Laura's GeekFest

Wow, what a day.

It's pretty much included every non-knitting-thing I like to be geeky about, except for a subway ride and a space launch. We've had some weird weather (or at least something weird that the weather people got to report on), some Obama activity, and more race stuff!

My day started much earlier than I would've liked, thanks to the dogs, and the first thing I read when I got up was a "did anyone else feel the earthquake?!?" e-mail. Waking up at 8:30 had pushed out of my mind the memory of waking up at 5:30 to a weird noise, worrying about wind, feeling some shaking, and thinking "oh, well, if it's anything, it's probably just an earthquake," and going back to sleep.

"Just an earthquake" is not really a common phrase in Indiana - the last one hit when I was in high school. But we had a small one this morning, and another one just before lunch. Since the reporting seemed to fall to the TV weather guys (I guess because they could use the same maps), I'm going to file this one under the category of "interesting weather."

In spite of the earthquakes, I went out to vote. It was really a thrill to be able to select the buttons (I almost wrote "pull the levers" - I miss the old voting machines) for two candidates I like, and even one I've met - Barack Obama and Nels Ackerson. The early voting takes a way some of the solemnity of the occasion - no visiting your traditional precinct, no seeing your neighbors - but it sure is convenient. 450 people voted yesterday, and they just kept showing up as I waited in line today.


I was glad I went into campus, too, because there was more fun stuff on the mall - leading up to this weekend's Grand Prix. I've never been to the actual race, but they keep adding activities to try to distract students from the traditional alcohol-fueled celebrations, so that means there was more cool racing stuff today. The Indy 500 Fan Tour was on campus, and they were very generous about giving me extra souvenir goodies so my father and sister won't have to fight over them.


The highlight of the truck is a racing simulator, which I didn't wait for, but there was also a nice little exhibit inside. They had this neat display of the track's surface - from the bricks to the most recent round of paving.


And they had a fake strip of bricks running through the exhibit, so the sock took a moment to check it out. I'll have to try to make it out to the track so the sock can see the real thing.


We also checked out the go-carts that will be racing tomorrow. It looks like a lot of fun - I'd be slightly tempted to think about going to the race itself, but tomorrow is Nordic Knitting and it's probably going to rain. The sock is rooting for the Society of Women Engineers cart, since they were in the process of painting it blue when I took this picture.


Tonight I went out to a meeting of Township Team Captains for the Obama campaign, which I seem to have volunteered to be. I'm supposed to organize my neighbors to get out and vote, which means I'll have to get out and find some neighbors. But since Tom, who runs the local field office, showed a pretty good sense of humor about holding the sock (note the nice, large crowd for the meeting!), I can think positive about making phone calls and knocking on doors. The hard part will be recruiting other volunteers - I'm not sure I have five friends I can recruit!


So now the sock is home happy, and just about ready for its heel. I love that Tippecanoe County gives out these cute little "I Voted" stickers - I'll have to find some place to display it more permanently.