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<p>That is because you are from New York!</p>
<p>I have met a couple of people here in CA who have said, “Well, I live in CA, but I am from New York!” I have not heard people from other places say that. When I hear it, I wonder what it is supposed to be telling me.</p>
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<p>Well, obviously none of these numbers are good. But the difference between 57.2% (HI) and 70.0% (AL) is still a pretty big difference. That means there are 22% more overweight or obese people (as a fraction of the population) in AL than in HI. That’s not trivial.</p>
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<p>If you look at the time lapse map, you can see the numbers we came from and how fast we got to where we are today. If things keep going the way they are, the low states will get up to the numbers of the high states.</p>
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<p>I encountered it three times on a short trip to Pennsylvania, but zero times in decades of driving in California.</p>
<p>^^^ I find the people who are actually FROM “my town” so fascinating! My kids godparents for example. The town I live in had maybe 20 k people and no streetlights when they grew up. There are streets and stadiums named after some of their parents. Outlets named for orchards that were important. And many of them STAY here! Come on! That is such a different experience than I had. My mother said she would NEVER leave NYC, and she didn’t. But her siblings did, after she died.</p>
<p>It’s interesting.</p>
<p>I left when I was maybe 22. Looking back, I don’t think I knew what I was doing. I had no sense of what it would mean if I had kids. I thought , hey! It’s a six hour flight! On the other hand, my moms family got on a BOAT, and moved across oceans, knowing they might NEVER see their family again. Wow.</p>
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Wow! I can’t think when the last time that’s happened to me, but it’s been several years and I really don’t know if it was here in PA.</p>
<p>We are from the greater Seattle area and are constantly amazed at how people from Chicago and east think of Seattle as out in the wilderness. Hello . . . Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks - just to name a few things we have here.<br>
D refused to look at schools east of the Mississippi and/or south of the Mason Dixon line. Her reach was Stanford, and others are in Washington, Oregon, Minnesota and Iowa. It was definitely a cultural thing. LA area has it’s own culture separate from the rest of the west, though. I once went on 3 day cruise out of LA and it was like being on another planet - the women in particular. Everyone from teens to seniors were “enhanced” in various ways.</p>
<p>We are from the greater Seattle area and are constantly amazed at how people from Chicago and east think of Seattle as out in the wilderness.</p>
<p>Well we do have bears, cougars & coyotes.
[But not leopards thank goodness](<a href=“http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9001962/Leopard-captured-after-deadly-attack-in-India.html”>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9001962/Leopard-captured-after-deadly-attack-in-India.html</a>)
Some of us also dress like we just finished with a hike.</p>
<p>I find myself in the PCC deli at during the lunch time from Adobe/Google and they are dressed so casually I can’t tell who is a street vendor or the managing director of Ubermind.</p>
<p>Besides ( when it isn’t raining) it is so beautiful in the Seattle area that who * doesn’t * want to be outside? :)</p>
<p>" like a beu-ti-ful child, growing up…free and wild…full of hopes and full of fears, full of laughter, full of tears, full of dreams to last for years, in Seattle!</p>
<p>Tell me I’m not the only one who remembers that show…</p>
<p>^^ Bobby Sherman (swoon) and “Here Come the Brides”!</p>
<p>^^^ Wasn’t the show based on a movie to provide wives to the dudes that settled Seattle?</p>
<p>Most freeway to street exits in LA are from the right lane. Some freeway to freeway exits are from the left lanes but usually are very well marked in advance if you are paying attention or know where you are going to start with. Compared to Seattle freeway entrances are more frequent and much better marked. They also usually have much longer blending lanes. I never flash people in right lanes. That seems really dumb. If you want to go 50 that is where you belong and enjoy in my book.
BTW this new toll thing on the 520 is making life Hell on I90.</p>
<p>The first time I had to deal with left exits, I got on shortly before I had to get off and I wasn’t used to so many lanes of traffic. We do have a few left-exits in MA/NH now so it’s less of an issue. Sometimes you have to slow down on the highway for left exits if they get backed up or slow which can present a hazard to high-speed drivers. I guess that left-exits are easier to design and build in some environments.</p>
<p>Shinkrap, I loved that song and the show. I think Bobby Sherman was my first crush and, guess what? They have it the shows and the movie on Netflix!!</p>
<p>Yes, the TV show ‘Here Come the Brides’ is based on an actual historical event; pioneer Asa Mercer’s trip back east to bring eligible single women to the rough and tumble Puget Sound. Used to be required reading for elementary school kids in the Seattle Public Schools. Like the town’s founders, Mercer was originally one of those stoic New Englanders, Massachusetts I believe. As for the theme song of the show, that credit must go to the late Perry Como, who made it hit way before the premier of the show. Bobby Sherman’s er, ah…singing “career” lasted about as long a Seattle heat wave.</p>
<p>You see Barrons, another sign that Seattle is becoming indistinguishable from the dreary metropolitan northeast; toll roads!!! The apocalypse is on the way.</p>
<p>We had a toll on the 520 bridge in the 70’s. I remember driving around when I didn’t have change.</p>
<p>Some topics caught my interest. The obesity/overweight numbers- this would include people only mildly overweight to those massively obese. It would be more revealing to see only the obesity numbers. Also- states like Florida may reflect many older people from elsewhere who brought their body habitus and eating habits with them from other states.</p>
<p>Wisconsin, and other states, have “slower traffic keep right” signs. This is logical. It is horrendous when two vehicles (cars or trucks) keep pace with each other in the two lanes. It doesn’t matter if they are driving the legal limit (here traffic tickets are highly unlikely if driving within 10 miles over the posted speed limit). Do some cars need to stop before merging due to heavy traffic? You do not have the right of way in the merging lane- highway traffic is not supposed to slow to allow you in and cars can only move to the left lane if there is room to do so.</p>
<p>Decades ago I noticed traffic on eastern highways was faster than in the Midwest (excluding Chicagoland where the left lane always has gone at its high speed regardless of posted). Then the new speed laws took effect and the situation became reversed. There was so little traffic on some western interstates you were lucky to see any other vehicles when we traveled them last fall. We have learned to “go with the flow” when we travel. Surprising how fast even semis go in the rain and dark in the eastern mountains. How to get rollercoaster thrills… up, down and around without much of a shoulder separating you from a long distance down. I think this was near Pittsburg and in West Virginia.</p>
<p>^^^ Yeah EK, we used to load up on “script” in the early days of the new floating bridge…</p>
<p>Strange to end up on a toll road in the Denver area and get the mailed fee due a month later. No options to pay at the time.</p>