Poulsbo Dreamin'

I'm in lovely Poulsbo, having just spent the night at my mom's place. She has a new dog, a Corgie named Beau, and I had to come over here to meet the newest member of the family. He's adorable - he has a stump where the tail should be, and when he's excited he wags the stump, making his whole body sway. Have you been to Poulsbo? It's a very particular place, just west of Bainbridge Island. It has a Norwegian Village facade in the waterfront district. I typically deride the faux facade in small towns (Tourists! Come! Spend!), but here in Poulsbo there is a bona-fide, in-use Sons of Norway community hall. Therefore, I conclude that the Norwegians are the Native Poulsboians, and I can't snicker. That fact, coupled with the frequent discovery of some incredible pocket of beauty, a few truly amazing bakeries and a coffeehouse called the Poulsbohemian make this a pretty great place to visit every now and again.

My good friend Mark Clark sent me an interesting observation about polling yesterday. He was chatting with a friend of his from CBS News who made a fascinating observation. To date the core method for pollsters has been random phone dialing. This method has been used to guarantee a wide population sample over the years, but with cell phone and Internet proliferation becoming a replacement for telephones in a major segment of the voting population (read: youth and low-income households), this year's polls may not be reflecting the real picture. Hmm. Will this come to light later, after November 2? Will this be an election which bucks all the pollster wisdom? The WA State election commissioner said that he predicts 70% voter turnout this year, which (he says) would be the highest poll turnout since WWII. I seem to recall reading somewhere recently that the highest turnout we've ever had in the U.S. was 68%.

Anna Quindlen's column last week was great (as usual), positing that we may want to consider compulsory voting in this country, as in Australia. Why not? Of course, it would never fly in the land of "Free to be you and me," but the thought is nice.

Time to move on to the workday. Just a quick note: a sheepish kid just approached me at the coffeehouse where I'm Wi-Fi-ing, and muttered something. I asked him to say it again. "Uh, are you the parole officer?"