Events

One week at overnight camp (Parker's day care provider also boards dogs, so he got to hang with his friends every day) has exhausted my dog. This is a common behavior in dogs, apparently. He was overjoyed to see me again in a way I've never seen in a human older than four, but as soon as we got home he climbed into his crate and passed out. (Actually he ate two entire bowls of kibble first.) Action shot:

Returning from the West Coast after staying up late (in a different time zone) every night got me off to a slow start this morning. I'm glad to report that Half Moon Bay still exists, San Francisco is still the second-coolest city on the continent (after Chicago, and only just the barest fraction of a point above New York), and it's still winter.

San Francisco

...a new president.

San Francisco

The good news is that 48 hours of above-freezing temperatures—with almost 18 hours at or above 8°C—melted just about all the snow and ice in Chicago. The bad news? A cold front moved in overnight and it's now -9°C with 57 km/h winds giving us a wind chill of -19°C. Chicago weather builds character.

We atheists need holidays, too; why not an astronomical event? Eight minutes past midnight in Chicago tonight, light a candle to mark the bottom of the analemma.

I don't usually comment on stupid celebrity tricks—that's my friend Katie's job—but this made me laugh out loud. Despite her obvious successes as a mother, apparently Lynne Spears (Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears's mom) will not publish her upcoming Christian parenting book after all: Lynne Spears' book about parenting has been delayed indefinitely, her publisher said Wednesday. Lindsey Nobles, a spokeswoman for Christian book publisher Thomas Nelson Inc., said Wednesday that the memoir by the mother of...