The air conditioner went out this week. Based on the local shop's estimate, we're probably looking at $3400 to fix it, which is more than the cost of a newer, better unit.
On Friday they bubble-gummed it together to get us through the weekend. It only got us through Friday night.
Here's how we survived, and actually stayed halfway comfortable.
I guess someday they might call this the Flood of '08 or something. The St. Louis area has three very temperamental rivers running through it: The Missouri and Mississippi, which everyone's heard of, plus the Meramec, which is less known, but probably more dangerous.
Tonight at 7 PM, a Kirkwood area contractor named Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton walked in to a city council meeting. On his way in he shot two police officers, then opened fire and shot five others, including the mayor, his intended target. He fired on the city attorney and missed; the attorney fought back by throwing chairs at Thornton until more police officers ran in and shot Thornton dead.
Crestwood Plaza is a mall in the southwestern suburbs of St. Louis. It was originally built in 1957, and was one of the largest, if not the largest, malls in the area. I remember the radio commercials from the 1980s where the pitch line was "The ultra mall has it all."
Today it's at least 30% vacant and struggling. It's been for sale for a while. They finally found a buyer.
I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I've never had a traffic ticket. I spoke too soon. Thanks to the City of St. Louis' new red-light camera scam, I have one.
It's too late for me to fight it. But since I want others to fight it, here's what I wish I'd known the day I got the ticket.
I'm sure almost everyone has heard the story about a 20-year-old getting harrassed by a police officer in a commuter lot and being told he could be arrested and he could just make up any old story as an excuse. The story's been all over Digg and even hit some national news sites, such as USA Today.
It happened in St. George, Missouri. It's the next town over from me, an obstacle on my way to my favorite hobby shop, pizza place, and batting cage.
So yesterday I was in the Clayton/Ladue area. I had someplace I needed to be at 8, and then again at 8:45. So I went looking for someplace to get a cup of coffee and something to eat.
My wife and I tried someplace different for dinner tonight. Cafe Manhattan has been near the intersection of Lindbergh and Tesson Ferry since 1989--longer than I've been driving. And since it's just a couple of miles away from where I went to high school, where I live, and where I worked for seven years, I've driven past it a lot.
Big mistake. But it's going to be in heavy rotation from now on.
Yesterday, after a long day and a long week, Gatermann called me up and asked if I wanted to go to the east side.
So we met up before lunch and paid a visit to one of the east side's finer establishments, and I brought my camera. Sometimes the things you see over there are pretty dirty, but this time we saw real beauty, and I brought back a picture... from the Kansas City Southern railyard.
St. Louis is in the national news again because of the bizarre case of missing children Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby, who were found in the Kirkwood apartment of Michael J. Devlin.
