Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

The project is mostly done. What remains is the cleaning up afterwards, which is apparently my job. The bathroom floor needs to be washed, not just swept; there is detritus in many corners of rooms; there are unused tools and parts lurking in other corners; the boxes that came in from the garage need to go back out there, etc. But that's not the "cool" part of the project, so J's not interested in doing it.

Especially since he's already mentally moved on to the next project, a late 1990s Honda Goldwing motorcycle that he's going to Roscommon to pick up. He's also in the middle of the long-awaited "put some sort of light on the driveway" project -- it requires putting a fixture on the garage, and we've only been talking about doing it since we finished the garage. Why it didn't get done when he was renovating the garage, I do not know.

I was able to find a useful shoe rack at Menard's, but I really do still need to get the one from IKEA -- it's got a taller space between the floor and the bottom shelf, so it's actually useable space there. It won't be a problem having shoe rack space, as there's no rule that says you can only put shoes on a shoe rack. :)

It's nice and sunny and warm today, but that won't last -- they tell us it's going to get ridiculously cold next week. I need to take the holiday lights down today, while it's nice (precipitation is expected tomorrow). There's no rehearsal on Monday (school holiday), and if it's as cold as they say it will be, I will skip Tuesday's (assuming that Howell doesn't cancel school due to the cold). I have to be in Mason at 9am Wednesday, and that's gonna be fun. It will be interesting to see what the car does in below zero weather....

We spent Thursday's office hours doing the file sorting that we'd been not doing because we were so busy with election and moving stuff. I have a stack of paper on my desk that needs to be filed downstairs, and another stack that needs to be copied for the auditor. BC has similar stacks. We took a piled-high banker's box of paper out to the shred bin, and when we actually get into the basement to work on the files there we will have much more.

{edit for grammar. sigh}

J started the bathroom demolition/reconstruction last week. (The old shower stall is being removed from the hall bath, and the space is being shifted to the closet in the master bedroom.) The same day, we started clearing spaces at work for the HVAC contractors. I am already tired of boxes everywhere....

Three elections worth of boxes are in the Clerk's office, one under my desk where it's almost-but-not-quite in the way; and there are other boxes on top of filing cabinets. Another year's worth of elections is boxed up and on the floor in the furnace room. They'll just have to live with it for the next four weeks or so (the space is quite large, and seems at least partially intended for storage of municipal broadband equipment). I only did one row of boxes down one side of the space, out of their way. BC and I went down on Friday and got everything off the top of the file cabinets and desktops and floor and sorted into Recycle/Shred/Trash stacks, with one box of "we need to see if we have copies of these before we Shred them, but we don't have time now". There are still two rooms of cruft that need to be sorted, but they aren't our responsibility. One is the treasurer's space, and one is Zoning's. We're still waiting to hear when the remodelling crew wants to start work on the office spaces upstairs, because we'll have more stuff to move then. In an ideal situation,, the HVAC crew will be done, and we'll be able to move most of the stuff from that closet into the basement, but that's a bit unlikely, based on the amount of work the HVAC crew has to do. It'll probably have to go into the shed, which is a faff -- either down a narrow half-flight of stairs and out the side door; or halfway across the building, out the front door, and then halfway around it. Nothing really heavy, per se, just bulky and hard to carry, and many pieces of it.

On the home front, everything had to be removed from the closet. There are boxes and stacks of clothing everywhere. And drywall dust, and broken chunks of drywall, and the old closet shelves+rods. The old shower is in pieces on the deck. (The closet will actually get painted now! Have no idea what color it will be -- there may be enough usable paint in the basement, or we may have to buy some. I think there is enough of the almost-boring-beige(*) left from the master bath for the hall bath.) We need to figure out closet flooring and cabinetry colors, too. And a layout, so we can get everything out of boxen and into the closet ASAP. I want lots of shoe cubbies (will also work for J's tshirts) and mesh drawers for sweaters and wear-to-work shirts.

(* -- I thought it would have more color in it. I did sizable test patches, and it was good, but once the whole room was done it was beige. kind of a taupe-y beige, but still beige. sigh.)

with music everywhere!

Last Sunday (the 15th) was the FCB concert. It went better than it really had any right to. The harpist fit onto the stage, and was terrific. The Snowman went really well, as did the rest of the music we played. Tear-down was easy, as lots of people helped.

Then we came home and finished packing for an almost weeklong trip to NC, to see Mum. She is doing really well for 93. Physically a bit slower than last year, but still on her own two feet. Met some new people, got reacquainted with people we met last year. Went carolling on two nights -- they are very glad to have J and me singing.

The drive was not nearly as fraught as last year. For one, we started off much earlier in the day (easier to drive in the dark in known environs), and it wasn't snowing and dark as we went through the mountains. Fog is somewhat easier to deal with. The Ohio DOT had opened the "outer ring" bypass of Columbus, which also made the trip easier -- we were able to pretty much bypass the Columbus traffic, except for a very small re-route because a ramp isn't completed yet (it was replaced by a well-signed surface level left turn with a long light).

We drove back on Saturday, and Sunday AM we trundled off to sing at church in single-digit temperatures. (it was 70F in Greensboro on Wednesday, 40F on Friday. Just a bit of difference!)

Tomorrow, we go back to church to sing and ring chimes. Today, it's rain/sleet/freezing rain/ick at temperatures right around freezing. *I* don't have to go anywhere tonight. This pleases me. :)

It's the coldest it's been this winter, but I'm not entirely convinced that it should be termed the "bitter cold" that the weather app said. It was cold enough that I was glad of my hat when I did the outdoor chores. I deployed the heated birdbath early last week, when the other birdbath was frozen solid (and I had time to go digging through various garage bays to find the basin and the extension cord). They tell us that it will warm considerably over the next few days. This is good, because now J can get the pump out of the pond -- the rill is completely frozen over, and it has the lovely 'running water under ice' effect. But I think it will get cold enough (eventually) this winter that the pond will freeze solid, and that will not be good for the pump.

Another positive of the warmer weather is that I can put up the outdoor Xmas lights -- they're solar powered, so as soon as I put them out they'll start coming on, and I don't like having Xmas lights on before Advent. I also need to replace the lights on the house -- they were not really very good lights when I put them up six or seven years ago, and they're really worse for wear now.

I have got my desk at work sorted out, and most of the voter list reconciling done. Next week, I think we (read "I") get to start moving things out of the storage closet upstairs so they can start working on it in January. The GC for the office renovation will also be GC for the HVAC renovation, so he will be a busy man. The entire HVAC in the old building needs to be redone -- there are so many things wrong with it! (But they all come down to the manager in charge wanting the renovation to come in fast and under budget, regardless of what the contractor said. And it's not his problem anymore, so it worked! Never mind that the twp now has to spend more money that it really doesn't have to fix his mistakes....)

this time, with snow! Not much, to be fair, and it melted by mid-afternoon.

Tuesday was DC's last day. We had a gathering, with cake! For her last duty, she got to swear all of us in for the next four years. Now they get to start really looking for someone to take her place (I can't do it, because I don't live in that township), because BC will not be running for office again. In fact, if they can find someone to fill the position, she's likely to resign and let the new person have the position....

Thursday I went in and moved over to DC's desk, which is only about twice the size of the space I'd been using. I've got a couple other ideas for making the space work for me, but with a move to a larger space (and possibly an even larger desk) in the hopefully not too distant future, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it.... I also did some of the work they actually pay me to do, not just mess around with computers.

The trunk of my car currently smells of white vinegar. foo. I'd bought a couple gallons of it at the grocer, and I *thought* I'd wedged them in a space such that they couldn't fall over, but I was wrong. They did fall over, and the lids didn't actually come off or open, but they did leak. I'll find out tomorrow if leaving the trunk open causes issues -- I think the car will turn off the trunk light if it's left open too long, but we'll just have to see....

did a lot of stairs/hauling boxes/sorting paperwork at work (but the election infrastructure is mostly put into the basement so that we don't have to move it again in a month!; all the documentation we'll need should our number come up in the random post election audits is assembled; the files from the May 2023 election are in long term storage in the basement, so that August 2024 files can go into that drawer and the November 2024 binders can go onto the shelf).

Then Friday morning we left for Chicago and WindyCon. The second year in the new hotel went much better than the first year did. There were still hotel issues, and there were some very annoying con issues -- no printed programs/program books at all - the first run of pocket programs was apparently so incorrect that they were binned, but AFAIK no replacements were ever printed. There was an online version, but fandom is greying and resistant to change, and many just want a program book to read, even if they'll bin it as soon as they get home. Info desk had printed a few copies of the pocket program on the hotel printer, but those were not for taking away. There were also the oldies who had expected actual *food* in the consuite.

The GT room was crushed on Saturday night -- we had toasts for two old friends, and many stories were told. MA and I poured out nearly 3 full-sized bottles of gin/whiskey and two bottles of fizzy apple juice before the toasts To Absent Friends.

The cats were annoyed with us when we got home. The people who come over to feed/water them are "not us", and the cats do not approve.

I need a day off. Maybe Wednesday?

(the way it usually does, one day at a time. I know.)

Farmington's Halloween concert was Sunday. It was much better performed than Livingston's, even though the music was harder. We did not have FCB rehearsal the day after the concert, because the HS was having stage rehearsal for their Tuesday evening concert, and it was just easier for everyone if 70 extra musicians just stayed away. I will be missing the rehearsal on Monday, 4 November, because I will be doing the final set up for the township hall for Tuesday's election, after a day of processing and tabulating Absent Voter ballots. whee?

I postponed the week's erranding to today from the usual Wednesday, because the weather then was great for working in the garden. So, of course, it's chilly and damp today and AA is overrun with Oregon fans in town for tomorrow's football game. sigh. OTOH, there was no line at the cider mill or the gas station. OTOOH, I forgot to stop at the feed store for birdseed. I will need to run into town tomorrow and get that. sigh, again.

I said I wasn't ever gonna log in to anything work related from home, but here I am.

(for my sins) I am chairing the AVCB in the township where I work (as the boss says "she works for me, she can't say no"). {I am not thrilled by this, really I'm not. I wanna be a minion. I'm a good minion. I don't wanna be in charge.}

I've been texting with the people on the board (everyone's got a cell phone, and in at least one case it's the most reliable/quickest way to contact them), and someone asked "how many ballots have we sent out/gotten back?" Erm. I have no idea, I've just been _doing_ it! So I logged in to the clerk-facing voter database and got those reports. We've sent out over 1100 ballots, and as of 3pm today had received over 600 of them back. We will be getting at least another 300 ballots back between now and Election Day. A good, well-trained AVCB team of 2 can process about 50 ballots an hour on the average. We only have personnel (and *space*) for two teams. So we're doing it over two days.

I had plans to do garden work over the weekend, and then the predicted "most areas will get half an inch of rain" turned into an all day rain with occasional stormy bits such that we got 2 inches of rain.

Monday and Tuesday were chilly (highs in the 40s!).

Monday's FCB rehearsal was stressful. The business manager (BM) had made a comment to PB (the NFHS band director) that made PB think that we weren't going to be rehearsing on Monday, so she had her band kids stage out of the bandroom for their Festival trip. Which is perfectly fair! But it really messed with my evening. *I* wasn't going to try and move their gear. The stage was set for a choir concert, and while I'll move risers and music shells, I will *NOT* move a concert grand piano without permission (at the very least) and preferably supervision. (BM and PB are in text communication at this point, trying to figure out a space to use.) We wound up in the choir room, which is considerable smaller than the bandroom. But everyone fit (as did most of the percussion). We had to take every moveable table out of the room, and scrounge chairs from various storage places in the music wing. And then we rehearsed -- down one BSax and two Tubas, with a concert in one more rehearsal. Then we had to put everything back where we found it. gaaah! (I don't get paid enough to do that regularly!)

Tuesday we processed incoming ballots. Well, DC did incoming ballots, I did outgoing ballots (applications come by mail, through the voter system, and voters can come in and get them), and BC did bills. I scampered out the door at 4:40 to make it to the PO before the mail left at 5. (DC was not yet done processing the 120 ballots that had come in since Friday. She apparently came in on Wednesday to finish them up.)

Then I went to LCCB rehearsal. (Thank Ghu I'm not playing bari in that band this time around. I didn't realise how tired I was until I got halfway to rehearsal.) But music is a thing I do, so I rehearsed well and made a few notes on my music. At this point in the session -- the concert is Sunday! -- rehearsals are mostly just run-throughs and picky bits. (there are still a couple of notes I missed, so I made notes to myself on the music.)

Wednesday I slept in. Then I sorted in the workroom and did some more in the laundry room. I re-thought the boot tray positioning, and the tray that I bought will work, just in a different place. (Upon further thought, I realised that my original plan for it was a bad idea anyway....) And I got the box of mealworms (for the birds) out of the hall and into the laundry room.

Today is errands and an evening at Hill Auditorium, and hopefully a cart or two of stuff out of the gardens. Between things that need to be cut back because they're dead and weeds that need to be pulled, there's a lot of work to be done out there. Maybe I'll do the groceries after the concert -- Meijer is still open then. But I do have a couple of local stops, so I do have to go out. Sigh.

Annabelle has been curling up in her "winter" spots recently (the box by the back door, the corner of the sofa, the sunbeam in the upstairs East window), so I know that cooler weather is coming.

This morning, there was frost on the ground in exposed areas, and the birdbath had a 1/4" layer of ice on it. The pond, being much larger and with a fountain running in it, did not have any ice.