The Daily Parker

A weather pattern has set up shop near Chicago that threatens to occlude the sun for the next week, in exchange for temperatures approaching 15°C the first weekend of February. We've already had 43 days with above-normal temperatures this winter, and just 12 below normal during the cold snap from January 13th through the 22nd. By February 2nd, 84% of our days will have had above-normal temperatures since December 1st.

Thank you, El Niño. Though I'm not sure the gloominess is a fair exchange for it.

Elsewhere:

• President Biden, whose name didn't even appear on the ballot, won the New Hampshire Democratic primary by a larger margin than the XPOTUS won the Republican primary.
• The Washington State legislature has debated scrapping Daylight Saving Time entirely, a move that does not require USDOT sign-off, as the simplest path to avoiding the cognitive challenge of moving clocks twice a year. That this would cause 4am sunrises and 8pm sunsets in Seattle in June has not gone without notice.
• Speaking of Washington, aviation reporter Bill Saporito picks up the Atlantic's theme from 2019 and blames Boeing's problems on its cultural takeover by McDonnel-Douglas in 1997.
• New research finds that companies' return-to-office ("return to the past") mandates have no effect on profits or stock price, which everyone below the executive level already knew.
• My religious group has become the largest single denomination in the US. (We already took over most of Europe in the last century.)

Finally, Minnesota-based wildlife photographer Benjamin Olson discovered that a mouse had moved into his car. So naturally, he set up a photo trap. And naturally, it's totes adorbs.

She's in this photo, trust me:

A bit closer, after we got home:

I'm just monkeying with code today, not waiting six years for the perfect alignment on a clear evening to take one photo. Seriously, Monday's NASA Astronomy Photo of the Day blew my mind.

Cassie and I walked down to Christkindlmarket by Wrigley Field yesterday to meet up with some friends. I understand that the lakefront was completely fogged in, but a kilometer or so inland it just looked creepy:

And on the walk home:

Right now at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters, the sun has started peeking out, though the temperature-dewpoint spread hasn't gotten that much wider from this morning: 10.9°C with a dewpoint of 10.6°C. O'Hare still reports mist with increasing horizontal visibility but a very low (200 m) ceiling.

As soon as I deploy a bugfix to Weather Now, however, I'm taking Cassie on a 45-minute-or-so walk that will wind up at Spiteful Brewing. We might even sit outside, which is not the usual course of events on Erev Xmas.

I've had a few things on my plate this week, including a wonderful event with the Choeur de la Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris at Old St Patrick's Church in Chicago. We had a big dinner, they sang for us, we sang for them, and then some of us hosted some of them in our homes. Tonight I'm hearing their real performance at Alice Millar Chapel in Evanston.

Sunday night I saw comedian Liz Miele at the Den Theater. I'm totally crushing on her and highly recommend you catch her on this tour:

And naturally I have a few photos of Cassie that got imported into Lightroom this morning:

Real post later today, probably around the time the cold front hits.

Not shown: she's snoring.

Cassie did not understand why she could not try my Indian food last night:

And somehow, with the rudimentary editing controls on my phone, I accidentally turned her into an Andrew Wyeth painting. Huh.

The AQI at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters has prompted me to put my air conditioning on:

Nice that the ozone has also popped out of the healthy range, too. And this is what it looks like from 25 meters up:

I'm really hoping this 1970s-style air blows away overnight. It's really unpleasant, even if the sunset was pretty.

More photos from three weeks ago. Linzer Gasse, Salzburg:

Along the train line from Freilassing to Berchtesgaden, approximately here:

Berchtesgaden, near the border of Schönau am Königsee:

And just a little ways farther up the Köningsseer Ache:

More photos. The Czech countryside, approximately here:

Hafnersteig, in Vienna's Innere Stadt:

The Schloss Belvedere, with (I am told) an Apollo capsule: