Electoral College Rant Spectacular Extravaganza

I've just been enjoying NBC's SNL Presidential Bash 2008, a collection of presidential skits as well as some new messages from the "candidates". I'm so tired of hearing about this stuff, but the lighter side is enjoyable.

I have been pondering our election system a lot lately. Once again, I'm flabbergasted that what remains the most powerful nation in the world still chooses it's leader with an anachronistic system like the electoral college. This was a weak compromise that barely managed to hold together a loose collection of former British colonies over 200 years ago. In the meantime, the central government has grown immensely in power and citizens essentially have real-time access to information. So why do we continue voting by a system that counts people differently based on where they live?

It seems that lots of people don't really know how the Electoral College works. Everybody is aware of the state map on election night that turns red or blue depending on the winner of that state, and the electoral college vote tally reaching for the 270 that means your candidate won. Most people are aware that there is some mysterious way that more people can vote for you, but you still might not get to be president. Al Gore, especially, is painfully aware of this. (It's happened before too, but not since 1888.) The trouble is that, contrary to popular belief, we are not voting in a national election at all. We are voting in 51 separate elections, the winner-take-all results of which are added together disproportionately to determine who gets to be president.

Your state's number of electoral votes is determined, according to the constitution, by the total of the number of senators and representatives it has. For instance, the most populous state, California, has 55 electoral votes, and the least populous, Wyoming, has 3. So California has approximately 18 times as many electoral votes as Wyoming. Fine, you say, California is much bigger, so it has more votes. However, California has almost 70 times as many people as Wyoming. What this means is that an individual voter in Wyoming has almost 4 times as much say in who get to be president as one in California. Oregon is quite a bit smaller than California, so we only get screwed by about 3 to 1. Yay.

The other problem is that the entirety of a states electoral votes are typically given to the overall winner in that state. That means that maybe more than 50% of a states voters--everyone who didn't vote for the winner--do not count at all in the national picture. Over 50% is correct. Thanks to third parties, the winners in many states have less than half the votes, but they still have more than anyone else.

Consider for a moment, California again. Say the winner got 51% of the vote and the loser got 49%. The winner gets all 55 electoral votes, and the loser gets squat. Consider the nearly 18 million people that 49% represents who are essentially not counted in the national totals. Now consider that that number equals more people than the 15 smallest states plus the District of Columbia combined. Fair?

This everything for the winner approach also gives rise to the idea of the swing state. Oregon is going to vote for Obama. Nobody really doubts this, which is the reason neither presidential candidate is bothering to visit us or promise us anything. Likewise, Obama doesn't stand a chance in Oklahoma, which means nobody cares about them either. But if you live in Missouri or Pennsylvania or North Carolina right now, demographic oddities mean you get visits every day or two. Not because you really matter more than I do, but just because the campaigns are playing the electoral math game. A change of 10000 votes in Pennsylvania might mean 21 electoral votes, while 10000 votes in Oregon is a footnote. Rather than trying to appeal to the entire country that they are trying to lead, the candidates spend their time pandering the the special interests of specific regions.

But you know what? There's no way this is ever going away. This system is enshrined in the Constitution, and that means it would take a Constitutional Amendment to change it. To pass an amendment, you need 2/3 of the House and the Senate. States representing about 10% of the population (the ones one the better end of the electoral stick), could stop this from happening. On the off chance this happened, you still need 3/4 of the state legislatures to ratify it. This means that states representing only about 5% of the population could stop it. So..., it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

I have many more problems with politics and politicians, but this is what's mainly on my mind right now. I'm sick of voters in Wyoming and D.C. and the Dakotas mattering more than I do. I'm sick of hearing about swing states or red vs. blue. I'm sick of being treated as if I'm irrelevant because my state leans strongly in one direction. I'm sick of voting based on a system designed by people who thought that a black person should only count as 3/5 of a white person. And I'm sick of news media and political junkies getting all hot and heavy about the electoral game without once questioning whether or not it's a good way to do things.

That said, flawed as I obviously think our system is, I'm incredibly happy that I get to vote, and that for the most part, elections are taken as valid and power is transfered peacefully, regardless of the election mess. I'm also happy that I live in Oregon, and thanks to our 100% vote-by-mail system, I've already voted. This means I don't have to worry about it tomorrow. It also means that, since current outstanding voter lists are available to pollsters and campaign staff, I haven't received a political phone call in days. For the rest of you who have to wait, make sure to get out there tomorrow and vote, especially if you want the right to grumble about it later.

(Sorry to geek out on the numbers, but I got on a roll.  In case you're interested, my numbers are rough calculations based on the numbers I found on Wikipedia.)

Yet another whirlwind week

I've been a tad busy this week. It started with a quick overnight trip to Bend to clean up some work left from a couple months ago. And I do mean quick. Not even time to say hi to my aunt. (Hi, Becky.) January isn't really the best time to go to Bend. It's fine to BE in Bend, what with the skiing just outside of town, but GOING to Bend, at least from Portland, can be interesting. All directions go over mountains, which get snow every time it rains in Portland. That's a lot. Getting to Bend wasn't actually too bad, but coming home over the Santiam Pass could have been better. At least the sun was out. I can only imagine the icy mess that was there a couple hours after I passed through.

If anyone catches the timestamp on this post, I'm up way too late again. I tend to get too wired to sleep before I have to leave on a work trip, which of course makes getting up early to get on the road that much worse, so I worry about that, and can't sleep, and the cycle of wired continues.

Anyway, I leave tomorrow for a trip to Hawaii. I know. Nobody has much sympathy for me, but as much as I'd rather be working in Hawaii for an extended trip than in Idaho (sorry Idaho), I'd still rather be with my family than in Hawaii. It's going to be busy, but if you have to travel, you could do worse.

The biggest drawback for the next few days is that we'll be staying in the last two hotels in the country that don't have internet access. I don't know what that's about. I'll have to poke my head back into the internet next weekend to clear out the e-mountain of e-mail that will certainly be waiting for me. Most of it will be useless, but maybe you'll send me something. I imagine it will be something like, "Oh, poor Dave. Stuck in paradise with no connection to the outside world. Shut up. Nobody wants to hear you whine between Mai Tais." Yeah, probably something along those lines.

I did it again

There I go again, wandering off and forgetting the blog. For three days I was travelling without the internet, but no excuse otherwise. Lazy? Probably.

The internetless travelling was a whirlwind work trip to Bend, Oregon. Lotsa work, long days, whine, whine, whine. Actually, it wasn't horrible. The guy I was working with has a timeshare membership that scored us what amounted to a two bedroom condo for $30 a night (total). No internet, but that per diem is going to feel great for this one. The real problem was coming home. We had to get home Wednesday evening, but Bend is on the other side of the Cascade mountain range from Portland, and as luck would have it, there had been a boatload of snow on the Cascades the night before, with more on the way. Both of the reasonable passes through the mountains had lots of snow and chain requirements. Although we had chains and some snow driving skill between us, we decided to be prudent and go straight north to The Dalles on the road that only had a weather warning rather than the severe weather alert on the passes. This might have added and hour and a half to our trip on a normal day, but due to the snow that happened during the trip, it added more like three. So a trip that's normally about three hours ended up taking us six, although we found that my van, loaded down as it was, actually held the road rather well and we never even had to put on the chains. But still, nine o'clock at night is no time to roll in if you haven't been out doing something fun.

Non sequiter FYI: my capitalization of The Dalles is correct. "The Dalles" is the actual name of the city. Why the mix of the French "Dalles" with the English "The" I have no idea. I was thinking you might see this type of thing in Canada, but then I figured that there, it would probably say "The Falls/Les Dalles" with some kind of legal fight as to which part should be listed first. This is the main reason this country should never officially declare an "official" language, god forbid two of them. We are still free to call things whatever we please, as long as we can convince other people to call them the same thing. Freedom fries, anyone?

Now we're travelling again, this time back east to see family. I wouldn't say the Mizz was a complete joy to travel with, but he could have been so much worse. He got to ride in a taxicab, two airplanes, a bus, a black car, and some escalators, all equally fun to him. He took a good bit of entertaining on the planes, but for the most part, we were able to keep his feet off the chair in front of us and he only cried one in the Chicago airport, mainly from being way overtired and cooped up. Due to a kindly jet stream, we actually got to Chicago about an hour early. However, due to an unkindly winter storm through the Midwest, there were delays all over the place and our next plane took off an hour and a half late. O'Hare is not cool enough to justify four of my hours. The flight from Chicago to DC was pretty bumpy -- not so bumpy as to frighten you, but bumpy enough that the captain kept the seatbelt sign on for the whole flight and wouldn't let the flight attendants up either. Not scary, but miserable for lots of people, especially the Mizz, who kept wanting to "come see Daddy" or "come lay on Daddy". We talked a lot about the signs with the arrows (seatbelt signs) and the fact that Mommy and Daddy both have to wear their seatbelts too. He wasn't buying any of it, but we all survived. The plane was late enough getting in that they were in a rush to get the next set of passengers boarded as quickly as possible so they could get off the ground before 10 pm, as there is a hard and fast curfew at Reagan National. We finally rolled in about midnight, much later than planned, but luckily we have nice relatives, and they were up waiting for us. Thanks guys, you're awesome.

The funnest part of the trip so far has been the car Franny scored for us. She had a couple free upgrades from Enterprise, so she tried to get us a Dodge Charger. They were out of them, but we're running around suburban Maryland in a Chrysler 300. It feels a little wrong. This is quite a bit more car than we're used to driving, but it's kind of fun. It's not the top of the line version, but then, I don't think I've ever driven a top of the line anything, so I don't really know what I'm missing anyway. This one has 250 hp and handles wonderfully, so we can certainly have a little fun. Franny's main gripe is that, since it's not the really nice version, there aren't nearly enough gadgets and buttons for the passenger to play with. The Mizz is fine with it though, as the dash is full of blue lights at night. We could drive him around on a tractor if there were enough lights on it.

Under a log?

I must have been under a log; I haven't posted in two weeks. I have been busy though. I'll try to be brief. We all know how that'll work out, I'm sure.

I had started a work trip almost two weeks ago. I went out to Bend for a few days of work before continuing on to Southern Oregon. However, a day into it, I had to run back to Portland to spend the night in the hospital with the Mizz. When Franny called me from the doctor's office, it was very clear to me that I had to get back there. I missed the worst of it, as the Mizz was finally asleep by the time I got there. That was the longest three hour drive I've ever taken. I have a very good imagination.

The problem was that the Mizz had a bad reaction to a shot he had received the day before for the croup. It was a normal enough prescription for his issue, but he experienced a rare side effect. Rare enough that it is not a warning you normally get with it, but common enough that the folks at the childrens' hospital understood what was happening. Luckily it seems to have caused him no lasting issues and he seems to be back to his normal toddler antics now.

When we felt that he was going in the right direction, I had to return to my previously scheduled job responsibilities. Friday night, it was down to Roseburg to be ready to work first thing Saturday morning. Worked on and on and on through today. Tomorrow is almost a day off, just a couple of hours of driving to be further down the road for Monday morning.

I spent several days on the Southern Oregon coast, even stretching down into California. I thought I was going to get rainy weather all week, but it was beautiful on Sunday when I went out to the coast. Then Monday is was raining with gale force winds. Then it was beautiful, then drizzly, then sunny, and then rainy again, with rain heavy enough to make even Oregonians complain. Most of the time, our rain is just a drizzle. I have a raincoat, but I almost never put it on. With this stuff, however, you could actually get wet.

Lots of places (including Portland) like to make the claim that, "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes." This is intended to help you understand just how unpredictable the weather is in the speaker's particular part of the world. Most people act like they invented the phrase, and hey, aren't they witty. However, although it may actually apply to other places too, the Oregon coast in the Fall is the place I've been that most deserves to say it.

Thursday evening, I made my way down to Eureka, California. It's not super far, maybe 100 miles south of the border, but it was a pretty long trip down US-101. It was slow and twisty, drizzly, foggy, and since that section of road is called the Redwood Highway and goes through Redwood National Park, there were giant freakin' trees right up to the edge of the road. "Elk Crossing" signs too. Somewhat stressful. It was much better on the trip back north the next day. Beautiful, with either huge trees in the mist or ocean vistas. I found the elk. They were lounging on a lawn in front of some cabins by the side of the road. These ones seemed to know about the lack of hunting on national parks. I also passed the "life-size" statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox at Trees of Mystery. It's a side-of-the-road attraction in the middle of the park that has a tour through the redwoods to show you just how interesting 1000 year old trees can be. I remembered the statues like it was yesterday, even though I was only 9 or 10 the last time I saw them.

Eureka is in the middle of Humbolt county. It's reputation preceded it. On my way through the redwoods, the only radio station I could get for a while was playing 2 straight hours of the Grateful Dead. It was interrupted only by commercials for greenhouse and hydroponic equipment dealers. However, despite being in town for almost 14 hours, not one person offered to sell me pot. Luckily, I live in Portland, so if it's ever an issue, I'll just roll down Belmont or something.

I spent today with one of the crassest individuals I've had the privilege of meeting. They customer is always right though, I hear. He has several small locations, so I got to follow him around the mountains all day. I'm done with him though, so tomorrow it's a little further south, and then home by Tuesday. I've put on something like 1,400 miles so far this trip, and I have another 500 or so left. I'm sick of the road.

So much for brief, but you didn't really expect that, did you?

Long time, no blog

I'm not sure where I've been lately. Just not in a blogging mood I guess. Things have been happening though.

In case there's anyone reading this who doesn't also read Franny's blog, she's pregnant again. Yes, it was intentional. Thanks for asking. Not super far along yet, but she did decide to dig out the prego clothes this evening. Due next May, so there's still a bit of time to purchase naming rights. We certainly reserve editorial control over the final name, but there's probably a right price for just about anything.

Franny's folks were here last week, and we had a nice visit with them. The Mizz had a great time seeing Gran and Grandpapa. And I didn't have to cook for days. Mothers-in-law aren't that bad after all. Who knew?

The only down moment of their visit was our trip to the pumpkin patch. Actually the trip to it was fine. And the patch was fine too, as far as pumpkin patches go. The Mizz had a fun time trying to pick up pumpkins that weighed more than he did and finally settled on drumming on them. There were also tractors and a barn full of aneeemals, most of which he could name. He failed on the llama, but we'll check again next year.

JUST KIDDING!!!! There's no way in the world we'll be going back there again! At least not at pumpkin time anyway. Every person in Northwestern Oregon was apparently there. For those who don't know, Sauvie Island, as nice as it may be, has only a two lane bridge connecting it to the real world. At the end of that bridge is a light that lets maybe 10 cars out at a time before letting the main road pass you by for several minutes. Do a little math on the huge number of cars on the island for the pumpkins, and you get Dave and Franny and Gran and Grandpapa and the Mizz stuck in a car moving at just over 1 mile per hour for TWO STINKING HOURS! Then for kicks, add another half hour to get back home after the bridge, which would be expected. This apparently happens every year. You think they'd put a cop at the end of the bridge or retime the light or something.

To top it all off, why were we stuck in one car together when we had driven out in two? Because we found that our car was low on gas. This did not seem like a problem on the way in, as we were maybe 5 miles from a gas station. However, we did not count on idling for two hours and decided not to risk it. Franny and I ended up taking a couple gallons of gas back later and found that if we had just waited three more hours, the full round trip took just over an hour.

The only bonus was that we had taken two cars out there in the first place. We hadn't intended to do that, but there was a problem with our car. When we bought it a couple months ago, one of the rear seat belts was damaged and we had it replaced. However, Gran was the first person to try using it and found that the wrong latch had been installed. We now have a useless left rear seat belt until we can get it replaced again. Oh, joy.

Other than that little episode, the in-law visit was fine. They even agreed to keep an ear out for the sleeping Mizz one evening so Franny and I could have a little time out. We were tired and I still had to work in the morning, but we don't get time out together much, so we weren't about to say, "No." We spent a couple hours eating cake, drinking coffee and playing Scrabble at Palio's. We always enjoy their deserts. Plus I won the Scrabble game (but not by much). Don't tell Gran though, 'cuz she'll want to challenge me, and she will most assuredly kick my sorry butt. She's absolutely insane about that game. I don't know is she's the craziest Scrabble person in the world, but she's the craziest one I know.

It never really affected me, but Portland played host last week to a pretend real terrorist attack, which was then interrupted by a real false bomb scare.

We were one of the cities in the Topoff exercise this year. Supposedly, some terrorists blew up a dirty radiological bomb on a light rain train on the Steel Bridge, and the local, state, and federal authorities got to practice what they would do in that case. This ranged from first responders having to check out the scene and deal with "casualties" while wearing protective suits to a local animal shelter trotting out it's new emergency animal shelter trailer. Apparently they learned from Katrina and put together a way to deal with "evacuees" with "pets." In this case, some of the "pets" were "teddy bears," but they wanted to practice, so they logged them in and caged them just like the real animals that came in. Like all of these exercises so far, the responders tried out things learned from previous ones and exposed some gaping holes nobody had thought of. All in all, interesting goings on for a few days.

However, on the "wrap up" day of the exercise, there was a bomb scare when dogs checking out the hotel that Michael Chertoff was going to visit later indicated that they found something bad. Nothing was ever found, but it did close of several blocks for a few hours. In the end, the assumption was that there was some residue on one of the military or other government vehicles already at the hotel. Seems important to make sure, I would think.

In personal news, I was a little ill last Thursday and again yesterday. I don't know what that was about. Most likely, the Mizz had begun the season of bringing microbes home to me from daycare.

This weekend, we finally got up to see my folk's new place. Unfortunately, due to job stuff, we had to go up Saturday and come right back Sunday, but that's all we could do for now, and we had to see it. It's awesome. The house itself is fine I suppose, for a house that was last renovated in the 70's. Importantly though, someone had the foresight to put it on the western slope of Whidby Island, Washington overlooking the Olympic Mountains, Port Angeles, the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Victoria, BC, and the San Juan Islands. It could be a teepee, for all it matters. I'm glad to report that Dad is getting excellent use out of the telescope we got him for retirement. We thought he might have a good time watching the ships going by into Seattle. We didn't know that both he and Mom would have a hard time doing anything else. From what I hear, they are forever running because one of them sees a cool ship or a whale or something. The scope even has a prominent place in their living room and appears to be permanently located for easy, and constant, use. I want to retire.

We also met up with my younger sister in Seattle on the way home. Younger, but she just turned 30 on Friday, so I don't know if that counts as young. I was definitely told that I was old at 30. Anyway, she's doing well. Plus she's pregnant too. We got an "official" announcement, so I suppose it's okay to share. Plus plus, she's due the same day as Franny. What're the chances?

To bring things completely up to date, I got to visit the dentist this afternoon. I think I mentioned a while back that I would need some crowns. Dental work from years ago finally giving up the ghost, or the teeth anyway. Well, now I have two temporary ones in place. I'm going to be eating like an invalid for a couple weeks until I can get the real ones. They don't look horrible, but they apparently can't handle things like biting. Joy. The experience was as good as it could have been, I suppose, but I can't say I enjoy being pumped on adrenaline for an hour and half while having to sit still. It's not like it hurt, what with the gallon of Novocaine, but I kept imagining it was about to start any minute. When a guy is drilling in your teeth, it's hard to think of much else.

This would have been easier in a few smaller posts.

Another Reason to Love Portland

How many places can you pull off skiing, boating, and surfing in one day with a pit stop in a major city? Go Portland!

Insomniac

I'm not sure why I'm awake in the middle of the night, but I'll take the opportunity to write, I suppose.

It's been another busy week, but not super interesting until Friday. Franny's folks came to town, partly to see the Mizz and partly to celebrate birthdays for Franny and her dad, one day apart. What her dad didn't know is that her brother Sam also came out for the festivities. Excellent surprise.

Friday, we went out to eat at Mother's Bistro. They claim to love kids -- how could they not with that name? That said, the Mizz seemed to be really testing that theory. We were wondering if he would be the first kids blacklisted from Mother's. I ended up taking him outside for a walk where we found a bench he could climb in and out of. He wouldn't stop until a couple of girls, maybe three or four years old with face paint from the Rose Festival, saw him through the window and were enthralled by him. He, in turn, did not want to stop watching them. He's got a great story for daycare about the older twin chicks that were checking him out.

Speaking of Rose Festival, I managed to forget about the Starlight Run that I was going to do until it was much too late. I got all sick and travelling and forgot all about it and now it happened Friday evening and I didn't even notice. That's motivation for you. Maybe next year.

This weekend we stayed at a great house at Bella Beach with the inlaws for a couple days. Bella Beach is a neighborhood a little south of Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast. True to Oregon, the weather sucked until we left this morning. Just lots of rain, but we still had fun. The front coming through made for some awesome wave to watch, something Oregon usually only sees much in the winter. The house we rented was fairly baby-proof, so chasing Mizz was still a necessity, but not as difficult as some of the knick-knack laden places we've stayed before.

Franny and I managed to escape for a little while for a pseudo birthday dinner Sunday night while the inlaws watched the baby monitor. From what I heard, it didn't require much, but we were grateful for the time out with just the two of us, something that doesn't happen near enough these days. We ate at Kyllo's in Lincoln City. A decent spot with an excellent view. It's built up on stilts right at the beach and we arrived about an hour before high tide, so the water was about as close as it got. It was situated right at the mouth of the "D" River, which is about 100 yards from the beginning of the "D" River, which, according to the sign, makes it the world's shortest river. We debated what constituted a river versus a creek or stream or whatever, but we just have to assume there's an international governing body that regulates these things.

This evening we had an early birthday dinner for Franny and Phil, since Sam has to leave early on Tuesday. We ate at Higgin's in downtown Portland. The Mizz was not invited on this trip. Most of us had the steak special, which was excellent. Very tender with a wonderful sauce. Highly recommended. One of the fun things about Franny's parents visiting is that we get to eat well. They like to eat at new nice restaurants, so we get to eat at new nice restaurants. Franny and I have actually been to Higgin's before, but not often. Last time, we had the duck. ("Say we grant you a reservation. What would you order?" "Oh, I don't know. How about the duck?" "He cannot have zee duck." "You can't have zee duck." "He can have zee chicken." "You can have zee chicken." "Well, what about my date? I can't tell her what to order." "You can strongly suggest zee chicken." [Probably misquoted, but still one of my favorite movie scenes.])

I really need to get back to sleep. I don't know what my problem is, but I'm wide awake. Maybe some chamomile tea or something...

Bend, Oregon

I was in Bend, Oregon last week working. Usually, a couple of us go over for a quick 2-3 day trip, but I did it myself this time, which took a whole week. The bonus was that I had time to visit my aunt Becky and her family. I've been over there a few times working, but I've always been sharing a vehicle and didn't have much free time anyway. But finally I got to see her and get a tour around Bend.

Bend is growing at a ridiculous pace. When Becky moved there 18 years ago, Bend had a population of about 10,000 people. Today the sign on the way into town says 75,000. You can't swing a cat without hitting a new development (but it's fun to try). And according to Becky, the median house price right now is in the neighborhood of $800,000. All these numbers are according to my cousin, and like me, he remembers obscure figures pretty well, so even if they are not exact, they are well in the ball park. Nobody knows quite what all these new residents do for a living. There must be a lot of retirees, since there hasn't been a corresponding increase in industry, at least not the type of jobs that by $800,000 houses.

Also, for some reason, Bend has fallen in love with traffic circles. I hate traffic circles. I think they made a lot more sense in horse and buggy times. Right now they just make it impossible to move if you are to the right of the busy road entering the circle.

Like an idiot, I took a camera, but I never had it with me with my relatives or wandering around Bend. I especially would have like to get some pictures from the top of Pilot Butte. It is either a tall hill or a small mountain right in the center of Bend and has an excellent view all the way around, including something like 8 or 10 snow-capped peaks in the Cascade Range.

I did however get some pictures on the way home.

This picture show Broken Top mountain on the left and the Three Sisters in the center and the right.



This is Mount Washington. It is about the pointiest mountain I've ever seen, other than the Matterhorn. I will admit that I didn't so much see the Matterhorn. More like the replica of the Matterhorn at Disneyland, which had a very fun roller coaster in it. Great fun for a ten year old anyway.



This is Detroit Dam, a hydroelectric project on the Santiam River. I don't know how big it is exactly, but it seems REALLY tall when you are standing on it. There was a small visitor center in that tower, but it has been "closed for security reasons". I guess the fact that fishermen can carry anything they want out onto the dam is not a security risk, but looking at maps and dioramas is.



This is Detroit Lake, enclosed by the dam. It is a popular recreation area with lots of boating and fishing. The rest of the trip back was pretty much Salem and I-5, neither of which are very photogenic.

Where's Dave?

Since Sunday, Dave has visited Baker City (by accident) and Durkee in Oregon, and Caldwell, Nampa, Twin Falls, Rupert (seriously), and Pocatello in Idaho. I've worked at a cement plant, a paper chemical manufacturer, a state wildlife forensics lab, a seed distributer, a potato processing plant, a hospital, 3 wastewater treatment plants, and a cheese plant. It's been busy. For the next few days, I'll be in Pocatello, Blackfoot, Idaho Falls, Rexburg, and Dubois, Idaho doing all sorts of stuff, and then some more places on the way home. I'm at about 800 miles so far and it's only been 4 days. Today at least, I did have a little bit of time to stop by Shoshone Falls in the Snake River Canyon. I sort of thought it would have more water going over it in the spring than when I saw it last fall, but it wasn't too impressive. It's still pretty cool, but not as wet as I was hoping. I have some pictures and you would be looking at them right now if I had remembered the cord for the camera. Maybe later.

Plus I ran over a groundhog that jumped out in front of my van. Stupid rodent.

It's a great trip so far.

300 miles from home, 100 miles from where I was trying to be

So I spent the night in Baker City, Oregon. I wasn't trying to spend the night in Baker City, Oregon, but my transmission disagreed. I spent the evening and this morning wondering if I was going to get out of that town today or not, since there was one transmission shop and zero rental cars. Turns out it was just a couple of sensors, but it put me a day behind and stuck in Baker City, Oregon (population 10,035). It was every bit as good as it sounds.