Events

The miserable air quality I mentioned earlier has somehow gotten worse. At 3pm, the AQI hit 817 in the northern suburb of Northbrook, Ill.:

Manitoba and Minnesota have massive wildfires right now, the smoke from which has covered much of the northeastern US including Chicago:

I spent the morning on a bit of contracting I was glad to do, as it involved maintaining an application I wrote that I'm glad to see is still running and being used by actual users. This, after taking Cassie on a 4.9 km (3.1 mi) walk before 7 am during which the heat index got up to 36.2°C. We have a light lake breeze, but the heat index is still 36.4°C, so Cassie only got a 12-minute walk after lunch with absolutely no need to rush.

Cue the House of Representatives singing "Oops, I did it again!" (you're welcome). As they do every few years, the House today voted 308-117 to move the country to year-round daylight saving time:

I rearranged my desk this morning, which involved four monitors, a mini desktop box, and a laptop, so it was a non-trivial exercise that took about 90 minutes. That time doesn't include the trip to MicroCenter to get the Mini-DP to HDMI cable I am pretty sure I have in storage, plus a medium-sized USB memory stick.

Just a quick round-up before I go on to actual productive work. I first want to highlight Harry Cheadle's post in Persuasion last week, "Progressive asceticism will never win electoins," in which he highlights some of my own frustrations with my side of the political spectrum:

US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) died suddenly last night of what some reports suggest was a heart attack:

Last night, a dozen Ravinia Festival staff members joined about 50 members of The Apollo Chorus of Chicago to dedicate the renovated Hunter Pavilion at the Park. Ravinia spent $70 million renovating the Pavilion over the past 9 months, so naturally we sang the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore while wearing hard hats. Then we finished the dedication concert with "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana, which we rushed a bit at the end.

I'm heading up to Ravinia Park today ahead of tonight's first performance in the completely-renovated pavilion. Sorry, the performance is for donors and staff only; the Pavilion opens to the public tomorrow night.

Graham Platner dropped out of the US Senate race in Maine last night, two days after Politico reported on sexual assault allegations against him. The Democratic Party now has two weeks to pick a replacement. I still think satirist Jeff Maurer has the best explanation of how we got here: letting a pair of Harvard grads who have never gotten anyone elected recruit the candidate without even cursory vetting.