yesterday, today, a week from tomorrow
Apr. 11th, 2010 07:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaYesterday: was our Democratic Party county assembly. For those of you not in caucus states (probably most of the American readers of this journal; and of course other countries do things differently) and for those of you in Colorado who haven't gotten involved, this is where the delegates elected in our caucus get together to cast our county's vote for statewide and national candidates (this year, just for US Senate) and for local candidates, and vote on party platform resolutions, and generally get all rah-rah about politics. I was not a delegate but I am part of the Local Party Machine (capitals ironic) and ran the powerpoint slides and timed the speakers. Woo.
Probably the most interesting part of the day (to me) was when the body of delegates elected to reject the usually pro-forma seating of the delegates and alternates according to the credentials committee report, which counted up the delegates and alternates that had signed in and came up with a number of people equal to the total number of delegates allowable, even though some precincts had all their delegates plus a few alternates checked in, and some precincts had fewer than their allowable number - the credentials committee decided they could just allot the extra alternates to the needy precincts and all would be good. Except that a couple of people objected, saying that this subverted the whole point of electing delegates by precinct, because what if the precinct with too few people wanted candidate A but the extra delegate from another precinct wanted candidate B? Which is on the face of it reasonable, except that a) there is no actual requirement for a delegate who is selected as a delegate for candidate A to vote for candidate A; and b) the whole point of the caucus system is to give power to those who show up, and the delegates who don't show up are thus ceding their power to the alternates who do. But as I said, I had no real stake in the matter (nor ability to vote) and I was just impressed that the democratic process worked, to wit: a motion was made, a vote taken, and therefore the credentials committee had to go through the roll call and only seat those alternates in precincts where delegates hadn't shown up - and it took extra time, but hey, that was what was decided on by the process, so, yay.
In other news, we predictably went about 70% for Bennet, our sitting (although appointed) senator, against Romanoff, the challenger who I used to support but have come to dislike his campaign tactics, and the four candidates for county commissioner got winnowed down to the two who are probably the best candidates, who will face off in a primary. And some people made speeches, and we all went rah-rah a lot.
Today: we went skiing, almost certainly the last ski day of the season for us. It was on the order of 55°F out there, and it was like skiing on a slushee, fast and slick but easy to carve turns. The weird thing was that there had been a dust storm early in the week, and much of the snow had a light coat of reddish-brown dust. Not nearly as pretty as shiny white snow, that's for sure. It really stood out on the mogul tops:
We still had a lot of fun skiing, though, and my quads are certainly aching from it. And a few more pictures are here on Flickr.
A week from tomorrow: I am running the Boston Marathon! *gulp* I will make a post later this week with my bib number and information so that if you are bored and near a computer on Monday morning (or whatever it will be in your time zone) you can check the marathon website, which is tracking runners every 5 miles (I think; it might be 5K, which is really often, as a marathon is 42K!) and see how I am doing. Needless to say, I am not expecting to win. :-) My original and ambitious goal was 3:30, and my half marathon last month suggested I could do even better, but I've been injured and my training has been really half-assed because of it. I don't really know what I could do right now. I'd like a PR (3:45 or better), I'd be really happy with 3:3x, and honestly, I should just be happy to finish it, considering. So I am probably not going to know what I am targeting until I actually get out there and start running.
ETA: Right now: I totally forgot while composing this post, but I had intended to thank whoever it was who anonymously gave me a month's paid account at Dreamwidth. So, thank you so much!
Probably the most interesting part of the day (to me) was when the body of delegates elected to reject the usually pro-forma seating of the delegates and alternates according to the credentials committee report, which counted up the delegates and alternates that had signed in and came up with a number of people equal to the total number of delegates allowable, even though some precincts had all their delegates plus a few alternates checked in, and some precincts had fewer than their allowable number - the credentials committee decided they could just allot the extra alternates to the needy precincts and all would be good. Except that a couple of people objected, saying that this subverted the whole point of electing delegates by precinct, because what if the precinct with too few people wanted candidate A but the extra delegate from another precinct wanted candidate B? Which is on the face of it reasonable, except that a) there is no actual requirement for a delegate who is selected as a delegate for candidate A to vote for candidate A; and b) the whole point of the caucus system is to give power to those who show up, and the delegates who don't show up are thus ceding their power to the alternates who do. But as I said, I had no real stake in the matter (nor ability to vote) and I was just impressed that the democratic process worked, to wit: a motion was made, a vote taken, and therefore the credentials committee had to go through the roll call and only seat those alternates in precincts where delegates hadn't shown up - and it took extra time, but hey, that was what was decided on by the process, so, yay.
In other news, we predictably went about 70% for Bennet, our sitting (although appointed) senator, against Romanoff, the challenger who I used to support but have come to dislike his campaign tactics, and the four candidates for county commissioner got winnowed down to the two who are probably the best candidates, who will face off in a primary. And some people made speeches, and we all went rah-rah a lot.
Today: we went skiing, almost certainly the last ski day of the season for us. It was on the order of 55°F out there, and it was like skiing on a slushee, fast and slick but easy to carve turns. The weird thing was that there had been a dust storm early in the week, and much of the snow had a light coat of reddish-brown dust. Not nearly as pretty as shiny white snow, that's for sure. It really stood out on the mogul tops:
We still had a lot of fun skiing, though, and my quads are certainly aching from it. And a few more pictures are here on Flickr.
A week from tomorrow: I am running the Boston Marathon! *gulp* I will make a post later this week with my bib number and information so that if you are bored and near a computer on Monday morning (or whatever it will be in your time zone) you can check the marathon website, which is tracking runners every 5 miles (I think; it might be 5K, which is really often, as a marathon is 42K!) and see how I am doing. Needless to say, I am not expecting to win. :-) My original and ambitious goal was 3:30, and my half marathon last month suggested I could do even better, but I've been injured and my training has been really half-assed because of it. I don't really know what I could do right now. I'd like a PR (3:45 or better), I'd be really happy with 3:3x, and honestly, I should just be happy to finish it, considering. So I am probably not going to know what I am targeting until I actually get out there and start running.
ETA: Right now: I totally forgot while composing this post, but I had intended to thank whoever it was who anonymously gave me a month's paid account at Dreamwidth. So, thank you so much!