respublica

Gas cans aren't what they used to be

I needed a new gas can for our lawnmower today and discovered that you practically need an engineering degree to figure out how to use it, much less how to set up the cap, spout and locking mechanism before you can even use it.

I went to 4 places and no one carried any other type but the Briggs and Stratton gas can. Finally I gave up and asked the clerk at one of the auto parts stores in Collinsville to show me how to do this. Ha. Even she had a hard time and finally told me that it might be easiest to just remove the cap and spout and pour it in the mower without all that. Maybe use a funnel. 

All the parts to the spout, and I do mean all-plural, are tucked into the can upside down from the way you'll actually use it. I bought the darn thing, but I know I'll be doing the funnel thing because the "Smart-Fill" can is just to smart for me.

I'd love it if companies would just go back to cans with a spout and a cap.

Parsley

One of the rows in our campus vegetable garden is rife with parsley. So gorgeous and fragrant.

Anyone who walks through is welcome to pick anything we have growing and at this moment in thyme, we have lots of healthy herbs.

Punography

These plays on words are fun puns.

You may have to click to enlarge

Weekend day trip

Looking for something different to do this weekend? How about taking a walk around the Laumeier Sculpture Park in Sunset Hills which just landed as number 3 on a list of the World's Most Amazing Sculpture Gardens. At I-44 and 270, this 105 acre park features some of the world's most reknowned modern and contemporary art work as well as walking trails.

But St. Louis has not one but two sculpture parks on this list-number 8 is the Ellen Clark Sculpture Garden at the corner of Grand and Lindell on border of the campus of St. Louis University. Much smaller, but just as unique, this park also doubles an historical place and as a dog park. " On May 10, 1861, federal troops — already on edge and spooked by the sound of gunfire — fired into the crowd, killing 28 civilians, including several children, and wounding nearly 100 more". It looks like you can visit here and bring your dog for free.

Watched it live!

Two guys on the run from St. Louis County police after robbing a house in Jennings were eventually captured in Illinois along 55/70 near Cahokia Mounds and Horseshoe Lake. All this took place during the 5 o'clock local news hour and Fox2 had a news helicopter filming the entire thing which I sat and watched rather entralled. It was fascinating because this is the section of road everyone who drives from Collinsville to St. Louis knows well. Part of the landscape on the side of the highway is filled with a disgusting murky green water. Swampy water with some areas having dead trees sticking up.

Anyhow, the robbers crashed their car down the embankment of the highway, got out of the car and started running and then...diving into that horrible green slime as they tried to get away. All caught on tape by Channel 2. After the swamp they ended up at the canal, hip walked through that to a culvert which had dozens of big fish leaping high in the air around them.

They eventually got out of that water tried to run but were just too tired to keep going and ended up laying down on the grass in surrender.

I just hope the first thing they got to do after being booked and arrested was take a shower and get out of those wet, gross clothes. You can watch the live action on this Fox 2 video. If you've been away from St. Louis for a while, you might get a kick out of seeing this familiar spot, knowing that you've always though the same as us as you traveled this road: "I'd never go near that water."

How to explain

Ever since President Obama ended his speech at West Point yesterday, media types and commentators have been trying to figure out just what his foreign policy doctrine is. Lots of disappointment in editorials and such. The New York Times published just one of the many. So it was funny to hear Howard Dean on Morning Joe this morning take issue with all the muttering and tell the panel this:

"The media lacks the sophistication to understand the Obama doctrine."

So. No traffic cams

Funny how East St Louis can get up speed cameras on the green informational signs along 55/70/64 but IDOT can't get the traffic cameras up so we could check to see what the traffic looks like before leaving home. The local news reports on traffic pretty much end after the morning rush and don't start up again til the evening rush. 

The fittest city is:

Washington DC followed by Minneapolis-St Paul, Portland Oregon, Denver and San Francisco. St. Louis is near the bottom at 41. Even Cleveland came in ahead of St. Louis.

According to the American Fitness Index.

The interesting thing on the link is how the surrounding cities of St. Louis city are figured in and this harks back to a post I did yesterday on the population of St. Louis. Here are the areas which figure into being part of the St. Louis area.

Saint Louis, MO-IL; Bond County, IL; Calhoun County, IL; Clinton County, IL; Jersey County, IL; Macoupin County, IL; Madison County, IL; Monroe County, IL; St. Clair County, IL; Crawford County, MO (pt.)*; Franklin County, MO; Jefferson County, MO; Lincoln County, MO; St. Charles County, MO; St. Louis County, MO; Warren County, MO; Washington County, MO; St. Louis city, MO

Whatever happened to the idea of flying cars?

I can remember our Weekly Readers in grade school often including a story about what we might expect in the future and every now and then there would be a story on flying cars. These would be quite common the story would go. You drive along and come across a jam, open up the roof of the car and helicopter  type blades would raise up and you'd soar above the problem. Well, we could sure use these now as MoDOT closes part of the Poplar and IDOT for some stupid reason has decided it will close the MLK.

It must be going to be a really bad westbound trip into St. Louis for a year if even MoDOT was quoted this morning as saying there will be "significant backups". While listening to the news this morning the reporter was giving MoDOT's ideas for alternate routes...MLK, Eades, Musial-Veterans, JB, blah blah. Right, take those if you can even get to them, the jams will begin long before them. And then this: "you might seriously consider transit."

Yeah right. Transit. How many people have convenient transit stops to where they're going in Missouri? I suppose you could take Metro Link across the river somewhere and then get on a bus to take you sort of near where you need to go, but the time spent will probably be as long as the traffic jam.

I'm wondering how far you could travel with a jet pack.

Immigrant maps 1910 and 2010

From Pew Research, two maps showing which country people came from. In 1910 most immigrants living in the US came from Germany, in 2010 most came from Mexico. Click to enlarge