Like yesterday, today I took Cassie somewhere she'd never been before, giving her an amazing array of new smells and rodents to chase. We went up to the Green Bay Trail in Winnetka, covering just under 5 km, and passing a somewhat-recognizable house along the way:
We'll spend more time outside today, though it really hasn't warmed up yet (current temperature: 15°C). She doesn't mind.
Cassie and I took an hour-long walk through the LaBagh Woods and Forest Glen this afternoon:
It's still a very nice day, so I might have to take her on another half-hour walk soon.
Spot the moment when I removed the Inner Drive Technology WHQ outdoor weather station from its repurposed birdhouse:
It lives in a birdhouse to protect it from the sun, rain, and (ironically) birds. However, when we have a long stretch of really humid air as we had for most of the week, the birdhouse gets a bit stuffy. I thought that might be the case when the closest other Netatmo weather station showed a much more reasonable temperature-dewpoint spread all day.
So, no, it's not still raining. In fact it's quite pleasant outside, as Cassie and I will soon experience. But my poor Netatmo sensor was feeling a bit clammy.
We've had a run of dreary, unseasonably cold weather that more closely resembles the end of March than the middle of May. I've been looking at this gloom all day:
We may have some sun tomorrow afternoon through the weekend, but the forecast calls for continuous north winds and highs around 16°C—the normal high for April 23rd, not May 23rd. Summer officially starts in 10 days. It sure doesn't feel like it.
Speaking of the gloomy and the retrograde:
- Former US judge and George HW Bush appointee J. Michael Luttig argues that the OAFPOTUS "is destroying the American presidency, though I would not say that is intentional and deliberate."
- In a case of "careful what you wish for," FBI Director Dan Bongino can't escape his past conspiracy theorizing but also can't really escape the realities of (or his lack of qualifications for) his new position.
- Writer Louis Pisano excoriates Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez for their "idea that billionaires can buy their way into virtue with just enough gala invitations, foundation launches, and pocket-change donations" in Cannes this week.
- Adam Kinzinger shakes his fist at the OAFPOTUS-murdered Voice of America, now "subsidized by taxpayer dollars [to broadcast] Trump-aligned propaganda in 49 languages worldwide."
- Jen Rubin, vacationing in Spain, explains how the country's centuries-long Catholic purges of Jews and Muslims drove their globe-spanning empire into irrelevance. "The notion that national defense required ethnic and religious homogeneity not only resulted in mass atrocities, it also deprived Spain of many of the people and ideas that had helped it become a world power," she concludes. (Not that we need to worry here in the US, right?)
- Chuck Marohn shakes his head at the Brainerd, Minn., city council for ignoring his advice and building massive infrastructure they can't afford to maintain.
- Metra has formally taken control of the commuter trains running on Union Pacific track, including the one that goes right past Inner Drive Technology WHQ.
- The village of Dolton, Ill., has informed potential buyers of Pope Leo XVI's childhood home that it intends to invoke eminent domain and work with the Archdiocese of Chicago on preserving the building. Said the village attorney, "We don't want it to become a nickel-and-dime, 'buy a little pope' place."
Speaking of cashing in on the Chicago Pope, Burning Bush Brewery has just released a new mild ale called "Da Pope." Next time Cassie and I go to Horner Park, we'll stop by Burning Bush and one of us will try it. (Un?)Fortunately, we won't have time to get there by 11pm Friday, so we'll miss the $8 Chicago Pope Handshake special (a pint of Da Pope and a shot of Malört). Dang.
I spent a lot of time outside over the weekend until the temperature started to slide into the single digits (Celsius) last night, so I put off reading online stories in favor of reading real books. I also failed to mention that we had an honest-to-goodness haboob in Northern Illinois on Friday, the first significant one since 1934. Because hey, let's bring back the 1930s in all their glory!
- Adam Kinzinger rolls his eyes at the world's oldest toddler: the OAFPOTUS himself, the biggest champion of the 1930s we have right now.
- Josh Marshall shakes his head at the people in our party who think the electorate is waiting with bated breath to find out which nonessential policies we're going to go with in 2026.
- Jeff Maurer draws similar parallels, this time between HBO/Max/HBO Max/whatever's branding problems and those of the Democratic Party.
- Paul Krugman slaps the GOP hard for its "incredibly cruel" budget—which is their point: "Its cruelty is exceptional even by recent right-wing standards."
- Speaking of cruelty, Jack Goldsmith picks apart Stephen Miller's trolling about habeas corpus, and pleads with journalists to stop falling for this stuff.
- Michael Tomasky says that Kamala Harris's race and gender weren't the problem with her candidacy—it's that the party stopped all conversation about her fitness for the presidency because of her race and gender.
- Tyler Austin Harper agrees, saying that the King Lear analogy with President Biden postulated in Jake Tapper's Original Sin doesn't quite work: his core advisers and his wife bear a lot more responsibility for our 2024 loss than they get credit for.
- Oh, and hey, did anyone in North America notice that the PKK lay down their arms and have ended their 40-year insurgency against Türkiye? It's kind of a big deal.
- In one bit of good news, the critically-endangered piping plovers nesting at Montrose Beach a few hundred meters to the east of where I'm sitting have laid an egg. Good luck, Imani and Sea Rocket!
- The UK has asked if the US Federal Aviation Administration might possibly do their jobs a bit better regulating the Clown Prince of X's rockets, which keep blowing up over the UK's Caribbean territories and littering their beaches with debris.
Finally, Scottish writer Dan Richards looks across the Atlantic and sees that the infrastructure choices we've made have driven us to having only two bad options: slow cars or polluting airplanes. Europe made investments throughout the last 30 years that gave them sleek and comfortable overnight trains.
I last took an overnight European train in September 2013, on what may be my best visit to the UK ever. The Caledonian Sleeper leaves London Euston at 22:30 and gets to Edinburgh at 08:00, for about £250 per person. Put that price against a flight and a hotel, or even an daytime express train and a hotel, and it's not a bad deal. Plus you get a wake-up call with hot tea before arriving.
I've never walked around the Edgebrook neighborhood in Chicago, and I've kept meaning to. So today, with clear, cool weather and nothing pressing to do, I took Cassie for a 40-minute walk up there.
I expect I'll have more interesting things to say tomorrow. The sun doesn't set for almost four hours, and we'll have twilight past 8:30, so I think I'm going to take Cassie out for another walk.
Before we even set out yesterday, I discovered evidence of a cardinal nest in my back patio. The evidence was this guy and his mate dive-bombing me when I went out to check the Inner Drive Technology weather station:
Later, we took the most direct route to the Horner Park Dog Park, where I met up with a friend and Cassie met a bunch of new friends:
Altogether, Cassie got 3 hours of exercise, and we stayed outside for about 6½ hours total. We won't get anywhere near that today, unfortunately, but yesterday was a lot of fun for everyone except the cardinals outside my back door.
These two things are not connected.
First, O'Hare officially hit 33.3°C (92°F) just after 4pm, breaking the previous record of 32.8°C set in 1962. I will now, reluctantly, turn on my air conditioning, as the temperature at Inner Drive Technology World HQ is now 28.9°C, the warmest reading since August 27th. Also, closing the windows seems like a good idea with some epic thunderstorms due to hit in a couple of hours.
Meanwhile, someone had a really good morning:
I didn't supervise her well enough, however, so she got a bit enthusiastic:
And I had to apologize to her for buying a peanut butter jar with a smaller diameter than her snout.
Cassie and I walked 14 km yesterday, giving her almost 3 hours of walks and 8 hours continuously outside with friends (including Butters). The walk included a stop at Jimmy's Pizza Cafe. (It's possible Cassie got a bit of pizza.)
She's now on the couch, fast asleep. I would also like to be on the couch, fast asleep, but it is a work day.
I also wish some of the people in today's stories were asleep on the couch instead of asleep at the switch:
Finally, the Economist draws attention to all the ways that my generation continues to suffer because of the two much larger generations on either side of us. The Boomers want to use up Social Security and the Millennials want all the resources for child-raising that we didn't take. It's out lot in life.
I have more coding to do now. Though I really, really want a nap.
It's 13.3°C at Inner Drive Technology World HQ right now, down from 21°C around 10:15. This graph gives you a sense of what happens when warm southwest wind gets bumped aside by a fast-moving cold front boosted by winds off the lake:
The forecast for tomorrow shows a more gradual rise and decline in temperatures, peaking around 16° between 4pm and 5pm. That bodes well for my plan to take Cassie to the dog park and myself to get a slice of Jimmy's pizza for lunch.