And he's a repeat offender.

In 1996, Timothy A. Soldani was convicted for driving under the influence after crashing his car through the yards of three houses. He served 2 days in jail.

In February 2000, Soldani was cited for driving under the influence. In March, he was cited again and his license was revoked.

On June 24, 2000, Soldani, driving drunk and without a license, hit a runner, Buffalo Zobel. Zobel had been training in an attempt to run the 26 mile marathon in under four hours, a prodigious athletic feat.

The crash broke both of Zobel's legs, fractured a bone in his back, separated a shoulder and left him with severe facial injuries. The driver, Soldani, fled, but was apprehended with pieces of Zobel's hair and skin embedded in the windshield of the car.

In January 2000, Soldani was convicted of second-degree assault and other charges and sentenced to 8 years and four months in prison.

Zobel is re-learning how to walk.

Buffalo Zobel: The marathon man's remarkable recovery (from the Oregonian)...
>
> Monday, September 27, 2004
> TRACY JAN
>
> The sky brightens in the distance as Buffalo Zobel sets off through his West
> Linn neighborhood on a damp, chilly morning. His scarred legs -- once
> withered to two birdlike limbs that were nearly amputated -- propel him
> forward.
>
>
> Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, Zobel winds uphill past giant homes under
> construction. Along the three-mile route, he points out where the city should
> put in crosswalks. He runs against traffic. He sticks to sidewalks for the
> most part, as he's promised his wife.
>
> Zobel's destination on this morning: a middle school track where he'll work
> on the alignment and length of his stride in preparation for the biggest
> hurdle of his 52 years.
>
> On Sunday, Zobel will run his first marathon since a drunken driver plowed
> into him four years ago and left him for dead on the side of the road.
> Doctors thought he would never walk again, let alone run. Once on pace to
> break four hours, Zobel's only goal now is to finish the race.
>
> The crash
>
> The last Portland Marathon Zobel trained for was in 2000. It was to be his
> third as he prepared to qualify for the Boston Marathon.
>
> But on June 24 of that year, two miles into his 17-mile route around Oswego
> Lake and along the banks of the Willamette River, a black Honda Prelude
> veered into the opposite lane on Southwest Borland Road and struck Zobel
> below the knees. His body bounced from the driver's side window down the back
> of the car, according to a crime reconstruction report.
>
> A bicyclist discovered him seconds later. Witnesses described seeing pieces
> of Zobel's hair, skin and silver hoop earring embedded in the windshield of
> the stolen car as it sped off. The driver, Timothy Soldani, 26, was later
> sentenced to eight years and four months in prison.
>
> Zobel's wife, Toni, did not recognize him when a team of specialists led her
> to his hospital bed in the intensive care unit at OHSU Hospital. Dried blood
> caked his normally white hair. His body swelled like the Pillsbury Doughboy,
> Toni said -- puffy face, blue eyes shut and swollen like eggs, upper lip
> curled so high it touched the bottom of his nose. She didn't see his legs,
> covered by a sheet.
>
> When Zobel awoke from his morphine-induced coma two days later, he could not
> figure out why his legs were encased in metal cages. He did not recognize
> anyone, did not know what had happened for weeks.
>
> Both legs were broken in several places. A bone was fractured in his lower
> back. His right shoulder was separated. Severe facial injuries required skin
> grafts and plastic surgery. He'd lost half his blood. Doctors worried about
> brain damage.
>
> They screwed titanium rods and plates into his legs and rotated his calf
> muscles to cover bones exposed at the shins. He underwent 15 surgeries over a
> year, one that replaced the rod in his right leg with synthetic bone after he
> developed a staph infection.
>
> The man who used to run at sunrise every morning was debilitated,
> disheartened. Confined to a hospital bed in his family room, Zobel doubted at
> times whether he'd ever get up again. A neighbor gave him cyclist Lance
> Armstrong's autobiography on tape. Then he read the book and thought, "Man,
> this guy's got cancer and he's coming back."
>
> Zobel's comeback
>
> On Zobel's first visit to physical therapist Dave Hughes six months after the
> accident, Hughes pushed the wheelchair aside and asked Zobel to stand.
>
> He rose shakily, then put one foot in front of the other for the first time.
> He was so elated, he said, he did not feel pain.
>
> "It was, like, whoa!" Zobel said. "I took a step and then took three more
> steps. I thought, 'How many more steps to complete a marathon?' "
>
> The moment brought tears to his eyes, and from then on, Zobel was fixated.
> Walking was not good enough. He wanted to run again.
>
> "You could look into his eyes and see hope," said Hughes, who works for
> Legacy Rehabilitation Services at Meridian Park Hospital in Tualatin. "You
> could see the gears turning. From that point on he started thinking in the
> long term: 'I'm going to get back to my life the way it was.' "
>
> Zobel measured his recovery in tiny milestones. Walking around the house.
> Walking to check the mail. Walking upstairs to the bedroom instead of inching
> up backward on his rear. Zobel ditched his wheelchair for crutches, a walker
> and, finally, a cane.
>
> One morning after breakfast at a neighborhood diner, Zobel told his wife he
> wanted to walk the one mile home alone. She left him with his cane but
> circled the streets in their Camry to make sure he made it.
>
> When doctors authorized him to increase his physical activity by 10 percent a
> week -- two years after he was hit -- Zobel went from strolling the
> neighborhood to jogging it.
>
> Three months before the 2003 Portland Marathon, Zobel decided to train for
> the five-miler, his first race since the crash. Toni promised she'd snap his
> picture at the finish line. She went for a cup of coffee, and by the time she
> returned, he was done -- 15 minutes sooner than he'd told her he would be.
>
> This year, he has run Lake Oswego's Lake Run, a 7.4-mile race; the Helvetia
> Half Marathon, 13.1 miles; and the Nike Run Hit Wonder, 6.1 miles.
>
> Zobel, once a sprinter in high school in Rochester, N.Y., has always aimed
> high. His first long-distance race was the 1998 Portland Marathon, just a
> year after a co-worker got him into distance running. Now he's fine-tuning
> his mechanics for Sunday's 26.2 miles -- returning where he started six years
> ago.
>
> "He swore to me he would do it. I didn't believe him, but he swore he would,"
> said Dr. Tom Ellis, Zobel's surgeon and director of orthopedic trauma at
> OHSU. "I'm absolutely amazed. And happy to be proven wrong."
>
> A new routine
>
> On mornings when it's especially difficult for Zobel to rise before the sun,
> he rolls over to turn off his alarm and his bleary eyes land on the photo of
> him crossing the finish line at the Helvetia Half Marathon. He slips out of
> bed, his wife usually still asleep.
>
> In his home office, where he's posted his training schedule and race results,
> Zobel stretches his quadriceps, hamstrings and calves -- a 20-minute daily
> routine he will have to perform for the rest of his life. He stands on each
> leg, struggling to stay upright for 30 seconds.
>
> "I'd hate to be pulled over for drunk driving," he joked. "They'd be hauling
> me off quick."
>
> The nerve receptors in his legs have been destroyed, making it difficult for
> him to keep his balance. An upside-down V appears branded into his inner
> calves, where his muscles were shifted around.
>
> Sometimes he'll leave his wife a note on the refrigerator marking his route
> and the time he expects to be home. If it's still dark, he'll wear a
> reflective vest. He recently attached a metal identification tag to his shoe.
>
> Up at Rosemont Ridge Middle School, cows graze beyond the goal posts. Mist
> drops onto the deserted track, where Zobel has claimed Lane 2. He
> concentrates on stepping his right foot down on the white line to correct his
> gait and stave off back pain. He doesn't always hit his mark. He focuses on
> taking long strides, not his usual baby steps.
>
> Whatever it takes -- one step at a time -- Zobel said, he's going to cross
> the finish line at Southwest Main Street in downtown Portland.
>
> "Completion is the winning word here."
>

The comments in the O about the pot bust were pretty critical of the police and city for picking on poor Mr. Solandi. That is until his record for crime was revealed. Then gee.....nothing but crickets for a while from the "really beginning to smell bad" slumber party crowd.

What an approach. If Ms Fritz was in charge of a pre school class the kids would be running amok. My God woman, put your foot down.

Did the guy commit the ideological crime of trying to sell his pot, rather than give it way?

Amanda can show solidarity by declaring public employees to be public volunteers, who exchange their labor services for free, until the protest against freedom and against the free market disperses. She could start by offering to work for free.

Would I be welcome if I pranced around holding a sign that says: "Repeal The Bailouts"

"So much for her oath of office to enforce the ordinances of the City of Portland. and her legal opinion is just that - her opinion - certainly not the opinion of a constitutional legal expert."

...until the protest against freedom and against the free market...

What part of taxpayer bailouts is the free market again?

And goodness, the Very Serious People on Wall Street would never do drugs right?

http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/wall-street-cocaine-bernie-madoff-fridays/10/27/2009/id/25132

Legalize it.

Amanda seems to have shot herself in the foot in her re-election attempts.

Just last week she voted for the Jail in SoWhat. Now she wants to forgive criminal activities. She's racking up a long list of troubling votes. Sadly Nolan may not even have to use much of her campaign funds to defeat Amanda.

It's amazing how much you CAN tell a book by its cover. Seriously, take a look at the expression in this man's eyes.

Slightly paranoid, slightly fogged-up, slightly remorseful, slightly defiant. In fact, rather similar to the expression in the eyes of a certain mayor of a certain major American city.

A certain major American city that has a special relationship to that other major city, New York. Is it coincidental that those two soul-sister cities are the only two in the country that haven't firmly moved along their fulminating flotsam-float yet?

Too cool to do that. We'll leave it to those fascists in podunk places like Denver to reclaim the citadels for the citizens.

I milled about Occupy Portland for an hour yesterday. Sadly it's little more than a non-permitted urban Rainbow Gathering.

Hate to burst your bubble, but (to pick just one example) Occupy Atlanta has just been granted permission to stay in Woodruff Park through Nov. 7.

To pick another example, Occupy Cincinnati is now in its 12th day -- right there on John Boehner's home turf.

I was waiting for the bad news, while enjoying my bubble. I just need a hookah and a bellydance show and I'll be set.

Let's preface things better. New York and Portland are the only ones allowing things to fester more than 2-3 weeks.

Is this still be too bubbly? So what's in the water in Denver that they can wind things up on a sane note? And there was another major city that put a peaceful kabosh on things, can't remember where.

Chicago, that was it. Thankfully, they have the weather on their side there.