On the house insurance front, the referral service is starting to come through with a couple of quotes -- which are surprisingly similar in price to the previous policy (surprising given inflation and what-all), although it's partly due to me opting for a higher deductable.
This is the second election where I've voted absentee on the principle of leaving a paper trail. It's emotionally unsatisfying in many ways -- I really like the ritual of showing up at the local school auditorium, having the elderly poll attendants hunt slowly through the printouts for your name, and walking out with that little "I voted" sticker on your lapel. And given the composition of my district, sabotaging the voting machines to affect the outcome would have to be so blatant that plausible deniability would be impossible. (My representative, Barbara Lee, is pretty far to the left wing -- and I say that as a left-winger -- and tends to win with around 85% of the vote. That gives you some notion of the magnitude of the tampering that would have to go on around here to have any effect.) And, in an odd way, mailing the ballot a week ahead of time leaves space for paranoid fantasies about the mail going astray, or the stamp falling off and it not getting returned for more postage until too late, or .... So my jury is still out on the whole absentee voting issue.
This is the second election where I've voted absentee on the principle of leaving a paper trail. It's emotionally unsatisfying in many ways -- I really like the ritual of showing up at the local school auditorium, having the elderly poll attendants hunt slowly through the printouts for your name, and walking out with that little "I voted" sticker on your lapel. And given the composition of my district, sabotaging the voting machines to affect the outcome would have to be so blatant that plausible deniability would be impossible. (My representative, Barbara Lee, is pretty far to the left wing -- and I say that as a left-winger -- and tends to win with around 85% of the vote. That gives you some notion of the magnitude of the tampering that would have to go on around here to have any effect.) And, in an odd way, mailing the ballot a week ahead of time leaves space for paranoid fantasies about the mail going astray, or the stamp falling off and it not getting returned for more postage until too late, or .... So my jury is still out on the whole absentee voting issue.