On Travelling, Lawn Signs, Bumper Stickers and Political Advertising on Television

All things considered, I've done a lot of traveling this month and have been to four different states in different parts of the country:

Pennsylvania (I do live here, after all)
Massachusetts (family stuff, Central & Eastern MA, early October)
Florida (SF convention, Orlando & Cocoa Beach, mid-October)
California (tag-along on Jim's business trip, San Jose, Palo Alto, rural areas, late October)

Given the big election next week, it's been interesting to compare how visible politics are from state to state.

Things are crazy here in Pennsylvania. Lots of bumper stickers, lots of yard signs, lots of TV ads. We are, after all, a swing state. Further, Ohio is also a swing state, and West Virginia is close to being a swing state. There are lots of TV commercials for both candidates. The intensity is very high here. In the Pittsburgh area, more Kerry bumper stickers and yard signs, but this is to be expected. One interesting thing - I live in a Republican suburb, where most of the yard signs are overwhelming Republican ones. This year, the yard signs are nearly 40% for Kerry. Also interesting - a number of Republican households have yard signs for all the candidates but Bush. I don't think this is a case of sign-thievery, as these non-Bush Republican yards are often adjacent to Republican yards with a Bush sign.

A weird PS to Pennsylvania - I put a Teresa Heinz Kerry for First Lady bumper sticker on my car about two months ago. On Sunday, October 17, someone ripped half of that bumper sticker off my car, either when my husband was at a local Giant Eagle, or when the car was sitting in our driveway. I responded to this the only way I could - I popped another "Teresa..." bumper sticker in its place!

Massachusetts is mostly going for Kerry - it's a state where he has the "native son" lock. There were a fair number of TV commercials for both candidates on TV earlier in October, but that was probably mostly because many folks up in New Hampshire, which is something of a swing state, watch Boston television. There were lots of Kerry bumper stickers and a few Bush bumper stickers. There were almost no presidential lawn signs, though there were lots of lawn signs for local candidates.

The presidential election was surprisingly quiet in Florida a few weeks back, though that may have changed recently. While there were plenty of TV ads, there were almost no yard signs or bumper stickers. Locals said that due to all of the hurricane chaos, few people bothered with lawn signs. However, I saw a number of yard signs for local races, just no presidential lawn signs. And there were also few bumper stickers, which was particularly weird. (Here's the latest on Republican dirty tricks in the Florida election.)

California was interesting. I got back from California just this evening. On Saturday, we drove up to Palo Alto, and almost every house on the main street had Kerry and local Democratic candidate lawn signs. On Sunday, we drove out to Monterey, which was much more balanced with its lawn signs. On Monday, I drove in the more agricultural/rural areas and the signs were overwhelmingly Bush. On TV, I don't think I saw a single presidential ad (frankly, a welcome change from Pennsylvenia!) but I saw many TV ads about the many propositions Californians regularly vote on.

In short, it's hard to tell how things will wind up next week. Particularly given the way that some people are trying to discourage voting, it's all the more important for all registered voters to get out and vote!

Gee Whiz, Slow Again!

After renaming my blog a few weeks back, I haven't posted in nearly a month. I was somewhat overwhelmed by getting ready for Noreascon IV, this year's World Science Fiction Convention in Boston. While I'd changed jobs in the course of convention planning (resigned from being the Exhibits division director to taking a less stressful job as the FANAC exhibit area head and general Exhibits staffer), I was still pretty busy.

Over the last two weeks, while I was pretty much happy by how the convention went, I've been surrounded by the deaths, illnesses, and bad luck of friends and family members. Longtime Boston fan George Flynn died just before Worldcon. I've known George since my early days in fandom, and enjoyed his writing and appreciated his proofreading work on many NESFA and MCFI publications. My sister-in-law lost her job just a few months after my brother lost his, and her brother is terminally ill. My mother landed in the hospital after she couldn't walk one morning (she has a knee problem and it sounds like she may need surgery). And, yesterday, when Jim and I visited a shop we hadn't visited in a few months, we heard of the sudden, tragic death of the store's co-owner earlier in the summer. We'd been going to Mellinger's a few times a year since we found it just after we moved to Pittsburgh eleven years ago.

I'm not chronically sad or depressed, but my insomnia continues to be bad, which means my concentration is bad, I work very slowly, and I'm unbelievably forgetful. I hope to upload lots of Worldcon photos and even write a report. This will probably take some time. I also hope to help organize the many photos we collected for the fanac.org Web site over the next few months.

Worldcon, while busy and frazzled at times, was mostly pretty pleasant. I was thrilled by how well The Mended Drum worked out - while I can't take design credit, I can take concept credit! The Art Show was about the best since MagiCon. First Night and the Friday Night Events were different events that both went very well. While the Hugos ran much longer than I expected, Neil Gaiman did a fine job as MC. I hear the Program was great - at least the items I was on went very well. We also had some lovely meals out with friends (at Brasserie Joe's, Leagal Seafood, Summer Shack, and the Pour House), and I got to take my Dad out for his 75th birthday (Durgin Park) and my youngest brother out for his 40th birthday (Marche Move-n-Pick).

Jim and I spent a few days up in Gloucester after Worldcon, a nice break before returning home that I really appreciated. We had an elegant dinner at Ocean View Inn (where we also stayed) and lovely breakfasts at Sugar Magnolia. We also drove and walked around Gloucester and Rockport, and hiked through Halibut State Park up in northern Cape Ann.

Very Proud to Be from Massachusetts Today! And, Surprised by George Will

(Yes, the title refers to two completely different topics...)

I'm happy that Massachusetts will be the first state in the union to allow gay marriages today. Way to go! This has been a long time coming.

George Will did an amazing thing in his column today - he seemed to be calling for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld! His column was a bit more obtuse than usual (and I don't always read him as a result), but he did seem to be saying that Rumsfeld had to go for the good of the country.

Another Wedding!

Another wedding, another driving trip to Massachusetts (some ten hours away):

From the left, Rachel with her fiance Jeff Trask (brother of the groom), Jeff Cranston (best man), Ruth and Bill Trask (parents of the groom), Jessica and Terry Trask, Leah Bradford (daughter of the bride), Carrie Trask, Laurie Mann (sisters of the groom), Leslie Mann (niece of the groom) and Jim Mann (brother-in-law of the groom).

This wedding also went very well (see entry from early September 2003 on Jim's brother's wedding). Jessica is a hospice nurse and Terry is an ECO specialist for Network Engines. They met in a college class back in 1995, when Leah was a baby, so Terry has been her virtual Dad ever since. They got married in the same church Jim and I got married in back in 1977:

A Wedding!

Jim and I were up in Massachusetts attending Jim's brother Bill's wedding:


(from left) Laurie, Leslie, Jim, Bill, Heather, Bill and John Mann

Bill is a chef down in Florida and Heather is in food/restaurant equipment sales. Jim's family keeps marrying women who were raised in Massachusetts!

The wedding was held at St. Stanislaus' in Chicopee, MA and the reception was held at the Sheraton Springfield (home of several Boskones in the late '80s and early '90s). The food was excellent!

I was hoping to drop by the Big E for a while on Saturday morning, but wound up way too busy (and, besides, it threatened to rain all day). The drive home, once we were out of the rain in Connecticut and New York, was uneventful.

Happy New Year!

We had a very happy holiday, enjoyed the east coast snowstorm since it hit after we were at my parents, and managed to get home in the New Year's rainstorm before the ice storm we keep hearing is coming.

I hope to start posting in the blog a little more; I've started to learn about RSS, so expect to see some changes here soon.