Since I planned to visit San Francisco anyway, I got a ticket to tonight's Cubs—A's game at O.Co Stadium. O.Co is just across the Bay, and it only takes about 30 minutes by BART, so...um...oh, crap:
Almost 2,400 striking BART workers from the Amalgamated Transit Union and Service Employees International Union went on strike at midnight Sunday after negotiations collapsed hours earlier.
Union officials say the major sticking points continue to be pay raises, health care and pension contributions.
BART representatives said the agency had doubled its salary offer - to an 8 percent raise over four years - but that the unions had reduced their proposal for a 23.2 percent raise by one-half percent. They said it was the unions' turn to make a proposal and criticized them for leaving the last-gasp bargaining.
Union negotiators say that BARTs increased salary offer is a ruse rather than a generous offer. Three percent of that increase is contingent on the transit agency achieving ambitious goals including ridership, revenue, sales taxes and reductions in the number of employees taking time off under the federal Family Medical Leave Act.
Driving up from Half Moon Bay didn't take any time at all until I got to 6th St. The next hour of my life seemed longer than usual.
So, no game, and tomorrow I'll have to figure out how to get to SFO. I think Caltrain will get me close...
This kid has personality:
Josh Marshall summarizes the surprising and imminent collapse of Egypt's government and why the U.S. is in a strange position:
The big movement over the last day or so has been the slow motion - or perhaps not so slow motion - collapse of the Morsi civilian administration. Not ‘the state’ in the broader sense, but Morsi’s government. The scale of the demonstrations over the last two days seemed to catch everyone by surprise, leading to the pivotal ultimatum issued by the head of the Egyptian Armed Forces, giving the political players 48 hours to come to some sort of consensus and respond to the ‘will of the people’ expressed through the protests or have the military step in. At least 10 ministers from Morsi’s government have resigned, including the overnight resignation of the Foreign Minister.
Overnight (US time) the Brotherhood started trying to organize counter-demonstrations with what seemed to be the pretty explicit aim of physically confronting the anti-Morsi protesters - not an idle threat since the Brotherhood spent decades as an underground group with a significant paramilitary component, though pictures like this don’t inspire a lot of confidence in their current ability to engage sustained action. And just moments ago, one leaders of the Brotherhood called for ‘martyrdom’ to stop the protests. So here we have the perhaps novel instance of Islamist calling for martyrdom on behalf of electoral legitimacy. Or something like that.
So here you have Morsi, clearly no friend of the US or the administration, in the perilous position of counting on the US to keep them in power. It’s no less curious a position for the White House. They’re no fans of Morsi because they do perceive a significant stake for electoral legitimacy.
The next two days will be critical. And they may add evidence to support the strong hypothesis that religious parties simply can't govern. (Take note, GOP.)
I love my dogsitters, but sometimes they send the oddest messages. I received this email yesterday morning:
ALL DOGS must wear a collar around their neck with a name tag and contact information on that tag. Harnesses are not what we need, we need to have collars. It's a City Ordinance, like most laws, the City is starting to enforce them and any customer found not with a collar risks a $500 fine for both the customer and facility. We'll be happy to sell Dogs without collars and name tags one and charge your account accordingly. We have several dogs that look alike, 12 black labs in a room gets confusing and we need to make sure we are aware of each dog and correctly identify each of them.
Re-read that penultimate sentence: "We'll be happy to sell Dogs without collars and name tags one and charge your account accordingly."
Seriously, I had to read that three times before I saw the word "one." Good thing Parker has a collar, though; I'd hate him to be sold. (Wait...that's not right either.)
As the joke goes: "I'm a linguist, so I like ambiguity more than most people."
Via TMP, the ANC leader's first television interview:
It turns out, I'm working a lot more than I anticipated this week, in addition to being on, you know, vacation, so not much blogging for the next day or two.
Meanwhile, this is what I got to see on our descent to SFO two days ago:
The quality could be better, but that's because I snapped it with my tablet about 15 seconds before the flight attendants told me to turn it off. But it shows pretty well why I always sit in the window seat.
I didn't have time yesterday to get a skyline photo from out in Puget Sound, so I decided on this as the quintessential Seattle photo:
I'm now back at the Half Moon Bay Peet's, better known as the Inner Drive Technology Western Region Development Center.
(Incidentally, the bridge to nowhere previously mentioned now goes somewhere, as the state have lengthened the bike path another kilometer or so.)
The Chicago White Sox gave up 28 runs yesterday, losing both games of a double-header with the Indians, 19-10 and 9-8. While that went on, Philadelphia beat the Dodgers 16-1, and Milwaukee got spanked 10-3 by the Pirates.
In total, there were 171 runs in Major League Baseball yesterday. I don't know if that's a record, but an average of 11.4 runs per game seems a little high, doesn't it?
But, wow. Twenty-eight runs in one day against one team. That's the super-special kind of baseball they play on the South Side.
Park #25 is in the bag.
The Seattle Mariners beat the Cubs 5-4 in 10 innings yesterday after being up by 3 in the top of the 7th. Because if you're up by 3 in the 7th, and you're the Cubs, you're probably going to screw up the 9th. And here is Mike Zunino hitting the 10th-inning single (with bases loaded) that won the game:
Sigh.
So I'm in Seattle, and I have a couple of hours of work to do before my flight to San Francisco. I need some coffee. Where to go? That's a no-brainer: I am under an obligation as a tourist to go to the first Starbucks:
More Seattle and game photos later.
It turns out, all of O'Hare has free WiFi these days, so I can do work right at the gate when my plane's delayed by several short intervals. (A long delay would have seen me in the club, what what!)
Tonight I'll be at Safeco Field watching the Cubs probably lose to the Mariners and taking in my 25th park. Right now, I'm at H11A waiting for them to clean the plane.
Pretty normal travel day, except for getting out of the Loop.