Nice weather resulted in a lot of trick or treaters.

Wife is a Halloween fanatic, while I am more or less a bystander.

Have to say that the combination of the fog machine with absolutely no wind (when does that EVER happen in Chicagoland in late October??) made the front yard and Halloween decorations look pretty awesome.

Spreadsheets.

My first marriage ended 30 years ago almost to the day.

I moved to another state almost immediately, then back to the west coast in '99. We had a drink 20 years ago when she came to speak at Lewis & Clark. She's visiting friends this week and we're having dinner tonight. No idea if it's going to have any sort of, 'Gotcha!' element. I'm sure it will be fine.

I voted (a week early).

Normally, I might give at least a half-hearted consideration of candidates other than Democrats, particularly folks at the state or local level, but not this year. Voted blue straight down the ticket. I plan to do so as long as the other parties continue to nominate turds.

penningtron wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 4:59 pm oof.. I packed the extra candy away in a sack and am holding on to it for next year. I'm already a bit sidelined by knee pain, not gonna put on extra lbs due to snacking on Kit Kats..

Speaking of: we had a pretty good stream of trick or treater traffic on our street this year but noticed a lot of them passing our well lit house and a couple other neighbors. My partner overheard some kid saying "too many stairs" or something. Another neighbor took her lawn chair to the edge of her stairs to meet kids half way. Well I guess this is me crossing over into Kids These Days territory but fuck that. It's like 5 stairs and maybe 10 yards, earn yr goddamn junk calories..

No, there is definitely something up.
1. I didn’t see anyone over the age of 13.
2. Everybody quit before 7pm
3. Fucking undisturbed FULL size snickers just left out in the open with a sign that says “take 1, please”. That shit would have lasted all of 15 minutes before we ganked all a dem.
4. 0 tricks observed. To be fair doorbell cameras probably put an end to that.

Halloween is over.

Close as I can remember, today marks 25 years in Germany for me.

jimmy spako wrote: Tue Nov 01, 2022 4:34 pm Close as I can remember, today marks 25 years in Germany for me.

Congrats!


My little detail is that I wasn't able to make heads or tails of some stuff I've been working on dilegently until exercising the other night, for the first time in a few days.

So it's looking like I'm going to have exercise more and more regularly now just to keep my brain in order to get this particular thing done. More oxygen to the blood, that sort of thing.

Like, every time I feel impelled to look at my phone, or use social media, I should exercise instead. It's still hot here during the day, but if/when it cools down some, this will be easier.

Shedding poundage will also probably alleviate some knee and lower back strain.

Woo . . . exercise.

zorg wrote: Tue Nov 01, 2022 3:46 pm No, there is definitely something up.
1. I didn’t see anyone over the age of 13.
2. Everybody quit before 7pm
3. Fucking undisturbed FULL size snickers just left out in the open with a sign that says “take 1, please”. That shit would have lasted all of 15 minutes before we ganked all a dem.
4. 0 tricks observed. To be fair doorbell cameras probably put an end to that.

Halloween is over.

Yeah, it used to just be the teeny ones who would go out while it's bright outside but I'd say that was the majority of kids this year. A little bit of traffic after sundown but it was definitely a ghost town (no pun intended) by 7:30. And that was with our neighborhood (possibly city) recognizing it on Saturday night, so school and work wasn't even an issue for most people.

All of those 'house handing out candy with razor blades' stories existed when we were young too so I dunno. We used to stay out for hours, hit up the creepy houses that may very well have been inhabited by sex offenders, all that..

jimmy spako wrote: Tue Nov 01, 2022 4:34 pm Close as I can remember, today marks 25 years in Germany for me.

Awesome!

In recent weeks old ladies have been coming up to me at random times to engage in random conversations. Some of them seem very Christian-y, all of them a little bonkers, but each time they were almost grateful I talked with them at all (mostly out of politeness). One even pointed out it was nice I didn't just ignore her or say something nasty back. Not exactly revelatory but life can be crushingly lonely for some people out there..