Two years after U.S. Cellular got absorbed by Sprint-NexTel, the Chicago White Sox have finally gotten around to renaming their ballpark. The winner? Guaranteed Rate, a low-cost mortgage lender. The change is effective November 1st.
I wonder what people will call it. "The Cell" is no more, "Comiskey" is long dead, and "Sox Park" isn't really the official name. Maybe people will call it "The G'Rate?" Nah.
The Tribune has some Twitter reactions up. My favorite: "Guaranteed Seats Park."
And hey, the Sox aren't the worst team in baseball right now (Atlanta Braves), nor are they the worst in the league (Minnesota Twins). But they're 60-65 and 12 games out of contention with only a couple dozen left to play, so the team will have plenty of time to change the marquee after the season ends October 1st.
Day two of Certified Scrum Master training starts in just a few minutes (more on that later), so I've queued up a bunch of articles to read this weekend:
Training begins again...
Sometimes, when I'm really busy, I click on articles I want to read. Right now I have a lot tabs open:
So, altogether, not entirely about the election.
WBEZ's Curious City audio blog explains that Chicago hoped to be America's aviation hub all the way back in the 1920s—for airships. But it's not the ideal environment in which to dock them:
When it comes to Chicago buildings that may or may not have had airship docking infrastructure, we encounter only a few leads. One involves the Blackstone Hotel. In a 1910 article from Chicago’s Inter-Ocean newspaper, the Blackstone’s manager confirms plans to build “Drome Station No. 1” on the rooftop — big enough for four airships, housing stalls and a repair shop. The manager said it’s “not a whim nor advertisement” for the newly-opened hotel. Today, though, there’s no evidence the Blackstone’s rooftop landing dock ever existed.
“Docking a large rigid airship to the top of a building is one of the worst ideas anyone could ever come up with, which is why it was never done,” he says.
Airships could be 800 feet long, and a single mast atop a building could provide just one point of contact for tying off. If an airship were moored only at its front, changing winds could spin the ship in circles. In the case of the Club, that would have meant a docked airship could swing into nearby skyscrapers, like the Tribune Tower. It would have been a disaster waiting to happen.
Of course, Chicago eventually became one of the world's principal aviation hubs, but not with lighter-than-air craft.
Every day that I'm in my office (about 3-4 times per week), I take a photo out the window. Here's today's:
We're on the 35th floor of Willis Tower. But we have access to the 66th floor lobby, so on really clear days I'll sometimes post something like this:
Members of the Apollo Chorus backed up Josh Groban at Northerly Island last night. I wish they'd been on stage longer, especially after they sweltered all day without air conditioning backstage.
Sarah McLachlan was one of the opening acts, and the weather, once it cooled down, was superb:
We had nearly-perfect weather this past weekend, so I'm just dumping a bunch of links right now while I catch up with work:
Back to the mines.
Items of note:
Off to the meeting. More later.
The Chicago sunrise chart for 2016-17 is up, just a few weeks late. (Look, I've been busy.)