link or something we should be checking out?
It only runs on my local machine, I didn't try to get it to publish to the web
But this is what it looks like (dummy data obviously)
The best part (to me anyway) is that this is all automatic. The scheduler runs the data retrieval script, and the map is set to pull that data and refresh at set intervals.
What does the marker above the line indicate?
Edit: Now I get it. I thought the line in the middle was current results so far, but that's the 50-50 point and the marker is the vote total. Never mind.
That's percentage of votes. Biden/Trump in that example is 50/50 so the marker is at the midpoint.
Smith is at about 70% of votes in that, so the slider is tending towards her.
The state also goes from deep red to light red to white to light blue to dark blue to match (I can toggle President/Senate)
Only missing the Representative districts now.
Yeah, that'd be just a little copy/pasting so I'll probably get around to that eventually.
Well, I hope you're prepared to do a lot of screenshotting and pasting tonight! I'll be back every 15 minutes.
Where are you finding this info from the secretary of state? I'm looking but not seeing.
Ditto
It's not up yet, but this is the link to the senate primary data (I used for testing)
I'll post the actual link once they start publishing
I'm assuming it'll be something like /20201103/ussenate.txt and /20201103/uspres.txt
It's kind buried. Go here, and select your contest. When that opens, go to "Complete Election Results" at the bottom. Then "Downloadable Text Results" at the bottom of that page. THEN you can select which race and by what breakdown (statewide, precinct, etc)
Make sure you keep a close eye on ISD 640 School Board.
I believe the Gem Lake mayoral race is also of interest
I saw that.
Results in Gem Lake.
Not looking so good in ISD 640 though.
I'm much more okay with that than I realized I'd be.
City Council I believe and it looks like we have a WGOM citizen as an elected official. Do we all have to follow Roberts Rules when posting now?
Congrats CoC!
Roberts Rules when posting now?
Forget Robert's Rules -- Robert plays for the White Sox.
We didn't fight a war to overthrow a king to have to do this. I'll throw all this tea in the harbor so help me.
My mind went straight there too, but that clip doesn't have the best quote.
Roberts' Rules? I'm more worried about Open Meetings laws. Corny's gonna bring the transparency police down on us.
Does that mean no more spoiler tags?
and you have to put alt text in for every image to ensure accessibility!!!
Compliance with the Minnesota Data Practice Act is one the most tedious things I've had to do.
I was wondering about the unexpected (and welcome) rando congratulatory text messages yesterday. Thanks for the notes and smiles (Roberts Rules … Open Meeting Laws … data practices … ugh/ha!).
Most years in Gem Lake, we'd struggle to recruit candidates for the openings. This year, we had four for two open seats, and will have another special election in February to fill the seat vacated by an unsuccessful mayoral candidate, and I'll have to find a new Chair for the Planning Commission … ahh, civic engagement.
I'm not sure I've ever heard of Gem Lake... I went to look it up assuming it was out in the far reaches of...somewhere.
Must be one of those nice little nooks in the city...though as I peruse the map, there's more of them than I realized, coming from over here in Squareville.
In 2 years, there may be some interest in the District 8B state house race. If our current rep gets reelected this year, you may know the challenger in 2022.
zoom, all I can say is good luck and offer a reminder:
Not meant to be derogatory in the 'gender-related insult' manner, but don't forget the adage about wrestling with pigs.
Yeah... that would be the potential major drawback to doing so. I probably won't do it, but then again I might if I get all riled up in a couple of years.
An old friend just got reelected to the House (by quite a healthy margin). Say hi for me!
You’ll have to narrow down for me ... you know entirely too many people.
Non-election day question for parents out there: If your school is closed, are they going to do picture day? We're fully online right now, and may continue to be online all year, but they're still planning two days where we would drive through the drop-off lane, let kids out of the car, then they would be led inside to do pictures, and brought back out to the car.
Would you bring your kid(s) in for picture day?
That is how picture day worked for virtual students around here, which we did back in September. They had the picture area set up right by the entrance so the kids weren't going to be wandering through the school, so it felt pretty safe.
Yeah, I can see doing it outside. I think they should let kids submit their own pics this year.
Our school had picture day at the end of September, and the setup was similar to what you describe. They had to wear a mask that they then removed just for the photo. The process went smoothly and no reported COVID exposures came out of it. They aren't necessarily my favorite photos of the boys, but that's a separate issue...
Tornado siren test day falling on Election Day 2020 seems appropriate.
It's always the first Monday 9AM here.
Don't mind me, just sitting here crying. This week, man.
I needed that, though.
8.5 out of 10. Some seriously good meats from the good folks at bourgeois miracles in meats.
I will be visiting Schmidt's Meat Market on the 12th and then driving to NOLA the following week. Want me to grab anything for you?
! Absolutely. I’ll
Text you.
Happy National Sandwich Day to you. I celebrated with an open-face tomato paste and pepperoni sandwich from Little Caesars, because rush.
7.5 out of 10. Needed better bread and meat. Plus I forgot the hot sauce and leafy greens.
Mine was a Philly today. Needed better bread, better filling-to-bread ratio.
For a garbage poboy....
Full patio at the joint over lunch today. On November 3rd. Who would of thought?
May you get a full week or more of this.
Hey guys -- something cool for the Alec folks
I have somewhat followed this whole saga for 18 years. There have been ebb and flows of "experts" debunking or validating the stone. I knew about this project by Peter Stormare but was not aware it was out there for public consumption yet. It is now on my "must watch" list. Honestly, I never hear any locals talking about the stone, as most of us have been exposed to it all for so long. I am interested in seeing if any new developments have come out of this show. Personally, my opinion is that there is something to the stone. Not sure if this farmer could have carved it up himself. Maybe whoever carved in in the 1300's had bad grammer? Just kidding. It is an enigma that part of me hopes is solved definitively, and part of me hopes it remains an unsolved mystery. The one thing that does suck is the farmer who found it led a rough life afterwards due to academic types calling him a fraud.
I've been following Peter Stormare for a while now (being "Swedish" myself) and I know he has a soft spot for Minnesota after filming Fargo there and seeing how much of Scandinavia exists in MN. I don't have any vested interest in the stone being legit or not, but I find it hard to believe that someone could create something supposedly that old and not have it immediately proven or debunked.
Secretary of State data is up now. Everything is still blank, but these'll update every 15 min throughout the night
Tonite I'm making Lamb Tagine with prunes, apricots, dates, and almonds.
Lamb shoulder cut into 1/2" size pieces (remove the fatty stuff and put into the suet cage at the feeder). In olive oil, sweat out garlic and onions, then brown the lamb cubes on all sides, then add 1 c. water, and Ras El Hanout (ground cumin, ground coriander, crushed chili flakes, ground cinnamon, paprika, cardamon, ginger, turmeric, saffron), and a handful of fresh cilantro. Cover and cook for 2 hours on low. Add apricots, prunes, dates, almonds, cinnamon sticks, and honey, and salt/pepper as needed, and cook for another hour. Put into the tagine and bake for another hour. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds, and serve with couscous (I'm using the big Israeli size, with chopped dried cranberry pieces).
Your title in this post contains a word I used in a text to a fellow citizen last night. I will not expand on it due to respecting the forbidden zone. I work today until 5, then will have a beverage with some friends at the local brew house. By 7 I will be on the couch and turn on live news for the first time in about 5 months. I took tomorrow off and will watch the morning news feed for about 30 minutes before enjoying a day off in 60+ degree weather. If I can find an open golf course I will play a round of golf. If not, I will bag up some leaves and do other outside chores. Either activity is soothing for my soul. I am glad I took the day after the election off. I do hope and pray for those of you who live in areas that are prone to civil unrest. I pray that cooler heads prevail and for your safety.
It's the opposite for service industry workers, but it's frustrating that not only is voting on a day when most people work, the day after is also a day when most people work. Glad you're able to recharge tomorrow.
Without putting a lot of thought into it, I think election day should be a national holiday. Possibly there are reasons I am not thinking of, but on the surface it would make sense. More people would then become eligible to be election officials. You could have more polling places. People could celebrate their right to vote. It would also be good for my business. 😉
But that would lead to [forbidden zone consequences]!!!111one111!!!
All I can do is say, "This too shall pass."
Perfect.
I am suddenly in favor of accordions in marching bands.
I forgot how fun that video is. That felt nice.
Indeed. Never saw that one. What this world needs.
I already voted, but I had to pick up some school stuff for the kids so I drove by city hall. There was a long line wrapping around the building, although I think its roughly the same number of people as normal, just socially distanced. I've never been there this early in the day, though, so it could be considered long and I would expect the after work line to be way longer. Good thing the weather rocks right now.
I tried voting early a couple of times in the last two weeks, but there were always long lines well out of the building. Went in on voting day and was in and out of there in less than 5 minutes. I was thrilled.
There was no line at all when I voted today. But then, if the whole town came in to vote at once there wouldn't be that long of a line.
All right, who has good election day music suggestions? I'm trying to keep the stress at bay; yesterday I was soothed by Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony.
I've been trying to figure out whether to play calming tunes, or lean into the feeling and blast frantic anxiety inducing music.
I only have one type of music so I'll either blast that or maybe try to get some Among Us going. I also anticipate not feeling great tomorrow morning.
Ha! I feel like either could work.
Go for calming.
I've been relying on a mix of indie folk (Jenny Lewis, Neko Case) and Southern Gospel these last few weeks. Life savers.
I went with calm, but I went with The Field. Very repetitive, almost entrancing electronica.
I would agree, but my suggestion would be to pick the soundtracks of your favorite movies which fit the mood you'd like to be in. A couple off the wall suggestions might be The Adjustment Bureau OST (esp. "None of Them Are You") or this is also good.
I've got "Cutting Grass" going right now. Probably a few more times today.
I blazed through that last night. And I listened to the album.
That album is pretty sweet.
I've heard that listening to podcasts is a good distraction. I happen to know of one...
"We Just Disagree"--Dave Mason.
If there was ever a time to just dive into your own "guilty pleasures" artists or songs, this is it. I am listening to a lot of artists that many on this site would probably laugh at, but today is about me feeling better. So: Hello Weezer, U2, Radiohead, Pearl Jam (Ten), Soundgarden, Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash, Temple of the Dog, Journey, Foo Fighters, Black Keys, etc.
Agree with the sentiment and my music tastes are on the same page as yours. I'll have to fire up my ancient iTunes "3 stars and up" playlist once I get a webinar out of the way.
great minds and such...
American Routes has an excellent election show this week.
The Secretary of State updates election numbers every 15 minutes on their website.
I built a Python script that runs every 15 minutes, copies the data, publishes it to a Postgres database that my map then auto-queries and updates. I'm pretty pleased with the skills I learned in making it.
Wow!
Is there a link or something we should be checking out?
It only runs on my local machine, I didn't try to get it to publish to the web
But this is what it looks like (dummy data obviously)
The best part (to me anyway) is that this is all automatic. The scheduler runs the data retrieval script, and the map is set to pull that data and refresh at set intervals.
What does the marker above the line indicate?
Edit: Now I get it. I thought the line in the middle was current results so far, but that's the 50-50 point and the marker is the vote total. Never mind.
That's percentage of votes. Biden/Trump in that example is 50/50 so the marker is at the midpoint.
Smith is at about 70% of votes in that, so the slider is tending towards her.
The state also goes from deep red to light red to white to light blue to dark blue to match (I can toggle President/Senate)
Only missing the Representative districts now.
Yeah, that'd be just a little copy/pasting so I'll probably get around to that eventually.
Well, I hope you're prepared to do a lot of screenshotting and pasting tonight! I'll be back every 15 minutes.
Where are you finding this info from the secretary of state? I'm looking but not seeing.
Ditto
It's not up yet, but this is the link to the senate primary data (I used for testing)
https://electionresultsfiles.sos.state.mn.us/20200811/ussenate.txt
I'll post the actual link once they start publishing
I'm assuming it'll be something like /20201103/ussenate.txt and /20201103/uspres.txt
It's kind buried. Go here, and select your contest. When that opens, go to "Complete Election Results" at the bottom. Then "Downloadable Text Results" at the bottom of that page. THEN you can select which race and by what breakdown (statewide, precinct, etc)
Make sure you keep a close eye on ISD 640 School Board.
I believe the Gem Lake mayoral race is also of interest
I saw that.
Results in Gem Lake.
Not looking so good in ISD 640 though.
I'm much more okay with that than I realized I'd be.
City Council I believe and it looks like we have a WGOM citizen as an elected official. Do we all have to follow Roberts Rules when posting now?
Congrats CoC!
Roberts Rules when posting now?
Forget Robert's Rules -- Robert plays for the White Sox.
We didn't fight a war to overthrow a king to have to do this. I'll throw all this tea in the harbor so help me.
Or something 😀 Congrats!
My mind went straight there too, but that clip doesn't have the best quote.
Roberts' Rules? I'm more worried about Open Meetings laws. Corny's gonna bring the transparency police down on us.
Does that mean no more spoiler tags?
and you have to put alt text in for every image to ensure accessibility!!!
Compliance with the Minnesota Data Practice Act is one the most tedious things I've had to do.
I was wondering about the unexpected (and welcome) rando congratulatory text messages yesterday. Thanks for the notes and smiles (Roberts Rules … Open Meeting Laws … data practices … ugh/ha!).
Most years in Gem Lake, we'd struggle to recruit candidates for the openings. This year, we had four for two open seats, and will have another special election in February to fill the seat vacated by an unsuccessful mayoral candidate, and I'll have to find a new Chair for the Planning Commission … ahh, civic engagement.
I'm not sure I've ever heard of Gem Lake... I went to look it up assuming it was out in the far reaches of...somewhere.
Must be one of those nice little nooks in the city...though as I peruse the map, there's more of them than I realized, coming from over here in Squareville.
In 2 years, there may be some interest in the District 8B state house race. If our current rep gets reelected this year, you may know the challenger in 2022.
zoom, all I can say is good luck and offer a reminder:
Yeah... that would be the potential major drawback to doing so. I probably won't do it, but then again I might if I get all riled up in a couple of years.
An old friend just got reelected to the House (by quite a healthy margin). Say hi for me!
You’ll have to narrow down for me ... you know entirely too many people.
Non-election day question for parents out there: If your school is closed, are they going to do picture day? We're fully online right now, and may continue to be online all year, but they're still planning two days where we would drive through the drop-off lane, let kids out of the car, then they would be led inside to do pictures, and brought back out to the car.
Would you bring your kid(s) in for picture day?
That is how picture day worked for virtual students around here, which we did back in September. They had the picture area set up right by the entrance so the kids weren't going to be wandering through the school, so it felt pretty safe.
Yeah, I can see doing it outside. I think they should let kids submit their own pics this year.
Our school had picture day at the end of September, and the setup was similar to what you describe. They had to wear a mask that they then removed just for the photo. The process went smoothly and no reported COVID exposures came out of it. They aren't necessarily my favorite photos of the boys, but that's a separate issue...
Tornado siren test day falling on Election Day 2020 seems appropriate.
It's always the first Monday 9AM here.
Don't mind me, just sitting here crying. This week, man.
I needed that, though.
8.5 out of 10. Some seriously good meats from the good folks at bourgeois miracles in meats.
I will be visiting Schmidt's Meat Market on the 12th and then driving to NOLA the following week. Want me to grab anything for you?
! Absolutely. I’ll
Text you.
Happy National Sandwich Day to you. I celebrated with an open-face tomato paste and pepperoni sandwich from Little Caesars, because rush.
7.5 out of 10. Needed better bread and meat. Plus I forgot the hot sauce and leafy greens.
Mine was a Philly today. Needed better bread, better filling-to-bread ratio.
For a garbage poboy....
Full patio at the joint over lunch today. On November 3rd. Who would of thought?
May you get a full week or more of this.
Hey guys -- something cool for the Alec folks
I have somewhat followed this whole saga for 18 years. There have been ebb and flows of "experts" debunking or validating the stone. I knew about this project by Peter Stormare but was not aware it was out there for public consumption yet. It is now on my "must watch" list. Honestly, I never hear any locals talking about the stone, as most of us have been exposed to it all for so long. I am interested in seeing if any new developments have come out of this show. Personally, my opinion is that there is something to the stone. Not sure if this farmer could have carved it up himself. Maybe whoever carved in in the 1300's had bad grammer? Just kidding. It is an enigma that part of me hopes is solved definitively, and part of me hopes it remains an unsolved mystery. The one thing that does suck is the farmer who found it led a rough life afterwards due to academic types calling him a fraud.
I've been following Peter Stormare for a while now (being "Swedish" myself) and I know he has a soft spot for Minnesota after filming Fargo there and seeing how much of Scandinavia exists in MN. I don't have any vested interest in the stone being legit or not, but I find it hard to believe that someone could create something supposedly that old and not have it immediately proven or debunked.
Secretary of State data is up now. Everything is still blank, but these'll update every 15 min throughout the night
https://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/Select/MediaFiles/Index?ersElectionId=136
We are cooking with gas, y'all!
Full size (static image)
In the Tagine
Tonite I'm making Lamb Tagine with prunes, apricots, dates, and almonds.
Lamb shoulder cut into 1/2" size pieces (remove the fatty stuff and put into the suet cage at the feeder). In olive oil, sweat out garlic and onions, then brown the lamb cubes on all sides, then add 1 c. water, and Ras El Hanout (ground cumin, ground coriander, crushed chili flakes, ground cinnamon, paprika, cardamon, ginger, turmeric, saffron), and a handful of fresh cilantro. Cover and cook for 2 hours on low. Add apricots, prunes, dates, almonds, cinnamon sticks, and honey, and salt/pepper as needed, and cook for another hour. Put into the tagine and bake for another hour. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds, and serve with couscous (I'm using the big Israeli size, with chopped dried cranberry pieces).