November 2008 Archives

An interesting sample of some of the challenged ballots in the MN senate race.

I find both the kinds of errors that people make particularly interesting. The other notable thing, to me, is that people on the internet either mostly agree or are occasionally split not between the two candidates, but between wether to throw a ballot out as an overvote or to consider it valid for one candidate or the other.

The article also links to the MN state statue that says: "A ballot shall not be rejected for a technical error that does not make it impossible to determine the voter's intent."

... since I just put the snow tires on both the IS300 and the Matrix.

It's easy to misunderstand what actually happend in the 2008 presidential election when looking at the national maps you see most everywhere (including the google-powered on I posted).

Here's a page of better maps.

I especially like this one.

Earlier this week, I rewired the garage door opener button. It used to be inside the house next to the slider. There was a crudely spliced wire running along the porch that connected the house and garage. When we demolished the part of the porch that was connected to the garage, this wire had to be removed as well. When Anne and I painted the kitchen, I filled in the hole that was behind the switch in the house. Inside the garage, there was a keychain remote near the side door that one could use to close the garage door when exiting. There is now a hard-wired button there (which is much nicer). The remote can now live inside the house. No randomly spliced outdoor wire needs to go from the garage to the house anymore.

Additionally, today I installed the new motion-sensor light on the garage by the side door. The light is the same model as the ones in the front of the house (so they match). I had to cut an opening for the vinyl trim piece, install the new box, and wire in the new light. After installing a new CF bulb and testing the light, I finished things off by caulking around the fixture.

Things left to do: wrap garage with tyvek, put up vinyl trim pieces, put up soffits, install vinyl, cover fascia.