2 out of 5

Happy Saturday!

Today, I stayed in bed a long time after sleeping relatively late. Woo hoo! What did I do in that time in bed? Mostly nothing. I had lots of thoughts and those went where thoughts are supposed to go. Some turned into action, some got added to my Presidential Thoughts document, some got turned into document stubs. I also played on my phone a lot – I have found a few more people to follow who have attitudes I enjoy. And I played a few hands of bridge and solved a few cryptograms. I also started listening the third book of The Wheel of Time series: The Dragon Reborn. Phew! Sounds like a rough morning.

I did eventually get out of bed. My first self imposed task was to organize the deep freezer. Mom had a deep freezer in the back kitchen for years and years and years. It was mostly filled with old milk cartons filled with water to keep the freezer full-ish. It was also filled with some really old food. I am sad to say that a teeny bit of that did get transferred to the new freezer. It will, someday, be thrown away. Anyway, I have been having problems finding things in said deep freezer. This has caused me to over buy some stuff. Like English muffins. And pizza dough. So organization was necessary.

I organize using clear gallon plastic bags (or smaller clear bags) whenever possible. They give a lot of storage and it is easy to see what is in them. And moving a few bags around is easier than moving a lot of individual items around, imho. I discovered that I have enough English muffins to last me a long, long time at the rate at which I eat them. I could them more frequently, I guess. Anyway, I also had way more pizza dough than I thought I had. At least 8 small bags full. Sigh. All in all, I was really happy with the results. And I came to a decision – I am going to try and eat out of the freezer for the next couple of weeks. Mostly out of the freezer. I plan on adding some salad to every meal. And maybe even use some of the frozen veggies I have in there. So excited! Maybe this will also give me the chance to use more of the stuff in the pantry. Which definitely needs some rotation of stock…

I ate my lunch and then 2 future workers of America arrived! I thought I heard them knocking, but Maggie beat me to the door somehow. I had written to five people to ask them to come work today. These were the two that showed up. Two new to the house people. I gave them a tour of the chaos and they both seemed willing to return to work. Well, one of them stayed and I put her to work cleaning the two bathrooms. That’s plenty for a first work day.

Steak Benny from lunch yesterday

Tonight I am definitely making pizza and wings for dinner. I forgot until too late last night. By the time I got to dinner, I ended up just heating up my leftovers from lunch. Tonight, pizza and wings or bust!

Augustus for President: I started to draft the speech I plan to give at each state capital. I want it to end up being about five minutes long. I think I will add something about the state – some positive facts if I can find any. And something about my personal experience with the state. At least I have been to all of the states at least once before. True, some of them, just the one time as I drove around the country in 2002. Others, many more times. Some I have even lived in for years and years. And years.

The people from Ballotpedia finally responded. I had honestly forgotten that I had messaged them. They sent me a spreadsheet of the data from 2024. They pointed out that things probably will change for 2028. I resisted the urge to say “duh.”

The file has given me some interesting insights. There are a couple of states where a candidate can just pay a fee and will be on the ballot. Other states require a certain number of signatures and a fee. Still others have different deadlines for different aspects of the signature collection and delivery. I haven’t done the math yet, but some states require a higher percentage of their people than others. One state has a really, really low number of required signatures. A few states have really early deadlines. I definitely will need a Signature/Ballot Tzar.

Vegetable Day!

Woke up in my own bed and that is not a bad thing. I did, though, wake up thoroughly depressed. And not just a little depressed. I mean, thoroughly. Not wanting to get out of bed depressed. There are lots of reasons of course. Here are a few:

• The Country’s problems with Drumpf and Co.
• The World’s Problems (Gaza, Rise of Authoritarianism, Greed)
• My problems (not going to list them – too depressing – actually, I just don’t want to as they seem small compared to the other problems)

And that’s just the point. All of my problems, though real, are actually small. And they will get dealt with one way or another. I just need to keep on trudging along. And, as I type this, my depression has lifted quite a bit. It is still there, but it is no longer debilitating. Woo hoo!

So, I decided today would be a vegetable day. And I have, for the most part, succeeded. I have done a few things, made a few tortoise steps here and there, but mostly, I just let the day slide past. Despite time being the only thing we really have a finite amount of. I guess part of me is just waiting to get started campaigning for real. It will give me some more focus. Until then, just putt, putt, puttering along.

One of the things I did was play with Wick Editor a little on the iPad. I was excited because I could create stuff there. Unfortunately, it looks like I am having the same problem with Wick and the iPad that I was having before. Sure, I can create a file in Wick on the iPad but I can’t then open the file. Or so it seems to me. So, I guess I am back to waiting to see if I can do what I want with Powerpoint. Or back to Swift again. Probably Swift is going to be the answer. Though, I did have a thought as to how I could fake the one page thing with Keynote…Maybe I will try that later tonight if I don’t get too fuzzy.

Augustus for President: I don’t want to start accepting donations until my bank account is hunky dory. And I can’t do that until I get a response from the IRS that my name change has been acknowledged. And that isn’t going to happen until the government starts working again. If then. I know that Drumpf and Co have gutted the IRS. Sigh.

Meanwhile, I keep coming up with questions, looking for answers, and trying to figure out things. For instance, I found out that both Zazzle and Vistaprint can make campaign buttons. And I keep playing with apps to try and build a sound machine. I know I can do what I want with the midi device, but the utlimate goal is to be able to do the sound machine stuff from the iPad. It is either that or the midi device. Though the midi device requires a computer to work.

I also came up with a design for name badges for people who want to support my candidacy. I would love if everyone who supports me would wear a badge similar to the one I wear when I am out and about. The new one has their name at the top: My name is Xxxx. I choose: Augustus for President. With the website at the bottom. It’s a start. I amhoping some people choose to wear them. Eventually.