Events

Via the Chicago Tribune, Budweiser has an ad running in Ireland shot in Chicago. It's kind of fun:

I got so caught up in Parker Day yesterday I forgot to mention this bit of history: [A] century ago Tuesday, on Sept. 1, 1909, State and Madison Streets became the base line of a new citywide grid system that changed virtually all addresses and also formed the basis for the street systems of many suburbs. [Before then, t]he winding, bending Chicago River was the original start of the grid, but that meant addresses weren't consistent because they weren't based on a straight line, said Tim Samuelson, the...

I adopted the fuzzy dude three years ago today. And you can see why:

Via Gulliver, a new study of taxes levied on visitors to U.S. cities finds Chicago in the lead: The study provides several different views of travel taxes to help readers make informed choices. The top 50 markets are ranked by overall travel tax burden, including general sales tax and discriminatory travel taxes, and by discriminatory travel tax burden, excluding general sales taxes to count only taxes that target car rentals, hotel stays and meals. Separate data are offered for central city and airport...

NPR's Morning Edition has a story today on a "tea party" rally in Nevada. Listening to the people interviewed, the only thing preventing me from recommending that no one be allowed to protest against the government without having taken a basic civics class is that I have taken a basic civics class. Now, I know many people with center-right leanings who can make coherent arguments in favor of or against various policies. I enjoy those debates immensely. The people who spoke to NPR, though? Each had some...

From reader DK:

Here are the Google Earth tracks of three walks and a riverboat ride I've done in the last two days. That is all.

It's amazing what you can do for £20. You can ride a train that goes 200 km/h non-stop from London's King's Cross to Cambridge in 45 minutes, non-stop. Think: Chicago to Milwaukee in 45 minutes. Vroom. Cambridge was certainly worth the trip. I didn't do the main touristy thing (punting down the Cam) but I did watch others do it: Of course there's King's College, founded 50 years before Columbus reached America and 490 years before my alma mater: Speaking of really impressively old, the place where I had...

I did three touristy things today: first, a stop at Westminster Palace for the official tour, during which I got to stand right in the Government benches in the House of Commons, less than a meter from where the P.M. sits when they're in session. No photographs allowed, I'm afraid; but now the whole setup makes a lot more sense to me. I'm all set for the resumption of Question Time, the comedy half-hour broadcast every Wednesday from the chamber. Second, a direct boat trip down the Thames to Greenwich...

Three hours from the financial accounting mid-term, with images of balance sheets dancing in our heads, we're just about done with the first CCMBA residency. The last 12 days seem like 12 months. Many of us haven't left the hotel since Tuesday, except for dinner or a run near St. Katharine's Docks. Six hours from now, we'll be done with the residency, and thinking about next week. Right now—back to the books.