The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Wow, that's hot

Yesterday, Woodland Hills, Calf., a neighborhood in Los Angeles, recorded its hottest temperature ever:

As a historic heat wave left Southern California broiling, Woodland Hills on Sunday recorded an all-time high of 49.4°C, which the National Weather Service said was the hottest temperature recorded at an official weather station in Los Angeles County.

It broke the old record of 48.3°C set in July of 2006 and was one of several records to fall on Sunday. The NWS said Riverside hit its highest temperature ever for September at 47.2°C; Santa Ana hit a record high for the day at 41.1°C.

Meanwhile, up the coast in the Bay Area, San Francisco (!) topped out at 38.9°C—a little warmer than the 14°C they recorded Saturday morning—and even Half Moon Bay, right on the coast, hit 32°C, which almost never happens. (It's back down to 20°C there right now.)

In case you're wondering, Death Valley hit a cool 50°C around noon yesterday before dropping off to 36°C overnight.

Rush to judgment

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 force until election night itself, but news reports, pundit panels and special programming can help plow the ground for public understanding of the unpredictability — or even chaos — to come.

Second, on election night and in the days (weeks? months?) to follow, news organizations will need to do the near-impossible: reject their ingrained instincts to find a clear narrative — including the answer to the question “who won?” — and stay with the uncertainty, if that’s indeed what’s happening.

I believe Biden will win decisively, but we may not know that he's done so until Thanksgiving. Or, rather, we may not have all the evidence in place to make that determination until then. Because, let's face it, 2020 will still have 57 days to run after the election.

Home stretch?

With 58 days until the election, the noise keeps increasing. Here's some of it:

Finally, The Smithsonian describes how Greg Priore managed to steal priceless documents from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, because he was in charge of security for those items.

These PRs will stand for a while

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 the way. If I did the actual mass event, I would aim for 8:45/km and 20 minutes' rest along the way, so I clearly need to train a bit.

It felt great, possibly because I planned food and fluids well. Along the way I drank about 3 L of Gatorade and a liter of regular water, plus a grande iced tea from a Starbucks in Evanston; ate 4 Clif bars; and changed my socks just before the 27th kilometer. I also managed to take a few photos.

At 6.8 km, 59 minutes in, Juneway Park on the Chicago/Evanston border:

Just a bit farther up, at South Boulevard Beach in Evanston, I found this gentleman in his shady practice room:

At 14.0 km, 2:05, the Bahá'i House of Worship:

Just past 20 miles, at 32.5 km and 4:51, one of the nicest parts of the Robert McClory trail if you're on foot, and one of the scariest if you're on a bike:

The last 5 km or so looked like this, with no trees and lots of sun:

I finished the walk just a block or so shy of the Lake Bluff Brewing Company, which I reviewed way back in February. Since my goal was to end up exactly at that place, it felt pretty good to plan a route that long to 99.1% accuracy.

My total stats for the day: 56,562 steps, 47.7 km.

Today, on my official birthday, the weather is once again absolutely perfect, but given the growing blister on my right foot, I will probably not walk another 40 kilometers. That said, I may walk the Chicago Marathon virtual half-marathon in a couple of weeks, because why not?

Yay, Fall!

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.

Astronomical math

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].

The only good news is, given my family genetics and my overall health right now, it's very likely I'll live another [redacted plus a few] years.

I had hoped for a big party, or barring that, a weekend in Europe...but hey, I haven't caught the plague yet.

Better late than never?

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.

Urban Brew Labs, Chicago

Welcome to stop #33 on the Brews and Choos project.

Note: closed permanently, 10 September 2022.

Brewery: Urban Brew Labs, 5121 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago
Train 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 taproom in the former KOVAL Distillery shop that fronts on Ravenswood Ave. as soon as possible. Covid-19 may have delayed that a bit, but he put out a couple of tables on the Winona Ave. side for people and dogs.

Sunday afternoon around 2 I had the patio to myself, at least for a few minutes, so I got a chance to talk to James and try a few of his beers. First, the Hazy River New England IPA (6.5%), a malty, not-too-hoppy, well-balanced ale with a clean, slightly bitter finish. Second, the Straight from Zee Wickel (5.6%), a Zwickelbier with a malty, fruit-forward flavor and not too much alcohol. Finally, the Packy New England Ale (6.4%), which had a fruity nose followed by a hop-forward clean ale with some grapefruit and lemon notes.

Now that autumn has arrived, and given the likelihood that the taproom won't open until next spring at the earliest, I strongly recommend getting over there whenever you have the opportunity. And then pop over to Empirical, because it's a 2-minute walk.

Beer garden? No
Dogs OK? Yes
Televisions? None
Serves food? No; BYOF encouraged
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

Gotcha Day #14

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.

Record confirmed by the pros

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 1955’s record of 24.6°C degrees for top honors. Summer 2020 also finishes 2.7°C degrees above the normal average.  

What’s more, there have been 31 days at or above 32°C at O’Hare this year to date, while the “normal” number of 32°C or higher temps in a year here is just 17, meaning we recorded 182 percent as many over-32°C as normal.  

Today, the first day of meteorological autumn, will be cool and damp, as befits fall.

Oh, and let's not forget, August saw the 8th consecutive month of record-high water levels on Lakes Michigan and Huron: