This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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Looks like there was a mistake in New York. Not only did one elector vote for the wrong guy, they ALL did. Here is a link to the Federal archives with New York’s official Certificate of Vote. (Found via LGF.) The New York electors accidentally voted for John L. Kerry instead of John F. Kerry.
Don’t know who John L. Kerry is, but if John F. Kerry had actually been in the lead at this point (as opposed to 2nd like he really is, so it doesn’t really matter), he would have just lost the election because of this, with the results thrown into the congress because after this neither candidate would have had a majority of the electoral votes! (Although, the votes have to be accepted by the new congress in early January, and they would probably fix it by then…. drat!) So this leaves the full electoral count for the presidential election like this at the moment:
George W Bush: 286
John F Kerry: 221
John L Kerry: 31
John Edwards: 1
Like I said though, it will probably get fixed before Congress officially certifies the results in a few weeks. Drat!!
After long last and many trials and tribulations, the September Top Ten for my email contest has been released to the public. Click through to find out the results…
September 2004
For anybody that doesn’t know, in mid-October there was a major hard drive crash on my mail server, and when I (stupidly and unthinkingly) synced my laptop with the server I lost almost all the mail for the last half of September and the first half of October. I’d had local copies of everything even after the drive crashed, but when the server came back up and my mail client syncronized, it said “Oh, these aren’t supposed to be here” and wiped everything. […] I spent many many hours painstakingly manually matching the log files up against the emails I had actual copies of to ensure I did not double count anything. This was a pain because the logs showed time received whereas the easiest to access info on the items I had copies of was the time sent. After all this though, I know I have counted every message I have any evidence for at all, and am sure I have not double counted any of those messages.
Bug Inspection: No bugs.
House Inspection: Lots of little things like a door that sticks when you lock it and sprinkler heads that need replacing and places where the molding doesn’t line up quite right. And things like that. But NOTHING MAJOR.
Mortgage Company: The house without the screen appraised for the amount we were going to pay WITH the screen. Which SHOULD mean the mortgage company will get off our backs about the screen and approve it as is, and leave the screen issue to be between us and the sellers and stay out of it. Cause the house is already worth more than we contracted for it by enough to pay for the screen. We will hopefully know for SURE tomorrow.
As things stand right now though, it looks like this will go forward, and we will close on December 30th.
Yesterday I did someting which is just the height of geekdom probably. While I was AT THE MALL to help Amy do some Christmas shopping for her mom and grandma, I used my Treo smartphone and ordered two items from Amazon. While walking in the mall, past stores which may well have had what I was ordering. Go me!
Rebecca had lots of problems with Amazon this year. I saw her warning, but went ahead and did most of my Christmas shopping at Amazon this year anyway. I did a little bit more at ThinkGeek and got one thing from CafePress. And yeah, I reluctantly got a few things in actual stores due to Brandy’s influence.
I did almost all of the shopping Saturday morning. Then little dribbles since then. I believe I am done now. The things I bought at the mall via my Treo on Amazon yesterday were the end of my shopping.
We have mailed most of the presents leaving from here already. One more box will go out in the next couple of hours. CafePress and ThinkGeek have not shipped yet. Neither has the CafePress one. As for Amazon… Out of 22 items ordered since the beginning of December… 13 have already shipped… (of which 7 have already been received)… which leaves 9 items which are “shipping soon”. They all say they should arrive at the 24th at the latest… but we shall see!
Anyway, ordered from Amazon while at the mall on my phone and ignoring the stores around me. Love it!
Um, now it is time to leave for the house inspection. Gulp. By the end of the afternoon we should know about that, and what the mortgage folks say. Gulp!
True to her comments on my last post, Brandy has gone and made herself a blog. She is calling it Drunken Sailor. Not sure what kind of things she will be posting, but of course I will be checking in regularly.
As I do with anybody who is in the current “top twenty people emailing Abulsme in the previous year” list who has a website that I know about, I have added her to the “Friends’ Sites” listing on the left. We’re now up to 9 out of 20 having websites. (Since Brandy is on that list twice at the moment.) Not bad. Almost to the 50% mark. But not quite.
Well, Marilyn also one made a page with my help. But she hasn’t updated it in years (since the day she made it), and doesn’t have access to it to update it even if she wanted to, so I don’t think it should count and I don’t link to it. Shame though. If it did then we’d be up to 11 out of 20 (since Marilyn also has two addresses on that list right now).
Anyway, back to Brandy. So far she is saying stuff about cheap fruity wine and getting my bird drunk.
We’re watching a movie right now, so she probably won’t post again until morning. But we shall see! :-)
The graph I do of the rankings of this site and some others on the TTLB Ecosystem has been updated. Since the last update, this site dropped behind Al’s Phatback site. Drat.
Also, since the last time I did an update, there have been some changes to how the ecosystem works that means these graphs won’t be quite as nice as before. Oh well. Anyway, for the actual graph and the explaination of what changed, see below.
Ecosystem Graph
Sometime in 2004 Q4 the Bear who manages the ecosystem changed how the details pages at his site are set up. He added some very cool graphs and such, but took away the historical listings of rankings over time. So since I do not check these rankings daily, but only once every couple months, I can’t do like I did before and when I do check, go back and fill out all the daily rankings for this chart. Instead I can only chart the rankings as of the date I look. Thus, after the last day I have daily states (19 Sep 2004) the charts will be much rougher and have many straight lines rather than the nice jagged lines from before then. Sorry about that!
The bank is hesitating at approving the escrow arrangement on fixing the screen enclosure. There will not be any official word on it until Monday, but the wording so far is they are “concerned”. They may want the sellers to put a larger amount in escrow (which from what I hear they can not afford) or they might want us to put down a bigger down payment (which we can probably swing if we absolutely need to, but it will be hard to arrange with essentially one weeks notice). We will find out for sure Monday. That is also when we will also find out the initial inspection results. So by Monday evening, we should know a lot better what the situation is.
But my rough guess is that the chances of this purchase actually happening have dropped from around 90% to closer to 60%. Odds still on our side (barely), but also a BIG chance of it not happening. Which would really piss us off. Because we have everything in place. The only reason there is any issue at all is because the seller’s bank is threatening the seller with foreclosure if they don’t sell by the end of the year, and because there is a shortage of screening materials in Florida right now. Nothing whatsoever to do with us. If we could only get the seller’s bank to hold off a few more weeks, then there would be no problem at all. We have no issue waiting. It is the other side that can’t.
Grrr!!!!
I hate this. We will be most upset if this doesn’t go through. Grrr!!!
There is rapid movement on the house front.
11 Dec 2004 – I get my final relocation check.
13 Dec 2004 – Repairs are in full swing at the house.
15 Dec 2004 – We get word that repairs are on schedule EXCEPT the screen enclosure. It has been delayed because the screen contractor is waiting for the materials to be available to do the work. (There is a shortage because practically everybody needed to have this done after the hurricanes.) We were offered the option to take the repair money for the screen in escrow, and move forward to get the deal closed by the end of the year. Closing by the end of the year is much better tax wise. But we could tell them to just finish it and we’ll wait. We think about it overnight.
16 Dec 2004 – We are told we don’t really have the option of waiting. While our interest rate lock is good until late January, the people selling the house are in financial trouble. The bank has been holding off foreclosing on them because they have a contract with us, but are getting impatient. They have already waited since September. The house will be foreclosed on them if they have not sold by December 31st. After that, while the bank MIGHT sell to us, all bets are off, and most likely the place would just go up for auction or some such. We have checked with several people and the stuff with the screen seems to be fairly low risk. And we want the house. So we gave the word to go forward. This brings us to now.
18 Dec 2004 – If all continues to go according to schedule, they will be finished with the repairs on the house.
20 Dec 2004 – We have scheduled the main house inspection and the bug inspections.
21 Dec 2004 – The mortgage company appraiser will look at the site.
22 Dec 2004 – The legal survey will be done.
23 Dec 2004 – We have to officially decide if we are NOT going to proceed based on any of the results above. If anything came out bad, this will be when we can back out.
25 Dec 2004 – Christmas
TBD Dec 2004 – Sometime in the week between Christmas and New Years, exact date to be determined shortly, we will close on the house.
All of Jan 2005 – We will slowly transition from where we are to where we will be, maybe stretching into Feb 2005 if we need it. But hopefully not.
Of course, all of this is still contingent on a bunch of stuff.
The place has to actually finish repairs on schedule and not run into any unexpected delays.
The place has to pass inspection, with no unexpected issues popping up at the last moment
The final mortgage approvals all have to go through with no problem. (We’ve had pre-approval for forever, but the final final approval won’t happen until just days before closing.)
My deposit of that final relocation check has to actually clear and be available.
No sudden unexpected needs for money in the next two weeks.
No planet killing asteroids smash into the earth in the next two weeks.
So it could still fall through. But at the moment it is looking good. We shall see.
And then, if all goes well, we’ll have to tighten the belts and get used to paying a full mortgage again (about 25% more per month than I paid in Pennsylvania at that — but it is a bigger nicer place fit for a family of three with room to grow rather than a size perfect for a single guy). That will be a big change from the generous deal of a rent Ivan’s family is letting us stay where we are for. (Thanks again Ivan! You are awesome! I’ll officially let your dad know when we want to close this out as soon as things are actually final… I’m thinking we’ll close it out in February… but that is still a little TBD.)
Anyway, while we transition things will be tight again for awhile. So that probably means no trip to the inauguration this year. Not to mention no new car, new GPS, new computer or random trip any time soon. Maybe later in 2005, but certainly not up front. It will take a number of months for things to fully stabilize again.
This stuff is nerve racking!
But it will be good.
I love the electoral college!!
Minnesota elector breaks ranks, votes for Edwards
(Associated Press on Star Tribune)
One of Minnesota’s 10 presidential electors broke from the pack and cast a vote Monday for John Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential running mate for John Kerry.
The other nine Minnesota members of the Electoral College voted for Kerry, who won the state’s popular vote in November.
After the state’s Electoral College ceremony concluded, no one stepped foward as the Edwards voter. Most electors chalked the vote up as a mistake rather than a purposeful political statement.
“I’m sure somebody made a mistake,” said elector Michael Meuers of Bemidji. “I’m certainly glad that the Electoral College is not separated by one vote.”
Republican George W. Bush is due to receive 286 electoral votes; Kerry was slated to get 252, but the Minnesota vote will reduce that total. It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.
(via Blogs for Bush)
The article above has an annoying registration that didn’t kick in the first time I looked at it for whatever reason, so here is the same article on another site that is registration free:
Minnesota elector gives Edwards a vote
(Associated Press on Minnesota Public Radio)
The best part is they didn’t even do it on purpose as a protest like has happened other years. They apperantly did it BY MISTAKE. Because they screwed up filling out the ballot! But it doesn’t matter, guess what, IT COUNTS! Ha Ha Ha!
I love this stuff.
Wouldn’t it have been awesome if the election HAD hung on one electoral vote with an elector for the person who was ahead accidentally doing this? Surprise! The other guy wins!
I guess that West Virginia Bush elector didn’t follow through on not voting for Bush. At least if he did, I haven’t heard about it yet. A little dissapointing. Oh well!
OK, I’m procrastinating for a few minutes. Went to play with my Random Spot Tool. Decided to do a little google research on the first place on land that came up. (I will NOT be planning a random vacation there however, the next one of those is still to Chacchoben, Quintana Roo, Mexico.)
So, the first place that came up was 63°43.421’N 152°38.658′ E. It is 5470.02 miles from the house we are staying in, at an original bearing of 338.48361°. It is in northeastern Russia:
Zooming in:
OK. So it is about 50 miles outside of Orotukan. So lets find the first 10 interesting things about Orotukan we can find on a Google Search on Orotukan:
#1) It is a mining area. (via InfoMine)
#2) There is a Russian blog named after it. (via Orotukan LiveJournal) Unfortunately, I can not read Russian.
#3) A company named Western Pinnacle has an exploration licence for mining there. Apperantly for an “alluvial gold placer mine”. You can invest in Western Pinnacle (WPN:CNDX). (via Placer Mine News)
#4) It was a location for one of Stalins “penalty camps”. When you got “sent to Siberia” this would be one of those places I guess. (via Yale Review of Books)
#5) It is on the path of something called the “International Peace Trail” that some idealist group is trying to get set up as a ring of parks and trails circling the earth. (via The International Peace Trail Project)
#6) The chief manager of one of the gold mines (Orotukansky GOK) is Alexander Grinenko, and I have his address and phone number now. (via InfoMine Research Group)
#7) A company named Geometall says about their operations there: “The geological prospecting and exploration operations at the facilities “Chai-Yurya” and “Orotukan” performed by the enterprise are oriented towards identification of ore deposits containing gold and silver in the Kolyma area; their opening up will permit compensating for a reduction in the mining of placer gold and stabilizing the socio-economic situation in the Region. ” Iiya Rosenblum is the Director. (via Grand Encyclopedia of Russian Goods and Services)
#8) Estimated Population of Orotukan in 2004 was 2,800 people. (via World Gazetteer)
#9) Asdu Oll, Chairman of the Board of the Estonian Institute for Human Rights, used to work in Orotukan from 1962 to 1970. (via World Security Network)
#10) In 1998, there was some illegal panning for gold: “Police seized 170 kilograms of gold from illegal gold prospectors in Magadan Region’s Khasynsky County Aug. 23. According to the regional Internal Affairs Department, five villagers from Orotukan were caught panning gold on a stream 30 kilometers from the village. Police fired several shots when the prospectors resisted arrest. No casualties were reported. Two of the detained are 9th graders at a local school. ” (via Vladivostok News)
OK. That is ten items. And I have procrastinated and wasted enough time for today. (Although it is surprisingly quick to do this kind of search. Really only took a few minutes. Ain’t the Internets wonderful? :-)
Sounds like an interesting place though, no?
Oh, I have to add one more thing cause I can’t resist…
#11) The town is mentioned in Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. The quote is: “In Orotukan the earth thaws only in summer and only to the depth of three feet—and only then can they bury the bones of those who died during the winter.” (via Poshlost)
Time for lunch, and then a fully productive and procrastination free afternoon. But this was fun. Maybe I’ll do it again with a different random spot the next time I have a few minutes to kill between things.
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