The Daily Parker

I spend almost all my time in cities with world-class public transport systems. San Francisco is one of them. And yet there are odd gaps.

Today I discovered, at 6:45 am, that I was not, in fact, going to take BART to the airport, as it didn't actually start running for more than an hour.

I mean, really, San Francisco.

I'm traveling for the weekend in one of the six cities I've experienced year-round. Updates may be spotty. Right now, I just need a nap.

I was thinking back to a somewhat strange question: where in the world have I experienced all 12 months of the year? I mean, I think you have to do that in order to say you really know a place.

Before I get to that, let me explain the post's title. The second time I ever set foot in New York was 30 years ago Monday, on 4 December 1987. (The first time was 23 July 1984.)

New York is also the second place in the world, after Chicago, where I experienced all 12 months of the year. I crossed that finish line on 1 April 1989, during my first year at university.

The other places (and dates) are Raleigh, N.C. (1 May 2010), London (1 September 2013), Los Angeles (1 October 2014), and San Francisco (29 October 2015).

L.A. really surprised me. Half my family lived there for 30 years, but between school, work, and dumb luck, it took over 40 years from my first visit there (19 April 1974) until I finally, finally experienced an October day there. And that was a work trip—I didn't even intend to do it.

The other odd bit is that the entirety of the time I spent in North Carolina is documented in this blog.

I think this post will interest about six people, but since one of them is me, and the rest of my brain is working on some pretty slippery user stories for work, up it goes.

There's a lot going on at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters, so I haven't had a lot of time or energy to post this weekend. Regular posting should resume tomorrow.

Just a quick note. I've had a Fitbit for three years as of today, and so far, I've logged 14.4 million steps. My mean over 1,097 days is 13,170 steps per day, though my median is 12,616, reflecting the fact that I have a number of very-high-step days against almost none when I failed to hit 5,000. I've hit 10,000 on 949 days, 87% of the time.

And now I'm going to ratchet up another 4,000 on my way home.

I'm excited about my new project, but as we ramp it up, I'm becoming aware of a cost: sleep. And that's not good.

Thanks to my Fitbit, I have a pretty good idea of how much I'm sleeping. Here's what October looks like so far:

The 11th through 13th and the 16th through 18th were travel days. And then on the 17th (the "wake" column of the 16th) I had to get up at an ungodly hour to get to the San Antonio MEPS by 6am.

I think this will settle down quickly, but wow, I'm really feeling it today.

Too much to read today, especially during an hours-long download from our trips over the past two weeks. So I'll come back to these:

• The CIA recently fired Lulu, a black Lab, because she didn't want to sniff for bombs after all.

But more seriously:

• Josh Marshall calls out White House Chief of Staff for making the detestable argument that an attack on the President is an attack on the troops.
• Alex Shepard at New Republic just shakes his head sadly.
• London is running adverts aimed at cleaning up its air quality.
• Former president George W. Bush yesterday gave a speech that took a swipe at Trumpism. Good for him.
• Still, Trump has the best cabinet ever.
• Back home, the Chicago River ran backward—er, forward—into Lake Michigan, which might be a symptom of anthropogenic climate change.
• Deeply Trivial writes about the #MeToo movement and victim-blaming.
• A La Niña pattern is shaping up which should bring normal temperatures but above-normal precipitation to Chicago this winter. Joy. (At least it will be weak and short-lived.)
• It turns out, no one wants to buy ugly McMansions in the Western suburbs of Chicago.
• Finally, over last weekend, XKCD posited a takeover of the U.S. by graphic designers.

Lunch break is over.

This is my first moment to catch my breath (other than sleeping) since Friday. While I'm doing that, read about Chicago steak houses. Next post later today.

I'm in Northern Virginia for a project meeting tomorrow, so not much to post today except that I'm here. Tomorrow, though, should be very interesting. I hope to have photos. But it will soon become clear why I might not actually have any photos.

Team meeting at 8am Eastern, and it's midnight, so off I go for now.

Hurricane Maria's eye passed directly over Vieques earlier this morning and has now struck Puerto Rico proper:

Hurricane Maria roared ashore Wednesday as the strongest storm to strike Puerto Rico in more than 80 years, knocking out power to nearly the entire island and leaving frightened people huddled in buildings hoping to ride out withstand powerhouse winds that have already left death and devastation across the Caribbean.

The storm first slammed the coast near Yabucoa at 6:15 a.m. as a Category 4 hurricane with 250 km/h winds — the first Category 4 storm to directly strike the island since 1932. By midmorning, Maria had fully engulfed the 160-km-long island as winds snapped palm trees, peeled off rooftops, sent debris skidding across beaches and roads, and cut power to nearly the entire island.

In an unfortunate twist, some residents of Vieques had stocked up on critical supplies in advance of Irma only to donate what they had left to harder-hit areas such as Tortola and St. Thomas. Residents rushed to restock before deliveries to the island stopped and the power flickered off yet again.

There isn't much news coming out of Vieques yet, but having been there less than a year ago, I can't imagine that much of it remains standing. The shops and restaurants on Calle Flamboyan are (were?) less than 50 m from the beach, and barely 3 m above the Caribbean. I hope everyone got out OK.