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Considering All Absentee Ballot, All the Time

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Being a political junkie, I tend to troll over a variety of websites looking for the latest and greatest information on local, state, and national politics. While looking over the Morris County Clerk’s website I stumbled onto the Civilian Absentee Ballot Application. Reading through the information on the pre-application page and the application itself, I learned that I can choose to receive absentee ballots for all future general elections.

In other words, I can fill out this application and then always have a ballot sent to whatever address that I want so I can be sure to vote in whatever general election is upcoming. I had no idea that I could do this, but it sounds like a great idea!

Some of you may know that I rent an apartment in Tinton Falls which is about an hour and a half from my voting station in Mount Arlington. As such, Election Day always presents a logistical problem for me since I have to factor a three-hour drive into my schedule. Voting by absentee ballot would be much more efficient. Some additional research into the Morris County Clerk’s website shows that no one voted by absentee ballot in Mount Arlington during this year’s election. While that may seem suspect to some people, there were only some 2,493 votes cast in the entire Borough. To assume that there were no absentee ballots cast this year is not that far of a stretch.

However, the ability to have a perpetual absentee ballot is a great option for someone like me who is generally moving to a new place every few years. Sure, I intend to register in which ever municipality where I wind up purchasing a home, but that’s not coming any time soon. Plus, because I’m constantly reading up on the local news I might even be more aware of political issues going on in my hometown than some of the folks who are voting up there anyway!

When you think about it, the application of the perpetual absentee ballot is powerful. Unfortunately, there are some people who just do not want to go to the polling stations to cast their votes. Some might be hindered because of their jobs and others might be hindered because of their personal schedules. In New Jersey, where we do not have early voting, receiving an absentee ballot that has to be mailed in to the County Clerk’s Office some 7 days prior to the election may increase the possibility that more eligible voters will vote.

I’m going to look into this some more, but I’m strongly considering going to an all-absentee ballot, all the time setup for future general elections (school board and primary elections do not apply).

Trying to Get Back to Normal

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I’ve spent the better part of this week trying to get back to “normal,” whatever that means. I went back to work on Monday morning and though I believe I’ve been mostly unproductive, my co-workers and colleagues seem to be glad to have me back. You know that it’s always tough to have someone out of the office – everyone else has to pick up their slack and in my business, it means that they have to try to understand what I was doing with my specific loan portfolio. Not an easy task, but one that my colleagues were more than successful with in my absence.

Condolences continue to come in and I’m very thankful for them. I am extremely grateful that I have such caring friends. It’s very comforting to know that for both me and my family.

So what is “getting back to normal” besides getting back into the office? Well, I watched a few of the latest summer movie releases – which will all be reviewed in due time on this blog and JerseySmarts.com. I also got back to looking for a new place to live since I’ll be moving out of my apartment at the end of August. There’s a slow, aggravating process for you…

I have not had the opportunity to get back into the gym yet, though I am really looking forward to that day. The reason I haven’t been able to get back in yet relates to my sleeping patterns – they’ve been terrible for the last 2 weeks (as you could imagine). I actually got to work an hour late today because I chose to sleep in a little bit; if I had another day in the office today like I did yesterday, it would just be a waste of time.

My Usable Web Solutions, LLC company is on hold for at least another week or so. I’m just not ready for the high level of analytical and logical thinking that it takes to design websites. Soon, but not right yet. That was also applied towards my contributions to my two wrestling sites, TBLWrestling.com and XHeadlines.com. Thankfully, both sites are webmastered by competent individuals who are more than capable of handling them in my absence. There’s still a lot of work to do with XHeadlines.com yet, though…

I’ve got a bunch of blog entries prepared in “draft” format that I have to revise before posting so be on the lookout for that. Many of you know that I spend a good deal of my free time working as a volunteer for Sigma Pi Fraternity. I have not had the opportunity to get back into the advising mindset for the Fraternity yet, but I plan to do so after I attend Sigma Pi University next week in beautiful Nashville, Tennessee. I have 2 presentations that I am scheduled to deliver while in Nashville which I think I will be up to doing. One of them is completely put together and the other is in its final stages. Wish me luck!

I’ll be headed back home one day this weekend to spend time with my Mother and brothers. Before I left at the end of last week, my younger brother and I did a lot of cleaning and purging with my Mom. Nothing major – just a lot of the junk that was laying around our backyard and some of the stacks of magazines in our living room. My Mom has a new vacuum up there and it works wonders on her living room floor so we wound up rearranging the living room after moving all of the pieces so she could vacuum.

Anyway, be on the lookout for more “stuff” in the coming days.

Lost My F*cking Pedometer

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A few months ago I bought a pedometer to see how many steps I walk in a day, week, month, etc. I figured it would be a fun little thing to have and just something interesting to monitor.

Well, being a schmuck, I had to buy the $25 pedometer as opposed to the $10 one. I don’t really know what the difference is between the two, but that didn’t matter at the time. So I started wearing the pedometer and it was cool to see how many steps you take in a day or how many steps you take when you’re just walking around the mall (by the way – you take a LOT of steps walking around the mall!). I also wore it to the gym so I could see how many steps I took during a typical session on the treadmill. All of this was very interesting.

But the stupid pedometer had a habit of flopping open all the time so I was constantly locking it back into place. That wasn’t really annoying, but it was aggravating to have to do that all of the time. Also, it was a pain in the ass to always have to remember to put the thing on when I was just walking around my apartment or lounging.

Anyway, I got out of my car in Newark today and as I was walking towards the building I was going to, I felt down to the pedometer and the fucking thing wasn’t there! The shell of it was there (that is, the piece that locks it into place), but the actual pedometer was gone. I figured that it was in my car since it has a habit of popping off in the car. Nope.

I lost the damn thing. That’s $25 that I pretty much just threw into the street somewhere. Fucking fantastic. The moral of the story here, kiddies, is to not buy expensive trinkets if they are too small to keep an eye on and especially if you’re going to attach them in a manner that allows them to easily be lost.

Stupid pedometer…