Today Amber and I took the kids and headed down to the Randall’s grocery store near my office and voted on the way home after work. We knew we were in the right place because most grocery store parking lots aren’t littered with campaign signs. Texas has this early voting thing where they set up a limited number of polling stations for a couple of weeks and let you come in regardless of precinct and vote. It seems like a good idea, but really it is still only about half as convenient as mail in ballots. I haven’t gone to a polling place since 2000. In Washington it is easy to get an absentee ballot. In Texas you have to be disabled or out of the county during election day and you have to request a ballot every year.
The line was pretty long, but it moved quickly. They are using an all electronic ballot here. Which was pretty easy to use, though I think a touch screen might have been more intuitive. I’m sure they have the usability studies to prove me wrong on that. No paper trail. So unlike an ATM when you withdraw $5 and get a receipt, here I vote for the President of the United States of America and it just says “Your ballot has been cast”. Has it? What if the machine reboots or has other problems? A verifiable paper trail is not too much to ask.
The whole process worked like this: You stood in line and then presented your voter registration card. They then generated a little sticker which they placed on a sheet of paper. It had your name and address. You signed next to it, confirming the info was correct. Then the next person gave you a little receipt with a pin number on it. You have to enter the pin number to begin voting. The pin is linked to your precinct so the correct electronic ballot is presented. Of course it isn’t a hard stretch to do this math: voter registration = little pin code = ballot = your exact vote. They could all very easily be linked together in a one-to-one way. Didn’t feel very confidential to me, but I’m the paranoid type.
At least the thing wasn’t a Diebold. The product we used is called the eSlate and is made by Hart Intercivic. A company that happens to have offices right up the street. If you are curious they have a simulator you can try here. Hart does make an add-on for what they call the “Verifiable Ballot Option”, that Travis County apparently isn’t using. Which as they describe it: “the Verifiable Ballot Option (VBO), which allows voters to review a printed paper record before casting their ballots.” I certainly would have felt a lot more comfortable. In case you need one you can pick up the eSlate for $3000, add an extra $1200 for the VBO.
So rack up 2 votes for Obama, plus a couple of school bond initiatives. Unless of course the machine didn’t really count them. On the up side, if there is a big debacle surrounding this election I won’t have to go far to picket the voting machine folks.
Last weekend, after going to Annalise’s 1st birthday (which Amber wrote about in the last post) we headed over to Maker Faire. Now what Maker Faire is exactly is a little hard to explain. It is kind of like a mostly sober Burning Man with an emphasis on technology. Basically there is a magazine/website called Make, found at makezine.com. The site and magazine showcase do-it-yourself projects of almost every variety. From electronics to woodworking to customizations of all kinds. There motto is “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it”. A few years ago they decided to hold an expo of sorts. The first one was in California followed shortly by one last year in Austin.
The Faire showcases bike modifications, robots, electronics, invention and lots of crazy art involving welding, wiring, and wow! I was probably the most mainstream person there. I had neither a degree in computer science nor was I dressed up in steampunk costume. I have neither a ponytail nor was I wearing a shirt with a joke on it that requires advanced calculus to understand. It may be the perfect mix of hippy, hipster, artist and geek.
Luckily for us they were back in Austin this year. We saw lots of fun stuff. Maybe a quarter of what we could have seen, but still lots. The kids had a great time. Here are the highlights in mostly chronological order. Next year I plan to spend the whole weekend (please come back next year!).
When we first arrived eepybird, the guys that made the diet Coke and Mentos thing so popular, was getting ready for their show. We watched from about 500 feet away. The crowd was so large the view was better from the little hill we were on. And we, unlike a lot of the crowd, stayed dry. The diet Coke was shooting 30-40 feet in the air.
After that we watched the Life Size Mouse Trap (more on that later) and then went inside and watched fighting robots. Wesley loved them. He was so excited by the first match I took him down on the floor to get a better view. He got so pumped up he would bounce up and down on my shoulders and then pummel me in the head. I would say it was his first taste of testosterone. He wanted more and more and more. I do believe he could have watched them all day. His favorite was “The Judge”. A 300 pound class robot that had a pneumatic spike. It would hit the steel floor so hard it would sometime make holes and would always bounce off the ground. Tons of force. We saw one bot catch fire. Not a good smell.
Here is a YouTube video of the Judge to give you some idea.
After the robots we got some dinner and did a little hula-hooping.
Then we headed back into the arena to watch Arc Attack a local Austin art group mixes music and electricity. In this show they were using two Van De Graaff generators to shock an electric guitar suspended above the floor. The sparks were several feet long. It was surprisingly entertaining. They finished up by doing the theme song to Dr. Who, one of Amber’s favorite shows.
Inside they had some cool displays. Lots of no-touch instruments you play by breaking an infra-red beam, robots and such. Wesley got to interact with R2D2. After that we went back outside to explore more of the grounds. We saw some of what the Austin Bike Zoo had brought. Including this enormous six person bike snake.
We explored the barn. Lots of stuff we missed in here. Some good live music. A guy who covered his entire car in yarn (yarncar.com) and some blacksmithing just for a start. And of course these guys and their pirate ship that shoots flames from the cannons.
Unfortunately by this time the kids tent had closed for the day, as had the food tent. So we totally missed those (next year we’ll go earlier in the day). But we did get to see the Life Size Mouse Trap again. This time up close.
The event/art piece/sculpture/stage show is a replica of the game we played as kids. Only life size. It uses a real bowling ball and bathtub. It apparently took the guy 13 years to build and about 6 people to run it. The evening show got a little bit “blue” with a skit about naughty mice. Instead of catching the mice in a trap though, they use a 2-ton safe to crush things. We got to see them demolish a clothes dryer.
Last but not least we stopped by the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir. An art car that caught Wesley’s attention by the gate. The car is covered with 250 fish and lobster that dance and sing opera. It was hard to turn away from. The kids were a mix of fascination and fear. They didn’t want to leave it.
Wesley has asked me no fewer than a dozen times already to go back next weekend. I wish we could.
Link: All of our Maker Faire Austin 2008 Photos on Flickr
Tags: Austin, Maker Faire Austin 2008
Last Saturday we went to Annalise’s first birthday party. All of her family came down from Waco for the party. It was great to be around all of them. But it did make me miss our family…
Mom made us wear these matching outfits...cute but silly.
Saying hello to the birthday girl.
There were a lot of toys outside to play with and the always fun bouncy house!
Mary Ann and Nicholas
Keeping busy while the big kids bounced.
They were working together to stack the pumpkins.
Then we had cake and opened gifts. All of the kids were super cute and had a blast playing together.
They were a good team.
This is his first time with the party horn.
She thought it was so fun to use!
The birthday girl.
And then we needed a new outfit…
Thank you Grams for the shirt... and it does not!! :)
Playing with Annalise's gift from us. Jillian is playing with Lillian who is 1 month younger than her.
We all had a wonderful time. Annalise’s official 1st birthday is on the 29th…so Happy Early Birthday!!
I love this age. Jillian is probably at my favorite age (so far). So much new is going on. They start communicating in about a thousand ways. And their personalities really start to blossom.
The fact that Jillian is passing gas is nothing new. I even wrote about it here. What is new is that she now notices. She stops what she is doing and giggles (or laughs or smiles or sort of snickers) She almost always looks to Amber or I and we all laugh. Usually she has a little laugh that is sort of a “ssss” sound. I think she gets that from me (the laugh and the gas). Maybe that’s why I find it so darn cute.