typically one might vote early in case bad weather happens on election day (november 8th), making it hard to get to the voting station. being a contrarian, i did the exact opposite: on a day where it would've been better to stay home, i went to go cast my early voting ballot. not only was it cold (temperature in the 40's), but it was also raining, that misty sort of rain that saturated everything it touched, with strong winds upwards of 30mph on top of all that. the streets were slick with wet leaves, and yet this was the day i decided it'd be a great idea to ride down to the cambridge public library and go vote.

there was an early voting sign outside the library, so i knew this was the right place. inside i had to ask information desk, who directed me to take the elevator downstairs to L2. at the end of a long tall corridor was an empty room with a few poll workers along with a police officer sit in a chair by the door. in the center of the room was a round curtained voting station divided into 4 booths. they asked for my name and address, then gave me a ballot with an envelope. i was instructed to write my personal information on the envelope before picking a booth to vote.

the only other person voting was a young jewish man (identified by his yarmulke). besides the president, there were a few other elected offices, both all of those other politicians were running unopposed. there was also 4 ballot questions this year: i vote no on the slot parlor license (no to gambling), yes on charter schools (inner city kids need more options), no on humane diary/meat (i don't want more expensive groceries), and yes on recreational marijuana legalization (yes to drugs only because i want to grow my own weed for fun). i put my ballot in the envelope and dropped it into a plastic box before getting a voting sticker.

in the hallway i caught the young jewish man waiting for the elevator. he wasn't particularly friendly, paid me no attention. i had the last laugh because he was facing the wrong side when we got to the ground floor (one of those 2 entrance elevators).

the rain had intensified by the time i left the library. grumbling under my breath, i zipped up my jacket and rode the 1 mile back home (8 minutes).

i bumped into my next door neighbor (the guy who bikes), who was throwing out some stuff from his apartment. he told me it was because he's moving out. he asked me if i wanted a smaller wire rack, having seen me take the larger one a few days ago (doh! i didn't think anyone saw me). the rack was a good size but missing a few layers so i decided not to take it. instead at the bottom were a few screwdrivers and an open-ended wrench (sizes 1/2" and 9/16") which i took, along with a roll of glow-in-the-dark tape and magnetic tape. i didn't get a chance to ask him where he was moving to before he went back inside the house.

earlier i was back in the community garden mining more larkspur seedlings. wet and cold, i dug out the clumps of seedlings with my gardening trowel but filled the rest of the containers with soil using my hands. i learned that earlier this week they'd turned off the water in anticipation of a hard freeze. so in order to wash my hands, i used the rain water that'd collected on some of the garden refuse trash lids. it was pretty miserable, i collected 6 more containers of seedlings before taking them back to the house on my bicycle.

despite how bad it was outside, it was a tolerable 64°F in my house for much of the day, warm enough that i didn't even turn on the heat. maybe having a warm macbook pro on my lap had something to do with it, but my bare feet felt cold. once evening came around, the nest automatically raised the temperature to 65°F. i then later turned it up to 68°F.

for dinner i boiled the plate of frozen chinese dumplings (16) my parents' delivered yesterday. dumplings nothing without a good dipping sauce, which i created with chopped garlic, soy sauce, vietnamese hot sauce, and a bit of balsamic vinegar. it was a night of sports, two basketball games on ESPN (streamed on the chromecast) and game 3 of the world series on local FOX 25 (cleveland at chicago).