The reason I wasn't here to fix my server when it went down was that I was spending the weekend in Des Moines, Iowa for the Des Moines Marathon . I was going to run the half marathon but the real reason for being there was supporting my wife's business at the marathon expo. Many sunglasses and Sheddable Shells were sold because it was just the beginning of winter in Des Moines and there was just a chance of snow and temperatures in the 30s with lots of sunshine and wind.

I grew up in Portland, Oregon and have watched it change from a metro size of 500,000 to it's current two million. That changes a city. Des Moines is still a small town with 500,000 in the metro area. Downtown is not crowded (on Friday I had assumed it was Sunday because of the traffic downtown) and the people are friendly and close knit. The whole town turns out for a city event. There was not much new building downtown and there was a lot of office space for lease. What building was happening was a stadium (state/city money), the interstate through the city (federal money) and a new Science Museum of Iowa (state/federal money). If it wasn't for the government borrowing money like an insane person, there'd be nothing happening. Other than that, all in all a pleasant town.

I don't know how it's done in other states, but here in Oregon the state mails out "Voter Pamplet"s a few weeks before each election. These include descriptions of the candidates and other items on the upcoming ballot.

Well, last week we received Volume 1 of our pamplet for the November elections. Volume one only covers the 8 state measures -- those populous, voter-initiated measures which set out to change the way the government works. This year we have initutives ranging from Measure 36 (defining marriage as between one man and one woman) to Measure 32 (delete reference to mobile homes in certain tax laws). Some are VERY contentious.

What makes this years voter pamplet into an 150+ page volume are all of the arguments. Here in Oregon, anyone can include an arguement for or against a measure. The text is limited to a certain number of words and they cost $500. And this year, people not only included opinions -- and there are a lot of those in this opinionated year -- but some people went overboard with sarcasm and volume.

For instance, one fellow included three arguments for Measure 36 (one man/one woman). One argument included the bold admonition "AGREE WITH US OR BURN IN HELL" which gives you a sense of the sarcasm being used. Another one of the arguements points out the often ignored biblical marriage rules and argues for striking down all divorce laws and ends with the admonition that "Love is not good enough a reason for marriage, because marriage is only for" heterosexual breeding.

A little later, under "Arguments in Opposition", one person gave 100 reasons to vote against the measure. The allowed word count for one argument was too small for all 100 so they submitted 5 opinions (one has reasons to vote against numbered 1 thru 20, second has reasons numbered 21 thru 40, ...).

In other news, a local sheriff is reporting that the level of election type vandalism is higher than he's ever seen.

This is being a very odd election year.

The scary news this morning on the radio was..... there are only 75 more days until Christmas!! So, get out there and start shopping and planning people!! Time is running out!!!

There is a starling rookery over the highway. There are power lines from one side to the other and, in the evening, there are hundreds of birds on the power poles, on the power lines, reaching from one side of the highway to the other.

This is the time of year that I drive home from work just before sunset. As I drive down the freeway I watch black swarms of birds flying one way and then the other -- block clouds in a special, odd fast/slow/fast motion in the air. As I drive down the freeway, I get closer to the power lines and I can see that the power lines are "thick" -- they look black from all the birds that have settled on them. Birds everywhere.

This has gone on for serveral years. I wonder how long I will enjoy the flowing clouds of birds in the fall.

The garage sale is complete. I fibbed a little saying that it was going on the Sunday -- the runners in the family had to be free for the Portland Marathon on Sunday so the sale was just Friday and Saturday. Hope you stopped by to check out the action.

But, as with any garage sale, you are left with your garage and all that stuff that no one purchased. We are now spending Sunday sorting, repacking, creating the "EBay pile" and the Goodwill pile. It will take us days to recover.