Events

It's hot. Damn hot. Real hot. So yesterday afternoon I only spent about an hour at Tommy's, and made sure Parker had water: Why did I schlepp a bowl from home? Because while Nevin's staff very happily provide him with an aluminum take-out container full of water, Parker tends to dump the water out and then shred the container. Using the Fiesta bowl he's used to prevents the shredding part.

Apparently just having me tell him not to worry causes Parker not to worry. Last night I watched the Evanston fireworks display from Northwestern University's landfill, less than 2 km from the launch site. Whereas the night before Parker nearly went out of his skin because of my neighbors' Roman candles, the official (and very loud) city display didn't distract him from trying to catch fireflies.

Via Bruce Schneier, a former British military bomb-disposal operator offers some thoughts about the clowns who completely failed to bomb anything in the UK last week: If these guys at the weekend really were anything to do with al-Qaeda, all one can really say is that it looks as though the War on Terror is won. This whole hoo-ha kicked off, remember, with 9/11: an extremely effective attack. Then we had the Bali and Madrid bombings, not by any measure as shocking and bloody but still nasty stuff. Then...

Biking yesterday I hit a new PR for spot speed: 54.0 km/h, beating the old record of 53.4 km/h I set last August 26th. Whee!

Does it seem odd to anyone that a boat from land-locked Switzerland won this year's America's Cup last night?

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: