The Monorail is comin' to Seattle

By an extremely narrow margin, the monorail initiative has passed in Seattle. My hard work the day of the election was worth it:

Seattle Citizen Petiton No. 1, Proposed Monorail Authority

YES? 94787 50.23%

NO? 93919 49.77%

I can now breathe a sigh of relief. Assuming, that is, that the monorail opponents don't go crazy and try to get the results thrown out in court.

Slowly falling down...

Eeeeeek! The monorail's slowly but surely losing its lead. If we keep up this pace, it'll lose, and by a razor-thin margin:

Seattle Citizen Petiton No. 1, Proposed Monorail Authority
YES? 82256 50.18%
NO? 81674 49.82%

This does not bode well for our fair city. We won't get more results until Thursday, and the official results will be certified on the 20th. I can only hope beyond all hope that the precincts left to be counted are pro-monorail rather than anti. 6089 ballots left to be counted. I guess I should start praying.

Seattle really needs to shit or get off the pot. R-51 failed, I-776 passed, and there's no doubt in my mind that this area is in for another 20 years of transportation stagnation. I'm sure that King, Pierce and Snohomish counties are going to attempt to come up with a regional plan for the voters in March, but will it pass? Doubtful, unless it offers more money for public transportation improvements as well as road improvements. And by road improvements, I don't mean new roads. The last thing this area needs is more roads. We need better planning and use of the roads we already have. How about finding a way to increase the I-5 general purpose lanes through downtown Seattle from 4 to 6? How about fixing the Mercer street mess? How about smoothing out some of the older sections of I-5? How about finishing the HOV lanes between Everett and Tacoma!!!

I'm somewhat insulated from the traffic mess around here, as I commute during low-traffic times (4:30am and 2pm). But, occasionally I have to run an errand at 5pm, and no matter where you go in Seattle, it's a madhouse. More people on the road than there should be, and they're either driving big gas-guzzling SUVs, or they're driving alone to work every freaking day. Hey, here's a thought - volunteer to carpool. There are probably other people in your neighborhood who work near you that could also participate.

People love their cars, I get it. I love my car just as much, but you have to make sacrifices for the good of the city, and giving up your car for your daily commute is one of those sacrifices. Enjoy it on your off-hours time. I would do the same, but there's no bus service at 4:30am to downtown, sadly.

Anyway, this rant needs to end somewhere, so I'll end it here.

You may now whine now...

If you didn't vote, shaddup. You aren't allowed to bitch about any of the issues on the ballot this year if you didn't. You know the rules.

Yesterday I volunteered with Rise Above it All's final campaign drive. Since I had a car, I was especially valuable. I spent most of the day poll watching. For those who don't know what that is - basically you have a list of voters that have said they'll vote yes for the monorail, and you compare your list to the rolls at the polling place. Then, you call the people on your list that haven't voted. The idea is to turn them out so that you'll get more of the vote for your cause.

I don't have a problem with checking the polls, but I do have a problem with calling people. I think if I ever volunteer for another campaign that I won't do any phone banking, at all. I can't stand calling people. I felt like a telemarketer the whole time I did it, and I don't like pissing people off, especially the ones who support our campaign.

Probably the one thing I should have done was build signs. Now that's easy. Or, data entry. That's easy (yet tedious), too. But, no more phone banking.

So far, monorail's doing well, but we'll see how it holds up as more absentees come in. I'm bummed that low black voter turnout in the south probably was the reason why the GOP did so well. I can only hope that after the counting's done, a few things are no longer issues:

• I-776 fails
  
• R-51 fails
  
• I-790 fails
  
• R-53 passes
  

Well, I'll just have to keep watching the polls. But, I won't be making any phone calls.

Woo. Money.

It's nice to get paid. After going 20 days between paydays, I finally got paid on Thursday. Things were starting to get a little hairy there, but I'm slowly but surely building up a savings account, like I should be. If I can just keep socking away $100 every paycheck, I'll be better off. And, I'll be better prepared just in case I ever get laid off and I get no severance. Ugh, that'd suck.

Big things happening here in Seattle. The anti-monorailers are still at it, spreading FUD about a system that will only increase mobility for the residents of this city. They should shut the hell up. A lot of the anti-monorail people don't live in Seattle. "Your opinion doesn't count! You can't vote for, or against, it, and you won't pay taxes. Shaddup!" That's what I say. Their cause will fail. Monorail will pass on Tuesday, and finally Seattle will be on its way to a system that will get people above the traffic. I can't wait.

More volunteering at the monorail campaign tomorrow night. I think I'm going to get Tuesday off so I can volunteer even more, watching the polls. We'll see what I can manage. At least I'm not sick like the rest of my co-workers, and I hope I don't get sick. Ugh, that's the last thing I want.

Phoning above it all...

This weekend wasn't too exciting. Got some housework done with Nicole on Saturday. Managed to watch Heathers on Saturday Night and then watched Conspiracy: Trial of the Chicago 8 Sunday morning. Saturday morning, Nicole and I went and saw the new Jackass movie. It was probably the high point of the weekend.

I do, however, feel like I actually accomplished something this weekend. I volunteered at the Rise Above It All headquarters in Belltown this evening, doing phone banking. In two hours time, I called 100 phone numbers. I ended up leaving more messages than anything, and did get a few freaks in the process, but all in all, I've done a little part to hopefully get monorail passed in this year's election.

I had two calls that got pissed off at me for interrupting the World Series, one woman who admonished me for soliciting on a Sunday (eesh, I'm volunteering for cripes sake!), and one woman who told me her husband was a DOT engineer and thought the monorail proposal was seriously lacking. The one call I got that I could've possibly changed the person's opinion was this guy who said that Seattle/Puget Sound really needed to build some form of rapid transit along the I-5 corridor, and that the monorail didn't do enough. After the call, I was left thinking, "Shit, I could have told him that this initiative is only the beginning of what could be a 58-mile citywide system." And he bitched about how the monorail didn't go to the airport and to the east side and elsewhere, like the transit systems in Chicago (where he used to live).

Well, no, it's not going to go there because it's a Seattle-only system. If you want so-called regional transportation, that's what ST Link is for. Good luck with that. Let me know how that goes, considering it'll only go within a mile of the airport and then you'll have to transfer to a shuttle to get the rest of the way. Sheesh.

So, next Sunday I'm going to volunteer on the phone banks again. It's pretty grueling work, but it's worth it. And although I'll miss the season premiere of the Simpsons, I'll catch it Monday on the TiVo. Oh well, it's worth it to get the word out.

Monorail Yes!

Hello, you've reached my broken answering machine...

So, I get home today, and a certain gray cat had apparently ruined the answering machine. Don't ask me how, but she likes to jump up on the bookshelf the answering machine is on, so she can look out the window. Well, when she gets up there, she ends up walking all over the answering machine. She has erased the outgoing welcome message twice. I come home today and nothing works on the answering machine. The answering machine's on, but none of the buttons do anything, including the on/off button. I tried pulling the power out and putting it back in, and still the same. So, the answering machine's been tossed and I'm going to go with Qwest voicemail service again. It's $6.95/month (bleh) but I'll live. I liked it when I had it at the old place. And to think that the only reason I have a landline phone is because of the TiVo.

Watching the Screen Savers right now. I must say that the Wil Wheaton housecall was pretty good, and I'm happy to hear that he's playing around with an iBook. Of course, I'm typing this on my iMac.

So I heard rumors today, of the new PPC 7457, which sounds like a very attractive chip. I'm going to wait to get a new Mac until 1.6GHz chips are available. I want to double the performance of 800MHz iMac, on a clock speed basis (and if they come out with dual-1.6GHz Macs, that'll be even better). My girlfriend's DDR PowerMac is awesome, though, even though it has dual-867. Definitely a fast Mac.

I've signed up to volunteer in the phone bank with Rise Above It All this Sunday. Hopefully it'll go well. Monorail Yes!!!