And boy, do I ever feel bummed. Yes, I voted — number 204 in the precinct, at around 8am. But this is the most underwhelming slate of candidates I have ever laid eyes on in Virginia. And there have been some terrible candidates before.
But yes, I voted. And you should, too.
And I certainly hope the parties find a better slate of candidates and believable campaign platforms next time. Because these candidates and campaigns were — well, this is a family blog. I’ll leave it at that.
Thanks to Calvin & Hobbes for this strip.
You might have already heard the story about last week’s fireworks display in San Diego. Maybe you’ve even seen the video. If not, I figured I should share it now, as it is most impressive and deafening — once you realize that that’s 15 minutes of a firework showing going in 15 seconds.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist the title. (Yes, it’s bad.)
If you haven’t followed, the Richmond baby eagles I mentioned before have arrived. One arrived 10 days ago on Friday evening, and the other baby eagle arrived a week ago Sunday in the morning.
It’s fun theater, and cool to share with the kids (at least when there is something more to see than a mommy or daddy eagle sitting or sleeping.
Pretty cool stuff here in Richmond. As have been happening elsewhere in the US in recent years, Richmond has its own eagle nest under observation with potentially promising results. There is a pair of eggs being nested somewhere in the area (they won’t say, for obvious security reasons), and it’s been under camera surveillance for a while. Even during the recent snowstorms and windstorms, Momma Bird (aka Virginia) hasn’t left the eggs alone.
Now comes word that the eggs may be due to hatch this week — should be cool. We watched the Iowa birds last year, and that was a lot of fun.
Yes, welcome the wonderful world of the US Census, where apparently the City of Richmond is housing almost 1500 inmates in the median out front of the City Jail.
I kid you not.
Then there are the 72 people living among the statues on Monument Avenue. And no, these are supposedly not homeless people — just misplaced on the GIS, I’m sure.
But if City Jail is overcrowded now (and it is), imagine trying to house everyone on the median strip out front instead?
I’m sure everything else is accurate about the Census. Oh wait, the City of Richmond found 95 separate instances of errors. In a city of 200,000. That’s a pretty high error rate, if you ask me.
Sorry, I just found this incredibly amusing. (And for some, I’m sure it confirms their biases.)
And it just wouldn’t stop coming down. In fact, it’s still misting outside, even 3 days after things started. It wasn’t ever too hard of a rain — an amateur weather station just a few miles from my house has only recorded about 5 inches of rain so far. But it definitely accumulated.
See for yourself, in this picture of the drainage pond at the bottom of the hill near my house. We don’t border on it, so we’re nowhere close to getting flooded. We’d need a Noah flood to get to our house from here. But those trees on the left, in the standing water, are probably almost 3 feet above normal water stage in the pond. And you can see the water trending toward some of those fences on the left.
Sorry for the fuzziness. The weakness of a cameraphone picture, I guess.
Hope everyone else stayed dry, if you were on the East Coast. Our fine governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia stayed dry — by having Democratic Party fundraisers in Memphis and Little Rock after declaring an emergency in the state. (See, both parties’ leaders can be tone deaf.) Have a great weekend.
Maybe you thought I messed up and got the wrong day, but not really. It’s Navy Day — and 234 years ago, the US Navy was first established (as the Continental Navy). So for my Dad, and all of the other sailors and officers who have served in the US Navy, I offer you this little video of the Navy Ceremonial Guard Silent Drill Team winning an international tattoo competition a few years ago. They competed against units from all over NATO and took first prize.
Pretty impressive stuff. Definitely puts the MOB to shame.
Just a couple of observations from the road recently:
Well, for starters, my minivan passed 90,000 miles last week. Woo hoo! Almost 6 years to the day, so that’s a nice round 15,000 miles per year. Ouch.
Now, about our road driving culture. I don’t think we’ve learned our lesson from last year’s gas price hikes. Yes, gas prices are down 30%+ from last year. It’s still not cheap (at least, from a US historical standpoint). But we certainly seem to be driving a whole lot more.
Last year, driving up and down the I-95 corridor between Richmond and NOVA wasn’t too bad, at least at the times we normally drive. You could sense folks weren’t driving as much.
Well, this year, it’s at least as bad as years before last year. In fact, I could potentially make the case it’s the worst ever. Someone in the family has driven the corridor each of the last 3 weekends, and it has been extremely tough and congested each time, especially compared to last year. Part of me wonders if this is the vacation impact due to the recession, with folks spending fewer dollars on vacations, essentially keeping folks more local and/or driving (versus flying).
I guess higher fuel prices are going to be the only way that folks will cut back on driving.
Lastly, on a slightly humorous note (as long as it doesn’t happen to me), be careful if you park a small car near a body of water. I’m guessing many of you are familiar with the Smart Car, one of the smallest cars on the road today. Well, apparently, folks in the Netherlands are finding their Smart Cars being lifted and dumped into the canals as a not-so-nice prank.
I guess my 90k-mile minivan probably won’t suffer the same fate.
Two quick notes for today. First, I want to note that I haven’t forgotten about posting here. Things have been a bit busy for the amount of time it takes to put in a decent multimedia post, which is where most of my backlog is. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to post some stuff. It’s interesting — not a whole lot has happened since the 4th of July, but this past weekend has several items of note (pool, Build-A-Bear, Uncle Tim in town, playing in a fountain, I went to a concert last night) that I need to catch everyone up on. Stay tuned.
Obviously, the other thing (which I think everyone is hearing about in the news) was about the 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing. And yes, I actually did witness it as it happened. So what if I was only 2 months old? I was awake and “watching” the TV. So that counts, I think.
At least NASA is getting in the spirit by offering a piece of a giant Moon Pie to visitors today. That would be of the dessert variety, measuring 40 inches in diameter, 55 total pounds with 6 pounds of chocolate and 14 pounds of marshmallow.
