Events

While London's bike-share program seems to have some problems, Chicago is expanding its Divvy program, and asking for user input: To cap off the Year of the Divvy, the city is crowdsourcing all you urban dwellers for suggestions on where to install 175 more stations across Chicago next year. Still no word on if they will make sure Divvy riders know not to ride the bikes on crowded Michigan Avenue sidewalks. They bred like rabbits this summer, popping up in succession so close to each other. I could...

The Atlantic Cities blog sounds the alarm about London's bike share program: While the system recorded 726,893 journeys in November 2012, last month there were only 514,146. To cap these poor user figures, today Transport for London announced that the scheme's major sponsor, Barclays Bank, will pull out of its sponsorship deal in 2015. Given the bad publicity the system has received recently, it may be hard to find a replacement sponsor without some major changes. None of this would matter much if...

Yesterday's forecast really didn't go far enough. We weren't expecting -16°C until tomorrow night, but we got -21°C early this morning: The temperature dipped below zero overnight at O'Hare International Airport, the earliest that has happened here since 1995. The cold will hold through the week, bringing a burst of snow in time for the morning rush Wednesday. The temperature fell to one degree below zero around 12:55 a.m., according to the National Weather Service. That's the earliest subzero readings...

It's cold in Chicago right now: -7°C with a wind chill of -13°C and gradual cooling predicted towards a low of -16°C Wednesday night. This is only the second time in 30 years it's been so cold, so early. Two things: first, though I don't have time to link to anything right now, it turns out this cold in Chicago is caused by abnormally warm temperatures in the North Pacific. So, yeah, aggregate global warming causes localized cold snaps. Second, thanks to celestial mechanics, tonight's sunset will be...

American Airlines and US Airways are now legally one company: While we’ve legally combined as one company, we'll continue to function as two separate airlines for quite some time, and very few changes will happen immediately. This is especially important throughout the busy holiday travel season, as our first priority will be delivering a smooth operation for customers of both airlines. There is no impact to any existing travel reservations you may have with American Airlines or US Airways at this time...

Yes, that's why you should buy this book: This is right up there with the (in)famous marketing of the same play in 1968, when movie posters proclaimed it "Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet."

My cousin and I, who have season tickets to Wrigley Field, went to the park on Thursday to see what other seats were available. Last season we were in section 518: After walking around a bit, we decided on a change of view, to Section 524: The seats are nearly equivalent, just rotated 90° to the south, and without the foul ball catcher between us and the pitcher's mound. We're not optimistic about the Cubs' chances this season, but we'll be there anyway. Opening day against the Phillies on April 5th.

The Illinois Supreme Court recently overturned the "Amazon tax" that caused the online retailer to drop all of their Illinois affiliates (like me) a couple years ago. Well, they brought the program back to Illinois, so The Daily Parker is once again an Amazon Associate. All that means is, when I link to books or content—like, for example, the Deadwood Blu-Ray box set—the link will include an ID that lets me take a piece of your purchase. This is the only way that I monetize the blog. Note, for example...

Wow, do I hate eastbound overnight flights. Wednesday I felt totally fine. I got up normally, went through a normal day, and felt pleased with myself for conquering jet lag. After picking up Parker, I went to Duke of Perth for a nice cheeseburger (I never eat American food while abroad if I can help it), had an Old Chub, and got home by 9:30. At this point, my body decided that since it was only noon (in Korea), there was no crashing need to go to bed. So it kept me up for another seven hours. I finally...

I'm back in Chicago, trying to determine what day it is (Wednesday, I think). Tuesday was very long—39 hours for me, if you go by the book—but the only way it makes sense to me is to think of it as two separate days. For instance, I think I started trying to get some sleep somewhere just east of Japan somewhere around 9pm local time, which would be 30 hours ago. Then I woke up somewhere just east of Sacramento about 24 hours ago. The evening and the morning of the first day, sort of. All right, so I had...