Events

I took Parker's annual birthday photo yesterday, but I only now had the chance to post it. Surrounding him, and distracting him, is the detritus of my life, which I have not (surprise!) unpacked yet: For comparison, here's his first birthday: And last year's:

Here are the last two photos from Milan: the Duomo. Later, that same day: And this concludes (for now) the Italian portion of our program.

It hardly feels like eleven days have gone by since we passed through Como on our way to Milan. Como seemed like an Italian lake town with a heavy tourist population, which, it turns out, it is. But there were a couple of nooks: Then there was Milan. I didn't have a great impression of the city when I visited in 2007, and this sign, glimpsed on the way to drop off our rental car at the airport, didn't inspire confidence: Translation: "For about 10 years, this road will suck. Sorry." And suck it did....

When the movers arrived at the former Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters yesterday morning, they remarked that it looked like I had everything organized well and they would hit their estimate. Mother Nature disagreed, giving us drenching rains that halted loading the truck for half an hour, and following up with this when we unloaded: [T]he weather service issued a tornado warning for parts of central Cook County, activating sirens throughout Chicago, but no touchdowns were reported. That warning...

This is my past night in the place I've lived for more than seven years, and it's a disaster area. I take legal possession of my new place in a little more than three hours, but all my stuff is not magically being transported there. I've spent the better part of today packing, using Cleveland Indians Duck tape to mark which drawers and closets are empty (file under "moving randomness"), so now every time I need something I realize it's in one of these boxes. Bollocks. Under the heading, "This, By You...

One step in the Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters move this weekend was to get my Internet connection turned on at my new place. Unfortunately this meant moving the modem from the old place, so I will have only a little bit of Internet this weekend, if any. I still have a bunch of photos to post. Meanwhile, I wanted to post some context. Here is the map of where Google thought my phone was last week; it's remarkably accurate: Here's the same data constrained to Wednesday through Friday: I have a...

Today I'm going to get a salad from Whole Foods Market. But last Thursday, at Ristorante Arté al Lago in Lugano, Switzerland, I had this: That is a venison tortellini in a broth that must have taken them two days to cook. The only pasta I have ever had in my life that topped it was the peacock ravioli I ate at Mistral the night before. Why did we go hiking so much? So we could fit into the clothes we brought with us, of course.

Security guru Bruce Schneier, writing for CNN, is not surprised that TSA screeners missed 95% of guns in a recent drill: For those of us who have been watching the TSA, the 95% number wasn't that much of a surprise. The TSA has been failing these sorts of tests since its inception: failures in 2003, a 91% failure rate at Newark Liberty International in 2006, a 75% failure rate at Los Angeles International in 2007, more failures in 2008. And those are just the public test results; I'm sure there are many...

Part of the reason one stays in an Agriturismo is to go hiking. This is a state highway (scala provincale) near the closest village: Despite being as far north (46°27') as Quebec City and Portland, Ore., Dosso del Liro is surprisingly warm and dry, the perfect environment for these guys, which we saw all over: These guys (common Italian wall lizards) are about 8 cm nose to tail, and very fast. We didn't even try to catch them. But they're also hard to photograph; I got lucky and moved very slowly for...

Northern Italian Alpine lake village, go: This is another example of how a little HDR makes a big difference. Tomorrow: photos from Thursday, including lunch in Lugano.