Tuesday Night, 9:29 p.m.

- I'm relaxing in a comfortable chair, a dog in low-energy mode parked on the floor next to it, watching the Blues wax the Stars in hockey...

- had another furlough day off today. This was the third of five I'm unfortunately having to take. It was a windy, warm day. Chili-dog and I got in a long walk on Grant's Trail in the late afternoon.

- I finally got around to ordering blinds for my kitchen windows this morning. It's only been, what, almost four years since the kitchen remodel? This will be the final part of the project. I ordered 2 more sets of 3 Day Blinds "Transitions" faux-wood blinds identical to those in my bedroom. I'll post a picture of them when I get them up next week. This will be my third purchase from 3 Day Blinds; almost every window in my house will have one of their products covering it.

- we're firmly in weather transition season here in the Midwest. Spring is valiantly trying to wrestle power away from Winter but Winter refuses to yield. We had a warm, windy weekend followed by a cold Monday, followed by a warm, windy Tuesday. A strong cold front is passing over tonight so tomorrow and Thursday are forecasted to be just plain cold again. Daylight Savings Time kicked in on Sunday and I'm grateful for the extended daylight; I have resumed walking Chili-dog in the evenings after work.

- Today, the ratty plastic roller shade covering my big basement window gave up the ghost. I have a couple of old sliding closet doors covering the glass until I can get to Homer Depot to buy another ratty plastic roller shade.

- On the tragic shooting death of Pastor Fred Winters over in Maryville - my heart hurts for his family and his church members. But it's important to remember that the rain falls on the saint as well as the sinner. No one is immune to random, unspeakable violence. Yeah, I am one of the many who would like to know why God chose to have his life end that way, but that's not for us to know. The Bible is clear that his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. "Farther along, we'll know all about it..." What is clear is that Pastor Fred died being obedient to God in fulfilling his calling to preach the gospel. He was absolutely ready to go.

- Facebook is re-connecting me with more and more old high school classmates and even further back, old classmates from my childhood in Malden. A couple of them live here in the area and I didn't even know it.

- How did I miss Chicago's wonderful love song "Beginnings" all these years? love it!

- received the latest issue of Jazz Times magazine in the mail today. They've come a long way baby - included in this issue was an interview with a trans-gendered bassist...umm, yeah. And this was not just any bassist, this person has played extended gigs with Mel Torme and Doc Severinsen.

- A shout-out to Missouri Conservationist magazine. It's available free of charge to all Missouri residents and is the best literary bargain anywhere, period. The wildlife photography in it is always of stunning, brilliant quality. I also enjoy reading about the great outdoors of our fair state!

It's Probably Not A Good Thing...

when, whilst cleaning out your kitchen pantry, you hold up a tupperware-like container of something and ask the dog, "what do you suppose this was?"

A can of peaches semi-exploded in the pantry during the night and leaked all over everything. At first I noticed a pool of yellow liquid on the floor and thought that Chili-dog had sprung an accidental leak. Then I investigated further and decided a jar of olive oil was the actual culprit. Only after finding more liquid on an upper shelf did I find the peaches. Guess I should have eaten them sooner. To my shame, I've had to throw out many items that were never opened and/or were way past their expiration date, including 3 cans of green beans and a small can of corn.

The pantry is clean and airing out now so all's well that ends well.

Theatrical...

I took in a stage play last night, something I'd not done in a very long time. My friend KW played a supporting role in a community theatre production of "Charley's Aunt." St. Charles Community College's Center Stage Theatre produced the show and did a great job. The production was just fine and my friend's performance was enjoyable. If any of my St. Louis readers have a free night this weekend, it's worth checking out!

"Walk With Me"...

I attended a singles ministry convention in Nashville, TN back in 2003. One of the seminars I attended there was given by a man named Earl Creps. At the time he was a professor at the Assemblies of God Seminary in Springfield, MO. His seminar was all about reaching "post-moderns" which was the demographic my church service was trying to reach at the time. His talk really grabbed me by the ears and opened my eyes to the validity of non-traditional methods of evangelism and from time to time I check in to see if any more of his talks are posted on his web site. Recently I clicked on one that really got me to thinking.

Check it out: "Walk With Me"

I Am First Free...

This is a video that my pal Ben produced for my church's annual "State Of The Church" service, which happened while I was in Florida last Sunday.


I am First Free from Ben Muehleisen on Vimeo.

New Gadget...

I have added a playlist of songs I created at playlist.com. It is at the bottom of the blog page and will play automatically when you call up this blog. If it gets too annoying, let me know and I'll take it off.

Sunday Night...

...and after a weekend of Florida sunshiny warm goodness, St. Louis reality feels really cold.

- flew down to sunny Florida on Friday afternoon. The occasion was the wedding of my friend DW, who is a staff missionary with Campus Crusade For Christ at their headquarters in Orlando. He met a fellow CC missionary there and, well, one thing led to another. The wedding was lots of great and I was honored to be in attendance.

- I stayed with my aunt and uncle, who live in a nearby suburb. I'd never visited them on their home turf so they were happy to have me stay the weekend. I also made the acquaintance of their Golden Retriever dog, Riley. Riley is 11 years old and a really mellow fellow these days. He's about 9 kinds of lovable, though!

- Florida loves them some toll booths! I must have spent almost $10 on tolls alone. I guess the tourists pay for their roads...smart thinking!

- My flights to and from were smooth. I flew Southwest coming and Air Tran going.

- Chili-dog stayed with my parents while I was gone. She behaved herself, I'm told.

The Tax Man Strikes Again...

So last summer when I was getting bids for the replacement windows for my house, each contractor highlighted the "$200 Tax Credit" the government would give me for installing energy-efficient windows. Well, I got the new windows. Well, I was preparing my taxes the other night and could not find the form for the tax credit. So, I called up the IRS and asked, "WHAT'S UP?"

It turns out the law that created that tax credit for 2006 and 2007 was allowed to expire for 2008! It was reinstated for 2009 in one of the economic relief stimulus bills passed late last year, but for 2008, you're out of luck. Bummer!

I'm not too broken up about it, as it's only $200 and I get a headache trying to figure out who should have known about the expiration of that law. Yeah, someone somewhere had to know about it, but who do you blame? Does it really matter?

Maybe I Should Try This!...

Catching Up...

Let's blow off the accumulated dust from this blog...

- did not blog last Sunday night for no good reason...might have been Super Bowl letdown, eh, whatever. I removed the previous post's effigy of Kurt Warner...he's a good and righteous man, a stout warrior whom fate didn't smile on last week.

- my brother had a birthday last Sunday. which means mine isn't too far off. he turned 31 and we're 4 years apart, so hmmm...who's about to be halfway through his 30s?

- the folks kept niece Lydia (grand-baby to them!) last Saturday evening and overnight until Sunday as a birthday gift to my bro. That gave him and the wifey some alone time that they don't get a lot of since Lydia came along. Plus, Lydia got to go to church and be shown off by her proud grandparents. My mom cooked up a whopper of a vegetable soup for lunch that day. My body didn't know what to hink about the sudden infusion of nutrition.

- I really need to be booking my flights to and from Florida for later this month. Wedding experts, please weigh in: how should I go about wedding gift-giving in this situation? just do a card since I'm coming in from out out of town, or have the gift sent beforehand? Please advise.

- Plumbing experts please advise: is it really possible that my gas water heater could be 25 years old? I swear, the born-on sticker on it says 1983. I've heard the This Old House plumbing expert say that they should be replaced after 7 or 8 years. Regardless, mine is still going strong.

- I am really shocked to read about and see the destruction and distress leveled upon my friends and family in the Bootheel of MO due to the recent ice storm. I can't imagine what it must be like for them. Can't help but think of my dearly departed Papaw, as well. If this had happened a year ago, he'd have been suffering in a cold, dark house.

- The weather warmed up in record-setting fashion yesterday. Chili-dog and I were lazy most of the day but did get out for a mid-afternoon hike at Buder Park and a tromp through the woods of two newly-discovered conservation areas nearby. Pictures are here.

- Facebook has re-connected me with a growing number of my old high school classmates. A mini-reunion of FHS Class of '92 was held last Saturday night after being organized on Facebook. I could not attend because I covered the night shift at work.

- No, I will not be posting a "25 Random Things About Me" on Facebook or in this space. : )

Spotted At The Super Bowl...

Credit: McGrath/Getty

Ummm....yeah!

Commanding the Night Brigade...

It's Saturday night and I'm at work covering my co-worker who took the night off. Let's hope for a quiet night, OK? My certified pre-owned laptop from Dell Financial Services arrived via FedEx today, so getting it up and running should keep me occupied most of the night.

I spent most of the day doing stuff I usually do on Sundays. Tomorrow I'll probably be lunching in Festus with the parents and bro/sis-in-law, as tomorrow is my bro's birthday. Then tomorrow night is the big Super Bowl and I'll be partying with some friends from church all night. Thus I won't be cleaning house and Dierbergs-ing. I gave the house a good cleanining (even scrubbed the tub, Mom!) and gave the dog two good walkings.

Pearls Before Swine...

Mr. Blago Goes Home...

You know they really don't like you when they vote to evict you and your extravagant coif out of the governorship THEN they take another vote to tell you to LEAVE HERE AND NEVER COME BACK.

He either really did do what he's accused of and is just off his rocker or he actually didn't do it and there's more to the story then we're being told.

Rod Blagojevich removed from office by unanimous vote of Illinois Senate

Snow Day...

The official snowfall measurement in my backyard.

Chili-dog kept a lookout for suspicious dogs.

She's a real Messy Marvin when it comes to snow-eating.

I had the day off today so I scheduled an afternoon play-date with niece Lydia:

I was pleased to see her wearing the shirt I got her for Christmas!

A Truly Bad Idea...

on the occasion of this snow day in St. Louis, I present the following YouToob goodness:

We Are The Champions...

of the Our Little Haven benefit trivia night. My table took first place out of 68 tables! We decided to donate the $400 prize back to OLH. My shining moment occurred when I was the only one at my table that somehow knew that Lori Chalupny was the St. Louisan who won a gold medal in last summer's Olympics (as a member of the U.S. women's soccer team.)

Categories were: sports movies, TV theme songs, presidential inaugurations, "The Office", battle of the sexes, are you smarter than a 5th grader, famous st. louisans, before they were stars, events of the year 1993 (when OLH was founded), and one other that I can't recall at this late hour.

Sunday Night...

- So yeah, I did my first-ever guest blog post yesterday for my pal Ben, who has been mission-tripping in Haiti since Wednesday. Ben's all about the awesome and I blogged about our awesome outdoors. My pal Katie's guest blog post was awesome, as well!

- So yeah, Garrison Keillor really did write a song about Thursday afternoon's USAir Flight 1549 excitement. He performed it on last night's Prairie Home Companion show. Lyrics and streaming audio are here. (The audio only works in the IE browser.)

- Speaking of USAir Flight 1549, gotta hand it to the pilot and his crew. The guy made the best of what could have been abject tragedy. He put that plane right down in the cold Hudson river and everybody on board lived to tell the story. I think I'll read the passenger safety card a little more closely from now on.

- I'm planning a little mini-vacation at the end of February. A friend of mine is getting married down in Orlando, Florida and he has invited me to attend. My dad's youngest brother and his wife live in the area so I'll happily fly in for a couple of days.

- So yeah, the Chicago/St. Louis/Phoenix-Glendale/Arizona Cardinals really are the NFC Champions. Ain't it funny the way things work out? The best team in the NFC's worst division is going to the Super Bowl. With a 37-year old QB at the helm. I feel happy for Kurt Warner. God's giving him another shot at glory after so many years of struggle following his previous triumph with the Rams. I loved seeing old Bill Bidwill hoist that trophy - gotta believe there was some gnashing of teeth among the old-guard civic leaders in St. Louis.

- Speaking of the Rams, they have apparently gotten the Man they wanted as their next coach. Many fans despaired when word got out that long-shot candidate Jason Garrett of the Cowboys had flown into town for a second interview Friday night. Less than 24 hours later, word leaked out that Steve Spagnuolo of the Giants would be the new coach and Garrett was quickly hustled out of town.

- Chili-dog is really gassy lately. She just is. I'll be sitting here and she'll be sitting here and suddenly she just spouts off. I'm going to try her on plain low-fat yogurt this week. The live cultures in the yogurt are said to be the best remedy for the bad bacteria that causes the gas.

- I did get over to Simpson County Park yesterday for a nice afternoon walk with the dog.

- Not much else happening 'round here lately. The temperature did bottom out right on schedule, right in the heart of January. I felt really great about that because, well, I like it when things happen when they should. It should be really, really cold in the the middle of January in the middle of America. Work's been a little crazy lately. The most recent round of layoffs within my parent company have resulted in the outsourcing of our sister publication's tech support to my company's tech support of which I am part. That will mean more work once we figure out how we're going to do it.

- A new work week starts tomorrow, folks...let's make it a good one.

Crisis Averted...

This is one of the two strips of metal strapping that attached my garage door opener to the ceiling of my garage. I was headed out to the YMCA tonight when I found that my garage door opener wouldn't open all the way. I flipped on the light and found the opener hanging precariously from just one metal strip, directly over my car. The other strip had finally given out, after at least 8 years (that broken end is where it was attached to the ceiling). I grabbed a ladder and managed to get it re-attached (with some silent prayer, thank you God!). This is when you're glad to have a Home Depot less than a mile from your house and that it's open late. I got the door opened and zipped over to buy a new strip of metal. Now it's bolted back in place securely and I am much relieved.

Phoenix Rising...

33-13....just like that the Phoenix Cardinals are in the NFC Championship game. The Phoenix Cardinals who hadn't won a game in the Eastern Time Zone in forever.

So who'd have thought one of the teams in the championship game would come out of the NFC West?

I would say Kurt Warner's must have gotten his second wind, but he's on his 4th or 5th wind by now. Your team's never out of it when a Godly man is your QB, folks.