"The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank." - Dante Gabriel Rosetti

You probably heard that the Democrats put God back in their platform. By voice vote. Word is he's really grateful to be invited to their party.
The Dems brought out the celebs at tonight's session - actors, actresses, musicians. I think that illustrates the primary constituencies of the two parties, and the geographical divide. The coasts vs. the fly-over states. Yes, that's a simplification, but the red/blue map bears it out in general.
People who work with their hands vs. people who ... don't. And the odd thing is that it seems like it should be the other way around in terms of alignment. The Republicans are portrayed as the party of the wealthy and the Dems as the party of the common man.
Interesting.

When I moved our insurance over to Allstate a couple of years ago I did it all through an 800 number. But the first time I tried to make a policy change I learned how frustrating it can be to deal with a grumpy agent sitting in a cubicle with a headset on. So when it neared time to add the Rambler I contacted an agent in a local office and had her take over our policies. A week later she called back to say she'd found ways to upgrade our insurance while also saving us money.

We could have saved even more on our auto policies if I'd agreed to put recording devices in the xB and the Kia - those little gizmos that plug in under the dash and somehow notify Allstate every time we brake too hard, or go too fast, or...
I declined. We are both very conservative drivers and I don't think we'd ever trigger one of those warnings - although I wonder what they do when you brake hard for a yellow light. But I'm not comfortable with my insurance co. looking over my shoulder, monitoring the way I drive. I understand the business sense it makes for them. I'm just suspicious enough that I don't want Big Brother riding along, especially when I'm not sure exactly how the whole thing works and precisely what they track. Intrusive.
And no, I don't have a smart phone.

They didn't put cup holders in Ramblers in 1966. I went shopping for one of those caddies that lays over the center hump on a bench seat car that holds drinks and has a tray or two for stuff. I wanted one of those with the weighted wings that hang down on either side to hold the caddy in place.
They don't make 'em anymore. They don't even make caddies designed to go on the center hump. I found a couple with wide flat bottoms for sitting in the middle of the back seat and some intended to sit on top of a center console. But nothing for the center hump.
I even looked online.
I think I'll have to take one designed for the back seat and shape the bottom to match the curve of the hump. Then maybe some velcro to grab the carpet, or have Pam make up a fabric saddle with the wings I can put weights in, and then attach that to the bottom of the caddy.

I went to the cardiologist for the initial check on the pacemaker. The tech who does that check draped a device around my neck so that this little donut-shaped thing with a long cord laid over the top of my chest where the pacemaker is. The other end of that cord plugged into his laptop.

The lead attached to the lower chamber of my heart is working less than 1% of the time while the lead to the upper chamber is working about 10% of the time. The tips of the leads have attached themselves securely to the walls of their respective chambers and are giving/receiving a good signal. The factory settings have a bottom of 60 bpm; anything lower than that and the pacemaker kicks in. But because I exercise as much as I do my normal pulse is in the upper 50's, so he dropped that bottom level to 50. The pacemaker has the potential for an upper limit but he didn't set one.
Every 23 hours the pacemaker performs a self-test no matter what my heart rate is. I don't know what happens if it fails that test; didn't think to ask.
Now I go back every six months to repeat this check. They estimate batter life based on the percentage of time it's sending out current. When it nears the end of its life they go in, unplug the wires and remove the pacemaker, hook up the wires to the new one and close me up. But that shouldn't be for about three years.
Pretty interesting stuff.

Storm clouds are brewing and we're hoping for thunderstorms. I'm headed into town for a meeting and hope to come out to flooded streets.