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I haven't had a chance to work on the comments problem, because, you see, I have another job. I've also had a plumber and a carpet cleaner here today, traumatizing poor Cassie who couldn't show them her blanket because she got shoved into a different room. She's now on her bed in my office rather than on one of the couches downstairs. I expect she'll get over the soul-crushing exile she experienced for nearly an hour today.

Happy February!

Cassie and I just finished a 41-minute walk through the neighborhood, bringing her total walkies over an hour for the first time in a week and a half. As I mentioned yesterday, we've both gone a bit stir-crazy without the exercise.

Cassie and I took a 2.88 km walk at lunchtime today, which turned out to be the longest walk we've taken since January 11th (6.28 km). Why? Because for the first time in over a week, the temperature got above -6°C. No kidding: it hasn't been this warm since 2:16 am last Thursday.

The temperature has just barely gotten above -10°C (14°F) today, with a possibility of more tolerable temperatures by Saturday. Still, the official NWS forecast has us below freezing as far out as it goes; some commercial forecasts hint at, but do not commit to, an above-freezing reading sometime next Friday. We've already had 13 days below freezing; that would make it 21.

The temperature at Inner Drive Technology World HQ dropped below freezing at 8:52 pm last Friday and will probably not go above freezing until at least February 6th. We have had three-week stretches below freezing many times, and every one of them has sucked. I lived through the longest below-freezing stretch in Chicago history, the 43 days between 28 December 1976 and 8 February 1977. I also lived through the record low of -33°C (-27°F) on 20 January 1985, the earliest first freeze on 22 September...

After bottoming out at -21.3°C (-6.3°F) around 8:30 this morning, the temperature has skyrocketed to -18.7°C (-1.7°F) a few minutes ago. I decided to walk to my optometrist appointment, 12 minutes there and 13 minutes back thanks to a red light, which wasn't too bad in my swaddling. When I got back, Cassie lasted just over 4 minutes before bolting for my front door. Smart dog.

The temperature at Inner Drive World HQ has slid down to -20.9°C (-5.6°F), the coldest temperature we've had in two years. O'Hare shows -23.9°C (-11°F), which is colder than the low temperature in January 2024; the last day it got this cold was 31 January 2019, when it hit -29.4°C (-21°F).

The longest cold snap in years is right now descending upon us from the northwest. It's still a tolerable -5°C at Inner Drive Technology WHQ, but this forecast, man... It looks like temperatures will dip below -17°C (0°F) around 2am tonight and stay there until 7am Saturday, bottoming out around -22°C (-7°F) right before dawn tomorrow.

I've just had a lot to do today and I'm not feeling particularly creative. So, nu, maybe Friday?

Cassie will not get a lot of walks today. Just now at O'Hare the temperature hit -18°C (-1°F) with a wind chill of -29°C (-20°F); here at Inner Drive Technology World HQ it's -15°C (5°F). Of course, this is nowhere near a record: on 19 January 1985 it was -31°C (-23°F), and the next day, 20 January 1985, Chicago hit its all-time coldest temperature of -33°C (-27°F).

The first problem of developing a new software application is to determine what it does. The second problem is to decide the fundamental abstractions that will govern the system. If you don't figure this out early, you'll either write a hideous pile of rotting spaghetti that no one will want to maintain, or you'll do that and change careers entirely.

I woke this morning to the sound of snow and ice slamming into my bedroom window when this cold front came through:

I'm David Braverman, this is my blog, and Cassie is my 7½-year-old mutt. I last updated this About... page in March 2021. Quite a lot has changed since then, most notably I wrote a whole new blog engine. (More on that in a moment.)

At midnight Chicago tied its high-temperature record for January 9th, 15.6°C (60°F), set in 1880. Then from 4am to 5am the temperature dropped 7°C (12°F) and now hovers around 6°C (42°F). This is a weakening La Niña plus human-caused global heating plus Chicago generally having weird weather. In other news: Glenn Kessler warns that the OAFPOTUS's vandalism of our foreign policy is the equivalent of Cortez burning his ships, with similarly grim prospects for the natives. Matt Ford thinks it will "haunt...

Yep, I'm still doing these, because I still have meetings and have to queue stories up: Brian Beutler has another "30 thoughts on the illegal Venezuela war." Heather Cox Richardson picks apart Secretary of State Marco Rubio's appearance on ABC's This Week yesterday. It...did not go well. Because they have no plan. Paul Krugman drags the administration for "seeking cash and an ego boost," i.e., "the real Donroe Doctrine." Of all the horrible aspects of our Venezuelan adventure, Adam Kinzinger was most...

Yesterday evening at Spiteful Brewing: I swear that dog would consider leaving me for a taco. But she seemed pretty happy to be home: Then this afternoon we took a walk with her friend Kelsey at the St James Farm Preserve out in Suburbistan: The weather was pretty good for January, and the dogs got at least 40 minutes of off-leash time. They also discovered frozen horse poop, which fortunately they didn't eat a lot of. I do need to talk to Cassie about her breath, though. Tonight we're on the couch, and...

Welcome to stop #134 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Suncatcher Brewing, 2849 W. Chicago Ave., ChicgaoTrain line: Milwaukee District West, Milwaukee District North, and North Central Service; Western Ave (Zone 1) Time from Chicago: 9 minutesDistance from station: 1.2 km Suncatcher opened just 13 months ago on land and in an unused supply shed rented from a garden supply store. This means they have an amazing outdoor space that I will take Cassie to visit at some point when the sun is out and...

Just so I can keep track, my month so far: Mon Dec 1, Messiah dress rehearsal, Millar Chapel, EvanstonTue Dec 2, chorus fundraiser planning committeeMon Dec 8, Messiah rehearsalThu Dec 11, Messiah tutti rehearsal, Holy Name Cathedral, ChicagoSat Dec 13, Messiah performance, Holy Name CathedralSun Dec 14, Messiah performance, Millar ChapelTue Dec 16, Messiah sing-a-long, EvanstonWed Dec 17, Christmas Eve rehearsal, EvanstonSun Dec 21 (morning), 4th Sunday of Advent service, EvanstonSun Dec 21...

Cassie and I went out right at sunrise (7:14—two more weeks before the latest one of the winter on January 3rd) just as the temperature bottomed out at -10.5°C (13.1°F) after yesterday's cold front. Tomorrow will be above freezing, Sunday will be a bit below, and then Monday through the end of the year looks like it'll be above. And the forecast for Christmas Day is 11°C (52°F). Meanwhile, as I sip my second cup of tea, these stories made me want to go back to bed: As much as we want to ignore the...

At 12:12 pm, the Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters thermometer registered an above-freezing temperature for the first time since 10:58 am last Wednesday. And let me tell you, walking back from the vet with Cassie an hour ago felt so much better than even our -7°C walk this morning.

Global warming—anthropogenic climate change—has warmed the entire planet, on average, about 2.6°C above the pre-industrial baseline. Last year was the warmest since global records began in 1850. In fact, the 10 warmest years since 1850 were the 10 years between 2015 and 2024. The north-central US, where I live, experienced some of the highest relative temperatures of anywhere on earth. That doesn't mean it's hot every day. What it actually means is that the atmosphere has more heat generally, and thus...

We got 220 mm (8.6 in) of snow at O'Hare by 6am today, which means the storm dumped more on us than on any November day in history (earlier reported as the worst in almost 10 years): As of 6 p.m., 6.9 inches (175 mm) of snow had fallen at O’Hare and 5.5 (140 mm) at Midway, making it the heaviest single-day snowfall since Nov. 21 2015, when 7 inches fell at O’Hare, according to the National Weather Service. O’Hare had been predicting its busiest Thanksgiving week ever, despite the FAA recently lifting...

Cassie and I hauled out to Far Suburbistan and met friends (one dog, one human) for a 4.7-km walk around the St James Farm Forest Preserve: Because I wanted to get groceries ahead of tomorrow's snowfall, poor Cassie had to suffer in the car for about 3 hours. Don't feel bad: my friend had tons of leftovers from yesterday, so Cassie got enough turkey to last her until dinner next Thursday. She's now plotzed on the couch. She doesn't know it yet, but we're about to go for another walk. My 77-day streak of...

Between meetings and getting into the zone while fixing a bug, I worked straight through lunch and only got Cassie out around 4. So before my next meeting at 8pm, I've got a few minutes to catch up on all...this: Josh Marshall reflects on the 8 Democratic Senators (including one of mine, who is also the minority whip) making a deal with the Republicans, and says the next Congress must eliminate the paper filibuster and reform the Supreme Court. David Graham takes a more nuanced view. Krugman wants...

As threatened yesterday, we got a few rounds of lake-effect snow overnight and this morning. Since not all the leaves have fallen yet, it still looks pretty: And of course, one member of my household really, really, really likes a fresh snowfall: Right now we've got about 100 mm on the ground. That will melt quickly as the forecast calls for above-freezing temperatures from tomorrow morning onward, reaching possibly 18°C on Saturday. I hope so, because I've got a 20 km hike planned for the day, and I'd...

I'm a little delayed getting today's Morning Butters Report out for a couple of reasons. First, Butters and Cassie tag-teamed me starting just before 6:30 am. First Cassie poked me, then Butters poked me when Cassie kicked her off the dog bed in my room. Then Cassie came back when Butters used her engineering skills to ensure Cassie couldn't pull that crap again: Last night, though, Butters showed me how much she cares about me—or how much she wanted another Greenie, it's unclear: Meanwhile, all the...

I have mentioned how odd Butters can be. Part of her oddness seems to come from her being a little princess who craves comfort to the exclusion of propriety. Exhibit the first, this morning, less than a minute after I stripped my bed: I had to pick her up to get her to move. Exhibit the second, yesterday afternoon, rearranging the dog bed in my office for...reasons: Exhibit the third, last night, getting quite annoyed that Cassie has trouble respecting her personal space: The poor dear suffers so. 

I took the dramatic beagle and Cassie to Spiteful* yesterday afternoon. Butters got more pats than Cassie did. Perhaps it's this face? This afternoon we took a half-hour walk through the local park because the weather is absolutely perfect. Whenever I stopped to try to photograph the two dogs, they immediately went in separate directions, so this is the best I could do: The girls are now sunning themselves on my front porch, I'm up in my office coding away, and I've got chicken soup going in the slow...

Butters has stayed at Château Punzun many times. And yet, I swear she's getting stranger, starting with this burrowing behavior: And her engineering: Why the dog bed needs folding over and rearranging, I have no idea. I keep flattening it after Butters leaves, and she keeps doing this. Of course, Cassie has opinions about me giving Butters attention: And Butters is definitely not a morning dog. After showering and getting dressed, with Cassie checking on my progress several times, it took two hands and...

So many things passed through my inbox in the last day and a half: The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that an assistant to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was observed over the weekend discussing plans over Signal with an aide to Reichsminister Stephen Miller to send the 82nd Airborne to Portland. Paul Krugman breaks from his usual economics beat to lambast the OAFPOTUS and his Reichskabinett der Nationalen Rettung for the horrifying ICE raid* on a Chicago apartment building last week: "What do we learn...

I had a long day of debugging today, and I'm about to go to Cassie's doggie daycare the way I got here: on a Divvy e-bike. They cruise at 31 km/h and cost only $2 more than the train for my commute. Plus, I get some aerobic exercise. The forecast calls for summer-like weather through the next few weeks, except for a 3-day cooldown next week, so I'll keep pedaling. And yes, I wore a helmet. Tomorrow: my 5th marathon walk—in 30°C weather.

The two biggest news stories of the past 24 hours are the government shutting down because Congress couldn't pass a spending bill by the end of fiscal year last night, and the pathetic attempted-fascist assembly of the United States' general and flag officers in Virginia yesterday. We'll take the dumber one first: Jennifer Rubin shakes her head in sadness, but not surprise. Matthew Yglesias has 17 thoughts about the shutdown, and Brian Beutler has 20, but how many thoughts does Rabbi Eliezer have? And...

After waking up, turning on a bunch of lights, and throwing on clothes, I opened my front door and indicated to Cassie that she should go to the little patch of grass just outside and do her morning job. She pranced out the door, stopped, turned around, and walked right back inside. This is why: I'm hoping it subsides enough to take her at least to the street before too long. One forecast thinks it'll end by 10am but the National Weather Service thinks it may just get slightly less stormy by then. I...

I just got back from a 30-minute walk with Cassie in 22°C early-autumn sun. We suffered. And now I'm back in my home office and she's back on the couch. She will spend the next several hours napping in a cool, breezy spot downstairs, and I will...work. I will also read a bit, which is a skill that I'm glad Cassie does not have after encountering the day's news: It's official! The June jobs report showed a decline in US employment for the first time since December 2020, making President Biden the only...

Almost exactly 3 months ago, I needed to get something out of a storage locker, and reminded myself why I hated getting something out of the storage locker: I found the thing I wanted. And as long as I was there, I said to myself, why not grab a couple of these boxes to see if I need to keep them? And so, from (I think) June 9th until just this past Saturday, I brought home over 60 boxes of stuff going all the way back to [redacted], threw out or shredded about 15 boxes worth, reorganized everything...

A total lunar eclipse has just started and will reach totality at 12:30 Chicago time, which is unfortunately about 10 hours too early for us to enjoy it here. It's a good way to end the first day of meteorological autumn, though, as is the 8 km walk Cassie and I have planned around 2 this afternoon. With a forecast high of 19°C, it should be lovely. In other eclipses this past week: The OAFPOTUS has so badly damaged US foreign policy and our standing in the world that China has eclipsed us as the de...

Just clearing my photo backlog. From the 23rd: And from yesterday: Today we're trooping out to Suburbistan for a walk with Cassie's old friend Kelsey. Updates as conditions warrant.

With my PTO cap continuing to force me into Friday afternoons off this summer (the horror!), and the sunny but (smoky 23°C) weather, Cassie and I will head to the Horner Park DFA just as soon as I release a new version of Weather Now in just a few minutes. When Cassie and I come back, I'll spend some time reading all these nuggets of existential dread: The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised last 3 months of US jobs data down to basically nil (which Krugman blames on tariffs), prompting the OAFPOTUS to...

Cassie's stitches came out and her cone came off this afternoon: Tomorrow she goes back to day camp. This weekend, if the weather allows it, we'll go to the dog beach. We are both so freaking happy not to have the cone anymore. Also, her left ear doesn't look as out of place as I'd worried. We'll see how it looks when all her fur grows back in a couple of weeks.

Leading off the news this afternoon, Black Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne died today at age 76. I am surprised he lasted this long, as he didn't exactly take care of himself over the years. In other news: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has stopped the legislative process of the United States rather than vote on releasing details of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with the OAFPOTUS. Adam Kinzinger details the quiet cruelty of the OAFPOTUS's droogs. Tom Nichols points out that the...

Today is Cassie's 7th birthday, and it breaks my heart that she has to spend it in the Cone of Shame: (I'll clean this photo up before the end of the day.) She has adapted to the cone just fine, of course, and it'll come off on Wednesday. I could potentially take it off today, but I think it's important to wait until her stitches come out. I just don't want her to hook a suture and open up the incision. Also, to further ruin her birthday, I'm at the office downtown until just after noon. We'll have...

Cassie had a solid night of post-anesthesia sleep and woke up mostly refreshed. The cone still bums her out, and the surgery bill bums me out, but at least she's walking at close to her normal speed. She gets her stiches out—and her cone off—two weeks from today. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world: Very stupid people have allowed measles, which we functionally eliminated from the US in 2000, to infect close to 1300 people this year. Jennifer Rubin argues that the Department of Homeland Security...

I'm glad to report that Cassie's face looks pretty much like it did before surgery. But for the next few days she's going to look like something out of Buffy. Here's the before, last night: And here's a few minutes ago: Her left ear is now a bit back of her right ear and slightly closer, but it does look like the surgeon did a great job taking out only the minimum. Right now she's napping on the couch. We'll try going for a walk before dinner, where we'll work on her not smacking me in the bum with the...

I'll get to the ABBA—sorry, OBBBA—reactions after lunch. Right now, with apologies, here is a boring link dump: The Clown Prince of X is in the "finding out" phase, learning what happens to oligarchs who cross autocrats. Adam Kinzinger calls out the bribe that Shari Redstone's Paramount/CBS agreed to pay the OAFPOTUS to settle a bogus libel lawsuit stemming from a 2020 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. After the US and Israeli attacks on Iran temporarily shut down Internet...

Somehow, tomorrow is July 1st. As far as I can tell, this is because today is June 30th, and yesterday was June 7th, and last week was sometime in 2018. And yet, I have more stuff to read at lunchtime from just the last day or so: Josh Marshall distinguishes between the energy and engagement of the Democratic Party (i.e., the actual voters) and the torpor of the Party's leadership: "[It's] not a nightmare. Certainly not for the party. It may be a nightmare for some incumbents." The Washington Post digs...

I got in a bit early this morning to beat the heat. Good thing, too, as my train line partially shut down upstream of my stop just as I got on the train. It's up to 34°C at O'Hare and 33°C at Inner Drive Technology World HQ (feels like 42°C—107°F), with a forecast of 36°C and continued horrible heat indicies for this afternoon when I walk Cassie home from dog school. Chicago isn't the only place getting this awful weather. The record heat will affect over 200 million people this week with similar...

What a weekend. I mean, for the world; for me, yesterday included vacuuming the house and my car, and taking Cassie on 2½ hours of walks plus sitting outside at Begyle to get pats from random strangers. (To be clear, Cassie got random pats; I did not.) We started at Horner Park: And stopped briefly at Burning Bush, where Cassie was under the table even before I got my beer: I had some stuff about the political events over the weekend, but I'll put that off until later.

Cassie enjoyed some couch time with me yesterday evening: Eventually she decided on a full-bagel nap:

Cassie and I took a 7 km walk from sleep-away camp to Ribfest yesterday, which added up to 2½ hours of walkies including the rest of the day. Then we got some relaxing couch time in the evening. We don't get that many gorgeous weekend days in Chicago—perhaps 30 per year—so we had to take advantage of it. Of course, it's Monday now, and all the things I ignored over the weekend still exist: Josh Marshall digs into the OAFPOTUS's attack on the state of California, noting that "all the federalizations [of...

Lunch today will be a sampler of ribs from the first vendor at Ribfest that looks appealing. Then Cassie goes to sleep-away camp and I go to a performance call in Glenview at 3pm. So tune in tomorrow morning for the first rib report.

Welcome to stop #129 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: McHenry Brewing, 3425 Pearl St., McHenryTrain line: Union Pacific Northwest, McHenry (Zone 4) Time from Chicago: 88 minutesDistance from station: 1.3 km It finally happened: I cheated. I couldn't figure any reasonable way to visit McHenry Brewing without taking an expensive and rare Lyft part of the way home, because the UP-NW line only has three daily trains to McHenry in the afternoon with three return trains in the morning. So, not wanting...

Two photos this morning. First, Cassie tried to convince the other patrons at Spiteful Brewing yesterday that no one ever pats her: She was pretty successful with the ruse. People stopped to pat her continuously. She has us all trained. Second, here is the GOES-East visible light photo from about half an hour ago: See all that haze from Alberta and Saskatchewan in the northwest, through the US Midwest, and swooping all the way down to Jacksonville and out to the Atlantic? That's wildfire smoke from the...

First, an update on Cassie: her spleen and lymph cytology came back clean, with no evidence of mast cell disease. That means the small tumor on her head is likely the only site of the disease, and they can pop it out surgically. We'll probably schedule that for the end of June. I have had an unusually full calendar this week, so this afternoon I blocked off three and a half hours with "No Meetings - Coding." Before I dive into finishing up the features for what I expect will be the 129th boring release...

On some days, I have more meetings than others. Today was a more extreme example, with meetings for 6 of the 8½ hours I put in. Somehow I also managed to read some documentation and get some other things accomplished. I also can't say that any of the meetings was a waste of time, either. Welcome back to management. Unfortunately, that meant I could only put these stories in a queue so I can read them now: William Finnegan wonders if he or Homeland Security Secretary Kristi "Dead Puppies" Noem is...

Like yesterday, today I took Cassie somewhere she'd never been before, giving her an amazing array of new smells and rodents to chase. We went up to the Green Bay Trail in Winnetka, covering just under 5 km, and passing a somewhat-recognizable house along the way: We'll spend more time outside today, though it really hasn't warmed up yet (current temperature: 15°C). She doesn't mind.

First, there is no update on Cassie. She had a quick consult today, but they didn't schedule the actual diagnostics that she needs, so we'll go back first thing Tuesday. She does have a small mast cell tumor on her head, but the location makes her oncologist optimistic for treatment. I'll post again next week after the results come back from her spleen and lymph node aspirations. Meanwhile, in the real world, things lurch forward and backward as the OAFPOTUS's political trajectory slides by millimeters...

I encountered a couple of head-scratchers in today's news feeds. They seem like parodies but, sadly, aren't. Exhibit the first: Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss (Cons.—South West Norfolk), who got tossed from office in less time than it takes for a head of lettuce to rot because of her disastrous mismanagement of the UK economy, has an op-ed in today's Washington Post praising the OAFPOTUS and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for the "herculean task ahead of them in turning around the U.S. economy and...

I've never walked around the Edgebrook neighborhood in Chicago, and I've kept meaning to. So today, with clear, cool weather and nothing pressing to do, I took Cassie for a 40-minute walk up there. I expect I'll have more interesting things to say tomorrow. The sun doesn't set for almost four hours, and we'll have twilight past 8:30, so I think I'm going to take Cassie out for another walk.

The Chicago Park District periodically burns conservation areas throughout the city because the prairie we built the city on evolved with fire. Last fall, they burned some of the prairie-reclamation areas in Winnemac Park, close to my house: Here's the same area yesterday, clearly benefitting from the burn: And just because everyone loves her, here's a photo of Cassie enjoying the random pats and treats she got at Spiteful Brewing about two hours after we passed through the park: Happy Monday.

Taking 90 minutes to finish a novel this afternoon doesn't seem to have lessened my fatigue from the last couple of days. And now I'm off to a "friend-raiser" for an organization I've supported in the past. As I'm also dogsitting Butters again, there's a good possibility that I'll have cute beagle photos tomorrow. For the next few hours, though, I need to smile and shake hands. I hope the passed apps are good...

Yesterday I had non-stop stuff from waking up until going to sleep. Today it's sunny and seasonably cool. In other words: as soon as I take a quick nap, I'm taking Cassie for a decent walk, then not doing anything productive until tomorrow. Enjoy the weekend.

Take today's temperatures, for example: Fortunately, Cassie got a half-hour walk at 7am and a 25-minute walk at noon, just before the cold front came through. And the next couple of days will be...more Spring: This AfternoonSnow. Steady temperature around 1. Breezy, with a northwest wind around 45 km/h, with gusts as high as 70 km/h. Chance of precipitation is 90%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than one centimeter possible. TonightSnow showers likely before midnight, then isolated flurries...

One of my work projects has a monthly release these days, so right now I'm watching a DevOps pipeline run through about 400 time-consuming integration tests before I release this month's update. That gives me some time to catch up on all this: The New York Times has a long explanation of how the Clown Prince of X took over the federal bureaucracy. As I and others have warned for years, the OAFPOTUS has embarked on a truly unprecedented program of bribery and corruption that we may never recover from....

Butters, possibly traumatized by Cassie and me leaving her alone for almost half an hour yesterday, has decided to stake out my office: Incidentally, this is what Cassie and I walked past in the local park yesterday: We've had progressively warmer days since the temperature bottomed out Monday morning. We might even get above freezing today! I hope so, because I need a 5 km walk to meet a Garmin challenge this weekend. (Cassie will help with that; Butters, not so much.)

My friends have gone to a tropical beach for the week, which means I get a second dog for a few days. She has been here many times before (most recently on Saturday), so she knows the drill. Still, five minutes after her people left, Butters seemed resigned to never seeing them again: By the time I woke up this morning, however, she seemed to have settled in just fine: Walking the two of them together in this cold doesn't actually work, however. Butters hates cold weather; Cassie loves it. So Cassie...

I promised snow photos. So far, it looks like we've gotten only about 25 mm of snow, though it continues to fall and will probably keep falling until the early morning. Cassie and I went out around 1pm, and I gave her a bit of off-leash time in the courtyard: That is a happy dog. And we're about to go out again, because she insists on metabolizing food and water. Tomorrow she gets to go to day camp and I get to go to my downtown office. One of us will have a lot more fun than the other.

Chicago got a few millimeters of ice last night, which made my 15-minute walk from my house to Cassie's day camp into a 24-minute walk. The poor girl could not understand my difficulty, but she also can't count all four of her paws, so we work with what we have. Fortunately the temperature has gotten above freezing and promises to stay there at least until late tonight. Elsewhere in the world: Josh Marshall proposes a taxonomy of the Administration's forces of destruction. Part of that destruction...

I had about a half-dozen meetings this morning, including one that dragooned me five minutes before another meeting that I had to preside over. The consolations were (a) I took most of them from home, so (b) I got to walk Cassie in sunny, March-like 6°C weather, and (c) when I finally got to the office my view looked like this: I've got two more meetings starting in half an hour before I can head back to my dog. I'll deal with all the OAFPOTUS's chaos tomorrow.

Cassie only got an 8-minute walk this morning, and she's not likely to get a longer one today. Officially at O'Hare it's -15°C, and here at IDTWHQ it's -13°C. The forecast promises the temperature will remain right around there until tonight before sliding down to -18°C by 3am, and -21°C Tuesday morning around 5am. Brr. My Garmin app tells me I'm on day 22 of a 30-day "walk streak" of getting a walking activity of at least 1.6 km every day. We'll see about that. Cassie won't be able to join me, poor...

We've known for about a week that a mass of cold air was bearing down on us. It formed over Siberia, passed over the North Pole and Canada, and has now reached Chicago. Cassie and I went out just now for 22 minutes, and in that time the temperature dropped 0.4°C (0.7°F), which may not sound like a lot until you do the math (1.2°C/2.2°F per hour). And it will continue doing so until early Monday morning, plateauing but not rising during daylight hours: Fortunately for us (but unfortunately for a lot of...

The temperature at Inner Drive Technology World HQ peeked above freezing a few minutes ago: We last had an above-freezing temperature at 4:25pm Sunday. We expect above-freezing temperatures during the day tomorrow, too. And then, around 2am Saturday morning, the forecast says the temperature will start sliding down to -20°C by 5am Sunday. We expect to have temperatures below -10°C from Saturday morning until early Wednesday morning. Right now, however, we have clear skies and lots of sun. Time to take...

Yesterday, the temperature at Inner Drive Technology World HQ scraped along at -11°C early in the morning before "warming" up to -7.5°C around 3pm. Cassie and I got a 22-minute walk around then and she seemed fine. Today the pattern completely inverted. I woke up during the warmest part of the day: 7am, -8°C. Around 8am the temperature started dropping and now hovers around -11°C again—slightly colder than the point where I limit Cassie to 15 minutes outside. She just doesn't feel cold, apparently, and...

Cassie and I survived our 20-minute, -8°C walk a few minutes ago. For some reason I feel like I need a nap. Meanwhile: James Fallows remembers his old boss Jimmy Carter, and puts his presidency in perspective for the younger generations. Paul Krugman reminds the Republican Party that California contributes more to the country's GDP than any other state, so maybe cut the crap threatening to withhold disaster relief? ProPublica goes "inside the movement to redirect billions of taxpayer dollars to private...

I've just finished updating the Weather Now gazetteer, the database of geographical information that connects weather information to locations. This involved re-importing 283 countries and 4,494 administrative divisions from the National Geospatial Information Agency, plus 25,668 weather stations from the National Climate Data Center and 20,166 airports from the Federal Aviation Administration. Most of these places already existed in the gazetteer, so they just got freshened up from the latest releases...

We've gotten about 4 cm of snow so far today, with more coming down until this evening. Cassie loves it; I have mixed feelings. At least the temperature has gone up a bit, getting up to -0.6°C for the first time since around this time on Monday. Elsewhere: Federal Judge Aileen Cannon (R-SDFL) got overruled again, this time after her corrupt effort to block Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing his report on January 6th. George Will bemoans Congress ceding so much of its authority to the office of...

Despite getting back to a relative normal in 2023, 2024 seemed to revert back to how things went in 2020—just without the pandemic. Statistically, though, things remained steady, for the most part: I posted 480 times on The Daily Parker, 20 fewer than in 2023 and 17 below the long-term median. January and July had the most posts (48) and April and December the fewest (34). The mean of 40.0 was slightly lower than the long-term mean (41.34), with a standard deviation of 5.12, reflecting a mixed posting...

So far today, Cassie has gotten almost exactly 10 km of walks, including a swing through the Horner Park DFA. This is a happy dog: We also passed by a controlled burn in Winnemac Park: They burn out the natural prairie areas periodically to help them grow back stronger. My only concern is that I believe there are several families of coyotes in the park. I hope they didn't lose their homes, or worse.

The temperature dropped below freezing Tuesday evening and stayed there until about half an hour ago. The forecast predicts it'll stay there until Wednesday night. And since we've got until about 3pm before the rain starts, it looks like Cassie will get a trip to the dog park at lunchtime. Once it starts raining, I'll spend some time reading these: Andrew Sullivan shakes his head at "the dumb luck" of the OAFPOTUS. On David Roberts' podcast, Dan Savage muses on "blue America in the age" of the OAFPOTUS....

Today may wind up being the last nice day of 2024, even though long-range forecasts suggest next week may have unseasonably warm and dry weather as well. Yesterday had nicer weather than today, with the temperature hitting 13°C under sunny skies. Yesterday was also the monthly Dog Day at Morton Arboretum in Chicago's southwest suburbs. And one of my friends has a membership. We took the girls on the longest possible loop through the grounds, 8.7 km, in just over an hour and a half: Sadly, we were so...

The temperature in my neighborhood fell below freezing around 4am and kept dropping, bottoming out just a few minutes ago at -1.7°C, the coldest it's been since March 18th. So despite valiantly holding onto their leaves later in the year than I can remember, the gingko and maple trees around my house finally surrendered to the inevitable: All those leaves fell in the last couple of hours. In fact I tried to get a photo of them just pouring off the tree, but that's hard to capture in a still photo....

The weather doesn't seem that great for a planned 15-kilometer walk through Logan Square and Avondale to visit a couple of stragglers on the Brews & Choos Project. We've got 4°C under a low overcast, but only light winds and no precipitation forecast until Monday night. My Brews & Choos buddy drew up a route starting from the east end of the 606 Trail and winding up (possibly) at Jimmy's Pizza Cafe. Also, I've joined BlueSky, because it's like Xitter without the xit. The Times explains how you, too, can...

The sky above Chicago has nothing but sun this morning. It won't last—the forecast for tomorrow night points to July-like atmospheric moisture and epic rainfall—but Cassie and I will enjoy it as much as we can. Maybe I should stay away from these news stories until the rain starts for real: Michelle Goldberg reminds all you Hannah Arendt fans that fascism takes time to establish itself, so we have perhaps a couple of years to emigrate if the XPOTUS takes power in January: "The transition from democracy...

I had the opportunity, but not the energy, to bugger off from Heathrow for an hour and a half or so connecting from Marseille. Instead I found a vacant privacy pod in the Galleries South lounge, and had a decent lunch. Plus I'm about to have a G&T. I've loaded up my Surface with a few articles, but I really only want to call attention to one of them. Bruce Schneier has an op-ed in the New York Times with his perspective on the Hezbollah pager attack and supply-chain vulnerabilities in general. I may...

In about 23 hours I should be taking off from O'Hare on my favorite flight, American Airlines 90, the best flight I've found to snap into a European time zone in just one night. People tend to prefer the evening flights that get to Heathrow the next morning so they "don't lose a day," but I've found that even when flying business or first class (and thus getting actual sleep for a couple of hours) I lose the first day in Europe anyway. Sleeping on planes just sucks. American 90, on the other hand, takes...

The forecast still predicts today will be the hottest day of the year. Last night at IDTWHQ the temperature got all the way down to 26.2°C right before sunrise. We have a heat advisory until 10pm, by which time the thunderstorms should have arrived. Good thing Cassie and I got a bit of extra time on our walk to day camp this morning. Elsewhere in the world: The Fifth Circuit has ruled that broad, geofenced searches violate the 4th Amendment, contradicting the Fourth Circuit, and setting up a likely...

I had planned a longer post this evening, but I had about 2 hours of chorus work to do and I didn't have any energy for half an hour after getting home. We may have our hottest night of the year tonight, with a forecast low of 26°C, before having our hottest day of the year tomorrow. (We had 36°C on June 17th; tomorrow could be 37°C.) So I'm going to drink another glass or two of ice water and pat Cassie for a bit, then gird myself for tomorrow's sticky walk to doggie day care.

I mentioned that the weather today is amazing, but yesterday's was also pretty good (if a bit humid). Cassie and I walked about 18 km throughout the day and spent most of the rest of the day outside. But Cassie's day started pretty well even before we set out: Sadly, neither of us could get to the last little bit of peanut butter at the bottom of the jar. (I labeled it "dog" because no one wants to get her peanut butter confused with the jar for people.) We trundled off to the Horner Park DFA early in...

Yesterday, Cassie and I walked 16.4 km (just over 10 miles), including a 10 km walk that I'd planned only to be a bit less than 7 km. I wanted to stop by Ravinia Brewing's Logan Square taproom, but alas, when we got there, the patio was closed. So we went to Burning Bush instead. In all, we spent most of the day outside in the perfect weather. We'll do more of the same today, just not quite as much walking. Another brewery that didn't make the cut for the Brews & Choos Project—it's too far from the...

Cassie and I have already walked 15.6 km (9.7 miles for the luddites), and have another 2 km or so to go before we get home. Tomorrow I'll have photos from our adventures, including from Montrose Dog Beach. For now, though, we're enjoying nearly-perfect weather outside.

I use Adobe Lightroom to catalog and retouch my photos. Like any complex piece of software, it has a lot of features I haven't learned how to use yet. So I decided to play around this morning. Here's a new edit of Cassie's Gotcha Day photo from March: Here's the photo as previously published: Other than the aspect ratio change, the changes are subtle, but I think the top photo is better. And Cassie is just as adorable in both.

Monday's derecho spawned so many tornados in Northern Illinois that the National Weather Service hasn't yet confirmed the paths they all took. But one of those paths got my attention: That's, uh...that tornado ended at the front door of the Ogilvie Transportation Center, where I get off my morning commuter train, which is 300 meters from my office. It went straight down Madison Street from Racine to Canal. That does not usually happen. And yesterday, this one little punk rainstorm dumped almost 10 mm of...

I woke up at my usual time this morning, noticed how dark it was, checked radar, and got Cassie out the door less than 10 minutes later. Because by the time I had her to day camp and got myself to the Metra platform, it looked like this: Waiting for the train, I got this: But what luck, it let up just as the train arrived. The photo doesn't do it justice: those are horizontal rain bands, and I was standing behind a window. By the time I got down to Ogilvie, we had this: Again, just a bit of light rain...

Butters Poochface has gone home, Cassie and I have taken about an hour of walks so far, and the temperature hasn't yet cracked 25°C. I'm about to upend Cassie's life, though. It's bath time. Even one night boarding can create an awful smell. Wish me luck. Last time I bathed her, Cassie accepted her fate with grace and humility. The time before that she...didn't.

I've got a performance this evening that requires being on-site at the venue for most of the day. So in a few minutes I'll take two dogs to boarding (the houseguest is another performer's dog), get packed, an start heading to a hockey rink in another city. Fun! If I'm supremely lucky, I'll get back home before the storm. Since I also have to travel to the venue, I'll have time to read a few of these: Jamelle Bouie warns that the convicted-felon XPOTUS has even less preparation for a possible second term...

Heat makes me cranky. Even though I have good air conditioning, I also don't want to overdo it, so my home office is 25°C right now. Not too hot, but not what I would call super-comfortable. Still, it's cooler than the 37°C heat index that Cassie and I just spent 12 minutes walking in. Adding to the misery: both Chicago airports hit record high temperatures (36°C) yesterday. The heat wave should break tomorrow night. Until then I'll continue slamming back water during the day and tonics with lime (minus...

We broke 32°C at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters for the first time all year: In fact, we last hit this hellish temperature in Chicago on September 5th and at WHQ on August 24th. El Niño has officially ended, though, so we may have a normal summer. "Normal," however, includes days this hot. So Cassie will get most of her walks around 7am this week.

Cassie and I took two long walks yesterday. We drove up to the Skokie Lagoons before lunchtime and took a 7.25 km stroll along the north loop. The weather cooperated: I wanted to go up there in part because a 100-year-old forest had a higher probability of cicadas than anywhere near my house. We were not disappointed. Cassie and I both had passengers at various points in the walk: And wow, were they loud. I forgot how loud they got during the 2007 outbreak. Even at the points on the walk closest to the...

My home office has an unobstructed eastern view, and it sits in a loft above my bedroom. That means my bedroom gets indirect eastern light. The blinds in my office don't block all that light, however, so for three months of the year my bedroom gets awfully bright before 6am. Today, for whatever reason, I didn't sleep through it. Fortunately the sun rises before 6am only from late April to mid August, so I will get to sleep later eventually. And I do like that the sun sets after 7:30pm from early April...

The last three days—i.e., the first three days of Summer—have shown us most of the weather we can expect this season. It rained most of Saturday, yesterday we had cool, sunny, and eminently walkable weather, and today it's hot and sticky with thunderstorms on the way. At least Cassie and I got to spend most of yesterday outside. In other news: David French argues that Justice Sonia Sotomayor's (I) recent opinion defending the National Rifle Association "reinforced the constitutional wall of protection...

Now that Cassie's poop no longer has Giardia cysts in it, she went back to day camp today, so that I could go to my downtown office for the first time in nearly two weeks. To celebrate, it looks like I'll get to walk home from her day care in a thunderstorm. Before that happens, though: Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar warns that our 2024 election looks eerily like the 1996 Russian election that eventually led to Vladimir Putin becoming dictator. New Republic's Thom Hartman lays out how the "mud-sill...

I took Cassie out at 11am instead of her usual 12:30pm because of this: The storm front passed quickly, but it hit right at 12:30 and continued for half an hour with some intensity. It'll keep raining on and off all day, too. Other things rained down in the past day or so: Robert Wright points out the obvious, warning that the XPOTUS was (and would be again if re-elected) way, way worse than President Biden on Gaza. Jennifer Rubin points out the obvious, echoing the warnings of Republican...

Cassie only got a 25-minute lunchtime walk today because of this: The forecast calls for bands of thunderstorms pretty much through tomorrow, so we're going to dance between raindrops a lot. Also, she has only one more dose of de-wormer tonight. Then on Wednesday I can take a sample to the vet, hoping to get her cleared for day care in time for Tuesday. Fingers crossed.

Welcome to stop #104 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Demo Brewing, 1763 W. Berteau Ave., ChicagoTrain line: Union Pacific North, Ravenswood. (Also CTA Brown Line, Irving Park) Time from Chicago: 16 minutes (zone 2)Distance from station: 1.1 km (400 m from CTA) The newest brewery on Malt Row opened March 29th just 2 km from Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters and less than 500 meters from the CTA. I had a lot going on in April so I didn't get to check it out until last weekend. Cassie came...

Cassie and I just got back from her vet, with a good 2 km walk in each direction and treats at both ends. The semi-annual wellness check was only $88, and pronounced Cassie in perfect health. Even her weight (25 kg) is exactly what it should be, so I can start adding a little kibble to her meals if we walk a lot. Of course, the heartworm pills were $230 and the fecal test was $107, so not everything about the checkup was great. Le sigh. Also, it's warm today: 27°C for both walks, which is more like June...

My frequent Brews buddy and I trekked out to Woodstock, Ill., yesterday, and visited the two breweries in town, then took Cassie to the newest brewery in my own neighborhood. I'll be going through notes and photos later today, so expect the reviews up tomorrow through Wednesday. Meanwhile, for some reason, Minnesota unfurled a new state flag yesterday: Minnesota's new flag went into official use Saturday, which has many wondering why the state adopted a new flag. The controversial replacement of the old...

Today's second round of severe thunderstorms has arrived: The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for parts of eastern and central Illinois until 8 p.m. Tuesday as severe storms redeveloped in the afternoon and were expected to continue through the early evening. Severe weather hazards include damaging hail as big as tennis balls and gusty winds up to 70 mph as the storms move west to east, according to meteorologists. Tennis balls? Ouch. That sounds way worse than tennis elbow. Looks like...

Cassie and I got over 2 hours of walks yesterday, and spent most of the day outside. By the time we got to Spiteful, Cassie needed a nap: Her day ended pretty well, on the couch getting lots of scritches, but between our 10 km of walks, the dog park, and meeting new friends along the way, she got a bath. Instead of struggling and trying to escape, though, she mournfully stepped into the tub and awaited her fate. Such a good girl! Later today, the Apollo Chorus will conclude its season at St Michael...

The forecast today called for a lot more rain than we've had, so Cassie might get more walkies than planned. Before that happens, I'm waiting for a build to run in our dev pipeline, and one or two stories piqued my interest to occupy me before it finishes: Jennifer Rubin grabs the popcorn as the XPOTUS finds himself not really helped by his first criminal trial. Mary Trump says it's because the world finally sees him for the loser he's always been. The Federal Trade Commission has issued a sweeping ban...

American Airlines says my flight home has a 45-minute delay at the moment (though of course that could get worse). So I just spent 35 minutes walking in a big circle around the southwest corner of downtown San Diego. I don't think I'd ever live here, but I do enjoy the weather. Meanwhile, as if I don't have too many things on my to-be-read shelf already, the New York Times book editor has released a list of the 22 funniest novels since Catch-22. Maybe someday I'll get to a few of them? Anyway, I...

Cassie and I adopted each other three years ago today. And yet, she remains one of my most frustrating photographic subjects: Regardless, I got really lucky when I found her at PAWS. I hope she feels the same way.

My Garmin watch thinks I've had a relaxing day, with an average stress level of 21 (out of 100). My four-week average is 32, so this counts as a low-stress day in the Garmin universe. At least, today was nothing like 13 March 2020, when the world ended. Hard to believe that was four years ago. So when I go to the polls on November 5th, and I ask myself, "Am I better off than 4 years ago?", I have a pretty easy answer. I spent most of today either in meetings or having an interesting (i.e., not boring)...

I didn't expect to watch President Biden's State of the Union Address to Congress last night, so instead of live-blogging here, I live-commented on Facebook. Some highlights, with annotations as needed: MTG didn't even let him get to the podium before snarking at him. She's the Nobby Nobbs of the House Sweden's PM is sitting to Jill Biden's left. Wow. That's a message about NATO Wow, someone ate his Wheaties today. "Many of you were here [on January 6th]. ... But they failed! Democracy prevailed!" "You...

For Reasons, we have the dress rehearsal for our Saturday performance on Saturday. That means poor Cassie will likely go ten hours crossing her paws between the time I have to leave and when I'm likely to get back. Fortunately, she should be exhausted by then. Tonight's dress rehearsal for our Sunday performance won't put her out as much, thanks to Dog Delivery from my doggy day care. Still, I'd rather have a quiet evening at home than a 3-hour rehearsal and an hour-long car trip home... Meanwhile, in...

The cold front we expected passed over my house around 8:15 last night. I wouldn't call it subtle, either: Even that doesn't get to the truly unsubtle aspects of this frontal passage. The radar image might, though: Not shown: the 60 km/h winds, lashing rain, brilliant lightning show, 5-10 mm hailstones, tornadoes to the northwest and southeast, and a mildly alarmed dog getting pats on the couch. And it keeps getting better this morning. Right now I'm in a Loop high rise gently swaying in the 45 km/h...

My flight from Munich landed at Charlotte about 40 minutes early, and I got through customs and back through TSA in 34 minutes. Sweet! And now I'm watching the plane that will take me to Chicago pull into my gate. Sweet! Really, I just want to hug my dog and get 10 hours of sleep tonight. I have a feeling one of those things will happen and the other won't.

Since I learned how to drive a car, I've wanted to pick up a BMW in Munich. The European Delivery program allowed Americans to buy a made-to-order car at their local dealer, pick it up in Munich, drive it around Europe for up to 6 months, drop it off at an Atlantic port (Antwerp, I think), and drive it home from your local dealer about 12 weeks after that. Because of tax incentives from the German government and other factors, the purchase price of the car and delivery to your local dealer cost almost...

The weather forecast for Munich doesn't look horrible, but doesn't look all that great either, at least until Saturday. So I'll probably do more indoorsy things Thursday and Friday, though I have tentatively decided to visit Dachau on Thursday, rain or not. You know, to start my trip in such a way that nothing else could possibly be worse. Meanwhile, I've added these to yesterday's crop of stories to read at the airport: Deciding to be "stabbed, to live to see another day," the Republican-controlled...

Butters Poochface has decided that her humans have abandoned her, so she's keeping me close. Despite the warm sun on the downstairs porch, where Cassie has sprawled, Butters has camped in my office where she can watch me literally bang my head on my desk trying to work out a thorny design problem: Earlier today, the famously stubborn hound discovered that Cassie alone can tow her reluctant butt down the sidewalk even without human intervention. After a few seconds of this Butters decided (realized?)...

I had a dentist appointment this morning, which allowed me to take some extra time walking Cassie and her houseguest to doggy day care, and then another half-hour to walk from my dentist's office (just 200 m from one train station) to the next station to get back. It helps that this morning had sun and warmth more like April than February: Alas, a cold front will make its way across the area later today, brining some showers and possibly a "light" thunderstorm. I did enjoy the morning, though. And if I...

Another sprint has ended. My hope for a boring release has hit two snags: first, it looks like one of the test artifacts in the production environment that our build pipeline depends on has disappeared (easily fixed); and second, my doctor's treatment for this icky bronchitis I've had the past two weeks works great at the (temporary) expense of normal cognition. (Probably the cough syrup.) Plus, Cassie and I have a houseguest: But like my head, the rest of the world keeps spinning: A 3-judge panel on...

Inner Drive Technology's new computer arrived two days early, so there was a flurry of activity around lunchtime that postponed Cassie's mid-day walk. We just got back from that...but now I've got to do my real job while the new computer installs tons of software. As someone who paid $200 for four 1-megabyte SIMMs back in the day, I'm absolutely astounded at the tiny 4-terabyte SSD that I snapped into the new machine, and which cost $260. OK, back to work. Friday I'll have a retrospective on Inner Drive...

Walking Cassie to day camp took a lot longer than usual this morning because the freezing rain and near-freezing temperatures after a long cold snap laid a layer of ice over nearly every sidewalk and street in Chicago. She seemed very concerned about my ability to walk, and very disappointed that we didn't take our usual detour to the bagel place to get me some coffee and her a fresh dog treat. The "wintry mix" has stopped and the temperature has risen all the way to 1.5°C at Inner Drive Technology...

Around 7 this morning, the official Chicago temperature at O'Hare went above -15°C for the first time in 81 hours, the longest such cold snap since February 1996: In the 1996 stretch, O’Hare recorded highs of -20.6°C on Feb. 2 and 3, and of -16.7°C on Feb. 4, according to NWS meteorologist Casey Sullivan. Sullivan said the longest stretch of temps below -15°C in the area was a period of five days in the 1880s, according to NWS records, which go back to 1871. “It doesn’t look like we’re going to do that...

She's in this photo, trust me: A bit closer, after we got home:

Our company has Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off, which will allow me to get a bit of rest after my lightning trip to Seattle. And to celebrate, I've broken out the Arran sweater and long-johns, because wow is it cold: The National Weather Service reported extreme cold and a wind chill of minus 40 in Aurora on Sunday morning and issued a wind chill warning through noon Monday. Weather service senior meteorologist Brett Borchardt said Chicago narrowly missed breaking the record — 1 degree — for the lowest...

I'm watching my plane arriving from Chicago to get all of us going back there on it, a little remorseful that I couldn't spend more time in Seattle. I last visited in 2013 to watch the Cubs hold their own against the Mariners for 9 whole innings, only to lose with no outs in the bottom of the 10th. On that June day Seattle had sunny 30°C weather. This morning we had sunny weather, I'll give it that: But warm? No. In the 38 hours of my trip it only got above -6°C once I got to the airport to go home....

Welp. My 10:00 flight has become a 3:00 flight: But at least when I get on board the plane, I'll have a good seat: Obviously if they had predicted the delay more accurately, I'd have slept longer, left later, and probably not dropped Cassie off with my friends until this morning. She seems to be settling in just fine, though: Hooray for air travel in January. My guess is that if the original crew had flown on to Seattle, they'd have timed out. So they probably moved my plane's crew to a shorter flight...

Some Daily Parker followers expressed interest in what books I read this year. So instead of just counting them in the annual statistical roundup, I've decided to list most of the media that I consumed last year in a separate post. Books In 2023 I started 39 and finished 37 books, not including the 6 reference books that I consulted at various points. It turns out, I read a lot more than in 2022 (27 started, 24 finished), and in fact more than in any year since 2010, when I read 51. Notable books I...

Last year continued the trend of getting back to normal after 2020, and with one nice exception came a lot closer to long-term bog standard normal than 2022. I posted 500 times on The Daily Parker, 13 more than in 2022 and only 6 below the long-term median. January, May, and August had the most posts (45) and February, as usual, the least (37). The mean of 41.67 was actually slightly higher than the long-term mean (41.23), with a standard deviation of 2.54, which may be the lowest (i.e., most consistent...

As I said yesterday, Christmas this year had much better weather than last year, despite the rain. And this morning, it's official: we had the second-warmest December 25th since records began, with a high at O'Hare of 15°C. The warmest, in 1982, hit 17°C. It's cooled off just a bit today but we don't expect any rain. I managed to get Cassie out for an hour and eight minutes yesterday. Today I actually have to work, but she'll get a full hour at least.

Cassie and I walked down to Christkindlmarket by Wrigley Field yesterday to meet up with some friends. I understand that the lakefront was completely fogged in, but a kilometer or so inland it just looked creepy: And on the walk home: Right now at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters, the sun has started peeking out, though the temperature-dewpoint spread hasn't gotten that much wider from this morning: 10.9°C with a dewpoint of 10.6°C. O'Hare still reports mist with increasing horizontal...

Cassie has two fur coats on, but I don't. Spot the cold front:

Some friends have gone out of town, and I'm traveling in a week, so we arranged a dog swap. This is one of Cassie's friends, Butters Poochface: Butters is quite a solid beagle. Cassie met Butters shortly after I adopted her, and they go to school together, so Butters knows my house and Cassie pretty well. She still goggled for a good five minutes when she saw my back patio this morning: Between Cassie's energy and Butters' stubbornness, walking the two has a few challenges. But they get along just fine....

First, Wednesday after work at Spiteful Brewing. Cassie enjoyed the seemingly-bottomless treat bag, but after one beer we both wanted to go home and get dinner. (Note that Cassie did not have the beer.) As I alluded yesterday, I went to City Winery last night to see '90s folk singer Dar Williams: Great set! I always feel like I'm back in the aughts when I see her.

An old friend stopped by today on her way from the East Coast to the Pacific Northwest, and insisted we take our dogs to the dog beach. It's 14°C and sunny. What do you think I did? Yeah: Fortunately it's the middle of the sprint, and I have a metric shit ton (a shite tonne) of PTO hours, so this was my afternoon. If you're my boss and reading this...I swear, this is not what I planned for the day.

Yesterday, during the eclipse, which I guess some people in the US and Mexico got to enjoy: Gotta love Chicago during astronomical phenomena. Next April, I will make sure that I'm somewhere along the eclipse path where I can actually see the eclipse. Today, though, we have much better weather, as Cassie will attest: I've got chicken soup in my slow cooker, but I have two hours until I need to pull the chicken, so I'm going to go do nothing of value for a bit. With the dog.

Not shown: she's snoring.

National Geographic examines the evidence that pets help you stay healthy: Among the established benefits is that pet/owner interactions can enhance one’s quality of life. Research shows that playing with a dog can improve one's mood, that reading to a pet can help children with learning development issues, that pets can lessen levels of the stress-related hormone cortisol in their owners, and that having a pet can increase one's physical activity levels, according to the American Heart Association....

Inner Drive Technology WHQ cooled down to 14°C overnight and has started to climb up into the low-20s this morning, with a low dewpoint and mostly-clear skies. Perfect sleeping weather, and almost-perfect walking weather! In a few minutes I'm going to take Cassie out for a good, long walk, but first I want to queue up some stuff to read when it's pissing with rain tomorrow: A Wall Street Journal poll (which the XPOTUS funded in part) appears to have bad news for the Biden re-election campaign, not least...

The temperature has crept up towards 34°C all day after staying at a comfortable 28°C yesterday and 25°C Friday. It's officially 33°C at O'Hare but just a scoshe above 31°C at IDTWHQ. Also, I still feel...uncomfortable in certain places closely associated with walking. All of which explains why I'm jotting down a bunch of news stories to read instead of walking Cassie. First, if you have tomorrow off for Labor Day, you can thank Chicago workers. (Of course, if you have May 1st off for Labor Day, you can...

Meteorological autumn begins at midnight local time, even though today's autumn-like temperatures will give way to summer heat for a few days starting Saturday. Tomorrow I will once again attempt the 42-kilometer walk from Cassie's daycare to Lake Bluff. Will I go 3-for-4 or .500? Tune in Saturday morning to find out. Meanwhile: Quinta Jurecic foresees some problems with the overlapping XPOTUS criminal trials next year, not least of which is looking for a judicial solution to a political problem. Even...

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....

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...

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...

I'm about to take Cassie on her noon peregrination, which will be shorter than usual as we're heading over to North Center Ribfest tonight in perfect weather. Last year's Ribfest disappointed me (but not Cassie). I hope this year's is better than last year's. (Hard to believe I took Parker to our first Ribfest over 15 years ago...) Chicago street festivals are having trouble raising money, however. When a festival takes over a public street, they're not allowed to charge an entry fee, though they can...

Many cities in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho hit all-time record high temperatures yesterday, including 43.3°C in Dallesport, Wash., and 40.6°C in Boise, Idaho. Even Portland, on the ocean side of the Cascades and usually lovely this time of year, hit 39.4°C. Chicago right now is a decent 27°C, with the moisture from this morning's storms adding a bit of bleck around the Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters. And the roofing contractor had to disconnect one of my A/C units this morning because they...

This is why I won't get 10,000 steps today: I'm still at 84,000 steps over the past 7 days, though. Still, even though it's cool enough to have all the windows open, and none of the rain seems to be blowing in, I'd still rather have gotten all my steps today. Cassie, for her part, got over 4 hours of walks this past weekend, so she seems fine with it. She doesn't like the rain any more than I do. Maybe tomorrow.

My phone, watch, and dog are all recharging right now after Cassie and I walked 9.5 km to the Horner Park DFA and back. Right now it's officially 30°C with the occasional wind gust at O'Hare, but here in Ravenswood we've got 26°C with a light breeze. So once my watch has fully charged we're going back outside. And hey, we might see this guy again: Several people have identified this as a Cooper's Hawk, one of the more common raptors in the Illinois prairies, and I hope a more common visitor to my...

I just got back from walking Cassie for about half an hour, and I'm a bit sticky. The dog days of summer in Chicago tend to have high dewpoints hanging out for weeks on end, making today pretty typical. Our sprint ends Tuesday and I still have 3 points left on the board, so I may not have time to give these more than a cursory read: DC Federal judge Tanya Chutkan slapped the XPOTUS with a gag order to protect the witnesses and evidence in one of his criminal trials. Let's see how well that works. The...

I'm still working on the feature I described in my last post. So some articles have stacked up for me to read: The US Senate has the second-highest average age in its 234-year history, with 34 members over 70. The House is the third-oldest, with 72 members over 70. Josh Marshall (and The Daily Parker) don't extend that worry to the presidency, however: we're just fine with four more years of President Biden being the oldest president ever. The Chicago Transit Authority has cut over the CTA Red and...

I'm having a few people over for a BBQ this evening, several of them under 10 years old, and several of them dogs. I've got about 45 minutes before I have to start cutting vegetables. Tomorrow will be a quiet day, so I'll just queue these stories up for then: Not a group to pass up risible hypocrisy, Alabama Republicans have defied the US Supreme Court's order that they create a second majority-Black district in the state, preferring just to shuffle the state's African Americans into a new minority...

She's not quite middle-aged, but she does look like a confident, mature dog:

Because of yesterday's rain, poor Cassie only got 23 minutes of walkies yesterday—almost all of it in drenching rain. I went through two towels drying her off after each of her walks. And of course, because she was (a) being rained on and (b) couldn't smell anything, it took her way more time than I preferred to find where to do her job. For my part, I really got a close shave on my step count: Today we have blue skies, sun, and a forecast high of 23°C: perfection. (The AQI is down to 47, too.) I have...

I'm finally at Heathrow about 10 minutes from boarding. Whew. I've got loads of photos to go through, and hours of sleep to catch up on. I am ready to be home. Tonight I'm going to spend as much time as possible on the couch with Cassie. I've got a lot of pats for her.

During the weeks around our Spring Concert, like during the first couple of weeks of December, I have almost no free time. The Beethoven performance also took away an entire day. Yesterday I had hoped to finish a bit of code linking my home weather station to Weather Now, but alas, I studied German instead. Plus, with the aforementioned Spring Concerts on Friday and today, I felt that Cassie needed some couch time. (We both sit on the couch while I read or watch TV and she gets non-stop pats. It's good...

The Daily Parker began as a joke-of-the-day engine at the newly-established braverman.org on 13 May 1998. This will be my 8,907th post since 1998 and my 8,710th since 13 November 2005. And according to a quick SQL Server query I just ran, The Daily Parker contains 15,043,497 bytes of text and HTML. A large portion of posts just curate the news and opinions that I've read during the day. But sometimes I actually employ thought and creativity, as in these favorites from the past 25 years: Old Man...

Life is skittles and life is beer! Seriously, just check out this forecast: Today Sunny, with a high near 7. East northeast wind 15 to 20 km/h. Tonight Mostly clear, with a low around 3. Northeast wind 10 to 15 km/h becoming southeast after midnight. Saturday Sunny, with a high near 12. South southeast wind 15 to 20 km/h becoming east northeast in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 30 km/h. Saturday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 4. East wind 10 to 15 km/h. Sunday Sunny, with a high near...

At my day job, I go into our downtown office at least once a week, which turns out to be about once a week longer than almost everyone else. I like the change of scene, and Cassie gets to spend those days at day camp, so it's a win for everyone. The 90%-or-so remote work that people have elected also means we have tons of empty offices while our multi-year leases run their courses. So, after waiting almost a year for the furniture upgrade that never came, the office manager today said "just go take the...

Cassie and I hung out for a bit at Spiteful Brewery yesterday. She, of course, got pats and love from everyone. But the couple sitting next to us had a Land Camera, so she also got photographed: These are now on display in my library.

The rain has stopped, and might even abate long enough for me to collect Cassie from day camp without getting soaked on my way home. I've completed a couple of cool sub-features for our sprint review tomorrow, so I have a few minutes to read the day's stories: Matt Ford doesn't think US Representative Marjorie Taylor (R-GA) wants secession so much as uncontested Republican rule, which, you know, is on brand for her and her party. San Francisco native Michael Moritz worries that one-party rule by the...

Cassie does not like staying inside because of the rain:

Christopher Hitchens may have pissed off a lot of people, but I can't dispute the wisdom of that quote. And today, we have a story out of (where else?) Florida, where a fundamentalist Christianist college woke up and discovered that one of the King's Singers "openly maintained a lifestyle that contradicts Scripture:" The King’s Singers, a Grammy Award-winning British a capella vocal ensemble, announced Monday that their planned concert at Pensacola Christian College was abruptly canceled two hours...

Here we have a typical mid-March temperature profile for Chicago: Of course, that's not from mid-March, that's today. It got up to 9.1°C at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters, without a cloud in the sky, and it looks likely to do the same tomorrow. Cassie got a 5 km walk earlier today and I plan to do 7 km tomorrow. Consequently I won't spend a lot of time banging away at my keyboard this afternoon. Probably not much tomorrow, either.

I finished a couple of big stories for my day job today that let us throw away a whole bunch of code from early 2020. I also spent 40 minutes writing a bug report for the third time because not everyone diligently reads attachments. (That sentence went through several drafts, just so you know.) While waiting for several builds to complete today, I happened upon these stories: The former co-CEO of @Properties bought 2240 N. Burling St., one of the only remaining pre-Fire houses in Lincoln Park, so...

It got practically tropical this afternoon, at least compared with yesterday: Cassie and I took advantage of the no-longer-deadly temperatures right at the top point of that curve to take a 40-minute, 4.3 km walk. Tomorrow should stay as warm, at least until the next cold front comes in and pushes temperatures down to -18°C for a few hours Thursday night. I'm heading off to pub quiz in a few minutes, so I'll read these stories tomorrow morning: London plans to build an elevated rails-to-trails park...

Welcome to an extra stop on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Black Hammer Brewing, 544 Bryant St., San FranciscoTrain line: Caltrain, San Francisco terminalTime from Chicago: about 4½ hours by airDistance from station: 600 m I spent most of Monday in Palo Alto, Calif., one of the few places in California that has an actual commuter rail station. Caltrain's northern terminus, at 4th and King, is only three blocks from an actual brewery, so naturally I stopped in. My $20 flight started with the Jaded...

Unfortunately, though, I'm already at the airport, staring out at blue skies and sunny...airplanes. I'm looking forward to getting home, though, and to picking up Cassie tomorrow morning after her bath. (She was already overdue, but after 4 days with her pack, she'll need it even more.) I've got a couple of Brews & Choos from yesterday as well as a few photos from the weekend coming later this week. Stay tuned.

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.

What a delight to wake up for the second day in a row and see the sun. After 13 consecutive days of blah, even the -11°C cold that encouraged Cassie and me to get her to day care at a trot didn't bother me too much. Unfortunately, the weather forecast says a blizzard will (probably) hit us next weekend, so I guess I'll have time to read all of these stories sitting on the couch with my dog: The House Select Committee on the January 6th Insurrection referred the XPOTUS to the Justice Department on four...

As I look out my office window at the blowing snow accumulating on downtown Chicago streets, I think back to days gone by when we had sunlight. Eight straight days of gray tend to wear on a person. It looks like we'll have sun on Sunday, just before the arctic blast comes through and drives temperatures down to -14°C by Wednesday. This also comes just after Cassie got a perfect bill of health at the vet yesterday—except that she's now 15% overweight. Guess who's getting raw green beans for dinner for...

In Chicago, from November 15th to December 31st, the sun sets before 4:30pm. Not much before; for about 11 days, it sets within a few seconds of 4:20pm before getting just a few seconds later. The only point I'm making is: it's dark already. Cassie has gotten exactly one walk in full daylight a day for the last week, and that will likely continue. Ah, winter. Oh, and the Fourth Circuit has once again (metaphorically) called XPOTUS-appointed Federal Circuit Judge Aileen Cannon an idiot.

Remember the stew I made Wednesday? It turned out one of my best: And I had a lot of leftovers: Remember Cassie getting a long walk to the big dog park Thursday? We did the same thing yesterday: And after dinner, I got this rare (inverted for your convenience) photo of Cassie getting a belly rub: Today, however, it's rainy and cold, so we will have less walking—but possibly more couch/belly-rub time.

I thought Wednesday might turn out the last warm day of 2022, but yesterday and today haven't felt too bad either. Apparently tomorrow will also get above 13°C as well. Not a bad Thanksgiving weekend. And Cassie got almost 2 hours of walkies yesterday and may get about the same amount today. Otherwise, regular posting will probably resume tomorrow or Sunday.

With only about a week of autumn left officially, we have some great weather today. Cassie is with her pack at day care and I'm inside my downtown office looking at the sun and (relative) warmth outside, but the weather should continue through Friday. What else is going on? A reader who remembers watching The Play live on TV sent a story about the statue the Bears erected to Keven Moen and unveiled last week. A new study ranks Asian and Scandinavian public-transit systems best in the world, with...

Between my actual full-time job and the full-time job I've got this week preparing for King Roger, Cassie hasn't gotten nearly the time outdoors that she wants. The snow, rain, and 2°C we have today didn't help. (She doesn't mind the weather as much as I do.) Words cannot describe how less disappointed I am that I will have to miss the XPOTUS announcing his third attempt to grift the American People, coming as it does just a few hours after US Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) announced his bid for Senate...

Even with Chicago's 1,642 judges on the ballot ("Shall NERDLY McSNOOD be retained as a circuit court judge in Cook County?"), I still got in and out of my polling place in about 15 minutes. It helped that the various bar associations only gave "not recommended" marks to two of them, which still left 1,640 little "yes" ovals to fill in. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world... Republican pollster Rick Wilson, one of the co-founders of the Lincoln Project, has a head-shaking Twitter thread warning everyone...

Can you tell when I moved from a first-floor walkup apartment into a 3½–story townhouse? I figure, Cassie has about 7 years of climbing stairs in her. We're both going to have much stronger legs (though only one of us needs them).

One of Inner Drive Technology's old laptops—actually, the most recently purchased—can be yours along with a few accessories for only $300: That's a Dell E6440 laptop with 12 GB of RAM and an Intel Core i7 2.4 GHz processor. It has a 97 W/h battery, and I'm including a docking station, 130 W power supply, and a DVI cable to connect the docking station with a monitor. It does not have a hard drive or software. (I originally had a 512 GB SSD. It'll take a standard 3½-inch laptop drive.) But hey, $300? I've...

The temperature outside has hit 19°C, so I've just opened 26 of the 30 windows in my house (the other four are behind furniture and hard to reach). Because I'm moving in about three weeks, and because the forecast says a cold front will come through mid-day tomorrow, I expect that when I close most of the windows tonight they'll stay closed as long as I live here. Still, with all that sun and warm air on the other side of those open windows, it's time to take Cassie out.

Cassie, on Thursday night, not letting me go to bed: You're welcome.

If Cassie could (a) speak English and (b) understand the concept of "future" she would be quivering with anticipation about going to Ribfest tonight after school. Since she can't anticipate it, I'll do double-duty and drool on her behalf. It helps that the weather today looks perfect: sunny, not too hot, with a strong chance of delicious pork ribs. Meanwhile, I have a few things to read on my commute that I didn't get to yesterday: Remember when psychiatrist Bandy Lee got shouted down when she warned...

So, what's going on today? Emma Green explains "how the Federalist Society won," which actually kept awake in the middle of the night on Tuesday. As a reminder that the true goal of the Federalist Society—and right-wing governments in general—is actually to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich, the Times explains how Alabama's criminal justice system essentially creates indentured servants from impoverished inmates. David Jolly, Christine Todd Whitman, and Andrew Yang have formed a centrist...

Cassie got almost 2 hours of walkies before 9am with a return trip to the Montrose  Beach Dog Friendly Area: She also got a bath, because even though Lake Michigan supplies millions of people with fresh water, we don't drink it right out of the lake for very good reasons. Also, I did not take 540 photos like last time. Maybe tomorrow...? And if you're listening to "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" on NPR this morning (and tomorrow morning in some markets), I was there Thursday night:

Even though I feel like I have a moderate cold (stuffy, sneezy, and an occasional cough), I recognize that Covid-19 poses a real danger to people who haven't gotten vaccinations or who have other comorbidities. So I'm staying home today except to walk Cassie. It's 18°C and perfectly sunny, so Cassie might get a lot of walks. Meanwhile, I have a couple of things to occupy my time: Arthur Rizer draws a straight line from the militarization of police to them becoming "LARPing half-trained, half-formed kids...

After four nights, five puddles, four solid gifts, and so much barking that the neighbors down the block left a note on my door, Sophie finally went home this afternoon. I also worked until 11:30 last night, but that had nothing to do with her. It did cause a backup in my reading, though: Reports out of the Supreme Court say the Justices have gotten testy with each other after last month's leak of Samuel Alito's (R) draft opinion allowing states to kill pregnant women with impunity. This has...

Welcome to stop #74 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Burning Bush Brewery, 4014 N. Rockwell Ave., ChicagoTrain line: CTA Brown Line, RockwellTime from Chicago: 35 minutesDistance from station: 1.5 km The brewery opened in March 2020, and like others on this list, quickly pivoted to to-go sales. That let them get pretty good at making beers. Yesterday, Cassie and I stopped by the brewery after a 5 km walk to the Horner Park Dog Park just across the river. I got a flight, naturally, and Cassie...

It's a bit windy in Chicago: winds steady at 25 knots peaking at 47 knots at 1pm. WGN says: The National Weather Service has issued a High Wind Warning through 7 p.m. Thursday. Gusts are to build to greater than 60 mph at times–and there are indications a few of the strongest gusts could reach speeds of 70 to 80 mph. Whitecaps were spotted in Lake Michigan and the gusts have the potential to send waves greater than 10 feet on the shoreline. It’s a good idea to move objects indoors and out of the wind....

Thursday evening, at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance: That's Bill Kurtis, Peter Sagal, Karen Chee, Alonzo Bodden, and Helen Hong at this week's "Wait Wait" taping. The "Not My Job" guest was actor Matt Walsh: Then yesterday, Cassie and I trundled up to Spiteful Brewing in the sun: Not a bad few days, in all.

Editing photos on my phone doesn't always produce the best results. Faster, cheaper, better, pick two, right? Fortunately I have Adobe Lightroom at home, and deploying software yesterday took a long time. Here are my re-edits. Better? Worse? At the very least, they're all correctly-proportioned (2x3) instead of whatever I guessed on my little phone screen. Thursday's sunrise at Nicura Ranch: Berea College: One of the ranch's permanent residents: Down the road from the ranch: Cinnamon, who rather...

We're about to get back on the road for our 700 km drive back to Chicago. Before leaving, I just wanted to highlight Ravinia Festival's upcoming 2022 season. In particular, note who they're partnering with for these performances of La Clemenza di Tito and Don Giovanni. Oh, yes, I will be there.

The day started like this: Then it became this: And returned to this: But because of this: It is now this: As for the horses and goats on the ranch, I had some challenges introducing Cassie to them. The principal challenge was Cassie barking her head off at all of them, which two of the horses and both of the goats wanted nothing to do with, but one of the horses looked ready to teach Cassie the formula F=ma in a direct and possibly painful way. Now that I've downloaded 12 hours of email and figured out...

I'm about 18 hours from taking Cassie on a long road trip, and I have two problems that may cause headaches (one of them literally). First, trees and grasses all over Chicago have started having lots of sex, causing really uncomfortable stuffiness and sinus congestion for me. Second, one of the tires of my car has a slow leak. The first one will work itself out naturally, with the help of several boxes of tissues. The second one requires a trip to the local tire center, which I'm glad to report is about...

We had two incredible performances of Bach's Johannespassion this weekend. (Update: we got a great review!) It's a notoriously difficult work that Bach wrote for his small, amateur church chorus in Leipzig the year he started working there. I can only imagine what rehearsals were like in 1724. I'm also grateful that we didn't include the traditional 90-minute sermon between the 39-minute first part and the 70-minute second part, and that we didn't conclude the work with the equally-traditional pogrom...

No, I didn't send Cassie's slobber to 78AndWoof.com or anything. Someone brought a DNA-shaped toy to the dog park today, which Cassie found irresistible: This cattle dog also found the toy irresistible, leading to this irresistible tug-of-war that ranged around the park for a good five minutes:

I finished a sprint at my day job while finding time to take Cassie to the dog park and make a stir-fry for lunch. While the unit tests continue to spin on my work computer, I have some time to read about all the things that went wrong in the world today: Paul Krugman does the arithmetic on why, since the 1870s, conquering your neighbor impoverishes both countries. ("An aside: Isn’t it extraordinary and horrible to find ourselves in a situation where Hitler’s economic failures tell us useful things...

It's 8.6°C according to the thermometer here at IDTWHQ, so guess who's about to get a walk?

The temperature dropped 17.7°C between 2:30 pm yesterday and 7:45 this morning, from 6.5°C to -10.2°C, as measured at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters. So far it's recovered to -5.5°C, almost warm enough to take my lazy dog on a hike. She got a talking-to from HR about not pulling her weight in the office, so this morning she worked away at a bone for a good stretch: Alas, the sun came out, a beam hit her head, and she decided the bone could wait: Meanwhile, in the rest of the world: Julia...

Someone might need to have a word with HR. Yesterday, my office helper accomplished this: After speaking to her about this performance gap, we got this today: Clearly we have some work to do here.

Other than making a hearty beef stew, I have done almost nothing of value today. I mean, I did some administrative work, and some chorus work, and some condo board work. But I still haven't read a lick of the books I've got lined up, nor did I add the next feature to the Weather Now 5 app. I did read these, though: An Illinois state judge has enjoined the entire state from imposing mask mandates on schools, just as NBC reports that anti-vaxxer "influencers" are making bank off their anti-social...

On the walk home from the Empirical Taproom last night, Cassie managed to lose all four of her boots, at roughly 500-meter intervals. It got to the point where I started compulsively checking her paws to see if any remaining boot(s) remained attached, and still, they just vanished. Well, winter is almost over, I suppose...

We only got about 50 mm of snow overnight, but the second wave came in the morning and hasn't stopped. And yet, not everyone cares about the natural disaster unfolding around us: She followed up on her romp this morning by eating my earmuffs. Sigh.

While we wait for the snow to start falling, the World Meteorological Organisation announced today that a lightning flash on 29 April 2020 extended for 768 km across three states and lasted for 10 seconds: The new record for the longest detected megaflash distance is 60 kilometres more than the previous record, with a distance of 709 ± 8 km (440.6 ± 5 mi) across parts of southern Brazil on 31 October 2018. Both the previous and new record used the same maximum great circle distance methodology to...

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...

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...

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...

Despite the forecast of 200+ mm of snow overnight, we got about 50 over here. O'Hare reported 100 mm of snow on the ground at 6am, which again didn't even come close to the dire warnings we got Friday night. Still, the sidewalks by my house have snow, slush, and salt all over them, which Cassie discovered (mostly to her delight) first thing this morning. Within 10 minutes, she'd gotten ice and salt lodged into one of her pads and had to hop the last 20 meters to the door. I have a solution for that: dog...

When I got home from our Messiah performance yesterday, my car ended up here: If you don't have International System conversion factors ready to hand, just know that one statute mile is 1,609.344 meters. So right before I got to my garage last night, my car hit 10,000 miles exactly. And how about that average fuel economy? For the luddites, 2.2 L/100 km is about 105 MPG. If you recall, I bought the car just shy of 3 years ago. So in three years, I've driven about 10,000 miles and filled up the car 12...

Messages for you, sir: As of yesterday, officially 800,000 Americans have died of Covid-19. Two members of the president's bi-partisan commission looking at ways to fix the Supreme Court say we shouldn't fix it because "Federal judges aren't politicians." Ah, ha ha, how droll. Those non-politicians comprising the Republican wing of the Federal judiciary are helping nudge the country to civil war, according to Charles Blow. Why isn't the media covering the war on democracy like an actual war? asks Mother...

I've finally resumed progress on a major update to Weather Now. I finished everything except the user interface way back in April, but between summer, Cassie, and everything else, I paused. At least, until last week, when something clicked in my head, and I started writing again. As my dad would say, I broke the code's back. It turns out, the APIs really work well, and I'm getting used to .NET Blazor, so I'm actually getting things done. The only downside applies to Cassie, who will probably only get 90...

I've spent today alternately upgrading my code base for my real job to .NET 6.0, and preparing for the Apollo Chorus performances of Händel's Messiah on December 11th and 12th. Cassie, for her part, enjoys when I work from home, even if we haven't spent a lot of time outside today because (a) I've had a lot to do and (b) it rained from 11am to just about now. So, as I wait for the .NET 6 update to build and deploy on our dev/test CI/CD instance (I think I set the new environments on our app services...

I'm leaving the country today, for the first time in almost exactly two years, and I couldn't be happier. I miss my Ancestral Homeland. And the list of Covid-related travel requirements, while annoying, make sense to me. In fact, because I return Sunday, I timed my (£39 FFS!) UK 2-day test to double as my US 3-day test. Before I take off, and consign poor Cassie to 103 hours of desperate loneliness (albeit with her entire daycare pack), I want to comment on two news stories. First, the Chicago...

Oh boy: Voters have defeated billionaire, populist Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš through the simple process of banding together to kick him out, proof that an electorate can hold the line against strongmen. A school administrator in Texas told teachers that "if they have a book about the Holocaust in their classroom, they should also offer students access to a book from an 'opposing' perspective." Because Texas. Oakland Police should stop shooting Black men having medical emergencies, one would...

Some of these will actually have to wait until tomorrow morning: Adam Serwer thanks Justice Samuel Alito (R) for confirming Serwer's complaints about the Court. A trove of XPOTUS-branded gifts meant for foreign heads of state representing "significant" monetary value disappeared at some point. Can't imagine how. The BBC Reality Check column suggests that reports in some journals about Invermectin may have painted an incomplete picture, putting it mildly. Cranky Flier explains that Southwest Airlines'...

And yes, Cassie posed naked for this one:

I've opened nearly every window in my house to let in the 15°C breeze and really experience the first real fall morning in a while. Chicago will get above-normal temperatures for the next 10 days or so, but in the beginning of October that means highs in the mid-20s and lows in the mid-teens. Even Cassie likes the change. Since I plan to spend nearly every moment of daylight outside for the rest of this weekend, I want to note a few things to read this evening when I come back inside: TFW your bogus...

While I wait for a continuous-integration pipeline to finish (with success, I hasten to add), working a bit later into the evening than usual, I have these articles to read later: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Lib-Papineau) called a snap election to boost his party, but pissed off enough people that almost nothing at all changed. Margaret Talbot calls out the State of Mississippi on the "errors of fact and judgment" in its brief to the Supreme Court about its draconian abortion law. Julia...

About 7,000 a day, though it won't hurt to do 10,000: [T]wo studies, which, together, followed more than 10,000 men and women for decades, show that the right types and amounts of physical activity reduce the risk of premature death by as much as 70 percent. But they also suggest that there can be an upper limit to the longevity benefits of being active, and pushing beyond that ceiling is unlikely to add years to our life spans and, in extreme cases, might be detrimental. [A]t 10,000 steps, the benefits...

Tonight the Apollo Chorus of Chicago has its first in-person rehearsal since 12 March 2020, almost exactly 18 months ago. We're in a new rehearsal space with lots of new people and new challenges (like mandatory mask-wearing while singing). Poor Cassie won't see me for several more hours. Tomorrow I expect a little more breathing room. Today, though...yikes.

Well, one of us is working, anyway...

I completed a long-overdue project for my condo board today, made more tolerable by sitting in my relocated office with all the air and light it provides. Having completed that project, I will shortly take Cassie for another hour-long walk.

I once again walked from Uptown to Lake Bluff, as planned. And I broke all kinds of personal records. Unfortunately, I discovered a usability bug in Garmin's Venu software that led to me accidentally deleting the first 9.47 km of the walk. I re-started the trace after covering another 530 meters, so the official record starts at 10.0 km: Add 10 km and 1:27:02 to that data and you get 43.55 km in 6:30:08. My marathon time (42.2 km) was 6:16:55, a 2½-minute improvement over last year. But my...

Someone—I won't say who—gained 3 kilos since she arrived at my house in March. That's a 12% increase. Will she notice when I cut her kibble by 10% until she's back down to 23½ kilos? And no, I didn't forget that today would have been Parker's 15th Gotcha Day. I do miss him.

The first day of autumn has brought us lovely cool weather with even lovelier cool dewpoints. We expect similar weather through the weekend. I hope so; Friday I plan another marathon walk, and Saturday I'm throwing a small party. Meanwhile, we have a major deliverable tomorrow at my real job, and Cassie has a routine vet check-up this afternoon. But with this weather, I'm extra happy that I moved my office to the sunroom.

If all goes as planned, in about half an hour a Comcast technician will make a change to my service here at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters that will, in turn, result in Cassie experiencing some anxiety. I don't want to cause doggy angina, but if Comcast moves my primary cable connection from the room it's in now to the room I want it in, then I'm going to spend the subsequent two or three hours moving furniture. Updates and art as conditions warrant.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation this morning: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said Tuesday he would resign from office, succumbing to a ballooning sexual harassment scandal that fueled an astonishing reversal of fortune for one of the nation’s best-known leaders. Mr. Cuomo said his resignation would take effect in 14 days. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, will be sworn in to replace him. “Given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let...

Cassie last got a bath (I think) sometime in April. So, wow, did she need one today. And she was a trooper. Before: After: She actually likes water, so she just let me spray her down, shampoo her up, and spray her down again. Once inside and toweled off, she got the zoomies but good. After two hours she's dry and doesn't smell like a wet dog. And she's so soft again, without the sheen of whatever she rolled in at day camp for the past few weeks.

Having finished Hard Times, I started a new book last night, and realized right away it will take me a year to read. The book, Shit Went Down (On This Day in History) by James Fell relates an historical event for each day of the year. The recommendation came from John Scalzi's blog. I have about 60 recommendations from Scalzi's blog now, and someday I might read a fraction of those books. Fell's book reminds me that on this day in 1925, a jury in Dayton, Tennessee, convicted John Scopes of teaching...

According to the paperwork I received from Cassie's shelter, she was born on 18 July 2018 in Cheatham County, Tenn. They may have guessed; no one will ever know. Regardless, I decree that her birthday is officially July 18th. Time for a birthday portrait or two: (Or maybe a portrait and a landscape?) Happy birthday, Cassie!

One of my neighbors is having his floors redone today, so I'm dogsitting. Cassie is nonplussed: Cassie and Sophie know each other pretty well already, so no worries there. But Sophie is a quiet, middle-aged dog, and Cassie is the equivalent of a recent college grad on a bender in Lincoln Park. Sophie just wants to take a nap. Cassie just wants to play. Sophie is now on her third sleeping surface, hoping Cassie stops doing this: I feel you, Sophe. Cassie's a lot before 9am. At some point I'm going to...

I had some difficulty falling asleep before midnight last night because a major thunderstorm hit around 11. We had heavy rain, which we needed, and heavy winds, which we didn't. In the western suburbs, they had a lot of wind: [A] tornado first hit Naperville around 11:10 p.m., in the area just south of 75th Street and Ranchview Drive, and at least five people were injured, one of them critically, and they were being treated at Edward-Elmhurst Hospital, according to Kate Schultz, a spokeswoman for the...

Cassie and I headed up to Tyranena Brewing in Lake Mills, Wis., yesterday to hang out with family. Today, other than a trip to the grocery and adjacent pet store where Cassie picked out an "indestructible" toy that now lies in tatters on the couch, we've had a pretty relaxing Sunday. I thought I'd take a break from Hard Times to queue up some stuff to read tomorrow at lunch: Joni Mitchell and friends discuss her album Blue, which came out 50 years ago this week. National Geographic investigated a...

Oh, to be a dog. Cassie is sleeping comfortably on her bed in my office after having over an hour of walks (including 20 minutes at the dog park) so far today. Meanwhile, at work we resumed using a bit of code that we put on ice for a while, and I promptly discovered four bugs. I've spent the afternoon listening to Cassie snore and swatting the first one. Meanwhile, in the outside world, life continues: Ukrainian police arrested members of the Cl0p ransomware gang, seizing money and cars along with the...

Parker would have turned 15 today. I'm of course very glad to have Cassie, but I do miss my bête noir quite a bit.

So far today, Cassie and I have taken 2½ hours of walks, and she's taken about twice that in naps while I read in the sunroom with a nice breeze blowing over me. In other words, nothing to blog about today.

As much fun as Cassie and I have had over the last few days, the news around the world didn't stop: After 448 days, Illinois will finally reopen fully on Friday. Security expert Tarah Wheeler, writing on Schneier.com, warns that our weapons systems have frightening security vulnerabilities. Fastly's content-delivery network (CDN) collapsed this morning, taking down The New York Times, The Guardian, Bloomberg News, and other major properties; no word yet on the cause, but we can guess. About 12,000...

I didn't have as much time to edit photos yesterday as I expected, so I only have two more for today: And I want to give a big shout out to this little guy, named Bear, who forded the 5-meter-wide tidal pool all by himself:

Remember the deer in the cemetery? He's getting bolder: He (I think it's a male fawn) let me get pretty close, and held still when I took photos through the fence: A local artist named him "Spooky Boi," which fits, I think. It's pretty spooky when megafauna stares at you through a cemetery fence at 7am as you pass by with a dog.

I left Cassie all alone for 5½ hours yesterday, and came home to this baleful look: And yet, 20 minutes later, all was forgiven: (A 15-minute walk occurred between these two photos, which may have had something to do with the forgiveness.)

Cassie and I took on a stretch of the Ice Age Trail near La Grange, Wis., this afternoon: She is snoring peacefully on the couch now, and probably will continue doing so for many hours. Note to self: bring more water for the dog next hike.

Almost 16 months since I last flew anywhere, I have returned to O'Hare: Despite traveling on Saturday afternoon, which historically has meant few delays and a quiet airport, the traffic coming up here was so bad my car's adaptive cruise control gave up. But she got a treat once we got to economy parking: I don't think I have ever parked that close to the elevators in 48 years of flying. Good thing, too, because the closest non-LEV space was in the next county. Once I got into the terminal, it took less...

We have gloomy, misty weather today, keeping us mostly inside. Cassie has let me know how bored she is, so in the next few minutes we'll brave the spitting fog and see if anyone else has made it to the dog park. Meanwhile: As today is May the Fourth (be with you), NPR reminded us of the time they produced a radio drama based on "A New Hope." It turns out, the FBI never actually got around to warning Rudy Giuliani that he was the target of a Russian disinformation campaign. The US Trustee, the Department...

Over the weekend, I stooped down to give Cassie some pats while she slept on her bed in my office, and realized I had a cache of turn-of-the-century computer games on a lower shelf. Among them I found SimCity 4, from 2003. It turns out that SimCity 4, like many games from that era, relies on a thing called "SecuROM" which turned out to have sufficient security problems of its own that Microsoft decided not to support it in Windows 10. I didn't know this until I started researching why the game...

Sunday evening we had 4°C gloominess with gusty winds. Today we've got 28°C sunniness with gusty winds. We've also got a bunch of news stories to glance through while a build completes: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued new guidance about the relative safety of various activities given vaccines and masks (see chart below). On this day 500 years ago, Ferdinand Magellan died when he got involved in an internecine dispute in the Philippines. Climate change will increase flood...

Everyone: D'awwwww!

Boy, did we get a clown car full of them today. Let's start with Joel Greenberg, the dingus whose bad behavior got US Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) caught up in a sex-trafficking investigation: Records and interviews detailed a litany of accusations: Mr. Greenberg strutted into work with a pistol on his hip in a state that does not allow guns to be openly carried. He spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to create no-show jobs for a relative and some of his groomsmen. He tried to talk his...

I got my first Pfizer Biontech jab this morning, and will get the second one in three weeks. So far, no side-effects. And Cassie seemed to enjoy being with me for the portions of the morning involving the car, though she didn't seem all that pleased with the car itself. In related news, I've booked a flight for mid-May. I feel better already.

At the dog park: After the dog park, phase I: Phase II: Not that I was trying to read, mind you. Sometimes one makes sacrifices for one's companions.

Cassie, maintaining her dignity in public:

It's difficult to resist this face: Difficult, but not impossible. She's also learning how to lie down and stay on command. I keep reminding myself that she's making rapid progress, but this will take some time. And yes, eagle-eyed readers: she has a FitBark on her collar.

Cassie has spent the last 15 minutes running back and forth in my house carrying this old stuffed duck: Yep. Part retriever. Update: 15 minutes later, I found stuffing all over the living room. This did not deter Cassie from her duck, though it was a bit limp.

Cassie has had an adventurous and full day: several rides in the car, visits to three—count them—three pet stores, and lots of walks. At our first pet shop of the day I picked up a cord to secure her while in the car, which did not stop her from winding up in the driver's seat when I got back from running into the grocery. Exhibit: And just look at that punim! She'll get another half-hour of walks today. I really would like her to learn how to heel, though. She wants to say hello to every dog in...

Welcome to stop #15 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Begyle Brewing, 1801 W Cuyler Ave., ChicagoTrain line: Union Pacific North, Ravenswood. (Also CTA Brown Line, Irving Park) Time from Chicago: 16 minutes (Zone B)Distance from station: 1.6 km (200 m from CTA) Note: Begyle informed The Daily Parker in July 2021 that they ended their dog-friendly policy. (They still make great beer.) But also note: As of August 2023, they've re-thought their dog policy. Dogs are once again allowed on the patio!...