The stuffed vet that Danielle gave Parker a couple weeks ago still lives on—though empty of stuffing and looking a bit haggard:
And Parker is live today. Astute viewers will notice a patch of something on his right hip. That's mud from this morning in the park. So tonight, he gets his quarterly bath.
The current occupant and his Vice really are the worst pair ever, but achieving such lofty depths took some cunning, perserverence and a shooting incident. I mention this because on this day in 1804, the second-worst VPOTUS ever shot Alexander Hamilton to death—and the latter manifestly did not apologize to the former. (Had Hamilton done so, Cheney would have had another obstacle to slither under in his quest for the "worst ever" title.)
It's hot. Damn hot. Real hot. So yesterday afternoon I only spent about an hour at Tommy's, and made sure Parker had water:
Why did I schlepp a bowl from home? Because while Nevin's staff very happily provide him with an aluminum take-out container full of water, Parker tends to dump the water out and then shred the container. Using the Fiesta bowl he's used to prevents the shredding part.
Apparently just having me tell him not to worry causes Parker not to worry. Last night I watched the Evanston fireworks display from Northwestern University's landfill, less than 2 km from the launch site. Whereas the night before Parker nearly went out of his skin because of my neighbors' Roman candles, the official (and very loud) city display didn't distract him from trying to catch fireflies.
Via Bruce Schneier, a former British military bomb-disposal operator offers some thoughts about the clowns who completely failed to bomb anything in the UK last week:
If these guys at the weekend really were anything to do with al-Qaeda, all one can really say is that it looks as though the War on Terror is won. This whole hoo-ha kicked off, remember, with 9/11: an extremely effective attack. Then we had the Bali and Madrid bombings, not by any measure as shocking and bloody but still nasty stuff. Then we had London 7/7, a further significant drop in bodycount but still competently planned and executed (Not too many groups would have been able to mix up that much peroxide-based explosive first try without an own goal).
...
Remember, this country carried on successfully for six years with hundreds—thousands, sometimes—of tons of explosives raining down on it every night for six years, delivered by very competent Germans who often died doing that job. The civilian death toll was around 60,000 according to most sources; the equivalent of 20 9/11s, more than three for every year of the war. Civilisation was not brought down. Germany and Japan withstood even greater violence, and survived it too.
Biking yesterday I hit a new PR for spot speed: 54.0 km/h, beating the old record of 53.4 km/h I set last August 26th. Whee!
Does it seem odd to anyone that a boat from land-locked Switzerland won this year's America's Cup last night?
My brave guard dog is curled up at my feet because of the loud noises outside. He's weathered thunderstorms, my driving, and my best friend's 3-year-old son. Fireworks, too much for him.
I think he's wishing he were Canadian right now.
Long-time readers will know that I rarely post personal news here (and I'm sure some thank me for it), but this one is good: it appears we've sold our condo. In the present real-estate market, that's really good news. It sold about three months faster than I expected (but three months slower than we'd hoped.) So, barring the buyer getting hit by a bus, that's one huge thing we no longer have to fret over.