Parker got to come home from boarding today even though he's going right back there tonight, a canine prisoner furlough for good behavior. Immediately upon returning home he sat in the kitchen and whined as I parceled out his food for his next prison sentence. Poor dude.
The Duke Dividend, a result of not having 20 hours of schoolwork every week, has started to pay off in books. I'm halfway through Ender's Game, after blasting through The Hunger Games trilogy in three days and re-reading Howl again—a new copy I picked up Saturday at City Lights, which I thought appropriate.
I can imagine that my friends in the Northeast aren't too happy today:
URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY
1240 PM EST SUN DEC 26 2010
...DANGEROUS WINTER STORM IMMINENT...
...BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM EST MONDAY...
* HAZARDS...HEAVY SNOW AND STRONG WINDS...WITH CONSIDERABLE
BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF SNOW WITH NEAR ZERO VISIBILITY AT
TIMES.
* ACCUMULATIONS...15 TO 20 INCHES...WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS UP
TO 2 FEET POSSIBLE.
* IMPACTS...EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS DEVELOPING
THIS AFTERNOON INTO THE EVENING DUE TO SIGNIFICANT SNOW
ACCUMULATIONS...AND STRONG WINDS CAUSING CONSIDERABLE BLOWING
AND DRIFTING OF SNOW. VISIBILITIES WILL BE NEAR ZERO AT
TIMES... WITH WHITEOUT CONDITIONS EXPECTED. STRONG WINDS MAY
ALSO DOWN SOME POWER LINES...TREE LIMBS...AND CHRISTMAS
DECORATIONS.
* TIMING...SNOW WILL BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES THIS AFTERNOON INTO
MUCH OF TONIGHT. THE SNOW WILL TAPER OFF FROM WEST TO EAST
MONDAY MORNING...BUT STRONG NORTHWEST WINDS WILL PERSIST THROUGH
THE AFTERNOON.
* WINDS....DURING THE HEIGHT OF THE STORM TONIGHT...NORTH WINDS
WILL INCREASE TO 25 TO 35 MPH WITH GUSTS OF 40 TO 60 MPH.
ISOLATED HIGHER GUSTS ARE POSSIBLE ACROSS LONG ISLAND.
We've got a little lake-effect snow right now, with about 15 cm on the ground, but nothing too heinous. Parker, in fact, just got half an hour of running around in it at Oz Park. He's even doing better on recall. Not much better, but still.
As I mentioned on Parker Day (September 1st, the day I adopted him), I've had a little too much going on to get a good portrait of the dude. It's beautiful in Chicago this morning, so I made the time today:
I adopted Parker four years ago today. 
I'll snap his annual portrait this weekend (I'm a little overloaded today).
The ParkerCam has returned:
It may be up infrequently, and I have no idea where I'm going to point it all the time, but at least it's on again.
A strong cold front and impressive thunderstorms came through last night. After an entire month of high temperatures above 26°C, it got down to 18°C last night. I've got my windows open, only one fan running (to pull air through the house), and a dog who needs a good, 8 km walk.
And then, later on today, a much-missed Daily Parker feature will return.
My friend DC's puppy Rex:
Parker met Rex last week. Rex greeted Parker with lots and lots of barking. Parker, who for the moment outweighs Rex by 10 kg (but won't for very long) looked at Rex, blinked, and, with Rex following and barking hysterically, proceeded to investigate the apartment. Within about an hour Rex had decided that Parker was really cool and Parker had decided...well, nothing, because Parker is 4 and Rex is about 5 months old, so Parker just ignored Rex.
They'll have a play-date again when the weather cools off.
In the past seven calendar days[1], I have worked 40.3 hours[2], traveled 39.8 hours through four countries and six states, and, so far as I can tell, slept for about 40 hours. I am not sure what happened in the remaining few minutes, though part of it included walking Parker and part of it included staring into space dazedly. Fortunately traveling wasn't entirely wasted time, including as it did four episodes of This American Life and two complete novels.
This is all a long way of saying I apologize for the reduced velocity of The Daily Parker, and I expect to resume my usual average of 1½ posts per day in short order.
N.B.: Don't ask how I know all this. I will say only that sitting in a car, train, bus, or airplane for more than 40 hours in one week gives one a lot of time to think about irrelevant crap.
[1] Since 17:30 CDT last Sunday.
[2] Plus another 4.4 hours commuting to and from my client site.
Yesterday was Parker's 4th birthday, but being in a different city I couldn't immediately get a photo of him. Fortunately we have the Intertubes, and Diane was able to provide one:
