I went out to Suburbistan to have dinner with an old family friend, and he surprised me with an unusual and very cool heirloom that his own father, Bill, left him:
That's an HO-scale model that Bill built out from kits probably back in the 1970s. Must have taken him weeks, with the detailing and the weathering. I thought putting it in front of a 1970 edition Britannica fit pretty well.
But since I went out to Suburbistan, Cassie had to wait bloody hours for dinner. She didn't seem to mind getting a little couch time afterward:
Today I'm working from home so she doesn't see any need to follow me around. And she's about to get a 30-minute walk, which should help with any residual feelings of neglect that may linger from yesterday.
The intersection of my vacation next week and my group's usual work-from-home schedule means I won't come back to my office for two weeks. Other than saving a few bucks on Metra this month, I'm also getting just a bit more time with Cassie before I leave her for a week.
I've also just finished an invasive refactoring of our product's unit tests, so while those are running I either stare out my window or read all these things:
- Yes, Virginia (and Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina), you are much better off than you were four years ago.
- The Illinois Attorney General has filed an environmental suit against Trump Tower for refusing to fix its water-intake system.
- A New York City cop who fought against "courtesy cards" won a $175,000 settlement from the city.
- A developer plans to raze a 175-year-old house in Glencoe, Ill., designed by William Boyington, because we can't have nice things anymore.
- Speaking of not having nice things, after £175m spent and 12 years of construction, the Old Street roundabout in Islington, London, looks...about the same as before.
Finally, the New York Times ran a story in its Travel section Tuesday claiming Marseille has some of the best pizza in Europe. I will research this assertion and report back on the 24th.
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 film. Some poor evaluator will have to listen to me going on for nearly three minutes about how hard the job of cat-herder is. What's worse, I only just now learned the word berger. "Herder des chats" is, apparently, not a thing, but berger de chats potentially is. I hope whoever scores that response at least has a sense of humor.
The second reason it got harder is that "open level" bit I mentioned. Each section got progressively more difficult, such that by the end of the listening part I could barely pick out the topic let alone individual words. Senegalese fishermen, you may be surprised to learn, are harder to understand than recorded announcements at train stations.
Still, I'm glad I did it. I don't know if they'll share the results with me, because they only want the data to calibrate their language-learning product. I hope they do, particularly before I pop out of the Chunnel just over two weeks from now.
I'm dog-sitting again, so a nervous beagle wandered up to my office during the test to see why I hadn't fed her yet. I suppose they both could use an around-the-block and some kibble. I will try to speak French to them, if only for my own practice.
Oh, and if you haven't been able to get to Weather Now this afternoon, that's because I shut it down for a bit while I root out a connection-exhaustion problem. I believe there are too many bots hitting it the last few days, but it still shouldn't crash when they do. Until I can fix the problem, or get rid of the bots, I'm only going to have it up a little bit at a time. (Its data collection continues unaffected, however.)
I spent 56 minutes trying to get ADT to change a single setting at my house, and it turned out, they changed the wrong setting. I will try again Friday, when I have time.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world:
Finally, Slow Horses season 4 came out today, so at some point this evening I'll visit Slough House and get a dose of Jackson Lamb's sarcasm.
The weather today requires that I leave work as early as permissible and take Cassie home the long way. Of course, in order to do that, I have to eat at my desk. (I suppose I could have taken a long lunch, but then I wouldn't have as much time with my dog. Choices.)
Last night I fired up the ol' grill. I am proud to report I have gotten steak grilling just right; this guy was a perfect slightly-rare-of-medium and every bite was juicy and tender:
Dinner tonight (and probably tomorrow) will be leftovers, of course. Breakfast and lunch today were oats and poke, respectively, as I realized that I should probably have as little fat and cholesterol as possible the rest of the day.
This morning, the CTA completed re-routing the #9 Ashland bus to the Ravenswood train station, which ended over 100 years of the bus line terminating by the Graceland Cemetery:
For more than a century, public transit commuters headed north on Ashland Avenue had their ride stop at Irving Park Road before the bus headed east to terminate at Clark and Belle Plaine, near Graceland Cemetery, CTA director of service planning and traffic engineering Jon Czerwinski said.
“This is a routing we’ve followed for a long time. It’s been in place since the Chicago surface lines operated streetcar service here all the way back to 1912,” Czerwinski said.
The route created a gap in service for anyone wanting to take public transit further north. But starting Aug. 25, the #9 Ashland bus will continue past Irving Park Road and now terminate at the newly renovated Ravenswood Metra station, 4800 N. Ravenswood Ave., Czerwinski said.
I caught two of the buses exploring their new neighborhood on my way to the train:
I'll have a link roundup later this afternoon.
As promised, I took a 25-kilometer walk up the North Branch Trail yesterday, which did not disappoint:
The weather cooperated brilliantly (though it did get a little warm towards the end), and my multiple applications of SPF-50 sunscreen seems to have kept me from crisping. The trail, of course, is lovely:
In total, I got 40,707 steps, which would have been a personal record back in the day but I'm pleased to say didn't even get into my top-10 step days since 2014.
Cassie spent the day at her usual day camp, but still got an hour and a quarter of walks. Of course she didn't accompany me on the 4-hour trail hike, but she nevertheless plotzed before I did:
Also, a shout out to my Hoka Stability shoes. My feet feel just fine today, and in fact given the forecast (23°C and sunny) I will probably get another 10 km today. Or, at least, spend lots of time outside.
The hot, humid weather of the past week has finally broken, and on the last day of summer yet!
In about an hour I'm starting the first long walk of several I've planned for the autumn, so the 19°C temperature—and, more importantly, 16°C dewpoint—is very welcome. Just 24 hours ago, they were 22°C and 21°C respectively, which one can only describe as "really sticky."
I might not post about the walk until tomorrow morning, but I'm looking forward to it. I haven't gone up the North Branch Trail since last October, and I haven't walked up the stretch from Devon to Dempster since 2018. (Fitbit no longer allows deep links to activities. Bastards.)
A few weeks ago I planned a PTO day to take a 25 km walk tomorrow along the North Branch Trail with pizza at the end. (I'll do my annual marathon walk in October.) Sadly, the weather forecast bodes against it, with scattered thunderstorms and dewpoints over 22°C. But, since I've already got tomorrow off, and I have a solid PTO bank right now, I'll still take the day away from the office. And autumn begins Sunday.
Good thing, too, because the articles piled up this morning, and I haven't had time to finish yesterday's:
Finally, Washington Post reporter Christine Mi spent 80 hours crossing the US on Amtrak this summer. I am envious. Also sad, because the equivalent trip in Europe would have taken less than half the time on newer rolling stock, and not burned a quarter of the Diesel.
Our lead story today concerns empty suit and Chicago Transit Authority president Dorval Carter, who just can't seem to bother himself with the actual CTA:
From the end of May 2023 to spring 2024, as CTA riders had to cope with frequent delays and filthy conditions, Carter spent nearly 100 days out of town at conferences, some overseas, his schedule shows.
Most of Carter’s trips between June 2023 and May 2024 were for events related to the American Public Transportation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group he chaired in 2022 and 2023. Carter spent a week in Pittsburgh and another in Orlando, six days in Puerto Rico and five days in Washington, D.C. He also took trips to Spain, New Zealand and Australia.
In total, Carter was out of town for 97 of the 345 days Block Club reviewed, according to his schedule. That means he spent 28 percent of that period outside of Chicago.
Block Club previously reported that Carter used his CTA-issued card for rides just 24 times between 2021 and 2022. CTA records show the number of times Carter swiped his work pass increased to 58 in 2023, according to a July op-ed piece in the Tribune.
Spain, I should note, has possibly the best train network in the world outside Japan, so maybe he learned something there? But as is typical with municipal barnacles, grifting along in high-profile city jobs, his office won't say.
In other news:
Finally, Pamela Paul imagines how the RFK Jr campaign looks from inside his head—specifically, to the worm encysted in his brain.
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:
Finally, Garmin has released its latest fitness watch that doubles as a freaking Dick Tracy wrist phone. I mean, first, how cool is that? And second, how come it took 90 years after Dick Tracy got one?