Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

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.)

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....)

At least it's not actually raining -- it's been doing that mostly overnight or when I'm at work this week. I did get rained on a teensy bit yesterday when I was out running extended errands -- hadn't done anything since before the election, so I was way behind, although we hadn't run out of anything. Only three cans of cat food left, though.

Today I need to clear the living room of all the things that I've just been dropping there to deal with "later". It is now later, so....

BC and I did a layout of the new office space (so they know where to put the outlets and the network and phone ports). Once I got the room plotted out, and post-its of the furniture sizes, it took about 5 minutes, and we tried a few different configurations. :) She was impressed. There's a desk in the corner with the person's back to the door, but as that's the second clerk, I don't see it as an issue -- that person will rarely be in the office by themselves. There is space to shift the desk away from the wall, but then that person will be between the wall and the desk. This may be preferable, I don't know.

And then word came down from 'on high' that they wanted a third estimate, and they wanted to ponder some of the results of the energy audit. sigh. It's not going to be plausible to replace two small gas furnaces (new one is 5 yrs old, old one is only 10) with a heat pump, especially if it means redoing the HVAC system in the entire building. [The HVAC in the old building needs to be fixed anyhow, because the person acting as General Contractor (to "save money") for the remodel 5 years ago screwed it up, and exactly how badly has now become clear. It was apparent shortly after the remodel was finished that there were issues, but the "GC" said it was fine. It wasn't, and still isn't, but BC and I went poking around in the basement/ductwork with a flashlight and chalk and figured out what was wrong. Short version? Penny-wise and pound-foolish. (or, as Papa used to say "you'll always remember how much you saved".)]

My TSax compatriot at Livingston will not be playing the Holiday concert -- his wife scheduled a "I gotta get out of this town" vacation for that weekend, so.... It'll be OK, although I will have to pay especial attention to Christmas Festival, which I'm used to playing in a different key. It's important to play a Bflat instead of a B, really it is. And I need to work on the flying-finger bits in Home Alone. (I needed to work on them anyway, because he was very clear that he wasn't gonna try for the 8th notes at 160bpm, much less the 16th notes.) And there's another piece where I'll probably be playing the 2nd ASax part -- both of the AS2 players are new to the instrument, and are scared of the accidentals and syncopations.

One positive from this result -- I don't have to worry about repercussions of being an election official in a state that he didn't win in an election he didn't win. (I heard from various sources that there was concern about civil unrest should he lose. He did lose in both the jurisdiction I work in and the one I live in.) (We had people decline to work the election because they didn't want to deal with potential fall-out. Our non-Trump Republican workers are all seriously thinking about retiring from working elections, because they don't feel comfortable with the R label anymore.)

We processed nearly 1100 absent voter ballots over the course of two days. It was a long two days. Tomorrow, we go in and deal with the things that didn't get dealt with on Tuesday -- clearing leftovers (baked goods and other treats - the meat/dairy was dealt with Tuesday) out of the lunchroom, cleaning and putting away the extra tables we put in the lunchroom, sorting secrecy sleeves, pulling papers out of binders and into file cabinets, moving old election records into long-term storage, etc. DC will be retiring at the end of the month, *and* the township will soon be beginning a remodeling project for the hall that will (ideally) give the Clerk's office more space, so it's gonna be "fun" for a while. Next week I need to remember to bring in the one-quarter graph paper so we can work on room layout. [Office musical chairs -- we're moving to a larger space that's being combined from an extant office (A) and a storage space; office A now will be sharing with C for a few weeks, but as zie is only in one day a week and this is the slow time for both A and C, it shouldn't be too onerous; then we move, and B moves into our old space and A moves into B's old space. B wants the windows. :)]

I skipped all rehearsals this week. It will be weird going back next week!

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.

whew. That was a week.

At work, we mailed over 1000 ballots this week. Monday AM, we finished the accuracy testing (three different ballot styles each had to be tested in two tabulators, each test takes about 45 minutes). Then we started the process of getting the ballots ready to mail. ack. fortunately (fsvo), somebody has to take the flats of ready to mail ballots to the PO, so the day usually ends about 4:30. I took the last flats into the PO yesterday (Thursday), then came home and sat down for longer than it takes to put on socks & shoes!

Monday, I had rehearsal in Farmington, for which I leave about 5:15. It's a long drive, so I always check with Google to see the best route. This week, there was a 60 minute backup on my usual route. Yeah, I'm going the other way.

Tuesday, I had rehearsal in Howell, for which I leave about 6. I actually had time to make dinner between work and rehearsal!

Wednesday, I had to be at the HS in town at 4:30. That was a weird staffing day, as Wednesday is not a usual office day, so we all had something scheduled that day, but all at different times. I left work at 4, came home and changed into my Band Mom shirt and 'layers suitable for standing around outside until after 9pm', and dashed off to town to work the Marching Band Exhibition. I had actually only signed up for the second shift, but I went early, assuming that there would be something for me to do, and there was. The people who were supposed to be doing that task for the first shift were too busy yammering about band trips and the tours that the specialty groups could go on to do the task they were signed up for.

SR claimed that the theme song for Michigan high school band was "it's a small world", as it seemed that every time she'd come across a new director/clinician, they knew somebody that she or I had worked with. Wednesday's iteration of that was one of the Western Michigan graduate assistants played with the Farmington band during his gap year between BS and grad school.

He came up to me with a slightly perplexed look on his face "do you play bari sax?",
"yes, in a couple of community bands."
"which ones?"
"Farmington mostly, but also Livingston"
"I played with Farmington for a season. I thought you looked familiar."
(I mean, who expects to see someone you met in Farmington at a high school football field in Chelsea? His confusion was not surprising.)

One of the band directors (who's been at every one of the shows) pointed out that most of the kids on the field for this event weren't even born in 2008 when we held the first one. sigh.

In other news (hurricane Helene), the telephones to the senior complex where my mother lives are down. She lives near Greensboro, NC, so this is not actually surprising. The house phone here rang with a call from her number, and when I answered it there was nothing there. So I tried calling her back, and got a fast busy. Yeah, that system is down. I'll probably hear from her sometime next week. Meanwhile, I'll try not to worry. They're in a stable part of town, well up a hill, so I don't expect her to flood out, but they'll undoubtedly lose power (the emergency generators will run out of fuel, and they'll have to prioritize the rehab wing) and have already lost phone. The only real source of danger from Helene for them is tornado or general disruption. They're not in a high tornado threat area, but that is subject to change.

or something like that.

Set up work for the November election has begun to ramp up. Last week, we ordered the ballots. This week, we started stuffing secrecy sleeves, and sorting out envelopes for mailing ballots, and we sent out applications for Absent Voter Ballots to the people on the list who haven't returned an application yet this year. Late next week, we should have the ballots in hand to send out to the people who have requested them. Including one person in The Netherlands who wants to be mailed a physical ballot. Not a problem, you say, just put an international stamp on it and be done. But with the new MI election laws, we have to provide *return* postage as well. It is unclear whether we can just put an international stamp on the return envelope and have it honored by the Dutch postal service, so someone (probably me, because I'm the minion), gets to go to the PO and ask. (unless the clerk remembered to ask today when she bought stamps.)

Farmington Band had their first rehearsal of the season on Monday. I'd forgotten how much work a full rehearsal is. concerts are easier. :) There is more overlap than usual between the concert repertoires for Livingston and Farmington, so that will be fun. It's probably easier that I'm not playing the same instrument in both, so it will be easier to keep the style/tempo separate....

With all the work I've been doing, I've had no time for the garden, so I think I know what I'm doing this weekend. (well, and helping J with a home renovation project. What started as a new outlet in the kitchen has morphed into installing a new water heater, remodeling the laundry room, changing the cold air return paths from upstairs, *and* a new electrical outlet in the kitchen.)

FCB rehearsal on Monday, work on Tuesday, then the rest of the week off.

Had thought about going in to the office on Friday to do the filing I didn't get done on Tuesday (had to leave so I could get to the PO before it closed), but Thursday morning I slipped on a retaining wall in the garden and *nearly* faceplanted on the deck. I did wrench my back and jammed my right wrist and shoulder. So Friday I wasn't up to much. I'll probably wind up going in on Wednesday to catch up, especially since I expect that quite a few ballots have come in. OTOH, DC will be back from "vacation" (her son got married, and she was very involved in the wedding), and two people working on ballots is more than twice as fast as one (less task switching).

Shoulder still hurts (I hope I didn't tear the rotator cuff more), and wrist is still a bit cranky. And I have a bruise on my forehead where I clonked it on the handle of the pond skimmer.

Despite the heat advisory on Tuesday night, the Livingston concert in Fowlerville went on. Tuesday evening was cooler and drier than it's been the rest of the week, and there was a nice breeze. The trees in the park there are getting big enough that there was enough shade for the audience - the band is under a pavilion, which is nice for purposes of heat mitigation, but not-so-nice for purposes of playing for an audience. The sound goes up into the pavilion roof and bounces around, and not all of it gets out to the audience. OTOH, they keep inviting us back. :)

DC and I got the first set of ballots into the mail today, after altogether too much faffing around figuring out how to get the state voter database to do what we wanted it to do. The method that they suggest is intended for large jurisdictions with 5K voters per precinct and multiple full-time clerks; not little townships with under 2.5K voters and three less-than-half-time clerks. Once we got it figured out, I don't think it's any slower than the "old" way, but getting to that point was way more confusing than it should have been. Didn't help any that my label printer had somehow gotten only mostly unplugged, so it looked connected but actually wasn't. And it was both ends of that cable....

J has been busy with a friend's car and working on some much needed repairs at the parsonage (things that probably should have been done 15 years ago and *still* aren't done). It seems as though they've also recruited him to be a non-hostile IT person.

I guess that if I have to pick a week to be at work every day, the week that it's too hot to work outside is a good one. I don't feel as guilty. :) And, honestly, even the weeds don't like it when it's this hot. :) We do get more birds when it's hot -- they don't want to wast time flying around looking for food, they just come here where they know there's food *and* water.

the FCB concert went really well. No real complaints about setup -- a couple of people muttered, but as they were there to help with layout, they were well aware that we did the best we could with the space. It would have been nice had a few more people stayed to help with teardown (J and I got the last of the chairs moved into the choir room sometime around 5pm), but the equipment crew had to take gear back to NFHS 30 minutes away *and* return the truck before 6pm. Then it rained on the way home. J was on his motorcycle, so he got wet. Not as bad as Friday night after the OLC concert when he got soaked to the skin in the downpour.

IT was able to fix my computer -- he had to do a hard reset, but at least he didn't have to wipe it and start over. Theoretically, I will be getting a new-to-me computer within the next couple of months, as the three oldest systems in the office are getting replaced and handed down. (Even the oldest of them is years newer than the one I'm using, so....)

I will really need to pay attention to which sax I take to which rehearsal/gig this summer. The section leader at Farmington has swapped me to tenor for the summer! Ack! (It does make it a little bit easier, as the tenor is about half the size of the bari and is thus *much* easier to transport when I've got a wagon full of infrastructure.)

I was able to get into the garden a little bit this week. I got the white lilac weeded and thinned; and pulled most of the weeds in the flower bed next to the French Lilac; I started to weed around the sand cherry in the doorside garden, but have run into some complications -- that garden is full of alliums, and it's hard to get into it without stepping on plants, and the sandcherry has lots of dead or mostly dead branches on it that poke. I'll need to go out there with pruning shears before I go any deeper. I also pulled a lot of weeds out of the east garden, and you can almost tell! sigh. I think that will be tomorrow's project.