Last weekend there was a quick, overnight trip to Dubuque, IA with Erin’s family. No camera along except for my phone, so I only snapped a few small things, but I like the way the ones from the Architectural Salvage warehouse turned out. Plus, as usual, one cute Mr. Julian.

2 weekends ago, Erin + I went to Minneapolis, MN for several days to visit friends and get away from Iowa City. We had a really great time, however, I’ve not been very good friends with my camera lately so I’ve been terrible about documenting. Here are a meager few photos from the trip; Though unfortunately, I missed out taking pictures of some friend visits, such as with Carrie + Ben and Cathy + Jana.

We stayed at Megan’s new apartment which is near Powderhorn Park. One of the most relaxing and warm parts of the trip was hanging out with her + Corrie and talking and lying about. We always have the best conversations, and they’re really great to be with.

We also got to hang out with Carrie of Uncertainty Analysis and her partner, Ben which is always really great. Carrie + I have known each other since high school, so it’s pretty cool we ended up living semi-close to each other.

Another fabulous dinner was had with Steve + Allison (only one good picture turned out from that), and an appropriately surreal movie watching. “what’s going on? omg, Edward Norton is SOOO creepy!” etc. Totally fun! S + A moved to Minneapolis at the beginning of August and we miss them tons, so it was great to see them and their new digs too.

Erin + I celebrated our 4th anniversary with a fine meal at the nifty Birchwood Cafe, and we rode our bicycles about the blissfully flat Minneapolis streets. And let me just say that as far as bicycle-friendliness, MPLS outshines Iowa City by hundreds of miles. It was totally refreshing, and I’m jealous of their amazing Greenway bike trail.

I got to hang out with my buddies Cathy + Jana, longtime MPLS residents and amazing artists. Cathy + I have always enjoyed eating breakfast together, so they intro’d me to this great little place, Victor’s 1959 Cuban-American Cafe. Totally amazing eggs! Corn tortillas! Awesome coffee! I dragged Erin over there on our way out of town. Thanks Cathy + Jana, for that fabulous experience!

Julian + I hung out this evening. We had a good time in disguise.

Mid-term elections today. I biked over to my polling place after work: Longfellow elementary school. Thanks to misunderstanding the poll worker’s question, I ended up using an electronic voting machine. It was an iVotronic. Here is a link to a little online demo of how it works.

I have to say that I found the whole experience to be rather ethereal. You were supposed to touch a box and then the machine would draw a little X in the box you had chosen, only it didn’t always do that. I had to be very careful that it put the X in the right box, and after a few tries, I figured out you had to actually touch a little above + to the right of the appropriate box. There were a few times when the machine marked the opposite choice.

At the end of the ballot, I reviewed all my choices for a few minutes. During the entire review period, there is a large, annoying red oval at the top of the machine that says VOTE, and it blinks at you until you push it.

I received no paper receipt, just an on-screen “YOU VOTED” which I really didn’t find all that comforting. Overall, It was an unsatisfying experience. I wanted paper, and I actually wanted to watch the little black voting machine suck in my ballot and then print out another entry on its roll-tape log.
Oh, and it would have been nice had the touch screen been more accurate.

I wonder if it worked or not. In the future, I think I’ll stick with the Scan-Tron style I came to appreciate starting in 4th grade with the ITBS tests we all had to take. I like the solidity of actually filling in the oval with my #2 pencil.