Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

The wrap up for the May election is just about done. I need to do the reimbursement forms, but I need to find out if County needs the actual timesheets or just a list of hours. If they need a timesheet, then I can't submit the forms until next month, as there's 24 hours for DC on her May timesheet that doesn't get paid until June. I will then be down to just a couple of hours a week until we start spinning up for the August election. In June. (should probably set up forwarding for election emails so I don't miss anything.)

I got half a dozen strawberry plants moved. I did not move the ones that had flowers on them. Maybe we'll get a few strawberries this year! (I will trim off any flowers on the new plants, as they should put their effort into growing roots/leaves rather than fruit.) I did weed around the ones I didn't move. Got another garden weeded, but I really need to get into the E garden this weekend -- I weeded the edge last week, where I could reach without stepping in, but that's only a couple of feet. There's a lot of weeds left in the middle of that bed, and it's now dry enough that I can step into it without packing the soil.

This afternoon is a trip into A2 for the UMS usher party. whee? Food will be good, conversation will be good, timing is kinda meh (mid afternoon on a spring Saturday?), but they have to work around when venues and/or catering are available. I can run a few errands on the way home, so it won't be a single purpose trip.

The temperatures are still wild (highs last week were everywhere from 40F to 65F), but it's been damp and/or actually raining for many of those days. The Tigers home opener was played on a lovely 70F sunny day, Today is not so nice -- 55 and rain. I was able to get a little bit of garden work done early in the week before everything got soaked, but now it's too wet to do anything. I can't even rake up branches! (the light weight leaf rake digs in).

We finally got the ballots mailed for the May election last week. They were supposed to be mailed the week before, but I didn't have them -- they were late getting to the 'host' jurisdiction, and thus were late to me. But they're in the mail now. We'll see how many get dropped at the township hall even though the envelope says Stockbridge.

The desk refinishing has stalled due to the damp weather -- we should be able to get the final finish on it tomorrow as long as it doesn't rain. Not an expected job by any means. We pulled the desk out of the basement and realised that the desk top finish was wrecked because it had had a fishtank on it for a decade (or more). J sanded the old finish off, and I've been working on getting it stained. There was some inconsistency in the way the stain went on initially, so it took a couple of extra days to get that remedied. It's by no means perfect, but it will be usable once we get a topcoat on it.

Two days of sight reading is hard on the brain. Add in going back to work after a couple of weeks away, and I have been a bear of very little brain most of the week (except at work, I hope).

There was a message from County Elections when I got in on Tuesday "your reimbursement numbers don't match. why?" The answer to that, I am afraid, was my error. Two of them, even! A random number entry error that I managed to commit every time I added up the column, and a missing timesheet that made it hard to reconcile. But I tracked down the missing timesheet and fixed my math error and everything is now correct! whee!!

Also on Tuesday, a different email from County Elections about a possible May election for less than 400 of our residents-- how much work we'll need to do for it is very unclear at the moment. The school elections contract we have with Ingham County says that we may be responsible for administering the AV portion of the vote, but it's not at all clear *how* we are to do that. I have asked Ingham County Elections for clarification. (In a perfect world, all we'd need to do is provide Ingham County/SCS with voter information and they'll take it from there, but I doubt it'll be that easy.) At the very least, we'll have to notify affected voters about the election and that they will not be voting at the Twp Hall, but we can't do that until we know how IC/SCS wants us to handle it. So we hurry up and wait.

The weather has been very odd. Very warm for January, rain and wind. The piles of snow in the yard are long gone, most parking lot snow piles are gone as well. The pond is almost completely melted -- the remaining ice "sheet" is about a quarter of the pond surface. I've put a couple of armloads of branches on the burn pile since the wind let up, and there's still more to pick up. But it's much colder today than it was yesterday, and I didn't have my gloves on, so I only did one load today. And it has just begun to snow. (probably not going to stick, but it is indeed snowing.)

The cats are displeased by the weather --they both want to go out when it's not raining or snowing, but it's been cold and/or windy. This morning, Annabelle meowed and scratched at the side door until I let her out. A couple of minutes later, she was at the back door wanting in. It takes her about two minutes to get from the side door to the back door...

(edit for grammar. sigh)

now with added snow and cold (gosh, you'd think it was December or something). Yesterday there was a large hawk hanging out in the trees in the backyard. The only other birds out there were the sandhill cranes, who just don't care about hawks. Even the neighbors' chickens were staying in their pen.

I was late to FCB rehearsal on Monday -- traffic came to a halt on 96E, a quarter of a mile past an exit. The wreck was at the next exit, 2+ miles down the road. 30 minutes later, I get to the scene of the crash, and all that's left is a sedan about a foot narrower than it should be, a flatbed tow truck, two fire trucks, four police cars, and about 30 feet of missing guardrail. Roads were clear and dry, so I dunno....

LCCB rehearsal went pretty well (good thing, because the concert is Sunday!). There is one passage where I'm not gonna try for all the notes. I'll go for the afterbeats that the other two are missing, and say "good enuf". The biggest issue with the mambo bass line now seems to be the tempo that the director wants to take it at.

Have nearly wrapped up the November election. Tomorrow, I'll track down the last bits of information I need to submit the reimbursement request, and then I think I'll be done with that. whee!

Sunday starts the busy slog into the holidays. Two concerts, two rehearsals, two work meetings, one concert to usher, two days worth of baking because the day after the FCB concert we are off to NC to spend most of a week with Mum. And two different performances at church. One will be fine, one will not. Probably.

work -- new DC is, on first appearances at least, going to be terrific. Smart, snarky (so I don't have to explain some of my commentary), and learning fast. We are *not* going to be audited, so that's another audit staved off by doing the "Audit Notebook" (in which we assemble as much of the procedural documentation as we can, while we still remember where all of it is filed!). [The state Bureau of Elections does a random procedural audit of 5-10% of precincts after every election.] Tomorrow, I (hopefully) can move the 2024 election stuff into the basement and file the 2025 stuff in the drawers where the 2024 stuff has been. And maybe even get the election shelf unit put away as well. My email addresses have been sorted out, and updated where possible. (I don't like Outlook, but it's what we use at work, and it is kind of nice being able to collect emails from two inboxes and change addresses as things come across.)

bands -- I really do not suggest changing parts three rehearsals before a concert. Tuesday night was a bit of a shock. (and I still got the "one player only" parts. sigh.) I marked the bits that I have to work on, so sometime this week I need to pull out a horn and work on fingerings. whee? TSax player on Monday night does not seem to grasp the concept of "this piece doesn't need as much work as some others on the program, so we're not going to rehearse it for the first few rehearsals", and was trying to tell me that we weren't going to play Block M at the concert. Um, yes we are; DC told us why (it was in the first concert that the FCB ever played, 60 years ago). We ran it a couple of times in rehearsal, and DC expects us to work on parts on our own so that when we rehearse it again it will be better.

garden -- I cleared the E garden and the front flowerbeds last weekend. Four garden carts full of stuff hauled to the heap. That only leaves the two N gardens to clear. Maybe Saturday? I deployed the heated birdbath the Monday after WindyCon because it was going to be cold. And it was! The pond has had a skin of ice nearly every morning since then. The birdbath has mostly been empty in the mornings, because the deer are drinking from it. J still has to put away yard stuff. I got one hose put away, but now the hook in the garage is full, and I don't know where the rest of the hoses go.

Hard freeze last night -- there was a platter of ice in the birdbath this morning. Yesterday as we were driving to/from Farmington, the leaves were very nice. We took a different back route home because of some road issues, and the sun was at just the right level to backlight the maple trees along that route. Very nice!

The FCB Halloween concert went quite well. Lots of music, fun costumes ranging from simple to elaborate. The theme was "Villians Rule", and while some people leaned into that, most people didn't. Tonight we start working on music for the Christmas concert. Maestro has already said that it's going to be a short rehearsal. I'm torn on short rehearsals -- on one hand, it's nice getting out early, but on the other hand, I still have to drive to Farmington. Livingston started working on Christmas music last week, and it's the usual level of music. I am playing Tenor sax this session, so that's a bit different.

Last week I had to build a worker schedule for the election. Tomorrow is the Public Accuracy Test. Last week, J (who is now doing local IT support for the township) discovered that one of the election laptops is too old to run Windows 11, so that kickstarted a 'going through the pile of old laptops' project. There was a laptop in the heap that was just barely new enough to run W11, so that's the new (second) election laptop. I will be glad when the election is over, as I'm doing things I'm not entirely sure I signed up to do....

Friday night I went to Hill Auditorium to usher for the Philharmonia (from London). They did a new piece that I quite liked (Ortiz' If Oxygen were Green), a Beethoven Piano Concerto, and Shostakovich's 5th Symphony. It was a long night.....

It's still too dry to weed -- the weeds break off at ground level. I can cut back things, so that's what I've been doing. And moving plants -- when well watered before and after moving, they do OK. I thought I'd gotten the painted nettle moved, but when I cleared out the dead stems of perennials in that bed, I found another clump lurking. So now that one's moved to the other side of the front door where it will be seen. My mother sent me "a plant" for my birthday (a gift card to Lowe's), so I'll be going there this weekend to see what they have that I want. And if there's nothing there now, I can wait 'til spring.

Ballots have started coming in. The database was being very slow yesterday, so it took about 3 times longer than it should have to get the ballots accepted there. (ACK! I just realised I've been missing a step in the 'in-house' tracking. I can catch up quickly, as it's still early.) BC did the first run of staffing phone calls yesterday while I was fighting the database and then prepping for Saturday's shred party. There's three elections worth of stuff that can be shredded, but it all had to be unbagged, and there are a few things that need to be held longer that needed to be separated.

I did a dumb thing Monday at rehearsal, and left a part of my sax in my Farmington music bag (where I had left it after Sunday's concert...). I got to rehearsal on Tuesday, and didn't have all the bits I needed! Fortunately, we're rehearsing in a middle school bandroom *with* the director of that middle school band. I begged the use of a BariSax for the evening (apologizing for making him work!), and played a dented 1980s Bundy for the night. It was fine. Some people noticed that the sound wasn't as good.

Sunday's FCB concert went quite well, for a parking lot concert. Weather was terrific, if a bit warm. A smaller than usual audience was appreciative. (It's been so warm that people are not thinking "oh, this'd be a good day to go to the cider mill".) I was very tired when I got home.

OH! Go Get 'Em Tigers! (whew!)

got the painted nettle moved. Did not get anything else moved, and probably won't until later in the week. Or maybe even next week. But it's raining now! not very hard (which means it'll soak in), but they say it may do this for the next few days. I'm OK with that. Maybe by next week, I can go pull weeds

I was in the office every day this week. Monday I covered for Treasurer so she could go home and check on sick teenager/get lunch. Tuesday was regular work day. Wednesday there was online training that I couldn't log into from home. Thursday was regular work day. Friday was keep poking at platform peeps so they'd get my account set up. [Got an email late Thursday "your account is set up" "no it's not. this is the error I get" "hrm. we'll have to call in techs from the other end." As of 5pm Thursday, I still didn't have access. Friday afternoon, there's another email "you should have access now" "nope. And when I click on the Help button on the error page, I get *this* error." But I think I have the necessary access now (I went in from a different direction). (not that it's strictly necessary for this election - it's for a process that we don't have, but at some point it will be good to have.)]

I did discover that I don't need to build a test spreadsheet! w00t! the Bureau of Elections now does that, and all I have to do is download a PDF. (I could download test decks, too, but it's only 14 ballots, and I think I can handle that.) Ballots should be mailed by next Friday (26), so that's what I'll be doing this week. (must stop by PO and get mailing flats on Monday.)

Sometime in my copious spare time next week, I need to wash the plexiglas sheets for FCB. Wonder if I can get J to do that? There is one piece that both bands are doing, and it's gonna be harder than usual, as the the styles and tempos are very different. All I can do is watch the conductor, I guess.

Still tired. But it was back on the horse today at work (to be fair, BC did payroll and the journal entry last week, *and* the voter files) -- we have a full election coming up in the fall, with various arrangements of issues on the ballot depending on where a voter lives in the township. (You'd think that with less than 2500 voters, we wouldn't have these issues. You'd be wrong.) Tomorrow is some "security training" seminar in Howell. I am thrilled (not). I suspect that there will be very little at this seminar that will be applicable to such a small jurisdiction, but I am prepared to be wrong. At least it's only Howell. The one that BC+DC went to last year was in Jackson.

Band camp was a blast, as usual. I was (almost) wrong, however. The section coach had made up the quartets before we arrived, and "we" had a new person in our quartet (the three of us have all played together at least twice). She was a bit concerned about the ensemble performance, and TS said "we will not be the best ensemble in the recital. We will not be the worst. At that point, why worry?" And then we almost nailed "best performance". We took a simple piece (which does not mean "easy") and wrung all the music we could out of it. There weren't a lot of notes in the piece, but that meant that we had to *mean* the ones we played. J came up on Friday -- to tourist around and come to the recital and Sunday's concert -- and he said that he could "hear us listening" to each other. (we got "beat" by the brass ensemble that played Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium.)

It was hot and sticky at camp, and smoky at the start of the week. The AC in the room mostly worked. :) I have experience with the AC at the Stone Hotel, so I brought a small fan to help with air movement in the room. It made a big difference. If I hadn't brought one along, I probably would have wound up buying one.... The biggest issue I had this year was that there were shows at Kresge nearly every night, and when there's a show at Kresge the waterfront is closed off. I like taking my dorm food down to the patio and eating there, rather than eating in the cafeteria full of high school students....

- skipped FCB rehearsal on Monday, because when I looked at the traffic to NFHS from here it was saying "best route 75-80 minutes". Egads, no. Add in the fact that I'd be driving J's truck (which I hadn't driven in over a year), and I bailed. Sent BM the row numbers -- it was rather disturbing when I could just rattle them off without much thought.

- no LCCB this week, as this is traditionally their week off. sometimes a parade appearance is organized, but not this year.

- no basement work on Tuesday (other than putting shelf boxes into the basement), as it was the day to do payroll. Getting the data entered in takes a couple of hours, and then there's some flinging of files to ensure that neither I nor the payroll company made an error entering data. It's a very rare month when everything is right on the first pass.

- today I got two shelves assembled, another moved into its new home, and a closet emptied. One shelf is loaded up, and I showed the office manager where all of the file cabinets she needs access to are now. And BC determined that "someone" (not me or her!), has been moving things out of the fireproof file cabinets. We didn't have time to dig into the cabinets to find out what's in them now, but that's a pretty important thing for next week.