Its been forever.. here, lets watch some ice melt.

One of my gifts to our life was a GE Opal Nugget Ice Maker.

I was curious how stale the Ice could get. So I timelapsed it. Here it is, from about 6am to about 11pm:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G6I-FdJVZI]

My guess is that its loosing maybe 1/3 volume in about 12 hours. So maybe 36 hours for a full refresh of ice?

In other news:

I finished up a session with Code Louisville .. several unlisted videos from that. May make them public in the future.
I’ve transitioned over to covering maintenance tasks at work – and figuring out my tooling for capturing that flow:

I’m also trying out using a google group in “shared inbox” mode to capture requirements naturally from emails
I’ve got a zapier zap for converting emails into cards on the above board.
I ran more than 2 miles for the first time in 2 years or so!
We as a family tried to go without an internet connection at home, and we only lasted about 2 weeks.

I’m hoping that my schedule has cleared up a bit..

At first, I barely had time to take care of just the emergencies, I had left myself no time to breathe with all my projects / commitments
Now, the last 3 nights, I’ve had options of what to do with my time.. and I’ve mostly been catching up, decompressing, regaining my humanity
I’m promising NOTHING (that’s how I get into trouble), but just writing this blog post .. feels like I’m coming back to an equilibrium of some sort.

Inventory of Projects

I’ve been meaning, for a while, to put together a spreadsheet of the (software) projects I’ve worked on in my life so far. The sheer number of them is staggering.

The thought was I could put in enough columns so that .. an interesting taxonomy could emerge.

Its also one of those things where, I never thought the list would get so large that I couldn’t remember them, but.. here I am. I guess 26 years of paid experience will do that to a person.

I Started It

I tried to do that for a bit – here’s what I got:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19ivowzqQJiPrMVk8rAfHbZ-cf_G6tqmQAzqYIW1sc00/edit#gid=0

The columns I have so far are:

Name
Year(s) – turns out some of them extended over multiple years.
Employed by + Project For – working at igNew, my project was for a client other than my employer. But before that, these were the same.
Implementation Details – this was pretty hard, to figure out what columns to use:

Language – Its mostly C#, but if I go back far enough there’s some Java, Perl, Clipper, etc as well.
UI – technologies related to UI stuff
DB Backend – technologies related to database stuff
Host Platforms – I was trying to figure out how to say Asp.Net MVC vs a Windows Service.
Additional Technologies – I think maybe EF + Dapper need to move to DB column

Management Details

SCM used.. this feels like an unnecessary column, who would ever want this info?
Unit Testing / Mock framework – if sorted by start year, can see how this becomes important
Integration Testing – as I think this is super important, putting it out in its own column.
CI/Build strategy – or lack of it – how we went about running the project

Project Management Details

Roles

Engineer = “thought about how to do it” + “did it”
Lead Engineer = “mostly all me”
Project Manger = “updating the Burndown” + “Communicating estimates + schedule”
Ops Support = “things broke in Prod. Figure it out.”

Slices – If I worked with a team of people, then these are the bits that I worked on.
Proud Of – this is probably the best part of looking back.
Coworkers + Contacts – I’m going to have to go look up many names for Contacts.

What Now?

There are so many projects! I put down 11 tonight, I think the list of paid things is.. probably in the 40’s? 1-3 per year, depending on role, and then add in another 30-40 of fun things?

I guess I could make a list of all the projects I could think of first .. vertically .. going through each Job.

I could (and will!) also add in all the for-fun projects that I’ve done.

But Why?

Simply put, this is to battle Imposter syndrome. Also, in my job, I’m undergoing a role shift – where I’m taking on more Ops and Maintenance type work – it feels like a good time to look back at my career as a software developer and take some stock of what I’ve accomplished so far.

The other part of it is, … my resume. I don’t need one at the moment, but every time people talk about keeping a resume updated … the level of detail involved … gives me anxiety. So the thought is, if I have this spreadsheet out there – my resume can become more of “who I am” and “what I care about” and shove all the detail crap to this spreadsheet.

Time Inventory: 1 week in February

After listening to https://www.relay.fm/cortex/44, I decided to do another round of time-tracking. I had done this twice before —

https://geekygulati.com/2012/06/28/where-did-my-time-go/

https://geekygulati.com/2014/06/04/time-use-may-2014/

This time, I used a new tool, https://www.toggl.com/app/timer. More on that below.

Results

My time is evenly spent working, and sleeping, and “everything else”.
Everything else – “entertainment” (youtube, twitter) took the most time.

This is a direct reaction to the political climate right now – this was me staying glued to my versions of news sources, to get a feel for “what’s going on out there”. Not necessarily healthy.

Then Family, and being around other people
Then Admin, which is chores and self-care thing.

Not too bad. The “Entertainment” is too large, but otherwise, this feels solid.

The way that I tracked it this time, if I was driving to work, that was “work” time, but tagged with driving. So, I could narrow down to just the “driving” tag and see where all I was driving on the behalf of:

As expected, most of the driving was to work. My 30 minute commute is represented accurately.
Lots of driving for “social” reasons – to have breakfast or lunch with friends.
Recovery and Teaching are next – also good.
Nevertheless, 9.5 hours in a car during the week. Of those 9.5 hours, 3 hours were logged as “listening to a podcast”.

I don’t always want to listen to a podcast when I’m driving. Sometimes, I prefer silence.

I also spent 11 hours and 13 minutes engaged in “eating”:

Thanks to notes, I can see what I was eating, and who I was eating with.
I spent around 2 hours eating by myself (at my desk, or drive through).
The rest of the time was split between friends, coworker-friends, and my family.

Toggl

I did NOT like it. For the purposes of doing 24 hour coverage, it was NOT easier to use than Eternity (an iPhone App). However, it was definitely better at reporting.

Specific reasons of dislike:

Starting a timer on the phone, then stopping it on a computer – timer kept going on the phone, throwing things off.
Very hard to adjust things AFTER the fact. In Eternity, it has “locked” times so adjusting end of one thing adjusts the start of the other, etc. With a calendar display where i could just slide times around, rather than having to enter every digit. twice.
Gap detection only possible using the website client. And then, when I detect a 6 hour gap from 4 days ago… it took way too many clicks to try to get time entered.

I would say Toggl is more directed at business-type things – not personal enthusiast things. And that’s fine.

Changes to consider for the Future

I need to get my Youtube / Twitter / News intake, more under control.

We might be doing another experiment – getting rid of internet at our house – and I might be downloading “what do I want to watch” to my iPad while at work, and further delaying what I watch.
I think I overkilled with watching Colbert + Noah + the other guy. I think I’ll rank Trevor Noah at the top for me, I don’t need to see all 3 folks’ interpretations of what happened that day.

I have to get exercise back in there somehow. I don’t yet know how. Probably less being social? Combine it with family? Here kid, let me strap you in to my chest and run on a treadmill.
I didn’t do much (any) cooking this week. Previous weeks, I had 6 hours of cooking in there – at least. However, that’s also quality family time for me.
I also need more personal, not-scheduled, do-whatever type time. Places where my creative side can come out. Like writing this blog post.

Good news – I have a week of vacation next week. Help me juggle and resize things and try to come up with a plan.

Levels of Being Freaked Out

The events playing out at the airports freaked me out over the last few days.

I realized that my security instinct was kicking in – I’m not directly threatened – but my instinct is still kicking in. Okay, acknowledged.

I started thinking about all the “threats” that my system was reacting to, and .. after sharing them with my sponsor, realized, I could zoom out and get a perspective.

Here is my perspective (click to zoom in):

Specifically, there are two sub-sections which I need to zoom in on:

This is the “well, either things will go to shire or they won’t, and as much as I can figure, I should take actions to affect the outcome, and me harm none.” branch.

Secondly:

This is the “catastrophic failure of society” branch.

I had to think pretty hard about the green arrow – this is related to me choosing to arm myself or not (in a way). There’s a subset of “short term society crash” vs “long term society crash” where my answers are different – I think I would arm myself to “keep my peace and order” until society order is restored. I don’t know about long term crash.

Okay, good. I have a framework in which to rest my fear.

Now What?

Society hasn’t folded, so I guess I’m at “Discern Actions” stage. There’s actually more to it than that:

Awareness

This is the tumultuous part. This is when the inputs that are coming in the eyeballs cause discord in the brain. Best thing I can do at this point:

Don’t shut down, let it in. Need information for the next stage, knowledge of what is going on.
(at least not me) don’t react in indignation. Indignation may be short term good for my emotions, but its not a long term strategy. Good news: plenty of other people to carry the indignation immediate action torch for me.

Acceptance

This is the point where one has a decent enough perspective of what’s going on, that one understands the system that is in play. Now the better vs worse actions are visible.

Action

Act without expecting outcomes.

Thats all I have for now.

Blue Apron: roasted cauliflower pitas

Made my 3rd of 6 Blue apron meals (last shipment arrives Tuesday). It went rough, but I figured out some things:

Definitely check out the recipe online: https://www.blueapron.com/recipes/roasted-cauliflower-pitas-with-purple-potatoes-spiced-yogurt

They have little videos showing easier ways to do things – like – peeling carrots. Helps with the overwhelm as well.

Print out the recipe from online. I did a photocopy of the recipe in black and white and crossed things out as I went, if I had printed it out, it would have been easier to read.
Get appropriately sized bowls for everything ahead of time.
I probably need more salt and pepper. I swear .. put in the taters. salt and pepper. add oil. salt and pepper. remove and put in bowl add lemon. salt and pepper.
Lock the camera down with magnets (or use a better camera). However, dropcam is so convenenient .. just do stuff and create the timelapse later. No editing. But yeah, it would be nice to have a really high res timelapse. Could do it with my phone, I guess.. (video nerd came out, sorry)

Once again, the recipe took 2 hours from “decision” to “prep” to “cook” to “plate” to “eat” to “clean”. So about the same as driving half an hour to a restaurant. I did not have my wife’s company this time. Would have been cost: $20.

The food was delicious! I think they’re growing on me.

Timelapse:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbuCSCNZynQ]

My attempt to do the moonwalk in slow-mo didn’t come through quite right. (Its during the purple potatoes).

Blue Apron–Timelapse + Minor Analysis

I am investigating different ways to go about eating. First up to try: Blue Apron.

There are a gazillion reviews of it, so I won’t focus there; instead I’ll go for my reaction.

Timelapse

First, here’s a timelapse of me preparing https://www.blueapron.com/recipes/potato-artichoke-quiches-with-romaine-orange-salad . The time covered is from 5:54pm to 7:15pm or so – from the time my wife picks the recipe to me plating the food.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GptVmizTcIA]

video caption here is what i entered

Analysis

Going through the video at normal speed, and inventorying myself:

Stage	Their Est	Me	Comments
analyze recipe so I don’t miss anything.	(none)	5:56-6:04 8 min	The text is pretty scrunchy, so I convert it to a flowchart of sorts. I don’t refer to the flowchart again, but connecting all the things in a flow helps me consider everything.
Get Hardware	(none)	6:05-6:08 3 min	Pots, pans, salt, pepper, oil, etc… and bowls for ingredients.
Unpack food	(none)	6:08-6:11 3 min	Sorting 2 recipes, I had already made one.
Arrange	(none)	6:11-6:13 2 min	I wanted everything easily visible and available in its own bowl.
Prep	15 min	6:13-6:31 18 min	I slowed down on the orange, I think. It was frozen-ish and my hands got numb.
Cook:	35-45 min	6:32-7:14 48 min	Broken down further
Taters	12-13 min	6:33-6:46	13 minutes
Taters+Art	2-3 min	6:46-6:49	3 minutes
Mix with Egg		6:50-6:52	Everything till starting to pour them in
Pour them		6:52-6:53	I was afraid of missing.
Bake	18-20 min	6:54-7:14	20 minutes. Thank you Timer.
Salad		6:58-7:01	(Extra Salad Chopping)
Plating		7:14-7:16	2 minutes
(eating)			Not included in the time lapse.
Cleanup		7:35-7:44	Unload + Load Dishwasher, Clean stove.

So end-to-end time with no technical debt: 2 hours.

It was quality time, with my wife hanging in the Kitchen with me as we chatted about stuff.

So Is It Worth It?

To try to analyze it more objectively, I think its a 3-D plot.

For Health Level, its a bit arbitrary. 1= bottom, 2=mid, 3=good. Circle size = bigger = healthier.

I did not include Tastiness.

The labels overlapped, its in the bottom right of the grid.

So,

Its healthier but much more time-costly than going to a place like Noodles & Co which is 20 minutes away.
Its better than costlier long-wait-restaurants like Mikato.
Its about the same as driving 40 minutes to the Whole Foods to eat at the buffet there.
Amortizing the cost over 4 meals, its probably the same as going to a grocery store to shop, and then cook, something healthy .. maybe. I don’t have actual samples on this yet. I will soon.
I put Soylent on there.

Assuming you don’t have an adverse reaction (I do)
and you don’t have objections to the idea
its “perfect” nutrition, very fast, and at fairly low cost.
Its not friendly with my diabetes, either.

When viewed through this lens, I guess its okay. Its not earth-shatteringly better, its just.. more tuned.

Summary (so far)

You have to like, and have the time, for the cooking.

If you like cooking, and hate shopping, and like trying new things, it would be PERFECT for you.

For me, cooking is okay, the hard thing for me is the time.

I have one more recipe from them to try, then its off to Green Chef or something like that.

Year End, Backup, Archival

Because I have the time available, rather than just reacting, I’m trying to plan what I’m going to do with my various sources of information. Its on my head to keep them backed up (in case of data loss or service loss) and archived (long term storage, and also dealing with service loss).

There were too many things! I’m going with “resilio” (formerly bittorrent sync) as my offsite, in-my-control backup (if it dies, the files are just plain old files on a hard drive), but i still need to get my stuff from Dropbox / Google Drive etc to resilio. But how I get the stuff there?

So I added a Risk and Importance column where low numbers = don’t care and high numbers = care, multiplied them together, and got a priority.

Starting the copies while I go do other cleanup stuff around the house…

a Rubiks Cube, a father, and a son.

Note the lowercase f and s.

My father showed me how to solve a Rubik’s cube.

There were many things sub-optimal, perhaps, about my nuclear family of origin; however, some things that went very well:

In the 1980’s, when the Rubiks’ Cube became a thing, lots of people were writing books on how to solve it.
Not a lot of Maths books though. My father (Sat Pal Gulati) always wanted to be famous, respected, known, and he decided to write a maths book about the maths of a Rubik’s cube. This was probably 1984?
He showed me, by example / osmosis, his solution..
.. which gave me a mindfulness of patterns.
This mindfulness of patterns has helped me in my programming career and in life in general.

Or maybe, I was always prone to pattern-recognition, and this was one of the first ways my mind used that skill.

My father was never able to publish his book – he finished it, and I remember him working with some printers in India to get it published, but he only printed a few (100?) copies, and never got a distribution channel to sell it. But he was very proud of it, I think. I would love to get a copy of it, but I don’t think I can.

My son enjoyed playing with a Rubik’s cube.

I’ve shown off my Rad Rubik’s Skills every now and then – mind, I’m not a speed solver. Best time so far has been 1:58, usually more like 3:00. Mostly as a party trick, I don’t own a cube of my own at the moment.

At a family gathering, my wife’s sisters’s husband’s brother’s son had a cube – and it was a big topic of conversation for the evening. I showed off my inner child’s skills (thank you dad). Later in the evening, my son (who is now a young man, on his own, with a son of his own), picked up the cube.. and I could see his gears turning, his fingers ruminating. My heart melted.

So, for Christmas

I am investing.

I am investing in the availability of patterns for young (and not quite as young) minds to grab on to.

I am investing in my inner child who loved this stuff.

There’s a beauty that I cannot describe in working with these kinds of puzzles. Its the same beauty that I see in Maths that people either get, or their eyes glaze over.

Just waking up in bed this morning, my mind started playing with a 4x4x4 cube, and I realized how the solution is the same as the 2x2x2 – the inner edges are the same as an inner 2x2x2.

What’s this Pattern / Solution?

Jade asked about being able to solve it, and I’ve been thinking about it. I think there are some realizations that add up:

First you have to be able to see the “edge” pieces from the “corner” pieces, and the relationship to the “center” pieces. Pieces are not in place till all the colors match their respective centers.
Then, given you have a face that is already solved, you can find two moves:

one move A will remove one piece from that solved face.
a different move B, to put that one piece back in the solved face.
your solved face is still solved.
Sorry, we’re going into Maths territory here by giving things names like A and B.

Then, you study the effects of A+B on the rest of the pieces

some pieces swap with each other
some pieces go for a 3-way swap with either other
sometimes pieces rotate in place.

Now think about mirrors. So if you do a move on a left side, vs if you mirror it, and do it on the right side.
Now think about (A+B) + (A’ + B’) (yeah, I had to jump into Maths. I could make a video if someone asks)

Some things will cancel out
This ends up moving a few pieces with surgical precision.

I wrote the above before I found the links below .. its so much easier to show.

What Specifically did my father show me?

My father’s system has you solve the top face first, and then work on:

Bottom corners placement
Bottom corners rotation
Bottom edges
Mid edges placement
Edge rotation

Pattern 1: To position and rotate corners

Click on the bottom row of buttons to move the cube around, S to stop rotation, R to reset rotation.

A+B: https://rubiks3x3.com/algorithm/edit.html?moves=rDRDFdf

A = rDR moves the Yellow-Orange-Blue corner piece out
then move the YOB piece back in with B = DFdf
omitting a final d .. better for combining below
Yellow face stays unchanged
White Corners:

Red-Blue unchanged
Orange-Green and Orange-Blue 2-swap (with a rotate)
Red-Green rotate (rotations are always in pairs, the other part of this rotate was in the Orange-Blue)

Use this move to position corners, don’t worry about rotation.

A’+B’: https://rubiks3x3.com/algorithm/edit.html?moves=LdldfDF

Same as above, but mirrored.
Same effects, except a different piece rotates.

A + B + A’ + B’: https://rubiks3x3.com/algorithm/edit.html?moves=rDRDFdfLdldfDF

The two front bottom (white + orange) corner pieces don’t move.
The two back bottom corners (white+red) rotate so that white ends up on the back. Ie, whatever was on the L+R is now on the bottom.
Use this move to rotate corners.

Pattern 2: To move things from the middle to the bottom edges

https://rubiks3x3.com/algorithm/?moves=FEf moves the Yellow-Orange edge out
https://rubiks3x3.com/algorithm/?moves=FEffEEFE puts it back in a different way
Notice that Red-Blue jumped down into the White face., and ejected the piece that was there.

Pattern 3: Moving Edge pieces around

Rotating the cube so that the offending middle pieces are.. well, you’ll see:

https://rubiks3x3.com/algorithm/?moves=M0m0
This swaps 3 middle pieces, but leaves the one Yellow Red one alone.

Pattern 4: Rotating Edge pieces

This one is so simple, yet .. amazing somehow.

https://rubiks3x3.com/algorithm/?moves=MFMFMFMF
Rotates 4 edge pieces – three in the center (M) line, and one on the FR side (OrangeBlue).
https://rubiks3x3.com/algorithm/?moves=MFMFMFMFMfMfMfMf
Mirrored, now just rotates two edges – OrangeBlue and OrangeGreen.

And that’s it. That’s all I had to remember to get the cube solved.

The same moves apply to solving the 2x2x2 – there are no edges.

And this morning I realized it would solve the 4x4x4, 5x5x5, etc, as well.

Thanks Dad.

Catch up Post – How to be a Grandpa

OMG! I haven’t posted in a while.. that’s probably because I switched over to my personal blog and released a bunch of emotion in political posts, which I felt did not belong here.

No Big.

Okay, so what have I learned lately? What have I tweaked lately?

I once again found a reason to write a mega-blog-post of all projects worked on.
Personally, I’ve been working on some code for tracking hierarchical todo’s; blog post to follow when i get reporting to work correctly.
Workwise, on a WPF project, dealing with a fairly complicated screen, working against mocks of controls that are not available yet.
I got to create a pretty cool christmas card. I’ll post it after it goes out.. I created a flowchart…

But most of my learning is happening here:

How To Be a Grandpa

I did not have biological kids of my own, so this is my first experience at taking care of babies.

I have learned things like:

Different strategies for holding baby

support the neck is crucial, but after that there’s lots of options – the pin, the back-holder, the knee holder, the double handed neck buffer, etc.

Different strategies for burping baby.

I like the over-the shoulder method most, but baby sometimes raises head up, so I have to stabilize between right hand and cheek, while left does the tapping.
(the other method is in front, seated, with the baby facing to my right.)

Lots of baby songs. Head/Shoulder/Knees/Toes

Spotify seems to have a very good selection of Kid’s stuff.
Amazon Prime Music has more repeats.

Baby Einstein on Youtube
Diaper-changing.

I’m still trying to perfect the vertical positioning, and the centering of the velcro on the front, without causing gastric distress.
There’s also the quick-shield skill .. baby loves to time things and gitcha with some surprises.

Bottle-feeding, and cleaning, and fixing.
That there are many different sizes of rectangular fabric, called by different names, used for different purposes.

I’ve also learned that as a mid-40’s person, I don’t have the resiliency I used to have regarding interrupted sleep patterns. We take care of baby two nights a week, and one of those nights also translates into most of the next day.

I’ve also learned that my wife, having been a single mom when she was raising her offspring, is frickin’ amazing.

I’m also discovering that there are many songs, which, while I may not play them for myself, I go back to to sing to the baby. Because.. baby has NOT heard these songs.

Cheers!

Aftermath of an Election 2016

Been processing. And .. here’s some interesting bits I’ve seen echoing.

CGP Grey Electoral College and other Voting System videos:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLej2SlXPEd37YwwEY7mm0WyZ8cfB1TxXa This is a playlist with 17 videos; #7 & #8 are the key ones, however, they’re all excellent sources on how the process works.

But the best bit was his update here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcZTTB10_Vo]

[UPDATED VERSION!] The Trouble With The Electoral College

Which leads us to The National Popular Vote initiative:

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/ pasted from them, my emphasis added:

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the entire U.S. It has been enacted into law in 11 states with 165 electoral votes, and will take effect when enacted by states with 105 more. The bill has passed one chamber in 12 additional states with 96 electoral votes. Most recently, the bill was passed by a bipartisan 40–16 vote in the Republican-controlled Arizona House, 28–18 in Republican-controlled Oklahoma Senate, 57–4 in Republican-controlled New York Senate, and 37–21 in Democratic-controlled Oregon House.

Link with graphic: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation which has a lot more words.

And then there is FairVote:

http://www.fairvote.org/ which .. its not obvious, but its the STV system listed in Gray’s videos. Or, better explained with a graphic:

This was a real ballot. And Maine has now voted to make it state-wide. Apparently they did that after a particularly horrible candidate got in due to the previous system. Hopefully this system can grow to other states as well.

There is this note on violence:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abwc7AAXn3A]

A Breif, Personal Letter from America

A meaningful (for me) excerpt with my emphasis added:

“Not everyone who voted for Trump is a ___ … despite what filter bubbles would have you believe, uh, they’re not, but: All the ___ voted for Trump. And .. the trouble is that now the ____ think the country and the world agrees with them, so as it was with Brexit, the hatecrimes in the UK spiked, and .. no matter how many of his policies Trump actually gets to implement, that spike of intolerance, ____ is going to happen, and I reckon its going to last longer.”

I’m leaving out the word he used so that it doesn’t cause a stir; he didn’t mean it to cause a stir either.

The point being, the violence that will be broadcast… remember folks, its a bunch of deluded individuals. I will hope that they are incorrect, and they will be relatively unsupported, and it will pass, as it did in the UK – its hard to find, but “The peak daily total between May and August was seen on 1 July, when 207 alleged race or religious hate crimes were recorded.” (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/brexit-hate-crimes-racism-eu-referendum-vote-attacks-increase-police-figures-official-a7358866.html)

How It Happened

This article is the best I’ve found on what happened: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/. My takeaway is, there are people who have been ignored: Rural America. And I don’t even like that word Rural there. It almost sounds like “backward”. What I mean is.. Small town, maybe? I didn’t grow up there, but I have many friends who did. And yeah, if they found somebody whom they resonated with, I could see the slight additional turnout on their side.

So, note to future leaders: Please consider the needs of the non-city as well, as you go about your stuff.

OTOH, you can look at voter turnout (in k) – Registered, and Voted, and %:

(this is from an older version of the Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections&oldid=748821487 … the current one has no % for 2016 because numbers are still in flux.)

And Neat Exit-Poll Breakdowns

http://college.usatoday.com/2016/11/09/how-we-voted-by-age-education-race-and-sexual-orientation/

(lots of cool charts)

Not Yet the Stage for a Woman President

My mom had an excellent point. Even if H had won.. she would have been hamstrung by the republican controlled House and Senate. And since everybody seems to blame the president for what everybody else does on their watch .. maybe not the most auspicious.

And there’s the possibilities of change

https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/CONTRACT_FOR_THE_VOTER.pdf

Granted, likely none of the good stuff might happen. However, term limits on Congress … I agree with that. There’s a ton I don’t agree with, but there’s not a lot I can do about that, but that is one thing I do agree with.

However, reading through his 100 days thing – wow, yeah, terrifying. Here’s a line by line analysis of the above: http://www.npr.org/2016/11/10/501597652/fact-check-donald-trumps-first-100-days-action-plan

OTOH, maybe we need more pain before people can see the bigger picture. Hope the planet survives. And I hope people can see the bigger picture and not just scapegoat yet another thing. Wait, I’m going negative, that’s not the intent here.

Ah well. its going to be several interesting years.

Hang in there folks. And if you need a hug, just ask. I give hugs freely, for all.

Addendum: reading up some “news” about the hate-speech going on .. very sad. Hate is so.. powerful an emotion. So viral. And to be on the receiving end of it .. to have that blanket of security ripped away from you .. it hurts. I wish I knew how to love on people such that they didn’t need to hate anymore.