The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Chicago shoved down the rankings again

The Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has ruled that One World Trade Center is taller than Willis Tower:

The decision by the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat hinged on whether the tower's mast was a spire, which counts in height measurements, or an antenna, which doesn't.

The decision will end Willis Tower's reign of 40 years as the nation's tallest building.

The announcement culminated weeks of speculation about the ruling, which drew widespread attention because it would finally settle the issue of whether Chicago or New York could claim bragging rights to having the nation’s and the Western Hemisphere’s tallest building, as well as whether One World Trade Center would achieve the symbolic height of 541 m.

Willis Tower, completed in 1974 and once the world’s tallest building, is 442 m tall. Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the current holder of the title, is 828 m tall.

The decision means One World Trade Center is the 3rd tallest building in the world, and drops Willis Tower to 10th place overall.

Boo.

Patrick Smith does not like Virgin's new safety video

Not one bit:

They took a somewhat entertaining idea and made a monster out of it. The video runs for an excruciating five minutes. Imagine being a Virgin America frequent flyer — or employee — and having to listen to that thing over and over and over and over. The cabin crew are going to need counseling.

Airline safety briefings are a kind of legal fine print come to life. They do contain some important and useful info, but it’s so layered in babble that people tune out and ignore the entire thing. “Federal law prohibits tampering with, disabling, or destroying a lavatory smoke detector.” What’s wrong with,”Tampering with a lavatory smoke detector is prohibited.” And do we really need a full dissertation on the finer points of attaching and inflating a life-vest — overly detailed instructions that nobody is going to remember if the vests are actually needed? Merely setting all of this ornamental gibberish to music does not make it more compelling or palatable. It also undermines the briefing’s potential value. It also undermines the whole purpose of the briefing. If safety is really the point, the briefing should be taken seriously. Here, you’re watching it for fun, not to actually learn anything that might save your life.

I posted the video last weekend.

Busy weekend

Parker got about 3 hours of walks this weekend because of weather and apartment showings. And I had about 6 hours of work to do for my real job. And I had lunch with people way the hell across town for Día de la Papusa. So I completely forgot to post anything.

I've also added Evanston back into the mix for my apartment search. Essentially, it suits my personality pretty well (aging Gen-X quasi-intellectual progressive), and you can get more apartment for less money than in any comparable neighborhood in Chicago. On the other hand, association dues and property taxes in Evanston are much higher than in the city, so you wind up spending the same amount of money overall. On the third hand, it's simultaneously farther from downtown Chicago and a quicker commute, thanks to Metra. Plus, as long-time readers know, I've lived there off and on for my entire life. So it's not what one might call a radical move.

At some point I'll be less busy than I've been the past week.

La Crèperie to reopen thanks to Duke of Perth owners

Colin Cameron, owner of Duke of Perth (my remote office) told me a couple weeks ago that this was in the works, but swore me to secrecy. Now that it's in Crain's, it's out there:

If you've been mourning the loss of La Creperie since it closed Aug. 22 when its owner retired, take heart: The iconic little French bistro at Clark and Diversey is scheduled to reopen, most likely in December.

Duke of Perth proprietors Colin Cameron, his cousin Jack Crombie and Jack's wife, Pam, have purchased the property from Germain Roignant, who opened the restaurant in 1972 with his late wife, Sara.

Mr. Roignant's son, Jeremy, and his wife, Yasmina Ksikes, who'd managed La Creperie for the past five years, intended to take the concept and name with them to Los Angeles. That changed with Jeremy's death from a heart attack on Aug. 1.

Mr. Roignant, now 75, says that when Mr. Crombie first asked him about becoming a partner in reopening the restaurant, he was hesitant because he'd been planning to retire to his home in Brittany, France. “But I hadn't been happy about the place closing after 41 years,” he says, “and when we hinted on our Facebook page that it might reopen, we got a very positive reaction from customers.”

Now a partner, Mr. Roignant says he'll probably work the dining room Wednesday through Sunday evenings and some afternoons. He won't be the only familiar face—he estimates that four dining room staffers are returning. Juan Aranda, who started as a dishwasher/prep cook/busboy in 1991 and was promoted to head cook two years later, will be back in the kitchen. This is a plus, since he knows all the recipes, which haven't been written down.

One of my favorite pubs buying one of my favorite restaurants? Perfect.

Quinn/Vallas 2014

I did not see this coming:

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has named former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas as his Democratic running mate for next year's election.

Vallas, an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2002 against Rod Blagojevich, fills the vacancy on the ticket left by incumbent Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon's decision to run for state comptroller next year.

After leaving CPS, Vallas headed public schools in Philadelphia, New Orleans and, most recently, Bridgeport, Conn. A Connecticut judge has ruled that Vallas did not hold the proper qualifications to be superintendent of the state's largest school system.

There also may be questions about Vallas' eligibility to run here. The state constitution requires statewide candidates to be Illinois residents for at least three years before the election. Voting records, however, indicate Vallas has been registered to vote from an address in Palos Heights since 2008. Vallas requested a 2010 Republican primary ballot, but did not actually vote, according to the Cook County Clerk's office.

I mean, it's not like we're mooting Rob Ford, but this one has me scratching my head...

Roll on, Divvy

Chicago's bike share program could become the nation's largest, thanks to Federal subsidies:

There are currently 300 Divvy stations up and running around Chicago, with 100 more stations in the works to be installed by next spring. Officials from the Chicago Department of Transportation said Wednesday they’ve secured a $3 million federal grant to build 75 additional stations next year, bringing the total to 475 by next year. The grant comes from the US Department of Transportation’s Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program.

So far, the U.S. DOT has provided $25 million dollars in federal grant funding toward the Divvy bike share program.

There’s been some criticism that Divvy stations are concentrated downtown, and don’t serve the south or west sides of the city. CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein, speaking to alderman at his department’s city budget hearing Wednesday, said they’ll bring Divvy to Englewood by spring, and with this grant, they’ll be able to expand the program farther in all directions.

Klein also mentioned that Oak Park and Evanston could be joining the system next year.

The first head rolls

The person most directly responsible for the HealthCare.gov debacle is "retiring:"

The chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, whose office supervised creation of the troubled federal website for health insurance, is retiring, the Obama administration said Wednesday.

The official, Tony Trenkle, will step down on Nov. 15 “to take a position in the private sector,” said an email message circulated among agency employees.

As the agency’s top information officer, Mr. Trenkle supervised the spending of $2 billion a year on information technology products and services, including development of HealthCare.gov, the website for the new health insurance marketplace.

Sibelius, though. Why's she still around?

About frickin' time

The Illinois legislature has finally, finally, approved marriage equality:

Gov. Pat Quinn said he intends to sign the bill, which would take effect June 1. It's the Democratic governor's latest step in taking Illinois in a more liberal direction. Under Quinn in the past three years, Illinois has banned the death penalty, legalized medical marijuana, provided driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants and approved civil unions.

Resolving the gay marriage question also allows state leaders to get a divisive issue off their plates before next year's big statewide election, even as long-standing financial issues headlined by the state's $100 billion public worker pension shortfall remain unresolved.

The vote Tuesday capped a year in which prospects for gay marriage often were dim. The proposal failed in a January lame-duck session, but the Illinois Senate provided new hope on Valentine's Day by passing the measure. There was no House vote at the end of spring session in late May, leaving both sides to spend the summer and fall lobbying lawmakers. The first week of veto session came and went without a vote last month, and with candidate filing for next year's election just weeks away, some expected no resolution until next year.

Also yesterday, Democrat Terry McAulliffe beat Republican Ken Cucinelli for Virginia governor, ending almost 30 years of Republican rule in the state. But the final vote came a lot closer than expected, suggesting that the HealthCare.gov debacle hurt McAulliffe.

Singapore Airlines ends Flights 21 and 22

The flights, between Newark, N.J., and Singapore, is the longest in the world:

The two all-business-class flights, which operate between Singapore and Newark, New Jersey, take around 19 hours and cover 15,300 km. But late last month, Singapore airlines announced that it would be cancelling the services, along with another between Singapore and Los Angeles that is almost as long.

The title for the world's longest flight...will now shift to Qantas, which operates a 13,800 km service between Sydney and Dallas.

Hey, wait a minute: Qantas is a oneworld carrier. How many frequent-flier miles does that cost again? Here it is: 37,500 for coach, 62,500 for business, and 72,500 for first. Each way.

I'll keep saving them.

Things I need to keep track of

Completely swamped today by a production error on an application I hardly ever work on. The problem was around something I'd written, but not caused by anything I wrote; still, it fell to me to fix the problem, which caused me to fall behind in everything else.

I have a bunch of Chrome tabs open with things I probably can't get to today:

That is all for now.