Happy July!

Welcome to July, everyone! Today is the first day of Camp NaNoWriMo, so I'll need to start writing. Fortunately, my project will draw upon the posts I wrote for April A to Z, as well as some of my Statistics Sunday posts, so some of my writing process this month will be editing and adding to those posts, while writing some transitional parts to tie things together. My plan is to use R as the program of choice for running statistics outlined in the book. This won't be a book about how to use R - because to really use R effectively means learning to be an R programmer, given that R is an object-oriented programming language - but teaching someone how to import data and run basic statistical analyses isn't all that difficult. But for readers who do want to learn R, I'm going to put together a list of my favorite R books and resources.

But first, I need to go into the Camp NaNoWriMo website and set some writing goals for myself. I probably should have done this already but NBD to wait until now; Camp NaNoWriMo is definitely more relaxed. Unlike NaNoWriMo, I can set whatever goal I want, and despite my project likely being a book, I'm probably not going to set a 50,000 word goal. Some of the writing is already done, and a big part of the process will be synthesizing, pulling in new information, and coming up with examples and problems. I may instead set a page goal or number of topics to cover. I'll think about that today while I get my hair done.

BTW, today is not only the first day of July - it's also a significant date for other reasons. One of the blogs I follow, Dena's Ramblings, shares the significance of the date, both generally and in legal and military history. Today is not only Canada Day (150 years!), it's also:

• International Joke Day
• International Reggae Day
• National Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day
• National Postal Worker Day
• National Zip Code Day
• National Hop a Park Day

So tell a joke, listen to some reggae, and have a creative ice cream cone with your local postal worker in the park located in your favorite zip code.

Edit: My friend over at The Daily Parker also had a few words in honor of Canada today.