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that went fast....
Dec. 13th, 2022 09:28 amThe Washtenaw County portion of the partial recount of MI 22-3 was finished in one day. 28 teams counted 44 precincts worth of ballots in one day. Teams started being released at 4pm as they finished up a precinct because there were no more precincts to be counted. Ann Arbor voters have really embraced Absent Voting -- for every precinct there were two units of ballots to be counted, In Person and Absent, and other than the campus precincts the AV unit was usually double the In Person unit. The team I was on did four units, two In Person and two AV, 450/370/500/750. The process was easy, but required paying attention at all stages. Make sure the seal number on the ballot container matches the number that the poll workers put in the book when they finished on Election Night; count the ballots in the container to make sure that all the ballots are there; sort ballots into piles (Yes/No/Other); count the piles; put the ballots back in the container; reseal the container. There were theoretically challengers at the recount, but we only had one pair at our table ever, and one of them had no idea what she was looking at or what we were doing. "why is this seal number crossed out?" "because that's the seal that was on the ballot container when we got it. we put a new seal on the container after we counted the ballots and the new number is in the book. you watched us do it." The challengers were only authorized to challenge votes, not the recount procedure, although she really wanted to make it about the procedure.
I spent a couple of hours on the phone with ATT last week, trying to figure out why we couldn't make long distance phone calls. I talked to people at ATT local, at Ameritech, at ATT longdistance. The most annoying was the person at Ameritech who tried to tell me that the reason I couldn't call out is because we're still on copper lines. "why is this my fault?" I asked her. "I pay for telephone service, I expect it to work. If it doesn't work, I expect you to fix it." She didn't want to answer that question, and was very glad to shift me off to Ameritech repair, who slotted us in at their next available appointment. Tuesday. When I expected to be off counting ballots, and J had to be at work for meetings. "Can I change it?" "sure, how's Jan 2" "never mind. we'll make Tuesday work" Then the tech showed up (at 8:30), opened the tombstone, fiddled a connector, and viola! long distance telephone service. He was gone by 9am, which is about when J left for work. The tech is based out of Chelsea, and has given us the direct line to the local dispatcher, so the next time it happens we can skip the whole rigamarole and get it fixed the next business day. Apparently, the connector is somewhat susceptible to mice/snakes using it to climb inside the tombstone, and it literally takes longer to open and close the tombstone than to make the fix.
The FCB Christmas concert is Sunday. We'd reserved the stage at NFHS for a stage rehearsal on Friday night. GM found out yesterday that the choir had shifted their concert to Friday. Apparently, the choir director looked at the Music Department calendar to find an open date, rather than the Facilities Usage calendar. So now we have to compete with a basketball game and a choir concert for parking, and we don't have the stage for soundcheck. mutter. And DC wanted to rehearse in the bandroom last night, so we had to move chairs/stands/percussion from the stage into the bandroom and back again. whee?
I have begun looking at new saxophones. sigh. Not gonna be cheap, but J says "go for it". The biggest problem is that nobody has baris in stock. I'll be going out later this week to take the tenor into the shop, and I'll ask them. There's another music store about 10 miles further down the street, and I'll stop by there as well. I'd rather not buy online, but I may have to.
I spent a couple of hours on the phone with ATT last week, trying to figure out why we couldn't make long distance phone calls. I talked to people at ATT local, at Ameritech, at ATT longdistance. The most annoying was the person at Ameritech who tried to tell me that the reason I couldn't call out is because we're still on copper lines. "why is this my fault?" I asked her. "I pay for telephone service, I expect it to work. If it doesn't work, I expect you to fix it." She didn't want to answer that question, and was very glad to shift me off to Ameritech repair, who slotted us in at their next available appointment. Tuesday. When I expected to be off counting ballots, and J had to be at work for meetings. "Can I change it?" "sure, how's Jan 2" "never mind. we'll make Tuesday work" Then the tech showed up (at 8:30), opened the tombstone, fiddled a connector, and viola! long distance telephone service. He was gone by 9am, which is about when J left for work. The tech is based out of Chelsea, and has given us the direct line to the local dispatcher, so the next time it happens we can skip the whole rigamarole and get it fixed the next business day. Apparently, the connector is somewhat susceptible to mice/snakes using it to climb inside the tombstone, and it literally takes longer to open and close the tombstone than to make the fix.
The FCB Christmas concert is Sunday. We'd reserved the stage at NFHS for a stage rehearsal on Friday night. GM found out yesterday that the choir had shifted their concert to Friday. Apparently, the choir director looked at the Music Department calendar to find an open date, rather than the Facilities Usage calendar. So now we have to compete with a basketball game and a choir concert for parking, and we don't have the stage for soundcheck. mutter. And DC wanted to rehearse in the bandroom last night, so we had to move chairs/stands/percussion from the stage into the bandroom and back again. whee?
I have begun looking at new saxophones. sigh. Not gonna be cheap, but J says "go for it". The biggest problem is that nobody has baris in stock. I'll be going out later this week to take the tenor into the shop, and I'll ask them. There's another music store about 10 miles further down the street, and I'll stop by there as well. I'd rather not buy online, but I may have to.
