17 Days to Baby Day! (37 Weeks and 4 Days Pregnant)
It is election day morning. I didn’t even remember until I was on the train and noticed all of the newspapers that people were reading mentioning nothing but the election (and sports – never have I see a place that is so addicted to legacy paper-based entertainment and sports as New York City.)
Today is also Dominica’s last day going into the office in New Jersey.
Dominica and I had to get up at five thirty this morning. Luckily we managed to get to bed very early last night and it wasn’t all that bad getting up so early. There are no clocks around the house which makes keeping track of the time in the morning particularly difficult. I ended up making us late and I missed my 6:42 train out of Peekskill. We arrived at the station just as it was pulling up which means that there was no way for me to make it on to the train.
I waited and took the 7:08 train instead. At least it was a really nice morning for standing outside and waiting. Nice weather and a cool fog on the middle of the river so the other shore was almost invisible.
The train wasn’t so packed today and I had a seat without anyone sitting next to me. It was a nice ride in. The Lex Express was packed like a Moroccon sardine can without the natural fish oil (thankfully) but I still had to hold on carefully and lean over someone to have any space. Good thing that that doesn’t last for very long.
The early morning voters on Wall Street were lined up all the way down the block. You couldn’t even tell what the line might be for it was so long. I learned today that folks down here have New York voter cards that allow you to vote anywhere. I’ve never heard of these. Being from Upstate NY (not downstate that people call Upstate) we just go to our local voting location and sign in. No cards. I had no idea that part of the state had cards. I wonder if we can get them for anyone or just in certain regions. There isn’t enough information about the complexities of voting apparently. As a pretty well read citizen I didn’t even know to look for such a thing and I have been voting actively (except for this year) for fouteen years now and was active in the young Republican in Wyoming County as far back as 1989.
Here is a thought, if the price of gas had not plummeted just before the elections (ignoring all of the other political implications of having energy be a top priority for the economy instead of being almost a non-issue,) I wonder how much the cost of traveling to vote would have impacted voter turnout. As it is we are expecting record voter turnout this year (the voters always get riled up the most when the vote matters so little) but fuel prices are also very, very low. The lowest in a very long time. I wonder if we would have seen a voter decline if the prices were over four dollars per gallon like they might have been. This election year sees a higher number of uninformed and casual voters coming out rather than passionate and educated voters (I assume that passionate voters are generally uninformed and vice versa 😉 )
As always, SGL strives to remain educational such as with yesterday’s lesson on the locust of North America, today we will dive into the etymology of the Old (Olde) English phrase “arsy-versy”. This phrase, found in use in print in England at least as far back as the 1530s means, quite literally, “arse turned around” and is the modern phrase “ass backwards.” It is a blend of the Olde English “arse” with a rhymed version of the Latin versa. Who says that etymology isn’t fun?
“Ye set the cart before the horse – cleane contrarily and arsy versy as they say.” – Prouerbes or adagies with newe addicions, gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus, 1539
Work was actually pretty busy this morning. I was hopping all morning. Daniel and I headed out to the gym for a swim at one in the afternoon. It was great. We swam for at least an hour and a half. What a great workout. I feel really good today.
A new report links Autism in the US Pacific Northwest with rainy climates. Areas with greater annual rainfall have higher percentages of children with autism and autism spectrum disorders. They have a lot of speculation about how rain causes autism including direct environmental impact or lifestyle changes (staying indoors) because of excess rain. This, of course, makes little sense as the northwest has become a center for autism but the rainfall there is actually lower than on the east coast. That, of course, is also beside the point. I can hypothesis as to why there is such a high incidence of autism in rainy areas – and I know that some of my readers will guess my reason as well just from having read SGL so much.
In my own personal experience, with what we believe to be a form as Asperger’s Syndrome (an autism spectrum disorder – not diagnosed but I am very much a textbook example of the syndrome,) I have found that I just prefer living around rain. I like the way that it sounds, the way that it feels, the change in the light temperature, the way that it muffles sounds and creates calming white noise (a major factor most likely for those with autism spectrum.) I bet that a simple study would find that people with autism and Asperger’s often enjoy rain and migrate to or refrain from migrating from areas with heavy and/or regular rainfall. This is purely anecdotal from my own experience but due to tactile and sensory commonalities within the autism spectrum I believe that this is an obvious answer. A study of this would be very interesting along with a study as to inclinations for Asperger’s Syndrome children and adults about their proclivity to spend or enjoy time around fountains, streams, rivers, the ocean, in the shower, etc.
My afternoon really slowed down and I was able to head out of the office at a quarter after six. Not too shabby. Too bad my entire evening has to be spent writing a paper.
I just missed the 6:43 train and had to take the 7:18 out of Grand Central getting me home a bit after eight. Dominica and Oreo picked me up (she is all done going to the office now) and we ran to Burger King for a quick dinner. It was a quater after nine when we got back home and I headed down to the basement to get to work on my paper and Dominica went to bed. Even though she does not have to go to work tomorrow she does have to get up and take me to the train station early in the morning.
I “watched” the election results via Yahoo! Elections. Boy am I glad that this election is over. It has been going on for so long. I am just sick of hearing about it. Obama is now the first not totally white President to ever be elected in America which is pretty groundbreaking as we are the bastion of white, male leaders. Now we will see how it goes.
At this time, Obama has a landslide of the electoral college but only a sliver of a lead in the popular vote. Hopefully those two will align a bit more closely by the time that the votes are all tallied. We don’t want a president-elect without a clear mandate from the people to govern. That’s just not healthy for a nation needing to make military and economic changes rapidly. It will just lead to division.
I spent the evening attempting to work on my paper for RIT. I am so worn out by the end of the day that it is really hard to get into it. This is really tough as there are just a few days to work on it yet.