The View from the Hermitage, Day 187

Early voting started today here in Virginia. There were long lines at some of the offices in Northern Virginia; I expect the local news tonight will have a report on how things went here. Our absentee ballots should arrive tomorrow or Monday. Then, the husband, older son, and I will sit around a table and vote, with one person acting as witness for another. Rather than putting them in the mail, older son will use the drop box at the city registrar's office, and the husband and I will use the one at the county registrar's office. Then we sit back to wait. I may be able to tell how things went when the husband comes home from working his shift as an official. Was it close, or a landslide in one direction or the other? His face will tell me. At least Virginia doesn't wait until Election Day or later to begin to count absentee ballots.

Another White House ex-staffer, a former aide to the Vice President, has come out as planning to vote for Joe Biden. Her tales of HWSNBN's words and deeds throughout the pandemic are damning indeed. I can understand his concern for the economy; that's definitely seen better days. But his reelection should never have entered the picture of how to handle a global pandemic. Yet there were days when the coronavirus task force had to sit and listen to his diatribes on anything but the pandemic itself. Now, whether HWSNBN's base is going to believe any of that I do not know. When it comes right down to it, though, I just hope people turn out to vote. Another official and I used to thank people for coming in to vote and telling them they had earned the right to complain about the results.

 A Stephen Colbert tweet has much food for thought: The news can be depressing these days, so take a mental wellness break from reading about how the president sexually assaulted someone to read about how he tried to use a heat ray against his own citizens. This is appalling. Dispersing the protesters with no warning, before the posted curfew time, was bad enough, but if he'd used a heat ray to do so? I like to think that that would have crossed some line and made more people question his fitness to serve. I know. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

On the more immediate home front, unpacking the household continues. This has its ups and downs. For example, I had no idea how many effing t-shirts I have. I have put a few in the donation box, but it's hard to get rid of a shirt from one of the bigger things in my life such as GORUCK, SEAL Team Physical Training, or Myo Sim karate and kendo. Then there are the race t-shirts. I have very few compared to some people, but it's still hard. It's easier if they're too small or large for frequent wearing. I got rid of two shirts from the same race (the Montalto Challenge) because a third one fit more comfortably. I have more to go through tomorrow, so I hope there will be more than a few more headed for the donation box. And re-reading this paragraph reminds me that there were some shirts I did not try on and which might be tighter than I like. That would make getting rid of them easier. And since I just thought of it, I should go up and do it before the thought flits its way out of mind.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 149

 A big day, news-wise, or at least a big last half hour. The Big Ten conference has killed fall football but will try again in the spring. The Pac-12 conference heads are also meeting today and may very well do the same. I think the Atlantic Coast Conference (home of the local university) presidents meet tomorrow. Teams are dropping like flies, and I approve. Do I expect to be following college football in the spring? No, because I don't expect it will be any safer to play by then than it is now.

Let me refresh the CNN web page open in another tab. New news! Sources say that Biden has told Rep. Karen Bass that she was not the VP pick. The cynic in me says that she's not the pick because how could he run with a Karen? News flash! It's Kamala Harris, who could end up being the first female, first Black, and first Asian American vice president. Interestingly, I first really noticed Harris after one of the first Democratic debates when she pointed out to Biden that she'd been one of the black children bused in the interest of integrating public schools. I expect that HWSNBN will start flinging poo at her in this afternoon's presser.

In other news, Russia says that it has developed a working coronavirus vaccine. Is it safe? Putin claims that one of his daughters has taken it. When I read that this morning, my first cynical thought was to wonder if it was his least favorite daughter. Actually, I have no idea how many daughters Putin might have. Still on the coronavirus vaccine front, NIH Director Francis Collins says that there is no way a coronavirus vaccine will be available in pre-election October. Any vaccine said to be ready then would not have been adequately tested and would not be considered safe.

I emailed the election folks and bowed out of November's election. The Election Manager said she understood and there would be future elections at which they could use my help. In my initial email I said that once there was a reliable vaccine and treatment, I would be quite willing to return. I reported that the husband was still debating whether he would work but that I expected he would. By then he will have gone to the university multiple times, so going out to work the election would not be a huge deal. I suggested that were they to need an assistant precinct chief to replace me, the husband would be a good one.

I applied today for an absentee ballot for the November election. I can submit it by mail; it will have to be postmarked on or before November 3. I can also go to the voter registrar's office and hand it in. No one else can do that for me. I have to be the one handing over my ballot. This year there will supposedly be a tracking number that will let me verify that my ballot was received should I choose to mail it. My voting streak will be intact--I have voted in every election for which I have been eligible. Since I turned 18 in July 1974, that's quite a few. 

And for the final news update, the Pac-12 conference is also postponing all fall sports. That leaves the ACC , the Southeastern, and the Big Twelve conferences still open to playing. I expect that by Friday, there just won't be any college football in the fall, at least not from what is known as the "Power Five" conferences. Not here. Not there. Not anywhere. I hope I did not just guarantee that play will, in fact, continue.