Events

For those of you who missed it last night, we had a total lunar eclipse, which the cold, clear weather in Chicago let us see perfectly:

Forgetting for a moment the enormous expense of moving, I now have approximately 75% of my possessions in boxes in my living room. My new place is not only slightly smaller than my old place, but I've absorbed the entire Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters and International Data Center. (The IDTIDC takes up about one square meter of floor space, but five servers make a certain amount of noise.) Photos later. For now, I'm back at work, trying not to think about the disaster area that is my new...

Eight and a half hours later, I have single-handedly done the following: Moved four 23 kg rack-mount servers (sans rack); Moved four 23 kg uninterruptible power sources; Moved uncounted connectors, network cables, power cords, etc.; Updated all the DNS entries for the 33 domain names that point to said servers; Talked to three lovely people at my ISP's tech-support line to figure out why I couldn't connect to my new IP range (it was a PEBCAK issue on my end); Confirmed that my mail server can receive...

Via Evanston Now: The pension fund TIAA-CREF has closed on its purchase of the 10-year-old Park Evanston rental apartment tower at 1630 Chicago Ave. from the John Buck Company. The sale price of the 24-story structure—$101,125,000—is reportedly the highest price ever paid for a suburban apartment building. The transaction late last month brings an immediate real estate transfer tax benefit to the city of $505,625 in what has otherwise been a slowing market for property sales. This interests me because...

I mean, other than the process of moving, which isn't at all fun, is that I'm giving up access to a yard. The guy painting my new apartment pointed out to me that there are 46 steps from the alley to the third floor, and said this made getting the tarps and things into the place that much less fun. I pointed out to him that I will have to traverse all 46 steps, in every weather, in every state of health, every day, three times a day, because I can't train my dog to use a toilet. As far as Parker will...

For the time being, I'm working on the top floor of the tallest building in Evanston, Ill. The view isn't too bad: The view is mostly north. The white blob in the upper-left corner is the Bahá'í House of Worship in Wilmette.

This morning I dropped Parker off at his new day camp, Urban Outsitters. Everyone was wagging when I left, though Parker seemed a little overwhelmed by the onrush of dogs. I was a little apprehensive, but I think he'll be fine. Do parents feel this way after dropping their kids off at a new school?

Yes, today I had my sixth consecutive flight cancellation. The sky is clear, visibility is 80 km, but the -19°C temperatures and 60 km/h wind gusts are just too much for the ancient Piper Warrior I rent.

Stay tuned.

The City of Evanston, my birthplace, bastion of good government, where I have lived for just over three years, has run out of road salt: [Evanston Public Works chief] David Jennings says that on Wednesday "our salt supplier notified us that they could not honor the balance of our current order, about 1,100 tons, due to difficulties in getting their supply of salt to the distribution point that serves us." Jennings says city crews have stopped salting residential streets, but are continuing to plow....