Events

The Chicago White Sox gave up 28 runs yesterday, losing both games of a double-header with the Indians, 19-10 and 9-8. While that went on, Philadelphia beat the Dodgers 16-1, and Milwaukee got spanked 10-3 by the Pirates. In total, there were 171 runs in Major League Baseball yesterday. I don't know if that's a record, but an average of 11.4 runs per game seems a little high, doesn't it? But, wow. Twenty-eight runs in one day against one team. That's the super-special kind of baseball they play on the...

Park #25 is in the bag. The Seattle Mariners beat the Cubs 5-4 in 10 innings yesterday after being up by 3 in the top of the 7th. Because if you're up by 3 in the 7th, and you're the Cubs, you're probably going to screw up the 9th. And here is Mike Zunino hitting the 10th-inning single (with bases loaded) that won the game: Sigh. So I'm in Seattle, and I have a couple of hours of work to do before my flight to San Francisco. I need some coffee. Where to go? That's a no-brainer: I am under an obligation...

It turns out, all of O'Hare has free WiFi these days, so I can do work right at the gate when my plane's delayed by several short intervals. (A long delay would have seen me in the club, what what!) Tonight I'll be at Safeco Field watching the Cubs probably lose to the Mariners and taking in my 25th park. Right now, I'm at H11A waiting for them to clean the plane. Pretty normal travel day, except for getting out of the Loop.

As predicted yesterday, Chicago has had more rain so far this year than we had all last year—699 mm in the first half of 2013 v. 684 mm in all of 2012. That also makes the first half of 2013 the wettest January to June ever: Wednesday morning’s deluge is just the latest to hit portions of the Greater Chicago area in a year which has been producing precipitation at a record rate. There hasn’t been a single year since official weather records began 142 years ago in 1871 which has produced a year-to-date...

Note: The DOMA and Prop 8 decisions just came out during the phone meeting that interrupted this entry. I'm sure I'll have something to say about SCOTUS in a few hours. Right now, I have to take advantage of the letup in rain and get to the office. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog entry, already in progress: The monsoon-like rains stalled over the Chicago area today, which will push us past having more precipitation in six months (662 mm as of 7am, with the rain still coming down) than...

We've got a bit of rain in Chicago this morning: UPDATE: 7:00 am Arlington Heights 93 mm Mundelein 65 mm of rain Wheeling Chicago Executive airport 107 mm between 4-7am Lake Zurich 135 mm McHenry 134 mm- Most of it falling since 3am Crystal Lake 24 hour rainfall 114 mm The rain has shut down area transportation: Flooding has closed the Edens Expressway at Pratt Avenue this morning and has stopped at least three trains on Metra's Union Pacific Northwest Line. The expressway was closed around 7 a.m....

You call that a filibuster? That's not a filibuster. This is a filibuster: With tensions running high on both sides, state Sen. Wendy Davis [mounted] a dramatic filibuster Tuesday...to block passage of a controversial and politically charged anti-abortion bill. Because the special legislative session [ended] at midnight, the Fort Worth Democrat [succeeded by] talking on Senate Bill 5 — a move that [blocked] a mandate by top state Republican leaders to pass the measure during the special legislative...

Won, apparently: The journey began with Jonathan Toews organizing informal workouts while the NHL lockout raged on and ended with the Blackhawks captain holding the Stanley Cup aloft. The Hawks' magical 2013 season concluded with seemingly the only result Toews and Co. would allow — the franchise's fifth title and second in the last four years after a 3-2 victory over the Bruins on Monday night at TD Garden. And like the first title, the second sparked a celebration that began on the ice, continued on...

The publicity photos I took a couple of weeks ago have started getting published. Spectralia's first news release went with this one: I'll keep posting the ones they use.

Overnight, a commenter from Ireland took issue with my last post. I responded directly, but I thought my response might be worth repeating. I'm not sure I stated my point clearly enough: I wasn't actually discussing Snowden's leak; I'm saying we can't have an adult discussion about the leak any more, because he screwed up the end game. The anonymous commenter wrote, inter alia: Einstein fled. So did Hedy Lamar. So did thousands of others - including many who aided Germany's enemies. Were they cowards?...