Super Stupid Tuesday

I'm going to apologize in advance for my negative tone I plan to use for this entire post. Ok, now that I have that said....I just got back from my first experience at the Minnesota Caucus (Michael is out of town for work so it was just me). Can I just say that it was the biggest waste of time ever?!?!?!?! For starters, all the caucuses started at 7pm. Our caucus area was the Eden Prairie High School. It took me ONE HOUR to go about 3.5 miles to the high school!!! Traffic was positively horrible and there was no where to go - everyone was trying to get into the same location. Don't ask me why they would have both parties caucus at the same location in such a huge election year. There was no coordination of traffic and things were even worse inside.

So I get in and am put under the direction of the high school students as to how to figure out which room I needed to go to (apparently the print out of my precinct information I got online was useless). So I get to my room and sit through the remainder of the process that was left. So basically there were about 25 people in my room. We elected precinct delegates by letting people nominate themselves and everyone saying "Ay". We could have elected some mass murderer off the street for all I know. Then after electing alternates in the same fashion, we finally got to the "Presidential Preference Ballot".

And what was this high scientific process you ask? It involved passing out a tiny piece of paper with all the candidates for our party on it and you put a check mark next to the one you want. Are you kidding me?!?!?!? One guy had to ask for a new ballot because his was already filled out. ?!?!?!?!??! Then they tuck them into a little envelope and take them to the corner of the room and count them. Then they handed out a sheet of paper with platform issues that were open for discussion. But no one in my room had anything to say. And then it was over. Caucus adjourned.

I was horribly confused by something one of the officials said during the meeting about there being a MN primary. So, I stayed afterwards to get clarification. Instead, I left feeling even more confused that I already was. I was informed that tonight's vote were really just a "straw" votes and that the primary would be 1-2 months prior to the general election in November. ?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Um Hello! I think things will be decided by then!!!!!! He of course went off on some tangent and I humored him and acted like he was making sense. At the end he asked if that helped any and I just said "Yeah, kinda. But I think this whole process is wierd." That was my professional opinion on it all.

Please, thank your lucky stars that Texas uses a primary system to vote and that you don't have thousands of people arriving at the same place in the same 1 hour time frame to go through some stupid, pointless, old fashioned caucus.

I tried to do my patriotic duty by participating in this process, but despite the research I did online and the asking around I did to try to understand this caucus thing, I left feeling super frustrated and wishing I would have never gone. The highlight of my whole night was getting frozen custard on the way home. I should have just stayed home and watched The Biggest Loser.

ARGH! Vent over.

Weekend - Part 2

After recovering from our ice skating adventure (see below), we got ready for our friends Jared & Amber's visit from Des Moines! They came to visit us this weekend and it was so much fun, as always! Saturday, we went to the Winter Festival in downtown St. Paul. A couple of weekends ago, they carved all these huge ice sculptures for the contest, so we went to see those. Unfortunately, we had a couple of warm days las week, so the sculptures were like half way melted and we had to resort to looking at the picture to see what it actually looked like. :) But regardless, it was fun to be out and about and seeing new things with our friends!

The rest of our time we spent talking, playing spades, and eating of course. :) I've realized just how great it is to see some of our "old friends" because there is just that level of familiarity and comfort of being with people who know you SO well and who you know so well. Plus, J&A are in such a similar situation as us (moving from TX, work for Cargill, now live in new state, etc.). So it's always nice to be able to share stories and experiences with each other - and to reassure each other since so many of our conversations these days concern the weather and how to survive in it. :) Here are some of our fun pics!

Jared, Amber, Max & Sadie on the ice sculpture podium thing

Me & Mikey - and yes, I had to break the rule and touch the sculpture while I was up there.

Me & Sadie bear with the snowman
Me & Amber (she was standing on a mound of ice; I'm really not THAT much shorter)
Ice castle - just thawed out a bit

Weekend - Part 1

We had a fun and busy weekend! Michael got home from his trip on Friday. Then that night we went with Becky & Brendan to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Minneapolis. Then we went to The Depot and went ice skating at this indoor ice skating rink. It was Michael's first time to ice skate. I have ice skated a few times in my life - but it has been many many years. So we were both quite wobbly. I felt like the way Bambi looked when he first walked on the frozen pond with his wobbly legs. haha

But we had a great time! We got some pics and a pretty fun video of us skating that Brendan took.

Getting ready to skate!

Becky & Brendan

Action shot of Michael

Warning: The last 5 seconds of this video will make you chuckle a little bit. hehe