Events

Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for the Washington Post and former New York Times public editor, warns news agencies against adding to what will most likely be a chaotic election night: This time, with the stakes of the election so high, news organizations need to get it right. They need to do two things, primarily, and do them extraordinarily well. First, in every way possible, they must prepare the public for uncertainty, and start doing this now. Granted, the audience doesn’t really show up in...

With 58 days until the election, the noise keeps increasing. Here's some of it: Jeffrey Goldberg reports from multiple sources that the president referred to wounded soldiers as "losers" and "suckers" for serving the country. The administration moved quickly to lie about this. Andrew Sullivan calls the president a "metastasizing cancer." Catherine Rampell suggests ways to talk to right-wingers about the president's failures. Nick Martin asks, "how did 'if I die, I die' become this country's mantra?"...

As planned—exactly as planned, if I may pat myself on the back a bit—I took a walk yesterday. To wit: the first thing I did immediately upon turning [redacted] years old was to walk an entire marathon. And I did it in the Chicago Marathon course time of 6:30*: * Unfortunately, my course time was 7:11, which is 41 minutes too long. My goals were distance first and pace second, course time third, because I knew (a) my pace would be around 9:00/km and (b) I knew I'd need more than 10 minutes of rest along...

I woke up this morning to a beautiful early-autumn morning: 16°C, low humidity, clear skies, and a gentle breeze. Parker celebrated by eating a live cicada, which made the mistake of buzzing when he sniffed it. My plan today? Starting as close to 9:09 am as practical, I'm going to walk up to Lake Bluff, about 42 km. Full report when I recover.

My birthday is Saturday, but owing to leap years and that I was born early in the morning, I'm actually turning [redacted]—[REDACTED]!—at 9:09 am Chicago time tomorrow. See, Earth revolves around the Sun every 365.24217 days, you see, so if you take the time and date I was born ([redacted]-09-05T[redacted]) and add [redacted]*365.24217 days to it, you get 2020-09-04T14:09, give or take a few seconds. So today is my last day in my [redacted - 10]s. And yet I don't feel a day over [fraction of redacted]....

Every six months or so, I update the sunrise chart for Chicago. Because of a bug in the tool I wrote to generate the raw data I use, and because fixing that bug fell nearly to the bottom of my priority list, I didn't fix it until Monday. So, finally, I've updated the chart. Enjoy. The next one should be on time at the end of the year.

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart (a bit later than expected, but hey). (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 3 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:21 20:30 15:08 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:53 8 Aug 8pm sunset 05:52 20:00 14:08 15 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:51 13:51 28 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:17 13 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:03 12:33 15 Sep 7pm sunset 06:32 19:00 12:28 22 Sep Equinox, 08:31 CDT...

Welcome to stop #33 on the Brews and Choos project. Note: closed permanently, 10 September 2022. Brewery: Urban Brew Labs, 5121 N. Ravenswood Ave., ChicagoTrain line: Union Pacific North, Ravenswood (Also CTA Brown Line, Damen) Time from Chicago: 16 minutes (Zone B)Distance from station: 600 m (1.6 km from CTA) Update: The taproom opened on 1 August 2021. This relatively new (2018) brewery just across the tracks from Empirical has a tiny patio and large ambitions. James, the owner, plans to open a...

Fourteen years ago today, Parker came home with me: Here's the old guy waiting to get jabbed at today's vet visit: Of course, if he keeps pooping in the house—ten minutes after our morning walk he got the bathroom, bedroom, and hallway in three separate deposits—I might kick him out.

The Chicago Tribune's Frank Wachowski concurs with the Daily Parker: 2020 was the warmest summer in Chicago history: To be sure, there have been many summers with hotter individual temperatures (2012, 1995, 1988 come to mind) but the warmth this summer has been persistent, especially at night where many warm overnight low temperatures have been observed.  But when you average out all the high and low temperatures this summer since June 1, the 24.8°C degree average temperature for 2020 just edges out...