There's more than voting on Election Day

On to more important Election Day stuff.

I was a bit confused. It was sunny. And in the mid-70s. And it's November. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time I checked, I still lived in Wisconsin. The weather? Crazy. But I'll take it.

Originally I was planning on hitting the YMCA in the early afternoon and logging some miles on the treadmill. But it was way too nice outside to be couped up indoors, running to nowhere. So instead I pulled out my bike. Remember, it's November and the nice biking days are numbered. I hopped on and was only planning on a short ride, somewhere around 6 miles or so. But once I started riding, it was so nice that I didn't want to stop.

So I kept going. Fourteen miles later I pulled back into my driveway and parked my bike, but only because I had an hour to shower, get ready and make it work. The next hour was rushed, but it was so worth it.

That rush kind of prepared me for what was going to come during the rest of the night. Election nights at a newspaper are hectic. You've got a bunch of stuff to do in a limited amount of time. And results never seem to be available by the time deadline rolls around.

Last night I didn't have problems with deadlines or election results.

I had problems with my car.

In the form of a flat tire. Again.

I was standing in the parking lot, talking to one of our photographers about where we were heading to. I was on my way out to Democratic headquarters to do the color piece about the mood at the party, focusing on the presidential election. As we were talking, my eyes wandered over to my car, which was sitting in the same parking spot I left it in two hours before when I got back from a polling location run.

"Does that look like a flat tire to you Joe?"

The photographer just laughs.

The rear passenger side tire on my car? Flat as a pancake. Making my car undriveable. Not a good things when you've got places to go.

Thankfully the photographer offered to take the flat tire off and replace it with my spare. Good thing since I kind of needed my car, not only to get to my assignment, but more importantly to get home at the end of the night.

He used some tools and a jack (which I didn't even know was buried in my trunk) and took the flat tire off and replaced it with that funny looking donut-like spare tire. Twenty minutes and I was set to go.

Now I just need to get the tire patched. Because honestly, I'm not buying another tire. The ones on my car now? They're only a year old. I'm not forking over all that money to replace a perfectly fine tire, even if it has suffered a minor puncture and gone flat as a pancake on election night.