Events

As I mentioned yesterday, we finally have a late-spring weekend in Chicago. It got up to 24°C officially at O'Hare yesterday; today's forecast high is 27°C. Parker got a 3=hour, 12.5 km walk, while I managed 26,000 steps and 21.4 km of my own. And we just got back from another 5,000-step walk before he gets to do his second-favorite activity: a Ride in the Car! Apollo's final concert of the season is this afternoon, too. I'm kind of sad not to see the chorus again until rehearsals resume mid-September....

Blogging might be spotty this weekend. After last night's concert, a group of us from the chorus went out and stayed out. Fortunately none of us seems to have any real responsibilities today. Even better, the forecast calls for the warmest day of 2015 so far on Sunday, when we expect 27°C. That would also be the warmest temperature since September 29th. So Parker and I may spend a good bit of time outside. Possibly I'll break last week's Fitbit record. Or possibly I'll just take a nap...

Citylab has a must-read on Spiro Agnew and the legitimization of right-wing suburban fears that led to the current policing crisis in America: Initially, Governor Agnew offered a rather moderate response to the riot. But he soon took the lead of a conservative backlash that blamed radical agitators (that should sound familiar) and liberalism for nurturing black misbehavior. Agnew's pivot to the right came as the riot subsided, on April 11, when he met the state's mainstream black leaders and accused...

Apparently cheese grease contaminates the cardboard: Paper is particularly susceptible to food and beverage contamination, and it "ends up suffering the most from getting mixed with other materials," says [Natural Resources Defense Council Senior Research Specialist Darby] Hoover. The culprits: gooey cheese and oil stains. Even if you remove the crusty cheese and sauce the slices leave behind, grease will have already soaked into the cardboard, ruining it for recycling. In a single-stream system (where...

It's 15°C and sunny outside; why am I inside? Right. Work. I did get a 5 km walk this morning, but somehow I think I'll need more steps today. The nearest Whole Foods is 1500 m away, for example. I feel a walking lunch coming on. Still, though. Work.

Color me excited: Aerican Airlines will use a Boeing 787 Dreamliner on a regular route between Chicago and Japan, the airline told employees Thursday. It will be the first U.S. airline to use the highly touted aircraft on a regular route at O'Hare International Airport, although some foreign airlines use it. American will start daily service Aug. 18 from O'Hare to Narita International Airport near Tokyo, according to a memo Thursday to Chicago employees from Franco Tedeschi, an American Airlines vice...

We've got a pair of fun concerts coming up. Friday we're at 4th Presbyterian in Chicago at 7:30pm, and Sunday we're at the Elmhurst Christian Reformed Church at 3pm. (This is one of the reasons posts have been less frequent and pithy.)

Sir Terry and Neil Gaiman have a joint cameo in Episode 1 of BBC4's radio adaptation of the funniest book ever. I'm trying to sneak a listen to it in my office. Hurry: it's only free until next Wednesday.

A massive effort to rebuild the hundred-year-old El tracks between Howard and Lawrence moved forward this week with the CTA's announcement that work will start in 2017: Construction will be divided into two segments: The first is expected to keep the Lawrence and Berwyn stations closed for about 18 months; the second will involve closing the Berwyn, Argyle and Lawrence stations and restricting the Bryn Mawr station to southbound boarding only for 18 months to two years. The station redesigns are...

I had my office door open most of the day and people kept walking in and speaking before I could acknowledge them. Hilarity ensued. Then I closed my office door and people who had appointments to talk to me simply walked away without knocking. While that fun was happening, I didn't read any of these: Baltimore violence has a long fuse Don't travel with this stuff Internet security marketing is crap Josh Marshall's brush with greatness incarnate Azure service monitoring and diagnostics in depth Baltimore...