The Ruckus Room, No Kings, Voting

 

Saturday was No Kings Day again.  But in Anchorage the energy has been dispersed in many directions.  I joined the car parade that StandUp Alaska organized.  Cars with "Vote" messages all over paraded through Mountain View, Fairview, and Government Hill.  

There was also a bicycle component.

Meanwhile the League of Women Voters had a Democracy Fair at the main library.  Democrats had people going door to door to urge people to vote for their candidates.  Others waved signs at a busy intersection  

The car and bike paraders ended up at the Ruckus Room which I'd never heard of.  It's in a closed dispensary that was renovated for over a year and now has some spaces for rent for community activities.  

It's at 2612 Eagle - between Northern Lights and Fireweed.  

I was impressed with this Tolkien vibe door, and the decor in general.  

It's a clean and interesting space if you have relatively small events.  There are even several very small rooms.  

The owner and operator of the Ruckus Room is Shel Weitzman.  

Blogger notes:  This blog has been competing for my time with life. I feel the pressure of the Óle writing group for something new each week.  And time seems to go by so fast.  Maybe that's a facet of getting older - a year is a much smaller fraction of my life than it was 50 years ago.  A week goes by like nothing  So, I wanted to write about No Kings and also about the Ruckus Room because the space there is cool and people should know about it.  No Kings gets plenty of coverage, but I had never heard of the Ruckus Room until Saturday.  And Shel appears to be a warm and interesting person.  I'm sure he's got a lot of interesting stories.  He did, for example, mention that his teenage sons helped with the remodeling.  And most posts take longer to write than it might appear.  Especially when I add a video in.  

My school volunteering has been limited this fall.  Monday mornings at the Rilke Schule and we haven't worked out time yet at Tudor (with the teacher I've worked with before Lake Otis was dissolved.)

And I'm signed up to be a poll worker and also to be an observer when the Division of Elections goes through the absentee and then the questioned ballots.  Which got me to drop off our absentee ballots on the first day - yesterday, October 19 - at the Division of Elections and then go see how the first day of voting was going at the Mid-town Mall (formerly the Sears Mall).  

There was a long line!

The second picture was taken from the red star looking back to the entrance to the polling place, but also including the alcove that goes to an entrance to the mall and where the line looped and comes out back into the mall.

The third photo is also from about the red star in the first picture and looks at the alcove and back out at the line going off into the distance in the mall.  

And there was about an inch of snow outside this morning - the first of the season!

And tomorrow and Thursday is the AFN (Alaska Federation of Natives) Convention.