It doesn’t get much better than this. Unless it’s winter. And you’re into it. Two weeks a year, is my bet, Chicago has weather this pleasant. Sunny fall days and windbreaker nights. I mean, this is August when it could, and maybe should be, sweltering. If I ride early enough, I can make it to work without really sweating. A surprise sprinkle would really round it out. I’ll try to take and post some new pictures using Flock, which I learned about this weekend from Walter Mossberg’s piece in Saturday’s Chicago Sun-Times. I was able to organize several emails accounts, Facebook, WordPress, flickr, and YouTube, I think, together. It could help in developing a solid workflow that takes into account both my Mac and PC, prepares pictures for archives and smaller samples for those multiple sites. I haven’t played with the news aggregators, yet. Got way distracted with Flock’s Media Bar. It’s thorough. I’m looking forward to how well it plays with C-SPAN. Not sure if it’s portable, should be. Will soon find out.

And now for the goods.

perfect weather in the Windy City

See you out there.

While I understand the need for heads of state to attend the Olympics, watching Bush through NBC coverage had me asking questions. Perhaps he could appear to be having less fun? We are in the middle of a war(s).

This photo says a lot.

Tags: Bushbeijing olympics volleyball

ROCHESTER FIRE DEPARTMENTDeputy Chief Sam Mitrano: 279-4032HAZ-MAT: 428-6642, backup pio; Mitrano’s cell: 764-8818.

Wow. I’m still trying to figure out how to use the picture I took from my hotel room as the header for this site. The national convention seems to be the epicenter of the most elite journalists and those aspiring to be them . I snatched up just about every piece of paper, reprint and business card I could get my hands on. If you are a reporter and want to improve your craft, I highly recommend learning a little bit about Investigative Reporters and Editors.

I was fortunate to attend the conference as a Philip L. Graham Diversity Fellow, an award for minority journalists. Part of the prize was a priceless conversation with Joe Tanfani, a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter and now investigations editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In the coming days I’ll try to synthesize the tremendous amount of information I came away with and add links to resources and tips I picked up. But the best advice I could give is to visit IRE and seriously consider joining. According to outgoing executive director Brant Houston, membership “costs less than a cup of coffee a week, especially if you’re going to Starbucks.”

Enough of the pitch, hopefully you’ll see the tremendous resources the organization provides.

I’m still not over posting the details of my own life but since it is my job to discover and relate those of others I will try to get over it. I never really care about winning or losing. Whether it’s play or work, just being a part of the game is enough. But today was different. Today I lost at the Gysels. I am incredibly proud of my colleagues who were recognized for their absolutely stellar work. I just wish I had been one of them.

Dealing appropriately with this fact will take some time. Hopefully I’ll be over it tomorrow morning. Thursday is only 16 minutes away.