The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Grey Sunday afternoon

We have a typical cloudy autumn day, good for reading and not so good for long walks with the dog. So I'll read and Cassie can wait for a bit:

  • Turns out, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is even more of a scary, right-wing Christian nationalist nutter than most people knew. Paul Krugman concurs, warning that Johnson wants to eliminate the social safety net entirely.
  • Actor Matthew Perry drowned in his California home yesterday. He was 54.
  • New DNA evidence confirms that the Assateague horses on Delmarva's barrier islands arrived in North America when a Spanish galleon wrecked there 400 years ago.
  • Data from Tallinn, Estonia, suggests that even free public transit doesn't keep people from wanting to drive.
  • Chicago's first railroad line turned 175 this week. Happy birthday.

Finally, new research shows elucidates the complex relationship between alcohol and orgasms. Apparently there's a sweet spot somewhere in the "moderate drinking" zone. I will leave the details as an exercise for the reader.

Quick photo dump

I've had a few things on my plate this week, including a wonderful event with the Choeur de la Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris at Old St Patrick's Church in Chicago. We had a big dinner, they sang for us, we sang for them, and then some of us hosted some of them in our homes. Tonight I'm hearing their real performance at Alice Millar Chapel in Evanston.

Sunday night I saw comedian Liz Miele at the Den Theater. I'm totally crushing on her and highly recommend you catch her on this tour:

And naturally I have a few photos of Cassie that got imported into Lightroom this morning:

Real post later today, probably around the time the cold front hits.

Why am I indoors?

It's 22°C and sunny right now, making me wonder what's wrong with me that I'm putting together a software release. I probably should fire off the release, but I'm doing so under protest. I also probably won't get to read all of these things I've queued up:

Finally, Stan's Donuts will open a new store just three blocks from the apartment I moved out of one year ago today. I might have to stop in soon. I will not, however, wash them down with CH Distillery's latest abomination, Pumpkin-Spice Malört.

Not the day I expected

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 and today

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.

Cough, cough, cough

I could have worked from home today, and probably should have, but I felt well enough to come in (wearing an N95 mask, of course). It turned that I had a very helpful meeting, which would not have worked as well remotely, but given tomorrow's forecast and the likelihood I'll still have this cold, Cassie will just have to miss a day of school.

I have to jam on a presentation for the next three hours, so I'll come back to these later:

Finally, no sooner did it open than the new Guinness brewery in Chicago is for sale. It will stay a Guinness brewery, just under different ownership. The Brews and Choos Project will get there soon.

Friday after the cold front

A rainy cold front passed over Inner Drive Technology WHQ just after noon, taking us from 15°C down to just above 10°C in two hours. The sun has come back out but we won't get a lot warmer until next week.

I've had a lot of coding today, and I have a rehearsal in about two hours, so this list of things to read will have to do:

Finally, for the first time in 346 days, the Chicago Bears won a football game. Amazing.

Late summer heat comes to an end

Chicago experienced its warmest October 1st through 4th ever, clocking in at 24.4°C, before a cold front pushed through this morning. Many of my friends, plus another 25,000 runners, look forward to Sunday's Chicago Marathon and its predicted 7°C start temperature going up to a high of 14°C.

So, with real autumn temperatures finally upon us, let us chill out:

Finally, something other than the dumpster fire in Congress: Gideon Lewis-Kraus looks into allegations that Duke Professor Dan Ariely and Harvard Professor Francesca Gino fabricated evidence about dishonesty.