Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

work computer getting even more squirrely. Boss tells me that IT is on it, but is also saying that the plan is to replace her computer and pass stuff down. In July. I don't know if the computer I'm using will last that long. And we start working on the election in June. So much election work is done in online-then-file batches that it's not entirely clear how much I'd be able to do without access.

Have started working on the gardens -- weeded the strawberry bed on Monday, yesterday I went out and cut back the sage in the NW garden and cleared willow twigs out of that bed, last week I raked leaves out of the NE garden and made a quick cutting-off-last-year's sticks in the E garden. Chilly, damp, and randomly rainish today, so probably won't get out there today.

J cleared the rill and put the pump in the pond late last week, so the birds have been bathing in the rill. There are at least two spring peepers (frogs) in the pond area.

I'm debating making a run to IKEA. I need some storage bins for the living room, and while I could buy some OK ones from Meijer/Target, I want some other choices. And it's about time for my semi-annual "wander through IKEA and see what's new/cute" anyway.

Freshly written MI election law says that Applications for Absent Voter Ballots must be in the mail by 29 Dec. The voter database did not have a final voter list until 23 Dec, and without that list the applications cannot be printed. Because the law was approved so late, the three state-authorised printers were very backlogged on printing the application return envelopes, and smaller orders were shifted to the back of the queue. All of this is background to why I went in to work three days this week. We *did* get all of the applications out, so there's that. Theoretically, the AV application list will be much shorter in the future, as people will choose to be on the "send me a ballot" list, rather than the "send me an application for a ballot" list. We shall see.

J and I went to church on Xmas Eve to ring chimes. Then we left, still a bit uncertain of our germ-carrying status, as we'd not gotten home from NC until late Friday - we could still have been pre-symptomatic.

Going in to work three days last week did mean that I was able to avoid the problem in the workroom, but I really need to get started on that. DonWanna. OK, I'll be very glad when it's done, but actually *doing* it isn't going to be much fun. The last time I did some sorting in the basement, the CD changer took a dive off the shelf and J had to rip it down to bare chassis and bend a few things back so that it would actually work. sigh.

Christmas was very quiet here. Nobody called (to be fair, the phone wasn't working, so I'm not sure how they would have). The phone guy came out on Tuesday and swapped the line connections at the switchbox at the corner -- mice get in, then snakes follow the mice, then connections short out.... I called Mum on my cellphone, which *was* working (sometimes I have no signal at the house), and she said that her "orphans" supper was going to have extra attendees, as at least one couple's Xmas plans were modified by the hosts getting ill -- nobody wants to give grampa COVID or RSV for Christmas, after all.

The HodgePodge band (they wanted to call us the Amalgamated Band, but the 'bones insisted) gig on Wednesday was... fine.... DM was not wrong, when he said that LCCB people would have no trouble sight reading. The TSax next to me missed key changes nearly every time, and sometimes didn't even *start* in the right key. Entrances were sloppy, etc. And we were very uncertain of balance and layout, so it took a few pieces to get the "listening across the band" figured out. The layout was just plain odd, which didn't help. But it was a nice evening in the park. There is much I could say about the BA and TH bands, but will limit myself to "they mean well" (my kids played in better bands in 8th grade). DM often tells Livingston that we "sight read better than some bands perform", and TH/BA are probably the kinds of bands he's talking about.

(J and I just looked at each other when one of the TH clarinet players (who has just started playing with FCB this summer) said that DM was as demanding as DC. erm, no. Even in summer, DC expects a much higher level of execution than DM. And the audience can tell. J said that he's gotten so used to the FCB that he had to re-calibrate his expectations as audience when HodgePodge hit their first note. If he expected FCB quality music, he'd have been very disappointed. He has to do that when he comes to LCCB concerts as well, although LCCB has been getting better.)

I went into the office yesterday to touch my BoE and QVF accounts so they don't get disabled for inactivity. We also: ordered the Ballot Drop Box (ideally to arrive for the probable November election); noted that the current township drop box needs to be repainted and a new sign; found the whiteboard (and markers!) that used to be in the boardroom so that they don't need to buy a new one; did some random sorting in the process of finding the whiteboard. (MR and I had found the whiteboard last fall when we were sorting out the storage spaces, but we had either misremembered where it was or someone moved it. Either is possible, but we *did* find it.)

Today, I get to weed! The rain has soaked in enough that the weeds will pull out rather than breaking off at the surface. I don't think I'll be able to finish even one garden, but I need to at least start...

Oh, right. Sunday was the LCCB spring concert. Entitled "Gags and Gimmicks", there was a surprising amount of good music in there. (Often, "funny" themed concerts are full of stupid things and simple music.) We did Typewriter, Grand Serenade for An Awful Lot of Winds & Percussion, Midnight Fire Alarm, Pie in the Face Polka (henry mancini), What's Up at the Symphony (Looney Tunes music) and a couple of other things I'm forgetting; and two encores, the second of which was subtitled "musician's strike", and when the notes ran out on your part, you were supposed to walk off stage. There was a certain amount of schtick involved in the concert, as you might expect, but I think we followed Mikey's* rules for Pep Band pretty well (play well, have fun, *look* like you're having fun). I was very tired when I got home after the concert.

Monday I worked 10-6:30p, getting the township hall set up for the election on Tuesday. I got to be IT minion for a bit, as well as a lot of "here, move this" "this other thing goes here" "make sure that this *other* thing is done". (I skipped FCB rehearsal, emailing people on Sunday saying "not happening. There are going to be too many roads closed between here and there." Even leaving work at 5, I would have been hard pressed to make it to a 7:30 rehearsal, much less a 6:30 set-up, because I needed to stop by home and get my gear for rehearsal and feed the cats.) The IT guy says he wants to get me familiarized with some of the setup stuff that he does, just so there are two people who know how to do it. whee? (competency rears its ugly head, right?)

Then Tuesday was the election. They'd decided that the AV board didn't need to show up until noon, as there were just barely 500 ballots to process. Which was nice, because I got to rest a little bit. My back and right leg are still not at all happy with all the standing/moving things/walking I've been doing since last Thursday anyway, and then there's the bruising from the accident.... Didn't get out of the hall until 10 pm, due in part to people telling me "oh, X doesn't go there", putting it somewhere else, and then finding out 30 minutes later that, yes, X *does* go there and then they have to figure out where they put it.

J got home from his bike trip on Monday with a lovely cold picked up somewhere along the route. (COVID test negative.) He's actually been sleeping upstairs in the guest room. (Usually when he's sick *I'm* the one sleeping up there, so this is kinda nice. :) )

My alarm went off at 7am, and I looked at it, said "my 8am appointment is at 3:30 this week" and rolled over and went back to sleep. The cats were annoyed, as they're used to getting noms sometime between 7:30 and 8am. They do seem to have gotten over it, at least a little.

ETA: [insurance company] just called, and the Camry is at the repair shop. She said I should hear from them later today or tomorrow with a timeframe for repair. so that's progressing.

[* Mikey was the Michigan Tech Pep Band director when I played there.]

election work is continuing. Next week, I get to wear the "IT Minion" hat, and will plug in/update/patch the computers we use for the electronic version of the pollbook and download the current version of the EPB so that IT can make sure they still play well together; and we'll be doing the public accuracy test for the tabulators. 600+ AV ballots sent out already; we'll probably send out another 75 or so before the election in early May.

Wednesday, J went out with the ladder and the chainsaw and cut down branches that had gotten split/twisted in the ice and windstorms early last month. I got to help haul large branches to the burn pile. whee?

Mum called on Sunday evening - she'd put her older sister (AC, who is 94) into hospice. AC went in for gallbladder surgery in mid-March, but in hindsight, that was just the first system failing. She never really recovered, and while they could do all sorts of dramatic interventions and tests to find out why she's not thriving, there's not a lot of confidence that even if they do find out that a)there's anything that can be done and/or b)it will increase her quality of life enough to make all the tests worthwhile. So that's a thing. I will probably have to go to FL at some point to help Mum with AC's FL house, and then to NC in the summer to deal with AC's NC house. LilSis will also be available for some of it, but she's already spent 3 weeks in FL with Mum/AC this spring, and she does have her own things that she needs to stay on top of.

There are daffodils blooming all over the yard. Many trees are leafing out, and there are lots of weeds to be pulled (yay). J plugged the rill pump in a couple of days ago, and the birdies have been enjoying the running water. I stopped putting out the mealworm feeder a couple of weeks ago when I realised that the blackbirds were eating *all* of the mealworms and none of the other birds were getting any.

It snowed on Friday, as it has the last few weekends. Not enough to cause even weakened branches to fall, but still a couple of inches, and then it snowed, gently, all day Monday for another 3 inches. I think we got more snow in March than we did in December and January combined.

In work news, we're processing lots of applications. Print flow is awkward and a bit convoluted, but I can print specialty cards from my computer, so that's done. (local IT says he wants to poke at things some time when we're both not busy (ha!), and see if he can set up my computer just like DCs -- there's some weirdity in the interface between program and print driver, and he can't tell if it's firmware or software without looking at it.)

New music in LCCB (that was last week, but that was only a read-thru); new BSax player showed up. Still uncertain whether I'll be playing tenor or bari in the summer band - new guy may swap instead. Not my problem, tbh - section leader tells me which horn to bring and I play it. :)

Stage rehearsal for FCB tomorrow night, concert on Sunday - it's a tech-heavy program, and there are people in the band dealing with that. I "just" have to do set-up. Piano! and projection screen! and different stage! whee!!! J will be coming to the stage rehearsal to work on his setup as well. They tell us that they've already sold a couple hundred tickets to the concert! (It's listed on the composer's website, and a link to the venue, so I bet that most tickets are being sold through that.)

(Happy St Urho's Day! Need to find a purple shirt for work today.)

We have finished the training for the accounting software at work. DC and I got to skip the last day's training, as it was for Receivables and Budget, neither of which we are authorized to do. Election-wise, we are in 'hurry up and wait', as we can't do *anything* until the Bureau of Elections gets the precinct lists set up in the voter database. And even then we can't start sending out AV applications until the BoE finds out how(if) the state wants to implement the "state funded return postage" that was part of the proposal that got approved in the November election. But nobody could start (officially) figuring out how to do that until the election was certified, and that didn't happen until two weeks after the recount finished, so mid-December, and then it was holidays....

The transcribed music for Children's March is *much* easier to handle. I need to check with the librarian about getting the tuba part for a couple of pieces, just in case the tuba players miss the concert. I was really annoyed with the two ASax players at rehearsal on Tuesday, as they wouldn't Shut Up and kept talking over everything. I mean, it's no problem of mine if they screw up because they weren't paying attention, but I couldn't hear the director over them yammering.

I got to stay home today! It was weird. But then I went and scheduled a haircut for tomorrow, so I won't get to stay home all weekend. sigh. It's very pretty outside right now, in a cold and wintry style, as the ice coating that fell last night is sparkling in the full sun. (it's also 23F (-3C), so the sun isn't really going to make the ice fall off.)

Annabelle cat has discovered the small cat-trap(cardboard box) that Ji managed to move over the floor register in the den. Ji is somewhat displeased by this, as he wants to have the choice to not curl up in it, but he's mostly gotten over it.

IT had ridiculous troubles getting some of the clerk-specific programs to install on the computer, so I got it about half an hour before I had to leave for a dentist appointment. I was able to log in to the network, and get my mail, and start the sign up process for the state Bureau of Elections (I have to apply for an account and get the application approved by the local* Clerk of Elections before BoE will create an account). So that will be ready for me next week when I go in, and I can start the BoE training. Then the week after that is the training on the new township accounting program. (I don't think they're going to add me to the countersigning team, but I will be doing data entry and check writing.)

We got over 6" of snow on Wednesday, but it stopped snowing sometime around dark so at least the main roads were clear by morning Thursday. Temperatures were close to freezing yesterday, so there was a lot of melting on the roads, too. The road we're on had been plowed but not scraped by the time I left for work, so it was a bit slushy and slippery at the (uphill) stop sign at the end of the road, but I didn't get stuck. It might be worse today, because it's much colder. OTOH, the slushy bits got plowed away sometime yesterday, because they were gone when I got home. The street is probably slippery, though.

Annabelle does not approve of this work thing at all - apparently, her cat contract gives her a certain number of lap hours every day, and if she can't get them scattered through the day, she plops on my lap after dinner and will not move. She's been somewhat weirded out by the house rearrangement as well. J got his computer moved back into the basement, so I moved my computer back into the den, and *that* meant we could rearrange the chairs in the living room. I need to find a small end table (preferably with shelves!) to fill in a spot that we didn't have before. I also need to ponder some further re-arranging in there - there's a big gap where the computer desk was, and I want to move things farther apart rather than fill in with 'new' things. (the table is non-negotiable - that chair needs somewhere for a book + cup/glass.) And now that J is out of the den, I can put the kraken rug back!

(* and by local in this case, I mean "across the office".)

(this is for work, not home. I suspect this desktop will run for ages.... or die tomorrow with no warning. I'm hoping for the former.)

the laptop they gave me at work worked fine under the admin's account. User? not so much. lots of CPU pegging, etc, and I never got to a desktop that worked. So IT took it back, and will be wiping the OS and starting over. (apparently, between the two of us we used the wrong set of chicken sacrifices/incantations. sigh.) But I have a network login now, so I can theoretically login to the network, and get started on training modules and getting email, etc. And while digging around to see if there was any not-in-current use hardware that we could commandeer, we found a lot of Very Old Computers (Windows 7, anyone?) that need to be cleared and then taken to the Happy Hunting Ground. (The guy doing IT for the township used to do IT for UMich. He's much more up to date on the incantations/chicken sacrifices needed than I am.)

Livingston's holiday concert is Sunday. It will be a concert. Parts of it will probably be pretty good, other parts? not so much.

Theoretically, I have a spinal MRI scheduled for tomorrow morning, but as it's already been shifted once because the insurance company is being slow (six weeks to approve an MRI?), I expect a call from the clinic sometime this afternoon to shift it again.

My 94 yo aunt is suffering with lymph-edema in her left lower leg, and is really unhappy. Mum and I both think that she'd be better off in a good assisted care facility with other people to talk to, but she's lived alone for so long (nearly 50 years) that she won't go. Mum says she'll be going down to FL in a week or so, and will really try to get AC into a facility where she can get some social interaction and more consistent care.

I went out last weekend and put some solar-powered holiday lights on the Christmas tree shaped tree in the side yard. I didn't realise how big the tree was! I need to either get another string or two of lights, or move the lights to a smaller tree in the side yard.

We've been sorting out a decades' worth of cruft at the clerk's office. There are retention schedules for election documents, and the previous deputy second didn't like sorting. But it's a two person job, so it just didn't get done. We've been meaning to get out to the shed ("dead" storage) since the week of the election, and we may actually get there next week. :) Yesterday we sorted out the Key Box in the Clerk's office. That took a couple of hours, and we found a few things that people had been looking for as we poked around the hall figuring out which door was #4 or "main - bdroom". Sometime before the end of the year, the Clerk says we'll come in on a non-Office day, and start sorting out the file drawers in the basement that have been left in a state of disarray since the office got moved upstairs -- it's a three person job, and see previous note about the second. (she only wanted to do Elections, not the other Clerk stuff.)