2008-10-23 08:56 | Gratefultwo, and things.
Me being me, naturally I spaced on writing anything yesterday. *amused*
Yesterday, I was grateful for my therapist. Yesterday was my last session with him, by my request – I've been doing fine, plus we could both use the money (I was paying less because I'm broke more, so). He is absolutely the wonderful, and I would clone him if I could.
- I've added a plug-in that allows you, the reader, to subscribe to comments. I approve.
- I need to kick the font sizing around a bit. I don't like that it's teeny. I also want that "font size smaller/larger" thing, yes I do. (Why? Because.)
Ballot Return Statistics for 2008 General Election – Daily
*pleased*
*hits "refresh" a lot*
Tags: 
2008-10-22 09:06 | Aha!
I mentioned that I wanted a factcheck.org for non-national voting things – nothing against national voting things, just there's already factcheck.org, you know – and a friend pointed me to SmartVoter.org:
Smart Voter (http://www.smartvoter.org) is produced by the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, to:
- Provide voters with comprehensive nonpartisan information about the contests on their ballot in an easy-to-use presentation.
- Provide a means for candidates to publish information about themselves and their candidacy directly to voters.
The only downside is, it's only for a handful of states, and Oregon isn't one of them. I plugged in my address and ZIP code anyhow, figuring they'd've made provisions for out-of-bounders like myself.
And, yep, they suggested I go to Vote411.org: "Launched by the League of Women Voters Education Fund (LWVEF) in October of 2006, VOTE411.org is a "one-stop-shop" for election related information."
Fantastic!
For Oregon specifically, also, see here.
[eta] Amusingly enough, Willamette Week has a better voter's guide than any other I've seen, in the sense that it actually has all of the items in one place.
2008-10-21 22:33 | Gratefultude, day 1 of 30.
A friend elsewhere engaged in a sort of project or pledge or what-have-you – to post daily something that you're grateful for. I keep contemplating it, because my default setting is "too stuck in my head". I think it'd be good for me, as it were, to remind myself of the world around me.
Today, I am grateful that I get to vote. My ballot came in the mail today, which pleases me. I wish there existed a factcheck.org for non-national politics (non-national because factcheck.org covers the Presidential part), but that's why wiki sites exist, I suppose – so I can create wikis.
*resists*
I won't say who I voted for in the primaries, but I will say I voted Democrat for both the Congressional and the Senatorial elections. (FF's spellcheck says that latter is a word…? Okay.) That's Jeff Merkley for US Senator, and Earl Blumenauer for Congress.
Tomorrow I'll be researching what all of the other positions are, whether there's a reason not to vote for the only person listed in a section (such as Martha L Walters, Judge of the Supreme Court, Position 7), and the various and sundry measures. I'll also be buying a stamp off one of my roommates. I may even figure out what the terms are for the House of Reps (these are congressfolk, yes? Stupid Civics class never tells me anything). That's the danger of contextual definitions – I can't always tell if I'm using the right word.
I will not, not, be making a wiki or site or something to compare local candidates. Dammit.
2008-02-02 13:52 | Maybe I could learn to like New York…
An appeals court has ruled that a gay couple's marriage in Canada should be recognized in New York.
"The state Legislature "may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad," the ruling said. "Until it does so, however, such marriages are entitled to recognition in New York."
And here's the ACLU press release on the topic. This is fantastic!
Oh, hey, and, lookit this:
I love waking up to good news.
2006-11-10 07:55 | Sometimes, I just don't have time for in-depth commentary.
* Hooray for the Democrats winning a bunch of stuff!
* Whoa for the narrowness of the win! After the partying in the streets, it's totally time to prep things so's a Democrat wins, and that winning means something, in two years.
* Hooray for Oregon measure 43 (regarding mandatory parental notification in the event of a minor seeking an abortion) not being passed!
* Boo for my home state (VA) being populated by bigots! But, I imagine gay folk will be flocking out of there, so that's a thing, at least.
* Buh-bye to Santorum and Rumsfeld! Buh-bye!
* Boo for strawmen being thrown at me! Today's fun one – when I say "I'm pissed that a lot of men treat women like they're supposed to be pleasing at all times", I must totally mean "I want to take away their right to free speech". I just don't even have the time right now to wonder how someone figures "Why don't you smile?" is polite.
2006-10-30 19:09 | Office work versus handiwork.
I'm currently unemployed, which is no rational being's idea of fun. (Relief perhaps, but not fun.) I use Mozilla Thunderbird for both my formal email address and an RSS aggregator. In the RSS section, I subscribe to various Craigslist job categories, like admin stuff, technical support stuff, and so forth.
One job posting came into the trade section, asking if I was tired of long and boring hours at the office. I hadn't thought of it before… rather, I'd thought quite a lot about how boring office work can be, but I hadn't seriously considered doing anything else with my time. I'm used to doing officework – have done so since I was 16, or thereabouts – so that's what I'm "good" at.
Now, of course, I am all kinds of curious about working with my hands. I have no strong handiwork background, though I'm willing and able to heft things about, so I figured I'd not be able to get into it. Apparently, this is not entirely true, even beyond correcting for my general pessimism. There's a local group called Oregon Tradeswomen Inc., which is apparently about assisting women in the trades, and assisting women in getting into the trades in the first place.
I am fascinated. It's one whole neighbourhood away from me, so I may go there sometime soon to check them out, see if they're who I'm looking for. I would love to get into some sort of trade, at some point.
I may have had a point, but I got hit by a terrible pun (instead of "foreman", they wrote "forema'am"), and I need to go lie down now.
