Still Life

Yesterday I missed a different yet similar opportunity to touch some younger people about my campaign. There were four of them, all staring at their phones. A couple of them interacted with me when I called them on it. They were waiting for their friend to come out of the restroom. I should have told them I was running for president and I am not sure why I didn’t. Everyone who hears is one more person who has heard. And you never know which seed will land on fertile ground – though most don’t obviously.

After I posted last night, we had our dinner. I now know why the older lasagna recipes call for cooking the noodles a bit first – these were a tad cardboard like. Or maybe it was just the bit I got. I think when I make my buffalo chicken lasagna after I get home, I will at least steam the lasagna noodles or something – parboil them. Just something to soften them a little so that they will get much softer when cooked.

We then headed to the theatre. I encountered a weird one there. She was a volunteer and when ES told her that I was running for president she reacted fairly strongly – why can’t people wait for one election to be over before starting on the next. When I pointed out that I had started in the summer of 2025, that elicited no positive response either. People are weird.

The production of All My Sons by Arthur Miller that we saw was well written, well acted, directed and designed. Very good show. We sat in the front row and I did not feel tired once. I don’t know if the director cut anything, but it was well paced and well done. Made me cry even.

After the show, we went back to the house and chatted a little before heading to sleepy land. Really late for me on this trip. Almost midnight. Speaking of which, the clocks might change tonight – I’m in Texas, so I think they will. And it is the 31st so it is November tomorrow. And it is halloween tonight. I think I will throw on a campaign shirt – my purple one – and then head to a local bar that sounds interesting.

This is the first level of helping out the campaign. This grows our presence and gives a way to contact people who might be interested in what we have to say.

This is the second level of helping out the campaign. We will need a lot of volunteers to do a lot of different things. Volunteers are part of what makes a grassroots, people fed campaign work and overcome the mega bucks spent by the other candidates.

This is the top tier of helping out the campaign. Sadly in this day and age, money is one of the key factors for a successful campaign. We have staff who need to be paid for their services. We need goods to be purchased. We need advertisements that need to be paid for. Any amount helps. Donate early, donate often to paraphrase Tammany hall.

First, though, a bit of duolingo and my left over reuben from yesterday. Honestly, the reuben was ok. It wasn’t grilled, didn’t have enough cheese, but the dressing came through and the corned beef was tender. So a mixed bag. ES also gifted me her leftover half sandwich – turkey with hummus. A little weird, but I ate it.

As for today. I got out around 8 am and stopped a bunch of times to charge and stretch. At the first stop, I spoke with no one. At the second stop, I gave a couple a coaster. And then had a long chat with a guy about veterans and our place in the world and the country’s divide etc. We seemed to vibe, but you never know.

At the next stop, I spoke with two people who were part of a start up building something that will help people build online magazine’s easily. I saw them again at the next stop, but they barely ackowledged my existence. Sigh.

At the Airbnb, I got in and got into my room, only to find that the WiFi was not happy. The hosts took care of it. But it went out again. Let’s hope that their hard reboot of everything has fixed the problem at least for tonight.

I had a thought and acted on it. My little stickers aren’t great – because the campaign site name is long and only typable. I decided to get stickers, put QR codes on them and put them on the back of the little stickers. Office Max had 1 inch stickers which did the trick. As usual – to get the file to line up right took a bit of work. But I think I have it now. I have done many of the small stickers and will do the rest in the not too distant future.

Right now it is duolingo time!

Today my friends took us on one of their favorite local sightseeing adventures – driving up to the top of Mount Lemon. This time we had a series of lecture-lets that took us from where we were to the top of the mountain, talking about life zones and fire and water and rocks etc. The upper parts of the trip were a little on the wet side, but it was still a beautiful trip. Near the top of the mountain we stopped for lunch in a chain-let called Beyond Bread. A good experience all around.

This morning, I had gotten up around my usual time and done my usual things – Linked in games and some Duolingo. One of the quest tasks was to finish a unit – but all of the language units were just starting out – that would have been ten or fifteen lessons, at least! So I opted to do a set of music lessons – six pretty quick ones and unit done. Woo hoo!

Another task I did was to set up the printer and begin printing out the book. It is coming in at a little over 300 pages! Much longer than I had thought it would be. I ran out of paper at the very end. I didn’t want to disturb anyone or go through their office to find paper, so I took a little trip to a nearby target to get a ream of paper. It was nice to be out and about. And to finally get the whole book printed out. It is beginning to feel real.

After finishing printing, I started to edit. I am doing my best to keep the editing to a minimum at this point. I don’t want to introduce more mistakes – but I also want the book to be good. I have already found two completely redundant paragraphs that needed excising! And I am making notes to share with the publishing company as I go along. I’ve only done 14 pages and I am burnt out. Ok, not really. I am just taking a break and writing this blog.

This is the first level of helping out the campaign. This grows our presence and gives a way to contact people who might be interested in what we have to say.

This is the second level of helping out the campaign. We will need a lot of volunteers to do a lot of different things. Volunteers are part of what makes a grassroots, people fed campaign work and overcome the mega bucks spent by the other candidates.

This is the top tier of helping out the campaign. Sadly in this day and age, money is one of the key factors for a successful campaign. We have staff who need to be paid for their services. We need goods to be purchased. We need advertisements that need to be paid for. Any amount helps. Donate early, donate often to paraphrase Tammany hall.

I have done another load of laundry. It is folded and put back in the suitcase. The printer is de-corded and the cables and paper and paper tray, plus the extra toner cartridge – that still hasn’t been needed – are in their bag and ready for moving to the car.

Tonight we are dining in. They have made a full dinner of lasagna, garlic toast and a caesar salad. A great sounding meal. I just hope I don’t go into a food coma. We are supposed to be going to a play tonight. I had basically arranged my schedule for this portion of the trip to be here so that they could take me to the play. It is All My Sons by Arthur Miller. Lots of talk and not a lot of action if I remember it correctly. And depressing to boot. Yay. I hope I will survive it.

I have edited a few more pages. I guess I won’t be heading out into the wilds of Tucson to campaign tonight. I am sure it will be a latish return after the play. Maybe I will have a beer here and then go to sleep so I can get up earlyish and head off to El Paso. It is a relatively short drive tomorrow. And then another really short drive the next day. But it will be a Sunday so there might not be an open library in Fort Stockton. Maybe I will find a cafe in which to work until I can get into the Airbnb. Time change tonight! And then I lose an hour on my long drive from Fort Stockton to Houston I think. Sigh.

Ok, off to the theatre after dinner. I hope I can stay awake. Maybe it will be riveting!

After signing off last night, I headed out to find sustenance and possible pool. I got a list of three potential pool places and chose one sort of at random. The Charleston Tavern. On Charleston Ave. I drove over and parked in their lot. The bartender was forthright and said their food was not what I was looking for. She said that a good place to get a salad was Best Burger down the street a bit. I walked there and ordered the salad. It was pretty darn good! I would definitely try a burger from there one day if the opportunity arose.

Back at the Tavern, I put $5 into one of the two pool tables – that gave me three games. I played most of two by myself and then a guy came up and asked if I wanted to play. He was a bit better than I am. We played four games and I think I might have one two, but I don’t recall. I know I won one at least. While there I also shared my political hopes with the bartender, my partner in pool and two others. Go me!

This is the first level of helping out the campaign. This grows our presence and gives a way to contact people who might be interested in what we have to say.

This is the second level of helping out the campaign. We will need a lot of volunteers to do a lot of different things. Volunteers are part of what makes a grassroots, people fed campaign work and overcome the mega bucks spent by the other candidates.

This is the top tier of helping out the campaign. Sadly in this day and age, money is one of the key factors for a successful campaign. We have staff who need to be paid for their services. We need goods to be purchased. We need advertisements that need to be paid for. Any amount helps. Donate early, donate often to paraphrase Tammany hall.

Back at the Airbnb, I watched the last two episodes of The Burroughs. It was decent and I am not terribly upset that I watched it.

I woke up and got out of the house around 7:30 am. It was a long drive to Tucson. Tux-on. That’s how I remember how to spell Tucson. Works for me. I stopped a few more times that the car wanted me to, making each leg about an hour and a half. I just looked at future travel and I have a really long drive from Fort Stockton to Houston in a few days. Which isn’t a bad thing since I can’t get into the airbnb there until 6 pm for some reason. Still, I was hoping I was done with long drives. Sigh.

The first bit of travel this morning was busier than I had thought it would be so early in the morning. And then coming out of Phoenix heading for Tucson, the traffic was dense for a solid half hour due to construction. A lot of the scenery in this part of the country is spectacular. I was especially awed by the mountains just past the Hoover Dam and into Arizona!

When I programmed the car initially, I used AB’s work address instead of their home address. But I figured it out when I pulled into the parking lot of his work place. Luckily their home is not very far from there.

Well, that was close. It was a tough Duolingo friends quest this time. It felt like the period was short for us getting 80 lessons accomplished. But we pulled it off! I did a bit at every stop – music lessons because they are quick and easy. Phew even!

We had dinner at a place called Taco Tote. 23 locations across Mexico and the US. It was fast food tacos and was really good. I would definitely recommend it if you like tacos. Although they have french fries, they don’t offer anything else fried. Except for refried beans…

Tomorrow is a day of rest here in Tucson. Looking forward to it for sure.

I asked Siri to remind me to fill my water glass…

On the trip today, long drive, my gps sent me over a few back roads for no apparent reason. That’s always fun. Overall, though, it was an easy trip. I got out very early – the sun was rising as I headed East. There was a lot more traffic than I had thought there would be heading out of Reno.

I had a bunch of stops. And at a few of them, I actually spoke to people. Even about the campaign! Go me! Ten people I think. Ten if I include BJ who I somehow managed to forget to include during the first trip. I think it wasn’t until after Carson City that I started trying to fill in the database of people I chatted with about my candidacy. So in the meeting people respect, it was a great trip. Sadly, no new superchargers. Oh well. I opted to stop one extra time in Las Vegas, so maybe that one hasn’t registered yet. I will check again tomorrow to see if I have a new one.

My airbnb is the same one I stayed in when last I was in Las Vegas. I met another of the hosts at this Airbnb. As I was driving in to Las Vegas, I drove past where I stayed another time I was in the area. When that was is anyone’s guess. Speaking of which, both SM and I couldn’t remember when we had seen each other last. Turns out is was in 2018. No idea why I was out that way, but I was! Yes, I love to travel.

This is the first level of helping out the campaign. This grows our presence and gives a way to contact people who might be interested in what we have to say.

This is the second level of helping out the campaign. We will need a lot of volunteers to do a lot of different things. Volunteers are part of what makes a grassroots, people fed campaign work and overcome the mega bucks spent by the other candidates.

This is the top tier of helping out the campaign. Sadly in this day and age, money is one of the key factors for a successful campaign. We have staff who need to be paid for their services. We need goods to be purchased. We need advertisements that need to be paid for. Any amount helps. Donate early, donate often to paraphrase Tammany hall.

I got a service charge on my main bank account and I have no idea why. I plan on calling them tomorrow to see what that was about. Very strange if you ask me. I might just have to chuck a lot more money into my main account. I know I have mentioned this before – and if not, here it is for the first time – it is incredible to me that electronic fund transfers between institutions takes more than 24 hours. And that they sometimes don’t happen on the weekends. That is plain craziness imho. Maybe it is some form of arbitrage?

I learned something new today, which was great to learn in fact. I had seen one of my followees talk about five books that they recommended and I didn’t write them down at the time. And then I wasn’t sure of their name – I do follow almost a thousand people (I need to whittle that down at some point too – especially the deadwood and thirst traps) so I wasn’t finding their name while looking through my list of people I follow. Turns out that there is a history function on Instagram on one’s phone. Woo hoo! First step, see if the books are on Audible. Probably not – they are pretty hardcore economic and political books. Then check the library when I get back to Geneva – though I haven’t been doing a lot of actual reading lately. And if worse comes to worst, buy copies. Speaking of which, I am leaning towards getting the multicast version of the Spanish/Castillian version of Dungeon Crawler Carl. I think it would be difficult enough to try and figure out what is going on if there was just one narrator who isn’t Jeff Hays.

I’ve booked Houston (requested) and NOLA (accepted) through Airbnb. Capital Card Savings extension offered me stays in a 10 bed room in a hostel in NOLA. Not my thing, thanks. The ones I booked both look like nice places. Houston had a lot of airbnbs, so if that one doesn’t work out, I will be able to find another one easily.

Oh, the darn Puppet Theatre in Phoenix only has a 10 am performance on Thursdays. So I guess I will not get there to see a show again. Maybe one day. That means I am driving straight to Tucson. Drat! I just looked and it is a much longer drive than I thought it was. I guess it will be another early morning hit the road type situation. Good thing I am not stopping Phoenix afterall!

Time to do some duolingo and figure out what I am doing tonight.

After signing off last night, I went out to find a place with pool tables and food. I found one but when I went to drive there, there was a street festival happening and the road was blocked off. I did eventually find a place to park and walked to the bar/grill. Two very nice pool tables resided there. It was fairly busy. I wanted to sit at the bar, but there was no room. I picked a table and got a menu. They had a few high end options and then some mexican fare and then bar food. I chose a bacon avocado burger with fries. And two IPAs. Another person was ordering his drink and food at the same time as I was and I offered to share my table with him. He had a lot of food – but he said he only ate one meal a day. Interesting fellow. We talked about all sorts of things. He likes to learn. And he was really trying to be health conscious which is a good thing.

After I stopped eating, I abandoned him to go play pool. I hope he wasn’t too upset. I played two games and managed to lose them both, which sucks. But I still had fun. The cues were in pretty good shape – except the tips hadn’t been shaped for a long time. I didn’t have my tools with me, but a key managed to rough up the cue tip a bit to hold some chalk. The guy I was playing with appreciated the tip. (Hahaha)

I headed back to the Airbnb and chatted with my host again. She had done some research of me and had found my presidential website. Will it turn into a vote? Anything is possible. Off to watch an episode of The Burroughs and then off to sleep.

At 3:30 am, I woke up to do the linked in games and went back to sleep until around 6 am. Did my Duolingo, packed up, loaded the car and was on the road close to 7 am. I programmed in a few supercharger stops so that I was driving for about an hour and a half for each trip-let. Sadly, I didn’t really talk to anyone about the campaign, though I spoke with several people along the way. At the end, I opted for one extra stop in Livermore, CA before getting to the Airbnb. Which wasn’t ready at 2:00 pm. Which actually worked out great. I drove to where I used to live in Oakland and parked my car.

This is the first level of helping out the campaign. This grows our presence and gives a way to contact people who might be interested in what we have to say.

This is the second level of helping out the campaign. We will need a lot of volunteers to do a lot of different things. Volunteers are part of what makes a grassroots, people fed campaign work and overcome the mega bucks spent by the other candidates.

This is the top tier of helping out the campaign. Sadly in this day and age, money is one of the key factors for a successful campaign. We have staff who need to be paid for their services. We need goods to be purchased. We need advertisements that need to be paid for. Any amount helps. Donate early, donate often to paraphrase Tammany hall.

I had a hard time finding the place where I lived for four years. But I eventually found it. Right next to where I had parked!

I also walked down College avenue to see if anything looked familiar. Nothing really did. I stopped in at a bar that I am pretty sure was there back in the day. They had a bumper pool table. Not my game of choice. There I spoke with two people about the campaign. They told me that Barclay’s was long closed. Poo.

They also said that George and Walt’s (!) was still going strong. I had forgotten the name of the bar. It wasn’t far down the street. The place was packed watching football. And the two pool tables were covered over. My plan is to head there tomorrow at some point and play at least one game of pool. For old time’s sake.

As I was getting into my car, the airbnb host messaged that my room was ready. Great old house! The host is an AOC fan. I don’t think she is going to run – but I could be wrong. He thinks she will and that she will avoid the problems that Bernie had with the DNC. I don’t think she will do either. If Newsom runs, I am sure he will be the person the DNC will chose to run. Time will tell.

I have taken a shower and am going to do some work. Then head out for some food and maybe a beer. I like plans.

Have I mentioned lately that I feel like a walking billboard for my campaign. And the car too. And I have started to design an actual bill board – they seem like a cost effective way to get a message out. At least to part of the population.

I haven’t met any angels that I know of today. I have met some nice people. Like the family from London, England. And the staff at the California Science Museum. And the two policemen who told me that they wouldn’t arrest me for jaywalking. Phew! It has, though, been a long, and fun, day.

It started early in the morning, as is often the case lately. My body hasn’t totally adjusted to West Coast time. Which is ok since I will be heading East in a few days time anyway. So I started doing things around 5:30 am local time. I did my linked in games. And then some Duolingo. I think I am doing German just now. I didn’t plan to get out of the house until around 9 am to avoid some of the heaviest LA traffic.

Between 6 and nine, I worked. I took care of a lot of the reminders that I hadn’t done last night, having gone to sleep relatively early. I set up the printer first as a couple of my reminders relied on the printer being set up. The scanner worked fine. And I also printed one thing. Later tonight I will print some more stuff – pages of the book so I can start editing it. Hopefully for the final edit. As final as it is going to get for the time being. In light of that, I went to the link that Cambridge gave me only to find that they hadn’t given me editing capabilities. Sigh. And since it is Saturday, I doubt I will hear from them until Monday. Though JW has surprised me in the past by communicating on the weekends.

This is the first level of helping out the campaign. This grows our presence and gives a way to contact people who might be interested in what we have to say.

This is the second level of helping out the campaign. We will need a lot of volunteers to do a lot of different things. Volunteers are part of what makes a grassroots, people fed campaign work and overcome the mega bucks spent by the other candidates.

This is the top tier of helping out the campaign. Sadly in this day and age, money is one of the key factors for a successful campaign. We have staff who need to be paid for their services. We need goods to be purchased. We need advertisements that need to be paid for. Any amount helps. Donate early, donate often to paraphrase Tammany hall.

I also put a lot of thoughts into my presidential thoughts database. We are well past 1000 records in there so far. Yippee?

Then around 9am I headed into LA. The traffic wasn’t too bad. A couple of small slow downs until we got into LA proper. The highway I was on took us straight through the center of LA so there was a bit of stop and go there for a little. All in all, though, it wasn’t too terrible a drive. Not something I would like to do every day, but not abysmal.

First stop, the Tesla diner. I got there, parked and plugged in and wandered over to the diner. Cool place! No Optimus serving popcorn, though. Poo. I spoke with one young man who had transferred from the design studio to work security at the diner! Weird, but ok. As long as he is happy. Inside I spoke with three other workers who all seemed personable and happy. And were happy to hear I was running for president. I didn’t stay at the diner that long, but the car got all charged up!

Off to our next stop – a metro parking garage. It was a surprisingly long distance away. I guess there were other stops closer to the diner – LA is very confusing to me, not having really spent much time here in the past – but I wanted one with a parking structure attached. I parked and jumped on a train. It was only a few stops before the museum stop.

Fun place! And it was free for all the exhibits. The only thing that costs money is the iMax movie theatre and movies. And I didn’t want to watch one of those anyway. I wandered through what was open. Talked with lots of staff members. Touched some sea creatures – the anemones felt a little weird. Nothing else really felt like I expected them to. And I realized that my personal phone was about to run out of juice.

My original plan was to go to another museum after finishing at the Science Museum. The one I had picked was called The Jurassic Technology museum. I noted that it was just past where the car was parked, so I decided to stop at the car, eat a snack and charge my phone! Yay! While I was in my car a man came up and handed me a note he had written, saying it was for a class. I later asked him what it was about and he didn’t say, telling me that he was in fact the teacher – in psychology and something else. Very odd.

Back on the train, I decided to go to Santa Monica first, before the museum. The Metro went all the way there. On the train I spoke with two people originally from Italy. I tried to say something in Italian, but I don’t know that what I said was anywhere near correct. They were very kind though. I gave them a coaster, just because. Only to find out that they had become citizens in 2023! Joy and rapture. Maybe they will think of voting for me in 2028. I came up with a joke – I know my chances are better than 1 in 366 million! Ok, not so funny maybe…

The Santa Monica pier walkway is under construction. The temporary walkway is not a fun path to the pier. The pier itself was pleasant. I was wearing my hat so the sun didn’t bother me too much. I saw a lot of people performing and such along the pier. Many religious sorts. Two of whom I spoke with. I told them I was running for the Presidency and asked if they wanted stickers and they said no. Weird. I should have asked why not. Before that I had asked them what their favorite book of the bible in the Old Testament was. One of them was surprised I asked about the Old Testament. She said Daniel – which is a relatively fun and short book. The other said Exodus. Later, I asked another person on the pier how much it was to be allowed to be there. I think he said $37 for an annual permit. We were speaking Chinese so he could have actually been talking about something else entirely.

After the pier, I went for a quick wade in the ocean before heading back to the Metro. By that point, I had decided that I was going to get in my car and drive back to the Airbnb. Which I did. The scenic route. The highway route was going to take an hour with lots of slow and possibly stopped traffic. No fun. I took surface roads and had a lovely time. I don’t find stoplights as irksome as traffic slow downs on major highways!

I am back at the Airbnb. I plan to do this blog, do a little Duolingo and then go find a bar and grill with a pool table for dinner and a beer. And pool.

When I got in the car and went to program the destination in, I couldn’t find the trip in Airbnb. I looked and looked and it was completely gone! Vanished! So I contacted tech support. They couldn’t help. It had vanished from their system as completely as it had from mine. I finally found a remnant of it in my calendar. And that’s when I saw that it wasn’t an Airbnb reservation. It had been done through booking.com. Sigh. All better. I was a bit freaked out until I figured out the issue.

This is the first level of helping out the campaign. This grows our presence and gives a way to contact people who might be interested in what we have to say.

This is the second level of helping out the campaign. We will need a lot of volunteers to do a lot of different things. Volunteers are part of what makes a grassroots, people fed campaign work and overcome the mega bucks spent by the other candidates.

This is the top tier of helping out the campaign. Sadly in this day and age, money is one of the key factors for a successful campaign. We have staff who need to be paid for their services. We need goods to be purchased. We need advertisements that need to be paid for. Any amount helps. Donate early, donate often to paraphrase Tammany hall.

The drive to California and my booking.com space was fun. I stopped a lot. I kept reprogramming the trip so that I could stop at cities that are named in the Route 66 song. They turned out to each be about an hour apart.

On the drive, one place that looked interesting to visit one day was Primm Nevada on the border of California. It looked like there was an amusement park there. And a couple of casinos. Maybe one day I will stop in Primm to check it out.

I spoke with five people about the campaign at three of the stops along today’s route. One person asked me what I thought about taxing churches. I thought it was a good idea – at least taxing the property that they are on. If we include a bit saying that we can’t raise taxes to such a point that they can’t pay them, that might get around the current case law. Churches need to contribute to the government somehow imho.

I am still irked by a person at the hostel who seemed to imply that me driving around the country wasn’t a good way to meet people and talk to them about my campaign. I didn’t follow up with them to figure out what they meant, unfortunately. I did say that I stopped and didn’t just drive everywhere. A better retort would have been that it was better than flying over them!

Two people I spoke to were 19 years old which led directly to me telling them about my two years of mandatory service. They seemed to think it was a good idea.

While in Baker, California, I saw gas at $6.79 for regular and over $8.59 for diesel!

Learning continues. It is a process. One I luckily enjoy!

Some comedian I saw a bit from on Instagram had a good point – we shouldn’t call them rapists. It sounds too professional. Raper would be better!

The other day I saw a couple of businesses that were emulating Wall Drug. I didn’t stop at either of them.

My hosts are very nice. They were having some construction done – adding in flooring. They let me in early and I have been working since about 3. It is getting close to Duolingo time. Then I plan to head out to pizza for dinner. Since I am here for two nights, I can have leftover pizza tomorrow night. If they don’t have slices that is. The room has a refrigerator.

I brought my printer in so I can start printing out pages of the book and doing one last edit. I also have to check out the manuscript on Google Docs. I am reluctant to do it for fear I will mess something up. But I have to bite the bullet.

After finishing my blog and duolingo last night, I headed out in search of my evening’s activities. I had chosen a place called Southside Tavern. When I got there and looked inside, I didn’t like the vibe, so I went back to my car to see if there was a beer place near to where I was. There was a place called the Historic Barrel – which I thought was a beer place with food. It turned out to be a Thai restaurant. Fine with me. I wasn’t feeling too adventurous. And I didn’t have to move my car. While there I chatted with two servers and a dishwasher/prep cook. And I had a yummy curry dish. Lots of left overs.

After dinner, I drove to the Lowell Observatory. It looked really cool. But…it had a $35 entry fee. I didn’t see if there was a discounted senior fee. Too rich for my blood just now. So I got in my car and headed back to the Airbnb.

At the Airbnb I got through one episode of The Burroughs before calling it a night.

I woke up insanely early. Like 3:30 am. Sigh. I decided to stay up, eventually doing my linked in games and some duolingo. It turns out that my Japanese Score and Russian score are not on LinkIn. Which is kinda sad. I might start both of those again. One of the things that I wish would happen is that Duolingo would offer a way to have larger fonts. I think that they don’t is lame, personally.

It got to be around 6:50 am and I was worried that I would run into school bus time. Since there were so many school aged kids in the house, I didn’t want to get stuck waiting for the bathroom. Or being pressured to hurry my bathroom use up. So I did my business, packed up and headed out.

The first stop was about 40 minutes down the road. I charged and moved on. A few more charging stops later, I stopped at a new location East of Kingman. While there, I was looking to see if I had some more sunflower seeds and discovered that I had been carting around some stuff from the house without touching it. In the trash it all went. Sad, but life is that way sometimes. Since I was sunflower seedless, I decided to go buy some at Walmart (ick). While there, I also bought a box of laundry sheets – from Arm and Hammer! Half the price of the eco friendly ones. Probably not as eco friendly. Sigh.

Back on the road, I forced the car to stop at an additional charging station – I mean, why not. And then drove on to Las Vegas.

I must say that I have faced much worse driving weather on this trip so far than I did on my whole 50+1 Capitals Tour trip. I had big rain and lightning for the first 45 minutes or so of this drive for instance.

Whenever I drive the road from Kingman to Las Vegas, I recall the trip back in 2002 when the traffic across the Hoover Dam was backed up for at least a few miles and an hour or more. That wasn’t pleasant. The new road bypasses the dam entirely and usually flows pretty smoothly – like today.

I got to town very early – around 11:30 am I think. The check in time wasn’t till three. But I had crap to do. Like laundry. I found a laundromat and did a load of clothes – and washed my jacket. I think I will try to wash it weekly. While there, I chatted with three people – one about Tesla primarily, and two about politics. One was worried about kids having messed up senses of sexuality. And the other was more interested in immigration and in housing affordability. He reminded me of a program the government had of 100% financing that went away during the crash of 2008. I like my idea better, but still, it is good to hear other opinions.

It was free drying day at the laundromat which was great! Clothes all clean, it was still too early to go to the Airbnb. So I found a library not too far away. It was big and cool. I chatted with the information desk person who asked me a good question – why was I running? I wish I had recorded it. She said it was a good answer!

I spent the next hour or so working. I got caught up on reminders. Since it was noisy, I pulled out my headphones and the noise cancelling did wonders! The host sent me a message saying that she would let me know when she was back at the house so that I could get in. Around three she pinged me, so I went and checked in. Nice little house – one bathroom for all of us – husband, wife and three girls. I just got out of the shower – the host and one of the kids went out leaving me all alone her – perfect!

This is the first level of helping out the campaign. This grows our presence and gives a way to contact people who might be interested in what we have to say.

This is the second level of helping out the campaign. We will need a lot of volunteers to do a lot of different things. Volunteers are part of what makes a grassroots, people fed campaign work and overcome the mega bucks spent by the other candidates.

This is the top tier of helping out the campaign. Sadly in this day and age, money is one of the key factors for a successful campaign. We have staff who need to be paid for their services. We need goods to be purchased. We need advertisements that need to be paid for. Any amount helps. Donate early, donate often to paraphrase Tammany hall.

My plan is to continue working, do my Duolingo quickly and then head to a massage appointment – I was looking for someplace close, but they all looked a little sketchy. The place I picked is down past the strip, I think. And there is a place nearby that has pool tables. Again, I think. I might just get the massage and head back to the airbnb. Tomorrow it is off to Los Angeles!

A few quick bible thoughts – It seems that Leviticus is the medical chapter of the bible. I am having a hard time figuring out when Ezekiel was prophesying. And more measurements in that chapter. And so much whining from God. And death dealing. Not my favorite deity by any stretch of the imagination. And I find it odd that in really olden times, people routinely lived to be hundreds or years old. Now we are lucky to reach 70!