Living across the street from my polling place has its advantages... I could roll out of bed and look out my window to see how far down the street the line stretched. After a quick shower, I headed over and got my place in line.... at 6:55AM!! The poll didn't open until 7AM but these pics capture the scene. Folks down the street and around the corner. By 7:43AM I was out the door and the ballot box machine indicated mine was #169.

Two things were noticeably impressive about the operation. First, it was my first time voting in a general election at this polling place. I had no idea how long the lines normally are, but folks around me who had voted more times than I am years old said they'd never seen a line like this, ever. Second, I was extremely impressed and proud of the poll volunteers for both their kindness and efficiency. The line moved steadily from the time they opened. A woman paced down the line to see if there were new registrants, and offer them a clipboard to work on their form, rather than having them hold up everyone once inside at the check-in table. The same woman spotted an elderly man, perhaps close to 90, sitting on a bench outside the school, while his wife waited in line. She brought him inside, out of the chilly air, and let him wait for her in a comfortable armchair. When I finally got inside, and down the hall where the line snaked, there was a table with 2 school workers offering sugar cookies, hot cider and coffee. Now I only hope this degree of Minnesota nice can endure the 13 hour storm and present itself in the same way for those people who wait in even longer lines after work this evening.



Put yer...

Those who have had the pleasure of listening to me rant about internet know I have been a passionate advocate for the last 7 months for the concept of Municipal wireless internet (aka muni wifi). Since Minneapolis was a pioneer in the country in building what has been heralded as the only or first successful, large metropolitan wireless internet blanket, I was set on supporting this effort as a subscriber. I closed my ears when several people offered early reports that it sucked and that they had a terrible signal. I felt, to be fair, we needed to give it an honest try and see for ourselves. Besides that the system remained under construction, the SLF (signal luck factor, as I like to call it) is highly dependent on the location of your home in proximity to a relay node.

While the service was without frequent issues for the first 5 months, it all went down the toilet when Spring arrived. We were told that leaves caused interference, and that adjustments would resolve the problems. Well, how could anyone possibly predict that tree branches would grow leaves? In any case, after 10 days without service in early June, USI offered us a month free to compensate for the now-frequent outages. The service came back, and stayed up, for several weeks. A week ago, it went down again. This isn't the typical DSL or Cable outage where you unplug and replug the power cord and wa-la, it's fixed. This is no service, solid, no matter how many times you recycle the power. The curious part of the leaves philosophy was that our signal strength (the Ruckus modem's connection with the nearest antenna; our house is only the 3rd from the end of the block...with a node stationed right around the corner) was always strong. Even on a lower level, on the opposite side of the house from where the signal originates.

It appears that our connection has been maintained but other nearby nodes lost the relay. Even 3/4 mi away at Starbucks, it is working. So it is a very localized problem, and they probably have a long list of these. Thinking this should be fixable we made 2 phone calls until we eventually reached a human, who informed us they could not provide any form of ETA for fixing the issue...they did not know if it would be a couple days or a couple months. That's right, months. Not "Maybe 3 or 4 days", not "We'll call you," not "Well, we don't work on the weekend", not even "There are parts on order, it just might be working before you get your car back from hail hell." Just 'we dunno'. Even after that round of bad news, we decided out of fairness and, so as not to be impulsive, to wait another 4 days before pulling the plug. I called Comcast last night and reactivated our previous high speed; for only $43/month we were instantly back online. Although it's expensive, we know it works. All the time.

In case any of you are considering signing up for Mpls Muni, I've provided a helpful map of service availability. Maybe in about 3 years, when they have 60,000 customers instead of 6,000 customers, they'll have these things fixed and we'll try again.



Postscript: After we attempted to cancel they offered us 2 months free to "save us." We already had one month free... what good is a free service that doesn't work? Too little, too late. Very happy to be back with CHS.

Anyone else out there with a Symbian OS mobile phone? Enjoy the enclosed lakedavid theme for your phone, free of charge.

Or, you can make your own custom theme at ownskin.com.

Enjoy!

Year 2

Here are some pics from our second visit to art a whirl, NEMAA's famous neighborhood wide showcase of art.

First, I must apologize that it's been over a month since my last update on life in Lake David. It has been a busy time, full of changing seasons and the glory of spring (snow) showers. We took a trip to Madison at the end of March to visit Herr and Frau Shabaker and gang, however I regret to inform you that the camera was left behind. Much fun was had by all. Activities included great food, sight-seeing downtown, shopping the newly renovated Hilldale, Orange Tree Import and State St., and revisiting some old neighborhoods. You may taunt, "So much for photo journaling!" Inasmuch as Lake David only recently made the leap from all ASCII, you should be used to it by now and just enjoy this small moment of purity reminiscent of that time before the internet added color and ventured into 3 dimensions.

If I've left you soured, then this should give you a good chuckle. Here is a glimpse of the current work site in my office building, entitled "Step 1: Demolition". For information on Step 2, please e-mail me.

A view from the exit door of my office suite...to be completed July 4, 2008.


Dust much?