wombat_socho

Been mostly offline the last couple of days that I've been in Rio Rancho since I've been either sleeping or visiting relatives, but since I am resuming the drive to Vegas today I needed to take a few minutes along the way to do a little job hunting, file for unemployment (fail; the online app thinks I'm out of weeks again), and post to the LJ so later I'll be able to remember what happened...

...anyway, I finally got to Casa Jaramillo around 1730 on Thursday, which is roughly when I told cousin Vinnie I would, and then sat around drinking water and talking until 2100 when I started falling asleep on the couch. Crashed in the guest room, which has a ton of tchotchkes from Uncle Joe's career, which was mostly spent in the Special Forces. Crashed so hard I didn't get up until noon on Friday, much to the alarm of my Aunt Emily, who had been expecting me to show up Thursday night. Called and Facebooked her, arranged to meet her and Uncle Jimmy Griego at their place in Tesuque (west of Santa Fe) in the afternoon, and after downing a large mug of Vince's coffee I hit the road. Stopped along the way at the Walmart for sunscreen and Solarcaine and at the memorial to the Mormon Battalion, which is in the middle of nowhere off I-25, and eventually got to the Griego place around 1530. Much talking and dinner ensued, and I left around 2100 with a family tree that helped explain how I'm related to the various Lyles, Jaramillos, Griegos, Olguins, etc. who are my cousins on Mom's side of the family. As for why Mom didn't move back here when Dad told her it would be okay with him if they decamped from DC, Aunt Emily didn't know either.

On the way back to the Jaramillo place I opened up Ingress for the first time since leaving Covington and nuked a few froggy portals, claimed some open portals along 599, and did in some more green portals off 550. Most of the portals around here are L5s or worse, which says to me that there aren't a lot of players around.

Slept for about seven hours last night, shaved, changed bandages, and packed up my gear. One last cup of coffee with cousin Vince, one stop at the McD's to get caught up on a few things, and then it's off to Kingman, Arizona by way of the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, because our family is all about the nuclear history. Might do some Ingress along the way. We'll see. My stuff is already in Las Vegas; now I just need to get into an apartment so I can tell them where to put it.

All things considered, yesterday's midterms went fairly smoothly at Precinct 811 (Pohick), located at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in West Springfield. The new chief officer and one of the other election officers were able to show up Monday afternoon and get mostl the signage, chairs, tables, etc. up so that Tuesday morning all we had to do was wade through the setup paperwork, get signed in, set up the two voting machines and the two electronic pollbooks, and we were ready to open at 0600. We never had any big lines - at most, there were 3-4 people waiting to check in and get ballots, and 3-4 people waiting to get their ballots scanned. We had a ton of election officers on hand - surprisingly, about a third of them were Independent or Green for once. Turnout was low - about 36%, which was not a good sign for the Democrats since this is traditionally a very blue precinct, going heavily for Obama and Kaine in 2012. Warner and Connolly both carried the precinct, but it wasn't a blowout by any means - both of them won by less than 100 votes and there was a considerable dropoff from Warner to Connolly. Breakdown went as quickly as setup, with some of the officers taking stuff down early, and we didn't have any lines outside when we locked the doors. We did all the paperwork involved with shutting down and reconciling votes to ballots, and we were all out by 2015. Good show.

I want to talk for a minute about the local GOP organization (presuming there actually is one) as a valedictory since this was my last election as a Fairfax County election officer and as a resident of the county; the Virginia GOP no longer has primaries, which I think is an utterly retarded move that just feeds into the enemy narrative, and now does all the endorsing at the state convention as far as I can tell. Ever since arriving in Springfield as a registered Republican, I have had more contact with the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action PAC than I have with the local GOP. No Republican candidate for Congress or the state House has knocked on my door or so much as sent me a postcard in the mail. None of them have tried to call me. It's more than a little irritating, so much so that in the last state election, after the Democratic incumbent delegate stopped by to doorknock (we had a polite little discussion) I was so annoyed by her GOP opponent's failure to do the same that I wound up voting independent out of spite.

How hard is it for the local Republicans to get a copy of Heinlein's Take Back Your Government and use it as a blueprint for building a competitive machine here in Fairfax County? The spread between Connolly and Scholte was not that big, and a little bit of doorknocking or other personal contact might have been enough to swing the hundred votes needed to take the precinct.

Well, not my problem any more. I am off for Las Vegas next year, and it'll take me probably a year or two to get unpacked and settled in before I even want to start thinking about being politically active. In the meantime, wake up, RPV. What you're doing now isn't working nearly well enough.

P noted yesterday that I need more face time with the people on this list, which is not always possible since some of you live way the fuck off in the People's Republic and others are just insanely busy. This came up after I mentioned that if the job prospects didn't improve I might consider moving to Las Vegas, where the cost of living is lower (fuck, where is it NOT lower than DC? Okay, NYC and SanFran, both of which I would sooner shoot myself than move to) and the multitude of friends who live in this space heater next to my desk will be just as close as they ever are. Obviously, this does not apply to those of you who I see at least monthly or quarterly, but as for the rest of you...well, I do miss the opportunity to sit and chat over breakfast or an overpriced large $tarbux ice tea once in a while. In the meantime, I have to weigh the costs and benefits of remaining somewhere insanely expensive on the off chance that I'll be able to see some close friends once a year or so.

I won't lie, I am seriously considering a move to Sin City, because in truth the cost of living there is hella lower than it is here. I could get a decent apartment there for the cost of what I'm paying for this bedroom. Of course, there are other considerations: how much income would I lose from Nevada's lack of income tax if I shift my Block practice down there, as opposed to what I save in not having to pay a state income tax? There is also the additional hassle of having to attend a class for CCW training, since Virginia doesn't have reciprocity with Nevada, but that's a minor consideration. And then of course, there are moving expenses, but if I economize on the wild life I'm living (sic), I could raise the couple of grand it would cost me to ship all my stuff to Las Vegas.

It's something to think about.