respublica

A visit from the grandsons and their parents and dog

Friday evening the Bailey's rolled into town and we've been going every since.

Right out of the car Ferdie and Sidney greeted each other. Checked each other out.

The next morning we all went to youngest grandson, Nick's, soccer game. Cousins reunited

Later that day (Saturday) Katie and I took Jake and Drew to Soulard Market

And a trip to the Demun Candy store across the street from the seminary

They then spent the night over at Lizzie and Darren's for a sleep over.

Honestly, taking photos vertically just does not translate onto websites.

Today (Sunday we were all at the Lutheran Church of Webster Gardens.

An unexpected mishap

This weekend Dale preached for a church's anniversary in northern Kansas. This church was in a rural area by itself, there was no town nearby. All the roads leading to it were gravel which meant the parking lot looked like every vehicle was white. When he left Sunday afternoon he was headed for my sister's in St. Joseph, Missouri a couple hours east. He decided to take a slightly different route back than when he went to that church because he thought it was a quicker way to whatever highway he needed to get to. Some miles down a gravel road he came across a sign which read, "Gravel road Ends". And he suddenly found himself on a dirt road, but kept going until he discovered the dirt had turned to mud. His car got deep into the mud and he was swerving and sliding until he was sure he was going to go into the ditch.

The problem here was, cell service was pretty slim to non-existent out there. If he went into the ditch he had no idea how he's get out with no way to call for help or even if he could call. Somehow he was able to stop the car, got out and found his tires covered with mud and the wheel wells were several inches deep in mud. He had to keep going, and got out of there, I haven't heard exactly how. When he got to a small town he found a self serve car wash and got the mud out of the wheel wells and off the tires.

This was one of the first times I've ever heard him say he'd been really scared. He is one of those who takes pictures with the phone held vertically which do not flip correctly when posting on websites. So, this is all I can do to show the photos he sent.

When I saw the tire photo he sent I thought at first his tire was shredded, but no, it was mud. When he called from my sister's I asked him if his GPS had sent him to that dirt road and he said, no. It had recommended a different way but he thought his way might have been quicker.  GPS almost always knows. Lesson learned.

With crystal, it's all science

The past day or two it's been all about a learning curve trying to figure out the science involved in taking photos with a crystal ball. It really is a science-light, refraction, inverted images etc. So far I've had many more bad pictures as good ones. But I do like the good ones even if it is hard to explain what's going on.

It is written that the best times for taking these pictures, as with normal pictures is early morning or just at sunset and a bit beyond. The light should be behind you lending a softness that does not overpower the photo. So last night I went out sometime before sunset. I figured on this campus with all the trees and buildings blocking light, it would be better. This morning I went out again just at sunrise.

I rather liked this inverted image of Luther statue in the globe.

The base of Luther Tower

And the old bell

This morning was a different area

Sieck Hall in the background along Founders Lane

Chapel

 

It's a crystal ball

When my sister came over to St. Louis for a short visit this week, she brought me a Crystal Ball. This ball is not for fortune telling but for photography. It seems this way to take photos is gaining in interest by real photographers. So, I've tried it out a few times to get accustomed to the unique way this sort of thing changes the way you see things. For one thing, either the background or the image in the ball will be upside down. Or, the main image in the ball is clear and the background is blurred. Or for art's sake. It's kind of fun, but it takes some care to make sure the ball doesn't fall and crack or get too hot from the sun which will make it explode or get fingerprints on it.

We attempted a few the first day and then I went out this morning to try it again. I now have some idea of what I'm wanting to do, but it will take practice and this campus is perfect for that. None of what I'm posting are great, but it's just an early example of crystal ball photography.

This is a lily behind our back fence

These above are at the main fountain pond

Then this morning's attempts

 

 

A non update convention update

This is one of those posts on the LCMS convention which is not about anything officially happening since what is official usually takes forever to accomplish one after another. So these are a of couple of non-voting, not issue, photos.

We're beyond the day when everyone involved is alert and interested. Now it's like the back side of a marathon, just get us out of here. And that includes delegates who are praying each issue left to be voted on isn't dragged out by all kinds of questions and points of order. Lots of delegates seem to know how they're going to vote on most things and oddly, the same percentage of delegates do the same on every question. It gives me pause.

Anyhow, this is just background posting today. We will be hosting a reception tonight of any alumni in for the convention and for the first time we will be co-hosting with the Fort Wayne Seminary and their alumni. Everyone is looking forward to this.

The two seminary presidents, Rast and Meyer

Our grandson Christian who has been helping in the seminary's exhibit hall booth.

Also for the first time, the two seminaries shared exhibit hall space and it turned out to be fantastic as well as eye catching.

The two presidents even swapped shirts.

Our Holy Cross pastor is a delegate and here he is with one of the seminary professors, Tom Egger.

There was a bit of free time for Dale and Christian to take a boat ride

It has rained every afternoon and then stopped. Pretty typical for Florida summer "they say'.

 

Finally the truck is repaired

Back on February 23rd, the big tree nextdoor to us fell across the fence and onto our cars. Dale's car had a lot of major damage, my truck had dents, scratches and a torn bed cover. Dale had to have his fixed first due to his travel and that took a long time. Then, when he got it back, he needed it for speaking engagements which required driving. So, a few weeks ago we had an open calendar and got my truck in for repairs.

It took some time due to ordering parts and such, but yesterday we got it back and I can't say enough good things about A-Rod's Auto Body Repair shop. He was amazing and extremely nice to deal with. I'd recommend him to anyone.

Here is what the truck looked like under the tree and then fixed.

It looks like new

And our garden has a gate

The vegetable garden Dale constructed last week was finished except for a gate. We've had a heavy sheet of plywood against the opening to keep out the greedy animals. Saturday, Dale built the gate and as always with him, it wasn't just a simple gate.

It opens in the middle like shutters and has a nice latch and of course he couldn't leave the support columns plain, he had to get copper toppers. But it looks good. We have stopped most of the ravaging animals, but there is still one, probably a darn rabbit, who is able break in somehow. We are going to get him yet.

Visiting St. Salvator

Yesterday, Father's Day, Dale and I drove out to Venedy, Illinois for St. Salvator's annual Chicken dinner. St. Salvator was where Dale began his ministry and where our children were born. It's always a joy to go back there. It's fun to walk up to where the people are and still know everyone by name even after all these years. The church is very old, (1842) in fact, it is one which sent its first pastor to be part of a meeting in Chicago to create our church body, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. This was way back in 1847. The church and school still stand, much like it has for all these years. There are people buried in the cemetery behind the church who were born earlier than the creation of the church. It's amazing.

The organ has it's own history, purchased from Old Trinity in St. Louis and carried by horse and wagon to Venedy. That organ had come from Germany with the original Lutheran immigrants. It is still used to this day.

The one room school house that stands today was built in 1872

The parsonage we lived in next to the church was torn down a couple of years ago and a nice fellowship hall was built and where the chicken was served up.

The inside of the church, much like it's been forever.

When we lived there coal was still the way the parsonage and church were heated. The coal drop is still there.

But now a more up to date heating system is in place as well as this which surprised me.

air conditioning!

Here is organ up in the balcony

Here are the steps you need to climb up into the balcony

And then if you want to go up into the bell tower there is a steep wooden ladder and a trap door at the top which opens to the bells. There is also a sort of room like area up there where Dale spent many a day working on his Ph'd dissertation. Crazy times.

The cemetery is beautiful in a serene spiritual way. The ancient burials were right behind the church and as years went by the plots filled up row by row.

What amazed us was the growing number of new tombstones with pictures engraved on the front which tell of the person's life.

Coal miner

Excavator

And farmers.

Venedy is a blessing.

Renovation puzzles

We've had quite a bit of work done on our house in Collinsville over the years we've mainly lived on the seminary campus and we're now down to basic painting and flooring in the upstairs bedrooms. But this is not easy. I'm pretty much over painting walls, I bet I've painted every room in that house several times over the years and I don't want to do it anymore. So we need to find painters who can not only paint, but tape and mud a few seams. Then the question becomes what to do with the floors.

I watch a lot of HGTV, especially House Hunters, and most of the time people looking for a house are emphatic about wanting hardwood floors everywhere including bedrooms. I'm just not sure. Our main floor has original hardwoods and they are really nice, but for the bedrooms? There is something soothing about having carpeting in an upstairs bedroom and it makes things quieter for those below. For us, once we get up in the morning we don't go back into the bedrooms til we go to bed that night. So carpet doesn't get much wear or dirt. At least I have time to decide during painting time.

Also, our bedroom has a gas log fireplace which was in place when we bought the house in 1981. Early on we had it on now and then, but at some point stopped using it because it was causing soot to accumulate on the brick surround. We figured better safe than sorry. So do we have the gas log insert removed and the wall dry walled over? Or see if it can be made to good working order?

Things like this are why it has taken so long to finally get this done.

What to do when there is nothing to do

This was weekend we learned what it was like to not have television, computer and wireless anything. While planting some flowers early Saturday morning, Dale shoved his shovel into our buried cable line. Everything inside the house stopped.  Well, not everything, the washer was still going, but the things we count on went out.

I went around checking things and hoping this was going to be an outage area wide so that the cable people would send someone out. But finally after an hour I realized it was just us. I knew this by going out to the yard and saw where Dale had been digging. The ground was exactly above where the cable line was buried as it was laid from the back of the house to the pole at the edge of the property. I asked him if he'd noticed an orange cord and he said yes. It never occurred to him that this may have been our cable line. He did admit to moving it as his dug, but didn't think he'd actually cut into it.

But he did.  Calling Charter or probably any cable provider is a pain. You get the automated answer which will require pushing one number or other and answering "yes" or No" to a mechanical voice for any number of questions. I gave up the first time since none of the choices met out situation. I tried again later and again was frustrated. Finally I decided to just press 0 when the voice came on and sure enough I got a real person finally.

She set up a time for a service person to come out Sunday morning. So we had all of Saturday and Saturday night to pretty much sit around and try to find things to talk about in a very quiet house. We both found our cellular data almost used up by the time we headed for bed. We've never been in that position before and we both wondered what it would mean if out cellular allotment ran out before the cable guy got here. Would our phone just shut down and be useless?  We did not find out because we managed to squeak by.

I spent some time during the boring Saturday giving some thought to getting one of the Over the Air antennas. They are pretty inexpensive and at least we'd be able to watch local things that night. So I did it. I went out to Best Buy while Dale was out running other errands and bought an over the air antenna. It sounded so easy.

But like all tech things, easy is in the mind of the beholder and in the tv's they own. Turns out we have a TV without a built in tuner which you must have in order to make the over the air antenna work. Who knew? Lots of tv's are being made without them these days. If your TV has a coaxial cable slot, you're good. If not you have to buy some other part to make it work. I will not buy another part. I may just use this over the air antenna on a different tv one of these days.

Technology! Always wanting you to buy one more thing.