Events

I took my use-it-or-lose-it floating holiday Friday and today was a company holiday. So it feels like today's really Sunday, but so was yesterday, after two Saturdays in a row. I think tomorrow's Tuesday but for me it'll be Monday. I think.

We've now got two full years between us and 2020, and it does look like 2022 got mostly back to normal. The Daily Parker got 487 posts in 2022, 51 fewer than in 2021 and 25 below median. As usual, I posted the most in January (46) and fewest in November (37), creating a very tight statistical distribution with a standard deviation of 3.45. In other words: posting was pretty consistent month to month, but down overall from previous years. I flew 10 segments and 16,138 flight miles in 2022, low for...

For once, instead of using clever blog tricks to wish Niue all the best in the new year ten hours after our own, I thought to use the same clever blog trick to mark 2023 right here in Chicago. So, let's pause for 12 months before the 2024 election cycle kicks off and we all get crazy again. Here's to a boring new year!

Speaking of loathsome, misogynist creeps, former Bishop of Rome Joseph Ratzinger died this morning, as groundbreaking journalist Barbara Walters did yesterday. In other news showing that 2022 refuses to go quietly: The House Ways and Means Committee released the XPOTUS's tax returns for tax years 2015 through 2020, re-confirming his incompetence, malfeasance, and incompetence at malfeasance. One looks forward to the Justice Department's take on them. Pilot and journalist Jim Fallows digs into the...

One of the most loathsome, talentless personalities on the Internet self-pwnd yesterday after going 0-for-2 against 19-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, and it was beautiful. Actor George Takei sums it up: So...Elon Musk let Andrew Tate back on Twitter, and Tate promptly used it to reveal his whereabouts to authorities in Romania who then arrested him. All because Greta Thunberg owned him so hard his little wee-wee fell off. Do I have that right? Please say I have that right. — George Takei...

I broke away from my last day of work in 2022 around 2:15 to take Cassie on a 3½-kilometer walk. It's 14°C (!!!) right now so almost every snowflake has melted into a thin layer of mud over the entire city. No problems, so far; I keep old towels by the front door and Cassie expects me to wipe her paws when we come in. Today I learned that I need to close the gate at the top of my stairs whenever we go outside on a day like this. I learned this while chasing Cassie up the stairs and through the living...

This moment in the January 6th committee proceedings was total Daily Parker bait (h/t George Conway). It came as the committee interviewed Max Miller, former senior adviser to the XPOTUS and as of next Tuesday the US Representative for Ohio's 7th district. He wanted to establish that no one called his White House office for hours after the insurrection began, pointing to the phone logs as evidence. I'll let the J6 lawyer explain it: MILLER (p 120 line 15): I want you to pull up the time from when I left...

I have to work tomorrow, but come on, it's the Thursday before a mandatory 4-day weekend, so Cassie might just get extra walks. So it turns out I've already mostly caught up on my reading for the day. Still, a trio of car-related articles got my attention. First, Jersey City, N.J., the next town over from where I lived right before I started this blog, had zero traffic fatalities so far this year: That Vision Zero milestone comes with a caveat — it only reflects the roads that the city maintains....

Southwest Airlines, generally known for operational excellence, had a bad weekend from which they still have not recovered: Tens of thousands of flights have been canceled across the country due to the winter storm and other issues, spoiling holiday plans for many — and Midway has been hit particularly hard by the Christmas chaos. As of Tuesday morning, at least 245 flights there had been canceled in the past 24 hours, according to the Department of Aviation. Many cancellations are coming from budget...

The temperature here at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters peaked at -5°C, the warmest we've had since 2:30pm on Thursday. Next Thursday it'll hit 10°C, which is 32°C (57°F) warmer than Saturday's overnight low. Welcome to Chicago in the era of rapid climate change. I hope we don't get any more really horrific cold snaps this winter, but I expect we will. For now, though, I'm going to take Cassie on the longest walk she's had in almost a week.