Halloween 2016

Dishwasher Math

When I reported back in April that I had found a source for dish washing soap that actually contained phosphates - HERE - I estimated that the cost of the stuff would come out to be roughly equivalent to buying boxes of non-phosphate stuff at the store.

I was wrong!

After over six months, we still have over half a bucket of soap left.  The true cost of a dish washing detergent that actually works is turning out to be significantly less than buying the stuff that doesn't.

Hayride

Neighborhood kids will be coming around this evening on their annual Halloween hayride.  This has become a firmly entrenched tradition, with two or three tractors pulling flat-bed trailers full of Trick-Or-Treaters. 

They will have some serious competition this year - several local churches and the high school are all having Trunk-or-Treat events where folks gather in parking lots to allow the kiddies to get their goodies in one spot. I hope they participate in both events; I'd hate for the hayride tradition to fade away.

Hummers

I took the last of our Hummingbird feeders down and put them away this week.  

We hadn't seen a bird in about two weeks - even the few permanent residents seem to have joined this year's migration, and  the migration this year wasn't nearly as large as last year. Last year we were seeing over two dozen birds at a time, but this year I don't think I ever saw more than ten or twelve at once.

Lingering Pain

As I reported last Wednesday, I've been having problems with my lower back since a week ago Saturday.  My first trip to the chiropractor helped a lot, but subsequent trips haven't seemed to make much difference one way or the other, I still have a lingering ache that doesn't want to go away.

As a result, I haven't really accomplished anything in the past week or so.  I did go to the grocery store, and we went to vote.  Aside from that, my biggest accomplishment was watching all of the Star Wars movies on TV.

Speaking of which, that lower back pain has me walking a lot like C3PO, and that's embarrassing.

More Early Voting

In my post yesterday, I said that if you didn't vote Monday like we did, that the lines on Tuesday were bound to be shorter.  To my surprise, some Harris County polling places actually recorded more votes on Tuesday.  Here's the breakdown:
 http://www.harrisvotes.org/Docs/Uploads/EVPA.pdf

Beat the Rush?

Yesterday was the first day of early voting in Texas for the 2016 elections, so Honey and I decided to vote early and avoid the lines that are sure to form on November 8th.

Our logic was apparently shared by 67,000 of our fellow citizens, as Harris County set a new voting record for early voting, exceeding the old record by almost 20,000 voters.  It only took us about a half hour (at the Crosby Public Library) from the time we parked until we were back in the truck and on the way home, but some polling places in Houston had waits in excess of two hours.

If you plan to vote early, and didn't vote yesterday, lines are bound to be shorter today - otherwise there won't be anyone left to vote when  election day rolls around.

I heard this in line yesterday and on the news last night - the main reason so many were voting early was that they were sick of the campaign - they planned to vote early, then ignore all the polls and election coverage in general from now on.