Things To Do in St. Louis

I lied just a little bit.  My training seminar isn't actually in St. Louis.  It is in Collinsville, Illinois, which is about 8 miles across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.  Hey at least it isn't East St. Louis right?  

Well our class got done at 4:00 on the first day so I had some time to kill.  I didn't feel like just hanging out in my hotel room, so I thought I'd drive over the river into St. Louis and have a look around.  I thought I would maybe just go take a walk over by the Gateway Arch, and maybe walk around the downtown, or go have a look at Busch Stadium (BOOOOO CARDINALS!).  Well that plan was shot rather quickly.  I got across the river but quickly found out there was no place to park.  In fact, the directions from the Garmin led me to a one way street by an Indian Casino.  As I didn't feel like gambling, I tried to go back around it.  I was stuck in what looked to be a historic district with cobblestone streets (that were quite uneven and bumpy).  There actually were some surface parking lots that I could have parked in and walked over to the Arch, but I didn't want to have to pay $6 just to walk over to the Arch for 15 minutes and take a photo.  So I was left to just drive around a little bit and I found that there was a lot of construction going on around the Arch and the old courthouse, which was apparently a historical landmark.  So instead of driving around on one way streets, not knowing where I was going, I made my way back to the Interstate and made my way to Collinsville.

On the way back I decided to drive by the Cahokia Indian Mounds.  If you have never heard of them, here is some background (please read at your leisure).  I thought I would have a look and see if I could walk around a little bit.  Well it turns out it was pretty much like a city park.  There were a couple of parking lots and paths between the mounds.  The "Interpretaion Center" was closed, but at least I could go on a walking tour of the mounds.  I ended up climbing the largest of the mounds, Monks Mound.  

The mound rises to a height of about 100 feet and has a base that covers 14 acres.  That's pretty big!  I actually got a little winded climbing the stairs to the top.  

I was also able to actually take a photo of the skyline of St. Louis...  so here is what it looked like:

I took a couple of pictures of the park as a whole too, so here is one view of the rest of the park from the top of the mound.

 

I think it was a good thing I went on Monday, because Tuesday it was rainy, and there is a severe thunderstorm cell rolling through tonight.  The only other day that will be available for "sight-seeing"is going to be Thursday, if the weather is nice.  I don't think I'll be much in the mood to go driving around though as I will probably be busy making sure everything is packed up and ready to go so I can check out before going to my seminar Friday morning and then get on the road home as soon as it's over so that I get home before 10:00 PM. Too bad.  Maybe one of these times I'll get lucky and be able to do something in a city where I go for these classes/training.  I will keep my fingers crossed for next time, I guess. 

Driving to St. Louis

As I am in St. Louis all this week I thought I would give a review of the drive here.  It was actually pretty uneventful.  There were only a couple of "incidents" that popped up on the way.  The first was a speed trap.

The speed limit most of the way was 70 mph.  Being as I had Wisconsin plates in Illinois, I really didn't want to exceed the speed limit too much.  So I pretty much kept it around 73-74 tops.  There were a couple of times where I sped up to get around slower traffic in an attempt to not get boxed in for a bit, but other than that I kept it pretty close to the posted limit.  And as the roads were dry and traffic light it was a very smooth drive.

Then about halfway here, an older model Porsche, maybe a 928, went breezing by me doing at least 80.  then about a mile up I saw a car parked on an overpass.  It was obviously a cop taking radar.  As soon as I got under the overpass, I saw a police car speeding down the on ramp.  It got on the highway and pulled behind the Porsche and then lit the lights.  HAHAHAHA!  There were two other cops with people pulled over, so it was a good thing that I kept my speed low.

The second thing was an 18-wheeler that had a blowout.  The tire tread was laid all the way across the right lane (or about 80% of it).  I suppose it would have been a problem had I actually run it over.  Luckily there was one car between me and the tire and I was able to see it swerve far enough in advance to change lanes.  So once again I got lucky that I wasn't following the car in front of me that closely.  Had I been closer, I may not have had time to change lanes, and I am going to assume hitting a tire tread that was laying on its side in the middle of the road could have possibly caused a little bit of damage to the underside of the Escape.

Hopefully the drive home will go just as smooth, but without any close calls.

My Class

As I said, I am in St. Louis this week taking a training seminar for work.  I am reviewing my training in auditing to the TS16949 standard, and taking an intro to the AIAG core tools.  The guy who is instructing the class is the person who used to be our TS Auditor at work.  His three year cycle was up just before I started at Grede, so I had never met him before, though my boss and co-workers thought he would be an excellent person to learn from. 

So after introductions, etc. he gave us all some background on his experience.  He told us that he is from Hamilton, Ontario which as it turns out is the area that my grandma's family is from.  So at our first break I asked him if he had lived in Hamilton long.  He told me that he had lived there all his life.  So I said, well then you must know where the Albert McCormick Community Centre & Arena (notice I spelled Centre the Canadian way) and he said yes, he's been there many times.  I told him that it just so happens that he was my Great Grandfather.  He was surprised, and said while he doesn't know anyone in the McCormick family he was well aware of the family name, and he doesn't usually run into people with any sort connection to Hamilton down in the states.  So hopefully that means I'll have a good "in" with him for the rest of the class.  So far it is going pretty well.  But I have to admit, I can't wait to get back home.

Decisions, Decisions

After sitting down and looking at our bills this week, I have decided to start shopping around for a different TV/internet service.  Yeah, I know there are not a lot of choices, but I think we're getting shafted by AT&T. 

We've been with AT&T in some shape or form for as long as I can remember, at least for our internet.  I think it goes back to something like 2002.  Because of some issues we had with Time Warner Cable back around 2000, I wasn't even considering going back to cable.  We had satellite TV for years, and now recently we have been with AT&T Uverse for at least the last 5 or 6 years.  I forget exactly when we switched to them, but they were the other option if we didn't want to go the cable route.  Well now I think it is time to take a good hard look. 

I called to try and negotiate a better deal, and the person at AT&T said they could drop my price a little, but it wouldn't be as much as what the cable company could do.  The biggest pain will be in switching email addresses and updating online accounts.  I can see why people are reluctant to change, because there are so many accounts that I will need to update.  I think what I am going to need to do (and Kris as well) is go with a free email address (gmail, yahoo, etc.) where it won't make a difference if I change my ISP in the future.  I'll have to look and see what I can do as far as email accounts, because I am not a big fan of adding numbers, etc. to an ID and I am pretty sure that I won't be able to get my name (or Kris's) as our IDs with gmail.

So if you are reading this and are a friend or family member, watch your email, or your cell phones, for notices, because I am 98% sure that we'll be changing services in the next couple of weeks.

Time for Braces

On the same day as we found out that the water heater needed to be replaced we got some more good news.  Alison is finally ready to get her braces.  The orthodontist has been watching her for at least the last year (probably longer than a year and I just don't remember) and each time he said that she needed to lose more of her baby teeth before she could get them on.  So now she has one baby tooth left (the orthodontist actually pulled one that was just hanging on that I couldn't get out) and that means she is ready.

So on next Wednesday she is having her molds made and she will need to decide if she wants the metal ones, or the clear brackets.  At first she said she apparently wanted the metal ones, but she is unsure.  There is still plenty of time though.  I think she has another two weeks before they get put on, so we'll see what she decides. 

I'll have to take some pictures like I did with Sarah.  Though looking back, Sarah had hers put on in fifth grade, so Alison is two years behind where Sarah was. If I remember right, Sarah had to wear her braces about 6 or 9 months longer than expected, so I hope that doesn't mean that Alison will have her braces on well into her Sophomore year. 

In Hot Water

I remember in college having a section in one of my design classes regarding warranties and how to determine how long to set it at.  We had to look at things like fatigue, stress, and deterioration and add in a safety factor.  Anything after that is a bonus.  That is why things always seem to break right after the warranty expires.  No, there isn't some sort of goofy law (like Murphy's, Cheop's, or Gumperson's...  Look the last couple up) that controls when things will break, they are designed that way.

So a few days ago when I was in the basement putting some tools away and I saw a trail of water running from the water heater to the floor drain, I knew it wasn't good.  I looked at the tag on the water heater and it was installed in July of 2003.  the warranty on the tank was 12 years.  Perfect!  However, I still had four months on the warranty.  But here is where Murphy's Law kicks in....  I couldn't find any of my paperwork (receipts, warranty card, etc.) for it.  Unfortunately without that, I couldn't make a warranty claim.  Thanks GE!  You suck!  So now I'll have to start looking for a new hot water heater.  It is just perfect timing.  I suppose it is always something.

Taking the ACT

This year as part of the junior year curriculum, Sarah will be taking the ACT exam.  I remember doing it during the summer between my junior and senior year, and I had to go take it at UW-Oshkosh.  This year the school district is picking up the tab for every junior to take it during a school day.  The only down side is that Sarah just started going thru prep classes for it.  There is another exam (I believe at the end of April) that she is planning on taking right after her prep classes end.

Sarah was stressing out a little bit about tomorrow's exam, but I told her to just treat it as a practice test.  IF she gets a good score, great, but if not, she can take it again in 8 weeks, and then there is always another test in the summer (June I think) that she can take.  If she does worse on subsequent tests, it isn't like they throw out the better score.  But if she does do well, then she is set pretty well.  I know on her practice tests in the prep classes she is doing a lot of improving so I am sure she'll be fine.  I am debating whether or not to post her score here when we get it.  I probably won't.