Infospigot: The Chronicles

Friday Lawn Report

It seems like just a couple weeks ago things were still a little damp from the last of our spring rains. I mowed the lawn one Sunday, then went away on a short trip. I came back to find the dry season had taken over. Our little patch of lawn in the backyard, so recently lush, was already starting to go brown. So after mowing last weekend, I broke out a sprinkler (for the back only; our scruffy front lawn is pretty much a weed patch fringed with some plantings; so much for curb appeal, but then that's the price for my guilty relationship with outdoor water use).

After I turned the sprinkler on, I went back in the house to start coffee preparations. Looking out the kitchen window, I saw a hummingbird hovering just above the spray over the lawn. Getting a sip of water, I guess.

Procrastination Friday

I'm writing an assigned work-related blog post, which means that I'm procrastinating. Which means that I found it necessary to vacuum my office and back hallway. Which means that I'm posting another shot from my recently completed trip to Chicago. Last Friday, Ann (my sister), Ingrid (my niece), and I went on a Chicago River boat ride. Westbound, I happened to look up through a bridge grating to see the Marina City towers looming overhead. When we came back east, I tried to get situated to take a picture of what I saw. I was a little slow, so I didn't get both towers in the frame. I still like the result, though.

Now back to work.

Talkin' Baseball

Me: [Erstwhile Cubs closer Carlos] Marmol. He's bad. He's explosively bad, like a bad case of diarrhea.

Thom: Yeah?

Me: Yeah. He's the only pitcher who has recently been likened to diarrhea. 'Cause when he's on the mound, the other team gets the runs.

Thom: Aw, shit.

Me: Exactly.

Air Blog: O'Hare

Back west tonight after a week in Chicago. Hard to leave there, but always good to be home. Here's my ride back, a Boeing 737, snapped as I was about to step from the jetway onto the plane.

Road Blog: The Fog

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO IL
1216 AM CDT TUE MAY 8 2012

...DENSE FOG ESPECIALLY NEAR LAKE MICHIGAN TONIGHT...

.LIGHT WINDS AND CLEARING SKIES HAVE ALLOWED DENSE FOG TO DEVELOP
ACROSS MUCH OF NORTHEAST ILLINOIS AND NORTHWEST INDIANA...WITH
DENSE FOG ALSO PUSHING INLAND FROM LAKE MICHIGAN. DENSE FOG WILL
CONTINUE THROUGH MUCH OF THE OVERNIGHT BUT VISIBILITY MAY START TO
IMPROVE FROM WEST TO EAST BY AROUND DAYBREAK AS WESTERLY WINDS
INCREASE SLIGHTLY.

ILZ006-014-INZ001-002-081300-
/O.CON.KLOT.FG.Y.0013.000000T0000Z-120508T1300Z/
LAKE IL-COOK-LAKE IN-PORTER-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...WAUKEGAN...CHICAGO...GARY...VALPARAISO
1216 AM CDT TUE MAY 8 2012

...DENSE FOG ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 AM CDT THIS
MORNING...

* VISIBILITY...LESS THAN A QUARTER MILE IN SOME LOCATIONS
  ESPECIALLY NEAR LAKE MICHIGAN.

* IMPACTS...VISIBILITY MAY CHANGE RAPIDLY OVER SHORT DISTANCES
  MAKING TRAVEL HAZARDOUS. VISIBILITY MAY BE NEAR ZERO AT TIMES
  ALONG THE LAKE MICHIGAN SHORE.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A DENSE FOG ADVISORY MEANS VISIBILITIES WILL FREQUENTLY BE
REDUCED TO LESS THAN ONE QUARTER MILE. IF DRIVING...SLOW DOWN...
USE YOUR HEADLIGHTS...AND LEAVE PLENTY OF DISTANCE AHEAD OF YOU.

Road Blog: Sidewalk Sharpener

Late last Thursday morning, I went walking up Western Avenue from my sister's place. Ultimate destination: the long-term-care/assisted-living facility (a.k.a. "nursing home") where our dad landed after his most recent hospitalization for pneumonia. Secondary destination: Starbucks, for the coffee I hadn't yet had.

On the way north, just across Touhy Avenue, I encountered the gentleman pictured above, sharpening scissors outside a beauty salon. I passed, went about 10 paces, thought "I don't see that every day," then doubled back.

His name is Richard Johnson. He was sharpening scissors for the salon workers engaged in the beauty trade. The open-air contraption he was using, he said, "was designed by a genius"--meaning himself. He's an engineer by training and said that back in the '60s he worked on ballistic missiles stationed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. His sharpening contraption consists of what looks like an emery belt and a polisher that he runs off an electrical outlet. The cord snaked across the sidewalk into the salon. It was his first time at this particular establishment. "Mostly I work at pet groomers. They're always dropping their scissors and clippers." "The clients aren't as cooperative as here," I said. "Yes--they always blame the dogs."

The most urgent task he was facing the morning I met him was reconditioning some "texturizing" scissors for a woman who already had a client in the chair. He worked on them, tested the sharpness on his arm hairs, then worked on them a little more. Then he brought them in to the shop. Looking inside, I could see the beautician making a few preliminary snips. Then Richard came back out with the scissors. "They let them get rusty and dull, and then they expect miracles," he said.

Friday Night (Chicago) Ferry

I'm not in the Bay Area to do our Friday night ferry ritual. So the next best thing was to do a Friday evening boat trip in Chicago. Ann (my sister) and Ingrid (my niece) and I drove downtown and caught a Wendella cruise from a dock just beneath the Michigan Avenue bridge over the Chicago River. The first third of the 90-minute cruise heads west to the South Branch of the river, heads down a little way, and turns around when it's just below Sears (Willis) Tower. Then it head back out to the lake, goes through the Chicago River lock out to the lake (there's a two-foot elevation difference between the lake and engineered river), then a short spin north from the mouth of the river, then south toward the planetarium and aquarium, then back into the river.

Yesterday featured shockingly fine mid-spring weather. It was a not-overly-humid 85 with a what we in the Bay Area call an offshore wind--the breeze was coming from the southwest and blowing out over the water, meaning the cooling influence of Lake Michigan was felt (and then only slightly) immediately along the shore. That beautiful day ended in a long evening of lightning, thunder, and pounding rain, and by mid-morning today the wind had turned around and was coming from the northeast, off the lake. The high here today was about 60. And on the boat this evening, it was quite cool. But as long as we were on the river, well below street level, there was hardly any wind. But I noticed that as soon as we headed out toward the lake, the tour guide who had been filling us in on the architectural scene along the river grabbed her gear and headed for the downstairs cabin. "I'll be back," she told me. "But the wind is blowing so hard out here you won't be able to hear me." The U.S. and Army Corps of Engineers flags flying at the western end of the lock were standing straight out in the breeze as we approached. I saw in the paper today that the lake's surface temperature is 43 degrees near shore, and as soon as we got out into that wind, it felt--well, pretty cold.

Then we turned around and came out of the tempest, back through the lock, back down the river. The scene above: the new Trump Building (second tallest in Chicago, a sign at its base boasts), with the Wrigley Building at right (decked in blue as part of a commemoration of fallen Chicago Police Department officers).

Air Blog: To Chicago

I managed to miss my scheduled flight earlier today by attempting one too many last-minute tasks before I headed out the door to the airport (including the daily Last Task Before Leaving, walking The Dog). I took BART out to SFO and knew I was kind of cutting it close and got to the baggage counter to check my bag about five minutes after they'd stopped taking luggage for my flight. Since they want you to be on the same plane as your baggage (think about why that is), both I and my bag got moved onto the next flight about an hour later. That was fine by me (though I might have emoted more if the delay had been four or five hours). My substitute flight was late, and for some reason the trip seemed much longer than the three and a half hours it was.

But all that's ancient history. I'm up on the North Side now, at my sister and bro-in-law's place in West Rogers Park. It's one of those perfect nights in Chicago, springtime or anytime: warm until well after midnight, but not humid enough that you feel like the warmth is hanging on you. It's calm and a little hazy but clear enough to see the brightest stars.

Preflight Vision

Off to Chicago today on a family visit. The top item on the agenda: visiting my dad, who's in a rehab facility/nursing home on the North Side of Chicago after two bouts of pneumonia over the past couple of months (and a more general cognitive and physical decline that's goes back much further). He's on oxygen now, is quite weak, and really needs round-the-clock care. My sister, Ann, was visiting him yesterday and put him on the phone. He sounded tired and small. But still Dad. I'm both looking forward to seeing him and feeling a little apprehensive about it.

But first, I have a flight to catch. I always look forward to that and feel a little apprehensive about it, too. I don't like the whole airport process. (Enough said.) I love the view of the Earth from above, even if the look you get from 35,000 feet and 550 mph tends to obscure details and prevents lingering over anything you find interesting. The shot above is from my trip with Kate to New York last August. I'm always on the lookout for geographic features, natural or manmade, to orient me--mountain ranges, rivers, cities, highways. Here, we're passing just north of Omaha, looking south across the city's airport, Eppley Airfield, (here's an overhead view from Google Maps). The water there is the Missouri River, which if you remember was very high late in the spring and throughout the summer. Council Bluffs, Iowa, is across the river on the left (east), Omaha is to the right (west). That's Interstate 680 at the bottom, built right across the flood plain. It was closed in June and essentially destroyed by the high water. The I-680 junction with I-29 is at the lower left; I-29 was also closed and needed extensive repairs. (Click the picture for larger versions.)

Malcolm

In West Oakland for a news story yesterday (our state senator was promoting her bill to create a statewide mattress recycling system--there are a lot of them left on the streets there), the strong secondary attraction was the graffiti wall running south from 25th and Willow streets. This is a small detail. But a good one.