I had a busy Friday and a busier Saturday, so I just got to these this morning:
Finally, US Senator and vice-presidential nominee JD Vance (R-OH) has a lot to say about families, but when you actually look at how he lives his own life, it makes you wonder about his sincerity. Actually, that's not entirely true: everything the man says makes you wonder about his sincerity, but in the case of family policies he's even more obtusely hypocritical than usual.
I didn't get up at 2am to drive to Mt Rainier like one of my friends, but I did spend almost all day outside yesterday. Cassie and I met friends (one human, one dog) in Elmhurst for a 9-kilometer walk down the Prairie Path in the morning. And my car flipped 30,000 km on the way back from the walk:
That 2.1 L/100 km (112 MPG) is for the entire life of the car. In fact, I used some gasoline yesterday for the first time since June 15th, so this year my car is getting closer to 1.5 L/100 km (151 MPG)—and of course infinite MPG for over three months. And of course, 30,000 km since 22 December 2018 is an average of 14.2 km per day, which is exactly how I avoid using gasoline most of the time.
Finally, yesterday evening Cassie and I went to Spiteful Brewing to enjoy the 24°C weather:
Today we're heading to the dog beach and the Dock, which closes for the season tonight.
I decamped to Marseille on my last full day in France last week, since I had a flight before 11 am and didn't want to add another hour coming from Aix. I will have to visit the city again, hopefully before I'm too old to negotiate the steps to the train station:
I walked around a bit, up through the Panier district, where I caught this view of the Vieux Port:
But this is probably a better view:
I finished the evening at this little corner bar near my hotel. If it were in Chicago, it would just have an Old Style sign out front:
And that's it for Europe, for now. I'll aim to get back to Provence in 2 years or so, and I'll bring my real camera.
A week ago Sunday, my friends picked me up in Aix-en-Provence and took me to their house in St-Martin-de-la-Brasque, about 30 km north, just south of the Luberon massif. I can see the appeal:
We then drove about 10 km to the Commune of Lourmarin, which may be even prettier than Aix:
Yes, Provence really does look like that. I really need to go back.
Let me tell you how much I suffered in Aix-en-Provence. I mean, just look at this stuff, starting with the street my hotel was on:
The Passage Agard, off Cours Mirabeau:
The Fontaine du Roi René at the east end of Cours Mirabeau:
Rue Aumône Vielle:
Finally, the Palais de Justice (the local courthouse) just past 9am on the 23rd:
Tomorrow: Lourmarin and St-Martin-de-la-Brasque.
President Jimmy Carter turned 100 today, making him the first former president to do so. James Fallows has a bit of hagiography on his blog today, and the State of Georgia has declared today "Jimmy Carter Day." I hope I make it to 100, too, but I don't expect the State of Illinois to declare that day a public holiday.
In other news:
Finally, yesterday the UK turned off its last operating coal-fired power plant, ending a 142-year run of burning coal to generate power. XKCD points out that in those 142 years, the UK burned the equivalent of about 3 inches of its land surface generating electricity.
And of course, I'll watch the Vice-Presidential Debate tonight at 9pm Eastern, but I don't plan to live-blog. Reactions tomorrow, though.
I can scarcely believe I took these 10 days ago, on Friday the 20th. I already posted about my walk from Borough Market back to King's X; this is where I started:
You can get a lovely snack there for just a few quid. In my case, a container of fresh olives, some bread, and some cheese set me back about £6. Next time, I'll try something from Mei Mei.
Later, I scored one of the rare pork baps at Southampton Arms. Someone else really wanted a bite, too:
Sorry, little guy, I can't give you any of this—oh darn I just dropped a bit of pork on the ground. (Lucky dog.)
Finally, this screen shot shows why I love Europe so much. (It's in French because I switched my phone's language settings to help practice while I was preparing for the trip.) The blue dot in the center-left shows where my train was at 20:06 France time (18:06 UTC) on Saturday the 21st. The stuff in the upper-right corner shows my phone's GPS utility. If you look at the left side of that box, you can see "Vitesse 303;" i.e., a speed of 303 km/h, or 190 mph. And that isn't even the train's top normal operating speed.
If we elect people in this country who actually care about climate change, we could have trains like that here, too. But given the proportion of the electorate who plan to vote for the convicted-felon rapist demented geriatric XPOTUS in five weeks, I am not optimistic.
Because I had a busy weekend, I had quite a full inbox this morning. After deleting the 85% of it that came from the Democratic Party and the Harris-Walz campaign (guys, you've already got my vote, FFS), I still had quite a few items of interest:
Finally, astronomers have found a rocky, Earth-sized planet orbiting a dying main-sequence white dwarf star, seemingly having survived the star's expansion during its red-giant phase. This suggests that our planet may last until the end of time itself. Life on Earth probably won't last more than a billion more years, but that's someone else's problem.
I meant to post more photos from my trip earlier this month, but I do have a full-time job and other obligations. Plus it took me a couple of days longer than usual to recover, which I blame squarely on the shitty hotel room I had for my first night causing a sleep deficit that I never recovered from.
I posted a couple of these already, but with crude, quick edits done on my phone. I think these treatments might be a little better.
Sunrise at O'Hare on the 18th:
The hills of Hampshire:
Invasive megafauna preparing to attack:
Why I decided to walk for 10 km through Hampshire in the first place:
The Grand Canal:
It might take a few days to get more of these done. I'll post more as I get to them.
Welcome to a special stop on the Brews and Choos project.
Brewery: Two Tribes Brewing, Tileyard Road, London N7
Train line: Piccadilly Line, Caledonan Road
Time from Chicago: 8 hours
Distance from station: 900 m (about 1.5 km from King's Cross)
I don't know why I haven't made an official B&C stop in London before now. The UK has just gotten going with its own microbrewing industry, as evidenced by the continued success of pubs like the Southampton Arms. I've had lots of English micros, some from London. So I'm happy to report that visiting the brewery closest to my (new) hotel last Thursday turned out great.
They had two bartenders working an enormous crowd so I didn't bother them by ordering a flight. Instead I had a pint of the Campfire Hazy (5.2%, very tasty) and a pint of the Dream Pale (4.4%, also very tasty). And, because they have lots of communal seating, I talked to a pair of biology post-docs who were looking for jobs. I also read a good hunk of my book, enjoyed the low-intensity music, and contemplated how rarely London gets the kind of weather they had at that moment.
They also had tacos, in their food pop-up space. I had the chorizo. For Europe, they were really good tacos, despite the lack of taco sauce. (It's the UK.)
London has about a dozen other B&C-eligible breweries, so I might not get back to Two Tribes soon. But if you're anywhere near King's X, check it out.
Beer garden?Yes
Dogs OK? Yes
Televisions? No
Serves food? Pop-up; check the website. BYOF OK
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes