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Our car heats the drivers side, but not the passenger side. This is a new thing and what happens is, the passenger side gets cold air while the driver gets the warmth. I googled this issue and there were lots of people who had this problem before we did and the advice varies in difficulty.
I guess it's time to take it in and let the experts deal with it. And, if we both go somewhere together, we'll take my truck.
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The front page of the Post-Dispatch stopped me in my tracks this morning. I'd bet thousands of pictures were taken of yesterday's snow and this was what was chosen. I had to stop and ponder what possessed this guy to go out in his bathrobe to shovel snow, I mean, it would be still be there if he'd taken the time to dress warmer. And, how did the P-D photographer just happen along when he was out there?
I guess that is what a good front page photo does, it makes you stop and give some thought to what's going on.
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Not only did St. Louis morning commuters have to deal with snow, several other things fell onto the roads as well.
A ladder somewhere in South City, a mattress on 367, and a 5 foot by 5 foot snow boulder in left lane on 364 at 94.
Mattresses 127
Ladders 99
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We've probably had snow in mid-November, but I sure don't remember one as wintry as this. Woke up this morning to see that the weather forecasts yesterday were correct, another unusual happening.
Our poor golf cart didn't get covered in time.
Right now at ten to 9 it is snowing really hard again, big flakes. Glad I went to the store yesterday. Ferdie will not do his business this morning, he sniffed around, but after a couple of minutes in the grassy, snow covered areas he gets very painful ice balls under his foot pads which causes him to just sit down in the snow and refuse to move. I try to get the ice balls out of his feet, but within a couple of minutes new ones form. So we're inside until he's desperate.
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The long promised University City trolley finally made a test run yesterday and wouldn't you just know, hit the mirror of a vehicle parked on Delmar. After that incident, the official word went out that if you are going to park on Delmar, you must follow these rules:
"In order for the system to perform safely and effectively for its passengers and to avoid negative traffic conditions, vehicles parking on Delmar Boulevard should park firmly against the curb with all parts of the vehicle (including mirrors) within the striped parking lanes."
Firmly against the curb....There will be a lot of people getting out of their cars after parking and taking a look to see if the car and mirror are securely inside the lanes and firmly against the curb. If not, then back in the car to try again.
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A recliner fell onto the center lane of 255 on the Illinois side this morning. I can't imagine how this could happen and how awful it must have been to be driving along and suddenly come across it. And, who's job is it to go into traffic and move the thing.
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Celery juice has become the latest health drink and frankly, this does not seem appealing at all.
There are over 35,000 posts on Instagram about celery juice with supposed benefits running the gamut from curing mental health issues to infertility and eczema. However real medical research is minimal and the most realistic benefit is eating celery raw for its fiber and additional water.
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While we were down in Gulf Shores, Alabama, we ate dinner out each night. The food was excellent everywhere we went, menus were heavy on seafood as you might expect. No place was fancy, but every place was filled with good food and the friendliest servers you'll ever come across. But what struck me was the Alabama way of making tacos and tacos were on most every menu. Many were seafood tacos, others chicken or steak, all with added shredded red and green cabbage. And no cheese. The only thing taco-ish about them were the shells, soft shells. It was unexpected, good, but strange. Oh, and, they were always topped with a grilled slice of pineapple.
Here is a food question having nothing to do with tacos, but something which troubles me when I follow recipes. So often the recipe will say, "slice onions" (or anything else) 1/8 of an inch thick. Or some other dimension. Do recipe writers have rulers in their kitchen? Really, how do you go about slicing an onion 1/8 of an inch thick and be exact? Or an apple half an inch thick? etc...
Do you get frustrated if a slice or two is bigger or smaller than what is called for? Does it matter?
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While we were in Gulf Shores last week we came across quite a few signs, some of which I posted earlier. Here are a few more and clicking to enlarge shows them better.
The shark sign made me chuckle. But true to the behavior of the people there, no one was shark fishing.
We don't fish so this didn't make much sense to us, but the many people fishing from the pier seemed to understand.
Restoring dunes is an important work along shorelines everywhere and in Gulf Shores, people did keep off to protect the new plant life which will hold the dunes in place.
This sign was made for those who fish and who clean them right there on the pier before putting the good parts into coolers. There were even cleaning shelves built into the pier. I imagine at one time many fishermen and women cleaned the fish they caught and just dumped the unusable parts into the water or onto the pier.
This was an interesting sign explaining the shells you'd find and their origin.
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This product report came from KSDK's Matt Granite for a local news segment. He tested a HK1 box which purports to be the solution to those who want to get rid of cable and the large bills which come with it. Granite made it sound so marvelously perfect I wasted some time checking into it.
"Do you feel like you're overpaying your cable company for channels you never watch and sub-par customer service? Looking to cut the cord? You'll want to check the top-rated new streaming box from HK1."
"Simply plug the HK1 box into the back of any available HDMI port on your television and in seconds it unlocks hundreds of free movies, TV shows and Google Apps in beautiful HD quality. Equipped with a remarkably fast computer chip and processor, this TV box out-performed Apple TV at a fraction of the price. It also supports Airplay if you have an iPhone or iPad as well as instantaneous connectivity with Android devices to stream content you already watch.
HK1 streaming box apps aggregate movies, TV shows and ad-supported content including live feeds for this TV station. You can also use it to enjoy live sports."
Sounds good until you try to get a half way decent review from someone who has one, or even finding the HK1 online. I checked Amazon since Granite mentioned that company as selling them and couldn't find anything like he described. And, since it is dependent on internet speed there is often a lot of buffering. Comments on this story on Facebook were all negative.
What this looks like to me is an ad for Dealboss and Livebox, not news.
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Today has been sunny and quite warm. Lots more people out walking or sitting on the sand.
One of the shoreline things we come across all the time when we're out walking is gelatinous masses which look awful. Squiggly gelatin lumps in circular forms, often with the red design inside. We do not want to step on any of them. We had no idea what they were and finally asked a more veteran Gulf Shores person. He told us they were dead jellyfish.
Ugh.
What caught my eye when we walked down the beach to the public pier was all the signs indicating what you cannot do. Sort of like we've had to do at the seminary.
And you know what? Everyone obeys these signs, unlike seminary bikers and dog walkers.
This public pier is massive, most likely hurricane reinforced in recent years.
Later this afternoon we're going to climb the pier and walk to the end.
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We're on day 3 of our time in Gulf Shores. The sun has almost never made an appearance, but it really hasn't mattered. The dark skies, white caps, mild temperatures are all just as good.
Yesterday this view from our balcony was purple sky.
This morning fog
As per his habit, Dale can't make it through a day without studying something.
We went to Lulu's, a local favorite for dinner last night, fun talking with people at other tables, all of whom are visiting from other parts of the country. The food was plentiful to say the least.
One gorgeous sunset.
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Americans seem to have been voting in this year's election for months. Ok, maybe not months, but at least for weeks we've read or heard about early voting in various parts of the country. So today, the official Election Day for 2018, we'll just consider it the last day of the election.
The Belleville News Democrat is publicizing how they will go about giving us results from Illinois and Metro East. One thing I've always appreciated about the Metro East elections, especially Madison County, was how quickly returns come in and are posted online. This is not true for Missouri or St. Louis county, it takes forever on election nights to get any information. It's all in how returns are tabulated and returned that makes the difference in how quickly you'll have the information. Metro East counties do it better.
I'm sure the Post Dispatch has reporters who will be working the election and returns as well, my problem is I can't tell because as soon as I click the P-D website, a black screen falls over the page to stop any reading of any story. Now we do subscribe to the paper but we are on vacation and I am using a different computer so I can't get to my normal sign in. But seriously, it's very frustrating to not be able to read a current story on election returns because of a pay wall.
Best to just go to the county and state election sites for returns.
Also, St. Louis city and County election officials will keep us all waiting til very late for their returns.
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It's a good thing the election is getting close because news outlets have reached the point of absurdity in attempting to define liberal and conservative Americans. Take this Simmons Research survey posted by Politico, "Do you eat Republican Cheese" with a sub-title reading, "The Two Americas, a snapshot in brands."
The point is to inform us on the differences in products purchased or eaten by republicans and democrats and thus our cultural/tribal thinking. I mean, this is seriously off the wall. I'm putting up the survey graphic, but you'd see it better if you clicked the story link. The cheese preference which heads up the story title isn't even real cheese in either case. The category isn't even cheese, but dairy. Liberals supposedly prefer Stoneyfield Yogurt while conservatives go with Kraft Velveeta.
Neither are really cheese and with this first brand I can see that the survey publisher and Politico are defining liberals as more sophisticated and educated and refined. Take the magazine preferences they show: Liberals- The Atlantic, Conservatives- Guns & Ammo. And, under Health and Beauty Product we see, Liberals-Burt's Bees Lipstick/Gloss and Conservatives-Right Guard Anti-Perspirant. Under meat preferences, liberals-Aldells sausages, conservatives-Swanson canned meat.
Come on. Was this really necessary? It's embarrassingly bad and insulting. One more reason why journalism is viewed with some skepticism. Most of us eat food we like without worrying about politics
click to enlarge or check out the actual story link
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Woke up to rain and dark and chilly this morning, November 1. Perfect.
There's something about the beginning of this month that makes news people feel obligated to report on things we just aren't ready for. Here's KMOV's Laura Hettiger: "Only two more months of 2018, who still has their New Year's Resolutions going?" And also Hettiger, "OOOH, Holiday music! Two of my favorite SIRIUSXM stations made the switch overnight! Am I complaining? NOPE!"
You notice she said, "holiday music", not Christmas music. Here we go again with trying to avoid actually mentioning the name of the holiday.
Most of the big box stores set up their Christmas displays last week and some shoppers were actually buying those items. By Thanksgiving much will already be sold out.
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This is an interesting Twitter thread in which readers were asked to put up a photo of unusual church architecture and explain what would make you go there. The pictures are interesting. But most of the responses weren't funny as they should have been. Some actually make no sense. However, this entry did make me laugh.
"This is the church you go to if you were a cool Lutheran in the seventies and never got over it."
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After seeing stories of myriad Trunk or Treat events the past two weeks, I wonder just how much candy kids can deal with and how interested are they in actual trick or treating tonight. Seriously, it seems the past two weeks most towns saw trunk or treats at schools, churches, civic areas on many nights or afternoons. By now Halloween is mostly an afterthought except for local news people who feel the need to dress up during the newscasts.
Trunk or Treat affairs began, I believed, as an alternative to traditional trick or treating so that the kids would be assured of being safer than wandering around neighborhoods in the dark. These days you can't be too careful.
But the way shoppers were attacking the Halloween candy aisles yesterday, it looks like trick or treating is a go.
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Here is news we may have seen coming but hoped it wouldn't. We've become accustomed to recycling so many different things and have been thankful they didn't end up in landfills. O'Fallon Missouri is one of the first local cities to change what can or can't be recycled.
Glass bottles, aluminum cans, tin cans will all still be allowed to be picked up curbside. However, the key is all these materials must be empty, clean and dry or they will be turned away. Recyclers are also encouraged not to bag your items as well.
But...
Paper and cardboard will no longer be allowed to be picked up. No information on plastics.
Most of our recycling items went to China and they are no longer accepting them. Watching big recycling trucks haul off tons and tons of material every day for years made me wonder if there would ever be a time when there was so much there'd be no use for all of it. I guess we've come to that point in time and O'Fallon is probably just the first of many cities to curb what can be recycled.
Our 4 campus recycling dumpsters get emptied twice a week by Republic trash haulers. I can't even imagine what will have to change if cardboard and paper must go into normal trash dumpsters. Those items make up 30 percent of waste nationwide. In Indianapolis Republic doubled residential rates in August.
Is there a plan anywhere on what to do with all the recyclables when other cities follow O'Fallon's lead? Will we need to open more landfills?
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For some reason Typepad, my blog server, has stopped allowing me to comment on my own site. I have no idea why.
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