The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Caribou out, Peet's in

I've always liked Peet's Coffee, and even owned shares back when it was publicly traded. (Made a few beans on them as well.) I've always liked Caribou Coffee, too. So I'm taking it as mixed but generally positive news that Caribou stores in Chicago will switch to Peet's stores over the next two years:

Caribou didn't provide a list of stores affected by the closings or conversions. But most downtown Chicago Caribou locations will remain open and be rebranded Peet's stores by 2015. Employees at the chain's Long Grove, Lake Forest, Northbrook and Winnetka locations said Monday that their stores also would remain open, eventually becoming Peet's. It's unclear if personnel in those stores will retain their jobs.

Peet's, which has about 200 cafes, has a significant presence in larger retail stores, including Jewel, Target and Dominick's. Peet's has two area locations, at North & Clybourn avenues and in Evanston, according to the chain's website.

Robert Passikoff, president of consulting firm Brand Keys, said companies "don't make this kind of decision casually." While Caribou "was doing very well," he said, its new owners likely believe that coffee drinkers in the area "are in fact looking for a different kind of experience, and they have (Peet's) in their arsenal, so why not try it?"

Watch this space this weekend, when I'll no doubt have several posts from Peet's Coffee stores out west.

Cubs home opener

Well, the team has done better.

After graciously allowing the entire Brewers lineup to come to bat in the 1st inning, the Cubs managed to stagger through eight more innings before completely blowing it in the bottom of the 9th:

A wind blowing out at 24 mph turned Martin Maldonado's fly ball into a three-run double in the Brewers' four-run first off Edwin Jackson, but the wind changed directions in the ninth, just in time to foil the Cubs' rally.

Yes, it was well worth the many dollars we spent on season tickets this year, which—to remind folks joining us mid-game—we did because the waiting list is up to 125,000 names.

Here's the beginning of the game, all misplaced optimism and Friendly Confines:

And here's the end of the game, with none of the aforementioned:

Oh, well. Only 80 home games to go.

Cubs opener forecast: squishy field but otherwise OK

Parker and I took our first walk in pouring rain, but things seem to have cleared up. The Tribune expects OK weather for the 1:20 start:

Despite a wet, gloomy and cool start to the day, conditions should improve dramatically this afternoon in time for the Cubs opener. Temperatures around 7°C this morning will rebound into the teens later today with the passage of a warm front.

The Cubs, now 2-4 for the season and having already replaced their benighted reliever Carlos Marmol, would at least not lose a rain-out...but I'm happy to see my first game in seven months at Wrigley.

Screens back in

Chicago has finally gotten up to 21°C for the first time since December 1st. My screens are back in, my dog got some good walks, and my apartment is fresher.

I just hope it's like this on Monday.

Another one of these

ICYMI:

Back to the mines.

ComEd lowers rates, still above Integrys

Back in November, Chicagoans voted to buy electricity in the aggregate from Integrys rather than the quasi-public utility Exelon. As predicted, the big savings only lasted a few months:

And Chicago, where residents saw their first electric-bill savings this month under a 5.42-cent-per-kilowatt-hour deal completed in December with Integrys, will see its energy savings shaved to just 2 percent.

ComEd's new price is not yet official. But utility representatives have filed their new energy price of 4.6 cents per kilowatt-hour with the ICC and have told the commission they expect forthcoming transmission charges to be about another 0.95 cents per kilowatt-hour. That will make the ComEd "price to compare" cited by competing suppliers when marketing their offerings about 5.55 cents.

That said, between the new Integrys rate that hit me on my last electricity bill, and moving to the cloud, my March bill was only 54% of my average bill from 2009 to 2012. So ComEd is lowering rates too? Good. It'll still be higher than Integrys.

Nataly Dawn in Chicago

The female half of Pomplamoose, Nataly Dawn Knutsen, played a venue four blocks from my house yesterday, so I just had to go.

She and her touring partners Lauren O'Connell and Ryan Lerman were as charming and talented in person as their music makes them seem. Dawn is also tall (178 cm in flats), which isn't readily apparent from her videos.

The tour moves east through April before going back to California at month's end. Also, Knutsen assured me that Pomplamoose will continue.

End of the drought

Illinois State Climatologist Jim Angel reports our 12-month drought has finally ended:

According to the US Drought Monitor, Illinois is now drought free for the first time since April 3, 2012. Most areas in Illinois have seen positive responses in soil moisture, stream flows, lake levels, and groundwater levels since the fall. A small area of northwest Illinois remains as abnormally dry due to some lingering concerns about subsoil moisture and groundwater levels in that area.

It was pretty grim for a while, with Lake Michigan levels falling to record lows and farmers losing crops downstate. So as squishy as this year has been, in a state whose principal economic products are still agricultural, the rain and snow has been very helpful.

Yes, our cold spring is because of global warming

The WGN Weather Blog explains it:

The unseasonably chilly pattern which has descended on Chicago and the Midwest is being driven by a new round of atmospheric blocking in the arctic. The so-called Greenland block has returned and is predicted by global forecast models to dominate the closing weeks of March and spill over into early April....

Blocking patterns in the arctic, like the one now in place, occur when vast pools of warmer than normal air take up residence aloft. As the planet's arctic regions have warmed, these blocking patterns have occurred with increasing frequency and with a variety of impacts felt to the south in the mid-latitudes.

Climate researchers point to the growing volatility of mid-latitude weather as examples of the sorts of changes which may be expected to become more frequent in years and decades to come as additional warming takes place.

The vast reservoir of warmer than normal air aloft, which currently covers much of the arctic, extends from northern Russia across the North Pole and into Northeast Canada. Such pools of warmer than normal air act to dislodge the frigid air indigenous to the arctic, sending the chill cascading southward into portions of the Lower 48.

Yesterday Chicago got all the way up to -4°C, fully 33°C colder than the first day of spring last year. The arctic, however, is a little warmer. Climate-change deniers are therefore reminded, one hopes, of the difference between weather and climate.