having the cops called on me and almost getting hit by a train -- all in the same night

last week i was helping my sister and her fiancee Brian pack up their belongings (they're moving to omaha in 1.5 weeks after they get married). Brian lives on a corner, but we had 5 cars at his place so there wasn't much space to park. the only spot available close to his place was blocking a sidewalk. as soon as i parked, i hear this screeching voice -- "you can't block the sidewalk! people walk there! you can't block the sidewalk!" after a few minutes, a cop stops by bc the...um...lady (i'll be nice) had called me in. the cop rolled his eyes and said "she's a big pain for us. always calling people in for stupid stuff." he directed me as i crept to within an inch of my sister's bumper to satisfactorily clear the sidewalk.

as the 3 of us drove the vehicles back to my place, i was following my sister. in the last year or so, she has developed a phobia of trains -- she would rather not cross tracks or drive along them. but because of the low visibility for all of us drivers in the over-packed vehicles, we avoided the construction on the main route to my place and took a road that cut across the train tracks. one train starting crossing just as we approached the tracks. before it was through, another one passed from the other direction. the bars finally went up and my sister crossed the tracks in front of me. before she was over the first set of tracks, they started coming down again. surely i just imagined that the crossing bells had stopped ringing, i thought to myself. my sister hesitated in front of me, also not sure what was happening. she crossed as the bars came down directly in front of me. i couldn't back up at all because i had just crossed an intersection and a car was at my bumper, apparently just as impatient as i about having to wait through 2 trains and now a 3rd.

thankfully, the rest of the evening went relatively smoothly.

Kyle's most recent hospital adventures

the fun began while i was at letourneau at the beginning of may. Kyle (Lisa's fiancee) called me that he was in the hospital! at first doctors thought it was appendicitis, but they thankfully realized it was a viral infection before they operated. after 5 days in the hospital he was released the day before graduation to the madness of packing and moving out of his on-campus apartment.

on the friday and saturday after he was released, his IV wound was really painful. i knew it was hurting him, but didn't think twice about it because the same thing happened to me after my appendix was taken out. but my wrist/arm didn't hurt until about a week after the needle came out...his was almost immediate. he's been to the ER and had appointments off and on to deal with this since then.

this thursday, we went back in the hospital with nerve damage in his arm. he'll be there for at least a few more days with tests, physical therapy, etc.

i believe his diagnosis is "RSD (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy) -- a condition that develops in some people after an injury (like an infection) that causes the nerves to go haywire, 'a short'" (from Lisa's away msg).

another update from Lisa: "Kyle is going through different treatment for RSD. So far he's not reacting the way most people do and so they're trying other ways. He's also doing physical therapy and it will be while before he'll pain free (prolly after the wedding)"

because of the hospital stay at the beginning of may, he missed all of his finals. thankfully his prof's are all really understanding and are allowing him to take his finals as late as midterm next semester for credit.

primary election

we had a primary on may 9. after the ballots come in from the precincts, we run them through a scanner which tabulates the different races. we save everything to a zip disk to upload the data to my office pc where i print out reports for the Election Commissioner and to put on the County's website.

elections are a fun time with a few moments of high-stress scattered throughout the night. the ladies that work in the election office bring plenty of food for everyone and the workers bring plenty of energy and laughter.

because of the governor race (the incumbant Dave Heineman vs the legendary husker football coach Tom Osborne), many people switched parties to have a say in this important race (we don't have enough democrats in this area to make a significant difference). enough of them waited to switch until after the ballots were purchased that we ran out of republican ones in many precincts. these precincts were sent ballots made on a copy machine, so the ballot scanner couldn't be used to count them. many also decided to vote non-partisan and those too had to be hand-counted.

many races were decided on election night, but a few were close enough that the hand-counted ballots determined the final results. we scanned almost 10,000 ballots in 2.5 hours on election night, but it took 3 long days to process the ones that needed to be hand-counted.

by law, both a republican and a democratic representative must do the hand-counting and must witness the reporting of that data. so the 3 of us spent all of friday manually entering data for less than 200 ballots. one of the rep's read to me the totals to be added for a particular race for each precinct, i typed it in, and the other one made sure i didn't mistype. there were enough close races that a mistake from me might make a huge difference and we were all zoned after a few hours, so there was plenty of stress involved in that process.

on election night, the race for the County Board seat in my district was within 8 votes, but after all of the hand-counting it was down to within 6 (another confirmation that every vote counts!). by law, the election office is required to do a recount if a race is within 1% of the winners votes, but a canditate can request a recount as his cost if he wishes. this race was decided by 1.7%, but we didn't know for a few days if the loser would want a recount.

i don't think the election is legally completed yet, but i'm fairly certain my work has been completed. i am so thankful for this! i worked 54 hours in 5 days last week and dealt with the election for all but a few hours of that. i wasn't prepared for the election taking that much of my time. the only other election i've been involved with was a city election with only a yes/no vote. for some reason, i expected the processing of the primary election to be comparable with that one.

i spent the last few days at letourneau university -- hanging out and watching many friends graduate. i have returned home refreshed, inspired, and with a new perspective. more to come about the trip and the thinking i did over my 26.5 hours of driving time.

i have a gut feeling that my relationship with each of my parents will drastically change within the next 3 years (which is when my brother will leave for college). i will distance myself from the one i am closer to and will become close (relatively at least) with the one i haven't talked to in a few years.

i've never had this stong of a gut feeling as this one. it's not a goal, a dream, or anything else. i know without a doubt that it will happen.