Sometimes an extravagant vacation abroad is just what you need. Other times just a simple lunch and a movie will do just great. In the hussle and bussle that is our normal daily lives it’s important to slow down every once and a while just to spend some time together. This year for our anniversary that’s all we did. We spent the day together enjoying each other’s company.
Author: randyaa
Portland Round 2
For those of you that aren’t aware, we just got back from a family trip to Portland and if you’ve been keeping track we’ve been there once before. This time was a completely different experience. That’s what happens when your family doubles in size and you don’t put 4,000 miles on a rental in a single trip.
This time, the greatest part of the trip wasn’t a great party with dancing and celebration or the phenomenal scenery at every turn or the chance to see huge parts of the country for the first time. It might be cliche but the greatest part of the trip this time was experiencing everything through the eyes of our kids and spending lots of time with family.
Recently Reece has been ecstatic about anything that moves (planes, trains, helicopters, tractors, boats etc.) so we try to expose him to what we can. I cannot properly express the size of my sons eyes as he looked out the airport windows at the plane we were about to get on, turns to us and shouts AIRPLANE! He quieted down on the plane but he was insanely excited about the whole process. One of the places we visited in Oregon was the Airplane Museum and I swear that when he walked into the place he thought it was holy ground.
Delilah wouldn’t stop talking about the entire trip. With all of this, remember that she’s three and she’s totally serious. While sitting on the tarmac for the first flight out she yelled “why aren’t we flying yet!?” Much to the amusement of everyone around us. One evening while out in Oregon with family we saw “the first star at night” and we asked her what she wished for. She thought for a minute and then whispered quietly “that we can come to Oregon again.” After arriving back in Rochester, the first thing she said in the airport? “I want to go back to Oregon.”
These are just a few examples but we could tell just watching them that they were thoroughly enjoying their time in a new and interesting place. What made it really special for them and us was the time they got to spend with family whom they only rarely see and to build the beginnings of their relationship with their cousins. By the end of the trip there seemed to be a real bond forming and we wished we could stay longer.
We can’t wait for the next family adventure whether it takes us to Portland with family or Peru with just the kids.
Aging
Our little man Reece is almost two and Delilah is three and a half!
Holy cow how did that happen?
Skaneateles for 6 years
We’ve spent a lot of time in the finger lakes but for the most part it’s always been day trips. For our 6th anniversary we spent the weekend in Skaneateles. It was mostly just a relaxing weekend in a bed and breakfast. We spent the evenings in the local night scene, went for a lot of walks, sunsets, some shopping and a boat tour around the lake. Overall it was just a nice and relaxing weekend with each other.
Upstate New York vs Downstate New York
This blog post is long over due…
During the most recent presidential election (as with every election in which New York votes democratic) I began seeing lots of posts across the internet about how we should split the state to ensure our vote really counts etc. I’ve heard this argument many times before (and there are others such as who pays for whom) so I decided to do a little investigation.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I tried as hard as I could to keep this factual and not an opinion piece. I hope I did a good job. Feel free to let me know.
I started by taking a look at the red/blue map as published by the New York Times:
Immediately it became clear that the East/South-Eastern part of the state is a democratic stronghold. However; I was interested in the actual numbers so I pressed on. In the picture above it’s quite clear where the southeastern line is, so I used that to create a map of what I thought might be the results of a split:
I then used the New York Times posted results and began recording the individual numbers per county (in the process I even discovered an issue with the reported results for Herkimer county. There were far less total votes reported than there should be and a friend from that county followed up with the Herkimer county board of elections who corrected it a few days later).
Below is the table of data I collected & used for my calculations:
So if you read the data sheet enough, you’ll already know my conclusion (it’s all in the numbers & it’s all calculated in the spreadsheet). As it turns out the actual results are as follows:
If we were to split New York in half, the 2012 Presidential Election results would have been the same.
However; because of how the Electoral college works, there would have actually been 2 more Democratic votes in this election.
The number of Electoral college votes is the summation of the number of Senators and Representatives for that state. Each state gets 2 senators & a portion of the total allotted Representatives based on population.
Splitting the state would have caused a new state to enter the union thus 2 more senators, while splitting the current number of representatives between the two new states.
On a related note, using the district map provided by govtrack.us below:
I estimate the following electoral vote breakdown (how I arrived at these numbers is also in the spreadsheet above):
Current New York State
- Senators: 2
- Representatives: 27
- Votes: 29
Proposed Upstate
- Senators: 2
- Representatives: 9
- Votes: 11
Proposed Downstate
- Senators: 2
- Representatives 18
- Votes: 20
This doesn’t tell the whole story
I don’t get paid for this. I investigated what I was interested in, so I definitely left out a few things
- My data doesn’t include the elections for all positions.
- My data only includes the results for 2012 so it’s not historical.
- The split I chose is arbitrary based on where I thought the best split would be, in reality while looking at this it seemed downstate should include most of the eastern & northern part of the state as well, really turning this into an East/West discussion rather than Upstate/Downstate.
- There is an argument that less republicans vote because they feel their vote doesn’t matter. I don’t really buy this much because I feel it’s the same on both sides, I know plenty of Democrats and Republicans who didn’t vote in this election because they felt it was already in the bag, I feel the margin would probably just increase not change direction.
- The districts would likely not be split between the two proposed states as I suggested. It would probably cause a re-balancing of districts across the country and I’m not sure of the two states proposed would have more or less representatives than I suggested.
In Conclusion
There are a few main points I’d like to leave you with.
1) If the states were split, there would actually be more democratic votes, not less. (this holds factually true for the 2012 Presidential Election, future elections, past elections & other positions are undetermined at this time)
2) If the states were split, more power would be given to downstate than they have today. Their democratic votes would not be held in check by upstate’s republican votes. So given the gap between republican and democratic votes in the downstate totals, it is likely that even with a major republic upswing in voting, downstate would remain democratic. This means their 20 (suggested) votes would be even more locked in than the 29 for the entire state are now.
3) If the states were split, upstate could possibly become a swing state. However; there is a 20% gap between republican and democratic votes in upstate so the argument that more republican voters would turn out if they felt it mattered would have to hold true (without more corresponding democratic voters turning out as well).
Year 5 Bermuda!
Bermuda wasn’t the original plan, Hawaii (again) was the original plan but… kids. Maybe for 10 years!
Bermuda was a great trip. Our first time on a cruise ship. It was a good experience; lots of alcohol, lots of fun & adventure, new friends and some very nice beaches.
Pictures are up and available on flickr.
Tesla : The most awesome Geek who ever lived
Some interesting stuff in the Tesla Oatmeal comic that I had not heard before.
Thanks Oatmeal…
Rochester Lightning Storm
It’s a good thing the RIT Big Shot took place earlier in the evening because shortly after it was all over a storm moved through the area so quickly and forcefully it felt like a hurricane.
I took the (rare) opportunity of being out alone and with my camera to attempt some lightning shots.
Boy am I glad I did!
RIT Big Shot 27
I made it to the 27th RIT Big Shot last night. The venue would have been perfect for the whole family this time but we felt everybody is still a little young to be out that late during the week since so they had to sit this one out.
This is hands down the most people I’ve seen at a Big Shot yet. I’ve heard it was somewhere around 1500 but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more than that. The entire SeaBreeze park was packed, It seemed like there were hundreds of people assigned to each of the lighting areas.
As always, the picture was online before I had a chance to check (ya gotta love Digital Photography). I thought it came out beautifully but check it out for yourselves below:
I managed to sneak my own picture (handheld as they didn’t allow tripods in) with one hand while lighting things up with my other:
Sorry it’s a little shaky 😦 I still thought it came out pretty neat.
RIT Big Shot 27
I made it to the 27th RIT Big Shot. The venue would have been perfect for the whole family this time but we felt everybody is still a little young to be out that late during the week since so they had to sit this one out.
This is hands down the most people I’ve seen at a Big Shot yet. The D&C is reporting somewhere around 1500 but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more than that. The entire SeaBreeze park was packed, It seemed like there were hundreds of people assigned to each of the lighting areas.
As always, the picture was online before I had a chance to check (ya gotta love Digital Photography).
Randy Aldrich 