Events

American Airlines bought Trans World Airlines in April 2001, consummating the deal on December 1st of that year. Twenty years later, the TWA livery appears at O'Hare: (I actually love this stuff. Moar retro livery!)

I'm leaving the country today, for the first time in almost exactly two years, and I couldn't be happier. I miss my Ancestral Homeland. And the list of Covid-related travel requirements, while annoying, make sense to me. In fact, because I return Sunday, I timed my (£39 FFS!) UK 2-day test to double as my US 3-day test. Before I take off, and consign poor Cassie to 103 hours of desperate loneliness (albeit with her entire daycare pack), I want to comment on two news stories. First, the Chicago...

My 8am meeting with colleagues in London had to wait until 9:30 because Comcast screwed the pooch this morning: Reports indicate the system was down, or at least unsteady, in areas stretching from Chicago to Philadelphia, New Jersey, and South Carolina. Looking at DownDetector, issues had been reported earlier in the Bay Area, but it’s unclear if those are connected to the problems people saw this morning. Comcast has released a statement regarding the outage. According to a spokesperson, “Earlier, some...

In the "how old do I feel now" department for this week, fifty years ago today, Led Zeppelin released their fourth album: Led Zeppelin‘s fourth album is variously known as Led Zeppelin IV, Untitled, Four Symbols and Zoso, but its true title is formed by the four unpronounceable symbols chosen by each band member. Page did that to retaliate against writers, including several in Rolling Stone, who’d snubbed the band’s music: “After all we had accomplished, the press was still calling us a hype. So that is...

Welcome to stop #61 on the Brews and Choos project. Distillery: Chicago Distilling Co., 2359 N. Milwaukee Ave., ChicagoTrain line: CTA Blue Line, California Time from Chicago: 14 minutesDistance from station: 300 m It's dangerous to have such a great distillery two doors down from a great brewpub. It's also convenient, when you're out with friends and want to have a cocktail after having a pile of pub food. Chicago Distilling makes really good spirits, full stop. And they've recently launched a line of...

The kids today don't know how good they have it. When I lived in New York more than 20 years ago, I would have gotten on a bike and ridden this trail: Last December, the Empire State Trail — a sprawling, 750-mile cyclist and pedestrian route that connects Buffalo to Albany and New York City to the Canadian border, forming what looks like a sideways T — opened to the public. Considering the pandemic bike boom, the timing was perfect. About 400 miles of greenways, repurposed rail lines and bike paths...

Revolution announced on 1 November 2024 the brewpub will close on December 14th. Welcome to stop #60 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Revolution Brewpub., 2323 N. Milwaukee Ave., ChicagoTrain line: CTA Blue Line, California Time from Chicago: 14 minutesDistance from station: 200 m I've enjoyed Revolution beers for such a long time I can't really review them like I do the ones I've just met. When I met some friends for dinner at their brewpub (cf. the Revolution Taproom on Kedzie), I did try a...

There's just something about how she sits on the couch that makes me smile:

As I pointed out in the last Chicago Sunrise Chart, tomorrow morning the sun will rise in Chicago at 7:30:11, the latest sunrise in most people's lifetimes. I found only one occasion from 1975 to 2040 when the sun rises later: at 7:30:35 on 6 November 2032. The last time the sun rose after 7:30 was at 7:31:26 on 26 February 1974, after Chicago started daylight saving time on 6 January 1974, due to the oil crisis. Chicago also observed year-round daylight saving time during World War II, from 9 February...

In his subscriber-only newsletter this morning, economist Paul Krugman speculated about why so many people have left their low-wage jobs recently: The experience of the pandemic may have led many workers to explore opportunities they wouldn’t have looked at previously. I’d been thinking vaguely along these lines, but Arindrajit Dube, who has been one of my go-to labor economists throughout this pandemic, recently put it very clearly. As he says, there’s considerable evidence that “workers at low-wage...