Sunday Oct 28 Lazy Sunday

Primo has already been out doing doors. He had to stop at noon because of the football game. We'll go out once the game is over.

Now we are doing the campaign finance report that is due tomorrow night.

"Should I call my mom and dad?" he asked. "They'll be expecting the call."

"Nope," I said. "They can't send you to jail. The state can. We have to do this report."

Besides, I am tired of Sly and Doris. I feel bad for Doris - she emailed to Primo that "despair and misery are wrapped all around [her]," which is so, so sad, but dang, Primo can't fix her life for her.

"I'm her only happiness," he said. "Shouldn't I visit them over Thanksgiving? Shouldn't I spend all my time with them?"

Nope. Nope nope nope.

"You have been working your butt off since I met you," I said. "This Thanksgiving is your chance to relax. If you win the election, you'll still need to relax because you're going back to work [at his engineering job] the Monday after Thanksgiving. If you lose, you'll really need to relax."

"But you might have to go to Beijing for work over that weekend," he protested.

Really. Who organizes a conference in which they want Americans to attend over Thanksgiving weekend? For dumb.

"So you can have the house all to yourself," I shrugged. "I think you'd be nuts to waste that time visiting them."

******

I am keying in the campaign donation data from the online contribution service. They didn't do it right. Primo downloaded the data to a spreadsheet and one person's zip code came across as 1701, which I think we all know is not correct for the United States. So I had to look up the zip code for that town. Apparently, the program has zip codes labeled as numeric and not as alpha characters, so leading zeros don't show up.

*****

Primo saw his half brother Jack last night. He didn't really want to. He was tired and he is annoyed - no, really upset with Jack because he blames Jack for much of Sly and Doris' financial problems, although I say how could the smartest man in the world, Sly, have invested $250,000 in a business without doing his due diligence? I hold Sly and Doris just as responsible, even more, actually, because it was their money! And their idea! If you decide to invest a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS - the bulk of your hard-earned lifetime savings - in something, don't you consult experts and do a ton of research to make sure you are making the right decision?

Anyhow. They went out for a drink. "What did Jack have to say?" I asked.

"He doesn't talk much," Primo said. "I did most of the talking. But we agreed that my parents alienate people with their constant criticism." Which of course is true.

**************

More Samantha and her other candidate. Ralph and Potsie came by to show us a draft of the last campaign piece. We got into Samantha, who, if you remember, was fired by another candidate, Michelle.

Samantha has refused to call godaddy.com to turn over the account to Michelle. Michelle has asked several times. When Samantha set the account up (for Michelle's campaign website), she used Michelle's credit card but put the account in her name, that is, in Samantha's name.

Now, despite Michelle's repeated attempts, Samantha won't turn the account over.

Instead, she sent Michelle an email with an invoice for $3,000 and a note saying that she couldn't guarantee that the site would be maintained unless she was (were?) paid.

Now. We all know this is extortion. However, a good moral to this story is to HAVE A DARN CONTRACT! Michelle and Samantha did not have a contract. What was the agreement? What would Samantha do? How would they measure whether it had been done or not? Bad, bad business. You need to outline the roles and responsibilities and milestones.

Still. Extortion is extortion. So Michelle wrote back to Samantha and suggested that Samantha contact Michelle's attorney - information provided - to discuss the possible consequences of not converting the godaddy.com account. Then Michelle said that if Samantha could not reach the first attorney, there were six more she could talk to.

Let's see if Samantha moves now.