The Daily Parker

Even with Chicago's 1,642 judges on the ballot ("Shall NERDLY McSNOOD be retained as a circuit court judge in Cook County?"), I still got in and out of my polling place in about 15 minutes. It helped that the various bar associations only gave "not recommended" marks to two of them, which still left 1,640 little "yes" ovals to fill in.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world...

• Republican pollster Rick Wilson, one of the co-founders of the Lincoln Project, has a head-shaking Twitter thread warning everyone that You Know Who will probably announce his 2024 run before polls close tonight just to keep his narcissistic needs met.
• Author Stacy Schiff argues that the arguments John Hancock and Samuel Adams had in the 1770s define our politics today. (Would that make them the Isaac and Ishmael of American politics?)
• College Football and politics really, really shouldn't mix.
• Josh Marshall looks back wistfully on the stories TPM ran about alleged voter fraud in 2002 and finds nothing has changed except how much Republicans are lying about it. (Hint: they're lying more now.)
• National Geographic describes some archaeological finds that elucidate why the Western Roman Empire fell.
• The historic Belden-Stratford in Lincoln Park, which Parker and I passed every morning on his dawn relief trip to the park, is getting a multi-million-dollar rehab so the new landlord can offer $3,000-a-month studios and $8,000 three-bedrooms.
• Cranky Flier analyzes all 9,999 flight numbers for four major airlines to figure out some things about how their business models differ.
• Why is Maine building a $106 million highway that nobody wants? (The omnibus explanation seems on point.)
• John Scalzi lays out how Twitter's policy change around the "blue check" will make the notation worse than useless going forward.

Finally, Chicago gets a new brewery taproom on Thursday when Hop Butcher to the World opens in Half Acre's former Lincoln Avenue space, just over 2 km from my house. Cassie and I might find out on Saturday whether they let dogs in, assuming the forecast holds. (And there it is: a post that literally checks all the boxes for Daily Parker categories!)

I'm running all 538 unit tests in my real job's application right now after updating all the NuGet packages. This is why I like automated testing: if one of the updated packages broke anything, tests will fail, and I can fix the affected code. (So far they've all passed.)

This comes after a major demo this morning, and a new feature that will consume the rest of the sprint, which ends next Monday. Oh, and I have two opera rehearsals this week. Plus I have to vote tomorrow, which could take 15 minutes or two hours.

So it's not likely I'll have time to read all of these:

• Josh Marshall looks at the late polls for tomorrow's biggest races and decides...no one knows nothin'. (Not to mention, we won't have some results for up to two weeks, so...)
• Wait, Republican US Senate candidate Herschel Walker has dissociative identity disorder? Not that he's got severe brain damage from getting concussed in football games so many times? Shouldn't either condition be disqualifying for the Senate?
• Chicago gas bills could go up 60% this winter, to an average of $240-260 per month per household. Guess I'll keep the thermostats at 17°C...
• Free-speech crusader and irony-proof billionaire Elon Musk has banned everyone who changed their Twitter names to "Elon Musk" last week.
• Attorney Kellen Dwyer digs into the implications of Uber's former Chief Security Officer getting convicted of two Federal crimes on October 5th for covering up a security breach at the company.
• Strong Towns will launch a National Crash Analysis Studio in January to more accurately figure out why car accidents happen.
• With less than a day before they all go up for re-election, Chicago's city council passed Mayor Lightfoot's $16 billion budget for 2023. The mayoral election will take place February 28th. Goody.
• And the New York Times asked this morning, does the US have too many elections? (Yes. Yes we do.)

Regardless, I'm setting an alarm for just past 4am to see the total lunar eclipse tonight. NOAA predicts 17% sky cover, so I should get a good view of it. Unless I go back to sleep.

I'm so close to being completely unpacked (except for the books I plan to put on the bookshelves that I plan to have built), and yet I'm stymied by trivial things. At the moment, I would really like to sit on the couch with Cassie and watch TV. And I could, even though the guys won't come to mount the TV on the wall until the 15th, because people get paid fair wages these days.

No, I'm stymied by the lack of a single 2-meter HDMI cable. I could at least have video and sound with one of those. So for $26 I ordered three 2-meter cables, which should arrive tomorrow, and which should at least allow me to watch something for the first time in over two weeks.

I like being moved, but I really hate moving.

It got up to 23°C at IDTWHQ this afternoon, and even now, three hours after sunset, it's still 17°C. Not a record, but not bad for November. I still have all the windows open. (Not for long though.)

We've also had amazing foliage this year. For example, this ash tree a few blocks from my house still hasn't dropped all its leaves:

And Cassie found another sunbeam after we got home:

The forecast says we get three or four more days of this before we get back to normal autumn temperatures. I'm OK with that.

A week after moving, I'm averaging 30 minutes more sleep and my Body Battery score is back to normal levels after two weeks of waking up like a zombie. I might even have all the boxes unpacked by this time next year.

Meanwhile, me shifting a couple tonnes of matter a few hundred meters did not affect the world's spin by any measurable amount:

• Max Boot reminds everyone that comparing right-wing and left-wing violence in the US is a false equivalence.
• Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated incumbent right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil's presidential election yesterday.
• Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter has already done irreparable harm to the company and will probably kill it.
• Coffee shops in particular have struggled to recover from the pandemic.
• Developers: stop writing hostile error messages.
• Apple finally admitted they don't patch previous versions of their operating systems unless they absolutely have to.

Finally, the Tribune reviewed a new New York-style pizzeria in East Lakeview that...doesn't sound like it sells the greasy slices I used to get on Lexington after midnight. But I'll try it.

It's a quiet day at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters 6.0 as I bang away at the 60 or so boxes of books in the library. Only 10 or so of those boxes need to go all the way to my office loft on the 4th floor, so I should make do with only a few dozen Ibuprofens this afternoon.

Meanwhile, Cassie has found a sunbeam on the front deck, just as she did yesterday:

And as a bonus, here's our walk to doggie day care on Friday morning:

Our fall colors just keep going this year. The maples have reached their peak, even as the ashes and oaks are finishing up.

Can you tell when I moved from a first-floor walkup apartment into a 3½–story townhouse?

I figure, Cassie has about 7 years of climbing stairs in her. We're both going to have much stronger legs (though only one of us needs them).

I'm starting to adapt my habits and patterns to the new place. I haven't figured out where to put everything yet, especially in my kitchen, but I'll live with the first draft for a few weeks before moving things around.

I'm also back at work in my new office loft, which is measurably quieter than the previous location—except when the Metra comes by, but that just takes a couple of seconds.

I actually have the mental space to resume my normal diet of reading. If only I had the time. Nevertheless:

• Texas recently started allowing anyone to carry a handgun without a license, with easily predictable results.
• Justice Clarence Thomas (R) once again demonstrated the meaning of "corrupt judiciary" by allowing US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to avoid testifying about the January 6th insurrection, in which Ginny Thomas participated.
• Why are so many right-wing politicians failed businessmen?
• A sociologist photographed Chicago buildings right before they got torn down, and revisited the lots 10 years later.
• James Fallows revises some of his longest-held views.
• Julia Ioffe reviews the new Axis of Evil.
• Robert Wright remarks on the similarities between Putin and Hitler.
• Chicago, New York, and L.A. have about the same back-to-office numbers, slightly below the US as a whole and (for some reason) way behind Houston.

Finally, does anyone want to go to New York with me to see a play about Robert Moses starring Ralph Fiennes? Apparently tickets are only $2,000 a pop...

I've unpacked all but one of the rooms in my new house:

Yeah, but this is the "one room:"

It's supposed to rain on Sunday, so what better day to unpack all those books?

Cassie, for her part, only cares that I unpacked her smelly old blanket:

I reported Saturday that Empirical Brewery, one of my favorite hang-outs just 400 meters from my new house, closed unexpectedly on Sunday. Block Club Chicago's Alex Hernandez found out why:

Empirical Brewery was booted from its building and abruptly shut down over the weekend following a months-long legal battle in which the landlord said the company did not pay its rent for several months this year, according to court records.

Hayes Properties, which owns the Foster Avenue building, served Empirical owner Bill Hurley with a five-day notice in May for the brewery to pay just over $16,496 in unpaid rent, or else the lease would be terminated, court documents show.

The landlord then moved to evict Empirical in June, court records show. In that filing, attorneys said the brewery owners owed back rent from Jan. 1 through May 19.

Cook County Judge Theresa M. Smith Conyers granted the eviction request in August, giving Empirical until Sept. 6 to move out of the Foster Avenue building.

The landlord went back to court Sept. 8, saying the brewery was still operating in the space. The landlord asked the court to enforce the eviction, and order Empirical to pay back rent, rent for every month they continued to occupy the building and attorneys fees. In all, Empirical owed about $30,600, court records show.

I'm sorry it went down like that. I hope the employees find new work quickly. And this does increase the likelihood that another brewery will move in. One can hope, anyway.