Events

Thursday afternoon at the Rotary Club of Evanston meeting I met Don Frey, the lead Ford Motor Co. engineer who designed the Mustang. He brought one of the original cars with him: See? Rotary, always worthwhile, is sometimes cool.

I can't remember the last time Chicago got all the way through October without a freezing day. This year, even by November 2nd, we still haven't officially had a freeze. Also, tomorrow has Chicago's latest sunrise: 7:25 am. For those 33 years old and under, it's the latest sunrise ever. (During the 1973 energy crisis, Chicago didn't return to Standard Time in the fall.) Delayed edit, 11:05pm: Moments after posting this, O'Hare recorded its first freezing temperature since April 16th.

From September:

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan will join a growing club of incarcerated Illinois politicians next Wednesday: A federal appeals court today denied former Gov. George Ryan's bid to remain free on bail while he asks the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn his corruption conviction. The ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago increases the likelihood that Ryan must report to prison by Nov. 7. He can still ask the U.S. Supreme Court to extend his bail, however.

My friend Sean visited over the weekend and brought with him a stuffed toy his wife made for Parker. The results were predictable, though Parker dispatched this one much faster than the vet toy he got for his birthday: Half an hour later: The next morning: Thank you anyway, Val. Parker said the toy was delicious. (Just don't ask me about his walk that evening.)

From this past weekend, in Lincoln Park, Chicago: Incidentally, the building behind him is the Parker School.

The Chicago Tribune ran an editorial Sunday calling for a recall amendment to the Illinois constitution. My response: Regardless of what you think of Blagojevich's performance, Illinois needs a recall amendment like a fish needs a bicycle. Illinois has two perfectly adequate constitutional mechanisms for removing a governor: election and impeachment. If the governor is really all that bad, let the legislature impeach him. If not, we'll have a referendum on his performance soon enough—and his critics can...

No, not those Sox; the other Sox. One curse down; one to go.

The splash of sunlight on Parker's face makes me think he's probably a pretty happy dog, despite the crate: He got some additional training this week, mostly a review of the basics (heel, sit, down, stay), but with an emphasis on duration. So I'm proud to report he can now stay for 10 minutes while I kick a tennis ball around him. Inside he'll wait almost 45 minutes before complaining. Really, though, I needed the reveiw. I've been too lax, it seems, allowing him to get away with a lot of bad behavior....

Congress has passed legislation creating a national registry of people with ALS: The legislation would establish the first ever national patient registry of people with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, to be administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The registry would collect information leading to the cause, treatment and cure of the deadly neurological disease that took the life of baseball legend Lou Gehrig in 1941. In tangentially-related news, Saturday's...