Voting, Car Registration and Tuba Man

I VOTED!!! This isn't normally big news but I wasn't planning on voting when I woke up this morning. My Dad sent me some mail last week that arrived yesterday and as I was going through it I discovered my absentee ballot. I called the Snohomish County Auditor office to see if I was legit (ballot says up to 5 year prison sentence so I REALLY wanted to be sure). I was informed that I could vote so I filled out the ballot, ran over to get 2 of my apartment managers to sign the witness signature lines and headed to the post office.

Also registered my car today. $504.50!!! Just a little more expensive than in Washington State.

A couple of friends forwarded me some very sad news out of Seattle today. Turns out that 5 punks beat up Ed "Tuba Man" McMichael who later died as a result of the attack. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/386267_robert04xx.html

Ed was a great fixture at all sporting events and I was fortunate enough to have a few conversations with Tuba Man over the years. My favorite took place back in the Summer of 1995 when I was working for the Seattle SeaDogs which was a professional soccer team (played at Mercer Arena in 95 and the Key Arena in 96 and 97). We used to set up this big inflatable Dog Head on the sidewalk outside of Mercer Arena before home games and Ed would sometime be hanging out there with us as he awaited the arrival of the crowd. One night he was just talking away when I sarcastically said "I will give you a buck if you play Stairway to Heaven". Tuba Man in his deep voice slowly replyed "You want to hear some Stairway to Heaven Do Ya" and then turned away. There was about a 30 second pause as I turned back to complete the work on the inflatable, figuring that he wouldn't be able to play the Led Zepplin classic and suddenly Ed started playing Stairway. Needless to say, I walked over and dropped a buck into his tuba case. I always made it a point over the years to give Ed some spare change or a dollar whenever I walked by him and his tuba. I hope they catch the other 3 guys that did it because Tuba Man deserved far better. R.I.P Tuba Man and thanks for the memories.