Linked Up

Another 3 or so things to talk about that have nothing to do with one another.

Some of the bloggers I keep in my sidebar (so I can remember to go there) have some good stuff to say. Like this, although I was never that hot on Edwards. Perfectly acceptable fellow. Not necessary. Also in Sarah F's blog, she links "A Daily Show" video segment with JS's response to Mitt Romney's bowing out mad-lib speech. I used to think he could have been a decent fellow, but he spoke the hate and he is now dead to me. Please let me know if you think I might enjoy reading someone you link up to.

I spent most of yesterday evening looking up causes and ages of death on the CDC website to get a handle on what might be considered acceptable risk. There's some really cool stuff there. In 2004 there were about 260+ million people in the US and about 2.4 million died. Most of varied diseases related to old age or some age plus bad habits. People who died young mostly did so due to accidents (mostly motor vehicle, poison, firearms or falling accidents), less so due to non-accidental accidents self-inflicted or otherwise. The rates for these things were fairly consistent from age 15 to 75. US kids from age 1 to 15 tend not to die off much. I was fairly surprised to see just how old most people are when they kick off even though my grandmothers are about 87 and 92 and I happen to know that a life expectancy of 45 doesn't mean you'll die at 45 so much as it means that most kids in that country don't live to age 5 and haven't had their shots.

BTW, Belated Happy Chinese New Year and Prelated Valentine's Day.
I actually meant to say something about the year of the rat since most of the animals I have aligned myself with at some point are rodents. (Otters are in the dog family and not rodents tho.) The rat is one of these aligned rodents as I was born in the year of the rat according to the many placemats in my chopstick wielding history. I don't think I posted my goals yet. I wrote them down, at least. I think it's something like do well at job, date, find local dinner/hiking pal, remodel kitchen, run 10K, finish painting main room, blow glass, think about getting a master's degree or something, read. Because let's face it, I'm way ahead on the reading. I spent most of our lunch meeting reflecting on the kitchen remodel.

Happy Today because:
Good chat with mom; good chat with grandma; progress on work project; salad that came with pizza lunch had lots of stuff in it, none of which I found objectionable.