Events

I've figured out the hotel's WiFi. It's not the slowest Internet connection in the world; it's the slowest SSL in the world. In other words, they're not really throttling the Internet per se. But somewhere between here and the U.S., someone is only letting through a very few secure packets. The genius of this is that things like restaurant reviews (think: TripAdvisor.com) come up normally. But just try to get your email, check your airline reservations, or heaven forbid, get to your bank's website. It's...

When I last visited St. Martin five years ago, I struggled a bit to get through the heavily-defended border between the French and Dutch sides. I am happy to report that the two countries have made significant improvements to the border since then. For starters, they've put up a brand-new sign: Unfortunately, it appears that an aggressor nation has taken over part of the French side: All right, I'm wasting time writing a blog post when I could do it with something else. If only this Internet connection...

This is why I love Sint Maarten:

I'm about to close my laptop for the remainder of the day, so I'm just noting these two for later reading: Someone calculated which cities in the U.S. have the pleasantest weather. Apparently the top 5 are all in California, and so is one of the bottom five. Along the same lines, WBEZ's Curious City blog attempts to unravel how bad Chicago's winter is this year. Well, it depends... And now, allons-y! The beach awaits.

According to FlightAware, KLM 785 is over the central Atlantic and will land in just under 2½ hours. I've already showered and eaten, so it's likely I'll have time to make the 15-minute walk along the beach to the Sunset Bar & Grill to see it come in. The weather is -19°C and windy—sorry, that's back in Chicago. The weather here is 27°C with a gentle breeze from the east, same as the last 48 hours. (It did get all the way down to 24°C last night. Brr.) After the 747 lands, I'm not exactly sure what I'll...

Here you go: This Internet connection, though. It's almost like I really shouldn't try, right?

It turned out that I had an actual task today. Two, in fact. Both were pure stupidity on my part. And both completely scotched my goal of doing nothing worthwhile for four days. First, I had promised something to my team at work before I left, but didn't realize until I checked email this morning that, well, the task was not completed. (Notice the subtle use of passive voice there.) So I had that task, which took half an hour. Second, mentioned forgetting a few vital items in my luggage, so I had to buy...

I'm sitting in the only spot in my hotel that has free WiFi, with a dozen or so other people doing the same thing. Plus, it's possible this is the slowest WiFi in the world (I'm getting 150 kbps). These things make it easy to get out of the building, into island air that's currently 27°C. I know, I said to people I wouldn't use the internet, but I actually needed a map and some local info that the giant book of wristwatch advertisements guidebook didn't actually tell me. Plus, I forgot three somewhat...

I'm all set to go to a warm little island this afternoon, except for this: Light snow continues to fall across the Chicago area with more moderate bands of snow close to and along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Moderate snowfall in the past hour has brought the Midway Airport total up to 148 mm. Winter Storm Warnings and Advisories across the Chicago area continue in effect until noon today. Snowfall is slowly diminishing here as the center of low pressure has already tracked up the Ohio River valley into...

While the eastern United States continue to freeze in between snowfalls, Alaska is experiencing an astounding heat wave: To give people an idea how freaky an event this was for the 49th State, NASA has put together a visualization of phenomenal temperatures from January 23 to the 30th. Based on satellite readings, the map shows warm-weather abnormalities spreading in red all across the region. Areas of white were about average, meanwhile, and blue spots show cooler-than-normal temps: One of the most...