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scotchandcigar said:
The "district 2" thing is what I'm calling the split electoral votes. I live here, and I neither understand it, or care. There's some sort of separate congressional district somewhere in the north-east corner of Maine that gets its own electoral vote. It has no effect on the electoral votes that the other 99% of the state gets, so that's why it's meaningless to me. Plus, the place is like 8 hours away. I can drive to New Jersey and back in less time.

On the other hand, ranked-choice is awesome, and it's going to become popular across the country. In addition to your choice (your vote), you can pick your 2nd and 3rd choices. It's great in several ways. If you like a candidate that has no chance of winning, you can make it your 1st or 2nd choice. Also, if you despise a certain candidate, you can leave that candidate out of your ranking completely. And you always have the option to just vote for one person (like normal).
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So are they counted as part of the vote or just in run-offs? One of our parties just chose a new leader. The old way was get everybody together in a convention, have 4 days of boring news coverage of people standing around and waiving signs and then doing a series of votes until the winner gets 50% + 1 each vote dropping the bottom person off the list. This time it was all mail in with ranked voting. First vote, only #1 rank was considered. If there had of been a second vote, they would have eliminated the bottom person and recounted. All ballots with the dropped guy as #1 would have had their #2 choice counted. And keep repeating and dropping until 50%+1 is done. It turned out they elected their leader on the first ballot but this was the first such vote anywhere in Canada.
 
IdRatherBeSkiing said:
So are they counted as part of the vote or just in run-offs? One of our parties just chose a new leader. The old way was get everybody together in a convention, have 4 days of boring news coverage of people standing around and waiving signs and then doing a series of votes until the winner gets 50% + 1 each vote dropping the bottom person off the list. This time it was all mail in with ranked voting. First vote, only #1 rank was considered. If there had of been a second vote, they would have eliminated the bottom person and recounted. All ballots with the dropped guy as #1 would have had their #2 choice counted. And keep repeating and dropping until 50%+1 is done. It turned out they elected their leader on the first ballot but this was the first such vote anywhere in Canada.
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I think this is the same. If "1st choice only" yields 50% + 1 for a candidate, it's over. But if not, then the other choices come into play.
 
Well this has changed from us teasing eachother to an interesting conversation. I think alaska has ranked choice too. Sarah Palin was just in an election to be a congresswoman or something. The news was talking all abt ranked choice. She didn't win but she advances to the nex round. It does seem neat you can choose ur ppl in order.

Also ur electoral college is weirder than the rest of us normal states but the whole thing is fucked (see I said the f word again) and will likely never change.

I get that it's based on population and that makes sense but I think it dates back to colonial days where ud have to ride a horse for like 30 hours to get your polling place.

We're not a true democracy cause of that. We're representative democracy.
 
JHDK said:
I get that it's based on population and that makes sense but I think it dates back to colonial days where ud have to ride a horse for like 30 hours to get your polling place.

We're not a true democracy cause of that. We're representative democracy.
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Right now, if you live in certain states, you might as well not vote, because it's always gonna go a certain way.
 
scotchandcigar said:
Right now, if you live in certain states, you might as well not vote, because it's always gonna go a certain way.
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I get it. It's fun to live in a swing state. It makes your vote matter more. Here in fl we went for Obama twice and trump twice.(which coincidentally is exactly how I voted). But states can change. Look at Carter beating Ford in TX in 76. Or GA going for biden. Shit can change...and does. It just takes time
 
JHDK said:
I get it. It's fun to live in a swing state. It makes your vote matter more. Here in fl we went for Obama twice and trump twice.(which coincidentally is exactly how I voted). But states can change. Look at Carter beating Ford in TX in 76. Or GA going for biden. Shit can change...and does. It just takes time
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Until the 60s, TX was a solid Democrat state. I think Carter was the last D to take TX.
 
We had a split-rail fence installed, where there's a drop-off beside the driveway. It's mostly a visual enhancement, but it helps provide some guidance and reassurance.

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We had gotten an estimate from a commercial-grade fence company, and for 4 times the price, they would've used locust wood with deep concrete-set posts which would actually prevent a truck from going over the edge. The one we had installed is pretty solid, and would definitely survive a bump.
 
Somewhere else, I talked about how I wanted to add heat to our basement, for the area with my stereo. We had planned to just tap off the HVAC compressor serving one of our mini-split blower heads, by adding another mini-split head in the basement. I also mentioned that a heating guy said it was a no-go, because our compressors have only 1 tap per unit. So we had to scrap the idea of making a real room in the basement, with walls and heat and all.

Instead, I'm temporarily using blackout curtains to partition-off an enclosed room. And this past weekend - which happened to be the 5 year anniversary of moving-in - we created the partitioned room, and it came out nicer than I expected. Specifically, the curtains were excellent for the price; $19 for a 52"x96" panel. They're made by Sun Zero, and they're thick and high quality and hang well. Also, it was easy to create a seamless wall with them. We made a wall closing-off the area from the rest of the basement heating stuff, and then a wall behind the seating area going all the way to the opposite concrete wall.

I still have to arrange things and finish the wall/floor treatments, but this will give you an idea of what we did. The first picture is from beforehand (taken from the Scotch Sampler thread), and you can see the area is open to the heating plumbing:

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In the new pic, you can see one of the curtain walls (the other one is outside the picture area):

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The main purpose of using the curtains is to allow the space heater to blow into a closed area. The basement is in the low 50s all year long, so I need heat to use the room. Also, the curtains do a good job of reducing the sound that escapes, and allowing me to control the lighting. I'll post an update when it's all arranged.
 
There you go. It's already starting to look more cozy.

Mind your curtains and the space heater. (Not that you hadn't considered it.) We don't want to see pictures of the fire trucks next winter.
 
HecticArt said:
Mind your curtains and the space heater. (Not that you hadn't considered it.) We don't want to see pictures of the fire trucks next winter.
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Yeah, I've had a couple of experiences over the years with lighting things on fire. I've made it a policy not to leave the heater on when I'm not in there. Plus, the curtains are flame retardant, but I don't want to rely on that.

Oh, I forgot to mention that in the 2nd picture, all my albums are on a bench to the right of the empty cabinet that I was moving.

And holy shit! I also forgot to mention that I found the box of CDs I've been missing since we moved in. They were in a bin at the bottom of that cabinet, behind the doors.
 
scotchandcigar said:
blow into a closed area...yeah, I've had a couple of experiences over the years with lighting things on fire.
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So blowing....my ac broke and they had the normal guys come and fix it. Then 2 days later, with no warning, they had real ac guys come Abt completely replace my system. It took all day. Both the outside and inside units are now brand new. Anyway, it now blows super cold and way harder than it did before. I can also connect my thermostat to my phone, seeing how I dont pay a power bill I doubt I'll ever do that. I keep it at 66 all the time. Sometimes 69 if I get cold and I want to chuckle when changing the temp.

As for experiences lighting things on fire, that sounds a lot like they way I'd start a post. Wouldn't expect that from you Scotch. Haha.
 
JHDK said:
As for experiences lighting things on fire, that sounds a lot like they way I'd start a post. Wouldn't expect that from you Scotch. Haha.
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Story 1: A short time before we sold our NH house, we had an incident. At the front of the garage, between the cars, we kept one of those plastic kitchen trash containers; except it was full of the cold ashes from our wood stove. Whenever we got ready to start the stove, we'd get rid of the old ashes - usually off in the woods. But in the middle of winter, we're not going to walk over several feet of snow to get to the woods, so we'd dump it there.

Sometimes, in the winter, Mrs. Scotch would have her daily smoke in the garage, and drop the butt into the ash bin. One night, we were awoken by the smoke alarm, and we could immediately tell something was filling the house with smoke. I went into the basement to look for the source, but it wasn't coming from there. When I opened the door to the garage, I saw fire and plumes of smoke. We called the fire department. I thought one of the cars was on fire, but it turned out to be the plastic bin we were using for ashes. The cigarette had ignited some firewood remains that were in the ashes, and once it got going, it burned the trash bin down to the ground, along with part of a shop-vac. Lesson learned.

Story 2: A long long time ago (during the Reagan era) a bunch of us were in the front yard of my first NH house, on the 4th of July. One guy brought some bottle rockets. They'd go way up, and then we never saw where they landed. No problem, right? Well, we're enjoying the evening, when the top of one of those overgrown shrubs - that you never thought was gonna get that big and was too close to the house - is on fire. One of the bottle rockets landed on the roof, and rolled down into the shrub. At that point, it was a contest to see who could make the dumbest response to the events that were unfolding. I tried to use the hose, which was attached to the spigot on the side of the house, but it didn't reach. Another guy went all the way to the other end of the house, and started moving cars from the driveway - to make way for the fire truck. Except that firemen don't park in one's driveway and ring the doorbell. They just drive over the freakin' lawn and get to the fire! Finally, the guy who had launched the bottle rocket went into the kitchen, grabbed the giant lobster pot full of water, and doused the fire. All the vinyl siding around the shrub had melted. And BTW, shooting-off fireworks is illegal in NH.
 
scotchandcigar said:
But in the middle of winter, we're not going to walk over several feet of snow to get to the woods, so we'd dump it there.
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I may look crazy or ridiculous when I'm out snowblowing my back yard, but this is one of two reasons I do it. 1) Make a path around the house so in an emergency we can run out the back door and have two ways to quickly get out front 2) I make a path straight across my back yard to the edge of the woods to dump wood stove ashes. I will say, however, when we got that 2 feet of snow recently I wasn't able to make my usual path. A few days later I got 40% around one way and 20% around the other way - but still no ash path.

I used to have a third reason for snowblowing my backyard - I would make a snow maze most years for my son (whenever there was enough snow to make it worthwhile).
 
IdRatherBeSkiing said:
That doesn't sound like it should be in the "Live Free Or Die" state.
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The exact quote from the fireman was "Fireworks are illegal in NH, especially in Plaistow" (my town). I never understood exactly what he meant; how can something be more illegal someplace? It's either legal or illegal.

But yes, one of the many hypocrisies about NH is that it's known as the place to go to buy fireworks. People flock over the borders from Massachusetts and Maine to buy fireworks in NH. But you can't use them in NH. You also can't gamble or buy/smoke pot in NH. But you can blast down the highway on your Harley, with no helmet or insurance, and buy your bottle of Jack Daniels from the state liquor store right on the interstate. And up until 2019, you could've had your 13-year-old bride clinging on, also without a helmet. Live Free and Die.
 
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