Events

Some photos from London. Last night, South Kensington: Early this afternoon, Earls Court: Later, the Grand Canal at Kentish Town Road:

Started at Southampton Arms, London; finished on AA47, LHR-ORD

One of the pubs I've frequented in London has apparently re-imagined itself as a 19th-century public house. The Blackbird, in Earls Court, used to look like this (May 2015): Then it looked like this (Sept. 2018): (Notice all the building permits and the closed door.) This morning it looked like this: I mean, wow. That's quite a remodel. Plus, apparently they've converted the upper three floors to "beautiful bedrooms." I'm still staying at the hotel around the corner, and not at the Blackbird. But it's...

I remember the early evening of 9 November 1989. A bunch of us were hanging out on our floor in my college dorm when my roommate told us to come in and watch what was on TV. We saw Germans atop the Berlin Wall waving the Federal (West German) flag, and not getting shot. Today's Times has a good set of photos from the wall's construction in 1961 to its destruction in 1989. as does CNN. Berliner Zeitung has an interview with Andrei Gratchev, Mikhail Gorbachev's spokesman from then, about the relationship...

"Three Robots Experience Objects…" is one of the Love Death + Robots episodes

My 207-day streak of 10,000 steps per day ended, as I suspected it would, at midnight GMT tonight. Traveling from Chicago to London takes 6 hours out of the day, and it's hard to get enough steps before 7am to get to 10k by 6pm when most of that time is on an airplane. Anyway, I'm in the Ancestral Homeland, about to finish the book that inspired the opera I'm performing in next week. And then there's the other opera that requires I sing rapidly in Russian, without rushing. I brought the score for that...

It's bitterly cold (at least for November), but otherwise the weather is perfect for flying this morning. My destination, London, is just dreary today and probably will be tomorrow as well. This is what I expect; it's as it should be. Kudos, by the way, to the TSA. The Pre-Check line stretched back almost to Terminal 2, but the screeners managed to get me through in less than 10 minutes. Color me impressed. Next update from South Kensington.

Started on AA90, ORD-LHR; finished in London

Not bad: So, 25 million (recorded) steps in 1,840 days. And I'm currently on a streak—which will likely end today because of my long flight tomorrow—of 207 consecutive days of 10,000 steps or more.