Events

I tried something different yesterday after watching Uncle Roger's stab at adobo: Ng's basic outline worked really well, and I got close to what I had hoped on the first attempt. Next time I'll use less liquid, a bit more sugar, a bit less vinegar, and a bit more time simmering. Still, dinner last night was pretty tasty. Much of the news today, however, is not: US District Judge Tanya Chutkan set the XPOTUS's Federal criminal trial for next March 4th, two years earlier than he wanted it. Writing for The...

Welcome to stop #85 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Liquid Love Brewing, 1310 Busch Pkwy., Buffalo GroveTrain line: North Central Service, Buffalo GroveTime from Chicago: 55 minutesDistance from station: 1.3 km Before I review Liquid Love, I need to apologize for having a couple of breweries on this list that meet the criteria but really don't belong here. If Hailstorm in Tinley Park didn't have it's great beer and vibe, I would not recommend it, for the same reason that I can't recommend...

This surprised me. One or more mountain lions in Washington state has decided that wolves taste good: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) staff have documented cougars killing six collared wolves since 2013—almost 30 percent of the 21 documented natural wolf mortalities in the state. "That's huge if that trend holds and is representative of the entire population [in the state]," says Trent Roussin, a WDFW biologist. The kills involve multiple wolf packs in different areas of Washington....

Welcome to stop #84 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Tighthead Brewing, 161 N. Archer Ave., MundeleinTrain line: North Central Service, MundeleinTime from Chicago: 59 minutesDistance from station: 200 m Planning to visit the handful of breweries along the North Central Service line presents certain challenges. Metra runs a total of 7 trains in each direction during the work week, but only one in the reverse-commute direction. And until they restored train 105 last December, there was literally...

Since today is the last Friday of the summer, I'm leaving the office a little early to tackle one of the more logistically challenging itineraries on the Brews & Choos Project. So I'm queueing up a few things to read over the weekend: The XPOTUS finally won his "long hard battle" to finally get a mugshot, which the Internet immediately (a) put on swag you can buy and (b) compared with the Kubrick Stare. But where did the Fulton County Jail get his height and weight? US intelligence sources believe the...

Spot the cold front: I took Cassie for her final walk at 10pm, during the steepest part of that second cliff. The temperature dropped 0.5°C during the 7 minutes it took us to walk around the block. The dewpoint eased off as well, making it actually tolerable for the first time in two days. In a post this morning, the National Weather Service explained how bad we had it for those two days: 8/23 saw the first 80°F dew point observed in Chicago since 7/30/1999 and only the 7th calendar day on record where...

Chicago just hit the magical 38.3°C (100°F) that we have avoided for over 11 years, and with the 25.6°C dewpoint it feels like 48.1°C (118.6°F): #Chicago-O'Hare has just hit 100°F. This is the first time since 7/6/2012 that Chicago has officially observed a 100°F temperature. This also ties Chicago's daily high temperature record for this date set in 1947. #ilwx — NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) August 24, 2023 Here at IDTWHQ it got 0.2°C warmer than yesterday but it seems to have peaked: Our little weather...

Risky Business came out 40 years ago this month: “Risky Business,” then and now, is an indictment of privilege, and of somehow keeping the uglier world at bay long enough to buy your way into a kind of imperviousness. Except — and here’s what I think I responded to — it’s funny and confident and cool and all of its points about the spoils of capitalism get disguised inside a dream of opulence. It appears to affirm the early Reagan years as ripe for opportunity while, with a much deeper subtlety...

The National Weather Service reported earlier today that we did, in fact, have some historic weather: [11:34am CDT 8/23/2023] #Chicago-O'Hare is currently 93° with a dew point temperature of 80° for a heat index of 112°. The last time the heat index was higher than 112° in Chicago was on July 30, 1999, when the heat index reached as high as 114°. #ILwx (1/3) — NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) August 23, 2023 Here at IDTWHQ, things have cooled off in the last hour...but not by much: Fortunately the AQI is only...

The Times posted an article Monday morning, complete with animated 3D graphics, guarantee to alarm most of the flying public. In short, when a non-pilot passenger hears "close call" they imagine the airplanes passing wingtip-to-nose at impossible speeds. When a pilot hears "close call" they mean the planes got within 2 km of each other—and sometimes 10 km qualifies. But the Times decided to go with the wingtip-to-nose meaning: The incidents — highlighted in preliminary F.A.A. safety reports but not...