Events

Finally, by the end of 2014 Chicago will have one transit card to rule them all, called Ventra: The CTA and the Regional Transportation Authority are leading an effort to create an open fare system in which bank-issued cards and universal transit cards will be accepted on CTA, Pace and Metra. The RTA system faces a 2015 deadline to fully implement an integrated fare system. Part of the challenge is including Metra, which is slowly modernizing its antiquated fare-collection system that still involves...

A couple weeks ago, I finally tasted whisky from the FEW Distillery in Evanston, Ill. FEW is named for Frances Elizabeth Willard, who, in the mid-19th century, ran the Women's Christian Temperance Union and later bequeathed her house to the organization. In other words, this is a distillery named after one of the leading advocates for prohibition, headquartered in a city that was dry for more than a century. Also, FEW's master distiller, Paul Hletko, is one of the first people I met in law school. Mazel...

Monday's SSD crash took an annoying, but reasonable, amount of time to fix. Otherwise I would have posted this photo of Great American Ball Park yesterday: And, of course, an obligatory photo of Cincinnati's most recognized landmark: I'll have a couple more in days to come.

Last night, while watching the Seahawks-Packers game (and rooting for the Seahawks for the same reason I wore a Giants hat to a Reds game), I saw the end of the rule of law. For three weeks, the National Football League referees have been locked out in a pensions dispute. The NFL has called in refs from the lower rungs of college sports, causing, to put it politely, controversy. Games have gotten longer by about 15 minutes as the replacement refs double-check the rules and the replays, causing players...

My laptop's solid-state drive died this afternoon. It had a long, long life (23 months—almost double what they usually get). I am thankful to the departed SSD for that, and: for dying after the client presentation, not before; for dying on the first day of a three-week project, not the last; and for living 23 months, which is about as spectacular as a dog living 23 years. I am now rebuilding my laptop on a larger but slightly slower SSD, which I hope lasts nearly as long.

Yesterday I posted a shot of the Cincinnati Reds clinching the National League Central Division title. Here's the whole park, from the cheap seats: And here's a little nerd humor for you. Why can't anyone hit a home run over Cincinnati's center-field wall? Because no one can find it: More Cincinnati photos after my 1pm meeting...

Yesterday afternoon, I saw this happen: That's the Cincinnati Reds just after they beat Los Angeles to become the National League Central Division champions this year. And because they beat L.A., they helped San Francisco clinch the West, making it an all-around fun afternoon. (N.B.: I wore a Giants hat to the game.) More Cincinnati and Great American Ball Park photos when I get back to Chicago.