Life is a State of Mind

Sutragirl has written about last night’s trip back from Spamalot in DC already, so that’s where you should go if you want to hear more about the flooding on Constitution Avenue. People made it home safely, though Ruth and her girls had a long, segmented trip after their van got stuck in the flood.

We have several friends who are dealing with flooding or close to flooding basements. So far we only have a small roof leak into our bedroom closet (moral: get gutters cleaned regularly). Roads are closed in several low spots where water is flowing over the road. Be careful out there folks.

The ground is so saturated that the next 30 hours of rain are all going to be flooding and problematic. Hopefully it never arrives.

I’ve been driving the new Prius a lot and in general I love the thing, but I have a first complaint and suggestion.

This thing needs a relatively quiet, alternate horn in addition to the normal load one it has for emergencies.

Several times now I have nearly run over pedestrians when driving around parking lots looking for a space. What happens is that said pedestrian will be walking along in a straight line, and I will come up the path behind them slowly and the Prius has invariably shut off the gas engine because it does not need it any more. What I keep failing to realize is that said pedestrian cannot hear any engine noise and does not realize I am there at all! Often the pedestrian, without looking, suddenly darts out across the traffic lane which they assume is empty, and I need to brake suddenly to avoid a squishing.

It’s not really their fault, cars have made noise their entire lives; the sudden appearance of a near silent one takes getting used to. It’s not my fault, I am going very slow in parking lots (as evidenced by the complete shutdown of the gas motor).

I used to have similar situations while riding my bicycle in parking lots, but on the bike I can simply talk out loud or give mild warnings like “coming up on your left” which alert the walker of a risk without causing them to panic (like a sudden loud horn toot). In a my car, this is less instinctive; it does not occur to me quickly to talk out loud… and I don’t want to annoy anyone with the loud horn.

Prius needs a small rattle on the grill, or a quieter horn alternate…

I suppose this will fix itself when the heat of summer kicks in and running the A/C forces the motor to stay on and make the car just a little noisier.

BTW - so far, 50.7mpg is my average and they tell me it goes up slightly once the car is broken in. Filling the tank the first time was a shock. From empty to full was only 9.549 gallons of ordinary gas, and I have not put only $28.26 into a gas tank since it was less than $1.00/gallon and I was filling a 1971 Buick Electra 225 (24.5 gallon tank)!

If you live in Virginia, it’s primary election day, remember to go vote!

Results are on the state board of elections website, and will be updated live. I am following very closely to see if we will be hosting a Webb fundraiser or a Miller fundraiser later in the summer.

We just found out that Mr. Webb has a scheduling conflict and we may not be hosting his fundraiser this Sunday after all, more as soon as I know. There are other candidates, you can find out more, on a non-partisan site I have here, or on Politics1.com or the Virginia State Board of Elections website.

I am disgusted that six years into the 21st century, my precinct still has no verified voting system. We still have black box voting machines that are easy to program to skew the election. So much for trust but verify, there will be no verifications here. We must be the most backwards state in the union.

I don’t trust my bank to issue or collect $20 without a receipt and a paper trail, how can our stupid state government assume I trust their system to collect my far-more-valuable vote without a paper trail?

Update: Mr. Webb has a personal scheduling conflict that I don’t want to talk about here. I am still very happily supporting him in his campaign, but we are not having the fundraiser on Sunday.

Please consider trying to meet him at another event on his schedule (posted on his campaign website (http://www.webbforsenate.com/). Contributions are still very much needed.

If Jim Webb wins the June 13th primary election, Erci and I will be hosting a fundraiser event at our house on June 18th from 2pm through 4pm. It is vital that we back the challenger in this November’s general election and we throw Senator George Allen out of office.

Please mark your calendar and consider coming out to our place to meet Mr. Webb and donate to his campaign. Your contribution of $100, $500, or $1000 will be very welcome, and you’ll get to help take back our goverment.

If Harris Miller wins the June 13th primary, Erci and I will be trying to get on his calendar to do the same thing later in the Summer.

Election 2006 details are online.

What an incredible feeling. I’ve been taking dance lessons for roughly 10 years and I have always had fun with it. Last night I entered the full silver/gold level all-arounds and lucked into Foxtrot, Viennese, Samba, and Bolero! They do not usually do Samba, but it is one of my favorite dances. I danced the best I have ever danced (thanks in no small part to the careful teaching of my teacher, MJ), and had the time of my life. I placed 2nd - so others felt I did ok too, but frankly it was all about the music, the dancing, and the wide open floor!

Kudos to the local police in Maryland for foiling this domestic terrorism attempt.

Wonder if George will elevate the threat condition to Orange or something to scare up some election support and/or distract us from Iraq, the budget, the environment, the fleecing of the taxpayers…

Erci and I finally got to hear Jim Webb speak in person at this morning’s Dulles Area Democrats breakfast session in Herndon at Amphora Diner. In person Webb is every bit as impressive as his many fans over at Raising Kaine have said. The great news is that both Harris Miller and Jim Webb will make fine senators, and I will be very happy to support the winner of the primary after next Tuesday (Reminder: get out and vote on 6/13). The tough news is that we have to decide which of these fine candidates to vote for in the primary.

A quick recap of Jim Webb’s breakfast talk at Amphora this morning:
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