The Daily Parker

It got practically tropical this afternoon, at least compared with yesterday:

Cassie and I took advantage of the no-longer-deadly temperatures right at the top point of that curve to take a 40-minute, 4.3 km walk. Tomorrow should stay as warm, at least until the next cold front comes in and pushes temperatures down to -18°C for a few hours Thursday night.

I'm heading off to pub quiz in a few minutes, so I'll read these stories tomorrow morning:

• London plans to build an elevated rails-to-trails park through Camden, similar to Chicago's 606 Trail and New York's High Line.
• Julia Ioffe outlines how Russia's pariah status has hurt their ability to spy on the West, but says we shouldn't rule out Russian shenanigans as their failed invasion of Ukraine grinds on.
• Via Schneier, a government audit found that people suck at choosing passwords. But we knew that.
• Molly White read all the FTX subpoenas so you don't have to.
• The contractor responsible for bits of the CTA's Brown Line Flyover falling off claims to have fixed it.

OK, off to empty the dog, refill the dog, and scoot over to Sketchbook Skokie for a shellacking. (Our sports person can't make it tonight.)

I enjoyed my lunch in the Loop today, but not the walk back to the office:

Sigh. At least the sun sets at 5pm for the first time since November 5th.

Longtime readers will know that I have spent a lot of time in Half Moon Bay, Calif., over the past 15 years. So yesterday's events shocked me:

Seven people are dead following two linked shootings in the Northern California city of Half Moon Bay, officials said.

The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office tweeted at 3:48 p.m. Monday that they were responding to a shooting “with multiple victims in the area of HWY 92 and the HMB City limits.” The office tweeted roughly an hour later that a suspect was in custody and there "is no ongoing threat to the community at this time."

San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus confirmed at a press conference Monday evening that seven people were killed in two related shootings. She said four victims were found dead from gunshot wounds at a location in the 12700 block of San Mateo Road, also known as Highway 92, around 2:30 p.m. A fifth victim was discovered with "life-threatening injuries" and transported to Stanford Medical Center. They remain there in critical condition.

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) learned of the shooting while at the hospital with victims of Sunday's mass shooting in Los Angeles.

Neither the National Rifle Association nor the right-wingers suing Illinois over its latest attempt to regulate military weapons commented, though we can all expect them to say it's "too soon" to talk about why we're still the only country in the OECD where this happens. Perhaps they'll talk to the San Mateo County farm families mourning their loved ones today?

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 garage at Dave Packard's house where he and Bill Hewlett created their company in 1939.

I didn't bring my real camera to San Francisco this time because I thought it would rain throughout the trip. Next time, though.

Unfortunately, though, I'm already at the airport, staring out at blue skies and sunny...airplanes. I'm looking forward to getting home, though, and to picking up Cassie tomorrow morning after her bath. (She was already overdue, but after 4 days with her pack, she'll need it even more.)

I've got a couple of Brews & Choos from yesterday as well as a few photos from the weekend coming later this week. Stay tuned.

Apparently the rain has stopped! So I'm going to take a walk and get some tea. Lunch in Palo Alto; dinner possibly at The Stinking Rose, depending on how much I want to offend the people sitting next to me on the flight home tomorrow.

What am I doing hanging round? I should be on that train and gone.

Chicago Transit Authority president Dorval Carter, Jr., blamed "extremely higher-than-normal call-offs" (i.e., a blue flu) for the New Year's Eve failures that left The Daily Parker waiting on a platform 35 minutes for the El:

It’s not unusual for CTA workers to “call off” on holidays, but the CTA has in the past been ready to replace them. But this year, with a shortage of train operators in the ranks, the CTA couldn’t deliver the number of free trains it promised.

The CTA promoted increased service on the Blue and Red lines on New Year’s Eve, advertising free train rides sponsored by Miller Lite. Carter did not say how many workers called off, and CTA officials did not provide a number after Friday’s meeting.

CTA worker unions, represented by Local 308 and Local 241, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Carter said he would work with the unions and employees to come up with better ways to incentivize staff to come to work. Disciplinary measures could only go so far, considering the worker shortage, he said.

“We are operating very close to the margins,” Carter said. “I am trying to both put out a level of service that is within the constraints of the workforce that I have, but recognizing that in order for that to work, my workforce has to show up.”

One factor possibly limiting the available workforce: wages that have not kept up with inflation. If you want more people to work for you, pay more; QED. But even Chicago, with one of the best transport networks in the world, still struggles to see public transit as a public service rather than a profit-making enterprise. So who should pay more for the CTA? All of us in Chicago, perhaps by taking back some of the Federal money we send to Oklahoma for their useless freeway projects.

At least I didn't get too cold on the Brown Line platform on New Year's Eve. I still would have liked to see my friends earlier than I did.

Staring out a window at the Terminal A parking garage at DFW Airport, I pause to check my email. Top of the pile I see this lovely report from MSNBC:

Californians should brace for flooding and possible landslides as “heavy to excessive rainfall” is expected over the weekend and into next week, forecasters warned early Saturday. 

With recovery efforts continuing in parts of the state which was battered by storms earlier this week, the National Weather Service said in a bulletin that a couple of Pacific storm systems were forecast to impact the West this weekend “bringing heavy lower elevation rain, significant mountain snow, and strong winds.”

The first system would approach the coast Saturday and move inland, the bulletin said, adding that there were “multiple slight risks of excessive rainfall,” that could lead to localized instances of “urban and small stream flooding as well as mudslides.”

What does NWS say about downtown San Francisco?

Tonight

Showers and possibly a thunderstorm before 1am, then rain likely, mainly between 1am and 4am. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. Low around 9. West wind 14 to 16 km/h, with gusts as high as 32 km/h. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between 5 and 7.5 mm possible.

Sunday

Rain, mainly after 10am. High near 12. Southwest wind 11 to 18 km/h. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between 2.5 and 5 mm possible.

Sunday Night

Rain. Low around 8. East southeast wind 19 to 29 km/h decreasing to 5 to 15 km/h after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 40 km/h. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between 1 and 2 cm possible.

M.L.King Day

Rain, mainly before 10am. High near 12. Breezy, with a west northwest wind 26 to 35 km/h, with gusts as high as 47 km/h. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between 1 and 2.5 mm possible.

Monday Night

A 20 percent chance of rain before 10pm. Mostly clear, with a low around 7.

Tuesday

Sunny, with a high near 12.

Lovely. Perhaps I'll get my morning coffee before it starts to rain again tomorrow?

I can't remember ever taking an umbrella to California, but I'm packing one today. So instead of the sunny and cold weather I've usually experienced in San Francisco, the forecast calls for wet and cold weather every day I'm there, with the sun coming out right after I leave.

Here in Chicago, we've had just 20% of possible sun this month, which WGN points out has completely obscured that we have 15 minutes more daylight than we had at the solstice. On the other hand, so far we've had the 4th-warmest January in history, with significantly above-normal temperatures predicted through the end of the month.

At least I'll see the sun on my flight today...

I'm on hold with my bank trying to sort out a transaction they seem to have deleted. I've also just sorted through a hundred or so stories in our project backlog, so while I'm mulling over the next 6 months of product development, I will read these:

• Via Schneier, credit-reporting service Experian patched a security hole in December that allowed anyone to view someone's credit report with "the person’s name, address, birthday and Social Security number."
• It turned out, an exciting software deployment caused the NOTAM system outage yesterday. (This is why I work very hard to have boring software deployments.)
• Tom Nichols finds it amazing that George Santos (R-NY) is actually a member of Congress.
• Julia Ioffe shakes her head at the permanent crisis Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) engineered for himself.
• Amanda Carpenter tries to see into the bottlenecks that bollocksed up our security services on January 6th.
• Speaking of bottlenecks, the Chicago Transit Authority has decided to "fix" the "ghost bus" problem by eliminating a quarter of its scheduled bus runs.
• Satellite photos show dramatically increased activity around funeral homes in China, belying the Chinese government's Covid death statistics.
• Soulless corporation Hasbro has turned its fangs to Dungeons & Dragons after they determined the game was "undermonetized." I swear on my autographed 2nd Edition Player's Handbook that I will write a longer post about how corporate copyright terms must be shortened to encourage  future creativity as the founders clearly stated in the Constitution.
• Frank Bruni looks at Noma's closing with relief. (I also have not enjoyed my 3-star restaurant experiences nearly as much as the 2- and 1-stars.)
• Ever see a moose shed its antlers? You'll be as surprised as the moose.

And my bank's customer service finally got back to me with the sad news that the thing I wanted them to fix was, and we are so sorry, it turns out, your fault. Fie.