Aha! Validation that my default thing to do with an out-of-town visitor is to give them the Mission Tour!

I voted mostly Democrats where party affiliation was listed, but went for the Green Party candidate for State Auditor. (I figure a conservationist would make misappropriation of funds a bit less likely.)

Hey, hot air balloons out my window. It's been a long time since I've seen a hot air balloons.

Timelies all!

Yay Theo!

I voted on my way home from work. I'm not planning to watch any of the coverage.

Civic duty done! Fairly simple ballot this time: the House seat and three referendums. Referenda. We had a Libertarian candidate for the House, but I've never heard of him. Dude, campaign a little.

Our voting location is the Elks Lodge, which is just across the street from me. Barely any line at all in the evening. I like it. Get in, vote, get home, fifteen minutes. And everyone's so nice and helpful, and all the signage is big and obvious and everywhere, so even an easily-confused person like me can find where they're supposed to be.

My almost-19-year-old voted for the first time today. I think I was more excited that she was. I usually absentee vote because I work very far away but the boss is out of town so we picked up my mom and all 3 generations voted. It was cool!

It's a good thing I went with them though, our polling place is the elementary school up the street and it's got some major renovations going on, so we had to pick our way across a corner of the construction site and mom needed both of us to steady her on the plywood walkway the construction guys thoughtfully provided (otherwise it would have been muddy shoes ahoy!)

I finally got a human call from the Republicans today instead of a robo-call. I asked them to remove me from their list as I am a commie, pinko, Socialist Democrat.

Nope. It has her name and office location. It also says "no phone calls please!" My email says to contact her for more information. I will forward any emails that I get.

Ay yai yai.

Yay voting!! Our governor's race is pretty heavily contested, but my Rep was unopposed.

Ooh, we're having an off-site in Monterey in a couple weeks, and one night, we're having dinner at the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

I went to the library and swung by the polling place on my way home, which was noticeably busy. I voted for Martha Coakley's Republican opponent without knowing much about him, on the basis that he's most likely better.

Here's hoping that Question 3 fails -- an initiative to set the state sales tax back to 3%... in a year when the state has already made a bunch of painful cuts to public spending.