A better morning?

The scene was horrible yesterday morning. The sight of two school buses carrying school band members to their fun day at Six Flags met with disaster, leaving two dead. I can't even think how horrible it would be to get that phone call from the school.

Here is a short list of articles around the net covering the accident:  St. Louis Post Dispatch; NPR; Chicago Tribune; USA Today; KMOV; CNN; Salon

And to add further injury, the bus that was dispatched to pick up accident victims has brake failure and also crashes. Fox2Now

If you are going to be in St. Charles this weekend, be sure to check out the Backstopper Fundraiser - Heroes For Heroes Challenge - Aug 8 @ 8am. The fundraiser will be held at 3683 New Town Boulevard(Crossfit-TNT gym) in St. Charles.

How much is enough?

Story posted today in the St. Louis Post Dispatch (http://is.gd/e4bI9)
about a bill sponsored by Councilman Richard Veit to give a big pay
raise to the mayor of the city of St. Charles, MO.

For those playing along, the position of mayor was a part-time
position until 2007 when the council agreed to get rid of the City
Administrator position and make the position of Mayor full-time. The
salary of Mayor was increased at time to $60,000.

I agree with Councilman Dave Beckering that the current salary is too
low for somebody managing 500 employees and a budget of $100 million.
However, with the current economic climate I really don't think this
is the time to give a major increase to anybody.

Under the current setting, the Mayor's salary will raise to $64,000 in
January 2011. Veit's bill will mandate a 2.5% annual increase over
three years which will take the salary over $91,000 by 2014.

With tax revenues staying relatively static and casino revenues
dropping, now is not the time to be talking about large salary
increases. Shouldn't the city be working getting more business into
the city and encouraging city businesses to expand? How do we get the
EDC to get business growing in St. Charles?

What do you think?

It's an Orange Day

With temperatures expected to pop over 100F with a heat index of 115F,
it is going to be a hot one in St. Charles today. The air quality for
today is "Orange". Which means that sensitive children and adults and
people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit
prolonged, moderate exertion outdoors. Looks like we might get a break
tonight though when a front moves through. The high for Thursday is
supposed to be just under 90F. Whew, almost parka weather there.

An eventful weekend

Life keeps getting in the way of everything. I wasn't feeling well a couple of weeks ago. Ended up with a high fever and the staph infection in my leg coming back to bite me. Fortunately, I caught it early this time and the doctor perscribed some good antibiotics and I spent the next 5 days either on the recliner in the living room or in bed. It was not a very exciting or pain free time. We also received a large quantity of rain which ended up making a lot of our Christmas lights fizzle out.

All that being said, most of last week I was still taking pretty easy. The operative thing is to try and get better as soon as possible. But this past weekend ended up being very busy.

Friday night, my wife and I went to the Scottish Rite Holiday Party, in mid-town St. Louis at the Scottish Rite. I was disappointed that attendance was down this year. However, master Chef Eric Strong, as well as Chef Jim, did an outstanding job with the food. The prime rib was delicious!

Saturday was my parent's surprise 50th anniversary party. We rented one of the upstairs room at Pio's Resturant. We had selected fried chicken breast and pork lion for the entrees. Oh the food was soooo good. And it was great that my parents were able to celebrate with family and friends. I'm glad they were really happy about that. We're looking at renting those rooms again when Mo's parents have their 50th anniversary. I can't say that I've ever had anything that I didn't enjoy at Pio's.

Saturday night was a little hard on me. My wife has been wanting to attend the Journey To Bethlehem at Harvester Church for the past several years, and we just always seem to miss out because of different events going on. We made it this year. There is a lot of walking involved and although it didn't really bother me while we were going through it, later in the evening when we got home my legs and feet had swollen up because I had spent too much time on them. Anyway Journey was great! We'll definitely do it again next year. Hopefully we can find a night where it doesn't rain hard. We ended up being very wet by the time we reached the end.

Sunday we were back down at the Scottish Rite for the Officer Installation. I'm also in the Knights of St. Andrew and we held a knighting ceremony for all members that had not yet been knighted. It was very cool, one of our brothers plays the bagpipes and piped us into the auditorium where we had the ceremony. The officer's for the Four Bodies of the scottish Rite were installed later in the afternoon. And after installation, everybody headed downstairs for another excellent meal.

I'm going to need this week to rest up for another weekend!

Rainy Days

It is a good thing we're in a drought with all the rain we're getting.

Didn't get to do a whole lot tonight. We did have to run out and pick up more extension cords for the Christmas light display. We find that we're needing to move the electrical sources around the house so we don't overload a circuit. We arrived home to see that the front of the house was dark. I figured that the rain was probably most of our problem. Indeed, the GFI circuits keep popping, so somewhere there is a connection that is not dry. We'll have to content ourselves with just the wreaths on the windows tonight. I'll attempt video tomorrow night if all goes well.

I heard from Jeremy, a lodge brother, this evening. His father passed away this morning. That so totally sucks. He didn't have any information to pass along at this point, but I'll make a special effort to head to the wake. I sent out a note to the brethren as soon as I got home to let them know.

I am looking forward to Lodge next Tuesday. My "nephew" doesn't read this blog, nor do I think he even knows of its existance. *chuckle* Anyway, I asked the Worshipful Master if he would mind if I did the Worshipful Master role during the initiation. He agreed to allow me this honor. I have been going over the part now for several weeks. I feel 90% confident that I won't have any serious glitches. I'm really hoping to do it well. Adam is signed up for the Marines and will be heading to bootcamp in January. Only thing that would make this better is that his father, Rob, is also very seriously considering joining the fraternity as well.

working on it

Holy Cow. The day just slipped right by me. There was lots of work to accomplish and though I stayed very busy all day, it just doesn't seem like I got all that much done. I did knock out a big project at work and I got one finished at home. I finally took a break around 7pm and put up more Christmas lights. We're finally almost finished with the outdoor decorations we were planning on putting up this year.

My wife and daughter had dinner on the way home after my daughter's ice skating lesson. It's kind of a "girls night out" that they get every Tuesday. I finally had my dinner around 9pm. Started feeling a bit peckish, so I walked up to Beatniks and had a bowl of chili. They know I like it hot and brought me a bottle of hot sauce and some fresh cut jalapenos. Mmmmmm.

Speaking of Christmas decorations, walking down Hempstead Street in New Town last night was amazing. Seems like almost the entire street is lit up with holiday decorations. Huzzah! I'm hoping to maybe take some video Wednesday night when it may be snowing. I'll post that if I'm able to get out and take it.

Christmas Lights and Season

It's been a difficult year to say the least. My father had another stroke on March 22, 2009. It was a bad one and it took a lot out of him. He was in the hospital for 2 months and in rehab center for about another month after that. He probably should have stayed longer in the rehab, but because his insurance ran out. He put 38 years in at GM and GM has basically told all the retirees that they're worthless and cut off their insurance. Of course, the executives never did have to pay the piper for the dance until this year, but that is another rant. Anyway, my father is on Medicare and the insurance ran out but he was well enough to go home. It has been a very long year for both my parents.

A lot of people in New Town worked during the nice weather over the past two weekends to get up a whole lot of Christmas lights. If you come over to New Town, Hempstead Street seems to have the majority of lights (at this time).



Fortunately a lot of people are getting into the "Spirit" of Christmas. From a group of people deciding to have a Christmas House Tour in New Town to raise money for charity to a group of friends deciding to adopt 4 families for the holidays. We may not do the Christmas cookie exchange this year, but we're all putting a lot of love out there.

If you live in the New Town at St. Charles area, the New Town Organic Farm is offering free delivery of trees to your door. Just come over and talk to Nate and Angie. It was very cool to see Nate going through town on his tractor that has been decorated with Christmas lights delivering trees. It is something to check out, if you have time.

'Christmas Traditions' has returned to Historic Main Street. Main Street St. Charles celebrates with an old-fashioned Christmas filled with storybook characters, Victorian Carolers and Santas from around the world! It’s a perfect holiday experience for everyone! New this year is the Holiday Skating Rink located down in Frontier Park. It will be open all days the Christmas Traditions Festival is active. For those with children, be sure to come out on Saturday mornings when Santa arrives on Main Street in a horse-drawn carriage. We're hoping to be there this weekend, weather and time permitting.