respublica

Super Drew

Halloween begins out east.

Jake is Batman, but we haven't seen a full Jake yet.

He needs his head examined as my dad would say

Some parachutist was found dangling from some wires connected to a radio tower in south St. Louis last night and rescued by Mehlville fire fighters. Here's the questions which weren't answered in this story in the P-D today.

He was first noticed hanging there around 9:30. Did he jump from a plane or did he jump from the tower during what is called "base jumping"?  Whatever it was, it's dark by 6:30 so when did he jump? Did he jump before total dark and then hang there for several hours before being seen or did he jump around 9 in the pitch dark?

Either way that was really dumb.

 

How many calls are too many?

This is another boring Charter update:

After talking to another phone rep at around 3:30 yesterday afternoon because the house call tech guy went to the wrong house, I received a recorded phone call at 4:30 confirming that someone will be here between 8-10 this morning. So ok.

At 7:15 last night another recorded call came in, this time telling me a tech will be at the house between 10 and noon. Oh for Pete's sake.

Just now at 6:10 am a third recorded call came, a tech will be here between 8-10. Now if in an hour another call tells me 10-noon I'll be out of my mind. In truth I don't care what time it is as long as they have the right house.

Ironically and thinking pessimissively after all this, I hear the wind roaring, the trees bending way over and half believe it's possible cable lines may come down and there will be no way for anyone to tell if our repair set up will be working.

Windy All Hallows Eve

This wind map is pretty cool, especially at this particular moment when it's still dark outside at 6 am but the sound of wind is very loud. The entire middle of the country is showing strong winds for today, just as local weather people have predicted.

Hang on to your treat bags kids.

This is ridiculous Charter

Just got a call from Dale who is in Collinsville this afternoon. He broke the news that Charter sent a technician to try and get a signal on our tv to Collinsville, not Clayton. This is the second time this has happened and while on the phone I emphasized over and over that the seminary address is where the problem is. Our accounts are not connected so there should not be this kind of mess up.  Now I have to wait around for another tech guy tomorrow.

If there is a real person at the company to talk to about how irate we are and how we're going to quit them, I'd do it. But there isn't.

One's as useful as the other

This...

 

Is as watchable as this these days.....

That blue screen with the "One moment Please" message is giving me nightmares.

Had a Charter service technician out yesterday, he was very nice and spent some time combining a couple of splitters into one and then we checked to see if the two tv's that wouldn't bring up signals were working. They both worked perfectly. He left, I turned off the tvs and went about the day. Last night we came home from dinner and turned on the World Series. DARN IT! Back to no channels working. In the space of a few hours the tv went from working while Frank was here to not working after supper.

This just about did me in. It's so frustrating and the idea of having to call Charter again, go through the long process of dealing with a computer generated voice who will eventually get me to a real person and then wait for another service call is almost too much.

I've wondered if it is at all possible if the trouble could be in the cable box we just had to get back in February. We never had a signal problem before we had to get those boxes and the tv in the main living room with an older digital box always works fine.

One more try Charter and after that we may just be out of there.

Raising the Christmas star 2014 edition

Yesterday afternoon 4 of us climbed up to the top of Luther Tower to put new lights on, and crank up the large Christmas star, which will be turned on in December. It's always best to get this job done before the bad weather hits. Two new students who have been working on grounds/landscape this fall got their first trip to the top of the tower. Both of these students are from other countries, Christian from South Africa and Walterson from Paraguay.

And, there they are 2/3's of the way up and looking at the bells.

And on the trickiest portion of the climb, the iron spiral.

But the climb is so worth it, the view is astounding.

Ok, Gayle finally got everyone to work replacing the old lights and attaching the new.

And then the cranking up of the star. Uh oh, we forgot the winch to actually crank it. It's such a long way down and a long climb up to even thinking about going back to the shop and getting the winch. But! Yay! Dan Maske to the rescue. Called him and he graciously agreed to get the winch and carry it up to the top of the tower. And his wife Jenny came along.

The winch was attached and the pole cranked.

Great job guys

The view was pretty spectacular yesterday.

Here's what Luther Statue looks like from up top.

The the south wall of the tower looking down.

And, no, I did not hang out over the edge to get this picture, just held the camera out pointing down and hoped for the best.

Beautiful day for this work and a good thing we did this when we did. Cold air coming in today and for the rest of the week.

A simple, yet elegant, tribute to Oscar Taveras

On the eve of the funeral for Oscar Taveras, the St. Louis Cardinals remembered him by turning on only the right field lights. He played right field during his short time with the team. Memorable and quietly beautiful tribute.

Tuning out the political ads

A new PEW Research Center study finds that more voters are not paying attention to campaign ads this time around. I know I've ignored them. Or tried to. If I'm in the car and a campaign ad begins will a shrill voice I turn the sound down until I believe its over. The TV ones I can ignore just by looking at something on my ipad.

In our part of Missouri there aren't all that many competitive races and no governor/senate races at all so we're left with state reps, judges and mostly no opponent congressional races. In Illinois it's different, more big offices up for election.

What always bothers me is how nasty the local candidates or their surrogates can be to an opponent. I mean when all is said and done, these are basically neighbors running against neighbors. The ads put out for many of these candidates are just plain mean. Worse than national ads.

I just saw the beginning of a tv ad supporting the opponent of Illinois supreme court judge Lloyd Karmeier which had an ugly photo of him at the start. Then a voice began speaking in a sinister tone about to relate what a horrible person he is. That is when I left the room to get more coffee.

Karmeier is a good man, he has been given high marks by just about every legal/press group there is except for the monied trial lawyers. It pains me to see a local guy getting reamed by other local people. I know Judge Tognarelli as a good man too. Karmeier is a republican, Tognarelli a democrat. They are part of the same community. Decent people. Why oh why do people insist on being harder and nastier on their own?

The most interesting campaign ad comes from Lacy Clay. This is a new ad which begins with a gospel choir singing "Which side are you on?" It is about Ferguson more than his race which is without competition, but a get out the vote ad. It's different and the music draws you in especially in the car. Not so much in front of the tv. At least he's not insulting people. What's effective about this ad is that although we know what side Lacy is on, everyone can think about what side they are on. And no personal attacks.

Ok. Another Charter issue and I don't know what to do

We can't do satellite because of the trees so I am seriously considering going over to U-Verse if we can skip a landline phone and keep Charter for internet.

Here's the problem we're dealing with now. Ever since Charter made its subscribers change over to new style digital boxes in February, we've had nothing but poor reception or no reception on two of our tv's. The main tv in the living room works fine but it has a box that we've had for several years and is nothing like the new small ones. This one is pretty big, but brings in high def and all the local channels perfectly. The new boxes bring up channels which with have the breaking blocks or a blue screen with the information that this channel will resume shortly. But it never resumes.

So I don't know what to do, we're paying for nothing, basically. It's impossible to call and get a real person and the people staffing the walk in offices are generally clerks, not technicians.

All this is another day or another week of running around or waiting or trying to get a real person to give some advice.