After waiting over two hours for our vendor to deliver the orchestra and chorus chairs to Holy Name Cathedral this morning, and our dress rehearsal tonight, plus two performances this coming weekend (the second one at Millar Chapel in Evanston), posting may decline slightly. That said, come to the concerts! We still have seats (pews) available.
I just hope I get enough sleep between now and Sunday...
I complained yesterday that Chicago hadn't seen sunlight in almost a week. Ever the fount of helpful weather statistics, WGN pointed out that it made it the cloudiest start to a December since 1952. This streak had nothing on my winter break in 1991-92, when Chicago went 12 days without sunlight, or spring 2022, which had only 1 day of sunshine from March 21st through May 2nd. So the sun on my face this morning was delightful.
In other gloominess:
Finally, Block Club Chicago today posted almost exactly the same thing I have posted more than once: that Friday will be Chicago's earliest sunset of the year. I'm just sad they didn't cite Weather Now.
I mean, dayum:
Will it help? I don't know. People who have been conned have a hard time accepting contrary evidence, as any con artist knows. But we can hope this will reach the clearer-eyed in the swing states.
US Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), top contender for Dumbest Person in Congress since taking office earlier this year, finally released his hold on over 400 general and flag officer promotions he's held up for almost a year:
The hold, which Tuberville began in February, applied to all senior military promotions, and hundreds of officers were caught up in its net. As officers increasingly complained of the toll on military readiness and morale, and as a war raged in the Middle East, Tuberville faced increasing pressure from his fellow Republicans to drop the hold.
He has now narrowed his hold to the 10 or so promotions at the four-star rank. Tuberville said he relinquished the hold because he wanted to keep Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) from bringing up a vote to get around his maneuver. He did not receive any concessions he previously demanded, such as a change to the military funding bill to address the abortion policy.
Tuberville’s hold led to a remarkably public confrontation with some of his GOP colleagues, who staged a late-night attempt to promote the officers he had blocked, forcing him to personally object to each one. Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Todd C. Young (Ind.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), all veterans, implored Tuberville on the Senate floor to lift his hold for the sake of national security.
As of Tuesday, there had been 451 senior military officers nominated for a total of 455 jobs, he said.
Assuming the Senate confirms them all tonight or tomorrow, a lot of senior officers will have a lot of work. Families have to move, for starters, and not just the families of the 451 new admirals and generals. Each of those officers will pick a new staff, meaning a lot of captains and colonels get to pack their bags right before Christmas. And while all this happens, many of the new admirals and generals will spend tens of hours signing all the papers that no one could sign because their predecessors had to retire before they could start.
I wish I had a transcript of the conversation Mitch McConnell had with Tuberville to convince him to get out of the way. What a stupid asshole, causing this much disruption for so little gain.
Forget Christmas songs: Chicago does not have the most wonderful time of the year between mid-November and the beginning of January. We haven't seen the sun all month (well, I have, but I was in California), and we had a lovely thing we call "wintry mix" during morning rush hour. It looks like we might get up to 13°C on Friday, at the cost of an obscene amount of rain dumping on the Pacific Northwest as the warm air mass makes it way toward us.
Elsewhere:
And finally, Bruce Schneier believe generative AI will greatly enhance spying capabilities enabling spying on a scale never before imagined. "We could limit this capability. We could prohibit mass spying. We could pass strong data-privacy rules. But we haven’t done anything to limit mass surveillance. Why would spying be any different?"
With that, 5 straight days of overcast skies doesn't seem so bad.
Welcome to an extra stop on the Brews and Choos project.
Brewery: Olfactory Brewery & Blendery, 2245 3rd St., San Francisco
Train line: Caltrain, 22nd St
Time from Chicago: about 4½ hours by air
Distance from station: 800 m
I really liked Olfactory Brewery, and though I'd never visited before, I really liked Dogpatch. The place has a chill vibe, good beer, and dogs whenever they stop by.
I tried three beers: the (checks notes) Más o Menos Bien Czech Pilsner (4.6%), great balance, malty, crisp, light, great summer beer; the Pearly Baker's Best Bitter (4.6%), not too bitter at all, lingering finish, very drinkable; and the Orange Sunshine West Coast IPA (6.6%), big nose, Citra forward, big flavor, fruit, orange, banana, apricot, long finish, great beer.
Mina from Mendocino poured my beers, and told me a bit about the place. Sadly, I just missed their first anniversary party the weekend of Thanksgiving. I'll be back, though.
Beer garden? Small but covered
Dogs OK? Yes
Televisions? Many, kind of avoidable
Serves food? BYO
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes
Welcome to an extra stop on the Brews and Choos project.
Brewery: Fox Tale Fermentation Project, 120 E. Santa Clara St., San Jose, Calif.
Train line: Caltrain, San Jose Diridon
Time from Chicago: about 4½ hours by air
Distance from station: 1.5 km
I hadn't intended to visit Fox Tale, because a different brewery was closer to my hotel. But that brewery closed abruptly in November, though no one had updated its Google page. I'm glad I went to Fox Tale instead.
Owners Felipe Bravo and Wendy Neff don't just brew really unusual beers, they also ferment all kinds of foods. The menu has a list of fermented spreads you can put on an order of "just bread." I spread on some garlic-lemon hummus made from parsley oil and sunflower seeds that was truly tasty.
I also tried two beers. The Meadowtate, a rustic pale ale (5.2%) made from fir tips and Hallertau Blanc hops, had a lightly funky nose, tasted more like a lager than an ale, but had a complexity with notes I couldn't identify from the plants they added. The Super Sonic Bloom double-dry-hopped IPA (6.3%) had a really interesting, complex flavor, again with notes that eluded my vocabulary. I would try both them again.
I travel to the Bay Area a lot, as longtime readers know, so I will stop in Fox Tale again.
Beer garden? Sidewalk
Dogs OK? Outside only
Televisions? No
Serves food? Yes
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes
The weekend was exceedingly busy, so I haven't had time to post the two Brews & Choos reviews from California as promised. I hope to get to that today. Stay tuned.
I don't like getting up before dawn, even if it's 8am as far as my body cares. Except that getting up at 6am Pacific allowed me to get to SFO and through security in less than an hour. That's including showering, checking out of the hotel, catching the BART, and jumping on the airport tram. Cute hotel, too; I'll stay there again if I ever have to fly out of SFO at the ass crack of dawn.
Still an hour to boarding, though. I miss the days when I could get to an airport 45 minutes before departure without breaking a sweat. Though today, maybe I should have slept another half-hour.
Two Brews & Choos Extra Stops coming in the next few days. Plus, I hope, about 18 hours of sleep...
I just got back from a 35-minute walk around downtown San Jose, Calif., including a 1-km stretch of the Guadalupe River trail. My Garmin track gives you hints about how it went, particularly the 300 meters or so along the river under multiple overpasses including the California 87 freeway. And in fairness, it's sunny and 13°C, which doesn't suck for the first day of winter.
That said, this is the place where I joined the trail:
And this is the 87 underpass:
Not shown above, the homeless man launching large rocks onto the bike path, who only stopped when he finally made eye contact with me, which I didn't break until a support column broke it for me. And let me tell you, that eye contact had behind it every single one of my 30+ years of living in New York City and Chicago.
I mean, there are worse places to be homeless than in the Bay Area. But my 30-minute walk through multiple homeless encampments and god-awful car-centric urban infrastructure brought clarity to arguments I've read about California's housing and property-tax policies. For the most progressive state in the union, California has the worst land use. The Bay Area has a huge homeless population only in small part due to the weather. I walked past a 3-bedroom, 163 m² house 25 minutes from downtown San Jose last night, for sale at $1.8 million. A comparable house in my neighborhood would cost about $900k, and it's a 15-minute train ride to the Loop in one of the most walkable places in the world. (The $1.8-million house is just not walkable.)
One more thing. My Clipper Card has $3.05 on it, down from $20 yesterday because it took two trains to get from SFO Airport to San Jose (still much better than renting a car!). But I thought ahead, and set to auto-reload when it goes below $10. Did you know that it takes at least 24 hours to reload a Clipper Card? So I must ask the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, what the hell is the point of the auto-reload feature if it allows the Clipper Card to bottom out, forcing you to reload at a kiosk while waiting for the f****g auto-reload?
The MTC claims "[i]f you set up Auto-Reload for cash value, when your balance falls below $10, Clipper will automatically reload you card when you pay your next fare," but will it happen today? I guess I'll find out when I go to lunch later.
Unrelated: My Garmin watch said I got eight hours of "poor, non-restorative" sleep last night, and "you may feel more tired or irritable today." Nah, I'm fine.