So – there are a lot of folks who wanted to know how this all went; so here goes:

Tuesday was election day- I met my animal nearby, and we had a little dinner before the festivities. The Operations people did a laudable job with crowd management in the new space. Good turnout, we made quorum easily. Our Secretary got the ball rolling, and the ticket was nine people for five BoD seats, one running for Arbiter (unopposed)  and two bylaws proposals – one regarding the abolition of the Parlimentarian position, one regarding membership. I have had strong interest in running for Parlimentarian – I’d be damn good at it – but I supposted the bylaw, and it would seem odd to try to do both.

Ken “The Living Weapon” Soulhuntre and Kimiko were present to vote, and he was keeping me laughing the whole time- he’s a truly funny bastard.

The bylaw failed, so there was an open Parlimentarian post, and I had taken a BoD seat, along with Catelynn, Bo, Mike S, and Sharon. Good company- but I regretted having beat out my friend Mosquito Pete. As it turned out, I need not have worried about it. Tower was elected Arbiter- but when there was a vacancy for Parlimentarian, he ran for that position. If I had not made the Board, I’d have done the same- a late night recount showed that we (Pete and I) had actually tied. I got the news when I got home, and my first instinct was to default the position to Pete. Considering the backbreaking labor he’s put in for TES, it struck me as wrong for him not to get the position. I talked with my animal, who had a brilliant idea, slept on it and called Mark back in the AM with an idea. He proposed it to Tower and The Big Mosquito, and we all reached an equitable agreement; we just had to bring it before the BoD, and see if they accepted it. It seemed the best conclusion to the whole muddled mess, as it put two candidates to the posts they had been initially elected to, and the third, who had tied for an officer position, in a Board officer seat- albeit non-voting.

So- I withdrew from the BoD race, so that the BoD seat would go to Mosquito Pete. No matter what happened, the BoD would have the right man for that job.

Wednesday was spent with my animal at the Bronx Zoo. A truly fine day. We then toddled off to Court, where we paid only what we tried to pay five fucking months ago, before that nonsense started- all we owed, and all they had any right to see.

Which made our day that much better.

Thursday was the first meeting of the newly elected BoD, a grace period where the old Board and the new Board sat at the same table and tries to make a smooth transition. The first order of business was to decide what to do about the tied election and the complications it brought about. Two hours of exploration later, the Board unanimously accepted tower as Arbiter, Mosquito Pete in the voting Board seat, and myself seated as Parlimentarian- which is what I really wanted in the first place.

It was interesting to watch some of the denial issues at work. Of the three candidates who did not win, only one camp (A camp of two)been screaming “Foul” because somehow he lost- so, of course, something must be wrong with the process. Apparently, election pixies were supposed to come and make everything all right, their tiny wings a’strainin’ with the weight of dozens of unmailed ballots and dragging recalcitrant voters by their naughty, naughty ears.The meeting had a side dish of note passing and nonsense. A special note of thanks to Starts1, who hashed issues and doubts out with me like a gentleman, and really is an unpright man. (By the way- some of the above histrionics have taken place on his weblog, and is well worth seeing.) In the end, I was placed as Palimentarian unanimously, and will serve on the BoD until the elections next September.

It was recently said that “Being polite might buy you a cup of coffee, but it won’t fix the barn.” Well, I have no idea what the hell that’s supposed to mean, but I do know this: Sometimes, all you need to fix the barn is a majority vote.