In July, 1999, twenty-one relatively young people with nothing better to do decided to try writing novels in a month. Six of them actually did it. Eight years later, in November, 2006, nearly 13,000 crossed that same finish line (almost 80,000 gave it a shot.) Last year (2006) the participants logged a total of over 982,000,000 words — the expectation is that we’ll break 1,000,000,000 this year. I’ll be contributing my 50,000 this year, as I did in 2004, 2005, and 2006. (Promo: You can do it too!)
Monthly Archives: October 2007
Non-Partisan
[edit: VoteGopher has updated the page I referenced — see my comment]
So, various spiffy people in the wider blogosphere have been talking about how great this site is. The idea is that all the editors of the site have to take a vow of non-partisanship (presumably this applies to their editorial practices only, and not the rest of their lives) and so the information presented about each candidate and his/her stand on the issues won’t be biased. Anyone who’s tried to live with someone who’s passionate about their particular candidate will understand why this might be appealing — my senior year of college, I lived in a dorm in which, at least by October, everyone was vocally in favor of Bush, Gore, or Nader; I’m not sure I was ever able to get any actual information out of anyone.
Guest Post: “It’s Not About You, Stupid”
The following is a guest post from Mike Lee, who describes himself as
“the husband of my wonderful wife, married five years, and father of two great kids. I am most proud of that. I’m a graduate of BYU in Computer Science, and currently work as a software developer in Wisconsin, where my wife grew up and where I am growing to love.”
By Mike Lee
You would think, seeing that I’m married and have two kids, that I would have learned this lesson already:
Heber J. Grant and FDR
I am in the middle of reading a fascinating new book, “Presidents and Prophets” by Michael K. Winder, and I felt prompted to relay the story of the reaction of many Church leaders to FDR and the New Deal. It seems especially relevant when discussing political neutrality today.
Unprepared to serve
On any given Saturday, I am out serving civil summons to people who have not responded to photo radar citations mailed to their residence.
I enjoy the competitiveness of serving people who do not want to be served. My record of accomplishment for catching people actively avoiding service is quite good, actually. More often than not, I catch most people off guard and effect service without hassle or complication. Last Saturday, though, I was the one caught off guard.