respublica

Now a roll of carpet

On westbound 55/70 on the Illinois side of the Poplar Street Bridge is a roll of carpet causing a jam. Who's the guy who draws the short straw and has to move it?

And, whoops, there's the jam all dark red.

A kissing bug

There are always news scares about the possibility of something or other which could make us sick. Today it's a warning about a blood-sucking kissing bug which, according to the lead in a KMOV story, "causes Chagas Disease which can have serious cardiac and gastrointestinal complications."

Now, read the actual story.

"A bloodsucking "kissing bug" bit a Delaware girl on the face last summer while she was watching television. When the girl was bitten, her family contacted the Delaware Division of Public Health and the Delaware Department of Agriculture for help in identifying the creature. They were concerned about possible disease transmission from the insect.

The girl who was bitten had no ill effects, although the bug's presence was confirmed in Delaware at the time, there is no current evidence of Trypanosoma cruzi in the state.

Plus, Although the risk of Trypanosoma cruzi transmitted by kissing bugs is minimal, parasite transmission could increase because of climate change, according to a paper in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. The old "blame it on Climate Change" meme.

So an alarm headline to get us to click on the story.

Call Day Week

This is a major week here at Concordia Seminary. Wednesday is Call Day, the day and evening when our second year students learn where they will be spending their vicarage year and the graduating class learns where they will serve as pastor. No one knows this information until their name is called and the excitement/tension is growing.

There is a lot to do for staff this week beyond just showing up in the chapel.  Lists are being made, the worship service for each part of the day is being put together and printed, traffic and parking plans are getting in place, dinner for the District presidents and synod officials is in the works, flowers are being planted, grass is being cut, buildings are getting an extra cleaning.

I'm excited to learn who our church in Collinsville will get as their new vicar. We never find out who's going where until it's announced to everyone.

 

The Pet Hair eraser

Someone in the Golden Ratio 4 Twitter page what brand of vacuum cleaner they use to suck up the dog hair dropped by their 5 Golden Retrievers. If you haven't seen or followed The Golden Ration 4 on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, you should. This is an amazing couple who both manage all these wonderful dogs as well as their own full careers. Each day they put up at least one video or photo of the dogs eating or running around or sleeping and they have, I'd guess, thousands of followers.

Anyhow, as you might imagine, they need a vacuum cleaner. She recently bought the Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Turbo Plus Upright and likes it. She puts it to the test for sure.

Here are their 5

We have a hairy Golden Retriever, just one dog, and he drops the hair and a couple of years ago I bought the Shark Navigator vacuum and it works very well. The best part are the attachments, one of which reaches under beds without having to move the bed. Also the canister lifts off the base so it's easy to vacuum stairs.

Banning bans

I had to laugh at this headline today. "Revolutionary: Oklahoma has just put a ban in place-banning bans on plastic bags"

I love this, it was bound to happen after all the bans we've been seeing the past few years. We love to ban things and plastic grocery bags are number one this year. Ban the Bans! We're banned out. I don't like the plastic bags especially when baggers put only a couple of things in each one, but I don't like bans even more.

Take the train to the game

An organization called, Citizens for Modern Transit, is attempting to get people going to this afternoon's Cardinals game to take Metro. They are kind of offering bribes to sweeten the deal. Representatives will be at the Shrewsbury-Lansdowne I-44 Transit Center, North Hanley Transit Center and Fairview Heights Transit Center handing out thousands of Cracker Jack® bags that boast why “Transit’s a Home Run.” Officers from the MetroLink Police Unit and Metro Transit Public Safety will also be randomly distributing branded earbuds to passengers on MetroLink trains.

There will also be photo booths. Riders can get a commemorative gameday photo taken to share on social channels explaining why #TransitIsAHomeRun. The Shrewsbury-Lansdowne I-44 Transit Center will feature additional fun, Cardinals memorabilia and tickets to a future game. Plus, Jordan from Z107.7 FM will be on hand with music and a chance to win either a Google Home Mini or Echo Dot, both of which can keep people connected to baseball and local public transit news and resources.

Why this push? To reinforce the advantages of public transit and encourage ridership. They hope that after today's festivities, more people will consider taking Metro to work.

Flat tires?

One of the morning traffic reports told of several cars with flat tires on 255 near Collinsville Road. What happened there?

House for sale

Take a minute to look at this house for sale in Texas. Especially click through the room by room pictures and you'll have to wonder how anyone could even relax in this house. And, will it even sell. But the thing is, someone really loved this house and the rooms they decorated.

Seminary edible gardens

I took a golf cart ride around the campus this morning to see how our new vegetable and herb plantings are doing. We plant a lot from seeds and a fair amount from plants. Things are starting to grow nicely and soon we will be adding more plants which like the warmer weather.

This is a garden between Sieck Hall and our house which I'm mostly tending this year. So far there are potatoes which are doing nicely, onions which are slow, squash of several varieties which I put in because they bear prolifically and the vines create a nice ground cover to slow down weeds. Also a few tomato plants named, "Old German". These are gorgeous yellowish-orange tomatoes with a taste that is unforgettable. Soon there will be more red tomatoes, watermelon and pumpkins.

Not much of a picture and there is quite a bit more garden area not showing. I put those white fence sections in to keep neighborhood dogs from tramping in it.

Potatoes and squash

Next to this garden is a big tree with rope lines  attached for Hops to grow up them. We grow hops for campus beer making people.

The hops are doing great

The kitchen garden outside of food service currently has salad greens, spinach, radishes, carrots, kale and herbs.

Then there is the huge garden alongside the tennis courts. One of our students plants and tends this with his kids. Everything imaginable in vegetables will be in here.

Still to be planted are beds throughout the main campus, any place we can put flowers, we also fill with herbs and vegetables for students and staff to pick for dinner.

 

Mattress Monday

Yesterday, the day after Easter Sunday, more than a few people decided to tie a mattress to their car or truck and as luck would have it, 3 fell onto the local highways.

Mattresses 43

Ladders 38