No disrespect intended to the men and women of the U.S. Postal Service, but this absentee ballot is being hand-delivered.
We have voted the rascals out. You’re welcome.
Yesterday we voted ourselves out, for a quick five-mile march through the foothills.
Walking the Dog. Photo: Herself
It was a brisk morning, and we didn’t get out until noonish, because the sun doesn’t clear the Sandias at Rancho Pendejo until sometime after 9 and we’re rarely in a rush unless Herself has a long list of chores to be accomplished, which come to think of it is almost always.
The Merrell Moab 2 Mid Ventilator boots have broken in nicely after about 20 miles of light hoofing, and this morning I planted one of them in Adolf Twitler’s oversized fundament, metaphorically speaking.
It’s my second try at kicking his fat butt; let’s hope this time it helps do the job.
If the boots get ’er done, I’ll buy a second pair, because it seems that every time I find footwear that suits my dogs, that model is instantaneously discontinued and replaced with some Nazi bondage gear.
There’s always the stick, of course. But I don’t think the SS boyos will let me anywhere near Adolf if I’m waving Ol’ Hickory around and screeching about going all Andy Jackson on his ass.
Tags: Adolf Twitler, El Rancho Pendejo, Herself, Merrell Moab 2 Mid Ventilator, Sandia foothills
Mad Blog Media 
October 17, 2020 at 11:49 am |
Does the stick have a story? My candidate won the last time I voted: #747 in the Katmai fat bear contest last week.
October 17, 2020 at 1:27 pm |
The fat bears: My people. Have you seen they’ve taken an interest in a libertarian utopia?
No story on the stick, alas. I broke an ankle, longtime commenter and comrade Pat O’B passed along a link to Brazos Walking Sticks, and I picked up one of their hickory models.
When I was in high school my friends and I were obsessed with Thirties movies, to the point of dressing the part with the help of various thrift shops. Fedoras, double-breasted pinstripe suits, and of course, walking sticks.
My Brazos stick is more of a staff, and with my boonie hat and Patagucci shorts I look like a slightly upscale Gandalf.
October 17, 2020 at 1:12 pm |
We are going to do in person early voting. I figure its not more dangerous than going to the grocery store and just as important.
Nice stick. I found another straight piece of branch the other day, so I am letting it dry and season to make yet another hiking stick to add to my homemade hiking stick collection.
October 17, 2020 at 1:39 pm |
We hand-delivered our absentee ballots to the neighborhood polling place (and, not incidentally, got a 3.5-mile walk in, too).
It was slightly nuts. In six years of voting here I’ve never seen the place so active. A line stretching from the southeast corner of the building all the way around to Howie’s Sports Bar & Grill on the northwest end. Fifty or 60 people easy.
Dropping off the ballots was easy-peasy. In and out, boom, a couple minutes tops.
Click here for a larger version
October 17, 2020 at 1:19 pm |
My bride of 51 years and I received our mail-in ballots last Saturday, completed them on Sunday, and hand-carried them Monday to a secure ballot drop-box.
Re the boots, PO’G: You’re spot on about getting another pair if they work for you. Seems standardization between the same model and even the same factory can be a bit helter-skelter.
Would love to see a video of you doing some martial arts moves with that stick. Or maybe not, eh? 🙂
October 17, 2020 at 1:49 pm |
October 18, 2020 at 5:51 am |
Look to the roof of Rancho Pendejo. That is where the story of the Mad Dog begins.
October 17, 2020 at 1:22 pm |
To quote Groucho Marx, “If I have told you this story before don’t stop me, because I want to hear it again.”
Nothing like a nice piece of hickory!
October 17, 2020 at 1:29 pm |
I think you are helping the postal service by dropping off your ballots. It takes some of the overloading off of them, and it speeds up the counting. Unless it is a landslide, like Ms. Ardern got in Paradise, the dumpster will litigate this shit into December. Plus, everyone who expects results the next morning will be coming up with conspiracies why they weren’t satisfied. And, dumpster will retweet all of them.
October 17, 2020 at 1:58 pm |
That was the idea, Paddy me lad. The postal people must be teetering on the ragged edge. My bike mags have been showing up late, and one paycheck is well off the back. And the carrier who lives here in the cul-de-sac seems a little twitchy, but that could be the new puppy keeping him up nights.
As for Don Cornholio, I figure he’ll go to the mattresses even if he loses all 50 states.
October 17, 2020 at 6:14 pm |
Yes, it’s been an interesting election & a deserved result. In her 3 years, Jacinda has been tested like few other PMs, the Christchurch massacre, the White Island eruption, COVID-19 & each time she has been up to the task.
The National party took a severe beating losing several electorates which have long been regarded as their strongholds.
The most surprising of which was them losing Auckland Central to the youngest MP in Parliament, Chloe Swarbrick of the Greens.
October 18, 2020 at 7:54 am |
Well done to you and your countrypersons, Hurben. If you folks ever find a way to bottle that common sense of yours, ship us a few cases, wouldja?
October 17, 2020 at 1:59 pm |
30 years ago I cut down an ancient lilac tree that was no longer counted on to bear its famous flowers. It barely even leafed out and put up legions of useless suckers. I was shocked at how the wood was so hard it dulled my saw like it was a metal fence post. I kept one particularly straight section and rendered it into a hiking staff and it’s gone on many a hike, stroll and sashay with me. It saved me from a pit bull once.
October 17, 2020 at 2:03 pm |
It’s nice to have a stout staff at hand in case a vigorous debate unfolds. Like, with a pit bull, an’ shit.
October 17, 2020 at 3:57 pm |
After watching one of the prevalent mountain lion videos, I’m going to make me one of those Sean Connery 1880’s London walking sticks. The ones with the rapiers in them – Woosh, woosh, slice slice.
We received our ballots yesterday (Friday). I thought about rushing them out and getting them to my local court house drop-box, but then I thought I’d slow down a little so that I didn’t screw up and make an error. They must count of course. Besides, I have the whole weekend to decide who I’m going to vote for….. Hmmmm.. Yuk ! Yuk !
October 17, 2020 at 4:55 pm |
Shawn: ENJOY your weekend!!!!! 🙂
October 18, 2020 at 8:03 am |
Herself and I sat across from each other at the kitchen table with the MacBook Air open for research purposes and worked our way down both sides of the ballot, dealing out bouquets and brickbats, funding worthy projects and rejecting extravagance.
Then we double- and triple-checked that we had followed all instructions to the letter — fold here, spindle there, bow to the Six Directions, replay the “Marseillaise” scene from “Casablanca” in your mind, spit, make the sign of the cross — and finally signed, sealed, and delivered.
Now … we wait.
October 18, 2020 at 1:40 pm |
Just curious, what did you decide on the PRC amendment? I’m torn between always favoring the more democratic process and feeling big money might have less influence if members are appointed, assuming we elect the right people.
October 18, 2020 at 2:50 pm |
We felt the way you did. But both The New Mexican and the Journal supported the return to an appointed board, as did the Sierra Club. And it seemed to us that an appointed commission might yield greater expertise on a complicated topic.
One of my first assignments as a young reporter was covering a water-board meeting. I came away completely mystified and told my editor I couldn’t file a story on a meeting I didn’t understand. Sometimes expertise is good.
October 18, 2020 at 10:32 pm |
I plan on voting aye on this one. Having served on a public advisory board that occasionally required us to deal with highly technical subject matter, I would not want to see another Jerome Block Jr. or an equally incompetent moron, elected by a downballot process, making decisions as critical as the PRC will be making in the years ahead as we migrate from fossil fuels to green energy and have to overhaul not only our generating capacity but our distribution and storage systems.
The Bombtown transportation advisory board, and I chaired it for quite a while, worked with the county engineers, planners and consultants. Yet even then, it was sometimes a really tough job. If we had final approval authority, which I think the PRC has, we would have been in over heads on some issues, even though half the folks on my board had advanced degrees. We once battled on a road project and the board, after working with some retired LANL scientists who knew the roundabout design computer codes better than the county’s consulting firm, finally hired a second consultant and then advised County Council to shitcan a project that the first consulting firm had been pushing. Council did so.
There is no way to completely eliminate cronyism or incompetence, but having read the long form of the amendment, I say give it a try. Just as you would not want the Marx Brothers doing your electrical work, you don’t want a cast of idiots planning your future energy generating and distribution system.
October 17, 2020 at 8:10 pm |
I found one of these in a barrel of canes at the local Ace hardware. It must have been there some time because the price on the tag was much lower than the current one. Snatched it up for city walking to “keep the elephants away.”
https://www.brazos-walking-sticks.com/twisted-hame-top-walking-cane/
October 18, 2020 at 8:11 am |
October 18, 2020 at 1:09 pm |
Wow ! That is a beautiful stick.
October 18, 2020 at 10:38 pm |
Gorgeous stuff. I have been making my own hiking staffs for a while now. We hike in the woods and if I see a cool piece of wood, I take it home, dry it, clean, plane off some of the big knobs, and sand it, finish it, and make walking sticks. Not for profit, obviously, as folks in that web site do a far nicer job, but just to stay busy and do interesting shit.
October 18, 2020 at 4:27 am |
Here in York PA I voted Thursday down at the county election office. Normally I try to be first in line when my polling place opens, but rumor has it that they don’t have enough poll workers and I wanted to skip the crowds. Apparently everyone else had the same idea and it was 45 minutes in line. Oy. The election staff was great and did everything to speed it up. It was interesting to listen to the talk in line. “I’m so sick of this I want to get it over with”. “Not taking any chances”. Hopefully this bodes well for the results.
October 18, 2020 at 7:49 am |
I always like to vote in person, gauge the mood of the electorate, thank the poll workers for doing the heavy lifting.
But hoo-lawd, we would’ve been in line a lot longer than 45 minutes yesterday. The pundits are already suggesting that we could see 70 percent turnout, which is practically torches and pitchforks.
October 18, 2020 at 10:39 pm |
If this election doesn’t bring folks out in droves, we are fucked as a nation.
October 18, 2020 at 7:47 am |
My wife, daughter and I filled out our ballots yesterday. Sealed them up and handed them to the person on the left to sign as witness. They were in the drop box at City Hall by 2 pm.
Bye bye Donnie.
October 18, 2020 at 8:13 am |
Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya, Dirty Donnie Dinkyfingers!
October 18, 2020 at 7:56 pm |
Love the hickory stick. l I personally have found a set of antique aluminum Leki poles to be my style. I have taken your advice a ordered a pair of Keen mid high Teton Hikers. Damn things can be worn all day and still feel light. Got a pair of Oboz hiking shoe that are the same way but cannot find them in the sawtooth model anywhere now. ARRgghhh. Dropped of the Ballots at county election office friday. Now to beseech my pagan deities to cast out one their own.
October 19, 2020 at 7:52 am |
My favorite walking staff is a linseed oil rubbed rib from a disintegrated suguaro cactus – incredibly straight, strong and light. But in my dotage I have taken to using a pair of ancient Black Diamond trekking poles. Oh, the embarrassment!