I’m okay, but bad news. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/active-shooter-reported-at-bite-of-seattle/

A semi-giant leap for raccoon-kind. Happy Moon Day!

Look at this date! I'm proud to have been one of the pioneers.
Washington Talking Book and Braille Library
1993
Managed development of online catalog for those with disabilities. Installed and set up access to reference materials through PC equipped with speech, large-print and Braille output.

Happy Fourth of July!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZYH8v42a2w

July 4, 1976, Washington, DC. Gerald Ford was president, having taken over from Nixon after he resigned after Watergate. We were overrun with Scouts, on the way to their Jamboree. The Air & Space Museum had just opened. King Tut was in town. And I was commuting on Amtrak to Baltimore from my job at the Natural History Museum. The US was the best place in the world.
July 4, 2026. We can make that happen again!

To our northern friends. Have a happy day! Thank you for reminding us that the whole world isn’t crazy. As for us, we’re working on it. #CanadaDay #FêteduCanada

Om Malik was my boss, even though I never met him. I only met a couple of the writers I worked with in person. But my colleagues at GigaOm are still friends -- some of the most insightful and interesting people I know. Thanks, Om, for bringing us together. https://boingboing.net/2026/06/25/om-malik-1966-2026.html

How Many People Do Not Drive? At least 30%, and probably more. https://allaboardnw.org/blog/how-many-people-do-not-drive/ @nondriver.bsky.social has more information.

I've been reposting a few of my trip reports from Amtrak Unlimited to my own website, since who knows what will happen when they move to a different platform. See my writing page at https://chas.us/writing/ My favorite report is Four New Trains and a Ferry https://chas.us/writing/four-new-trains-and-a-ferry/ (2015).

I’m no longer posting on AU, but you can find reports of my travels at https://discuss.amtraktrains.com/. Today, I’m the Executive Director of All Aboard Washington @aawa the rail advocacy group for Washington state. I also co-admin the forum https://aawaforum.org as well as the https://rail.chat/ Mastodon instance. Each needs your participation and support. The folks in DC are not particularly interested, so it will be up to us to make rail a priority. Please donate at https://www.aawa.us/support/

While commuting on MARC in 1977, I read the National Association of Rail Passengers newsletter posted at Baltimore Penn Station, and became a member. Once I moved to Seattle in 1990, I was traveling more on #amtrak so when #narp held their regional meeting in #PDX I attended. Rep. Earl Blumenauer was the featured speaker, and he gave an inspiring talk about the need for better trains and transit. I also attended the Amtrak Unlimited forum Gathering in #SEA, so suddenly I was a rail activist.

During the 1980s, I started traveling by #Amtrak again, mostly to science fiction fan conventions in places like Boston and New York. Philly was particularly convenient, as the host hotel was connected to Suburban Station, a free transfer from Amtrak's 30th Street Station.

When I went back to school at the University of Maryland-College Park in 1985 to work on a PhD, I used ShuttleUM, driven by very well-trained and professional students. Since the MARC B&O line was quite a ways from the main campus, and the DC Metro green line wasn’t built yet, these buses and their superb drivers were a godsend.

By 1979, Amtrak and MARC had improved, and the DC Metro system was actually useful for getting places. For the next few years, I commuted from Capitol Hill to the Forrestal Building, and then to 16th & M Street. I was on the train ahead of the one that crashed on January 13, 1982. https://statter911.com/2022/01/13/35-years-ago-air-florida-flight-90-crash-metro-train-derailment-in-washington-dc/ Thankfully, I got home okay.

I didn’t take train trips while in graduate school in Minnesota, but I rode public transit in the Twin Cities a lot. I made some great friends there, but man, the weather was brutal, so it was a relief to get back to the east coast.

I became an Amtrak and MARC rider when I commuted from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in DC—first on Amtrak’s Night Owl, since MARC didn’t run on weekends, then on the MARC Penn Line on summer weekdays. The trip I took had two cars with green Penn Central livery, and one in Pennsylvania RR tuscan red! Air conditioning? Not a chance!

My first trip on Amtrak was in December of 1973. I was finishing my last year in high school in Vermont, but my parents had already returned to Maryland. I was going to fly there for my birthday, but all the flights had been canceled due to an ice storm. So I got on the Montrealer in Essex Jct. It as already 3 hours late, and it was packed. The only place to sit was in the leather chairs in the smoking lounge. We arrived in DC 6 hours late. I missed my birthday lunch, but I did get there!