respublica

Road warning

It's been a while, but here is a current update:

Mattresses 90

Ladders 68

Also Lance Hilldebrand shared a picture from a listener of a Tacoma Washington man who was issued a citation for an unsafe load. I'd say.

Air conditioner finale

Yesterday was pretty amazing. We had no idea that when the seminary called an air conditioner company they planned to have the entire system replaced. Not only the outside unit for central air, but the furnace as well. When I learned that in the morning yesterday, I figured this was going to be a two day job. The furnace was ancient and when it was removed and placed on the driveway we saw rust and black carbon and just awful stuff. I'm surprised it still worked.

In any event I had to go to Collinsville for some errands and when I got back here just before noon, the old furnace was already removed and the outside air units were in place. They'd cut a hole in the stone basement wall and ran a pipe for air venting and were working on setting the new furnace in place. By 2:30 they'd totally finished and at 4 they had the old stuff loaded up and were on their way home. It was amazing. And, the new furnace is much smaller than the old so we have more space in the basement now.

I'd trust this company for anything on this side of the river.

While in Collinsville I picked up some donuts for them at Kruta's and boy, you should have seen their reaction to how good the donuts were. Each one told me they've never had such good donuts and wanted to know where Kruta's was. They learned what we in Collinsville have always known.

Fix those darn joints once and for all

I just learned from Y98 traffic reporter, Lance Hilldebrand, that beginning after this morning's rush hour MoDOT will be closing another westbound lane on the Poplar to fix another joint. They did this last week to another joint. And, of course, this has to be the day I need to go to Collinsville to pick up something Dale needs.

The King bridge is closed til for a year so that's unusable. I never found the King that helpful anyway. That leaves the Musial Veterans bridge coming back which ends up having to drive through downtown or north city on 20th street to get back to Market and onto 64/40. Lots of stop signs and stop lights. Its a royal pain and has been seemingly forever.

Everytime it is suggested that once this is finally over, things will be so great. Well, I'd bet anything that once MoDOT gets done with that bridge lane expansion and all the work gets off the Poplar, IDOT will decide it's time to repair the lanes on the east end. Admittedly they are in terrible shape right now, but it's just another example of why work on that bridge never ends.

A cooling update

As I related on Monday, we'd been without a working air conditioner and refrigerator since late last week. Still in the same situation but today may be the day everything gets fixed. Thankfully the air is much cooler today.

Avocados! What can't they do?

I guess we'll find out. Researchers at the Center for Nutrition, Lifestyle and Disease Prevention at Loma Linda University in Southern California, are looking for volunteers to eat avocados to prove his theory that this fruit/vegetable helps people lose weight.

There will be 4 locations where this test takes place, each with 250 volunteers who will receive 300 dollars for their efforts. The study will examine whether eating one avocado a day reduces abdominal fat.

Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups. The test group will be given 16 avocados every two weeks and required to eat one avocado per day throughout the six-month study. The control group will be required to eat no more than two avocados per month during the same period.

If you'd like to be a part of this, the story has a link.

I like avocados, we use them in some salads and on burgers and even brats as well as guacamole. They don't have much in the way of flavor as stand alone foods, but their texture is good and they adapt well to additional flavorings.

Smart hot dog

Over the weekend our central air conditioner went out and the refrigerator went on the fritz with the cooling not cooling. Yesterday the experts examined both and compressors were the culprits in both cases. The second floor still has cooling so I put a fan at the bottom of the stairs to draw some of the air down and Ferdie stays right in front of the fan.

It may not be til tomorrow or Thursday that anything can get repaired so today I am moving a lot of stuff out of the fridge and hauling it to the dumpster. I'm paranoid enough about food going bad that I'm not taking any chances. Of course it's hotter than heck these days.

A momento

When we heard the news about Senator John McCain's death, our daughter who is in town for a couple of days, went up to Dale's bookshelf and brought down this book.

On the inside page was a nice note to Dale from the senator.

A really nice gift to have especially this week. Katie works for the senate and gets to know these people like we know our own co-workers.

It says, "To Dr. Dale Meyer-with best wishes to an outstanding leader on his birthday."

Just what we needed

after a really busy week with orientation and the dedication of the library and the grandsons' cross country meet and Katie arriving for meetings in St Louis, we thought maybe Sunday would ease things. But this morning after filling Ferdie's water bowl, I stood up awkwardly and my iPhone fell out of my pocket and into the water bowl.  

I did all the recommended things but it is completely dead. I debated how to broach this with Dale and in the end he said to go replace it. Katie and I went to the Verizon store on Brentwood where we set the new phone buy in action. Now this was about 2:00, ground zero for shopping in that area. But of all things we were in and out with a new phone in, seriously, 10 minutes. 

We were amazed at how quick it was all the way home. In past years it seemed to take forever. So a toast to our salesperson, Tiffany, for being so good. 

Hete are the first two pics I took. 

Bigger phone, wireless charger. I'm happier than I was this morning 

Snakes

Why is it so many people enjoy posting pictures of snakes on Facebook and Twitter. The bigger the snake, the more apt we are to come across one. I can be happily scrolling through my page when all of a sudden there is a larger than life snake picture. I move past as fast as possible to get it out of my line of vision.

Just this morning the Belleville News Democrat posted a picture on Twitter of a chicken sitting on a fat rat snake. The snake wanted an egg apparently.

A dark morning with rain

This is not the kind of weather we were hoping for today. It's so very dark with thunder storms and downpours. Today is big around here at the seminary. Not only will the hoping service for the school year take place, but the dedication of the huge library renovation this afternoon. In between is a luncheon for people from various parts of the country who supported the library's construction.

As for this morning, there were so many crashes during rush hour that one of the local news traffic reporters said, "I think it would be a faster report if I said what roads are not delayed."