It is -15ºF with a wind chill of -37ºF during my lunch hour here in Chicago. The wind is out of the west at 15 MPH and there is zero cloud cover. I don’t need a fancy hashtag or scary sounding names like “Polar Vortex” (though I did enjoy one of those at a fast food place a couple of years ago) to relay the information that it’s cold outside. It’s very cold outside. As beautiful as the sky looks, I’m going to refrain from going for a walk today simply because it would not be enjoyable.
I like to enjoy my walks.
The CTA Brown Line is passing by our building with scheduled regularity. Folks at the CTA are working hard to keep Chicago moving. Their Twitter feed shows they’re addressing issues as they arise. CNN likes showing images of train tracks being set on fire to unfreeze frozen switches. Fire gets the attention when you’re browsing a website. It creates more web clicks.
The news outlets have been telling us about these bitterly cold temperatures for a week, so I’m sure most reasonable folks were prepared. Earl made sure we had what we needed in the cupboards and fridge. He’s good like that.
It’s cold out. It’s very cold out. But the sunshine still brings warmth and tomorrow is another day.
It was refreshing to hear someone speaking in a presidential manner on a cable news channel. This type of discussion, where she touched on policy points around immigration, health care, border security, and many other subjects, has not happened in the last two years. It was great to take a step away from the constant chaos from the idiot currently in the White House.
She made me feel hopeful. Remember what ‘hopeful’ feels like?
I like what I know about Kamala Harris. I love her confidence, I’m comfortable with the way she presents herself, and I found her ways of expressing herself to be compatible with the way I think. I’m still reading up on her ideology and where she stands on key policy points, but I was 95% with her on what she discussed during last night’s broadcast.
I’m looking forward to learning about the other candidates putting their hats in the ring. It’s important to read data from reputable sources and to learn as much as we can about our leaders. I want to feel good about them, yes, but I also want to know where they stand and how they plan to achieve the goals they have for leading the country.
The 2020 election cycle has begun. Are you ready for the ride?
I ran across this interview on YouTube today and ended up watching the entire 10 or so minutes in its entirety. I’m guessing this interview as from around 1990, as George H.W. Bush was president at the time.
John Chancellor, former anchorman for NBC Nightly News, talks about what was plaguing the U.S. at the time. I couldn’t help but think how prophetic some of his insights were, especially when it comes to campaign financing, PACs and SuperPACs, and the state of American education.
I miss hearing the optimism he has in his voice in today’s “journalists” on the cable news channels.
So the family went to the Museum of Contemporary Art today. Jamie wanted to check out a limited run exhibit for a grad school project and we came along for the fun. I’m a big fan of the art museums in our fine city. This was my first visit to MOCA.
Whenever I go to an art museum I feel inspired to take a mundane photo in an artsy way in an attempt to embrace my inner geek. I’ve taken photos of washing machines in a laundromat, random shots on the ‘L’, etc. Today I took a photo at a nearby by M Burger.
Earl and I have been talking about having a cat move in with us here in Chicago. It’s a conversation we’ve been having for the past month or so. I’ve missed having a feline companion since Tom passed away five and a half years ago.
I was a little worried about inviting another cat to live with us since in early 2014 we brought Scooter into our home and he wasn’t really happy. Looking back, Scooter was a barn cat that we moved into a suburban house and honestly, it just wasn’t the right fir for him. I’m happy we were able to find him a place to live where he’d be happier.
So we’ve been talking about finding an indoor cat that needed a good home here in Chicago. We’ve been looking online for the past couple of weeks and today we visited PAWS Chicago. It was there that we met Truman.
There was another couple considering adopting Truman when we first got there. He was super friendly in the room he was sharing with four other cats. The back half of the right side of his body, one of his paws, and under his chin is currently shaved. The Chicago Animal Control folks found him in an alley with a large cut on his right side. They stitched him up, made sure he was doing OK, gave him all his medications, and the brought him to PAWS Chicago for adoption. He was neutered, chipped, and his stitches were removed on Thursday.
The couple that was interested in adopting him decided to go look at dogs instead, so we visited with him for a bit, visited with some other cats as well, and then decided that Truman needed to come home with us.
The records were reviewed, the paperwork was signed, we made a stop at the PETCO across the street to pick up supplies and then we brought Truman home.
We were advised to introduce him slowly to the home but if he felt comfortable just let him do his thing. As soon as we let him out of his box and started calmly walking around the condo mapping out every nook and cranny in his head. He then went back around and did it again.
He helped me put together a five foot high cat condo perch arrangement thing so he has a nice view of the city. He’s plopped himself on both our laps and various times during the night and he’s run around this place at 100 MPH. He’s very curious about every noise he hears but he never runs and hides. He’s very inquisitive.
He also loves chasing the laser pointer light.
The thing that strikes me most about him is he feels very grateful. He’s already showing off a big personality and I like that. I wonder what brought him to that alley to end up with a big cut the runs up his side.
I hope he’s as happy to be here as we are to have him here. Earlier today I had a brief “impression” of our old cat Tom rubbing up against my leg, like it was OK for us to help another have a happy life .
So, is there anything going on in the news today? I hear Ann Coulter is not happy because Trump did not heed her words. She spat a spite tweet and tried to garner more notoriety for herself. Her brand is notoriety.
Earl and I are watching The Rachel Maddow Show this evening. Earl’s been watching the news all day today. During my workday I monitored the slowing down of the nation’s airspace due to staffing issues at key Air Traffic Control Centers in Jacksonville and Boston. Once air traffic in and out of the New York airports started happening, it was only a matter of time before Trump finally caved and realized he isn’t going to get money for his stupid wall.
I unfriended a few Facebook “friends” this evening. They were going on and on about illegal immigrants spreading disease. I think they were thinking the illegal immigrants were coming into their town from Mexico, New York. There’s no way these “friends” had traveled any farther south than the New York-Pennsylvania border. I’m pretty sure illegal immigrants aren’t flocking to Oswego, New York to rip NASCAR opportunities away from the natives. A couple of these “friends” may have been related by blood. I just hit delete delete delete.
When I was younger I never realized the stark differences in political beliefs between my paternal and maternal sides of the family. There’s a reason I’m little bit country and little bit rock ‘n roll.
Apparently Bernie Sanders is announcing his intent to run for the presidency again. Someone needs to tell Bernie that his services are not required. He won’t make the spotlight this time around.
It’s way too early to decide who I like for presidential candidates for next year’s election. It’s interesting to see how the field is starting to fill up. I have pretty middle of the road standards for presidential candidates. Despite my rantings and ravings during this miserable, failed hissy fit of an administration, I am solidly in the political center. Since it’s going to be cold this weekend I’ll probably write more; perhaps I’ll share an updated bullet list of my political beliefs.
I snapped this photo during my walk this morning. It is currently a third of the temperature it was when this photo was taken and it was 15ºF during my walk. Right now it’s 5ºF. On the bright side, it’s above zero.
Wednesday is suppose to have a high of -5ºF.
Snow doesn’t bother me. I don’t mind snow all that much, even when we have feets and yards of it. But cold? Yeah, I’m not a fan. I don’t like the feeling of cold out there. It’s better than oppressively hot, but I’d be happy with a nice 68ºF year round. I guess I’m finicky.
With all the stuff going on during the Government Shutdown for a wall that no one wants, I really worry about the folks that are working their full-time job but will still get a paycheck of zero tomorrow because President Coulter dictated she wouldn’t support the idiot in the seat unless he got his wall built. I worry about the unpaid government working staying warm, I worry about them feeding their families, I worry about them having a roof over their head. Despite the fact that Trump thinks you can buy groceries on a line of credit, I’m pretty sure even Ike Godsey stopped that practice some time during World War II.
The United States of America is a very cold place right now. It’s a shame I’m not talking about the weather.
Very early in my professional career I worked for Digital, otherwise known as Digital Equipment Corporation, commonly (but erroneously by corporate standards) called DEC. At the time I was with the company it was the second largest computer company in the world. I was one of about 120,000 employees. This was back in the late 1980s.
One of the mantras at Digital was to always do the right thing. You could always ask for forgiveness later. Even at age 19 I took this approach with my career and I made changes in software that turned out great in the long run, but I had to ask for forgiveness for going outside the development processes that had been in place long before I joined the company.
The company I currently work for is primarily a Microsoft shop, even though we use Linux all day and every day on our servers. A while back I was given a Windows 10 laptop to replace the Mac I had insisted be present for me to join the company; it seems they wanted to go all Windows on the desktop and Macs just weren’t fitting into that scheme. The company does offer a BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device program and many opt to do this. When the Windows 10 laptop arrived I registered my work MacBook Pro into the Bring Your Own Device program, which kept it alive on the corporate network. I’m lucky that I work remotely; the MBP can’t be plugged into the network at an office.
As a “ Crazy One”, I am able to get a lot of work done on my Mac. I even spent hours over the holidays comparing my workflow on the Windows 10 computer versus my workflow on the Mac and how much of a difference it made in my levels of productivity. I am 34% less productive on a Windows machine, mostly because of a lack of cohesiveness in the software experience on Windows, and because of the number of reboots required during the day (the company uses a mix of 32 and 64 bit software which I think makes Windows 10 cranky).
Plus, the fan is running all. the. time. on the Dell laptop they gave me.
I don’t know if the BYOD program is going to remain alive forever at work, but I’m going to continue using this MacBook Pro for as long as I can.
If someone doesn’t like it, I’ll ask for forgiveness later.
In the meanwhile, I’ll continue to dazzle to the best of my ability. I mean, getting things done is what it’s all about, right?
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
