....enjoyed a nice full weekend.- Friday night, I met my brother at the annual auto show at The Ed/America's Center. It always falls right around his birthday so it's something of a birthday tradition for him. We had a good time browsing the cars on display. He has McMillian blood so he knows a thing or two about cars and for that I was grateful. I'm not looking to buy anytime soon but it was nice to hear his opinions about what I might buy in the future. I believe he was disappointed by the conspicuous absence of higher-end cars like Infiniti, BMW, and Mercedes Benz. That was a telling reminder of the current state of economic affairs in our country.- My mom called me early Saturday morning to invite me to The Magic House with her and
granddaughter/niece Lydia. My dad was unfortunately otherwise occupied so he couldn't come. I gladly accepted and the three of us set off from Lydia's house. We spent the morning there and then returned after lunch just before naptime! The three of us had a great time!
Yes, that's a diaper bag slung over my shoulder....boy did that feel odd!
This is what she did when I asked her to smile as we were on our way to eat lunch. Almost too adorable for words! My dad got her that awesome hat.- Saturday night I participated in the 9th annual St. Louis Spikes trivia night. The Spikes are a semi-pro baseball team that an acquaintance of mine plays on. My team of trivia wonks hung in there in second place for most of the evening before fading at the end. The questions were a bit on the "out there" side. There was an entire category on income tax, for pete's sake! I did learn that babies are born without kneecaps (which I suppose makes them least likely to suffer a mob hit!) and that Honest Abe Lincoln started up this whole income tax thing to pay for, you guessed it, a war!! The little skirmish known as the Civil War. I am doing another trivia night with some of the same people next Saturday night so we get a chance to redeem ourselves.
noted by the P-D's Bernie Miklasz in his "5 Minutes" blog post today - " The New York Jets aren’t bringing back five assistant coaches: After finishing as the runner-up in the AFC, the Jets are shaking up their coaching staff. Head coach Rex Ryan is making some changes.That’s really interesting to me in light of the Rams’ decision to fire two trainers after a 1-15 season."**EDIT** - Miklasz wrote today that the Jets moves were for cost-cutting reasons, according to new reports.As Jim Thomas wrote in his story today, the 2 trainers who were let go weren't really given much of an explanation for their firing. The Rams did have a LOT of injuries this season but they claim that's not the reason.The Rams are just the picture of ineptness these days and that's unfortunate.
....thriller of a football game down on the bayou tonight. It did my sentimental heart good to see #4 lead the Norsemen back to tie the game late. He broke said heart by throwing an ugly INT that sent the game to OT. Would have been nice to have a Peyton vs. Brett Super Bowl. Will be nice not to have the game on FOX - not the biggest fan of Joe and Troy am I.
...The Who ( I am NOT making this part up) is the halftime entertainment this year. Seriously? Is the show being sponsored by Geritol? Were the Lawrence Welk All-Stars not available?...enjoyed the new film Crazy Heart at the Plaza Frontenac cinema yesterday. Jeff Bridges (in what the P-D's Joe Williams calls a career-capping performance) effortlessly embodies the role of a washed-up country singer down on just about everything in life. I read somewhere that if Waylon Jennings were still alive he'd have played the part, which would have worked too. Bridges will likely get an Oscar nomination for the role....also enjoyed some great jazz at the Sheldon last evening. Eliane Elias made a very rare St. Louis appearance with her trio. Elias is a superb interpreter of bossa nova music and American standards. Her piano playing and vocalizing were excellent throughout her (roughly) 2-hour set. The trio was a standard guitar-bass-drums configuration; the guitarist and drummer were both native Brazilians, like Elias, natives of Sao Paulo....coulda swore that was the disembodied voice of Martin Sheen voicing a (what seemed like) 32-minute commercial for some new video game tonight....the Cardinals just thought they were done talking about steroids and McGwire's past using said PED's. Nope. The hits just keep on coming from all sides and they now have perhaps an even bigger problem than before. Their opportunity to get their story straight has passed, sadly. 6 minutes in a remote hotel hallway last Sunday didn't do them a bit of good. This thing and the recent revelation that they're taking control of Christian Family Day (from the people who've done it fabulously for almost 20 years) makes me wonder if they are less concerned with their image than with their revenues. It's disappointing, to say the least....garage door opener has been broken all week due to a stripped drive gear. I've been building my muscles by manually working the door by hand whenever I want to go somewhere. My door isn't one of these modern metal jobs, folks--it's solid wood. I've got parts coming to fix the opener and free step-by-step installation instructions courtesy of the Internets. This blogger is going to get his repair on this week!...I"m not interested in Farmville and I will pray for you who've fallen victim to its siren song. (don't slam me, folks...I'm just teasing!)...the 3 finalists for the NFL's Man of the Year were announced today and 2 of the 3 used to play for the Rams. Why, again, did we let London Fletcher get away all those years ago? He's only been a leading tackler in the years since he left....will be doing trivia nights the next two Saturday nights....guess I'd better start studying....Is it already almost Monday? Seriously?
Thursday night I went to open my garage door so I could take my recycle bin out to the curb. FAIL. The door opener wouldn't open the door. This was why:
The brace that attached the end of the opener and the roll bar of the door springs had pulled completely out of the wall. I couldn't hammer it back in because the board it attached too had split. Fortunately, I was easily able to get the door open by hand after taking apart the black "J" hook. I e-mailed my dad some pictures of the problem so he could help me figure out how to fix it.This was his solution:
A few pieces of scrap wood plus the two original braces and we had it fixed in an hour this afternoon.Thanks, Dad!
because I can't think of one.I tried mightily yesterday to do a video blog but after more than an hour of false starts and outtakes, I gave up. TV is harder than it looks, folks. So, you get the text-only version.It was mighty, mighty cold 'round these parts last week. It was probably the coldest week that I've experienced since I've lived in this house. There was a modest snowstorm overnight Wednesday into Thursday which only deepened the cold. It was so cold that I didn't walk Chili-dog at all until Saturday. I just didn't feel safe having her out early in the morning in the extremest cold. Things bottomed out on Saturday night, with the first period of below-zero temperatures in about 10 years.Weekend was quiet - had to stay close to home because I am on call for work until this Wednesday. I did venture up to the Borders store in Brentwood because they had a couple of CDs that I've been looking for in stock and I had a 33% off coupon. (The CDs were by The Clientele and Camera Obscura. No, you've probably not heard of them but they are both fabulous!) I also bought a new devotional book for the year, "Look Unto Me: The Devotions of Charles Spurgeon." It's based on Spurgeon's classic "Morning By Morning" devotional. I like what I've read of it so far.Mark McGwire finally came out of hiding to make his long-anticipated steroids confessional today. He confirmed the obvious, that he was juiced during his 1998 home run record breaker season. I knew he was guilty as suspected after his foolish appearance before the Congressional panel a few years back. "I'm not here to talk about the past" were his words at that time, which translates to "yeah, I used steroids but I really, REALLY don't want to admit to it yet." That he would eventually confess was pretty much a given after he accepted an offer to become the Cardinals hitting coach for this season. I guess a guy can only live with his past for so long. His confessional was a scripted, carefully planned event as detailed in this NYT article.Funniest, most awesome song lyric I've heard in a long time: "You, with your dietary restrictions / Said you loved me with a lot of conviction" - from Camera Obscura's "French Navy." That's a heckuva way to rhyme two words! :) Later in the same song we get, "You make me go 'ooooooh' with the things that you do, you do, you do." Lovely.
Santa Claus brought me a 10-game Cardinals season ticket package for this season...hard to imagine seeing a game on a day like today!
Niece Lydia turned two years old today....both sets of grandparents and I celebrated a bit early on Sunday evening. We enjoyed a dinner of Imo's Pizza and a dessert of birthday cupcakes (the birthday girl devoured the icing off of hers) and cookies.Happy birthday, sweet girl. You are loved.
Yes, that's a diaper bag slung over my shoulder....boy did that feel odd!
This is what she did when I asked her to smile as we were on our way to eat lunch. Almost too adorable for words! My dad got her that awesome hat.
