Events

And it's not even lunchtime yet: A storm has left Venice flooded under 187 cm of water, the second highest flood since records began in 1923. Four of the five largest floods in Venice history have occurred in the last 20 years; the record flood (193 cm) occurred in 1966. As our third impeachment inquiry in 50 years begins public hearings, Josh Marshall explains what the Democrats have to prove. Yoni Appelbaum wonders if the country can hold together. He's not optimistic. Via Bruce Schneier, the NTSB has...

I didn't get nearly as much sleep as usual on this trip, compared with other weekends in London, so I'll have to figure out why before next time. But Parker and I are home now, and if I can stay up until 10pm (at least), I should get things back on track. Of course, between now and Sunday I have two rehearsals and two performances of Aleko and Everest. I think sleep planning might be in order. Oh, and Chicago had record cold last night: -14°C. Glad I missed it.

Uber, the ride-sharing company that pretends it isn't a ride-sharing company, has started a massive PR campaign against the city of Chicago because Mayor Lori Lightfoot wants them to pay for the damage they're causing to the commons. Let's unpack all of that. Lightfoot has proposed a $3 tax on ride-sharing trips into the Loop, Near North, Lincoln Park, and other affluent areas, and a smaller tax on trips out of the center city, because trips in and out of those areas cause several kinds of damage to the...

Twenty years ago today, I launched wx-now.com. It's now on version 4.5 with version 5 in the works (when I get the time). The earliest view on the Wayback Machine comes from late 2000, but the design looks similar enough to the first beta version on 11 November 1999. Hard to believe I've had two websites in continuous operation for over 20 years.

It's rush hour in Chicago right now, where commuters are slogging through snow and -5°C temperatures as the second significant winter storm pushes through the area. And I feel for them. But here in London, it's 9°C and sunny, so one doesn't even need a coat to go out for lunch. I also had the presence of mind to park in the $17-a-day garage instead of the $19-a-day outside parking lot at O'Hare, which will add 5 minutes to my trip from Terminal 5 to my car and save 15 minutes shoveling it out. Sometimes...

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

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...

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.