respublica

Coming late to the movie party

We've had a Netflix subscription for some years but never really bothered with it. For one thing, our main TV isn't a smart TV so it hasn't been possible to use streaming attachments. That is why Dale surprised me, really surprised me, the other night when he went to bed and ended up watching series on ancient Roman history. I asked him how he got that on the bedroom tv which is smart and has Roku. He said, I found it on Netflix.

Frankly Dale is not the most tech savvy person and the fact that he found Netflix on the Roku and this Roman series boggled my mind. I guess we will now be regular Netflix users, better late than never.

What I found on Netflix that same night was this really fun cooking series, The Great British Baking Show. It's very entertaining in a very British manner. This was after Dale finished with the horrendous violence that took place during ancient Rome. It was a nice change of pace.

2020 the year that just keeps on keeping on

I don't know about anyone else, but after last night's debate neither of us here could sleep well. But it just figures the debate would fall fall right into all the other 2020 craziness.

All I really want is to know is what to have for supper each night and even that is getting more and more difficult.

But, we have a lot of yard work to do as fall is coming on faster than we can keep up. We have a lot of outdoor pots with flowers which have to come out. Leaves are falling, the front porch needs painting. I'm happy to be distracted by the mundane.

I came across this photo of a maze on the Sweet Berry Farm in Marble Falls, Texas. The write up mentioned that this maze did not look hard from the air, but somehow it is when you're in there. Well, it sure looked hard to me, I could imagine myself having a panic attack trying to get out. So I chuckled a bit. Everything is bigger in Texas.

Eckert's Orchard in Belleville normally has a big corn maze, but canceled it this year due to the pandemic.

An interesting road trip?

Want a different kind of vacation trip and have a lot of time on your hands? How about doing a driving trip to visit every US city or town named Springfield? Here is a map showing the best route to take for doing this.

Click to enlarge.

The Plane! The Plane

Living in Collinsville we are back under the flight path for planes coming and going to Scott Air Force in Mascoutah. Certain days of the week have more landings than others and the planes come over us fairly low. These are huge planes, tankers and other types I don't decifer. They often fly right over our house and the other day I wanted a photo of at least one of them and sat outside waiting.

We hear them before they suddenly appear from the north and west. You'd think I'd have time to get a picture in the perfect spot away from trees but while they seem to be moving slowly they are not. This is the only picture I could halfway get on Friday afternoon. In real life these things are monster big.

Our anxieties on one chart

I can't be the only one who quietly (or not so quietly) obsesses over what physical twinge or sneeze is nothing or the onset of the Corona virus. So this chart I came across this morning is a perfect example of how I feel way too often.

An unusual addition to the tally

Yesterday Dale drove to Paris, Illinois to visit his mother and ended up behind this vehicle and thought I'd enjoy seeing it since I've long kept track of these things falling on St. Louis highways.

It wasn't local, but still worth a look.

But as an FYI, the current St. Louis area tally is: Mattresses 52  Ladders 62

 

A childhood memory

Growing up on the Southside of Chicago, my dad would often take us on a ride to various parts of the city. While we would drive downtown along the lake shore, he most often wanted us to see some of the troubling sections. One of those places was skid row. He wanted us to learn that not everyone was as fortunate as us and the lesson stuck with me. So when I came across this Chicago skid row photo, the memories of those drives came back. As young as I was the images stuck in my mind all these years.

We also went to the Maxwell Street Market which at one time was almost a mile long and known for vendors selling about anything. It still exists but only a mere shadow of it's past with sellers hawking street food and flea market things. I really got a kick out of this area as a kid.

Collinsville ranks high

This was a nice surprise. The Post-Dispatch related the results of a survey from AdvisorSmith, a business insurance site. This company did a study on "the best cities for working at home" in which they looked at 2500 cities. Collinsville ranked 21st in the smaller city category!

The five factors used to determine the rankings were availability of high-speed internet, weather conditions, crime rates, housing prices and parkland for nearby outdoor recreation.

The study showed that among small cities — 10,000 to 100,000 residents — about 76% of all Collinsville residents had access to two or more broadband providers offering 100 Mbps internet connections. (The small-city average was 52%.)

Also, the average cost for a three-bedroom in Collinsville was slightly less than $134,000, about 53% lower than the average home price for small cities.

No other STL municipalities made the honor roll of being one of the top 100 cities in either the small-city or medium-city category, and St. Louis city did not qualify as one of the top 50 large cities."

I copied the information from the story because clicking a Post-Dispatch link often means having to complete some sort of survey in order to read. We subscribe to the paper, but not everyone does.

The most "No Duh" story of the day

From KSDK, channel Five in St. Louis, a news report on "Why You Shouldn't Hang Masks from Your Rearview Mirror."

The reasons are so obvious I won't even copy them here, let's just say, It's a safety hazard which will block part of your field of view.