I was up at 11, packed a couple more things, and did my post office and FedEx run, stopping first at my favorite lunch truck for some good old lunch truck spaghetti and a diet Pepsi.
By the time I got back here, cleaned up and shaved so I'd look as much as possible like my passport photo (and I brought my passport) and was walking to the light rail station, it was a bit past 4. What's to worry about, I thought. I have 3 hours to get there.
3 hours ended up cutting it close. I took the light rail to the Milpitas BART station and checked the buses leaving there. None of them are ones that go by Ohlone College. So I called for a cab, which did eventually come, at just before 7. The ride was quoted as $51-odd, and I gave the guy $60. It was a fair old distance too.
During the ride, the driver, a nice old Sikh guy, and I talked about ways to get back. He'd be off duty; been driving since 7AM. I might not have very good luck with the cab company and I said I know as it's a Santa Clara County cab company. I said I might take a bus because if the bus gets me to one of the BART stations then I can always go on BART back to the Milpitas station.
We got to the college and it was easy to find the voting area as it was right out front next to the on-campus Starbucks. The voting was easy, it was only two things anyway; Prop. 50 and Measure B.
While waiting in line I started sussing out people to talk to, to be able to bring up the subject of my having $50 for anyone who can give me a ride back. I made some small talk with the guy right behind me, a skinny, quiet guy with long hair. Quiet enough that I decided I'd not broach the subject with him.
Done voting, I went out front and started sussing out people again, and who should come up from behind me and say he'll give me a ride but the skinny guy. Fair enough!
We got in his Prius and had plenty of time to talk about our occupations and situations and some funny stories and observations. He'd "done NASA work" but was laid off, and is jobless. Not in dire need but getting by selling his deceased dad's stuff and getting money from his mother, now out in flyover country, who'd sold their house here in the Bay Area.
I could not describe an easy way to get to Milpitas BART, and the guy's navigation thing couldn't deal with something that vague, so I said he could go to the intersection of First and Brokaw, which is easy to find and not at all far from Milpitas BART. So we did that. I gave him $100 which he really appreciated. I may have done him a real solid, and he sure did me one.
Now, I could just walk home, but I'd planned to go to Whole Foods to get a couple of things, have some food and a near-beer, and watch the election results. And that's just what I did, hopping on the light rail again to go down there, except for the election results. The guy at the bar said a guy'd come in there with a Trump 2025 something or other, and so the rule was no politics in the bar. Fair enough!
I finished my food and beer and rode the light rail back here and that's it. I'd not missed what may be the last election until this horrible regime is gotten rid of.
Apparently Zohran Mamdani has won in New York, he's their new mayor. That's great news. And Prop. 50 passed. If anything even better news.
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