respublica

Hagel

Funny. At the senate comfirmation hearings today, Hagel did an absolutely horrible job of trying to convince anyone he's right for the job of Defense Secretary. More than horrible, he looked and sounded not just incompetent, but not very smart. 

So most news reports headline today's hearings with the word "harsh" as in Hagel took lots of "harsh" questioning from the GOP senators. Down in the small print you notice the stories mention...quietly...that he did badly. 

But amazingly as bad as this was, every expert is still of the believe that he will be confirmed. How can this be? He was bad. Unsure, stumbling, backtracking on his own record and still he'll be confirmed? This is as good a candidate as Obama had or does he just not care? Or is it another of those...

"What difference does it make?"...sort of things

NFL Fandom Map

Through its use of the like button, Facebook's tech people put together what some are calling the most accurate view of the geographical locations of each NFL team's fan base. The map of the US has a designated color for each team and the colors on the map show which areas support which team. It does not necessarily jibe with their specific location although it certainly does for St. Louis. The Rams have no fans out in LA which is sort of surprising. 

Click the map for larger view

One problem I had with the colors was that the Chicago Bears and the New York Giants had a similar blue so it makes it seem like Bear fans are out in New York or vice versa.

Taking a screenshot of your tv is not what it used to be

Did you ever try to take a picture of something on tv in the pre digital days? I bet you did and what you got was an image of a mess of lines, maybe one wide black line running through the middle or just a white screen.

Well those days are over since the dawn of digital. Digital cameras, digital/high def tvs all make getting a picture of something on tv almost real life. I've been aware of this for a while but never paid too much attention to it until yesterday when I took a picture of little Max who was visiting and got the tv in the background as well.

Yes, there's Ina Garten plain as day. Taking a snapshot of something on tv may be rare, but it is now possible to get a pretty darn good image. Just an FYI

Wednesday foods

In every paper, Wednesday is food section day. The Post Dispatch featured German food this morning and the story did nothing to change my feeling about that kind of food. I can't bear it.

The featured chef sharing German recipes was Kevin Willmann from Farmhaus restaurant and he made me more afraid then ever to sit down to a meal like this.

First was the appetizer: "Rich beer-braised onions finished with whiskey-topped with homemade leberwurst (liver sausage) served on a specially concocted multigrained bread." Concocted is the word alright.

Then Rabbit Stew, hasenpfeffer, which Willmann elevated with juniper flavor and plated with roasted root vegetables and a bay leaf. He also served it in a venison jus as a nod to the lore that German immigrants in rural America used a readily catchable meat — squirrel — when they couldn’t get rabbit.

Are you with me so far?

Then schweinebraten which Willmann based on the more elaborate style of Italian porchetta, rolled and slow-roasted in a moisture-controlled oven called a CVap, with the traditional dumpling accompaniment, spaetzle, accented with rye flour and caraway seed for a complex flavor.

The final course: schweinshaxe — smoked “hock,” or knuckle — Peter Brady-ized with roasted apples and served with a mild house-cured sauerkraut.  Oh my gosh!

The evening concluded with plum strudel served with a generous portion of sweetened quark meant to represent a fresh cheese that might have been made in an immigrant’s home kitchen.

Have no idea what quark is, but I just wouldn't be able to try it, much less see all that meat with all the other ingredients and you know why I am never enthused about a trip to Germany.

4 Years ago today Ferdie arrived

As close as we can come to Ferdie's early story is that one cold, snowy, icy night in the middle of January, a young man drove into a neighborhood with Ferdie, let him out of the car or truck and drove off. He left this dog to stand at that spot on the street despite the local neighbors attempts to keep him in their garage. (Tracy! We will never forget what you did for him) He went from Tracy's house to the Collinsville Animal Shelter to Dirk's Fund Golden Retriever Rescue to us. Along the way he was neutered and treated for pneumonia. The mystery of his street side vigil was solved in the comments to my first blog post on him. Thankfully the story gets better as most of you who've met Ferdie know full well. 

His first full day on campus, Saturday January 31, meeting many of the local dogs.

One year later, a more involved explanation of our journey to adopting Ferdie and more from Tracy in the comments.

Today he's just one heck of a fine dog, loves to help work on the seminary grounds, meet groups touring the campus, toddlers and babies are his favorite people in the world, walk in the morning with a couple of his doggie friends and play in the afternoon with the Booj. But he especially loves his bear.

And he loves basketball games

This is one of my favorite pictures of Ferdie and babies. He is so good with them. Click the photo to see the joy in the little boy and girl's faces.

We have so many pictures of him with small children, it's amazing.

Here is his best play friend Booj.

What a great guy he is, we're the lucky ones.

In St Louis two major developments

One seems to be a go, the other has been stopped for now.

Last night the Crestwood board of aldermen voted 4-2 to allow TIF funds to a developer wanting to put a Walmart on Watson Road where a long abandoned movie theater sits. Like TIF or not, like Walmart or not, I know this corner and it drags the whole area down, there is no evidence someone was going to waltz in and be an economic savior. Walmart will add energy and money to the city's coffers and locals will come in droves.

The Central West End plan for a Whole Foods and condos has hit a stalemate because local union United Food & Commercial Workers Local 655 is demanding a neutrality agreement in which employers refrain from opposing employee union organizing efforts. No Whole Foods store is unionized and the company spokesman said they would not be signing any neutrality agreement nor would they go to any meetings about it. Before this blip neighbors were excited and work was about to begin in February. Now maybe April maybe later. One problem with this particular union is having is they may have angered other unions which would be doing the construction on this project.

The bigger the bin the more will be recycled

This has been proven true in every local city which changed over from the small recycling bins to the much larger wheeled carts. Collinsville found this out just recently after going to the big carts in October.

November was the first full month with the new and the numbers are quite amazing. In October, the last month with the small bins 85 tons were picked up on a weekly schedule. In November 154 tons were put out on a twice a month pickup basis.

So fewer pickups but 80 percent more recyclables with the big carts. If the city finds residents are getting so good at recycling that they need every week pickup again, imagine how many tons their would be.

Working in the mud

Today I'm going over to Collinsville to tape and mud a corner of an upstairs bedroom so that the room can be painted. Now, taping and mudding is probably something better left to professionals, but I decided to tackle this on my own. I've had some practice with this over the years, but it is not an easy thing to do if you want to make a wall look like nothing happened and there is a smooth finish all across.

Do you use mesh tape which has a bit of adhesive so that you just have to stick it on the wall and get to skip the first coat of mud or do you use paper tape which is cheaper and normally the choice of dry wall pros? This involves a pre coat of mud so that it stays on the wall. The trick here is to make sure it isn't a thick coat of mud or you'll have a rise in the wall.

But with a corner I'm using paper tape because it comes with a center fold which makes it easier to lay into the corner. Thin coats of mud, take the mud knife and go straight down the wall until you can't reach anymore and then up from the bottom. Zip, no stopping. Do both sides of the corner then lay the tape in and mud over it thinly.

The worst is having to come back for a couple of days and repeat this process and then sand until no tape shows and the mud is smooth. Being an impatient sort, I want to get at the painting, but patience is a virtue when mudding plaster or drywall.

The jackets are piling up

Could we possibly have more jackets and coats hanging around or laid on chairs or door handles? With the crazy up and down temperatures lately we've had to guess at what kind of outerwear to put on every time we go out the door. Some days this decision changes by the hour.

We have winter jackets with hoods and without hoods, spring jackets, inter-season jackets, all in plain sight. Hats, gloves and scarves scattered around.

Today it will again be almost 70 but changing late in the day until tomorrow is back in the low 30's upper 20's. One jacket for walking the dog changing to just a sweatshirt mid morning and back to winter wear tonight.

No wonder everyone is sick.

 

Welcome Trinity Red Bud

A large group of school kids from Trinity Red Bud (Prairie) were touring the campus today and Ferdie changed into his greeter mode.