It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything.  A few days ago a friend of mine sent me an article on Hermann MO suggesting I should visit.  An excellent idea!  However I did visit Hermann last year for Oktoberfest.  I realized I had never posted any photos from Hermann, so here are a few from the day that I was there.  Not sure yet if I will go again this year or not.  Definitely will go someplace for Oktoberfest, maybe Hermann, maybe someplace else.  Anyway, here are the photos.  I hope you enjoy them, Hermann is a cute little town.

Yesterday a friend of mine passed through town on the way to vacation and stopped over for the evening.  So we went out for the evening and went to the Arch downtown and then to the Hard Rock cafe for dinner.  Overall it was a pretty enjoyable evening, even though I only got to see my friend for a few hours.  Now, being the super-intelligent guy that I am, I left my camera at home on the coffee table, so I had to take these pictures with the camera in my phone. Surprisingly, they turned out fairly good!

Not sure why I’m posting this other than I feel like it. I talked to an old friend of mine who I haven’t spoken to in quite a while.  Don’t you hate how you have friends, lose touch for a little while only to find out so much has changed?  Seems like that happens to me a lot.  In some cases I haven’t talked to friends in a while to find out that while I was busy doing whatever it is I do they had gone and had one or two kids since the last time I talked.  But most of the time it seems like in the interim time, rough times have fallen upon my friends.  In a way it makes me kind of sad since I wasn’t there to help them through those issues.  On the other hand, it gives me a pretty good perspective on my life as well.

Sometimes I get lost in the problems I have in my life, which are somewhat run of the mill.  I’ve been very sick, lost my job, lost a lot of things.  But then I hear about what my friends have gone through and it makes me realize that my problems probably aren’t as bad as I think they are.  For example, I found out my friend I haven’t talked to in a while, his wife had a heart attack at age 34.  That’s hard to take in.  She’s all right now from what I gather.  I was at work when he called to catch up and I couldn’t talk very long.  I’m hoping to catch up more this weekend.  The heart attack in this case was caused by a congenital problem.  So it was unexpected.  Another friend of mine, his wife had a stroke at age 25.  Two other friends of mine when I had not talked to them for a while had been married, had children and gotten divorced.

All of this makes my little problems seem very inconsequential.  I guess the point I’m getting at is that life can pass you by before you know it and it is best to live it while you can.  All of my friends had these problems that were much worse than mine, they all got through it and are stronger in the end for it.  So I would say this to others:  If you are feeling like your life is rough, talk to others.  You may find out things are not as bad as they seem, and if you persevere you will come out better in the end.  Life is full of ups and downs and here’s hoping that you have many more ups than downs.

Was planning on going to the zoo today.  So we got into the car and drove over to Forest Park where the zoo is.  Well it appears I made a huge mistake by not checking the schedule for things going on in Forest Park.  I did check the zoo schedule and didn’t even think about the park.  Well long story short, we got there and there was some sort of charity walk or run going on.  Probably 5000 people at the park.   All roads near the zoo were a parking lot and we couldn’t even get close to it.  So decided to give up on it for this weekend.  Maybe I’ll try again next weekend.  I hear the zoo here is pretty good so I’ll definitely have to try to go again soon.  On the flip side, forest park looked like a wonderful place even if it was way overcrowded today.  Oh well, live and learn.

Went to the Global Market food store instead and bought some interesting treats and a few good beers for tonight.  Then out to lunch and hung out at the mall for a little bit.  Mostly went to the mall to get some bubble tea.  May sound strange if you have never had it, but they are delicious fruit drinks with large tapioca in them.  I had strawberry yogurt and it was quite tasty.

Hmm well today was one of those days where nothing seemed to go right.  Maybe it was just me trying to outsmart fate and paying the price for it.  I usually go to work along a backroad to an intersection on the interstate relatively close to work.  But for the rest of this week they are shutting down a lane or two on the back road for utility work.  So I figured I’d be smart about it and avoid the delays from the construction.  Hmm maybe that was my first mistake….  So I went the only other way I can to go to work from where I live, which means getting on the interstate right near my place.  Well normally the traffic is fairly slow at that time in the morning on the interstate (hence the usual back road)  Today was no different, but i figured hey, the traffic is moving, so why not.  I had 5 miles to get to the 270 from which it is a little over 10 minutes to work.  I left at 7:30 per my normal.  Got to 270 at 5 to 8.  Or in other words about the time I normally plan on getting to work.  So, get to work 15 minutes late, work through lunch to make up for it, and as the day doesn’t like me too much, not much went right at work either.

So now I’m faced with a dilemma.  How to get back home.  So I get on Bing maps and check out the traffic and construction warnings.  I see an alternate route that looks like it is a little longer than normal, quite a bit more circuitous, but if it moves along well would probably be shorter.  I note that the site indicates a minor construction at an exit along the way.  So I figure why not give it a shot.  Well I should have learned my lesson from the morning commute and just faced the construction traffic.  So I head out the way to this alternate route.  First 5 minutes, things are going great, traffic is moving along at a brisk 65 and I’m thinking this might be a good way to go.  I get to my exit which takes me down route 94 here in St. Louis.  My goal was 10 or 15 miles down this road, hit the interstate that runs by my place and I’m practically home.  Well first off I manage to catch every single red light.  Then I come upon the construction I mentioned earlier.  Since I had read it was exit construction I stayed in the left lane thinking I’d just breeze right on by it.  Well low and behold, Bing was totally wrong.  Turns out highway 94 was pretty much gone….  No lanes, just a big mudball under a bridge.  And of course all the traffic is going off on the exit ramp to cross over and continue on the other side.  Yup, that’s right, I’m now in the wrong lane and can’t get over due to the bumper to bumper parking lot.  So I figure I’ll exit, turn around, and come back and catch the light.

So I turn left, cross the bridge, come back and am pleasantly surprised to see a line of only 15 cars or so waiting to turn.  So I start getting my hopes up that maybe this would be faster than sitting in the 4 mile long line.  Wrong.  First light change all other directions of traffic block the intersection.  2 cars get through . Next light change maybe 8 cars get through. so now I’m sitting in the no. 2 position.  Waiting…  Lights change for all other lines of traffic.  Ours:  Red.  Lights change again for all other lines of traffic.  Ours: Red.  Lights change yet again for all other lines of traffic!!  Yup that’s right 3 separate sets of light changes before our direction gets a little green light that lasts 15 seconds.  Someone at MoDot really did their job on this one.  On the other hand I got to stare at all the oncoming traffic for fifteen minutes.  Which included one lady who looked like she had never been happy in her life and a guy driving a garbage truck while texting on his phone and trying his best to almost hit everyone in front of him.  Go figure.  Sometimes you wonder about the human capacity for doing things that have high probabilities of not ending well…

Anyway finally get through the light only to find traffic backed up again waiting on yet another stop light.  needless to say, my usual commute is 20 to 25 minutes.  I’d been on the road for 45 minutes at this point (15 just at my little bridge turnaround)  Turns out 94 is not a good road to go, it is a major thoroughfare that looks like interstate yet has lights every mile or so.  All told I left work at 4:30, stopped by wal-mart to pick up a new blood sugar meter (that’s a whole other blog post…)  and didn’t get home till almost 6:15.  Note to future self:  A little construction back up?  No problem, take it like a man!

Hope I didn’t bore anyone too much with this.  I think I’m going to go stick my head in a case of beer and call it a night.

T