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detection

This is scary. My grandma died of colon cancer, and my grandfather is a survivor. (That's 2 out of my 3 grandparents that made it past age 30.) B's father died of it, and B has had polyps removed. It seems very likely that I, one of my siblings, B or one of B's siblings will at least catch this disease. B's father had regular colon*oscopies, but that didn't save him. That being said, it's obviously the best choice to get them.

12:10 p.m. - Dec. 16, 2008

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on traffic

This article describes improvements being made to a local highway. When my company moved from Mercer Is*land to Ke*nt, this section of highway - exactly what is described in the quote below, and then some - became my commute, every day. It was actually a reverse commute but it was still terrible. That commute was why I moved to Ke*nt, fine for me since I have no spouse who needs to work elsewhere and no kids I might want to keep in a given school. Ever since then I've been passionately opposed to HOV lanes in most cases. The highway was 3 lanes, one of which was HOV. As a result, rather than being painfully congested only during rush hour, the highway is painfully congested around the clock. I was driving to the airport one morning at 5 AM (before I moved) and I had to drive illegally to make my flight; traffic was at a dead stop at 5 AM! Anyway, the article states that:

According to the Department of Transportation's annual report on highway congestion published in November, the section of I-405 freeway from Tukwila to Bellevue remains the most congested commute in the state.

They are adding a new lane which should help, a lot, bringing it to the normal annoying but tolerable Sea*ttle traffic conditions. However, it annoys me that they are planning an extensive rail corridor, and the East*side is completely left out of the plan. In another 15 years, I fear the quote above about the worst traffic in the state may again be true. It's a pity because the actual distance between where I live and Belle*vue is quite short, shorter than the commute into Seat*tle, and more new jobs are being added in Belle*vue than Seat*tle. Bel*levue is very expensive, more expensive than Seat*tle by a substantial margin, so it's natural for people to want to live where I am.

8:44 a.m. - Dec. 16, 2008