The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Blows hot, blows cold

Remember that bit about our unusually warm autumn? Meteorological winter began yesterday, leaving no doubt of its arrival:

Chicagoans shivered through the coldest December open in 27 years Wednesday. The day's biting 48 to 56 km/h gusts generated wind chills which ranged from single digits to the mid teens [Fahrenheit] as bursts of snowfall dusted the ground and produced the city's first measurable (3 mm) accumulations at Midway and O'Hare. The snowfall generated patches of black ice which led to a number of traffic accidents on I-65 while wrecks forced state police to close of sections of I-69 north of Indianapolis for a time.

Wednesday's -3°C high was not only the coldest to occur this fall, it was 7°C below normal and nearly 16°C colder than the month's 13°C open a year ago. Not since the -4°C high Dec. 1, 1983 has a December opened any colder here. It's interesting to note that the month which followed produced a -32°C Christmas Eve low temperature.

Over at Inner Drive Technology WHQ, we'll get to experience the cold weather in an extra-special way when guys come to replace half of our windows. They were scheduled to do it back in October, but, wouldn't you know, they were waiting on their suppliers...

Baby, it's not that cold outside

The Chicago Tribune reported this morning that average Chicago temperatures have remained above normal month by month for the past nine in a row:

The temperature trend to date may be among the most remarkable on record for the period here. November 2010 is to become the ninth consecutive month to close with a temperature which has averaged warmer than normal. That's a nearly unprecedented accomplishment. It means meteorological spring (March through May), meteorological summer (June through August) and meteorological autumn (September through November) have each finished above normal. An in-house analysis of Chicago's seasonal temperatures indicates there have only been two instances since Midway Airport observations began in 1928--the years 1998 and 1999--in which spring, summer and autumn have ALL been above normal--including each of their constituent months!

The report also mentions we've had the sunniest autumn in 11 years.

Of course, it's almost December, which means relative warmth can still mean absolute misery. Alaska has sent us a storm which should arrive Saturday morning, bringing the first significant snowfall of the year.

Sunniest October ever

This month has set the record, and it's only the 22nd:

Chicagoans have been soaking up sunshine at a record rate this month in what has been the sunniest October to date. So far this month the city has recorded 86 percent of its possible sunshine, surpassing the previous Oct. 1-21 record of 84 percent established in 1958. Another mostly sunny day is on tap for Friday before a weekend storm promises to bring extensive cloudiness along with the city's first significant rainfall since October's opening three days....

And then there's the new sunshine provided by Wikileaks:

The reports make it clear that most civilians, by far, were killed by other Iraqis. Two of the worst days of the war came on Aug. 31, 2005, when a stampede on a bridge in Baghdad killed more than 950 people after several earlier attacks panicked a huge crowd, and on Aug. 14, 2007, when truck bombs killed more than 500 people in a rural area near the border with Syria.

But it was systematic sectarian cleansing that drove the killing to its most frenzied point, making December 2006 the worst month of the war, according to the reports, with about 3,800 civilians killed, roughly equal to the past seven years of murders in New York City. A total of about 1,300 police officers, insurgents and coalition soldiers were also killed in that month.

Endless war.

Can't you see this red "S" on my chest?

(Apologies to Bill Cosby.)

The Chicago Tribune reported today that Chicago needs more software engineers:

With a national unemployment rate of 9.6 percent, many people assume employers have their pick of applicants for any job, McCombs said. Not so. Within every down job market exist bright spots, which in Chicago means tech jobs, particularly for software engineers.

The continued growth of the Internet and mobile technology is fueling the increased demand for IT professionals, McCombs said. Computer application software engineers will be the fastest growing job category over the next eight years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which projects a 32 percent increase in the number of computer software engineers between 2008 and 2018. The total work force is expected to grow 8 percent during the same period.

... "I feel we're at 100 percent employment" for highly qualified software engineers in Chicago, said Zach Kaplan, chief executive at Chicago-based Inventables, an online marketplace for materials and technology. The company gets flooded with applications when it posts nontechnical jobs, but it struggles to find software engineers.

So, what about a software engineer with 17 years of experience and (soon to be) two graduate degrees? Would that be worth something to you?

No "Rich Whitey" on the ballot

Sometimes you can't make these things up:

Chicago election officials say crews will work overtime to reprogram thousands of electronic voting machines that mistakenly list a gubernatorial candidate's name as "Rich Whitey" instead of Rich Whitney.

Chicago elections board chairman Langdon Neal said 530 machines being used for early voting and an additional 4,200 destined for the Nov. 2 election will be reprogrammed and retested.

The mistake in the Green Party candidate's name appears on a review screen that allows voters to double-check their selections and not on the screen where the vote is registered. It also is not on paper ballots, Neal said.

Heavens, where does one go with this...

Parking meters stolen from the Loop

You'd think the parking-meter lease would get more popular over time, wouldn't you? Nope:

Twenty of the 90 kg electronic parking pay machines have been stolen throughout Chicago since Sept. 17, police department spokesman Roderick Drew said in an e-mail. It isn't known how much cash may have been taken from the stolen machines, he said.

"Area 5 Detectives have been working with LAZ Parking to address this issue. Residents who witness vandalism or suspicious behavior should call police immediately," Drew said.

Yes, so if you see someone walking down the street lugging an automated parking machine, you know what to do.

We'll miss Da Mare

I mean, who else could have come up with such a creative way for Chicago to run out of cash right after he leaves office?

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is scheduled to detail the city's record budget shortfall on Wednesday. He's expected to announce plans to partially fill the $655 million defecit with money from leasing the city's parking meters and Skyway.

Dick Simpson heads the political science department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He says it makes sense to use some of the money in reserves, but a lot of the cash meant to last the city decades has been used up in a few years.

Ah, the parking meter lease. Good deal, there.