Dream: Stealing a Car and more

In the dream I don't remember why but Terry & Terry tell me to get in this car and drive it, so I do. I am just getting started driving it and this guy (I think he is the owner of the car) jumps onto the side of the car and tries to climb in the driver's side window (into my lap). I push him gently and he falls down so that he is hanging on the door. He's still trying to get in and I am afraid so I push harder and hit the gas at the same time. He falls off the side of the car and I hear a crunch when he hits the ground.
( very random dream )

Bike Commuting

I just signed up for a bike commuter study thru OHSU. They're looking at near misses and accidents, and asking lots of questions about my bike commuting history. I am proud to say that in Flag I was avid and was able to bike much more than I drove. Here in PDX, and living in West Linn, I am not driving, but I am taking the bus a lot. My goal is to bike two days a week, even in the winter darkness and rain, even with the distance. Sometime soon hopefully I'll relocate to a place that is not quite so far to ride....

For my records, the researchers are Red Hoffman and Ellen Peck, and they are available by phone at 503-494-6517 or by email at pdxbike@ohsu.edu. Their website is www.ohsuhealth.com/pdxbike.

Educated Boozer Mutts for Ron Paul

Just ran across a great collection of stats and a post byrinku that I had to share. I've been following his posts on the LJ community ronpaul2008.

Here's something interesting.

For those who know how statistics work, this shows the correlation between those states that contributed the most to Ron Paul in Q2 2007 compared with hundreds of other statistics. For everyone else and for those who don't want to go through the numbers I'll summarize:

The top correlation is alcohol consumption: those states which drink the most alcohol tended to donate to Ron Paul the most.

Next comes race: those states with the highest percentages of people who proclaim their race as "Other" tended to donate to Ron Paul the most.

Next comes years of school: those states that have the highest average number of years of completed school tended to donate to Ron Paul the most.

Other correlations with donations to Ron Paul: Hispanic population (perhaps due to increased anti-illegal sentiment in those areas), marijuana use, prisoner deaths, UFO reports per capita (!), and the cost of health care.

Money, Sushi, Zucchini and Light

I'm not used to moving around thousands of dollars in my accounts. Most of the time I'm playing with tens or maybe hundreds. I just paid off the credit card bill with the Uhaul rental on it (over 1.5K). And in the last two weeks I have spent approximately $430 on books. And today I found out that I really must buy a Merck Manual too. That's probably another $150. Now I have so many thousands left, and I'm wondering exactly how much I was spending before? It has been so long since I actually kept a budget. I simply put as much as I could into savings and then investments, and spent the remainder on sushi and rent. I lived large (by my standards). Here I would be living large but I haven't figured out how to yet. I see there's a sushi restaurant down the street but I'm sure it's overpriced. More important is that I haven't yet met the person that I want to invite to join me for sushi. Well maybe I have met that person, but I haven't figured out which of them it will be yet. A few people are beginning to stand out.
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