It's time to wake this site up again

Okalhoma City National Memorial

It's time to wake this site up again. I haven't posted in a couple of years. A lot has happened since then. Most importantly for me is that I am now retired. After some 50 years in the workforce I am now collecting some of the benefits.

I hope to post more now. Hopefully on a regular basis. I live in Iowa so it seems to me that my observations about the Presidential races will be a natural. I also have recently gotten into gaming - specifically Robocraft.

Robocraft is a game on Steam that allows you to design and build your robotic crafts and take them into battle. I have acquired quite a collection of tanks, helicopters, hovercrafts and even sniper bots. My grandson and I like to design and build together. He is just about 5 now and really enjoys helping Papa design a bot. He has even learned how to take them into the practice field to test them out. He doesn't think he is quite ready to take one into battle yet. Somehow I don't think that will be long, though.

I will also talk about my life. The Rev and I just got back from a trip to Albuquerque, NM where she had a training seminar. We stopped of in Oklahoma City on the way down and spent a couple of days in Santa Fe, NM on the way back home.

Our visit to Santa Fe was particularly interesting. We stayed at a great hotel near the plaza called Las Palomas. This is really more like a bed and breakfast than your traditional hotel.

With five or six, small buildings like this you really get a feel for living in the Southwest. This is not your typical Holiday Inn.


Well, I will call this done but as always I will still wish everyone Peace and I hope you enjoy your day.

I cast my vote

I have done my civic duty and I have voted.

It is very easy here in Cedar Rapids, IA. In fact for me it was very easy because the voting place is just a short walk through the little neighborhood park to the church next door.

This was a different experience from 2 years ago in West Des Moines. There I had to show a valid ID before I could vote. I don't think that is in fact legal or at least conventional procedure but that is what they were doing.

Today I just walked in and got in line for the S thru Z names. I signed in, verbally gave my name and address and the response was "Your good to go." No request for an ID, no hassles at all. I signed the eligible voter list and was given a ballot. There was a table set up with little shields to provide a modicum of privacy. Then when I was done I put the ballot into the automatic scanner/reader and I was done. The whole thing took maybe ten minutes.

I guess I'm ambivalent about the ID issue. I can see the need if there is evidence or even a legitimate suspicion of voter fraud but that just isn't the case, at least not here in Iowa. Oh yea, I've heard the old saw about Chicago politics - "Vote early and vote often" but there just isn't any reason to believe that is an issue here. Counter that with the very real history of poll taxes and other forms of voter suppression from past history and I'm inclined to opt for ease of voting. Especially in areas where less than 50% of the people even bother to vote.

One thing I am not ambivalent about is getting this over with. Here in Iowa we have been subjected with over a year of political ads. We are a swing state so for the past months we have been bombarded with political attack ads. One report tallied over 1600 TV ads each day. It has gotten to the point that any TV that I watch is streamed off Netflix. I sincerely hope that the issues are decided today and we can move on with our lives in peace, at least for a couple of years.

But for now, I will leave the TV off and pray for

PEACE.

We Did Get Some Snow

Well, we did get some snow.  It came down slowly and with very little wind so it didn't feel like much of a storm.  I ended up going out 4 times yesterday and now have been out twice today.  I went out early this morning so the Rev could get to the church and then just now for what I hope is the final pass.

I really don't mind this type of snow storm.  It came with plenty of warning and just slowly and calmly dropped snow on our lives.  It was a little bit deceptive in that it never looked like much when you looked out the window.  Just a light snow falling, very pretty in fact.  But it parked over us for about 30 hours, so it ended up dropping a significant amount.

This the type of snow that makes living in the north enjoyable.  No one really needed to be injured by this storm.  It just came in and made everything white.  Our neighborhood will look clean and bright for a few days now, that should be nice.

Peace.