Decades past, I was in a concert band in college that toured Wisconsin during winter break. It was a big deal in that we played mostly Lutheran strongholds (we were a Lutheran University - what can I say) and the idea of having a concert in some place like Wittenberg Wisconsin on a Saturday night and 30 degrees below zero with a crowd of 2000 .. well its just something we did....it also says a lot about Lutherans in the depth of Wisconsin and what they had for entertainment options.
The following week we played at Carroll College in Waukesha. At a reception after I met my first "out of state" girlfriend and we corresponded for the rest of the school year but nothing came of it other than a disaster when I went to Milwaukee with a dorm friend for a weekend and met up with her at Schroeder's bookstore and I think she realized that the soloist with the band and a guy on a performance "high" at a reception was a far cry from the nerd who appeared and she headed for the hills.
So now Waukesha has hit my "news" in box again as the clerk was on TV yesterday saying that she found a town's worth of votes and that the looser in the state supreme court election really won by a pretty big margin. That Ms. Nickolaus, the clerk in question, seems to do this a lot - loose votes later to find them or reserve voting results to her personal computer instead of the county computers, is of course cause for some alarm - this being the 6th MAJOR incidence in 10 years. It kinda smacks of Bush and Gore in Florida and Ms. Nickolaus appears to be something of clone of that weird Florida Secretary of State but with such a look of guilt...oh well.
I'm kinda sad for her in a way. Not for the obvious "I can't do my job right someone please shoot me" stuff you would think comes to mind. It is just for being so dumb. I feel bad for dumb people who are in a place where you aren't supposed to be dumb. Look here. If I live on a block where of the 100 of us residents put out our garbage at the curb on Monday and the city announces that next week for one time only it will be Tuesday instead of Monday and that Tuesday instead of 100 cans at the curb there are only 50 would it be reasonable to assume 1. only 50 people had garbage this week or 2. only 50 people got the message.
When voter turn out was at record levels all over the state and Waukesha dropped by almost 30 percent do you suppose Ms. Nickolaus should have taken two days of head scratching before she figured out that something was perhaps amiss?
Fate is funny. I was really smitten by the girl in college but if that had gone to fruition I might be living in Waukesha right now (did I mention her daddy was rich) and suffering through this idiot clerk instead of being where I am with a very bright wife who hasn't mis-counted anything in her life.
The following week we played at Carroll College in Waukesha. At a reception after I met my first "out of state" girlfriend and we corresponded for the rest of the school year but nothing came of it other than a disaster when I went to Milwaukee with a dorm friend for a weekend and met up with her at Schroeder's bookstore and I think she realized that the soloist with the band and a guy on a performance "high" at a reception was a far cry from the nerd who appeared and she headed for the hills.
I'm kinda sad for her in a way. Not for the obvious "I can't do my job right someone please shoot me" stuff you would think comes to mind. It is just for being so dumb. I feel bad for dumb people who are in a place where you aren't supposed to be dumb. Look here. If I live on a block where of the 100 of us residents put out our garbage at the curb on Monday and the city announces that next week for one time only it will be Tuesday instead of Monday and that Tuesday instead of 100 cans at the curb there are only 50 would it be reasonable to assume 1. only 50 people had garbage this week or 2. only 50 people got the message.
When voter turn out was at record levels all over the state and Waukesha dropped by almost 30 percent do you suppose Ms. Nickolaus should have taken two days of head scratching before she figured out that something was perhaps amiss?
Fate is funny. I was really smitten by the girl in college but if that had gone to fruition I might be living in Waukesha right now (did I mention her daddy was rich) and suffering through this idiot clerk instead of being where I am with a very bright wife who hasn't mis-counted anything in her life.