Happy birthdays, Jesse and Theo.

Uh oh, the creatures are stirring!

Grace and Noah are adorable!

So who else has to work today?

Anyway, everything in Chicago is coated in ice. After trying to walk on the icy sidewalk while holding on to a fence, I decided it was safer to walk in the streets. I passed a woman who was trying to stand on big lumps of frozen snow that were covered in glare ice while she tried to scrape the ice off her windshield... I don't know how she'd be able to clear her windshield that way.

So I went out for breakfast, and then discovered the CTA trains weren't running. So I took a bus to Clark, and waited 25 minutes for a Clark St. bus. Eventually one came, and slowly made its way to Howard St (on the boarder of Chicago and Evanston) where I discovered that Purple Line trains were at least running in Evanston (but not to the Chicago loop). I had better luck there, as a purple line train arrived shortly, and then the 250 bus in Evanston was actually on time. So the 250 dropped me off a block from work, and then I proceeded to almost fall several times on my one-block walk to work.

The high is supposed to be 40-ish today, so hopefully the ice will be all melted when I go home.

We have fog and a predicted high of 71 today.

Some of the worst icy driving conditions in years hit the Chicago area early this morning, causing crashes too numerous to count.

Now they tell me.

Now I'm glad I didn't drive... but I figured the roads were too icy for a rear-drive car anyway.

I have to work.

We got freezing rain here, but I was only a couple miles from work when it hit. One shaky moment at the end of the freeway exit, but all was well.

I just went out to the car to look for something and it's coated in an icy lacquer. But it's supposed to warm up, so maybe that lacquer will turn to slush and fuck off.

More from the Tribune:

The CTA encountered problems getting its buses out of its garages this morning. "We are experiencing major delays," spokeswoman Kim Myles said. She encouraged commuters to allow "plenty of extra travel time."

Oh. So that's why.

While waiting for a Clark St. bus, I called a friend and had her look on the CTA bus tracker site to see when the next bus would show up. Turns out they haven't added the 22 bus to the system yet. But then a 22 bus suddenly arrived (coming from the wrong direction, even). Then a woman asked me if I had called the bus here. I was tempted to say, "Yes, Ma'am, I used my magic CTA phone number to summon a bus here." But I didn't say that.

Still more fun:

No more rain, sleet or snow is forecast for the rest of the day, but thunderstorms that are expected to move into the area early Saturday morning should stay around long enough to cause flooding problems.

"Some indications are that there could be pretty serious flooding in some areas," said Gino Izzi, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

Saturday could also see a high temperature of 60 degrees. With the near-record warm temperatures on the way, which will cause snow to melt, and with the anticipated rainfall, "some rivers could reach record crests [by early next week]," Izzi said.

It's weird - after all the "debate" on whether global warming is real, it turns out that things may be much worse than the worse-case scenarios of the climate scientists....

Agencies' report warns of faster climate change

Reporting from Washington -- The United States faces the possibility of much more rapid climate change by the end of the century than previous studies have suggested, according to a report led by the U.S. Geological Survey.

...

In one of the report's most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea levels could rise as much as 4 feet by 2100. The intergovernment panel had projected a rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the last two years show the world's major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice in the Alps.

I'm just trying to picture 48 cubic miles of ice....

Yeah, I got to watch lots of video of cars spinning out on the interstate.

ION - Drew Carey's Time Warp vs. Groove Thang.

(In honor of Logo's 24 hours of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert .)

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