Raleigh to host high speed rail summit

The N&O’s Crosstown Traffic blog reports that Raleigh will be hosting the conference Summit For High Speed Rail on the East Coast. The conference, sponsored by Women ‘s Transportation Seminar, is scheduled for Monday, 22 October in the Fletcher Opera Theatre at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts. Transportation bigwigs, including congressional representatives, will be there to discuss the status of the project.
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More Jason Ray

Jason Ray is still touching lives. The UNC student who performed as the UNC mascot Rameses (and of whom I wrote about before) may have died in March but parts of him live on. Ray’s organs have been distributed to over 80 people, according to the Charlotte Observer this morning.

Tonight ESPN will air the story of Jason Ray, called “Ray of Hope.” I hope his story inspires more people to become organ donors.

I’m an organ donor. Are you?

Reunioned

We got back last evening from our Herndon High School reunion weekend in Virginia. Lots of fun was had. Herndon’s football team won the homecoming game against the Yorktown Patriots 35-31, too.

More on all that when I get a chance. For now I gotta get back to work.

Amtrak

I had unusual travel plans for my recent business trip to Annapolis. First I flew to BWI on Southwest (which curiously didn’t have all of their new line arrangements yet in place). I rented a car for the Annapolis leg of the trip. When I got done with work today, I returned the car to the Baltimore airport (via the Baltimore-Washington Parkinglotway), where I planned to catch a train south to Fredericksburg.
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Craigslist fun

I had a little fun on Craigslist this morning:

Wanted: Desalination Plant – $1
Reply to: sale-446914297@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-10-12, 8:41AM EDT

Willing to trade lightly-used lawn mower in good condition for large desalination plant. Must have capacity for several million gallons per hour.

Will throw in weed whacker and accessories for water pipe that can reach the coast.

* Location: Raleigh
* it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 446914297

Of course such a thing does not exist, as the biggest dasalination plant in the world, Dubai’s Jebel Ali plant, produces 300 million cubic meters of water per year according to Wikipedia. I toyed with changing “millions” to “thousands” but I thought it was funnier with millions.

In Spite Of Ourselves

I tuned my rental car’s satellite radio to Radio Margaritaville this morning and fell in love with this colorful song. I gotta check out the rest of John Prine’s work!

In Spite Of Ourselves
John Prine and Iris DeMent

She don’t like her eggs all runny
She thinks crossin’ her legs is funny
She looks down her nose at money
She gets it on like the Easter bunny
She’s my baby I’m her honey
I’m never gonna let her go
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How I spent my summer vacation

What a short, strange trip its been. I guess I can tell you now what has stolen my blogging time for the last few weeks.

It was a little after noon when I got the call from Esther, Rodger Koopman’s campaign manager, telling me that Jessie Taliaferro had conceded the race for Raleigh District B city councilor. The call marked the end of five weeks of intensely hard but curiously satisfying work to help get him elected.
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