Events

The weather this weekend has obviously helped the CTA. Already by 9 this morning they had almost completed the Church St. viaduct replacement: Also, a few days ago I posted a photo of the ivy on our building. Two days later, the leaves had fallen. Before and after: Must be autumn.

Parker and Jackson got a good workout yesterday: They played for about three hours, half in the morning and half in the afternoon. Right now he's asleep on my office floor. What a great puppy.

In today's FoxTrot strip, Jason reveals a truly scary Hallowe'en costume. (The strip is now shown as Flash so I can't steal post it here for you. I'll update the link tomorrow.)

The CTA is replacing a 102-year-old viaduct in Evanston this weekend. I think the process is kind of cool. They started Friday evening and they'll finish Monday early in the morning, in time for the Purple Line to take people to work. I suppose it helps that they have an extra hour to work tonight. This is the result of their first 15 hours or work: And here's the "before" picture (from mid-August): I always get a little nervous when the bridge is held up by chicken-wire.

Congratulations to Anne's home-town team, the St. Louis Cardinals, winning the World Series against the team that the Cubs last played for the same title. As a Cubs fan, I had some difficulty rooting for the Cardinals (the teams' rivalry goes back to the beginnings of professional baseball in the 1880s), but since the Tigers are in the American League I managed to do so. Also of note to St. Louisians, it was on this day in 1965 that engineers completed the Gateway Arch.

Illinois changes to Standard Time at 2:00 tomorrow morning, making today's 7:18 sunrise the latest until December 29th. Despite the cold, I trekked over to Dawes Park in Evanston to see it: Next year, most of the United States changes back to Standard Time on November 4th, making the November 3rd sunrise (7:25 am) unquestionably the latest one of the year.

We're trying an experiment. Parker is spending the whole day at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters. Also, just because this came out the way it did, I challenge both all of my readers to provide an appropriate thought balloon for the hardly-working office puppy: I must say, also, that the experiment has gone very well today. So far, he has barked precisely once, and that was because I had a raisin bran muffin that he felt was rightfully his. He lets me go out of the office now (before he would...

Cintas, a uniform company (they make and launder uniforms for nurses, security guards, etc.), has decided to follow a DHS proposal—it doesn't have the force of law—that encourages employers to fire workers who have Social Security-number mismatches or in other ways fail to re-verify that they are authorized to work in the U.S. The effect of this action will be to intimidate immigrant workers, legal or not, and help them keep their payroll costs down. The thing is, this is none of the company's business....

Our ivy looks cool, so I thought I'd share.

We have a routine. At 5:30 every morning, Parker dances on my head, and I shove him back to the foot of the bed. At 5:45, the alarm clock starts playing Morning Edition, and Parker dances on my head again. Flash forward to 6:30, and we're at the dog park, usually all three of us, where Parker has a tremendously fun time with all the other dogs. Then we head back to the house. He's a pretty smart dog, and he can tell when we're getting ready for work. Sometimes Parker gets locked in the bedroom, but...