This almost escaped my attention. Craft Beer week started today! So much for sobriety. Revolution Brewery is taking over the Village Tap on Friday. And Sunday! Oh, Sunday! Goose Island is having a block party featuring eight, count them, eight Bourbon County Stouts! *drool*
Category Archives: Chicago
106 Degrees In Iowa
Sioux City, Iowa hit 106 degrees yesterday. This after getting an unprecedented snowfall earlier in the month. Temperatures rose 77 degrees in only 56 hours.
Chicago officially hit 91 degrees after being at 36 degrees the previous morning. That makes it the highest temperature swing ever recorded for May.
Many other 100+ degree temperatures were recorded. The highest was 108 in Broken Bow, Iowa.
The extreme temperatures are due to an extreme jet stream. There is a huge bow in the jet stream allowing cold air to flood in from Canada and behind that bow is a giant surge of warm air that stretches north to Canada. The jet stream does look like this from time to time during the summer and it’s usually how the most violent summer storms come to be. A jet stream configuration like this happening in May is extremely unusual.
Tree Splooge
All the trees here in Chicago are budding and it’s slightly rainy and a bit windy. That means tree splooge is everywhere. Those of us who are unlucky enough to have parked outside need a tree splooge towel to wipe off our cars. Budding trees will have distinctive bud/pollen rings around them come morning. It’s a little disgusting but it’s all part of the normal cycle.
Spring is kind of amazing. The world takes on this sickly sweet smell wherever you go. With all of the trees coming out of hibernation, the carbon dioxide in the air actually precipitously drops. The earth has a breath rhythm and that breath rhythm is increasing:
Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to increased temperatures. Increased temperatures leads to more erratic weather. More erratic weather leads to more disasters.
Increased carbon dioxide is only good for plants up to a point just like increased oxygen is only good for humans up to a point. If oxygen were increasing the way carbon dioxide is we’d be terrified. Too much oxygen in the air and someone lights a cigarette and the entire world explodes. Carbon dioxide isn’t as dramatic. It’s a creeper. There are so many places to store the excess heat that carbon dioxide creates that people don’t realize there’s something wrong. But there is something wrong and special interests have hijacked rational debate.
97% of climate scientists say there is something wrong but the 3% that say there isn’t anything wrong get equal (or even more) time in the media. This creates a dynamic where people believe there is a vigorous scientific debate going on where there really isn’t.
The ice caps are melting dramatically. Air temperatures are slowly rising. The ocean is incomprehensibly vast and has the ability to absorb a lot of the generated heat. At some point, that will end and the air temperature will rise precipitously. It may already be too late to stop this. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act.
Movie Review: The Company You Keep
Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate.
Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars Sometimes, somebody else’s past comes back to haunt you.
Commutageddon II: The Re-Commutening
There has been little to no communication about it from the CTA, but this weekend starts phase two of the Wells St. bridge replacement project. It’s the same plan as the last time. Brown Line trains won’t be going into the Loop. Purple Lines won’t be leaving Evanston. The Red Line or bus is the only choice for the North Side to get into the Loop.
Even though phase one was a breeze, I predict disaster this time around. At least on Monday. While the CTA didn’t do a great communication job last time, they at least had people out the week before telling riders about the upcoming construction. Nothing this time. Beware!
Commutageddon? More like Commutaheaven!
Well, Commutageddon is a bust. The morning commute was exactly the same as it always was and the evening commute was actually faster than usual.
Maybe there were so many people off today because of Casimir Pulaski Day? Or maybe so many people were scared off because of the dire warnings of mass hysteria? Either way, I’ll take it.
Commutageddon Downgrade
The National Transportation Service (me) has downgraded the upcoming Wells St. bridge replacement project, dubbed Commutageddon by the media (also me), from a Category 5 event to a Category 2 event. Purple Line trains will still not be running past Howard for the next week. During rush periods, some Brown Line trains will travel as far as Merchandise Mart, while others will follow the Red Line after Fullerton and take the Subway to Roosevelt and turn back north from there. Brown Line trains going the Red Line route will show the red Roosevelt sign in their windows.
A CTA spokesman was reached to help explain the changes. Here is what he had to say: “So we ffljfwefsvoiregjl and jflsfiwgj;rl to the fsl;jf;gjld Brown Line fsjlkjs;gdj ;slcjmggs sc;ljgmj;f but the total ;jasvl;gmjlgdc hgvem;glcs cnhgkmge;w ;jbjm;rwjvle Thank you.”
There will be fewer Brown Line trains so expect a crowded commute regardless, but it’s good to know that there is a loop alternative for the train during the rush periods. As always, the place to get real information on the CTA happenings is the CTA Tattler.