Pleasant Weather: The Coming Apocalypse

What a glorious past couple of days, weather wise. Temps in the 80's, sunny, a slight breeze coming out of the west. I even considered going swimming this weekend. Of course, I am a pasty white guy and I was afraid that I might get some sort of horrendous blistery sunburn again, so instead I kept my shirt on and enjoyed the sunshine. Yessir, there's nothing finer than summer in Chicago.


What's that you say? Check the day? Why it's Monday, silly. Oh the date. Sorry. Hold on, let me check my calendar.


October 8th. Huh. Seems a little late for summery weather given that we're clearly in autumn now. Well, maybe it's like an Indian Summer or something. Except didn't we kind of have one of those already? Maybe we get two. Maybe we as a city were extra good this year and are being rewarded with a second Indian Summer.

Well then I shall think nothing of it, give thanks to the fates and simply enjoy the nice weather with which we have recently been blessed.

Now what should I do today? Perhaps I will check the BBC news website now to read up on the current events of the day and so forth. I would check CNN but I'm afraid I've had my fill of anecdotal amputee news recently.

Let me see here. Hmmm. It would appear that Canada is asserting it's teritorial rights over something called the Northwest Passage. Boring! I wonder what David Beckham is up to. But wait, what is a Northwest Passage? Let me think. That must be a shipping lane that runs between that Atlantic and Pacific Oceans across the northern coast of Canada.

But I thought that the Northwest Passage was largely theoretical. I thought that there was so much Arctic ice that there was no safe way to get large shipping vessels through. I thought that countless 16th century explorers risked time, money and lives searching for a viable Northwest Passage only to be turned back in vain.

It looks like that same artic ice has melted enough that a shipping lane over the north of Canada is now a viable option. I've always thought that we needed another shipping lane. As a matter of fact, I spend a lot of time thinking about shipping and wondering where the next lane is going to come from. Maybe we as a continent were extra good this year, so we're being rewarded with another shipping lane! I wonder if it's part of the same good things that we did to deserve all the good weather.

Oh, before I forget, note to self: buy sunscreen.