The internet sucks.

Half an hour searching the internet looking for the results for the Granite School Board elections. Nothing. Channel 2 and 13 didn't think the information was important enough to even put it on the little ticker-tape blurb on the bottom of the screen. My blood pressure was so high I heard someone yell "SELL". Thank God for the Salt Lake Tribune. Trekking out in the snow in nothing but shoes, my sleepin' shorts and a coat was worth it, it had ALL the info. So, if you haven't heard, here's the results that interest me:

• Barack Obama - 52% of the popular vote (McCain 47%) and 349 electoral votes (McCain 163). This is the first time in years that I have felt proud to be an American, and Obama's speech last night actually brought a tear to my eye. He was eloquent, intelligent, passionate and didn't blow hot air up our skirts. I voted for him as a vote against McCain (Bush Light), but I have to admit I was truly impressed and inspired by his speech.
• Connie Anderson - beat Granite School Board incumbent Patty Sandstrom 55% to 45%. Way to go Connie!
• Dan Lofgren - The other Granite School Board candidate I wanted to see win. And he did, just barely with 52% of the vote. Connie & Dan are going to be the Dynamic Duo of the Granite School Board. I suspect the Superintendent is sweating a bit this morning, despite the snow.
• Chris Buttars - Um, UnbeFreakinleavable! 49% to 45% the boneheads in West Jordan sent this bigotted homophobe back to office. I think it's because Gayle Ruzicka threatened to move there if they didn't.
• Dell Schanze - 3% of the vote. I laughed histerically. Until I realized that there were 21 THOUSAND people who voted for him. I was amazed to realize that there were that manyu people on the 5 West wing of the University Hospital.

Phew!

I just watched Senator McCain's concession speech, sitting here ready to hear Obama's acceptance speech. I am elated. That's about the best way for me to describe it. It's going to make the last 76 days of GW's term a lot easier to endure, knowing that there really will be a change in January. Enough gloating, well at least as far as the presidential election goes.

Del Schantze pulled in a full 2% of the vote. That makes me laugh. Not because he did so bad, but because he did so well, compared to what I would have expected. With 17% of the vote in, over 7,500 people voted for him. I wasn't aware Utah had such a large psychotic population.

This is it folks.

Election day 2008. An unprecedented number of people are expected to vote today, at 30% of the registered voters taking advantage of early voting, we've already beat the average off-year voter turnout. Good for us.
I want to wish the best to all the election volunteers that are going to have a long day today - thank you for your help and time.
I also want to wish the best of luck to the following candidates;

• Barack Obama
• Connie Anderson (Granite School Board)
• Dan Lofgren (Granite School Board)
• Janet Cannon (State School Board)
• John Rendall (running against Chris Buttars)
• The guy I voted for that is running against Randy Horiuchi.
• and good luck to everybody else.
  

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Some pictures from my annual visit to Emo's Tomb every Halloween season. The actual Emo's Tomb. Why it's called Emo's Tomb is beyond me, that's not the name on it. But that's what I've known it as ever since I first heard of it in the 70's.

13th East due for a facelift.

13th East used to be a state highway, owned and operated by the Utah Department of Transportation. For some reason, unbeknown to me, about a year ago ownership transferred over to the City of Salt Lake. Since they've been getting calls about complaints on safety on this road for the past 20+ years, they decided to have a safety audit done on the road, now that they can do something about it. From their audit, I found out that over 22,000 cars go past my house on the average day. What does that many cars look like? See that car over there? Just picture it 22,000 times. Or just sit on my front porch for a 24 hour period. Any of you who have driven up and/or down 13th East from the freeway exit up to the University of Utah, know that is is a myriad of different configurations. From the freeway to just past 21st south, it's 3 lanes either way, with a median. 21st South to 17th South (about a half mile) it's only 1 lane each way, no parking, with a middle turn lane. The next half mile has one lane each way, no middle lane, but parking on both sides of the street (except for during rush hours). After that it goes to 2 lanes each way with no parking, then 2 lanes each way with parking, then 3 lanes each way no parking and ends up 2 lanes each way with parking. I didn't write all that because you need the specifics, just to emphasize the inconsistency in the road. The city's plan is to make it consistent from 5th South to 21st south, at least as far as motor vehicles are concerned. Without changing the width of the street at all, (widening the street has been a fear of us residents for a while), the idea is to make it 1 lane of traffic either way with a middle turn lane the entire way. The extra width will be taken up with a bike path from 5th south to 17th south and parking on one or both sides depending on road width. Eventually the bike path will go all the way down to 21st South, but that will require actual construction, since the deep gutters and driveways along that stretch are not conducive to a bike path. (17th So. to 21st So. will actually stay the same for now).