Events

Chicago hit a new record for most consecutive months with above-average temperatures, which ended August 31st (only we didn't know for sure until yesterday): For the first time in a year, Chicago has logged a month with below-normal temperatures. Averaging 17.8°C, September finished 0.3°C below normal, ending the city's record run of 11 above-normal months that began in October 2011. Despite the lower-than-normal temperatures, sunshine was plentiful, averaging 75 percent of possible, the highest here...

Last night, in the West Loop: After tomorrow's performance in Madison, Wis., Girlyman will be taking a break from performing. I'm glad I got a chance to see them. Doris and Ty: And the opening act, Chastity Brown, whose CD I bought on the way out. Great stuff:

Just two more photos from last weekend in Cincinnati, though to be precise, I took both from Kentucky. I love repurposed obsolete infrastructure, like the New York Highline and the coming Bloomingdale Trail. In Cincinnati, they have the Purple People Bridge, which one imagines used to rain soot and cinders down on what has become, since the bridge was built in 1999, a beautiful riverfront. Here's the bridge from the Newport, Ky., side: Closer to Ohio—Kentucky owns the entire river, almost up to the...

Nate Silver finds no consistent bias in the history of presidential polling: In the 10 presidential elections since 1972, there have been five years (1976, 1980, 1992, 1996 and 2004) in which the national presidential polls overestimated the standing of the Democratic candidate. However, there were also four years (1972, 1984, 1988 and 2000) in which they overestimated the standing of the Republican. Finally, there was 2008, when the average of likely voter polls showed Mr. Obama winning by 7.3...

Finally, by the end of 2014 Chicago will have one transit card to rule them all, called Ventra: The CTA and the Regional Transportation Authority are leading an effort to create an open fare system in which bank-issued cards and universal transit cards will be accepted on CTA, Pace and Metra. The RTA system faces a 2015 deadline to fully implement an integrated fare system. Part of the challenge is including Metra, which is slowly modernizing its antiquated fare-collection system that still involves...

A couple weeks ago, I finally tasted whisky from the FEW Distillery in Evanston, Ill. FEW is named for Frances Elizabeth Willard, who, in the mid-19th century, ran the Women's Christian Temperance Union and later bequeathed her house to the organization. In other words, this is a distillery named after one of the leading advocates for prohibition, headquartered in a city that was dry for more than a century. Also, FEW's master distiller, Paul Hletko, is one of the first people I met in law school. Mazel...

Monday's SSD crash took an annoying, but reasonable, amount of time to fix. Otherwise I would have posted this photo of Great American Ball Park yesterday: And, of course, an obligatory photo of Cincinnati's most recognized landmark: I'll have a couple more in days to come.

Last night, while watching the Seahawks-Packers game (and rooting for the Seahawks for the same reason I wore a Giants hat to a Reds game), I saw the end of the rule of law. For three weeks, the National Football League referees have been locked out in a pensions dispute. The NFL has called in refs from the lower rungs of college sports, causing, to put it politely, controversy. Games have gotten longer by about 15 minutes as the replacement refs double-check the rules and the replays, causing players...

My laptop's solid-state drive died this afternoon. It had a long, long life (23 months—almost double what they usually get). I am thankful to the departed SSD for that, and: for dying after the client presentation, not before; for dying on the first day of a three-week project, not the last; and for living 23 months, which is about as spectacular as a dog living 23 years. I am now rebuilding my laptop on a larger but slightly slower SSD, which I hope lasts nearly as long.

Yesterday I posted a shot of the Cincinnati Reds clinching the National League Central Division title. Here's the whole park, from the cheap seats: And here's a little nerd humor for you. Why can't anyone hit a home run over Cincinnati's center-field wall? Because no one can find it: More Cincinnati photos after my 1pm meeting...