Inner Drive Technology World HQ has cooled off slightly to 32.6°C (heat index 36.8°C) after maxing out this afternoon at 33.3°C. Not that the 7/10ths of a degree makes that much difference. I have a nearly-constant headache and I don't want to go outside. Plus, I've already drunk about 3½ liters of water today.
To avoid the heat and to make sure Cassie and I both got enough exercise, we took a 6 km walk before 7am. The temperature still got up to 26.5°C before too long, prompting me to fill Cassie's bowl with ice water and get myself to the shower even before having breakfast.
Not much else to report, except that I plan to eat the last of the leftover rice I've got in the fridge tonight, well within the New York Times recommended storage interval. That's if the heat doesn't kill my appetite entirely...
We got up to an uncomfortably humid 32°C yesterday, but with a forecast of a much milder 23°C today. It got a bit warmer than that, topping out at 26°C, but got quite a bit cooler just as Cassie and I returned from our lunchtime walk:
This evening, we will go on another walk to...RIBFEST. I might have to put on jeans, but we will have ribs tonight! And tomorrow night, and probably Sunday for lunch. Because ribs.
Cassie and I took two long walks yesterday. We drove up to the Skokie Lagoons before lunchtime and took a 7.25 km stroll along the north loop. The weather cooperated:
I wanted to go up there in part because a 100-year-old forest had a higher probability of cicadas than anywhere near my house. We were not disappointed. Cassie and I both had passengers at various points in the walk:
And wow, were they loud. I forgot how loud they got during the 2007 outbreak. Even at the points on the walk closest to the Edens Expressway, the cicadas were often louder than the hightway:
On Saturday we're heading out to a friend's house in Wheaton, and we'll take our dogs around that neighborhood. My friend complained that the cicadas have taken over her backyard. Can't wait!
Summer officially begins today. We tied for 3rd-warmest spring in history, the second top-3 finish this century and the 3rd in my lifetime. And it turns out that we tied for the most sun in May as well. The CPC predicts June will start cool, but with the lake 2°C above normal already we could be in for a very warm summer.
Cassie and I started the season with a 5.6-kilometer walk through Lincoln Square and North Center (and a little bit of Lakeview), so we're both feeling pretty relaxed. And now we're off to run errands before the rain starts. So, a pleasant first few hours of summer.
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 14th than May 13th (normal high: 20.9°C). I even had the air on last night. But I can see a cold front approaching from the west, with an expected temperature crash around 6pm and temperatures barely above 10°C (March 24th!) tomorrow. I'm glad we got our walks in already—looks like the first thunderstorm could hit before 3pm.
And check back tomorrow and Wednesday for two more Brews & Choos reviews from this past weekend, including a brand-new brewery that just opened 2 km from my front door.
I did not win theEuchre tournament yesterday, nor did I exactly lose. I did screw up once, losing 3 points unnecessarily, but my overall score of 52 was slightly above average. The 3rd, 2nd, and winning totals were 61, 62, and 75, so overall the bell curve had very high kurtosis.
Today, Cassie and I took a 10½-kilometer walk in an hour and 47 minutes, about 3x faster than a specific portly beagle but not the fastest she's ever walked. We had a lovely late-May morning and early afternoon that is gradually becoming mid-April again:
Not exactly a pneumonia front, is it? Plus it feels quite nice right now, and will continue down to some really good sleeping weather (around 12°C).
I've got a lot going on the next three weeks, including four performances, plus another performance mid-May. The posting slow-down might continue for a bit.
American Airlines says my flight home has a 45-minute delay at the moment (though of course that could get worse). So I just spent 35 minutes walking in a big circle around the southwest corner of downtown San Diego. I don't think I'd ever live here, but I do enjoy the weather.
Meanwhile, as if I don't have too many things on my to-be-read shelf already, the New York Times book editor has released a list of the 22 funniest novels since Catch-22. Maybe someday I'll get to a few of them?
Anyway, I should be home with Cassie in about 11 hours. If she understood English and had any concept of "future," she'd be excited too.
I've got a little time before dinner, just enough to post this:
I didn't collect any snake bites, scorpion stings, or exploding cactuses, but I think I did get a nice sunburn. I'll find out tomorrow.
I've spent the morning getting a demo ready so that I don't have to be on the call at 3:30 am PDT. And now, I'm heading off to do a hike with a few of my co-workers. While I'm hiking, I'll be building up to my daily goal of 10,000 steps, which I make about 97% of the time.
But maybe I don't need that many? National Geographic takes a look:
Getting in 9,000 to 10,000 daily steps cuts risk of death by more than a third and reduced cardiovascular disease risk by at least 20 percent, but even smaller increases showed benefits, researchers found in a study of more than 72,000 people.
“Any activity is good activity. We found the more steps you did per day, the lower your risk of mortality and cardiovascular disease was,” says Matthew Ahmadi, an epidemiologist at the University of Sydney in Australia and one of the study’s authors. “The 10,000 mark is a great target to hit, but even if you aren’t able to hit that, still doing any amount of activity to increase your daily steps can go a long way to improving your health and lowering your risk of disease.”
In fact, highly sedentary people in the study began experiencing a heart benefit starting as low as 4,300 steps per day, when their risk of heart disease fell by 10 percent. Doubling that step count to 9,700 steps a day doubled the benefit.
Let's see how I do today.
My Garmin watch thinks I've had a relaxing day, with an average stress level of 21 (out of 100). My four-week average is 32, so this counts as a low-stress day in the Garmin universe.
At least, today was nothing like 13 March 2020, when the world ended. Hard to believe that was four years ago. So when I go to the polls on November 5th, and I ask myself, "Am I better off than 4 years ago?", I have a pretty easy answer.
I spent most of today either in meetings or having an interesting (i.e., not boring) production deployment, so I'm going to take the next 45 minutes or so to read everything I haven't had time to read yet:
- Cognitive psychologist Amber Wardell listened to US Senator Katie Britt's (R-A-87.63657988865225L) reply to President Biden's State of the Union address, and explains how Britt's "phony fundie voice" fits into the right-wing Christian Nationalist worldview she promotes. Hint: Britt wasn't talking to you or me.
- Fulton (Ga.) County Superior Court Judge has quashed three of the XPOTUS's charges because, essentially, Fani Willis's office didn't draft the indictment with enough detail.
- Tori Otten admires the way House Democrats deftly cornered special counsel Robert Hur, forcing him to admit the vast differences between the way President Biden and the XPOTUS handled classified documents.
- Yulia Navalnaya reminds the West that Russian president Vladimir Putin isn't actually a politician; he's really a gangster.
- The Illinois Supreme Court has declined to hear, and thus let stand, an appellate court ruling that keeps the Bring Chicago Home referendum on next Tuesday's ballot. Large real estate companies and some large businesses oppose the plan, which would tax them more and use the money to pay for affordable housing.
- Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson has ignored the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago's offer to house migrants for free, and I would like to know why.
- Los Angeles police warned residents that burglars have started using Wi-Fi jammers to bollix up wireless security systems.
- Michigan will start building its section of the Marquette Greenway Trail, a 93-kilometer bike path that will eventually (late 2027) connect New Buffalo, Mich., with Chicago.
- Chicago passed 21°C yesterday for the fifth time in 2024, the earliest we've ever had as many days above that temperature since records began.
All righty then. I'll wrap up here in a few minutes and head home, where I plan to pat Cassie a lot and read a book.