Events

So far this autumn, we've had ridiculous amounts of sunshine in Chicago, with 99% of our rapidly-declining minutes of daylight delightfully cloud-free. We haven't had such a sunny first week of September since 1955, it turns out. For that reason I ate lunch outside today, and unless something truly bizarre happens in the next few hours, I'll have dinner outside as well. Not a bad Thursday. As for the title of this post, when you multiply six by nine, you get 42 base 13, in fact: the answer to the...

I spent 56 minutes trying to get ADT to change a single setting at my house, and it turned out, they changed the wrong setting. I will try again Friday, when I have time. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world: James Carville lays out a strategy for Vice President Kamala Harris to win the White House in *ulp* 62 days. Arizona officials continue to deal with the election-denier loony fringe despite (or maybe because of?) reality winning every time it's tested. A Federal judge in Rockford, Ill., has ruled that...

Before I bugger off to get at least a couple of daylight hours in this sunny, 22°C afternoon, here are the most interesting stories that popped up today: Two Boomer economists point out that the Boomers have made an art form of siphoning wealth from the younger generations, meaning we Gen Xers will have to work longer for lower Social Security (state pensions) payments. Typical. Chicago's meteorological summer was warmer and drier than normal, the 18th-warmest since 1871. Ravinia Brewing Company and...

The weather today requires that I leave work as early as permissible and take Cassie home the long way. Of course, in order to do that, I have to eat at my desk. (I suppose I could have taken a long lunch, but then I wouldn't have as much time with my dog. Choices.) Last night I fired up the ol' grill. I am proud to report I have gotten steak grilling just right; this guy was a perfect slightly-rare-of-medium and every bite was juicy and tender: Dinner tonight (and probably tomorrow) will be leftovers...

I've added a new feature to Weather Now: user profiles. It's only the most basic implementation and, at the moment, doesn't actually do anything. But it will lead to a whole range of features that the application hasn't had since it was an old Active Server Pages app in 1999. Unfortunately, the deployment required setting up additional features on the weather API, so that user IDs travel from the UI to the API securely. The deployment took two hours, and threw up several pipeline failures for a reason...

As promised, I took a 25-kilometer walk up the North Branch Trail yesterday, which did not disappoint: The weather cooperated brilliantly (though it did get a little warm towards the end), and my multiple applications of SPF-50 sunscreen seems to have kept me from crisping. The trail, of course, is lovely: In total, I got 40,707 steps, which would have been a personal record back in the day but I'm pleased to say didn't even get into my top-10 step days since 2014. Cassie spent the day at her usual day...

The hot, humid weather of the past week has finally broken, and on the last day of summer yet! In about an hour I'm starting the first long walk of several I've planned for the autumn, so the 19°C temperature—and, more importantly, 16°C dewpoint—is very welcome. Just 24 hours ago, they were 22°C and 21°C respectively, which one can only describe as "really sticky." I might not post about the walk until tomorrow morning, but I'm looking forward to it. I haven't gone up the North Branch Trail since last...

During this last full week of summer, I haven't had a lot of time at home because we had to work in the office every day. And what a week. I got home from work (and got Cassie home from day camp) right before some pretty impressive storms hit on Tuesday: After discussing with a friend how a lot of the humidity we've experienced this summer comes from corn and soybean transpiration to our west, he discussed it with Bing's DALL-E 3: (Not sure what happened with the spine of the book...or the windmill in...

A few weeks ago I planned a PTO day to take a 25 km walk tomorrow along the North Branch Trail with pizza at the end. (I'll do my annual marathon walk in October.) Sadly, the weather forecast bodes against it, with scattered thunderstorms and dewpoints over 22°C. But, since I've already got tomorrow off, and I have a solid PTO bank right now, I'll still take the day away from the office. And autumn begins Sunday. Good thing, too, because the articles piled up this morning, and I haven't had time to...

Our lead story today concerns empty suit and Chicago Transit Authority president Dorval Carter, who just can't seem to bother himself with the actual CTA: From the end of May 2023 to spring 2024, as CTA riders had to cope with frequent delays and filthy conditions, Carter spent nearly 100 days out of town at conferences, some overseas, his schedule shows. Most of Carter’s trips between June 2023 and May 2024 were for events related to the American Public Transportation Association, a nonprofit advocacy...