Thanks! And yes. I guess I can say now that we were in Haiti. The group we went with asked us to keep that confidential before we left given some of the recent kidnappings. But we felt safe and were not in area that this was happening. My wife had to come back early due to illness. She picked up some virus from food or a bug bite - not quite sure, but was best for her to return. This is sort of common and we were aware of this risk before going. She is recovering fine. Two others in our group left early due to the same. I stayed just before Christmas and made it back in time to be with her and my family.
It was a great experience helping to build an orphanage school and I'd like to do this again.
Haiti needs a lot of help. Just a devasted country from earthquakes, storms, and bad government. Eye opening experience.
IndyGeorgia: Brent, appreciate your work on the Ontario elections. Thanks!
Appreciate it. Thank you for all you do! Figured I'd start adding the candidates for Z to A and got into a groove.
Going back now to make sure we have good photos and bios for candidates who could win.
Congrats to the Liberal Party and the Green Party for having the best content out there for bios and pics, and making it real easy to download. Both appear to have professional photographers making sure the best picture are taken of their candidates - Libs against great backgrounds.
Brent, in reference to your 7/28/21 question on my profile page, the reason that I had chosen to mark the members of the Japanese House of Councilors as senators was because it was their equivalent in our system as it's their upper house. They don't have specific titles beyond "member of the House of Councilors" but found that too excessive to create its own label, especially since they don't even go by "councilor" on its own. Hope this is helpful, even a year on.
Brent, in reference to your 7/28/21 question on my profile page, the reason that I had chosen to mark the members of the Japanese House of Councilors as senators was because it was their equivalent in our system as it's their upper house. They don't have specific titles beyond "member of the House of Councilors" but found that too excessive to create its own label, especially since they don't even go by "councilor" on its own. Hope this is helpful, even a year* on.
*two years, as am reasonably sure my prior response got filtered out and wanted to make sure you saw it.
Ralphie: Brent, in reference to your 7/28/21 question on my profile page, the reason that I had chosen to mark the members of the Japanese House of Councilors as senators was because it was their equivalent in our system as it's their upper house. They don't have specific titles beyond "member of the House of Councilors" but found that too excessive to create its own label, especially since they don't even go by "councilor" on its own. Hope this is helpful, even a year* on.
*two years, as am reasonably sure my prior response got filtered out and wanted to make sure you saw it.
Thanks. I totally forgot I wrote that. When I did I was expecting to travel to Japan and was honing up my Japanese and Japan political history. But Covid shut down the whole country. Hoping to hit Japan next year or the following. Are you into Japan / Japanese? Ever been there? Would love to pick your brain if you have.
Nah, just went through a phase where I got into their politics during those few years where Koizumi had the old guard on the ropes. When Your Party fizzled and there was no longer momentum to liberalize the bureaucratic state I mostly lost interest.
Ralphie: because it was their equivalent in our system as it's their upper house.
Which is exactly how it was intended to be used. Unfortunately, people made WAY too many categories for any different and now it's going to take mnay, many hours to clean up and I'm probably going to severely limit the ability to create new ones.
I'm heading out for a couple of months with the wife on a humanitarian mission this Thanksgiving through the New Year and will be offline through early January. I'll probably have some Internet access, but I'm going off all social media and websites so I can have my mindset total focused on the mission and effort.
Before I left, I wanted to wish you all, your loved ones and your families a wonderful and special Thanksgiving, Christmas (if you celebrate it), Holiday Season, and New Year.
Seems like things are really getting tense in the world. I want you all to know that even though many of us approach things from different world views, I've tried to be respectful. I apologize unreservedly if any of you have felt disrespected in anyway by my comments or actions. We should be able to have our beliefs and respect each other at the same time. I'll own not living up to that standard sometimes this past year. In the end we need to co-exist with our wide and different views.
I'd like to leave you all with something I've been studying recently, the Parable of the Prodigal Son. [Link] I am aware that many of you aren't religious, but this parable has inspired so much classical and popular culture, I'm sure you've been exposed in some way whether it be from a modern song or a Kipling poem or a Shakespeare play or even in the themes of Star Wars. [Link] May this amazing story touch you in the way it has touched me. We may all be imperfect. Flawed. But all should be welcomed home into loving arms after we fall short.
RBH: yeah I put the certified totals in for the state-level races but not county-level races in NM
Sounds good. Thanks for saving me the time of checking. I'm gonna have some extra cycles over the next few days, so I'll add the certified results to the county level races.
Cara Spencer