Yesterday I squashed six bugs (one of them incidentally to another) and today I've had a couple of good strategy meetings. But things seem to have picked up a bit, now that our customers and potential customers have returned to their offices as well.
So I haven't had time to read all of these (a consistent theme on this blog):
And finally, providing some almost-pure Daily Parker bait, the Post has a helpful breakdown of 8 common styles of hot sauce.
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.
I feel so proud of myself for getting this week's View From Your Window Contest (read the essay, then scroll down) in under 90 minutes:
Yes, I know exactly what window the photographer took that photo from. I'll post Sullivan's confirmation of my geographic sleuthing ability next Friday. Of course, I may not have won the contest; I not only have answer correctly (or have the closest point to the correct answer), but I have to have the first correct answer.
The last time I had the correct answer, I was late in sending it in and I got the wrong window, which was trebly sad because the location was on California Avenue in Chicago. I just didn't start working on it in time.
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 author (most notably of the generation-defining novel Generation X) wants Canada to follow the science and quit screwing over my generation:
People my age and younger got the leftovers – which is fine. AstraZeneca is a terrific vaccine, people! But people my age are used to leftovers. It’s the curse of being Gen X, and it’s not very often I ever discuss Gen X qua Gen X, but I think it’s called for here. For a generation that has grown up knowing their pensions will magically vanish the moment they retire, vaccine leftovers were yet more evidence that the statistical books never seem to balance in their favour and probably never will. When some provinces began turning off the AZ tap this week, I don’t think there was even one remotely surprised 50-year-old in the country.
The fact that the announcement of AZ’s removal from the medical landscape was driven by politics and ineptitude rather than science bugged me so much that I wrote my first ever comment on The Globe and Mail’s website (which counts as some sort of milestone in my life). It said: What? Vaccines are now suddenly magically à la carte? This whole thing is starting to feel like it’s being run by Grade 11 students doing a science project.
But Andrew Potter sees freedom in our generation getting ignored:
It is commonly argued that a generation is formed by the technological ecosystem in which it grows up, and while there’s obviously something to that, what is important for Gen X is not what our technology allowed us to do, but what it protected us from.
In particular, what we were protected from was surveillance. I don’t know a single person I grew up with who doesn’t thank their lucky stars that there were no cellphones with cameras around when we were growing up, that there was no Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or TikTok. I can’t imagine what it is like to grow up under the glaring distributed panopticon of social media, knowing that all your friends, everyone at your school, and even your parents are watching your every move, judging your every utterance.
In retrospect, it is obvious that the Gen X obsession with authenticity was anxiety caused by the growing rumblings of a culture in transition. The old technological ecosystem that fuelled the counterculture was gone, but the new web-enabled environment that made authenticity irrelevant hadn’t quite yet arrived. Gen X was the last generation to possess genuine subcultures that were able to remain somewhat unmolested by the digital meat grinder.
That is why when you hear a Gen Xer talk about being the “latchkey” generation, they aren’t really complaining — they’re bragging. There’s another word for the neglect being described here, and that’s freedom.
I've watched that technological transformation from the inside, having had an online presence since 1986. My feeling: they're both right.
Cassie and I took on a stretch of the Ice Age Trail near La Grange, Wis., this afternoon:
She is snoring peacefully on the couch now, and probably will continue doing so for many hours.
Note to self: bring more water for the dog next hike.
I forgot how quiet San Francisco's financial district is on weekend mornings. And I forgot to factor in California's lagging re-opening in general. Of the places Yelp said would be open for a quick breakfast takeaway this morning, two had ended weekend hours, one was permanently closed (or at least hibernating through the pandemic), and one was delightful. Il Canto Cafe, on Sacramento between Battery and Sansomme, whipped up a lovely egg sandwich and (too-large) coffee in just five minutes.
But seriously, the financial district on a foggy Sunday morning gives me the creeps.
In other news, my local El station closed today and won't reopen until 2025. Good thing there's another station only two blocks away.
Not having an adolescent dog who wants her breakfast at 6am to contend with this morning meant I actually got to sleep in. (Yes, 7:15 is "sleeping in" when I'm in California, because that's 9:15 back home.)
The friends looking after Cassie reported last night: "Cassie's a bit confused...she said something about not signing up for the overnight package." This morning: "Very barky at noises. But she settled down. We're heading to the dog park after Meet the Press!" (Cassie will not be on the news program, but if I've taught her anything, she'll have a critical view of any politician who lies about the election.)
Off to coffee. Then a 3-kilometer walk to the train to start my social tour of the entire South Bay today.
Almost 16 months since I last flew anywhere, I have returned to O'Hare:
Despite traveling on Saturday afternoon, which historically has meant few delays and a quiet airport, the traffic coming up here was so bad my car's adaptive cruise control gave up. But she got a treat once we got to economy parking:
I don't think I have ever parked that close to the elevators in 48 years of flying. Good thing, too, because the closest non-LEV space was in the next county.
Once I got into the terminal, it took less than 3 minutes to get through security. So the Saturday afternoon airport has at least met half of my expectations.
By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, I will spend 16 of the next 52 hours inside vehicles, moving or otherwise. I had planned to rent a car in San Francisco to see family tomorrow, but at $110 for a Yugo (plus gas, parking, etc) I just made a deal with my family to meet somewhere accessible by public transit. Since that describes almost the entire South Bay, they agreed. So, naturally, I've also brought three books.
Man, I missed air travel.
(NB: Cassie is at a friend's house "settling in well.")
Now that I'm more than two weeks past my second Pfizer jab, I'm heading to O'Hare tomorrow for the first time since January 2020. I remember back in September 2018 when I finally broke my longest-ever drought from flying of 221 days. Tomorrow will mark 481 days grounded.
But that's tomorrow. Today, I'm interested in the following:
And finally, Chicago's endangered piping plovers Monty and Rose have laid three eggs. We should see baby piping plovers in about four weeks.