Events

Quick update: The Titanic dinner at Mint Julep Bistro was wonderful. Rich's wine pairings especially rocked—as did his beef tournedos in port reduction. Mmm. Not so much fun was Metra's return schedule (featuring a 3-hour gap between 21:25 and 0:35), nor my reading of it (I did not remember this three-hour gap). The fine for taking public transit out to the suburbs (because driving to a 10-course, 9-wine-plus-apertif dinner seemed irresponsible) was $80, paid to the All-Star Taxi Service. I did, in...

American Airlines, my carrier of choice, will finally replace its fleet of awful MD-80s, many of which it inherited from TWA: The acquisition of 76 Boeing 737-800s through early 2011 represents a doubling of that airplane model flown by Ft Worth-based American. All the new planes will be based at O'Hare International Airport. The move also will lead to the eventual retirement of American's McDonnell Douglas MD-80s--a reliable but noisy aircraft that gulps 35 percent more fuel than the 737-800. American...

Via Calculated Risk, a really scary graph from the Oregon State government: Oregon’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 12.1 percent in March from 10.7 percent (as revised) in February. The state’s unemployment rate has risen rapidly and substantially over the past nine months, from a rate of 5.9 percent in June 2008. The U.S. seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 8.5 percent in March, from 8.1 percent in February. In March, Oregon’s seasonally adjusted nonfarm payroll employment...

The Chicago Tribune has a photo history of the disaster that shut down Chicago's Loop 17 years ago today. Worth a look.

Emirates A340-500 came centimeters from crashing on takeoff from Melbourne, Australia over the weekend: The plane -- carrying up to 215,000 liters of highly flammable aviation fuel -- was less than 70 cm off the ground when it crashed through lights almost 200 m from the end of the runway. ...The fully-laden Airbus A340-500 was believed to have been travelling about 280 km/h when it reached the end of the runway without becoming airborne. At the last minute, the two pilots "rotated" the plane [too...

Kindle

After some experimentation, I may have found a setup that works: It has the added advantage of showing the Inner Drive Technology Worldwide Data Center in the background.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a Tribune article about how the U.S. lags the rest of the industrialized world in rail technology. The Economist this week continues the discussion: There are reasons, however, to be cautious. First, the cost of any one project far exceeds the money available. California, which has the most advanced plan, would connect the state's biggest cities with trains running at more than 200mph. In November Californians approved $9.95 billion of bonds for the project. On top of...

As Parker gets older and less likely to shred things, I'm leaving him alone for a few hours at a time without stuffing him in his crate. Of course, when he's crated, it's easy to put a camera on him. Not so much when he has run of the house. So, I've tried pointing the camera at places I thought he'd be likely to hang out. His crate, for example: Yes, that's an empty crate. OK, he doesn't hang out there when I'm gone. Got it. His bed in the living room, maybe? Well, he did stop by long enough to grab a...