In Fact, I Am Alive

I know it's been four months since I last posted--and I'd never planned on being away so long--but I am on my way to coming back to this site. It'll likely be next week before I am back up to speed as I am trying to work six months of 90-hour weeks (no, I'm not exaggerating) out of my body. Suffice to say that running an all-volunteer initiative campaign in signature gathering phase is very tough work. The short story is the I-1068 campaign faced just about every obstacle you could imagine and some I never would've guessed at until they happened and we came up short on signatures. The main impediment was the weather: It was a very wet May and June (June was at 200 percent of normal rainfall) this year and that makes it extremely difficult to turn out volunteers to collect signatures. The initiatives that will qualify for this November's ballot in Washington State all relied upon paid signature gatherers. Some initiative backers will spend close to $1 million just on signature gathering. I-1068 spent around $40,000.

Sensible Washington--the group I co-founded earlier this year--is already hatching plans to take another run next year at signature gathering for what I call "Son of I-1068." So the next six months or so ought to be interesting as we ramp up for that. And pray for better weather. And more money.

I've appreciated the many kind sentiments that have come my way the last few months, especially this yesterday from PsychCentral's John Grohol.

It's interesting to be coming back just as the Avandia saga comes to a head and just as GlaxoSmithKline takes a $2.3 billion charge to settle various legal cases connected to Avandia and Paxil. Same as it ever was.