The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

What is it about 20-somethings?

More data for my analysis:

We're in the thick of what one sociologist calls "the changing timetable for adulthood." Sociologists traditionally define the "transition to adulthood" as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early '70s.

The whole idea of milestones, of course, is something of an anachronism; it implies a lockstep march toward adulthood that is rare these days. Kids don’t shuffle along in unison on the road to maturity. They slouch toward adulthood at an uneven, highly individual pace. ...

Even if some traditional milestones are never reached, one thing is clear: Getting to what we would generally call adulthood is happening later than ever. But why? ... To some, what we're seeing is a transient epiphenomenon, the byproduct of cultural and economic forces. To others, the longer road to adulthood signifies something deep, durable and maybe better-suited to our neurological hard-wiring. What we’re seeing, they insist, is the dawning of a new life stage — a stage that all of us need to adjust to.

I'm trying to work up a theory about people born after 1980, which seems to be the cut-off for a host of behaviors and attitudes that are alien to me and my contemporaries. I'm not sure how on-point this article is, but I'm thinking about it.

Miss Universe

Via, of all the improbable sources, Microsoft's Raymond Chen: photos of and commentaries about the Miss Universe National Costumes entries (part 1 and part 2) that made my eyes water from laughing so hard. Sample commentary: "If [Miss Britain] really wanted to be provocative, she should have shown more skin and had her sash say 'BEEFEATER.'"

In fairness, I have to believe that the women involved felt they had no choice but to comply with the demented and sad whims of the costume designers assigned to them. I mean, it's simply not plausible that all of them could be the Carrie Prejeans of couture.

Still not dead

In fact, I'm turning...um, some number of years old in 17 days and a few minutes.

Then, I might be dead. Right now I'm just working 13-hour days. At least you have the ParkerCam.

One year on

I can scarcely believe I've spent (only!) a year in the CCMBA already. We started last August 14th in London, and we're already almost done with our fifth term. I'd write more, but I've already spent most of today working.

About that workload: for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that I'm a nerd, and not most of which is that I've been a consultant for most of my professional life, I've tracked the time spent on this program. So far, including getting to and from the residencies, time in class, pre-reading, homework, team meetings, etc., I've spent 1,157 hours on it. For those keeping score at home, that's almost 7 months of full-time work. This is in addition to the actual full-time work I've had to do during the same period.

I honestly have no idea what I'll do with all that time when I'm finally done with the program.

I am, however, done for the day. Done. Except for that Operations paper I need to finish. But it's not due until tonight, so I'm off with Parker to go watch the Blue Angels, which have just buzzed me 200 meters directly above my house.

Enough already

The Chicago Tribune's Tim Skilling asks, "Sick of the Heat"? YES, dammit:

A heat advisory continues for most of the Chicagoland area today along with an excessive heat warning for Cook County. This is the second straight day with highs in the 90s and tomorrow should extend that steamy streak to three days. The combination of heat and humidity will make it feel like 98 to 105 degrees today.

This level of heat can be dangerous, so when can you tell if the heat is making you sick?

He goes on to discuss heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and heatstroke. But even absent those problems, the heat is definitely making me sick. Chicago has had 18 days in a row over 32°C; I haven't had my windows open all month; and today we set a new weather record, 43 consecutive days over 27°C.

It's much worse in Europe:

Russia’s record heat wave may already have taken 15,000 lives and cost the economy $15 billion as fires and drought ravage the country.

At least 7,000 people have probably died in Moscow as a result of the heat, and the nationwide death toll is likely to be at least twice that figure, according to Jeff Masters, co- founder of Weather Underground, a 15-year-old Internet weather service that gathers information from around the world.

Good thing this is just a fluke, and has nothing to do with anthropogenic climate change, which is a myth concocted by a conspiracy of liberal kabals.

They really are looking out for you

I got an odd bit of mail today, in an official USPS envelope with a handwritten address. It was a check. A check I wrote. To the State Department.

Apparently, my passport renewal check got swept up in a pile of bills and other envelopes I dropped into the local mailbox. I didn't even realize I'd mailed the check without an envelope. And I remember thinking, as I reprinted the check a couple days later, "crap, another one fell behind my desk. I'll get it later."

Thank you, anonymous Chicago postal worker, for sending my check back.

Even better, I got an email from the State Department today saying they've completed my passport renewal already. I mailed it in on the 29th, without requesting expedited service. They sent me an email when they received it on the 3rd, and now, only one week later, they're done. Huh.

Let's review. (This is especially important to you ignorant starve-the-beast neo-Hobbsians out there.) Two public-service agencies, one quasi-public and the other a de facto (and, actually, de jure) part of the U.S. Government, apparently have conscientious, hard-working employees who do their jobs better than expected.

That they do this in the face of deliberate, malicious actions by elected officials only underscores how wrong the myth of "government bureaucracy" really is. In fact, government (and postal!) workers, like any others, come in many varieties, but mostly they just want to do their jobs well.

So here's a challenge to the right-wingers who read The Daily Parker—especially the one running for public office: can you tell me how your life would, on balance, be better without government?

...

Keep thinking. I've got time. And I've got my check back, and I'll have my passport Tuesday.

How to run a parking system

Via one of my classmates, and the NPR Planet Money blog, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority has started testing demand pricing for parking spaces:

The system will use electronic sensors to measure real-time demand for parking spaces, and adjust prices accordingly. When there are lots of empty spaces, it will be cheap to park. When spaces are hard to find, rates will be higher.

The range in prices will be huge: from 25 cents an hour to a maximum of $6 an hour, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority.

Eventually, drivers will be able to find open parking spaces by going online, checking their mobile phones or reading for new electronic signs that will be posted throughout the city.

That's how to run a parking system. Not, as some might suspect, by leasing all the meters to a for-profit company which immediately raises prices to the point where people don't park on some streets at all any more.