If You Want Something Done Right

by | Nov 5, 2024 | Musings | 178 comments

When we retired and moved to the woods we wanted more than the limited through-the-air TV. Cable hadn’t come here yet in the countryside so we got the big satellite antenna. I forget which company but to change channels the eight-foot dish had to rotate and find the correct satellite. It took time to make the move, the dish slowed way down or quit working when it was snow covered.

After a few years the DISH people arrived, a small dish antenna and was fixed on one satellite. Now we’re talking, push a button and almost instantaneously channels could be changed. Best of all, it used the same steel pole that the big clunky antenna had used. Lots of channels and reasonably priced, what’s not to like. The eight footer was obsolete and the company went out of business.

Someone gave me a computer, I had no idea what it was for or how it could be used, besides there was no way to hook it into anything. A smarty pants guy from the local phone company explained I could use the same land line as the telephone and be tied into the world wide web (whatever that was). That was the beginning but when I tried to do something it took forever for a connection and everything moved slowly, plus I was limited to the amount of data I could use.

Then DISH came up with the idea of satellite internet service but I needed another pole and another small dedicated dish. I changed over from the land line to the satellite and I could do more but at greater cost but what the heck, right? I was into the 21st century and “needed” more speed, my time was way too valuable.

This went on for twenty years or more, every year or two DISH had a fund raiser, that is, they raised the rate and I gave them more of my funds. DISH bumped me again recently and I decided to try the local guys. The phone company had upgraded their service with fiber optic cable and was offering equal or better service, land line, streaming TV and internet in a package. I signed up….

…and I kept looking out the window at the two poles, each with the small dish on it. DISH didn’t want any equipment back, I was stuck with two lawn decorations.

I decided to take them out but I had no idea how big or deep they were buried. I tried shaking them, hah! I found a long handled shovel and a short handled garden spade and began probing. I started at the smaller pole and worked my way out, ’til I stopped hitting concrete. Then I started digging around the concrete perimeter, deeper and deeper. Damn, how much and how deep is the concrete? Turned out that there was a lot and it was heavy. I tried wiggling the pole, then I dug some more. Tried more wiggling, finally I sensed some movement.

I hooked up the smaller pole to the Farmall with a chain and tried to pull out the pole. The tractor started digging holes in the lawn. I went back to digging and finally got the pole out, a 14 footer, 4 feet in the ground.

I got a sledge and broke about 200-250 pounds of concrete off the pole and pulled the smaller pole out of the way with the tractor. Now I’m looking at the big boy, about 12 feet above ground and an unknown amount below and who knows how much concrete. This was the pole that had held the 8 foot dish antenna.

So I’m in the trench with a shovel, digging ’round and around, on my way to China. I kept trying to pull the pole out but the little Cub would only want to dig itself down. Back to more digging. And more digging. And more digging.

I hooked the chain on as high up on the pole as I could reach, for maximum leverage. The Farmall was reluctant but finally the pole came down and out but then the tractor couldn’t pull it with the big ball of concrete on the bottom. There it lay, a friend said he’d come over with his Bobcat and haul it away. Time passes…

He finally showed up when I wasn’t home, not with the Bobcat but with an 8 lb sledge hammer. He was able to break the concrete off and load the pole into his pickup, all 18 feet of it, strap it down and haul it away, leaving me with a big hole and a mound of broken concrete.

I cleaned up the mess, filled in the hole and shook a little fertilizer around the scar. I can look out of my window now without seeing those two lawn decorations.

The pole? It’s now been cut up and a piece has become the rear bumper of a rusty Japanese pickup.

My friend is happy, I’m happy. If you want something done right you have to do it yourself. It sure is nice to have a friend though.

About The Author

Fourscore

Fourscore

178 Comments

  1. Ownbestenemy

    DISH had a fund raiser, that is, they raised the rate and I gave them more of my funds.

    I gotta start using that. Nice little sanity check here FourScore. The first ‘fence’ guys we contracted with were utter trash so I do have some poorly poured concrete spots in the backyard I should go out and dig out. Luckily, not 8 ft polls buried into them.

    • Ted S.

      I hate those eight-foot Gallup polls.

  2. Sean

    LOL, you’re far more ambitious than I am.

  3. The Other Kevin

    I love these articles because I can relate to them. I should start taking photos of my home projects. My latest was a clogged PVC drain that caused my furnace blower to be filled with water and gurgle when we tried to turn on the furnace.

    My dad is only a bit of a DIY kind of guy, but my father-in-law and a cousin on my wife’s side will take on almost anything. They have been a big influence on me. The cousin and I replaced the media in our water softener (at least a $1500 savings). I’ve fixed the dryer twice, and I was successful at drying out my furnace blower.

    • The Artist Formerly Known as Lackadaisical

      “The cousin and I replaced the media in our water softener”

      I need to learn this, also why did you do it?

  4. pistoffnick (370HSSV)

    I am amazed at how technology has changed in my lifetime.

    We had a 13″ black and white TV growing up. We lived in a valley so we only got 3 stations.

    My kid’s don’t watch television. They get all their entertainment from there phones.

    • The Other Kevin

      Me too. I’m not even that old, I turn 53 this month. But I went from a black and white TV with antennas, to cable, dish, and now Internet.

      • Nephilium

        What constantly amazes me is the number of technologies that have both come into being (or gained widespread use) and died in my lifetime. VCR’s, DVD’s, cordless phones, Walkmen, Digital Personal Assistants, etc…

      • Tundra

        57. We had no TV at all when I was a kid (hippie parents). Then a small B&W, etc. My family were early adopters when it came to computers, though. I’m pretty sure we had them before we even had a color tv.

        Now of course my (fourscore) parents have every technology known to man. It takes my mom like 15 minutes to get her phone on the proper wireless device.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I’m younger than you and we had B&W tv’s for much of my childhood. Color with a remote was the upgrade. Mostly over the air with limited selection and even more limited tv privileges. Got a portable tv from a scout fundraiser so was able to sneak shows when in high school.

      • Translucent Chum

        Living outside of Detroit – Antenna TV catching CBC channel 9 to watch Hockey Night in Canada

    • ron73440

      In high school, I used to watch Penguin games on a 19″ black and white TV with static on the UHF channel.

      I am so spoiled by my UHD TV that I don’t think I could do that now.

      • Tundra

        Hockey is the ideal vehicle for UHD. Watching YT clips of old games, you can’t see the puck at all.

        I have a stupidly large TV and I’ll admit – it’s glorious.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Ugh…remember the ‘glow’ puck they tried to introduce. Also completely agree Tundra. Hockey is the perfect sport for it.

      • The Other Kevin

        I propose that hockey’s gotten more popular because of bigger TV’s. If you play you could tell what’s happening without seeing the puck, but most people can’t do that. They tried crazy things like highlighting the puck, but a big screen in HD did the trick.

      • Ownbestenemy

        TOK, 100%. Grew up playing so I could sense where the puck was/going on TV, even in the days of not great TVs. Girlfriends on the other hand would be lost unless we went to a live game.

      • Tundra

        It’s really changed my attitude toward live hockey. Is it better? Yes, but not exponentially.

        I other news I’m back on the ice. Played the second game with a new team late last night. So damn fun. The layoff didn’t help my game however lol.

      • The Other Kevin

        I played two games in Indianapolis this weekend. We went 1-0-1. Shoulder held out fine. Thursday we are at the NHL Sled Classic in Dallas.

      • LCDR_Fish

        We had 1 channel when I got to Indonesia in the 80s – gov’t one, but some English movies/shows with Indonesian subs a few times a week. Think we got a 2nd channel in the early 90s, then some private ones started up around ’98.

        They’d dub Mexican telenovelas too.

      • Tundra

        Great news, TOK!

        Bury any?

    • rhywun

      They get all their entertainment from there phones.

      That will change when they older.

      • Ted S.

        They’ll start getting entertainment from here phones?

    • Grumbletarian

      Yep. I remember turning on the TV as a kid early in the mornings and the channel being snow, then the national anthem would play, then the cartoons would start.

      • Grumbletarian

        And I turn only 51 on Thursday.

      • rhywun

        Ya I remember the first time I saw sitcoms and movies running all night. It was magical.

  5. Tundra

    It sure is nice to have a friend though.

    Truth. Thanks, Fourscore!

  6. UnCivilServant

    I think I would have cut off the pole at the concrete and buried it…

    But I’m lazy,

    • Ownbestenemy

      See, this is where I am at. I could just bury the concrete from the first guys who messed up…but then I will always know there are 6 areas of concrete buried in the ground.

      • juris imprudent

        I had to dig up the concrete the asshole who built this place left when he tore out his un-permitted pool and deck.

      • Timeloose

        There is still about a ton of sand in the yard underneath the grass i the back yard. The previous owners had an above ground pool but when I bought pool was gone, however leveling sand was still there. My wife and I dug out as much as possible in one day, then decided to add 6 inches of new top soil and grass seed over the beach.

    • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

      There is a ground level piece of pipe in the middle of my backyard, and when we moved in there was a circular clothes drying rack.

    • whiz

      The previous owners of our house had metal rebar stakes planted deep in the ground to protect the three trees from that owner and his riding mower. Couldn’t get them out, so I just cut them off slightly below ground.

  7. PutridMeat

    If you want something done right

    It’s always a trade off. There’s nothing in my house I can’t probably figure out how to do. But that’s a trade off against someone who does it for a living, knows all (most) of the nuances that might go wrong and can make it look better, easier, and be done more quickly. Of course the other side of that ledger is they have 20 other identical jobs to do that week and cutting this corner, that expense, integrated over the life of their business can add up to a lot of money (but still got to do it well enough so they still have a business!). For me, I can delay, rethink, buy slightly better material etc.

    Usually I just do it myself and have been happy with the results, if not the amount of time it sometimes takes.

    • PutridMeat

      PS – I hope I’m still in DIY mode (especially digging our that much concrete…) when (if) I hit 3-score. Or 3.5-score. Let alone 4-score+!

      • Tundra

        No kidding. At my last house I jackhammered out a 12 x 12 patio and hauled it away. That was a motherfucker.

      • PutridMeat

        I jackhammered out a 12 x 12 patio and hauled it away. That was a motherfucker.

        Built in (underground) hot tub (time for porn music) for me. Foolishly started with a dewalt hammer drill. That lasted about 5 minutes before I paused to go buy a real jack-hammer. Not fun.

      • PieInTheSky

        do you people randomly own jackhammers or do you rent?

      • PutridMeat

        do you people randomly own jackhammers

        I do now.

      • PieInTheSky

        also how do you know this obscure music

      • Tundra

        “do you people randomly own jackhammers or do you rent?”

        That sort of thing I rent.

        “also how do you know this obscure music”

        Friends, Romans, countrymen. You know, the usual sources. Way back when you could check out your favorite label’s new stuff.

      • DEG

        do you people randomly own jackhammers or do you rent?

        These euphemisms.

  8. ron73440

    That’s a lot of work.

    I remember at my old house when they put the DirecTV pole in, they used a lot of concrete.

    Current house has it mounted on the roof.

    • UnCivilServant

      Why’d you mount the concrete on the roof?

      • ron73440

        To keep the shingles down.

  9. PieInTheSky

    you need starlink. It is the future.

    • R.J.

      It is interesting. Seems slow. Dish may be slow too, so maybe it doesn’t matter yet. 5G box seems a better wireless solution if available.

    • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

      Starlink was our best option. We’ve been very happy with it. And at $120 per month I think it still beats the fiber that was put in on our road a year ago.

      • rhywun

        Yikes. That’s almost double what I pay in the city and that includes cable TV.

        Tradeoffs πŸ™‚

      • PieInTheSky

        I pay 10 bucks for internet but that is life in the big city

      • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

        Sticksville Minnesoda

      • trshmnstr

        Ditto. Starlink hasn’t been bad for us at all. The bandwidth is enough for me to work for home.

        There are some limitations that I have to work around, but it’s mostly advanced user stuff.

      • trshmnstr

        Our only other option right now is fixed wireless, which is annoying. I’d switch to fiber if they made it available, but I’m in a small dead zone where the we’re on the wrong side of the county line for the city to run fiber to us, and we’re too far tucked into the corner of the county for the county co-op to run fiber to us.

  10. PieInTheSky

    my view on DYI is that is it stealing work from qualified orphans

    • PieInTheSky

      *DIY

  11. LCDR_Fish

    Anyone tried Aslin beer? https://www.aslinbeer.com/virginiabeach

    Not sure if this location only just opened or I missed it searching for breweries in the area with google earth the past couple of months(!)…but since it has a full kitchen, I think I’ll make it my final stop for Saturday’s hike.

    • PieInTheSky

      hell is a fry-cho? That beer looks a bit too sweet

    • EvilSheldon

      Aslin was quite sought after by the beer hipster set in NoVa, but much of the inital ardor seems to have cooled off recently. I personally like their Festbier, but their IPAs have nothing to recommend them IMHO (but I’m not a huge IPA guy in general…)

      • LCDR_Fish

        It’s like a reverse of Wasserhund or some of the other breweries in the area that are really light on IPAs. Still enough others to pique my interest. Esp with the kitchen.

      • LCDR_Fish

        But yeah…I stay away from IPAs unless they wind up being the weird outlier that’s 25 or fewer IBUs.

    • Nephilium

      Not one that’s popped up on my radar, but I’ve also pulled back from the deep beer geek scene since everything got acquired (RateBeer was AB-InBev, BeerAdvocate was Untappd).

  12. Sensei

    Did this make the rounds already? Dude was having a bad day…

    Contributing factors to the mishap included an electrical event during flight, which induced failures of both primary radios, the transponder, the tactical air navigation system, and the instrument landing system; and the probability that the helmet-mounted display and panoramic cockpit display were not operational for at least three distinct periods. This caused the pilot to become disoriented in challenging instrument and meteorological conditions.

    https://www.2ndmaw.marines.mil/News/Article-View/Article/3952782/2nd-marine-aircraft-wing-releases-command-investigation-into-f-35b-lightning-ii/

    • Gustave Lytton

      Sounds like the after action review for Skywalker’s attack run on the first Death Star.

    • Brett L

      Sounds like my wife reporting on her computer every time she works from home. “I don’t know why the monitor and mouse and keyboard don’t work! I plugged them in!” She somehow got her laptop monitor display inverted the other day. I was impressed. Technology can smell her fear, and reacts badly. Sounds like this pilot was the same.

    • UnCivilServant

      There have been misdeeds in PA all season so far.

      I don’t have faith the results will be anything close to accurate.

      • Sean

        I think Trump takes PA by a good margin.

      • creech

        I think Trump will be ahead in PA until Philly reports, late, the mail in ballots

    • PieInTheSky

      Widespread problems with voting machines on Election Day in two heavily Republican Pennsylvania counties are causing confusion and long lines β€” and threaten to disenranchise voters – don’t news site spellcheck anymore

      • The Other Kevin

        Those poor voters will be stuck with BBQ or Sweet & Sour for their nuggets.

    • rhywun

      leaving their ballots with poll workers to be scanned later

      Good grief. πŸ™„

      Just did the deed here. The usual in and out in five minutes.

      My state has the weirdness where candidates run on multiple party lines. So I got to pick a couple “Conservative Party” candidates. I look forward to checking out the results and seeing that I am the one person in my district to vote that way for those positions.

      No LP candidates, and once again several down-ballot positions were limited to the One Party so I left them blank.

    • The Other Kevin

      There were issues in Ohio and Florida once upon a time, and they successfully revamped their voting systems. These states and counties that keep having problems year after year are an embarrassment. But they never fire or prosecute anyone, which is a loud and clear signal they like a nicely convoluted system that can be gamed.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Exactly. Same with the hours long voting lines cycle after cycle. Split the precincts, add more voting locations and booths. It’s not that fucking hard.

    • Timeloose

      My poling location added additional people, machines, and space to combine two wards. The intention was to minimize redundancies and have one location for the entire town. They wanted to make it easier to supervise.

      Parking took longer than voting this morning.

      • trshmnstr

        Our precinct was pretty full at 6:30 this morning, but not to the point of having to wait. I walked right up to check in on the voter rolls, was handed a ballot, and was seated immediately to fill it out. There were probably 7 or 8 stations, and they were all full once my wife and I each took one. Nobody I saw had to wait more than 30 seconds or so.

      • Brett L

        Wife waited 45 minutes at 7:15, I waited 15 minutes at 8:15. Saw two dudes from the gym volunteering as poll workers, so of course we didn’t introduce ourselves or acknowledge that we’ve seen each other at least twice a week for three years. You don’t break the seal on that unless you intend to become unindicted co-conspirators.

  13. rhywun

    to change channels the eight-foot dish had to rotate and find the correct satellite

    Nice. My mom and stepfather ditched the city the second I moved away to college. Later on they upgraded from whatever crappy rural cable outfit that existed back then to the giant satellite dish the last time I visited before they passed, early aughts. I could not believe how many channels they were getting.

  14. PieInTheSky

    East Frisian Tea: The German Tea Culture You’ve Never Heard Of

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiCLHO-vbNE

    300 liters of tea a year is too much. But a cup mai be good before working the poles

    • Swiss Servator

      Have you ever been in Friesland?! I have a lot of family still there…Anything to warm up and get some stimulant in your system. *shudders*

      • PieInTheSky

        I have not it is not on the standard tourist roads to be fair

      • rhywun

        I would love to check that out. I had an exchange student whose family vacationed there. One of the -oog islands.

      • Name's BEAM. *James* BEAM.

        Wife’s got fam in Friesland. Gonna visit ’em next May. I quite like them — for one thing, they’re all fairly well-educated (lots of Masters and Ph.D.s amongst them), but that hasn’t ruined their ability to be down to earth folks.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Nu dormi niciodată? Nici un joc de cuvinte.

      Sunt la fel de obosit ca Θ™i tine de glumele stupide cu vampiri. chiar sunt.

      Evident că nu ai nimic mai bun de făcut.

  15. Timeloose

    Digging up old stuff is usually a problem in higher latitudes.

    People like me and apparently Fourscore make sure we get below the frost line and then some.

    I put in a flour bed in front of my house a few years after we moved in. As I was digging up the grass and old soil I found the top of something very solid. I figured it was a paver or something of similar size that was just buried over time. Six ours of digging and 4 feet later the something looked like two granite grave stones.

    I determined they were footers for a no longer existing stone staircase to the porch. They were ~2x3x4’ monoliths. I dug around them and tipped them over. They are still there for future generations.

    • Ted S.

      How do you grow flour?

      • PutridMeat

        How do you grow flour?

        I assume by planting wheat or almonds or coconuts?

      • Timeloose

        One stock at a thyme.

  16. Gustave Lytton

    Mailbox post snapped off a week ago. I know when to pick my battles. Left the buried portion of the snapped post and dug to right about 6 inches.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    This gave me a flashback. When I bought my crappy little early-’60s tract house in Indianapolis there was a clothesline pole in the back yard. Just one; maybe they put the other end one the side of the house. Anyway, it was a good thing there was only one. After hours of digging and much baffled cursing, I got it out of the ground. There were about two hundred pounds of concrete on the base of that pole. They obviously didn’t want it to blow away.

    • Gender Traitor

      I hung bird feeders on ours.

      • R C Dean

        This is the way. Ask not β€œHow the fuck do I get this out of here?” Ask β€œWhat else could I possibly use this for?”

  18. PieInTheSky

    Tonight it is announced to be -3C round these parts. My mum told me she turned off the water in the yard as it is not frost proof. This weekend I will have to move all the hoses in storage in the attic. But it is getting cold.

    • R.J.

      It’s 64 F (or 17.7 in commie degrees) here right now. It just got sunny from that massive storm that blasted through yesterday. I may Zoom or comment outside tonight and pretend I don’t have to work tomorrow.

      • Nephilium

        76 degrees here today.

        I want my chilly days here already…

      • rhywun

        79 here. Probably the last warm day of the year.

  19. Gustave Lytton

    Gonna laugh my ass off if the pro muderous terrorists wing of the Democrat party sitting on their hands costs Dingdong a state or three.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      I think there is a chance that the Hamas wing of Team Blue costs them Michigan.

      • R C Dean

        I strongly suspect that the plan was to put a scare into the Dems, and then try to get them in office. I think the Jewkillers will still turn out for Harris.

  20. Not Adahn

    Saratoga Restaurant Week prices have crashed back to what they were pre-silliness.

    I am suspicious. But also hungry.

  21. pistoffnick (370HSSV)

    I bet you were pretty tired after working your pole so hard.

    • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

      Glad it was a happy ending.

      • kinnath

        What are you implying? Stop dancing around it.

      • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

        Just that I bet 4score was hot and bothered by the time he was done.

    • The Gunslinger

      This comment is the breast comment. Breast by far

    • Brett L

      I thought Russia made peace with Georgia a couple years back.

      • Drake

        Greta is stirring up trouble again.

  22. KK, Plump & Unfiltered

    This is a lovely parable, 4×20!

  23. DEG

    The pole? It’s now been cut up and a piece has become the rear bumper of a rusty Japanese pickup.

    I like it.

  24. creech

    Would have just turned the 12 footer into a flag pole.

  25. Pine_Tree

    Went and voted about 2 hours ago – so right before dinner (Georgia). In and out in 10 minutes. Gotta show ID and confirm address and birthday, etc., and get a paper copy that goes into a locked bin. They had early voting for a coupla weeks, so the little sign by the road said 44% of our precinct had voted before today.

    Related-ish: Prior to about a week ago, driving around, you’d see 1 Harris sign for every 10-15 Trump signs. In the last week or so, several more Harris signs popped up here and there, and there were a few places with guys standing on the corner holding signs. The impression I had (and have) is that for months, all the Trump signs (and the few from Harris) came from people seeking them out on their own to display. So the “pull” indicator was super-strong for Trump. All the recent stuff is clearly a “push” from Harris of people doing it because it’s their jobs. Put another way, the Trump enthusiasm is organic and individually-driven and the Harris “enthusiasm” is artificial and brought in and executed by some organized entity.

    • grrizzly

      That’s how voting works in Massachusetts. I told a poll worker my street address. She found the address in her binder and since I’m the only registered voter at this address she just asked me if I’m (insert my first name). I answered yep and received my ballot. No id or birthday, not even the last name.

      • grrizzly

        I didn’t even need to know my first name.

      • UnCivilServant

        Here they have iPads that scan the barcode on the back of your ID.

        Don’t know what pops up for them, but then you sign the screen and get a ballot. (City elections were this year, so the local wards each had someone for the council and thus they printed the ballots on demand)

      • rhywun

        I had to show ID because the poll worker couldn’t find my name. I get that a lot because my license shows my first initial and middle name. I love dealing with that. πŸ™„

      • Pine_Tree

        To be clear, for us it’s: show ID, they scan the ID with a reader on like an iPad, they confirm that what’s in the system matches the ID, then they show you the thing and ask you to confirm it, then they ask you to sign it with a stylus, then you get your ID and voting machine card

      • The Other Kevin

        That’s the procedure for Indiana. The ballot is a blank piece of paper with just a bar code and two people’s initials in pen. The machine prints out your selections in both human-readable and bar codes (which I don’t love, but at least there is human-readable for a recount).

  26. The Bearded Hobbit

    Got our first snow of the season yesterday. Forecast called for a slight chance of rain showers. I woke up to a foot of partly cloudy on the ground and still coming down hard. The “big storm” is due tomorrow.

    • rhywun

      How does the MSM work a pro-Trump angle into that I wonder.

    • grrizzly

      It’s hard to take the US intelligence claims seriously when it’s “Russia! Russia!” again and it’s a day before the election. These scumbags have been lying too much.

      • PutridMeat

        Is it wrong that it was my first reaction too? “I don’t fucking trust you, more likely than not, you’re lying your ass off”. But one has to be wary of letting disgust with your own government prevent you from being as skeptical of other governments that are just as bad and potentially worse.

    • KK, Plump & Unfiltered

      He’d probably be there, win or lose, non?

      • R.J.

        I am not surprised. To your point, he’s there for the election results, good or bad. And probably some excellent food.

      • The Other Kevin

        Super convenient for the feds, they can arrest everyone at once for election-denying insurrectionism when Trump is announced the loser.

    • rhywun

      lol She’s doing lines. πŸ˜‚πŸ€£

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Please, She’s a pothead. All that laughing related to nothing. Trying to say things that she thinks are deep thoughts that end up as a word salad. Definitely a pothead.

      • rhywun

        It works either way in my experience.

      • Drake

        Her coke found in the White House?

  27. cyto

    Voted today. Deep blue territory in Broward County.

    Went to the wrong location first. They closed our polling location about 5 years ago… it re-opened this year.

    Lines were short at both locations, at lunchtime.

    Much, much shorter than any prior election.

    Early voting has really caught on.

    Or….

    The left is very demoralized.

  28. cyto

    Stories from voting.

    As I arrived, a nice, elderly black lady asked me if I had my ID ready.

    It took everything in me to resist the urge to joke, “that’s racist”.

    • The Other Kevin

      I had something similar. We’re in a very small, “unincorporated” part of town, and very white. We also had an elderly black woman checking ID. She had on a Navy Veteran hat on, which I complemented. I also thanked her for her service, which I’m more inclined to do with a relative in the Navy.

  29. cyto

    Stories from voting.

    A young lady ahead of us came out of the building just as we began waiting, holding her drivers license in hand.

    The lady at the door asked if she voted (must have come out quickly)

    She said, “they won’t let me vote, New Jersey” holding her Jersey license up and sounding exasperated.

    So… this new-in-town unregistered voter from New Jersey wanted to vote … in Florida? From Florida?

    Wasn’t clear.

    • Sean

      NJ native. πŸ™„

  30. The Other Kevin

    I need to pry the phone out of Mrs. TOK’s hands. She’s on Facebook, and getting frustrated about so many people saying things like “Your daughter’s rights are more important than gas prices.” They sure did a good job brainwashing people.

    • cyto

      Oprah said women will lose the right to vote if Trump wins

      That isn’t even unhinged. No idea what that is.

  31. Pine_Tree

    Would you believe that until last night, I’d never seen one of those red “Make America Great Again” hats in real life?

    Literally. Where I live (medium-sized town/county in Georgia) is very obviously strongly for Trump, but I’ve never seen one before. We were up closer to Atlanta in a Camelot-wannabe suburb and were coming out of an “Asian fusion” restaurant and the guy holding the door had one on.

    • Tundra

      Last night our goalie’s (hot) Ukrainian wife came to watch the game. She was wearing the blue version and I think it’s the first one I’ve seen locally as well.

  32. cyto

    New for me this year.. we have “shall this judge be retained” for incumbent judges.

    No
    No
    No

    No idea who these people are.

    But, no.

    • PutridMeat

      same situation (no idea who they are), but yes down the line. The current governor is (D) and apparently (?) if “No”, the governor appoints replacement, so… Since the last Gov was (R), if squishy, figured it would only get worse if the current slate was not retained. Not very ‘responsible’ reasoning, but I also am not going to review 30 judges in detail to see which ones are fuck-ups that are worse than the what will definitely be a fuck-up replacement.

    • rhywun

      shall this judge be retained

      Huh. We only vote *for* judges. And they’re always Democrats running unopposed. πŸ™„

    • Tundra

      I went no across the board. Replacements will be retards, but hopefully it will cause some chaos.

  33. Pine_Tree

    The thing’s going around Xwitter right now that if you ask Google where to vote for Harris, it’ll pop up with a live map to put your address in and will tell you where your location is, but if you do it for Trump, it won’t.

    Tried it and sure enough it’s true. Didn’t think they’d be THAT obvious.

    • Sean

      Didn’t think they’d be THAT obvious.

      You must be new around here. πŸ˜›

      • Nephilium

        It’s only election interference if Google says that votes for Trump are scheduled for November 12th.

      • Pine_Tree

        Yeah, I guess I really did sorta expect it. Maybe Trump will sue them for eleventy-billion dollars for election interference or something.

      • cyto

        Neph…. as Jimmy Kimmel did…

        This is me holding my breath

    • rhywun

      It’s silly but what mental giant inserts a candidate’s name there?

      Instead of something like “where do I vote”.

  34. cyto

    Everyone should use the voting system we have in Florida.

    Long sheets of paper with ovals to fill in. When you finish you walk to the scanner and your vote is counted right there and then.

    They check ID in the computer to pull up your registration.

    • cyto

      They are counting mail in votes. Huge piles of ballots going into scanners. Observers. TV cameras.

      Still….

      I would prefer that we go back to election day only. Absentee for military deployed and similar.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Early voting still requires hard copy ballot – same as election day, but only one central location (county seat, etc).

      • cyto

        Yup

      • cyto

        Our early voting was at like 26 locations throughout the county. Vote exactly like election day

    • Tundra

      I filled out the long form with the ovals but CO, unlike MN, doesn’t scan on site.

      I would like to see that change and completely eliminate early and mail in fraud – er – voting.

      • kinnath

        We fill in the bubbles, then scan the paper before we leave.

      • Tundra

        As God intended.

    • DEG

      NH is similar. Paper ballots everywhere. Optical scanners in most municipalities to speed up counting, hand counting elsewhere. They use paper copies of registration records to check to see if you are registered. You must show ID.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Inconceivable

    If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidential election on Tuesday, there won’t be any immediate consequences for Tesla. Given the animosity Musk has shown toward Democrats and regulators in recent years, his elevation of right-wing views on X (the social media company he owns formerly known as Twitter), and his insults of Harris and other Democrats, it would be easy to imagine regulators taking a harsher view of the leading EV company, perhaps even dragging their feet on Tesla’s autonomous aspirations or showing preference to Tesla’s competitors, given Musk’s antics during the campaign. It’s quite rare for a CEO of such a large publicly traded company to advocate so strongly for one presidential candidate and against another. Typically, big companies hedge their bets as they want to stay in the good graces of the winner, whoever that is.

    That’s crazy.

    • cyto

      It is almost as if the last 20 years never happened

  36. The Late P Brooks

    I filled out the long form with the ovals but CO, unlike MN, doesn’t scan on site.

    I would like to see that change and completely eliminate early and mail in fraud – er – voting.

    It would be faster to count smaller batches and aggregate the numbers. I think that’s how it used to work. Also harder to “miscount” large numbers of votes.

    • cyto

      Yup.

      No reason not to just drop it in the scanner as you leave.

      Then the precinct totals can be exactly matched and the vote counts are done instantly.

      We spent the money and whatever method they were using to cheat went away.

      I’m sure someone will cook up something else.

      This long voting period and vote by mail really puts way too much of a premium on having a huge vote gathering machine. I don’t want to elect the best vote gathering machine.

  37. cyto

    Signature match:

    Our voting used to have paper registration lists you signed as they check your ID

    Now we have a touchscreen to sign with our finger.

    Signature match is out the window.

  38. cyto

    I notice a distinct lack of election information.

    2020 had all sorts of reporting.

    X is very quiet.