I thought I was the only person that missed the Midwest (or at least Michigan in my case). Virginia is similar enough – but there is never enough snow… or happy people, in my opinion. Home also has a nice smell – and you can’t get that with this many cars around (metro-DC smells different than Flint, MI).

BTW - That’s funny that Wanda mentioned fertility problems and low-carbing. The Army told me I couldn’t get pregnant because I have endometriosis. I even went through menopause shots trying to avoid having surgery – again. Then I gained weight after going on a “low-fat diet” to lose that extra 10 lbs I thought I was carrying (what was I thinking?!). I gained about 40lbs. So I went on Atkins and lost 30 lbs in a month. Then I promptly got pregnant. (I call him a miracle baby.) Unfortunately all the books about endometriosis tell you to eat soy to regulate your hormones and to limit your meat and dairy intake (because of the hormones in the animals?! But soy is ok?! Never made sense to me.). I do the exact opposite (eat low carb, run away from soy and carbs… dropped the hormone “replacements”…) and I feel 100% better than I did. My acne even went away.

I’ve heard a lot of stories about those miracle babies. We should call them “Atkins babies.”

I found a link to an article posted today, and it’s totally off topic, but is about “global warming” and how it’s completely made up! Thought you might be interested.

Cheers!

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/02/lorne-gunter-why-the-climate-email-scandal-matters-big-time.aspx

Yup, I’ve been following that story and having a good laugh about it. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine tried the “all the scientists agree!” line on me about man-made global warming. I told him that they don’t all agree (31,000 of them have signed a document stating as much), and even if they did, after researching Fat Head, I’m suspicious of any “consensus” in science. I told him once a theory gets legs, the research money follows, then scientists torture their data so they can produce papers supporting the theory and keep the grant money rolling in. He looked at me like I’d gone loony.

This scandal confirms what I already knew. “Consensus” is the enemy of good science, not the driver of it.

I think you have WAY too much faith in general driving behavior. You know everyone would just try and squeeze every last inch of that extra lane they can. When driving in crawling traffic on a motorway (thankfully a situation I have rarely been in) a car came up the onramp. I made a gap and waved him in, he obviously saw. He then proceeded to accelerate along the rest of the onramp land until he could drive no further (about 200m ahead of me), waiting for someone to give him a gap. Everyone had seen his behaviour, so naturally, nobody let him in. As I drove past him I gave a nice big cheery wave.

Somewhere along the line, “merge like a zip” morphed to “you have right of way over anyone that does more miles per gallon than you”.

In short, those warnings would not make a modicum of difference.

After driving in Los Angeles, I’m afraid you’re right.

I remember those family drives well. Seat belts? Never heard of them. Thank God we never crashed. I could’ve injured my patoomba.

I’m glad I’m raising them now and not 20 years ago. I wouldn’t have known any better.

Yee-up. And they probably bought some sugar and starch to fill their tummies.

You know, that has always bugged me about construction. You go at like 10 mph for like an hour and then when you finally get to the construction site you just see orange cones! At least you weren’t travelling around Michigan, where we are infamous for our construction and pot holes. We joke that we have two seasons here: winter and construction.

I did a fair number of comedy tours in Michigan back in the day. I’m familiar with those seasons. But it’s beautiful country up there. Love the area around Traverse City.

Protecting our own sanity is how I think of it.

I’m sure my parents wish they’d known too. My brother and I used to fight over important issues such as “who’s closer.”

Grandma has seen the difference in my health and weight (lots of overweight people in my family) and keeps plenty of meats and eggs on hand when we visit. She’s been threatening to go low-carb herself, but hasn’t yet.