Off The Desk 11/4/26

Hello and happy Wednesday and post-election day. Thanks for joining us for another exciting edition of Off the Desk. I'm Kaley Collins. I'm Julia O'Keefe. Oh, I'm Chris. Sorry. Sorry. Gang's all here. It's weather Wednesday. I don't know. I'm having the Wednesday tires. The Wednesday tires. I feel like I'm zoned out. Something happened just before this that I feel like my mind is still on, so. Okay. It happens, especially at this time of day. It's still only just getting to be 8 o'clock. By the time you see this, it'll be a little later in the morning, so. Yeah. We're still waking up here. But, yes, yesterday was Election Day, and it was a big day for really everybody across the country. I kind of have seen a little bit of a blue wave here. Democrats are now in control of Congress and the U.S. Senate. So that was something going into Election Day that people were speculating about. But in some key states, like in Texas, South Carolina, it was flipped. Ohio, yeah. So there were some surprising results there. And then, excuse me. Something happened in my throat right there. Here in Massachusetts, we have the results pretty much counted at this point for a lot of the major races. But, yeah, we have Governor Maura Healey was reelected. We have Congressman Richard Neal. He's been now reelected for a 20th term in the first congressional district. For Massachusetts in Congress. So that was another result. We have so many. Yeah. Senator Ed Markey. Senator Ed Markey. From Massachusetts. Yeah. He. He was up against John Deaton. He has that seat again for his third term. And then the state offices are mostly called. We said Governor Maura Healey, Yeah, Attorney General Andrea Campbell, State Auditor Diana DeSoglio, and the treasurer is Deb Goldberg. So those are all incumbents. absolutely. And William Galvin. William Galvin, yep. He's made history now. His longest run in Massachusetts now. In Massachusetts office. Which is kind of crazy. So, yeah. So those, and we have a little bit more information on all the ballot questions that voters decided on as well. Some of them, yeah, I guess surprising. Other ones, a lot of people were expecting to go a certain way did. Some of the notable ones, there was a question regarding the sale of legal marijuana. So that's what people were talking about a lot. Because then if that had... gotten approved, it would essentially ban the sale of legal marijuana and that would affect a lot of local retailers and stuff. But that kind of got overwhelmingly voted for no. So that at this point, legal marijuana is still going to be. you know, able to be purchased here in Massachusetts. So that was a, that was a big one, a talker. Um, but there were several other ones, like we said, nine total, which that in and of itself having nine ballot questions on the ballot was pretty historic as well. So we had Nikki Antonakis kind of breaking those questions and the results down the past couple of days and all of that can be found on our website as well. Yeah. Yeah. That was the, the tide for the most ever the most since I think it was 1994, which is crazy. Um, tied for the most ever, but But yeah, we have all those. We're breaking them down. There were so many of them. Nick did a great job. I was like, wow, that's, you know, it's a lot, but it's important. And it's what people really were waiting to hear about, I think, for, I mean, obviously there's a lot at stake this election. But the ballot questions are the most Massachusetts scaled, I guess, if you know, like the most local. So definitely. Yeah, a lot of stuff to highlight. Another election day come and gone. But yeah, I mean, it was a big one. I don't think it surprised anyone that, you know, Democrats took the Senate and the House because I feel like that happens a lot with the midterms is they always flip. And you look back and it happened with Biden, it happened with Democrats, Republicans, it happened with Obama, it happened with Clinton. So I feel like that was kind of expected, but I think... But more locally, some of the big surprises were like Texas going to a Democratic governor, which has been a red state for a long, for 36 years or something like that. Yeah, I think it was. Ohio, which is typically a red, went to a Democratic governor. Yeah. Michigan was a big race too. Yeah. Alaska is still too close to call. And then some people that have been in politics for a long time, like the senator from Maine. Oh, right, right. Super long time. She got ousted out, so. Yeah, so there's always some surprises on election day, too. Yeah. I was going to, talking from like a news standpoint, I said this morning, I forget how much there is to read on election day as far as like us on air breaking down the results and everything. And obviously we had Nick. Covering all those ballot questions, which was a little bit unusual, but it also was different for me in the sense that typically in the past, I think, maybe not last year, but this is like one of the first times in a while that I wasn't working an election day. The night of it? The evening, yeah. So being here in the morning and kind of just giving a preview and then the results is a little bit of a different feel because... Everyone says, I think it's like the new Super Bowl election day because you just have to be on it. Things are changing. You could have a script prepared and then last minute results come in or something happens and you have to kind of pivot. But yeah, it seems like our reporters did a good job at, you know, getting that information out there and staying on top of the results as they were coming in. You know, it was fairly early last night, but yeah, it's always a. Kind of a chaotic night here, but in a good way. Yeah, I was just trying to look because last election, the 2024 election, I was the ballot question. Oh, you were? Yeah, at night because I wasn't working the mornings. I worked the election night. And I was trying to see how many were there, how many there were. There were significantly less. I think it was only four or five ballot questions. So that was a little bit different because I should know this off the top of my head. That was a little bit different because you could go way more in depth about. Breaking down the question and each side of it and exactly what the yes and no vote would mean and kind of more of the parameters. Whereas this one, there being nine to get them all in, it was just rapid fire. Boom, boom, boom. This is what we voted on yes for. So it's interesting, you know, the intricacies of it all and seeing all the results coming. in the email and, you know, the way we calculated here and our tallies are automatically updating. Sure. But then Tony was just saying he's manually calculating. Oh, yeah. Franklin County sheriff election. So obviously we have the biggest scale election Congress of the midterms and then scaling all the way down to these local elections where we do have to really count them and be super careful with what we're reporting. So a lot goes into it behind the scenes. And I was watching our coverage last night. I caught the 5.30 p.m. news. And of course, we had the team coverage out there and everybody in there in the quad box on the screen and at different polling locations. And our team did a great job covering that. And then we heard from experts too. Patrick Berry sat down with Tony Signolito to break everything down, the implications of everything there. So everyone really falls into a unique place here behind the scenes too. And you might not notice it, but if one person... Isn't there? I mean, the train falls off the track. So, shout out to the whole team here for another election night well done. Big team effort. Bless you. Was that a sneeze? No, it was a cough. Oh. Bless you anyways. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Did we have any pizza here? That's an election day. I think so. There are empty boxes in the trash. There are empty boxes. Election day pizza. That's good. Yeah, it's like a... The tradition for whoever's working election night. Yeah, because it's extended hours. It's not a typical shift. I think they worked from 1 p.m. to 11.30 last night. So crazy. I remember, I don't know what, this must have been when Mayor Sarno got reelected, the last election that he was reelected. I was at his headquarters, and I can just remember. Like being on the laptop, trying to like write a script. Then once he was announced that he had won, it was, you know, everybody's celebrating. It's so loud. And then it's like myself and the photographer just hunkering down in a corner, sitting on the floor with a laptop, like trying to get our soundbite back to the station so that we can go live with it in the next five minutes, get a live interview with him. And that's the kind of stuff that, yeah, people probably at home don't really think about, but it's. It takes a lot of work on election night, so it's good. Another one come and gone. Yep. On to, I mean, next year, obviously, will be some little elections around here, but 2028, getting closer. Kind of crazy to think of. Yeah, it's going to be another presidential year. Yeah. So we'll see what happens. Yeah. We'll definitely see what happens. I mean, especially with, like, what happened literally last night. Yeah. I mean, could... Showing that Texas went blue, have anything to do with 2028? Right. And who will run. Yeah, who will run. There's already, I've seen like quickly comments from President Trump responding to kind of the shift and those surprising races too. Thank He had comments about his veto powers is the response. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see like the, yeah, how they'll butt heads and like the pushback now that there's kind of been a shift too. So another thing to keep an eye on for the next couple of years. Yeah. I actually saw people question this on Facebook. you. But, yes, Trump is still president for two years. People were actually asking if this has anything to do with if Trump leaves office or not. So in case, yes, the president was not infected or impacted by This election, 2028, will be the presidential election. Yeah, and obviously there's going to be fallout, but the term for Congress starts January 3rd or so. So before this whole shift really kicks in, there's a few months. But starting next year, we'll start to see people start to announce their campaigns. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, it's good to go out and exercise your civil... Right. To go and vote. When I ended up going a little bit later last night, maybe closer to like 5:45 ish. And there was a decent amount of people there at our area. And I had to wait in line for a little bit. Did you guys notice that there was. Yeah, I had to wait for a little bit. Yeah, there was three lines and they were all pretty full. It's kind of good to see people get a new vote. And I went in the middle of the day. I went right after work. And it was pretty busy. I voted early, so I was in and out. Oh, right. I forgot about that. That was easy. Yeah. It's kind of fun to see a bunch of people. And you have the local races too and people outside campaigning. There's usually bake sales and stuff like that. You're kind of getting out and wanting to partake in the process. That's good. I'm going to get my sticker. I didn't get the sticker. You didn't get the sticker. No, I was in my car. It's like, oh, bummer. I didn't get my sticker. That's okay. Next year. I don't know. All right. So those are our election. That's our election recap, I should say. But we'll take a break here and come back and see what else is going on in the news. Yeah. All right. Welcome back to Off the Desk on this post-election day. Kind of completely switching gears. Back to the typical Off the Desk programming. But today is November 4th. Wait, also? It's my anniversary. Oh, yeah. If you were watching Off the Desk a year ago, it was when Kaylee gave us a fun surprise. Yeah. Don't have that same surprise today. But yeah, it was this time last year that I told you guys live and off the desk that I was pregnant. And, um, yeah, I announced my pregnancy that day too. So it was the day after or two days after I had my gender reveal. So I just found out I was having a girl too. So exciting times. I can't even believe that was a year ago. It feels like it wasn't that long ago, but also like a whole different lifetime. I was even like finding out that I was having a baby, but. Yeah, that was fun. That was a good surprise. Even though Julia had already kind of been on to me there. Yeah, I was. And I have receipts that I told people in writing. I was like, guys, I think my coworker might be pregnant. She is eating ginger chews and drinking ginger ale at 4 o'clock in the morning. I have a suspicion. And yeah, I was right. But I almost ruined the surprise because I was sick the day that you wanted to do it. I was like, I'm going to wait. I wasn't going to do it without you being here. Yeah, well, I'm glad that you waited, obviously. You wanted to do it a different day? Well, remember, she was off that Monday. Yeah. So I had my reveal on Sunday, and I was planning to just announce it the next day just because I was excited. I found out I was having a girl. And then... I was like, oh, Julia's off. Like, I'm not going to do it without Julia here. So I just waited, you know, and it worked out really well. It was funny. Made for a better Tuesday. It did make for a better Tuesday. And you were like, yeah, why don't we do a weekend recap? And I'm over here like, I was sick and slept for 18 hours. I don't want to do that. I'm like, are you sure? Yeah, it was funny. It made for a great memory. It did. And now you're going to be able to show Ava when you reveal to the world. I know, that's actually really cool. Yeah, I was saying to Bobby, like. Sometimes if she's up early enough that he should try to turn on the news and see if Ava reacts. Oh my gosh. If I FaceTime her or if like someone's on the phone that like my family members she can recognize faces and voices now. So she'll like as soon as she hears me she's like oh that's my mom. So I wonder if she would if he had like me on the news if she would react that way too. I want him to try it out. Oh you have to. Or even you just go home. And put it on or show her a video of you and see how she reacts to seeing you on the screen. She probably would be like, wait, you're right here. How are you there? Yeah. That would be cute. Aw, that's cute. Yeah. Good memories. That's awesome. Yay. It's also National Candy Day. It falls after Halloween, but there's still plenty of candy. Well, maybe. Unless you ate all your Halloween candy already. I've been bad with candy. I've been eating a lot. I've been eating a little bit more than I normally would, too. Not like crazy, but people bringing in candy here. Yeah. I'll grab one here and there, you know? We brought... Yeah, I did. I brought in... I had so much of that. Well, actually, so we had a full bag that we went through. And then that bag, we started to open up. But Matt and I took a handful to keep at home a little bit, which was a bad idea. Yeah. Because now I feel like I'm eating the candy nonstop. And then, yeah, I brought the rest of it here and literally it was gone within a day. Oh, yeah. I came in the next morning. I saw the empty bag in the trash. I'm like, wow. It's a little picnic. I definitely played a part in that. But we have a bunch of candy left at home from the trick-or-treaters, too. And I see it when I get home. It's just sitting on the kitchen table. But I don't even want it when I get home because I've eaten so much candy at work during the day. Yeah, I did eat a Reese's at like 7:15 this morning. I'm like, this feels wrong. Hey, that's great. It's National Candy Day, so it's right. And it's a sugar kind of pick you up. Yeah, sure. Are you guys more... uh like a chocolate or gummy like a you more definitely chocolate chocolate yeah me too yeah i don't like dislike gummies if they're there i'll like have a couple but i don't get go out of my way to get them, Maddie yeah When we were taking the stuff out of the bag, she's a big gummy person. She wants all the gummies. That kind of works out well. You have all the gummies. And I'm like, I want the chocolate. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, Bobby kind of likes more gummies too. I mean, he likes chocolate, but between the two of us, yeah, he would probably take the gummies. Interesting. I like chocolate when it's paired with something. Like I struggle with just a straight chocolate bar. I need the Reese's or the Twix or the Snickers, but I love those. And the Kit Kat. Those are some of my favorites. It's, um. You know what I've never really been... I don't think I've had enough to be into it, but I've been eating a lot of them because they're in my house right now, is Almond Joys. Really? I don't know. When I was a kid, I hated getting Almond Joys, but I bet you if I tried it now, I would love it. I don't know. I had one on Halloween night, and I was like, you know what? This is actually kind of good. And now that they're just there, I keep picking them. Is there anything... Is it just almonds and chocolate? Or is it coconut? It's like coconut or chocolate. I think that's what I... I didn't think about it either. I don't know. I don't remember ever liking them, but now I just feel like I like them. Well, they're there, and there you have it. Yeah, so it's candy day, so yeah. Dig into that stash, I guess, if it's still existing. Interesting. What was the other thing we said? It was also, oh, National Stress Awareness Day. Oh. We knew that. I'm pretty aware of my stress. Yeah. But yeah, be on top of it. Yeah. Honestly, it falls out at a good day after the election. That's true. We've had stories in the news lately about election stress, and people often say that the amount of political content that they're, exposed to leading up to a big election like this is draining in the sense of, you know, you might turn on your TV and see the ads and not be able to escape them or on social media. There's a lot of things. So if you're worried about the results of an election that's coming up, that can definitely get to you. So today might be a good day to. Do something to de-stress. Yeah, de-stress. Not only is it the commercials that are a lot, but I don't know if you guys have the same problem, but did you have anyone come into your door trying to talk to you or give you pamphlets? That didn't happen so much this year, but I have experienced that in the past. Yeah, we had a good amount, like a couple. Over the past few weeks, coming to our house. It's always so awkward. I don't answer the door. I just let the... Because then you have to interact. That's like another personal interaction. Yeah. And you're like, this isn't a conversation I want to have. Or like, even I know it was very popular this year, especially the amount of texts, like political texts and messages that were sent out. And we had even had a package in our newscast a couple days ago about that and the mental... Yeah, the mental impact that could have. And I think I said to Chris during the break, I was like, I don't really pay attention to those. I'll just delete them. No matter what candidate or party it's for, whether it's like someone I think I'm voting for or not, I just delete all of them. Yeah. Because it's just... I don't know. It's a personal choice. But I could see if people, if you get those texts and you are reading all of them, it could be kind of like a bombardment. It's too much. It's not a notification, right? Yeah. If you guys are stressed, what do you, do you have anything that you do to try to like calm down? Any stress? I literally sit in quiet sometimes. I used to run. I used to go for runs a lot more, but I haven't done that in a while. Hot shower. Yeah. Yeah. Play a video game. Scroll on my phone, which backfires because it's not really, can actually get you more stressful. Yeah. Yeah. More stress, I should say. Yeah, go for a walk is a big thing I do as well. That's good too. Yeah, exercise in general helps de-stress. What about you? Pet my dogs or call my mom. Yes. Calling my mom, yes. Because she's going to listen to whatever, even if she's... You know, doesn't want to hear it or rambling for too long. You know what, actually. That's such a good point. Like no matter how old you are or what's going on in your life, you could always call your mom and your mom just like they're and they might not even have something to say. They just aren't here. Yeah, they're listening here. Yep. And always going to have that. They're always going to be honest with you. My mom will always say. You're being crazy. Yeah. So you need that. You need that tough level. You do. Sometimes you have to snap out of a funk. That's a good one for. Or eat a lot of food. Comfort Oh, yeah. food. Mm hmm. Yeah. Calling your mom's a good one. Or parents in general. I call my dad a lot, too. Yeah. Yeah. So manage your stress today. Everything's going to be okay. Yes. Take a breath. We're halfway through the week. Yes. And it's going to be a beautiful day today. Oh, yes. Really good time to get outside and maybe meditate and de-stress, Chris. Yeah. Almost 75 degrees in some places. Yeah. Mid to upper 70s today. You might be able to go outside and dress in shorts and a t-shirt this afternoon. There you go. Look at that. Yeah. That's like, that's crazy. Yeah, we're November 4th, you would think. It'll be a little bit more in the 50s or so. It should be in the 50s, yeah. I'd say enjoy it, though, because it looks like all of next week and even beyond that, I think we're going to be more into a November-like pattern, a lot of 50s. Yeah. So enjoy the warm weather while we got it. I definitely love it, but I was thinking yesterday when I was walking outside. For myself and for Ava's wardrobe, I just did the big switch to all winter and fall clothing. And so, having to whip out the t-shirt or like, you know, it's like, oh gosh. It's funny. Yeah, and especially here in the new studio and near our desk near the windows, it's freezing. So, like, I'm wearing a sweater and a sweatshirt right now. But I'm going to step outside and be like, whoa! Don't eat any of this. I'm not complaining because it's saving me a little bit of money on my heating bill right now. Furnace isn't having to turn on. Yeah, that's always a good thing. All right, we'll take another quick break and come back for the last couple minutes of this episode. All right, welcome back to these last few minutes of Off the Desk. Kind of a crazy story that we're going to talk about now. Chris, you mentioned this yesterday when we were doing the noon newscast. And yeah, it's wild. That's all I'm going to say. Take it away. Yeah, this guy from England actually walked around the entire world in 28 years. Yeah, 28 years. Yeah, he set out on November 1st of 1998. Um, to walk 31,000 miles around the world, not using a boat or plane. How? There, if you read it, it's supposedly he wrote a piece of ice across the Bering Strait. It's insane. What? Yeah. That is crazy. And there's actually pictures. I was looking at some of them, like there's pictures of him, like walking through the Sahara desert, uh, through the middle East, like walking, uh, in the Himalayas. The things that, yeah, I don't know. So he started in England? He started in England. I think he went across into Europe, walked across all of Europe. I I don't know the direction he exactly went, but obviously he went in that direction. don't Yeah. Yeah. Did he swim across the English Channel? Yeah, like... People do that. I don't know. I'd have to read more into it, but he left his home when he was 20-something years old at the time, know. and now he's in his 50s. That's so crazy. And he returned home to his mom. Oh, that is so crazy. He kept in contact with his mom on his journey, but he hadn't seen his mom for 28 years. Wow. That's crazy. He did swim across the Caspian Sea and the English Channel. He swam? He swam. He had to have been in great shape to do that. Yeah, Was there any information on his motive? yeah, Like, he just wanted to set out and do this? He was big into adventure. yeah, He wanted to be an explorer and do something meaningful in his life, I guess. yeah, I bet you the stories that he has and things that he's seen are insane. yeah, Yeah, incredible. yeah, I mean, to think... 28 years. And, like, how... yeah. Yeah, like... I don't know, like, how much did you eat? And, like, how did you eat? I don't know, how did you keep yourself? The different people. The people that you met. Where did you stay? Where did you stay? Because he didn't have a residence, he had to probably just stay at random. What was it like getting access into all these countries? Yeah, that's another thing, too. Did he have to use a passport? I guess. I don't know. Go through customs? And especially, like, if he went in that direction, and let's say, yeah, he did go through with the Middle East, a lot of those countries are really rough when it comes to trying to enter their countries and you have to go through interviews. Right. Yeah. I have to look into that a little bit. Yeah, I'm going to do some more research. I'm sure there will probably be more interviews with him, and, like, those details will be revealed, too. Yeah. But, amazing. Yeah. I mean, I guess you could do it. I mean, because if you go across, yeah, into Europe and then you go across, you know, the Middle East or Asia, then once you get to the tip of Siberia, you can cross over to Alaska and then, you know, cross that. That's where the ice was. Yeah. Crazy. And then. Try to make your way from there. There you have it. I don't know. I mean, they should make a movie on that. I'm kind of more questioning how did someone actually do this and no one heard about it. I know. He just did it in silence. We'll have to look into it and talk about it some more. Talk more about it tomorrow. Yeah, all the time we have for today, but we'll be back here tomorrow, Friday, June. Hope you guys have a good rest of your Wednesday and de-stress. Bye.