Vote!

Ah, November 1st, and thoughts turn to election day this coming November 7th (right?), and our upcoming mid-term elections. I encourage everyone out there to vote, no matter what your political persuasion...

Okay, I'd much prefer if all Republicans stayed home this coming Tuesday, but hey, I have to be equitable, right?

Well, it is my blog, so screw it...

Personally, I think it's important to vote in every election. I remember, in the November 1984 election, my grandfather was in the hospital, and wasn't able to vote. On the way to the hospital, the Saturday following the election, I recall my dad saying that Pop actually had some connections, and found out afterwards they could have got him an absentee ballot, so he wouldn't have missed out voting.

When we were in the hospital room, I mentioned this to Pop, and said something along the lines of, "Well, Reagan won, so missing your vote didn't really change the outcome, he didn't need your vote to win." Pop then looked at me, and said, "You always vote, no matter if you're sure your candidate will win. " I didn't argue with my Pop, so I have always thought that no matter what, you vote.

That was also the last time I saw him alive, as he died, surprisingly, that night in the hospital. He was 68 years old. His health was failing, so if he didn't pass away then, with hindsight, I don't know how much longer he would have lived, but I think that also makes it important for me to vote whenever I can.

Granted, I don't know if Pop would be happy with me voting Democrat most of the time, but you can't win them all. At least I'm voting!

My polling place here in Jersey City is within walking distance, so I'll probably go during lunch on Tuesday. It'll be fun, although there are less local races going on than I thought. It's really only the Senate and House race happening. No state or local candidates on the sample ballot I got. So, it should be pretty quick to get in and out and rock the vote...

In other news, I was glad to see my old friend Geoff make a comment here on the blog... I look forward to more comments!

NP: Queen - Keep Yourself Alive

Halloween!

Yes, it is, of course, Halloween. No dressing up for me today, I never really think about Halloween costumes until it's too late. And usually, it's easier to just treat it like a regular day. I do think I really liked Halloween as a kid, but it was more about getting lots of candy than anything else.

I did see some kids going around, Trick-or-treating with their parents earlier today, which was fun. It really is a kid's holiday, maybe even more so than Christmas or a birthday.

I've got nothing else to really write about now... If I come up with anything else tonight, I'll log back in.

NP: Plant & Page - Nobody's Fault But Mine

Recording!

This weekend, I recorded three quick pieces on my home studio set up. I think only one of them was slightly over a minute. The other two were probably less than 45 seconds. I recorded them as musical bumpers/interludes for Pseudocertainty, recorded by Joe and myself. These bumpers will probably show up on the next episode we record, which should be in maybe 2 weeks time.

One piece is some basic percussion with some keyboards on top of them. The second was a bass piece, just messing around with some delay, and the third one was bass and guitar, very simple and straightforward... Nothing to set the world on fire, but just some good segues from one segment of the show to another.

In other news, on Saturday, I went over to the Elizabeth Public Library to check out some genealogy stuff. I got hard copies of the obituary for one of my Great-grandmothers, Apolonia Sanecki (maiden name Drozd). She died back in 1943, and I had a scan of the obit, but it's good to get the hard copy from microfilm, in case there was anything else near the obit that was relevant.

There wasn't.

But, you don't know until you check.

I also found the obit for a Frank Golda, who died in 1986. I believe, based on what I've been told from some of my Sanecki connections, that Frank was a cousin to my grandfather. I need to verify this, but if it's true, I can try to track down some living Golda's, to see if they know anything about the family.

I also started going through some of the old NJ state censuses. Unfortunately, the state censuses (every 10 years, from 1855 to 1915) are not indexed, so I have to look at each page of the census to try to find relevant people. For some places, like Harrison, NJ, it's not too bad, as the town is maybe 1/3 of an entire microfilm reel. However, Jersey City for 1885 is 5 rolls of microfilm total.

I learned this weekend that I can go through one roll of microfilm, visually scanning each page for recognizable family names, in a little over an hour. Not horrible, but not quick either. The only good thing about this is that once I find the first family connection in these reels, I should find the other Jersey City people fairly quickly, as they all lived very close to each other.

The family names I'm scanning for are Coulson, Jameson, Sutcliffe, and Ferrigan. Fortunately, not the most common of names, although there's always the danger of zoning out and missing a name as it goes by. I try to set the microfilm controls slow enough that I can read all the last names on a page, but fast enough so that I don't get bored sitting there. It's a tricky balance, but not impossible to do.

I do wish that Ancestry.com or some other website would index these State Censuses, but that's too much to ask for right now, I guess.

NP: REM - Saturn Return