Category Archives: Pedantry

Gentlemen, start your engines

The National Novel Writing Month starts tonight at midnight. Fifty thousand words, thirty days. I’ll be toting my laptop along on a trip to Washington DC, and hope to be able to make good use of time spent in airport terminals. My main priority for being in the nation’s capitol on election day is simple: don’t get arrested. Whatever happens on Tuesday or Wednesday, I need to not put myself in a position to get arrested. Secondary priority: don’t get physically beaten by anybody of any persuasion. Tertiary priority: have a great time with my wife away from the kid. That leaves the NaNoWriMo at an unfortunate quarternary priority.

This year I’m hoping to more aggressively embrace the format of the challenge. I don’t want to unduly limit myself with self-editing, pressing myself to write the story in the order in which it would be read. This time there will be some skipping around, maybe some derailing, and some character exposition that won’t necessarily fit where I’m putting it as I’m writing it. One of the big tips that past winners give is to not edit yourself as you go along; you can fix the typos and the poorly-crafted sentences later, in December, maybe January.

Looks like Chunkbot, Daniel, and Jase are all participating this year. Break a keyboard, boys!

Rails in California

Don’t ask me silly questions
I won’t play silly games
I’m just a simple choo choo train
I’ll always be the same
I only want to race along
Beneath the bright blue sky
And be a happy choo choo train
Until the day I die
–Blaine the Train

On November 4th, the people of Marin and Sonoma will get another shot at getting the funding for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) up and running. This failed very narrowly two years ago when gas was about a dollar a gallon less around here, so there is a good chance that the curmudgeons that squeezed out just enough votes to deny the needed 2/3 majority will be on the losing side of economic momentum this time around. This is Measure Q, and I’ve already marked it “yes” on my absentee ballot. Hope you did the same.

All of California will also get a chance to weigh in on Proposition 1a, a high-speed rail bond intended to provide bullet-train service along a largely pre-existing right-of-way corridor all the way from the Sacramento, through the Bay Area, and down to Los Angeles. It isn’t cheap, but it is a massive infrastructure improvement that should help ease the crowding at some of our busiest airports, and take some burden of long-haul corridors like I-5 and Hwy 99, which see a lot of pass-through traffic. Unlike most of the recent bond measures, which I habitually vote against, this is a proper use of bonded debt: to build infrastructure that will help reduce future costs to the people and state, encourage economic development, and produce something that will be in use long after the bond is repaid. Prop 1a gets a thumbs-up from me as well.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I have a (nearly) three-year-old son and would love to buy him two big choo-choo sets to play with. Also, I’d much rather kick back and read a book than drive for eight hours to visit my nephews and niece down in Long Beach.