Events

The temperature bottomed out at -14.4°C around 1:30 am, and has climbed ever so slowly since then to -0.3°: Will we get above freezing? The forecast says yes, any moment now. But the sun will set in about 5 minutes. Anyway, a guy can dream, right? Meanwhile, Chicago's teachers and schools have agreed to let the kids back tomorrow, even as the mayor herself tested positive for Covid. And the Art Institute's workforce has formed a union, which will operate under AFSCME. And that's not all: It turns out...

Today's temperatures have hovered around -9°C, with a forecast of bottoming out around -18°C tomorrow morning. But hey, at least the sun is out, right? Meanwhile, in the rest of the world: James Fallows, himself a former speechwriter for President Carter, annotates President Biden's speech from last week. Politics is about power, not about kvetching, says Ezra Klein. US Senator Joe Manchin (D?-WV) has gotten caught between the mine owners who own him and the mine workers who vote for him. Crain's...

I managed to acquire a few bruises last night walking Cassie. I'm fine; she's fine; but my left hand and elbow are a bit sore. Yesterday continued our really strange week as the repeating 96-hour cycle of cold and thaw continued: Starting around 4pm, the warm front pushed just enough moisture ahead of itself to give Chicago a fine mist that instantly coated everything. Even though the air got above freezing later on, the sidewalks did not. Result: most of them got a perfectly smooth, nearly invisible...

Welcome to stop #69 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Double Clutch Brewing, 2121 Ashland Ave., EvanstonTrain line: UP-N, Central StreetTime from Chicago: 16 minutes (Zone C)Distance from station: 800 m This car-themed brewery opened on October 31st, about 18 months after their originally-planed April 2020 opening. (This has become a theme of the Brews & Choos project.) That gave them enough time to figure out their operations, however, and also to get a foothold in local restaurants and liquor...

The temperature at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters bottomed out at -16.5°C around 8am today, colder than any time since February 15th. It's up to -8.6°C now, with a forecast for continued wild gyrations over the next week (2°C tomorrow, -17°C on Monday, 3°C on Wednesday). Pity Cassie, who hasn't gotten nearly enough walks because of the cold, and won't next week as her day care shut down for the weekend due to sick staff. Speaking of sick staff, New Republic asks a pointed question about the...

The Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union keep butting heads, resulting in CPS closing the schools for another day tomorrow: Chicago Public Schools and the teachers union have filed unfair labor charges against one another, with each side asking state officials to end the current dispute over in-person learning in their favor. The latest escalation in the conflict over adequate COVID-19 safety measures in schools comes as CPS saw a new record number of coronavirus cases Tuesday — the...

In the US and UK, it's customary to give gifts of paper for the first anniversary. In that spirit, I say we give all the insurrectionists new subpoenas today. President Biden marked the occasion with a speech excoriating his predecessor: “The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election,” Mr. Biden said, standing in the same National Statuary Hall invaded by throngs of Trump supporters a year ago. “He’s done so because he values power over...

Every so often in the winter, a cold front pushes in overnight, giving us the warmest temperature of the day at midnight. Welcome to my morning: The sun actually came out a few minutes ago—right around the time the temperature started dropping faster. The forecast says temperatures will continue falling to about -12°C by 3pm, rise ever so slightly overnight and tomorrow, then slide on down to -17° from 3pm tomorrow to 6am Friday. And, because it's Chicago, and because the circumpolar jet stream looks...

After a lot of struggle trying to get Cassie to stop pulling on her leash, I finally gave up today and got her a prong collar. Dogs don't much like them, and neither do I, but no amount of treats or yanks on her harness worked with her. As soon as I switched the lead from her harness to her prong collar, Cassie suddenly knew exactly where to walk on a heel, and only pulled enough to make the prong contract before falling right back to my side. We walked about 4 blocks total, and she never pulled enough...

With my real job's first deployment of 2022 having just gone to production in a delightfully boring way, I can take a few minutes to look at today's headlines. And let me just say that even though I'm usually happy not to be in Northern Virginia, I am especially happy today: An accident plus a bit of snow halted traffic on I-95 south of DC for almost 19 hours overnight. The State of Illinois has started cracking down on "fly by night" Covid testing facilities that the governor says are fleecing...