Our Thanksgiving Weekend

Our Thanksgiving Travel:

Wednesday Night: Wichita, KS to Enid, OK
Thursday Night: Enid, OK to Mutual, OK
Friday Afternoon: Mutual, OK to Hitchcock, OK
Friday Evening: Hitchcock, OK to Stillwater, OK
Saturday Afternoon: Stillwater, OK to Wichita, KS


Why all the driving? Well, Katie's extended family all showed up for Thanksgiving day but the turnout was not so fantastic the following day, her birthday. For whatever reason, almost everybody had made other plans so we decided to take the initiative and go and see them. It made for quite a bit of driving and we were definitely vagrants for most of the weekend (a different bed every night) but we didn't have much of a choice; family is important to Katie

So how did we end the weekend? We rolled back in to town Saturday afternoon and proceeded to do nothing most of the day. Katie signed up for a bow-tying and wreath-making class at a gardening store near here, we went through the mail, and then watched a movie while having delicious pizza for dinner. Oh, and we had cake and ice cream afterwards. Though her actual birthday day wasn't that spectacular, I think her birthday weekend is going to end up just fine.

UPDATE: Sam's Club and Aviation

As a follow-up to my previous post, it should be noted that the jet has sold.

UPDATE: Sorry for the bad link; it's fixed now.

Thanksgiving and Pumpkins

For Halloween, Katie and I got a pumpkin. We didn't end up carving it or really doing much of anything with it other than set it out on the porch for the trick-or-treaters. We only got the pumpkin the day before the grand event and felt it was the least we could do. That and have candy for the kids.

A few days ago, somebody stole the pumpkin off our porch. We don't exactly live in a crime-filled neighborhood but our porch is about three or four steps from the sidewalk and, naturally, the pumpkin makes a tempting target. All in all, the theft is not the big of a deal except for the fact that Katie had plans for it; pumpkin pie if I remember right. Being the kind and loving husband I am and noting that she was particularly grieved that somebody would actually go to the trouble of taking our pumpkin, I decided I would get her another one.

A simple task, I thought. It's the week before Thanksgiving, pumpkin pie is a very traditional dish, there should be loads of fresh pumpkins for sale.

Five stores later, I have realized how sadly naive I can be. There are no fresh pumpkins to be easily found here in Wichita. I tried a farmer's market of sorts, three grocery stores, and the home and garden store Katie got her first pumpkin from. None had any left except small, decorative ones.

The funny thing is that all but one of these stores were all decked out in Thanksgiving regalia. Lots of browns and oranges (for our purposes we'll call this pumpkin-color), cornucopias of squashes, corn, potatoes and, yes, pumpkins, scarecrows, and turkeys. All of these items are available for purchase EXCEPT the pumpkins.

So let me ask you, my friends. Is it normal for pumpkins to disappear shortly after Halloween? If so, how are the pumpkin pies made? How about where you live; can you still buy a fresh pumpkin? Is it asking too much to still be able to buy a pumpkin this far after Halloween? Are they already out of season? Are most pumpkin pies made with canned pumpkin? What would the pilgrims think?

Please, share your thoughts in the comments.

Flickr

At the request of a friend, I have fired up a Flickr account. No promises on how often I'll be adding to it so enjoy it for what it is.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tubby_mac/

(Don't ask about the user name. I was not attempting to be funny or cute. I chose the name because I gave myself the nickname Tubby in Idaho and I use a Mac; it seemed like a natural fit. That and all the other user names I normally use were already taken.)

Voting

Oh, yeah. Before I forget, voting on Tuesday was pretty smooth in our district. We had those electronic voting machines which are all the rage these days. There was long line to use them, though, so I just used a paper ballot. No hole-punching here, we were all 1990s and had a Scantron™-like ballot (but were told to use black ink instead of a number two pencil). I was in and out in about ten minutes. When I handed my ballot over to the election officials they fed it into this big copier-looking thing that I'm assuming scanned it and added my votes to a running tally. Over-all, a slick system. In fact, probably better than many (maybe all) the electronic voting machines out there in that a paper trail for each votes exists (the original ballot), but a computer does all the hard work of tallying the votes.

The only drawback in the experience: signing-in. The following has happened at EVERY vote I have ever done in-person. To split up the work-load of getting all the voters signed in, the voting officials form a set of lines divided out by the first letter of voter's last name. They then place a sign or placard with the corresponding letters on the front of the table, taping it to the top of the table surface and letting it hang down the front.

The problem: if ONE person is in line, nobody else can read the sign. With just a handful of voters, it is possible to completely possible to remove any clue which line a given voter needs to be in. As you can imagine, when things are busy, it gets even tougher; in my voting location, it was hard to tell there were even separate lines. Fortunately for me, the line I needed to be in completely emptied out and I was actually able to see the sign and realized I was in the wrong line.

To all poll workers: hang your signs from the ceiling so we all can see them.

(Extra) Scooter Parts

Yesterday I spent most of my afternoon hunting down two mystery noises on my scooter. In the process of doing so, I ended up removing most of the external body panels from the machine and got a chance to poke around and see its inner workings. By the time I was done, I had found two small parts that had been, well, just hanging out unattached inside the body of the scooter.

Well, at least they weren't attached any more.



This guy was resting on the undercarriage panel (the mostly flat plate of plastic that keeps gunk from the road from getting kicked up into the engine) and was a big confusing at first. I eventually found that it had broken off the backside of the panel that covers the windshield bolts. It appears to be a mounting point for a screw and (obviously) is not one that I have been using. I think I'll call it a vestigial part as it doesn't appear there is any way to get a screw in it; you would have to drill through the instrument panel to make it work.

Extra part worry-factor: None. I'll be getting along just fine without this guy. The next part though....



In case you can't tell, this is a bolt. (If you look down toward the bottom you can see what remains of the threads.) The curvy profile of the bolt is not by design; this bolt has been seriously worn down. It fell out as I was putting the scooter up on its center stand and I have spent a long time looking for a place that it might call home. I have a guessed but nothing I feel very confident about.

Extra part worry-factor: High. Bolts shouldn't be worn down like this, not after six months of use. Very scary.


By the way, I did find one of my mystery noises, it was the front brakes. I'm hoping to coerce a mechanically-inclined person to show me how to work on disc brakes. My normal point of contact is a new dad so I don't know how available he will be in the near future. The noise isn't overly distressing, just something I need to check on relatively soon.

The other noise is still a mystery. I couldn't replicate it yesterday so I guess I'll have to work on it another time.