Events

And sometimes, it rains. That's the forecast for tomorrow's opening day at Wrigley Field. So far the Cubs haven't won, though. They're 0-2 for the season, starting their third game at Pittsburgh in just a few minutes. Stay tuned.

Crains reports this morning that a local Chicago technology start-up (not mine) has just gotten a ton of money: Bswift LLC, a healthcare-benefits software firm, has received $51 million from a private-equity fund to keep up with torrid growth. The Chicago-based company has been growing at more than 40 percent annually for the past four years and is enjoying a surge in demand, in part because of the Affordable Care Act. Bswift's technology is used by companies to provide comparison shopping, enrollment...

It's official: the meteorological winter (December 1 to March 31) that just ended was Chicago's coldest winter in history: The impressive cold this past winter continued during March...with a monthly average temperature of only -0.2°C for the month. this ranks as the 19th coldest march on record in Chicago. however...of even more interest is the fact that with the abnormally cold March across the area...this made the average temperature for the December through March period in Chicago -5.6°C ...which is...

Microsoft has partnered with Lotus Formula 1 Racing to create a series of ads about Microsoft Azure: Neowin reports: The new ad, which has been running for the past few days on many U.S. TV networks and has been posted on YouTube, attempts to show how the Lotus Formula 1 racing team uses a number of Microsoft cloud services such as Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics to collect and analyze data from 200 sensors on the car. The ad's main them is that the cloud products offer the Lotus team a way to better...

The Cubs will start the season in Philadelphia this afternoon, so at the moment they have a perfect record. That will likely change within the next 36 hours, so we're not to jazzed about it in Chicago. When they open at Wrigley Field on Friday, it may be cold and drizzly according to the National Weather Service forecast this morning, but at least they'll finally have good beer: After 25 years, Goose Island finally has a home field advantage at Wrigley Field. Chicago’s longest-tenured beer maker will be...

The O'Hare CTA station closed after Monday's train crash, and just re-opened.

Because of some new tasks related to my job, I haven't been able to post the last couple of days. Today it's 10°C and sunny, and getting warmer, so I have to go outside and play. There is a chance that today will be the warmest since November 17th. If that happens, I will post again today. If not, I'll just enjoy the weather quietly, to myself.

Gail Gygax, widow of Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax, is trying to get a statue to her late husband in Lake Geneva, Wis.: Since 2009, Gail has been trying to make a Gary Gygax memorial happen in Lake Geneva. And it should. Or, at least, some form of a memorial to Gygax, whose influence on contemporary culture is vast and underrated, should happen. As David Ewalt, an editor at Forbes magazine and author of the 2013 history "Of Dice and Men," said, Dungeons & Dragons took the raw materials of...

I got home with no difficulty and bypassed the dead El train at O'Hare through the simple expedient of taking a taxi. I'm catching up on work right now, so further comments will issue later. It also turns out, apparently, that a virus had made a beachhead in my nose, so I will have to fight that off before my wit and verve returns. In totally unrelated news, today is the 30th anniversary of the fictional Breakfast Club.

I'm now at Heathrow where I've got a really great perch overlooking the approach end of runway 9L. A JAL 777 has just floated down to the runway and a BA 747 is taxiing past the window. It's a little piece of aviation heaven in Terminal 5 as I wait for the 787 to Toronto. As I mentioned earlier, however, my trip home tomorrow morning may end a little differently than usual because of this: (Photo credit.) Fortunately, no one was hurt. Unfortunately, the El still missed its flight. Never try to carry too...