Events

My brave guard dog is curled up at my feet because of the loud noises outside. He's weathered thunderstorms, my driving, and my best friend's 3-year-old son. Fireworks, too much for him. I think he's wishing he were Canadian right now.

Long-time readers will know that I rarely post personal news here (and I'm sure some thank me for it), but this one is good: it appears we've sold our condo. In the present real-estate market, that's really good news. It sold about three months faster than I expected (but three months slower than we'd hoped.) So, barring the buyer getting hit by a bus, that's one huge thing we no longer have to fret over.

It's time for the semi-annual update of the Evanston/Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2007 1 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:19 20:30 15:11 17 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:54 9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:52 20:00 14:08 17 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:49 13:48 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:17 15 Sep 6:30am sunrise; 7pm sunset 06:30 18:59 12:28 23 Sep Equinox, 04:51 CDT 06:39 18:47 12:08 26 Sep...

Can anyone identify the species?

Parker hung out with my friends and me at Tommy Nevin's on Sunday to catch the seisiún. One friend brought him a belated birthday present, a squeakie shaped like a vet (complete with "Vet Victim" name tag); Parker had removed half the stuffing and the squeak bladder before we finished our crisps. One of the rules at the pub is that dogs have to stay on the patio. It actually got a bit chilly, so we humans to a table just inside the line of demarcation. Parker kept testing the pub's defenses:

Bruce Schneier asks: "Is there a Special Olympics for terrorists going on in the U.K. this week?"

Happy dog with tennis ball: I'm starting a new project on Monday that will consume tons o' time. The good news is that Parker will be with me in the office probably four days a week. The bad news is that "Today's Daily Parker" will become "The Daily Parker Roundup" starting next week. In other words, The Daily Parker may not have daily Parker for a while. Somehow, I think we'll all survive.

I finally got around to Googling Markéta Irglová, who played "The Girl" in Once. It turns out, she's 19. As in, years old. As in, she's not old enough to drink legally in the U.S., and she has two albums out. And they're really good albums. This is in the same category of realizing that when Mozart was my age, he'd been dead almost a year[1]. [1] Actually, Mozart was just shy of 36, so if I were him—utterly ridiculous, if you know me—I'd have died on 14 July 2006.

Tonight's sunset in Chicago (8:31 pm) is the latest of the year. The United Nations reported this week that, for the first time, more than half of all people live in cities.

Apparently there will be a series of bike races just outside my office window on July 22.