Items by Tag

Yesterday evening at Spiteful Brewing: I swear that dog would consider leaving me for a taco. But she seemed pretty happy to be home: Then this afternoon we took a walk with her friend Kelsey at the St James Farm Preserve out in Suburbistan: The weather was pretty good for January, and the dogs got at least 40 minutes of off-leash time. They also discovered frozen horse poop, which fortunately they didn't eat a lot of. I do need to talk to Cassie about her breath, though. Tonight we're on the couch, and...

The forecast as late as yesterday morning called for 25-50 mm of snow. We got over 100 mm: Of course, someone loves snow a lot more than I do: And she made a new friend: Fortunately, I don't have anywhere particular to be today, so I don't have to drive in this stuff. And looking ahead to the revised prediction of 3°C and rain on Wednesday, I expect most of the snow will melt before I wake up Thursday morning—just in time for it to freeze solid as the temperature falls to -9°C Thursday evening and -14°C...

We got 220 mm (8.6 in) of snow at O'Hare by 6am today, which means the storm dumped more on us than on any November day in history (earlier reported as the worst in almost 10 years): As of 6 p.m., 6.9 inches (175 mm) of snow had fallen at O’Hare and 5.5 (140 mm) at Midway, making it the heaviest single-day snowfall since Nov. 21 2015, when 7 inches fell at O’Hare, according to the National Weather Service. O’Hare had been predicting its busiest Thanksgiving week ever, despite the FAA recently lifting...

It's nice when you can plan for severe weather. It's snowed nearly all day, lightly at first but turning a lot worse after noon. Since the temperature has stayed right around -1°C it wasn't a problem to give Cassie some off-leash time at the local park: She even made new friends: And you'd think after 9 hours of snowfall, my rain gauge might have registered some precipitation. I wonder what the trouble could be? As of noon we had 76 mm of snow officially at O'Hare. I expect it'll be more than double...

I miss my old friend. My new friend is pretty great, though.

As threatened yesterday, we got a few rounds of lake-effect snow overnight and this morning. Since not all the leaves have fallen yet, it still looks pretty: And of course, one member of my household really, really, really likes a fresh snowfall: Right now we've got about 100 mm on the ground. That will melt quickly as the forecast calls for above-freezing temperatures from tomorrow morning onward, reaching possibly 18°C on Saturday. I hope so, because I've got a 20 km hike planned for the day, and I'd...

Ain't she sweet:

Butters the Engineer sometimes gets too lazy even to get her whole body onto a bed that's twice her size: Two more days of wrangling two dogs with opposite understandings of how to behave on a leash.

I have mentioned how odd Butters can be. Part of her oddness seems to come from her being a little princess who craves comfort to the exclusion of propriety. Exhibit the first, this morning, less than a minute after I stripped my bed: I had to pick her up to get her to move. Exhibit the second, yesterday afternoon, rearranging the dog bed in my office for...reasons: Exhibit the third, last night, getting quite annoyed that Cassie has trouble respecting her personal space: The poor dear suffers so. 

I took the dramatic beagle and Cassie to Spiteful* yesterday afternoon. Butters got more pats than Cassie did. Perhaps it's this face? This afternoon we took a half-hour walk through the local park because the weather is absolutely perfect. Whenever I stopped to try to photograph the two dogs, they immediately went in separate directions, so this is the best I could do: The girls are now sunning themselves on my front porch, I'm up in my office coding away, and I've got chicken soup going in the slow...

Butters has stayed at Château Punzun many times. And yet, I swear she's getting stranger, starting with this burrowing behavior: And her engineering: Why the dog bed needs folding over and rearranging, I have no idea. I keep flattening it after Butters leaves, and she keeps doing this. Of course, Cassie has opinions about me giving Butters attention: And Butters is definitely not a morning dog. After showering and getting dressed, with Cassie checking on my progress several times, it took two hands and...

As planned, Cassie and I walked a lot yesterday: 13 km total, in 2¼ hours. The temperature at Inner Drive Technology WHQ got up to 26.9°C, and 30.6°C officially at O'Hare; i.e., a warm, July day, except for the sun setting just past 6:30 pm. As good as yesterday was for me, and however great it was for you, I guarantee Cassie's day was better. Did you get to splash in a kiddie pool? By the time we'd walked 11½ kilometers, and plopped ourselves at Spiteful Brewing, Cassie did what she always does after...

I figured, maybe today I'll lead with something fun instead of the usual: Organizers report that they are close to finalizing a deal with the Chicago Park District to open the second-largest dog park in the city, directly adjacent to Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters 1.0. (Of course, I haven't lived there in 20 years and they don't allow dogs, so this is merely something interesting.) Matthew Yglesias pointed this morning his readers to "a common-sense Democrat manifesto" that he wrote last...

After waking up, turning on a bunch of lights, and throwing on clothes, I opened my front door and indicated to Cassie that she should go to the little patch of grass just outside and do her morning job. She pranced out the door, stopped, turned around, and walked right back inside. This is why: I'm hoping it subsides enough to take her at least to the street before too long. One forecast thinks it'll end by 10am but the National Weather Service thinks it may just get slightly less stormy by then. I...

One of the things I like about dogsitting Butters is her ability to sleep. I'm envious. This dog doesn't have a care in the world: She also follows the Rule of Cat: "If it fits, I sits:" She also snores, which didn't bother me at all until about 5:15 this morning. She goes home this evening, though.

Cassie and I met up with our friends yesterday for a long (7.3 km) walk down the Prairie Path. Not much else to report, other than we had a really great walk and got lots of sleep last night. I didn't take a lot of photos simply because I spent nearly two hours looking at dog butts: They are very cute dog butts, but still...butts. Also, thanks to my very energetic Weimaraner mix, I got over 100,000 steps in the seven days ending yesterday. She does like her walkies.

Just clearing my photo backlog. From the 23rd: And from yesterday: Today we're trooping out to Suburbistan for a walk with Cassie's old friend Kelsey. Updates as conditions warrant.

Cassie's stitches came out and her cone came off this afternoon: Tomorrow she goes back to day camp. This weekend, if the weather allows it, we'll go to the dog beach. We are both so freaking happy not to have the cone anymore. Also, her left ear doesn't look as out of place as I'd worried. We'll see how it looks when all her fur grows back in a couple of weeks.

Leading off the news this afternoon, Black Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne died today at age 76. I am surprised he lasted this long, as he didn't exactly take care of himself over the years. In other news: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has stopped the legislative process of the United States rather than vote on releasing details of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with the OAFPOTUS. Adam Kinzinger details the quiet cruelty of the OAFPOTUS's droogs. Tom Nichols points out that the...

Today is Cassie's 7th birthday, and it breaks my heart that she has to spend it in the Cone of Shame: (I'll clean this photo up before the end of the day.) She has adapted to the cone just fine, of course, and it'll come off on Wednesday. I could potentially take it off today, but I think it's important to wait until her stitches come out. I just don't want her to hook a suture and open up the incision. Also, to further ruin her birthday, I'm at the office downtown until just after noon. We'll have...

I'm glad to report that Cassie's face looks pretty much like it did before surgery. But for the next few days she's going to look like something out of Buffy. Here's the before, last night: And here's a few minutes ago: Her left ear is now a bit back of her right ear and slightly closer, but it does look like the surgeon did a great job taking out only the minimum. Right now she's napping on the couch. We'll try going for a walk before dinner, where we'll work on her not smacking me in the bum with the...

What a weekend. I mean, for the world; for me, yesterday included vacuuming the house and my car, and taking Cassie on 2½ hours of walks plus sitting outside at Begyle to get pats from random strangers. (To be clear, Cassie got random pats; I did not.) We started at Horner Park: And stopped briefly at Burning Bush, where Cassie was under the table even before I got my beer: I had some stuff about the political events over the weekend, but I'll put that off until later.

Cassie enjoyed some couch time with me yesterday evening: Eventually she decided on a full-bagel nap:

First, there is no update on Cassie. She had a quick consult today, but they didn't schedule the actual diagnostics that she needs, so we'll go back first thing Tuesday. She does have a small mast cell tumor on her head, but the location makes her oncologist optimistic for treatment. I'll post again next week after the results come back from her spleen and lymph node aspirations. Meanwhile, in the real world, things lurch forward and backward as the OAFPOTUS's political trajectory slides by millimeters...

I've never walked around the Edgebrook neighborhood in Chicago, and I've kept meaning to. So today, with clear, cool weather and nothing pressing to do, I took Cassie for a 40-minute walk up there. I expect I'll have more interesting things to say tomorrow. The sun doesn't set for almost four hours, and we'll have twilight past 8:30, so I think I'm going to take Cassie out for another walk.

Before we even set out yesterday, I discovered evidence of a cardinal nest in my back patio. The evidence was this guy and his mate dive-bombing me when I went out to check the Inner Drive Technology weather station: Later, we took the most direct route to the Horner Park Dog Park, where I met up with a friend and Cassie met a bunch of new friends: Altogether, Cassie got 3 hours of exercise, and we stayed outside for about 6½ hours total. We won't get anywhere near that today, unfortunately, but...

I had a lot going on today, so I only have a couple of minutes to note these stories: Not only is the OAFPOTUS's "new" (actually quite well-used) Qatari Boeing 747-8 a huge bribe, it will cost taxpayers almost as much as one of the (actually) new VC-25B airplanes the Air Force is currently building, as it completely fails to meet any of the requirements for survivability and security. (“You might even ask why Qatar no longer wants the aircraft," former USAF acquisitions chief Andrew Hunter said. "And...

The Chicago Park District periodically burns conservation areas throughout the city because the prairie we built the city on evolved with fire. Last fall, they burned some of the prairie-reclamation areas in Winnemac Park, close to my house: Here's the same area yesterday, clearly benefitting from the burn: And just because everyone loves her, here's a photo of Cassie enjoying the random pats and treats she got at Spiteful Brewing about two hours after we passed through the park: Happy Monday.

Taking 90 minutes to finish a novel this afternoon doesn't seem to have lessened my fatigue from the last couple of days. And now I'm off to a "friend-raiser" for an organization I've supported in the past. As I'm also dogsitting Butters again, there's a good possibility that I'll have cute beagle photos tomorrow. For the next few hours, though, I need to smile and shake hands. I hope the passed apps are good...

Cassie and I are taking a moment after a visit to Horner Park, where she met a bunch of new friends: Note that the woman in the photo is not the beagle's human, which the beagle finds irrelevant if she can get her snoot deeper into that bag. We have stopped for a moment to enjoy a beer (Hazy Sunday IPA) and crack-soaked popcorn at Burning Bush near the park. I feel no urgency about anything at the moment. It's a good day.

Yesterday I had non-stop stuff from waking up until going to sleep. Today it's sunny and seasonably cool. In other words: as soon as I take a quick nap, I'm taking Cassie for a decent walk, then not doing anything productive until tomorrow. Enjoy the weekend.

One of my work projects has a monthly release these days, so right now I'm watching a DevOps pipeline run through about 400 time-consuming integration tests before I release this month's update. That gives me some time to catch up on all this: The New York Times has a long explanation of how the Clown Prince of X took over the federal bureaucracy. As I and others have warned for years, the OAFPOTUS has embarked on a truly unprecedented program of bribery and corruption that we may never recover from....

Butters, possibly traumatized by Cassie and me leaving her alone for almost half an hour yesterday, has decided to stake out my office: Incidentally, this is what Cassie and I walked past in the local park yesterday: We've had progressively warmer days since the temperature bottomed out Monday morning. We might even get above freezing today! I hope so, because I need a 5 km walk to meet a Garmin challenge this weekend. (Cassie will help with that; Butters, not so much.)

Yesterday afternoon, houseguest Butters found a sunbeam: This morning, she found a corner of the couch: Then this afternoon, after I took both her and Cassie on a let's-sniff-everything 15-minute walk around the block, I decided to take Cassie directly on a let's-get-real-exercise 25-minute walk. I could hear Butters protesting this action halfway down the block on our departure, and also halfway down the block on our return. My poor neighbors. She hasn't left me alone all afternoon, either. She needs...

Last night I released Weather Now v5.0.9183, with a few bug fixes including a patch to the Gazetteer that recognizes the UK's four constituent parts (example). I've spent a few evenings the past week and a half fixing everything I could think of in the Gazetteer code, plus integrating with Azure Maps to allow me to correct time zones and parent places. Then, starting around 5pm yesterday, I re-imported the existing data from fresh sources, including the NCDC update Monday and the FAA update...

My friends have gone to a tropical beach for the week, which means I get a second dog for a few days. She has been here many times before (most recently on Saturday), so she knows the drill. Still, five minutes after her people left, Butters seemed resigned to never seeing them again: By the time I woke up this morning, however, she seemed to have settled in just fine: Walking the two of them together in this cold doesn't actually work, however. Butters hates cold weather; Cassie loves it. So Cassie...

Cassie didn't like how I came home late (8pm!) last night, but she forgave me. She really is the sweetest dog:

So far today, Cassie has gotten almost exactly 10 km of walks, including a swing through the Horner Park DFA. This is a happy dog: We also passed by a controlled burn in Winnemac Park: They burn out the natural prairie areas periodically to help them grow back stronger. My only concern is that I believe there are several families of coyotes in the park. I hope they didn't lose their homes, or worse.

Today may wind up being the last nice day of 2024, even though long-range forecasts suggest next week may have unseasonably warm and dry weather as well. Yesterday had nicer weather than today, with the temperature hitting 13°C under sunny skies. Yesterday was also the monthly Dog Day at Morton Arboretum in Chicago's southwest suburbs. And one of my friends has a membership. We took the girls on the longest possible loop through the grounds, 8.7 km, in just over an hour and a half: Sadly, we were so...

We had our coldest morning since February 17th today, cold enough that Cassie didn't want to linger sniffing her favorite shrubberies. The temperature bottomed out at 7:45 am, hitting -8.6°C at IDTWHQ, a cold we haven't experienced since 8:25 am on February 17th. O'Hare hit -10°C at 8 am, also the first time since 8 am February 17th. Tonight, going into the first day of astronomical winter, the forecast predicts it'll get even colder before warming up a bit on Monday. Unrelated to the weather are these...

I just finished a 75-minute open-level French test as part of a QA study that Duolingo invited me to participate in. What an eye-opener. And quelle épuisement! The test started well enough but got a lot harder as it went on, for two principal reasons. First, the order of sections went precisely in the order of my abilities: reading, writing, listening, speaking. Turns out I read French a lot better than I write it, write it better than I understand it, and speak it like a reject from a Pink Panther...

The forecast still predicts today will be the hottest day of the year. Last night at IDTWHQ the temperature got all the way down to 26.2°C right before sunrise. We have a heat advisory until 10pm, by which time the thunderstorms should have arrived. Good thing Cassie and I got a bit of extra time on our walk to day camp this morning. Elsewhere in the world: The Fifth Circuit has ruled that broad, geofenced searches violate the 4th Amendment, contradicting the Fourth Circuit, and setting up a likely...

Funny thing about visiting the West Coast: staying awake past 10pm is not fun, and I wake up at 5am. Plus, Hazel decided that I was her person last night, so at various points of the night I had a 20-kilo pittie in the crook of my knees or pushing me off the bed. (Note to Cassie: this is why you sleep on the couch.) We have typical Seattle weather today, so we'll be dodging raindrops, and possible making a Brews & Choos visit. Updates as conditions warrant.

I mentioned that the weather today is amazing, but yesterday's was also pretty good (if a bit humid). Cassie and I walked about 18 km throughout the day and spent most of the rest of the day outside. But Cassie's day started pretty well even before we set out: Sadly, neither of us could get to the last little bit of peanut butter at the bottom of the jar. (I labeled it "dog" because no one wants to get her peanut butter confused with the jar for people.) We trundled off to the Horner Park DFA early in...

Cassie just got a personal record for longest single walk by distance: 11.07 km in 1:39:51. I had to go back all the way to the week I got her to find the preceding longest distance, which turns out was also (and remains) the longest single duration without stopping: 9.62 km in 1:41:12 on 21 March 2021, two days after her Gotcha Day. Our very longest single logged walk (2:31), which included a 58-minute, 4 km meander through Lakewood-Balmoral to Puptown, thence the dog beach, then a 5 km amble home, was...

Butters Poochface has gone home, Cassie and I have taken about an hour of walks so far, and the temperature hasn't yet cracked 25°C. I'm about to upend Cassie's life, though. It's bath time. Even one night boarding can create an awful smell. Wish me luck. Last time I bathed her, Cassie accepted her fate with grace and humility. The time before that she...didn't.

Yesterday Cassie got to sample whatever she found on the ground at Ribfest, but she hoped for so much more: And today, we spent an hour walking around St James Farm out in Suburbistan with one of her friends: We're just about to head back to Ribfest for Day 2. I may not get to all the vendors this year, but I think I'll get to the good ones.

Cassie got a bad result from the lab yesterday: a mild giardia infection. It's a good-news, bad-news thing: The bad news, obviously, is that she can't go to day camp (meaning I can't spend a full day in my downtown office) for at least a week. The good news is that she's mostly asymptomatic, unlike the last guy. So we just went to the vet again, got another $110 bill for dewormer. But at least she wasn't crated for three hours with her own diarrhea. Poor Parker. In other good news, bad news stories...

Welcome to stop #104 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Demo Brewing, 1763 W. Berteau Ave., ChicagoTrain line: Union Pacific North, Ravenswood. (Also CTA Brown Line, Irving Park) Time from Chicago: 16 minutes (zone 2)Distance from station: 1.1 km (400 m from CTA) The newest brewery on Malt Row opened March 29th just 2 km from Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters and less than 500 meters from the CTA. I had a lot going on in April so I didn't get to check it out until last weekend. Cassie came...

Cassie and I just got back from her vet, with a good 2 km walk in each direction and treats at both ends. The semi-annual wellness check was only $88, and pronounced Cassie in perfect health. Even her weight (25 kg) is exactly what it should be, so I can start adding a little kibble to her meals if we walk a lot. Of course, the heartworm pills were $230 and the fecal test was $107, so not everything about the checkup was great. Le sigh. Also, it's warm today: 27°C for both walks, which is more like June...

I'm almost done with the new feature I mentioned yesterday (day job, unfortunately, so I can't describe it further), so while the build is running, I'm queuing these up: Philip Bump analyzes the New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan's dismissal of the XPOTUS's bogus immunity claim. Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson (D) told reporters he's done everything he promised to do when he took office a year ago, at which point the reporters no doubt collectively cocked their eyebrows. Molly White doesn't think...

Cassie and I adopted each other three years ago today. And yet, she remains one of my most frustrating photographic subjects: Regardless, I got really lucky when I found her at PAWS. I hope she feels the same way.

My flight from Munich landed at Charlotte about 40 minutes early, and I got through customs and back through TSA in 34 minutes. Sweet! And now I'm watching the plane that will take me to Chicago pull into my gate. Sweet! Really, I just want to hug my dog and get 10 hours of sleep tonight. I have a feeling one of those things will happen and the other won't.

Since I learned how to drive a car, I've wanted to pick up a BMW in Munich. The European Delivery program allowed Americans to buy a made-to-order car at their local dealer, pick it up in Munich, drive it around Europe for up to 6 months, drop it off at an Atlantic port (Antwerp, I think), and drive it home from your local dealer about 12 weeks after that. Because of tax incentives from the German government and other factors, the purchase price of the car and delivery to your local dealer cost almost...

The weather forecast for Munich doesn't look horrible, but doesn't look all that great either, at least until Saturday. So I'll probably do more indoorsy things Thursday and Friday, though I have tentatively decided to visit Dachau on Thursday, rain or not. You know, to start my trip in such a way that nothing else could possibly be worse. Meanwhile, I've added these to yesterday's crop of stories to read at the airport: Deciding to be "stabbed, to live to see another day," the Republican-controlled...

I'm still not 100% over this horrible bout of bronchitis that started more than two weeks ago, so I spent one more evening chilling on the couch drinking lots of water. But these two cuties seemed perfectly happy with that plan: They did get about an hour and 25 minutes of walkies yesterday, some at Cassie's speed, and some at Butters'. Beagles will keep up with the pack when goaded, but Butters prefers a more thorough investigation of all the smells in the immediate vicinity. It seems the bronchitis...

Another sprint has ended. My hope for a boring release has hit two snags: first, it looks like one of the test artifacts in the production environment that our build pipeline depends on has disappeared (easily fixed); and second, my doctor's treatment for this icky bronchitis I've had the past two weeks works great at the (temporary) expense of normal cognition. (Probably the cough syrup.) Plus, Cassie and I have a houseguest: But like my head, the rest of the world keeps spinning: A 3-judge panel on...

My five-and-a-half-hour-delayed flight got to Seattle in the usual amount of time, but the door-to-door duration—my house to my friend's house—set a new record for domestic travel: 15 hours and 20 minutes. That's the longest travel duration for any flying trip since I had a long connection going from Chicago to London two years ago and longer than any domestic trip I can recall. But at the end of the voyage, Hazel was very glad to see me: My friend has an all-day meeting that neither of us is...

Butters goes home tomorrow. If she understood the concept of "future," she might look forward to seeing her family again. This morning, however, she did not like getting snowed upon, will not like getting snowed upon after lunch, and will quite happily bogart Cassie's blanket until then, thank you very much: Yesterday I stopped by two breweries for the Brews & Choos Project; reviews coming later today and early tomorrow.

Yesterday's full day with our houseguest went fine. As one might predict, the dogs have discovered each other's toys, and have stolen them. Cassie started it: Butters definitely has an "oh, yeah?" look on her face while guarding Cassie's Kong: She's settled right in, though. They both snuggled with me while I caught up on Loki and digested leftovers last night:

Some friends have gone out of town, and I'm traveling in a week, so we arranged a dog swap. This is one of Cassie's friends, Butters Poochface: Butters is quite a solid beagle. Cassie met Butters shortly after I adopted her, and they go to school together, so Butters knows my house and Cassie pretty well. She still goggled for a good five minutes when she saw my back patio this morning: Between Cassie's energy and Butters' stubbornness, walking the two has a few challenges. But they get along just fine....

An old friend stopped by today on her way from the East Coast to the Pacific Northwest, and insisted we take our dogs to the dog beach. It's 14°C and sunny. What do you think I did? Yeah: Fortunately it's the middle of the sprint, and I have a metric shit ton (a shite tonne) of PTO hours, so this was my afternoon. If you're my boss and reading this...I swear, this is not what I planned for the day.

Not shown: she's snoring.

Happy fin de Septembre, the last day of the 3rd quarter and possibly the last really summer-like weekend of 2023. At the moment it's a perfectly sunny 21.4°C at Inner Drive WHQ with a perfect forecast of 24°C. The plan today: walk 4 km to a friend's house because her kids want to see Cassie, then walk 3 km to the Horner Park DFA, then another 5 km to Spiteful Brewing's Oktoberfest, then walk the last kilometer home and plotz. I am confident both Cassie and I will succeed in all aspects of this plan....

Somehow, it's already the end of September. I realize this happens with some predictability right around this time of year, but it still seems odd to me. Of course, most of the world seems odd these days: As we careen into the 4th Republican-caused government shutdown in the last 30 years, we might want to reflect on the fact that only 68,000 people elected the 8 clowns most responsible for this year's bullshit. New York Times editorial board member Alex Kingsbury wants people to keep top of mind the...

National Geographic examines the evidence that pets help you stay healthy: Among the established benefits is that pet/owner interactions can enhance one’s quality of life. Research shows that playing with a dog can improve one's mood, that reading to a pet can help children with learning development issues, that pets can lessen levels of the stress-related hormone cortisol in their owners, and that having a pet can increase one's physical activity levels, according to the American Heart Association....

I'm just over a week from performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, so as I try to finish a feature that turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought, I'm hearing opera choruses in my head. Between rehearsals and actual work, I might never get to read any of these items: Jesse Wegman describes how to tell a political prosecution from a real one, which would be great except the people doing the political ones don't read the Times. Meaghan O'Rourke points to...

She's not quite middle-aged, but she does look like a confident, mature dog:

Between check-out and my departure for Vienna I have about 2 hours to kill. I've had my caffeine for the day already, so I'm not hanging out in Wenceslas Square occupying space at a cafe. Instead, I decamped to the park across the street from the train station: This might actually be the best thing I've done all week. And whether because either Prague has lax leash laws or no one cares about them, several random dogs have said hi today. I'll be back here soon.

Cassie got about 4 hours of walks yesterday, plus about 9 additional hours of outdoor time. I got sunburned. So I didn't have any time to post, but I did have time to get side-eye from this girl: That's Butters, a beagle whose every look is side-eye. It's quite a talent. "If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live."—Lin Yutang

This weekend involved about 5 hours of dog walks, including 2 with another dog, a disruption to Cassie's environments (new bookshelves, details later), an art fair, and my friend's two toddlers (ages 2 and 4). We're both pooped. Cassie literally. I know what she ate yesterday, and I'm so glad I got to see it again today.

Cassie does not like staying inside because of the rain:

First, on the flight from Dallas to San Francisco, this handsome boi slept peacefully on the floor four rows ahead of me: Bane is a malamute mix, 11 years old, and here in the SFO baggage claim area, very tired. Monday morning, I walked over to the Ferry Terminal on my way to the Caltrain terminal at 4th and King. This guy posed long enough for me to compose and take a shot: I don't know his name, or even whether he's male. Sorry. Later, in Palo Alto, I stumbled upon this historic site: That's the...

I broke away from my last day of work in 2022 around 2:15 to take Cassie on a 3½-kilometer walk. It's 14°C (!!!) right now so almost every snowflake has melted into a thin layer of mud over the entire city. No problems, so far; I keep old towels by the front door and Cassie expects me to wipe her paws when we come in. Today I learned that I need to close the gate at the top of my stairs whenever we go outside on a day like this. I learned this while chasing Cassie up the stairs and through the living...

Remember the stew I made Wednesday? It turned out one of my best: And I had a lot of leftovers: Remember Cassie getting a long walk to the big dog park Thursday? We did the same thing yesterday: And after dinner, I got this rare (inverted for your convenience) photo of Cassie getting a belly rub: Today, however, it's rainy and cold, so we will have less walking—but possibly more couch/belly-rub time.

I'm not quite done with my kitchen, master bedroom, or master bathroom, but I have absolutely no energy left: The big spikes around 3pm were the concert I performed in this afternoon. So, I'm going to do a couple of low-stress tasks (swapping out the thermostat, disconnecting the A/V equipment) and then I'm going to sit on the couch with Cassie and try not to doze off before 10.

Cassie, on Thursday night, not letting me go to bed: You're welcome.

To Cassie's great joy, we went back to the Montrose Beach DFA this afternoon: She is now asleep on the couch, where I expect she will remain until dinner time, which is imminent.

Cassie got almost 2 hours of walkies before 9am with a return trip to the Montrose  Beach Dog Friendly Area: She also got a bath, because even though Lake Michigan supplies millions of people with fresh water, we don't drink it right out of the lake for very good reasons. Also, I did not take 540 photos like last time. Maybe tomorrow...? And if you're listening to "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" on NPR this morning (and tomorrow morning in some markets), I was there Thursday night:

One of Cassie's old friends, who moved away about a year ago, has come for a 4-day visit. Sophie seems to enjoy being back in her old 'hood: Sophie is very much a potato. Couch, bed, floor; still a potato. I just walked the two of them together around the block, and that is the last time I will attempt it. Cassie pulls forward, Sophie pulls backward, human is unhappy. But Sophie and Cassie get along really well, in part because they both get along with everyone really well. So it'll be a fun few days.

Cassie and I are at a lovely ranch in Kentucky where tomorrow she'll meet goats and tonight I've met a 1990s-era Internet connection. Well, I didn't come here to surf the Web, so I'll just deal. Meanwhile, I'm sitting outside listening to frogs. Lots of frogs. And a hound somewhere down the road.

A year ago today, Cassie and I adopted each other, which was obvious even on the drive home from PAWS: Right now she's sulking on the couch because she didn't get breakfast this morning. That's because in about 15 minutes she's going to the vet to get her teeth cleaned. Pobre perrita.

Someone might need to have a word with HR. Yesterday, my office helper accomplished this: After speaking to her about this performance gap, we got this today: Clearly we have some work to do here.

The temperature at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters bottomed out at -16.5°C around 8am today, colder than any time since February 15th. It's up to -8.6°C now, with a forecast for continued wild gyrations over the next week (2°C tomorrow, -17°C on Monday, 3°C on Wednesday). Pity Cassie, who hasn't gotten nearly enough walks because of the cold, and won't next week as her day care shut down for the weekend due to sick staff. Speaking of sick staff, New Republic asks a pointed question about the...

I've spent today alternately upgrading my code base for my real job to .NET 6.0, and preparing for the Apollo Chorus performances of Händel's Messiah on December 11th and 12th. Cassie, for her part, enjoys when I work from home, even if we haven't spent a lot of time outside today because (a) I've had a lot to do and (b) it rained from 11am to just about now. So, as I wait for the .NET 6 update to build and deploy on our dev/test CI/CD instance (I think I set the new environments on our app services...

I'm leaving the country today, for the first time in almost exactly two years, and I couldn't be happier. I miss my Ancestral Homeland. And the list of Covid-related travel requirements, while annoying, make sense to me. In fact, because I return Sunday, I timed my (£39 FFS!) UK 2-day test to double as my US 3-day test. Before I take off, and consign poor Cassie to 103 hours of desperate loneliness (albeit with her entire daycare pack), I want to comment on two news stories. First, the Chicago...

So these things happened: The FBI withheld REvil decryption keys from victims so not to tip off the criminals. Anonymous hackers have doxxed an ISP that provides services to right-wing hate groups. Two disbarred lawyers have filed suit against the doctor who admitted to performing an abortion in contravention of Texas law. As feared, Chicago-area animal shelters have started to fill up as selfish people return the pets they took home when Covid made them lonely. Josh Marshall frames the current...

Well, one of us is working, anyway...

Someone—I won't say who—gained 3 kilos since she arrived at my house in March. That's a 12% increase. Will she notice when I cut her kibble by 10% until she's back down to 23½ kilos? And no, I didn't forget that today would have been Parker's 15th Gotcha Day. I do miss him.

Cassie last got a bath (I think) sometime in April. So, wow, did she need one today. And she was a trooper. Before: After: She actually likes water, so she just let me spray her down, shampoo her up, and spray her down again. Once inside and toweled off, she got the zoomies but good. After two hours she's dry and doesn't smell like a wet dog. And she's so soft again, without the sheen of whatever she rolled in at day camp for the past few weeks.

According to the paperwork I received from Cassie's shelter, she was born on 18 July 2018 in Cheatham County, Tenn. They may have guessed; no one will ever know. Regardless, I decree that her birthday is officially July 18th. Time for a birthday portrait or two: (Or maybe a portrait and a landscape?) Happy birthday, Cassie!

Cassie and I had a long day yesterday, which included several rides in the car and lots of play time. It also involved tons of fireworks. And a raw, marrow-filled bison bone: Adding more data to the "failed hunting dog" hypothesis of Cassie's origin, we walked through a neighborhood southwest of the city with fireworks exploding left and right, and Cassie didn't care. We did normal leash work, in fact, because the fireworks didn't even distract her. Happy dog:

One of my neighbors is having his floors redone today, so I'm dogsitting. Cassie is nonplussed: Cassie and Sophie know each other pretty well already, so no worries there. But Sophie is a quiet, middle-aged dog, and Cassie is the equivalent of a recent college grad on a bender in Lincoln Park. Sophie just wants to take a nap. Cassie just wants to play. Sophie is now on her third sleeping surface, hoping Cassie stops doing this: I feel you, Sophe. Cassie's a lot before 9am. At some point I'm going to...

Parker would have turned 15 today. I'm of course very glad to have Cassie, but I do miss my bête noir quite a bit.

So far today, Cassie and I have taken 2½ hours of walks, and she's taken about twice that in naps while I read in the sunroom with a nice breeze blowing over me. In other words, nothing to blog about today.

I didn't have as much time to edit photos yesterday as I expected, so I only have two more for today: And I want to give a big shout out to this little guy, named Bear, who forded the 5-meter-wide tidal pool all by himself:

I left Cassie all alone for 5½ hours yesterday, and came home to this baleful look: And yet, 20 minutes later, all was forgiven: (A 15-minute walk occurred between these two photos, which may have had something to do with the forgiveness.)

The United Winthrop Tower Cooperative started life in the early 1970s as a public housing development. In response to rising crime and costs on the order of $1m a year, the residents bought the building from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1993 and turned it into the affordable-housing co-op it remains today. We had a really cool sunset Tuesday evening, so I snapped this on my walk with Cassie.

Everyone: D'awwwww!

At the dog park: After the dog park, phase I: Phase II: Not that I was trying to read, mind you. Sometimes one makes sacrifices for one's companions.

Cassie, maintaining her dignity in public:

It's difficult to resist this face: Difficult, but not impossible. She's also learning how to lie down and stay on command. I keep reminding myself that she's making rapid progress, but this will take some time. And yes, eagle-eyed readers: she has a FitBark on her collar.

Cassie has spent the last 15 minutes running back and forth in my house carrying this old stuffed duck: Yep. Part retriever. Update: 15 minutes later, I found stuffing all over the living room. This did not deter Cassie from her duck, though it was a bit limp.

Cassie has had an adventurous and full day: several rides in the car, visits to three—count them—three pet stores, and lots of walks. At our first pet shop of the day I picked up a cord to secure her while in the car, which did not stop her from winding up in the driver's seat when I got back from running into the grocery. Exhibit: And just look at that punim! She'll get another half-hour of walks today. I really would like her to learn how to heel, though. She wants to say hello to every dog in...

I seem to have a new addition to my family: The jumping-into-the-front-seat thing will not happen again, however. We're getting a car harness tomorrow. Updates as conditions warrant.

Microsoft has started sending little reminders of things that happened "on this day," no doubt taking cues from Google Timeline and Facebook Memories. But I did enjoy getting a reminder that I took this photo 14 years ago this morning: Parker at Bardwell Park, Evanston, Ill., 18 February 2007. It'll be 3 months tomorrow. I do miss him.

It's pretty, though: And today, we've even got sunlight. Happy February. I also had a houseguest last night, who has made a thorough job of covering my couch with hair: Thanks, Sophie.

I just wanted to shout out to two dogs I've been able to hang out with this week.  On Wednesday I watched my neighbors' dog Sophie for the day. She really didn't care that I don't allow dogs on the couch: And yesterday, I hung out with this pretty girl: I'm not ready to adopt another dog yet. But I'm glad my friends occasionally need dogsitting services.

My bête noir turned 14 (fourteen!) today. I could not decide which photo of him to use so here are three: For comparison, here's what he looked like on his Gotcha Day almost 14 years ago:

I'm visiting one of my oldest friends in Durham, N.C. She is fostering Lexi, who had nine puppies on the 5th: So, it turns out that puppies under two weeks old (a) smell horrendous, no matter how often you change their bedding, and (b) don't do a lot. But in the 18 hours I've been here most of them have opened their eyes for the first time. And they are really cute. This morning we took a short hike at the Museum of Life and Science, which encourages John Cleese to visit: It helps that while Chicago...

Two articles came out today about dogs. The first, in the New York Times, explores how dogs became so indiscriminately friendly: In the early 2000s, when Dr. [Clive] Wynne began research on dogs, one of his experiments was a follow-up on the work of Dr. [Brian] Hare who had concluded that dogs were better than wolves or other animals at following human directions. In particular, dogs followed human pointing better than other animals. Dr. Wynne and Monique Udell, an animal behaviorist at Oregon State...

That's American for the English idiom "penny in the air." And what a penny. More like a whole roll of them. Right now, the House of Commons are wrapping up debate on the Government's bill to prorogue Parliament (for real this time) and have elections the second week of December. The second reading of the bill just passed by voice vote (the "noes" being only a few recalcitrant MPs), so the debate continues. The bill is expected to pass—assuming MPs can agree on whether to have the election on the 9th...

Just a few today: Cokie Roberts died yesterday at 75. She will be missed. The Washington Post traced all 47 dogs seized from convicted felon Michael Vick's dog-fighting operation. You will not get through this without tissues. Greenland struggles with its history and identity as much of it melts. Despite his coalition losing seats and the state of Israel essentially repudiating him, Benjamin Netanyahu could still hold onto his job. Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot has come up with an innovative use of...

I don't know that Frank Bruni reads The Daily Parker, but his column yesterday made for a nice coincidence with my post earlier today: My interactions in Central Park are partly about having a dog but just as much about what the dog encourages, even compels: spending time in public spaces that are open to everyone and well situated and appealing enough to guarantee that people from all walks of life cross paths. And we need dogs, or at least we’re better off with them. They yank us outside of our...

On 1 September 2006, I adopted this guy: I can scarcely believe it's been 13 years. Here's the comparison: Here's to a couple more!

This morning, as Parker and I went for our pre-breakfast walk, we encountered this fluffy girl trotting down the street with no humans in sight: We manage to corral her in a neighbor's yard, while I posted on Facebook and called animal control. She seemed healthy, well-fed, and accustomed to people and other dogs (though really scared and disoriented). Unfortunately she didn't have a name tag or a phone number. Happy ending, though. After about 45 minutes her owners came by. They'd been canvassing the...

Is it that I set a new personal record for steps, getting over 15,000 every day for the last 11? Nope. Is it that, for only the second time in three years, I got enough sleep four nights in a row? Nope. Is it that Parker turns 13 today? Yup. And just check out his fashionable birthday present: For comparison, here he is 10 years ago:

Today actually had a lot of news, not all of which I've read yet: About 60,000 commuters couldn't get home tonight after Amtrak signaling at Union Station, Chicago, broke down. Writing for New Republic, Matt Ford calls Michael Cohen's testimony to Congress today "the art of the deal you can't refuse."  David Frum (among others) points out that for all the GOP's impugning of Cohen's character, no one actually refuted the facts of his testimony. The Economist's Gulliver column speculates that US carriers...

Parker got his leg stitches out yesterday. Mysteriously, the suture in his neck had already dropped off. Regardless, both incisions have healed well enough for him to ditch the cone: His fur is growing back pretty quickly too, in part because it's winter. He really, really liked going to the vet yesterday. And he's a much happier dog today.

Parker's surgeon just called. She had no difficulty removing the plate from his leg and she got the fatty cyst out of his neck without complications. She also identified the screw that had hidden the infection from his immune system and has sent it in for culture, but she suspects it's a run-of-the-mill bacterium that, absent the screw, his body would barely have noticed. He'll be a little wobbly for a day or so and he'll have to wear his cone for two weeks, but the surgery wasn't nearly as invasive as...

My friend's mutt, finding happiness and interesting lighting in Durham, N.C.: I'll have a Parker update Tuesday afternoon. Stay tuned.

A couple of news stories have dogged me this week. First, the TSA has determined that travelers—particularly children—find floppy-eared dogs less threatening than pointy-eared dogs: TSA Administrator David Pekoske said the agency is also making at least one new change to reduce traveler stress: deploying more floppy-ear dogs, rather than pointy-ear dogs, to sniff out explosives in public areas. During a recent tour of Washington Dulles International Airport, Pekoske told the Washington Examiner that his...

Yesterday around 7am, I made it from where I parked in the main O'Hare parking garage to the concourse past security in 7 minutes. Today, at Raleigh-Durham, I made it from my Lyft to the concourse past security in 4 minutes. If you have the option of traveling to or from a smaller airport on Saturday afternoon, do it. Also, it's gorgeous out, so I not only got a chance to walk around Durham for an hour after brunch, but I also got to play with this cutie in her yard: That's Hazel, my host's 6-month-old...

Before everything descends into 18 hours of post-election punditry and chaos, a quick update on the dog. Last week he developed an infection around the site of his April surgery, complete with oozing drainage channel just below his knee. After a couple days of antibiotics, he's stopped oozing. We met with his surgeon today, and she said that the infection is in retreat, so he probably won't need additional surgery to pull the plates out. We'll continue antibiotics for three more weeks and I'll keep an...

Parker did not have a good morning. I woke him up early, then "forgot" to feed him, and wouldn't even let him lick the cream cheese off my knife when I had a bagel right in front of him. All he got was an unpleasant-tasting amino supplement and a pain pill. He did get a ride in the car, though, which might have gotten his mind off his appetite. But then he got unceremoniously carried up two flights of stairs (the elevator at the pet hospital was out of order) and handed off to someone who smelled like...

Yesterday, the Nielsen Norman Group released groundbreaking research on user interface design for dogs: There are several key usability guidelines that help dogs to have the most usable experience on modern websites and apps, particularly on mobile, tablet, and other touch-based interfaces: Consistency is critical. While consistency in any user experience is important, with dogs, it’s even more so. Experienced dog trainers will tell you that, for dogs to learn proper behavior, consistency in enforcing...

In the last seven days, these things have happened: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (the worst Secretary of State in modern history?) got kicked out in typical Trump Administration fashion (i.e., without notice and on Twitter). This may have had something to do with him stating firmly that... ...Russian operatives attempted to assassinate a former Russian spy in Salisbury, England, resulting in... ...the UK government expelled 23 Russian diplomats after determining that the assassination attempt...

I'm under the weather today, probably owing to the two Messiah performances this weekend and all of Parker's troubles. So even though I'm taking it easy, I still have a queue of things to read: NBC is reporting that the President was warned in August that Russians would try to infiltrate his transition team. Josh Marshall thinks Trump will try to fire Robert Mueller at some point in the near future. Atlanta's Hartsfield airport—the busiest in the world—had no power for 12 hours yesterday. CityLab goes...

Too much to read today, especially during an hours-long download from our trips over the past two weeks. So I'll come back to these: The CIA recently fired Lulu, a black Lab, because she didn't want to sniff for bombs after all. But more seriously: Josh Marshall calls out White House Chief of Staff for making the detestable argument that an attack on the President is an attack on the troops. Alex Shepard at New Republic just shakes his head sadly. London is running adverts aimed at cleaning up its air...

It'll take some time to sort through the photos I took at the Bristol Renaissance Faire today, especially since I've got a 9am flight tomorrow and haven't really started packing yet. This one, though. I mean, I had to post it:

One of the first photos I took with my poor, now-deceased G5:

Last night's Sox game was more fun than I think I could have there. First, the Sox got 7 runs in the 6th, which kept me in my seat until the game anded. Second, the Sox set the Guinness World Record for most dogs at a sporting event, with 1,122 in attendance: The Sox needed a minimum of 1,000 dogs in attendance for the record, and the dogs had to remain in their outfield seats for a period of 10 minutes, starting at the top of the third inning, in order for the record to count. A clock in the outfield...

I've had quite a few tasks on my plate since returning from the Ancestral Homeland Monday night, including preparing for the Messiah performances I've got next weekend. I've finally gotten a quick breather to put up some photos. First, this guy sat next to me on the Tube from Heathrow: This is the view from my hotel room (recommended!): And dinner Sunday was, of course, at my second-favourite pub in the world. Bap with fresh-roasted pork loin, apple sauce, and spicy mustard? Fantastic. Dogs? Five....

Yes, even with a new blog engine, sometimes link happens: A new opera about Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses is in the works You want this T-shirt Chicago Tribune transportation writer John Hilkevitch has 5 ways to improve O'Hare Do you like Corgis? Of course you do Pentatonix recently performed on the Tonight Show Malcom Gladwell is wrong, this time about school shooters The new blog engine does have one key advantage: putting that list together took about 1/3 the time it used to take.