Events

Yesterday I bought the Sunday Chicago Tribune for the first time in years. Sadly, I didn't buy it to read. It's just packing material. Did I mention I hate moving?

I've got about 990 photographs to comb through, which I'll start doing later this afternoon. Meanwhile I'm unpacking so I can do laundry and pack again. It's weird to think I'll only be in my house another seven days after spending the last nine away from it.

First of many: Many more coming. So far I've shot 930 images...and haven't even seen all of them yet.

I'm in a remote area with slow Internet for the next couple of days. You will see photos, and descriptions, and probably Yelp reviews coming up...but for today and probably a lot of tomorrow, less so. (Click on the globe icon below for some insight.) It turned out, visiting Venice for only one day worked exactly right. More on that, too, as time warrants.

I'm David Braverman, this is my blog, and Parker is my 7½-year-old mutt. I last updated this About... page in September 2011, more than 1,300 posts back, so it's time for a refresh. The Daily Parker is about: Parker, my dog, whom I adopted on 1 September 2006. Politics. I'm a moderate-lefty by international standards, which makes me a radical left-winger in today's United States. The weather. I've operated a weather website for more than 13 years. That site deals with raw data and objective...

Because of a barrage of comment spam, I've temporarily killed the comment feature of The Daily Parker. These things usually pass in a couple of days. Management apologizes for the inconvenience.

I finally got around to reading The Atlantic's 2010 Fiction issue, and I happened upon this essay by Richard Bausch: Finally, a word about this kind of instruction: it is always less effective than actually reading the books of the writers who precede you, and who are contemporary with you. There are too many "how-to" books on the market, and too many would-be writers are reading these books in the mistaken idea that this will teach them to write. I never read such a book in my life, and I never will....

We did, in fact, break the snowfall record for February: February 2011 will go down as the snowiest February in Chicago's 126 years of recorded weather history. One inch of snow fell overnight at O'Hare Airport, Chicago's official reporting station, pushing the monthly snowfall total to 726 mm. This surpasses the old record of 706 mm, established in 1896. OK, maybe we didn't break the record, but the record, she is a-broken.

WGN and the Chicago Tribune reported last night that Chicago has experienced the most snow in any February since records began in 1883, breaking the old record set in 1896. As of Thursday Chicago had received 683 mm (the old record was 706 mm). The forecast predicted significant accumulation overnight, but O'Hare didn't get enough to break the record, falling 13 mm short. All we Chicagoans want is validation. But, you know, it's like the Cubs on a record-setting losing streak and then winning one just...

I do like the client where I'm spending almost all my waking moments, but because it's a short engagement, we're working pretty long hours. I got a chance to meet some friends in New York last night which, as a side effect, kept me offline for 18 hours yesterday. Bottom line: I ent dead yet, and will resume daily blog postings when this project ends next week.