The Daily Parker

We almost made it from SFO to ORD. The pilots executed a "missed approach" and diverted to Rockford, where we now sit. The First Officer told me they had a wind-shear alert indicating a 20kt change in windspeed right on our approach path. That could, in aviation parlance, ruin your day. So here we sit...and wait... At least we're getting granola bars, water, and frequent updates. And we're getting obnoxious passengers. More tomorrow.

My baby sister got tickets for last night's Giants game at AT&T Park. I had the distinct feeling of being at a Cubs game, first because of the Giants' defense (including a walk-a-thon in the 4th), and second because they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory after tying it up in the bottom of the 9th. (The goat of the game? Former Cub Ryan Theriot.)

We did have great (if chilly) weather and great seats:

Back to Chicago this afternoon...and lots of work to do before then...

Tomorrow I have to take a cab to work. But this morning, once again, I got to see this:

Here, by the way, is the view from my desk at the client's office:

Yeah, I could get used to this.

In Chicago, I usually take the 156 bus or the El to work in the morning. Today, I took this:

That's how I got to see this on my commute:

Of course, now that I have arrived at the client's office, I should probably do some work.

I'm traveling for business right now so I don't have my real camera with me. I do, however, have a little pocket camera. I'm not disparaging the thing; it really does take better photographs than any digital camera I've owned except for the two SLRs. But after just shy of 29 years of photography, I've learned a couple of quick and easy techniques to help it along. (I wish I'd known these things when I shot on film, but who could have predicted the mind-blowing power of this decade's digital image editing software when the pinnacle of faithful photographic reproduction was Kodachrome 25?)

First among these techniques is to use a gray card whenever possible. This is a simple piece of cardboard that has a color-neutral, 18% reflective surface, that allows you to calibrate both the exposure and colors of a scene. They cost less than a take-out coffee and take up almost no room in your bag. They do two things: first, they tell you how much light is available on a scene, and second, they tell you what color the light is.

The first is harder to explain than the second. Suffice to say, your little pocket camera constantly has to guess at how much light to let in. Your eye does this automatically, opening and closing your iris as required for you to perceive, almost always, that there's just the right amount of light available. Cameras, being mechanical and not having brains, have to guess. The human eye can look at two different scenes, one of which having 32 times more light than the other, and not register a difference. If you walk under a bridge on a bright, sunny day, you can still see.

Cameras, being mechanical, can't do that. Modern cameras have automatic light meters that make really good guesses, and so most of your photos come out fine. But they make a lot of mistakes, too, particularly when the thing you want to photograph is really dark or really light.

Gray cards fix that. Your camera's light meter assumes that the average scene reflects 18% of the light falling on it, and adjusts the exposure to fit. A gray card really does reflect 18% of the light falling on it. So if you meter off a gray card, the photo will be correctly exposed.

Gray cards also fix colors. If you're in a room with incandescent light bulbs, your brain automatically corrects the colors of the things it sees. You know that's a white bedspread; you know that's a blue book cover. So your brain tells you, that's a white bedspread, and a blue book cover.

Cameras, however, don't have brains. And cameras can't see colors that aren't there. And incandescent light bulbs are orange. The consequence of these three facts is simply that a raw photograph of a white bedspread under incandescent light bulbs will look orange.

Here, for example, is a photo of my hotel room as the camera saw it:

Keep in mind, this is the correct exposure. I know this because I took a picture of my handy-dandy gray card before snapping this one. Not only did the gray card show me the correct exposure setting, but it also showed me the correct colors of the same scene, to wit:

Again, my real camera would have done a better photo, but at least with a gray card (and Adobe Lightroom), I can get reliable colors and exposures with a cheap little pocket camera.

The Economist's Gulliver blog has a summary this afternoon about two-hour wait times at Heathrow to pass through immigration:

[O]n Saturday BAA, which owns Heathrow (but is not responsible for immigration), duly resorted to handing out leaflets apologising for the situation and suggesting that passengers complain to the Home Office.

Marc Owen, the director of UKBA [United Kingdom Border Agency] operations at Heathrow, was none too impressed by this tactic. The Daily Telegraph saw emails he sent to BAA threatening to escalate the matter with ministers, and asking it to stop passengers taking pictures of the queues. "The leaflet is not all right with us," he wrote. "It is both inflammatory and likely to increase tensions in arrivals halls especially in the current atmosphere."

The slowdown at immigration is linked to a row last autumn over passport checks. Previously, a relaxation of these checks had been agreed between the Home Office and UKBA, but UKBA ended up going further then the government had expected, and reduced staff numbers in the process. The subsequent brouhaha led to the resignation of the then head of the agency, Brodie Clark, and the reinstatement of full passport checks.

(Yes, I'm taking a break after 9 hours of requirements gathering.)

The bad news is I've been in meetings with clients all day. The good news is their office has a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Updates as warranted. And as I have time for.

Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein yesterday expanded on how American Airlines' unions bested management by dealing directly with US Airways:

Bankruptcy has changed [the unions' bargaining strengths]. Suddenly, airline executives discovered a way to unilaterally abrogate their labor agreements, fire thousands of employees and impose less generous pay and more flexible work rules. Indeed, the technique proved so effective that several airlines went through the process several times. The unions’ strike threat was effectively neutralized.

All of which makes what is happening at American Airlines deliciously ironic. Late last year, American finally decided to join the rest of the industry and make its first pass through the bankruptcy reorganization process after failing to reach agreement on a new concessionary contract with its pilots’ union.

Essentially, US Airways agreed to pay all of its pilots — the American pilots as well as its own — the higher American Airlines wages, along with small annual raises. In return, the union accepted less lavish medical and retirement benefits along with adoption of US Airways work rules that have been rationalized during two trips through the bankruptcy process. In the end, what probably sealed the deal was the US Airways promise of no layoffs.

He concludes:

For years now, Corporate America has viewed the bankruptcy court as a blunt instrument by which failed executives and directors can shift the burden of their mistakes onto shareholders, employees and suppliers. The auto industry bailout orchestrated by the Obama administration posed the first challenge to that assumption. Now the unions at American airlines have taken another step in curbing this flagrant corporate abuse and restoring the rule of law.

The more I think about the two airlines merging, the more excited I get about the deal. The unions and creditors (not to mention the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp.) are right: a strong airline with competent management is good for everyone, including us customers.

The Tribune has a graphic this morning pointing out a number of things about our lack of snow this past winter. It turns out, the snowfall on March 4th was the earliest last snowfall. That is, in the rest of recorded history (back to 1884), we've always gotten snow later than March 4th. Until this year.

Our entire season gave us only 11 days with 25 mm or more of snow on the ground (normal is 43); it was one of only 10 seasons (out of 128) with less than 500 mm of snowfall total (normal is 932 mm); and it's the second-shortest interval from first to last snowfall ever, at 117 days (normal is 174).

Of course, snow has fallen in 40 Mays of the 128 in history...so this could all be completely wrong. We've even gotten snow in June (on 2 June 1910). But it looks for now like we can add one more quantification to our wonderfully mild winter.

New video from the Obama campaign, featuring one of the dumbest things Mitt Romney ever said: