respublica

The longest day

I have to start with the end of our trip out to Rockville Maryland because it was the weirdest.

Yesterday we leaded for the airport after leaving Katie's house in Rockville Maryland at around 10:30 Eastern time. The drive to Baltimore was fine and the airport check in was fine (we got the A group and pre-check!). We even had a great lunch in the concourse. Baltimore's airport has lots of neat things including good food choices. But then things took a turn we never expected.

After eating we leisurely headed for our gate. We were supposedly on a flight to St. Louis which would leave at 2:10. We looked at the flight board and did not see that flight listed. Then we looked at our boarding pass and saw the flight number was different than what we had on our reservation tickets. But this new number was leaving at 1:30 so we were happy to believe we'd get home earlier.

However.  At the gate we immediately saw that this flight was first going to take us to Houston and from there to St. Louis. Neither of us wanted that. It was 3 plus hours to Houston, a wait while people got off and on, and then up to St. Louis. We'd be in that plane for almost 6 hours. So Dale went up to the gate attendant and she tapped a few things into her computer and told him our original flight had been canceled and the check-in people put us on this flight without our knowledge. There was nothing we could do.

So we flew the long ride to Houston, got there around 5 and finally took off for St. Louis where we landed after 8 and home at 9. Our 9 was 10 eastern when we left Katie's so almost 10-12 hours of travel yesterday. We knew St. Louis had had bad weather so we decided when we got off the plane Dale would go straight to the parking area, get our car and pull up to passenger pickup while I got our bags.

We should have known nothing would be easy on this day. The good thing was his car was not covered with ice and snow even though it had sat out in the weather. Meanwhile I pulled my suitcase off the baggage carousel with no problem, but his never appeared. I texted him about this and then waited a bit to see if his was just slow to come out, but no, it never did. So I went to the baggage desk to report this. The two women asked where the bag started out and when I told them Baltimore they asked his name. Then they laughed. It seems his bag got to Lambert 4 hours earlier and was sitting in a lost bag office.

4 hours earlier! That is when we should have gotten to St. Louis if we hadn't been routed through Houston. So the question is: What flight did Dale's bag get on and why weren't we on it too? We don't know and we weren't laughing last night but we sort of are today. But that doesn't mean we don't want answers. My belief is that maybe the original check in people goofed up and put us on the wrong flight. We just don't know. But if our original flight had been canceled, how did Dale's bag get here.

So many hours.

One last thing. I have taken great pride over the years in never ever used the bathroom on a plane. The more years this has gone on the more pride I've taken in this. But yesterday was just too weird and during the stop-over in Houston while we waited for new people to board for St. Louis I just had to use the plane's bathroom. First time in my entire life of plane travel. But at least I didn't have to walk past rows and rows of people to get there. The plane was empty except for about 7 of us who got stuck trying to get to St. Louis via Houston.

Here we are happily eating not knowing what we were in for.

The picture is sideways just like we were yesterday.

Lights! Christmas

Some of our seminary students began hanging Christmas lights in the park like area between the campus and Demun. It was a gloomy day, but they were all pretty darn cheerful as they untangled and hung the lights. This will be a long process but we've begun.

As you can see, they don't just toss a string of lights on the branches and call it a day. They really wrap and wrap so that the lights show up.

The above photo has Holy Cross field worker, Alarik Morris working in a Santa hat.

Fall but Christmas

We are off to Maryland in a few minutes, hopefully I can post while out there at Katie's.

Life hacks

I'm a sucker for these articles which give simple solutions to many things we have to do. They call them life hacks.

One tells us that when you go to fill up your car with gas and can't remember which side of the car you have to use, just look at the fuel gauge and there should be an arrow pointing left or right. Now, this is for people who must be really forgetful, but honestly, when I have to use Dale's car, I often have to give some thought to where his gas tank door is.

One dumb one, and probably makes things even harder, is a way to get a cork out of a wine bottle if you can't find a corkscrew. Who can't find their corkscrew? Anyway, they advise getting a pliers and a screw. Push the screw into the cork and grab the end of it with the pliers and turn. No way that will work. It would take less time to go out and buy a new corkscrew than use this method.

I do like this one. When you need to clean the microwave, and who doesn't, put a cup of water in first and let it heat up. The steam will help loosen the dried on food. Dale has a tendency to put left over spaghetti or other sauced items in the microwave without covering with a paper towel or plastic wrap to reheat and it causes quite the mess.

This one is too funny and a mess waiting to happen. If you have to fill a bucket from a too small sink, do this:

You can read all 75 of these if you want by going here.

Back in the basement

I've written previously about our nightmare of the basement being treated by a water system company. This meant tearing up the bottom of all walls around the inside perimeter so that a hose line could be laid which would direct any water to a sump pump. That was hard enough and dirty enough what with Dale cutting off 18 inches of wall from the bottom and the water guys then jackhammering the floor beneath about 8-10 inches. When it was all done and new concrete laid over the work, we thought we were done.

But no. It seems after a new rain we needed to have all the walls completely wrapped in a white fabric which would take away any water and send it down to the drain hose to the sump pump. It's science, people. I just know this mean taking all of the walls down before they came. Dry wall, shelving, everything, just after I thought we'd finished with dust and dirt. This was done this past Saturday by two very nice, polite and personable young men. Here is what it looks like now.

Former laundry

Former bedroom

Former bathroom

Dale did all the demo by himself which was much too hard a job.

One more traffic rant

One thing seems for certain, highway and road entities must have lots and lots of money this year. There is constant road work going on both on interstates and local, county, and state roads. In the St. Louis area you can hardly get out of your driveway without quickly coming across some sort of road work. And, what is happening on St. Louis highways is ridiculous. Bridges are closed or mostly closed which leads to backups and time lost for drivers.

This weekend the Poplar Street Bridge had all but one lane closed eastbound and all lanes westbound on the east end. Sure it was the weekend but there is still lots of traffic and a pain in the neck to detour around it. 44 has work messing up traffic near 270 and the King Bridge has been closed going on 3 years. The JB bridge out south, the same. I'm waiting for some highway wiseguy to decide to do something on the only unworked bridge, the Musial. Local streets are often impossible to drive due to whatever work is being done on them.

I guess my point is, there has to be lots of available money. Don't be crying poor all you transportation people when tax time comes.

A New Week, another mattress

Already this morning a mattress fell onto 161 near Frank Scott Highway in Belleville.

Mattresses 113

Ladders 111

Now we can get a product we didn't think we needed.....and don't need. Chip Fingers! Protective finger covers for eating messy snacks. 

End of the week tally

Mattresses 110

Ladders 111

Christmas ads

On the early morning local news I heard one of the reporters say that Kohl's already has its Christmas ad available. It's 64 pages and we can see it all online or pick up one in store if it doesn't show up in the mailbox.

My first reaction was...64 pages of ads online?! Have you ever tried to move through that many pages online? It's a constant clicking the forward arrow or back arrow while only a couple items comes up per page. Then trying to go back to something you want to see again takes forever. Some things are just not computer friendly.

Cleaning your car advice

This sounds boring but I got suckered into looking at a website which has advice on cleaning every part of your car without having to spend money on a car detailer. The first one made me laugh and I almost decided not to continue, but, hey, I like a clean vehicle.

The first was doing the dirty floor mats. If you have the fiber type you do know how blackened they can get from all kinds of dirt. So the advice is to first use a fabric stain remover to lift up some of the dirt and then toss them in the washing machine. Supposedly they'll come out as good as new. Frankly, I'd be hesitant to put those in the machine, the wet weight might not be good for the washer after the spin cycle.

Also, use hair conditioner instead of wax to get that car to shine. Not going to try this either.

But using WD 40 to get sticker stuff off windows or bumpers should work. WD is one of those miracle products.

And, pour a can of Coke over your windshield to clean it. The fizz will supposedly fizz away the grime, but then you'll have a sticky mess that will attract more dust so you have to rinse really well. Not doing this.

Use a coffee filter to dust the dash board. They are made of lint free material which grabs the dust and holds on to it. Hey, maybe this will work for dusting furniture.

Anyway, if you want to see more hints, here is the link.

News?

I'm at the point where I find myself not believing half of what I hear on cable news. It doesn't matter what channel it is, there is no news, just opinion. Some channels make me more aggravated than others, but now the local news seems much more appropriate and valuable for how we live.

Cable and Newspapers are now just like social media giving no time to actual discernment.

 

Speaking of December...uh...October..

I am so ready for the time change which comes this weekend. It is currently 7:12 and it's still dark. It's dark in the early evening anyway, nature does what nature does, but oh for more light in the morning.

The weather today is disrespectful

It's early morning on Halloween (also Reformation) and the weather is dark and the temperatures are just above freezing. And it's windy. We're in a state of flux around here while we try to decide what to do about trick or treating on campus. So many of our seminary kids are quite young. Toddlers and pre-schoolers. This makes having them out in this weather debatable. So until things are decided there's this bit of truth:

St. Louis decided to dress as December for Halloween.

Raising the star

I have to say, yesterday was excellent timing for us to raise the Christmas star on top of Luther Tower. Today is cold and miserably wet with rain. Every year some of us climb up to the roof of the tower to crank up the star. It isn't turned on until after Thanksgiving, but it's preferable to do this on a fairly decent weather day. That climb is really something. There are three sections of circular, winding stairs and a pretty tight squeeze between the old stone walls. The last section begins where the bells are and the stairs are iron. That part is what gives many people pause. But, we did it! First Christmas item up and ready.

The view from up there is spectacular, you can see 360 degrees of St. Louis. This is a shot of the brand new Big Amoco sign which recently replaced the old, faded, BP sign which at some point replaced the original Amoco sign.

The main quad looks great and we could see that tree is getting huge, maybe too huge.

The first thing our student helpers, Geordie, George and Alarik had to do was tie on the rope lights. The star is on a crank system which can be raised or lowered easily.

Jacob and Gayle test the line before it goes up and then a watchful eye to see if it's going to do straight.

It worked perfectly

Then the climb down beginning with the iron stairs.

By the time we got to earth, our knees really felt the effort.

These have to go away

TV commercials are a fact of life, we either ignore them and use that time to get something to eat or use the bathroom. Or resume a game on the iPhone. But, one company's commercials just can't be ignored and they are part of every news, sports, regular programming all day and all night and I have to say, I just can't tolerate them. It's the Liberty Liberty Liberty gang. That jingle is the most aggravating.

I wonder how much business the Liberty company is getting after spending what must be a ton of money on shows and sports every day. They've annoyed us so much we automatically turn the sound down when the ad begins.

Strike zone unhappiness

It's the World Series and every pitch is overly important. It seems many on the Washington Nationals team are not happy with the pitch calls and are now wanting computerized balls and strike calls.

So what does Major League Baseball consider a strike?

"The strike zone is defined as the volume of space above home plate and between the batter's knees and the midpoint of their torso. Whether a pitch passes through the zone is decided by an umpire, who is generally positioned behind the catcher." Generally behind the catcher? Have you ever seen a game where the umpire wasn't at that point?

A question I have right off the bat is how is the torso defined? Shoulders to waist? Some spot lower than the shoulders? Are the letters on the uniform considered the high point?

Actually it might be interesting to see a game where balls and strikes were called by a computer. I'd bet it would open a new can of worms and probably have the game going longer. The computer or whatever tech gadget was used would probably have to be adjusted for each batter's height or stance.

Some umpires aren't against this, but they claim the pitches we see on tv aren't as accurate as what is really happening. It may be that one of these days this idea will be tried out in spring training or in the minor leagues, it's all about tech these days.

Here we go again

A ladder on SB 55 near Herculaneum.

Mattresses 107

Ladders 109

On top of this there seem to be crashes all over the area during this morning's rush time. Including one deer hit near Troy, Missouri. I'll confess that heading over to Collinsville for church yesterday I drove through extremely thick fog which was especially blinding on the Illinois side. While I carefully watched that I was at least inside my lane lines it suddenly occurred to me that this is the time of year when deer are jumping across highways and roads in early morning and at dusk. That made me head over to the middle lane and have to watch the sides of the road as well as trying to see straight ahead in the fog. I was relieved to get to the Collinsville exit.

Dale's says I'm a bit too paranoid, but following traffic reports as I do rather obsessively, I don't think he's correct. He's hit a deer several times over the years.

The first one he hit was on the country road leading into Venedy where we lived. He had Lizzie in the car with him and she was about 3 or 4 years old. After he got home and settled down a bit from the shock of the deer hit, he decided that was a good evening to read her the book, Bambi.

A beautiful surprise in the mail

Most of Saturday I spent with a Comfort Dog regional conference being held here at Concordia Seminary. It was a pretty miserable weather day for dogs, rain and more rain which meant they couldn't get out to have some fun in the quad after lunch as they had in previous years. It is always amazing to be in a room with those beautiful dogs. Before lunch the regional director pulled a chair into the middle of the room and made me go sit in it and then he asked all the dogs to come circle around me in honor of, and comfort for, our Ferdie who died a month ago. It was a tearful moment.

But then when I got home I saw a package which had come from one of our former students now in Wisconsin, who worked on landscape with us when he was here. Here is what was in the package.

This is beautiful enough, but even more in his letter that accompanied it. He wrote: "For decades a tall old Basswood tree overlooked the chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus on the seminary campus. In 2013 the tree needed to be cut down for the safety of students. As part of the grounds crew I helped cut it down but wanted to preserve a bit of its history by making a cross cut from one of its limbs. I've saved this slab of wood since then for a special purpose. Since you two have been an inspiration to me in life and ministry and since my time with you at the seminary meant so much, I pray that the memory of our beloved Ferdie will last on with the rich history of the Sem, and the warmth of your home and office."

Dale and I both cried. We will treasure this as we do the memory of our most loved dog.

These constant updates

It's just hard to believe or even tolerate all the updates for computers and devices like phones and ipads. What bugs me the most is the updates which show up on my laptop. The update for could be anything and something or other wants to update every day. They even show up when I go to turn off the machine for the night. I have a choice of 'update and shut down'. Maybe I don't want all those updates. Not everything is for safety and a lot of it, especially for phones, will suck up more of my available space.

Collinsville shows up in the news

This past week two stories showed up with Collinsville at the center.

The first came from The Onion, a satirical website and took on President Trump's use of the word lynching. He said what the democrats were doing to him as a modern day lynching...or something to that effect. The Onion then wrote: "Acknowledging the hurt he had caused, President Donald Trump apologized Tuesday for describing the House impeachment inquiry as a “lynching,” saying he had been unaware of the term’s association with the 1918 murder of Robert Prager, a German American immigrant killed by an angry mob. “I realize now my remark was insensitive, and insulting to the memory of Mr. Prager and those impacted by his tragic death,” said the president, who asked the American people to forgive him, emphasizing how disturbed he had been when a member of his staff told him how Prager had been singled out and killed by coal miners in Illinois during a wartime wave of anti-German sentiment."

The Onion is satirical remember, Trump was not told of this most likely.

This actually did happen and for most of its history city hall has kept the ancient jail cell in the basement of that building. I got to see it some years ago but I don't know if it was demolished during recent renovations. I took a picture of it back then but have no idea where it might be.

The second Collinsville story is one I have never heard told. "Richard Albert Lauchli of Collinsville, Illinois, was an arms dealer who had supplied Fidel in the late 1950's. Richard Lauchli was co-founder of the Minutemen in the St. Louis, Missouri, area until September 1962, when he parted company with Minutemen co-founder Robert DePugh. CIA Office of Security traces on him were heavily deleted. The Minutemen was organized in June 1960 by right-wing paramilitarists whose goal was to become a partisan guerrilla force after the Soviets took over the United States."

This picture is of federal authorities digging up his Collinsville property and finding quite the arms cache, weapons, grenades and rocket launchers. I am still surprised I've never heard this.