My day as an Election worker

This really started last autumn when I applied to become an election worker for the EU election. Or maybe earlier. Since I did work at the last general election and found it to be a fun if exhausting experience.  

There was a bit of trouble this year in that I moved during the application process. Knowing something of what the likely schedule for the election day would be I did not want to do this where I had to do any commuting. But this was before last autumn when I was on the cusp of getting a new apartment but hadn't yet. So to be safe I applied in both the town I lived in at the time as well as the city I planned to move to. Then once I'd moved I turned down the position in my old town.

8 of may

Some time ago I had gotten an email with approved as a reserve. Today I'm leaving work early to take a two hour seminar to learn all the rules and routines we must follow when working. It's mostly the same as last time but with some minor changes. But it was two years since I last did this so the reminder is always good. Also they offered sandwiches and tea. 

7 of June

A while ago I got an email with my posting along with some additional duties. Specifically I got the job to pick up the voter register and bring it on the election day. Unfortunately the place where I'm meant to pick it up is only open between 8 and 18 on the Friday before the election. During these times I'm usually either at work or commuting, but there wasn't much for it than to go pick it up before work. Luckily it's on the way to the train station and I'm fine with getting to work late since I didn't have any meetings that day. At least it was done quickly, just finding the right room showing my I'd and I'm on my way to work.

9 of june aka election day

I wake up early, well it's the same time as I would get up during the work days but for a Sunday it's early.

A quick breakfast and collecting my things then I'm away. Taking my bike there it's not far 10 minutes according to google maps (they lie) and I got there with five minutes to spare despite stopping a few times to check that I was going the right way.  

I was there for the first shift which means helping setting everything up and figuring out how things are supposed to be set up. Unlike last time there's no offered lunch or snacks. It might be because it is a different election EU not general or because this is a different municipality but it is noted.

8.00 Everything is in place for the first voters to arrive. 

8.30 Everything is still in place for the first voters to arrive. So far there hasn't been any just party members leaving ballots for some of the smaller parties. There has been voters but they were all going to the location next door. Theoretically my job right now is greeting and directing the voters. But so far it's just been a lot of standing around. Or rather sitting strategically placed where I can watch the front door.

8.45 The early votes has arrived and some voters has started to come by not a rush or even a steady stream but still it's something.

9.30 I take my turn receiving the votes. It's cold here it might be summer but not warm and the doors open. I'm bringing a thicker sweater when I get back from lunch. Mostly so far it's gone well. Not that many voters but so long as we are still dealing with counting and registering the early votes it's actually preferable.

12.00 It's finally time for my lunch break (I've been fantasizing about hot ramen soup for a while now) and I'm taking my bike home. Lunch, doing some chores and then relaxing on the couch for a bit. This does ruin my schedule a bit the break is only a 2 and half hour and I usually does most of my chores on Sunday. Some things I did yesterday and some will just have to wait for another day the rest I'm trying to squeeze in where I can.

14.30 And then the day ended rather anticlimactic. Halfway back from lunch and I almost fainted when my blood pressure dropped. I ended up calling in sick sitting on the sidewalk before stumbling across the street to a corner store buying painkillers and licorice (it raises blood pressure). I then sat on their floor for a bit before feeling good enough to slowly walk home. My blood pressure dropping like this has happened before at least a few times a year and although they pass quickly within the hour I could tell that this one was partially triggered by the exertion of cycling in headwind so continuing going back and forth wasn't really an option. 

Reflections

I need to get better about eating my iron supplements. It has shown to be effective to stop the fainting.

I had forgotten how exhausting it is working from 7 to 22 and then waking up early the next day to go to work. Sure there are breaks but it's still a lot and the breaks aren't really long enough to do anything more than the most basic things. I would recommend everyone to try it but I'm not sure if I Will do it for the next general election. On the other hand I plan for my life to look quite differently then so maybe I will. 

Review of Vox Machina origins by Matthew Mercer

For the last year or so I have had an interest in dungeons and dragons. Not with playing it but watching other people play.

Going from Dimension 20 to critical role and since I'm a bit of a completionist I decided to start at the beginning. Which brought me to the legend of vox machina which started airing on twitch 2017.

114 three hour episodes later and I'm still not ready to leave these characters and in considering getting an amazon prime account to watch the animated series version. But I managed to restrain myself and didn't immediately re-watch the same adventure but turned instead to the prequel comic book. 

I tend to get very excited about a single topic at the time and try to read everything about it.

Plot

Twins Vax (Rogue) and Vex (ranger) are in the swamp town of Stillben investigating a curse that is killing the people. Getting attacked by fishpeople but are helped by Keyleth (druid) who is also investigating the deaths but reveals that the cause is poison and not a curse. They thank her and leaves to continue their investigation. Asking the local alchemist about poisons are immediately attacked again this time by shadowy assassins. 

Meanwhile Scanlan (bard) and Grog (barbarian) is also in Stillben along with their party investigating a temple cult thing belonging to a frog god. After a fight and while looting the temple they find a mysterious potion. Taking it to the alchemist to be identified they find his shop filled with shadowy assassins. Killing them they head to a bar to discuss their plans their companions are all for leaving but Scanlan is approached by Tiberius (sorcerer) who is investigating the curse/poison along with Keyleth on behalf of a criminal syndicate. Revealing that the potion found is the poison he has been looking for and buys the potion. Scanlan convinces grog to look into what's happening in the town thinking it would make a better story then if they just left.

The six of them then continues investigating getting in the way of the others until they reluctantly agrees to team up.

My thoughts

It suffers a bit from being just the story and somewhat condensed. In the stream they tend to get side tracked a lot. I also missed the ridiculous banter between players and seeing the other players reaction to what the others are doing. Also my favorite character (Percy) doesn't appear until the next installment and yes I have read that one to.

Apart from that it was what I expected and hoped. It had the characters I like, the random plans and shenanigans all with some very pretty artwork. And I think most fans of the show would like it.

If you have read it what did you think? Leave a comment. If you haven't read it you can check it out here Vox machina or if you haven't seen the videos then this is the first episode. 

Making A Lamp shade

I have a project to fix my ceiling lamp as a part of that I wanted flower shaped lamp shades. But getting ones that fit and that I like is hard. So I figured I could make some and as usual checked Pinterest for inspiration finding this tutorial (I then followed basically none of this but still). 

My ceiling lamp needs some things before I can do the lampshades. But I have another lamp that also needs a shade and I've been looking for one of glass but haven't found one. So as a test I made on for this lamp instead.

I'd planned on using tissue paper like I think is in the video but at the store they were out of the white one and I ended up buying thin crepe paper instead. It's thicker and more structured so it holds it's shape and was probably a better choice.

I only bought white paper rather than colored partially because there wasn't any of the shade I wanted and if I did I'd have to buy four rolls which was way more paper than I actually needed. 

Tools and materials

There wasn't much materials needed for this. 

Crepe paper

Metal wire

Wire cutters 

Acrylic paint 

Paint brush

Lamp (I'd suggest thrift stores, lamps meant to have shades usually have them when bought new. Otherwise this or this might work.) 

Pencil

Scissors 

Glue

something to protect your work surface the painting got a bit messy.

Mostly these are things I had at home so all together this was a very cheap div. Eagle eyed readers might notice that some of these things aren't on the picture. There is a very good reason for this. Which is that I'd forgotten them until I needed them and didn't feel like taking a new picture.

What I did

I started with drawing out the petals using the first one as a stencil. It's important to make sure they are long enough to cover the light bulb, mine is thin so I make five of them have them overlapping. Realizing as I did it that this type of paper is terrible for drawing on. The lines barely show up and if I press too hard it tears.

Cutting out the petals makes it obvious that crepe paper also isn't good for cutting either it's soft and almost sticks to the scissors. But soon enough I had five large and five small petals.

Before I started painting them I tested the paint on a small scrap. I want the light to shine through and I worried the paint would be to thick. It wasn't so I went full steam ahead and painted them. 

I thinned out the paint with water to make sure light can still come through though this wasn't really needed.

An advantage of painting them compared to buying colored paper is that I could make a gradient on the petals. First painting the whole petal yellow then the base orange. The tiny petals I painted green. All of them I painted on both sides. 

Crepe paper isn't really good to paint and one broke while painting. I made a new one but was more careful going forward, limiting the amount of paint on the brush.

Leaving them to dry I turned to the attachment. The lamp is meant to have a shade and so there is already parts to fit it onto the lamp which made my life so much easier. All I needed to do was to cut a piece of wire and shape it to the attachment point. Taking it of and anchor the ends so it didn't unravel. I now had a wire circle.

At this point the petals was mostly dry and I attached them to the Wire. Folding the lowest edge of the petals and gluing it to the ring. The petals on the outside the fold on the inside so the ring it encased in the paper. I started with the large petals shaping them a bit as it did gluing them on with quite a bit of overlap. Then gluing the small petals on the outside, folding them out because it looked a bit thin and unbalanced.

I'd estimated I'd need five petals but only needed four so I took the best ones.

And then its just putting it all together. Screwing on the shade and lamp pieces. 

Results

I think it turned out quite decent though it looks a bit like a cucumber flower. There are some spots that could have used some more paint. The lamp  is in the art nouveau style so it probably had a shade not to dissimilar to this originally. The bulb is not an LED and does get hot, so it is a bit of a fire hazard. But I'll be careful not to leave it unattended. Regardless it works and now I know what to do for the ceiling lamp.

The Mad Lancers by Brian McClellan

It's a prequel to the Gods of blood and powder series and... well I don't really know where in the timeline it is with the powder mage trilogy. I could probably look it up but I don't want to and it doesn't really matter anyway. It's also short, it's just a novella and only 90 pages long so the plot is rather straightforward.

Ben Sykes who is big, strong and seemingly immune to all injuries. to the point where I thought the twist of GOBAP would be that he was secretly some kind of god. if you have read either series then you understand that this isn't as far fetched as it sounds. 

It takes place before the Fatrastan rebellion or rather during the events leading up to it. Where tension are rising between the paolo, the settlers and the distant Kez government. Sykes is at this point an officer in the Fatrastan militia (I have already forgotten the specifics) garrisoned at a small town. A Kez regiment is passing through and staying for the night. In the morning Sykes stops their drunk colonel from beating the local innkeeper (he was asking them to pay for the drinks they'd had the night before) breaking both his arms in the process. A few hours later the colonel returns, along with his brother (who is the governor). And then things escalate from there. 

This and the rest of he series are for people who likes military things. If reading about cavalry charges and infantry flanking maneuvers doesn't interest you then this isn't the book for you. I personally quite like the battle strategy parts but did in general like powder mage trilogy better. Mainly because I find Sykes and his anger management issues slightly annoying. Not so much in this one but in GOBAP he could avoid a lot of trouble if he just showed some patience. 

All in all it's a nice and short little book mainly for fans of the other series. 

If you have read it what did you think? Leave a comment. If you haven't read it you can check it out here Mad Lancers