The Daily Parker

Welcome to stop #117 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Pilot Project Brewing, 2140 N Milwaukee Ave., Chicago
Train line: CTA Blue Line, California
Time from Chicago: 14 minutes
Distance from station: 500 m

Pilot Project has an unusual business model. They partner with fledgling breweries, work with them on their beer recipes and styles, help them with marketing and distribution, then gently fling them from the nest once they're established and can fly on their own. And they're pretty good at it.

After a 6-km meander through Logan Square to work up an appetite, my Brews & Choos buddy and I sat down at the Pilot Project bar and had an extended conversation with bartender Rebecca about the beers and their stories. Including our flights and sip-sized tastes of a couple other beers, we tried a lot of them. We also had a ginormous pretzel (seriously, it'll feed four people), and a pitcher of water.

My flight had Funkytown 1984 pale lager (5%, complex for a lager, long finish, not too sweet), Pilot Project's own Mountains Calling hazy IPA (6.3%, kind of malty for a hazy, really drinkable, beer buddy said "Ooo! I like that a lot"), their Tree Talker West Coast Pale (5.3%, very west coast, very hoppy, not my favorite), and their Brushfire Imperial stout (8%, lots of chocolate, coffee, and vanilla).

My friend had the Two Falls Hazy (6.5%, lovely apricot and apple notes, good balance), Azadi Brewing's Manali Hazy IPA (6.8%, balanced, not strongly fruity, good), and Azadi's Doorsa basmati rice lager (4.6%, effervescent, very light, interesting flavor).

She also tried a thing called Donna's Pickle Beer (4.4%), about which we had a mild difference of taste. I gagged, swished some water, and grabbed a hunk of pretzel. She said she "would absolutely love this after a hot run in the summer" and wants to run to the brewery with a bunch of other athletes as soon as it gets warm again.

We will absolutely go back, but only one of us will drink beer brewed with pickle juice.

Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? Outside only
Televisions? One, avoidable
Serves food? Pub menu
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

My Brews & Choos buddy and I trudged 15 kilometers yesterday to visit two previously-unreviewed breweries and two old favorites. Correction: I visited two old favorites and two new ones, she visited one old favorite and three she hadn't visited before.

My Garmin device doesn't have a resume-later feature, but hers does, so she captured the entire route (in miles):

We had bog-normal November weather for Chicago: cloudy and 5°C. We also had a slice of Jimmy's Pizza and a modest amount of good beer. Altogether, a good day.

Brews & Choos Reviews will post this afternoon and tomorrow.

The weather doesn't seem that great for a planned 15-kilometer walk through Logan Square and Avondale to visit a couple of stragglers on the Brews & Choos Project. We've got 4°C under a low overcast, but only light winds and no precipitation forecast until Monday night. My Brews & Choos buddy drew up a route starting from the east end of the 606 Trail and winding up (possibly) at Jimmy's Pizza Cafe.

Also, I've joined BlueSky, because it's like Xitter without the xit. The Times explains how you, too, can join. (Cassie also has an account, of course.)

My 4-minute train to Clybourn leaves in 45 minutes, so I want to save a few things for later reading:

• Josh Marshall says: "There’s plenty of time for theorizing and message testing. But the first thing to do is to oppose. Less arguing, more doing."
• After Pro Publica reported on the deaths of two women due to Georgia's religiously-motivated anti-abortion laws, Georgia disbanded its Maternal Mortality Committee, embarrassing not only the Republican-led government in the state but also every ostrich at the Atlanta Zoo.
• Blue Man Group has announced it will close its Chicago run on January 5th after 30 years at the Briar Street Theater.
• The Chicago Tribune, once more reminding me why I need to just give up my subscription, raised a hue and cry that "Lake Michigan water levels drop to lowest in years" without providing the context that the lake level is just 40 millimeters below its long-term average. Oh the humanity!
• Molly White spends 30 minutes explaining how crypto charlatans spent unbelievable sums to get their favored stooges elected, and largely succeeded.

Finally, NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day this morning has a diptych of the Earth, one side from Saturn and the other side from Mercury. What makes it even more interesting is that both photos were taken 19 July 2013, making it the first time the Earth was photographed simultaneously from two other worlds in the solar system.

I mentioned yesterday that the gingko and maple trees in my neighborhood have held onto their leaves for much longer than usual. Yesterday's snowfall melted overnight, as predicted, but we did get below freezing for about 4 hours yesterday. And yet these two genii of trees just won't let go:

The City of Chicago has had to extend the street sweeping schedule to ensure that they'll have sweepers on task when all those leaves finally do fall off. I will, of course, keep everyone updated on this tense stand-off between Gaia and the Dept of Streets & Sanitation.

We went just over 238 days and 20 hours between freezing temperatures at Inner Drive Technology WHQ, from March 27th until the wee hours of this morning. That's quite a long time for Chicago. And in fact, our snowfall this morning was the latest first snow since 2015.

Here's my roof deck after about an hour of snow, around 9:40 am:

And just three hours later, when taking Cassie around the block, with the snow already deeper than 80 mm:

This vignette interested me because of all the maple leaves. I posted a photo of a gingko tree in the local park last weekend. Lots of the area's gingko and maple trees have held onto their leaves, in some cases without even pulling in all the chlorophyll yet. So here we are just an hour into a pretty mild snow event with the temperature hovering just around freezing, and this particular maple decided to peace out for the winter.

I think the trees were just waiting for a freeze, even one that only got down to -0.3°C and lasted less than two hours. I expect we'll see the maples and gingkoes shake the rest of their foliage off in the next day or so. And yet, the forecast has us above freezing consistently from now until Monday evening, even hitting 11°C on Sunday.

Early winter weather is always weird in Chicago. This year is no different.

The most hated person in Congress until his resignation two weeks ago has decided he really, really didn't want the House Ethics Committee to release its report on him, and has therefore withdrawn his nomination for Attorney General. He used the classic "I don't want to be a distraction" excuse, even though his entire career in politics has been a distraction.

Meanwhile, John Hendrickson guesses about the OAFPOTUS's pick for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr Donald Duck Mehmet Oz:

As you may have guessed, [Robert F Kennedy, Jr] and Oz are not only friends but kindred spirits. Oz is a global adviser at iHerb, a for-profit company that offers “Earth’s best-curated selection of health and wellness products at the best possible value.” He and Kennedy, two relative outsiders, are now positioned to enjoy a symbiotic relationship within Trump’s chaotic ecosystem.

Oz was last seen running for a Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2022. He lost to John Fetterman, who, despite dealing with the aftereffects of a stroke, carried the state by five points. Throughout that race, Oz struggled to combat the perception that he was a charlatan and carpetbagger who primarily lived in New Jersey. (Fetterman’s team repeatedly tagged Oz as an out-of-touch elitist, trolling him, for example, when he went grocery shopping for crudités and lamented high prices.) After that electoral defeat, Oz’s political dreams seemed all but dashed. But he wisely remained loyal to Trump—a person who has the ability to change trajectories on a whim.

Oz holds degrees from Harvard and Penn, and he worked as a professor of surgery at Columbia. In spite of that pedigree, Oz has spent years facing credible accusations of medical quackery for his endorsement of dietary supplements. In 2014, he received a dramatic dressing-down on Capitol Hill.

How did we get here? Oz landed this gig because he’s good on TV, yes, but also because, when he entered the political arena, he fully aligned himself with Trump. The 47th president rewards loyalty. If there’s one thing that’s become clear from his administration nominations so far, it’s that.

Some of Trump’s appointments will be less consequential than others. Anything involving the health and well-being of tens of millions of Americans is inarguably serious. Oz’s confirmation is not guaranteed, but his selection has already confirmed that nothing about Trump 2.0 is mere bluster.

It's vitally important that we not fall for every trolling thing the OAFPOTUS says. Toward that end I will confine my posting to the things he actually does. Since Oz seems likely to pass Senate confirmation—which I doubted could ever happen for Gaetz—I will report on his quackery and anti-science charlatanism.

The most charitable thing I can say about the incoming administration is that it will be an interesting experiment on the resilience of the American people while a vandal is setting fire to our government. But, hey, almost half of the voters chose him.

After one of the mildest November days in memory, the dreaded "wintry mix" has started to approach from the west:

I had hoped it would delay until after 10pm, but we can't always get what we want.

Winter officially begins in 10 days, but it starts in Chicago tonight.

The OAFPOTUS has nominated TV personality and shameless quack Dr Oz to head up Medicare, which is of a piece with the rest of his cabinet nominations so far.

I think the OAFPOTUS has some other grievance than against the government, law enforcement, international norms, rational thought, and everything else he's railed against since 2015.

Clearly, the OAFPOTUS wants to drive The Onion out of business.

We're having a bit of odd weather in Chicago today. The temperature rose overnight, fell after sunrise, and has gone back up almost to where it was right before sunrise. The dewpoint, however, has stayed the same. That, plus the breezy winds out of the southwest, has pushed the clouds out over the lake:

This won't last. A bomb cyclone over the Pacific Northwest will push some nasty "wintry mix" towards us by Thursday. Our sunny 15°C weather will give way to this:

Wednesday Night
A chance of rain before 8pm, then a chance of rain and snow between 8pm and 10pm, then a chance of snow after 10pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 1. West wind 20 to 25 km/h, with gusts as high as 40 km/h. Chance of precipitation is 40%.

Thursday
Rain and snow, becoming all rain after 3pm. High near 6. Breezy, with a west northwest wind 25 to 30 km/h increasing to 30 to 35 km/h in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 60 km/h. Chance of precipitation is 80%.

November approaches. Today, though? We'll take October weather.

We're having gray, rainy weather for our few hours of daylight today. We haven't yet had a freeze this fall, and none is forecast before winter officially begins in two weeks, so all the moisture in the air just hangs around and makes more fog and rain. And yet, tomorrow we might get a high of 15°C—about 8°C above normal—before flurries and "wintry mix" Wednesday night.

Yeah, it's the end of November in Chicago.

Otherwise, I'm still mulling our electoral loss from two weeks ago, even as it looks less like a disaster and more like just three million Democrats staying home. In fact, it looks like neither candidate got a majority of the popular vote, with the OAFPOTUS increasing his total popular vote count by a little over 2½ million while our side lost about 7½ million compared with 2020.

Oh, and it's the 141st anniversary of time zones, which had a far more lasting effect than the election will have.

Happy Monday.