Events

While we're getting ready to celebrate the birth of Baby X this Xmas, links are once again stacking up in my inbox. Like these: Someone made a transit map of Westeros. Someone explained the history of Chinese food and Jewish Christmas. Someone hacked Sony, but Schneier isn't convinced it was North Korea. Someone leaked the CIA's travel guide. Someone bumped uglies with a 737 at LaGuardia. Someone convinced American and United to allow free flight changes today. That might be it for The Daily Parker today.

A friend upgraded my wardrobe. Specifically, I received a real bow tie for my concert tuxedo to replace my ugly clip-on. I am grateful; the clip-on was really ugly. However, the friend may not have realized that I have never tied a bow tie before. And so, last Saturday before our Messiah concert at the Harris Theater, I attempted to learn: Fortunately, one of the other singers helped me out before we went on, so the end result didn't suck too badly: Unfortunately, I had to take it off after the concert....

Yesterday, the majority of weather models forecast a major winter storm over Chicago that was going to snarl traffic, ground airplanes, and make life a living hell for several friends of mine. One of the models had a slightly different prediction, however. Looks like the minority opinion was right: The northbound storm driving Chicago’s Christmas Eve 2014 rainfall is going to have a hard time producing the kind of cooling which would support big snow accumulations. It’s been clear from the range of...

You may have noticed that the photos I've posted lately have unusual aspect ratios and sizes. This is because I have been lazy. Usually, I upload photos from my camera or phone to my laptop, process them with Adobe Lightroom, and crop them to a pleasing 2:3 aspect ratio. Lately, though, I've just shot them through Google Hangouts from my phone. I have little understanding of Google's choices but they seem to be around the byte count and not around the dimensions. Here, for example, is a shot of O'Hare...

I missed this a couple days ago. The Sun-Times stopped by during an Apollo Chorus rehearsal just after Thanksgiving and published a feature on us on the 13th: Well, Chicago’s Apollo Chorus is that type of choir. The members can sing old classics, modern classics and even new standards, and have performed with everyone from Josh Groban to Jackie Evancho. And since December is the holiday season, the chorus — Chicago’s oldest, having been founded in 1872, just after the Chicago Fire — is in full swing....

Andrew Sullivan, the most frequent guest during the entire run of the Colbert Report, has kind things to say: This was an unprecedentedly sustained act of character improvisation. I wasn’t crazy to doubt he would pull it off. I just didn’t realize how deeply brilliant and able he is. No one interviewed a politician as freshly as he did, or took down a pretentious author with more finesse. His writers were and are the best on television – deeply read, darkly funny. His professionalism was staggering....

My vacation officially began at 12:20 this afternoon when I turned in my laptop and badge to West Monroe. I have exactly one day of vacation more than required to burn down PTO until the end of the year, plus I have some final Christmas shopping to do, so I have returned to my old remote office for a moment: In reality, I'm not going to do nothing on my vacation. Someday I'll have two weeks off with pay and no responsibilities, but starting a job as CTO isn't like starting other jobs. I'm already...

I stopped in to my new company today and started unpacking boxes. It's coming together:

Just in time for Christmas travel, I got three links from one Daily Parker reader over the last 24 hours: Marissa Mayer isn't Steve Jobs. Yes, the 113th Congress was objectively the worst ever. The Interview isn't the first time Hollywood has caved on censorship. And yes, today is cloudy. Again.

If you live in Chicago, your gloominess may have something to do with the cloudiest December in 39 years: The full month [of December 1975] managed just 19% of its possible sun that year–the same lackluster sunshine allotment on the books in 2014 as we move the final days of December. Failure to boost that pitifully limited tally between now and the month’s close at midnight this coming Wednesday, would put the Chicago area in line for a possible new record. There have been cloudier months. Our veteran...