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Naked.

Isn't it unreal how dependent we've become on technology? Case in point, my Blackberry died last night. The first thing I thought was "How fast can I get this fixed?" I'm embarrassed to say that it was almost like a mini-panic attack. Even though I have a computer for email and for other time-wasting activities, my phone is my connection to friends and family and without it, I felt naked. I'm sure you're dying to hear what went down.

I have the BB Storm, which came out less than a year ago. There have been notorious issues with the phone's interface that have bugged users. So when BB decided to release the Storm 2 today, they threw us early adopters a bone: a new Operating System. The OS could be downloaded online for free and would update your phone to be more like the Storm 2. Not one to shy away from technology that is outside my realm of techy prowess, I tried to update mine last night. I knew things were bad when the software notified me that the application failed and my screen went *zoooooop* and faded to black. Yes it made that sound too. I tried everything to revive it from pulling the battery, to banging it on the couch, to threatening to drop kick it off the balcony, to CPR, but nothing worked.

I called the Verizon store in Rancho and told them my issue. The guy said if I could get there by 9:00pm when they lock the doors, they would hook me up. I looked at the clock: 8:39. This would be interesting. I drove like a crazy person who just lost their child mind and got to the vicinity of the store by 8:54. I say "vicinity" because Rancho is like the Bermuda Triangle of curvy residential streets and pinkish buildings. No matter how many times I go there, I can never exactly remember where specific places are located. I headed to where I thought it might be, but made an egregious error by turning right in to Target when I should have turned left into Lowe's. D'oh! The store was now across a 6 lane road with a median where you could only turn right and I needed to go left. It was now 8:56 and there was no time to make U-turns and wait for the light, so I parked at Target and ran across the street (jaywalking and brilliantly wearing black) and got to the door at 8:58.

Once inside, I saw several angry customers (much like myself) milling around the service counter. Turns out, I wasn't the only one. And, at 9:03, some haphazard guy knocked on the door looking sad and lost without his phone, but the service counter just ignored him until he moped away. The service dude looked at my phone and determined that it was beyond beyond. As in, there was no turning back. Whatever I had done really did it. They had to get me a completely new phone. A completely new phone I might add without my photos, contacts, data, music, or apps. Thanks Verizon! Appreciate it.

October, not Christmas, is the most wonderful time of the year

Orange trees are the best. When I eventually have a yard, I want to plant lots of trees that turn orange in fall (Tammy, start researching). The yellow and red ones aren't bad, but seeing as how orange is my favorite color, that's what I want.

October is my favorite month because it's predominately orange and black. And, there's such a wide variety of weather. Earlier this week it was in the 70s and today was full of ominous, dramatic clouds and cold wind.

I thought you might like to see what my commute home has been while I am in St. Louis. I purposely drive home through Kirkwood because it is someplace I would like to live someday. I don't know why I've always been obsessed with Kirkwood. I hated playing them in softball because the girls were mean and their mascot is a Pioneer. Really? Yes.

But, the majority of Kirkwood is historic and so many of the homes have huge yards with huge old-growth trees. It's just beautiful.

I'm only on an actual highway (Hwy 40) for a few miles before exiting at Lindbergh. This is part of Lindbergh through Frontenac.


Rather than taking Lindbergh (aka Kirkwood Rd.) through downtown historic Kirkwood, I head over to S. Woodlawn. Downtown Kirkwood is quaint, but there are a lot of stop lights that make the commute less fun. Woodlawn goes by some of my favorite homes.


This craftsman style home just popped up recently. A lot of smaller older homes have sold been torn down and turned into fantastic places like this.

I didn't get a good shot at this house, but I love the yard.

This is the big orange tree on the corner.

Now this has always been my favorite... 503 Monroe. It's called the Judge Enos Clarke home or Seven Gables as a nickname. It was built around 1913 and is a Tudor Revival style sitting on a full acre corner lot. My Dad always said that if I ever got to see the old-style basement that is likely in this house, I would never go back in. But I don't care, I love it.

This is the side view:

This is the front view:

Here's another home in the same neighborhood:

This new home on Scott Ave. is craftsman style.


This victorian home was built about 8 years ago.


This is looking down Monroe Ave. The street is flanked by huge homes with massive yards.

This house we used to call the "Addams Family" home before new owners removed a lot of the trees and updated the house. They added a four-car garage and huge living space in the back including a tennis court. This lot is the width of the entire block.

This photos is looking down Monroe towards Holmes Ave.


Now these new craftsman homes are really close to my neighborhood. There used to be woods here, but they cleared it out and built these. It's my understanding that the residents of the neighborhood are not too happy.


Road headed towards my house.



Home! Now I gotta clean up all those leaves!

Tell me again why MST needs my support?

Today Sara and I took a drive down to Rolla to see how campus has improved since we graduated almost 10 years ago. What we saw confirmed that the campus does not, I repeat DOES NOT, need any further financial donations*. I mean really. Kids these days have it so easy. They have flat screens in every room, computer labs full of computers that actually work (that no one was using, I might add), and dorms that were built in this half of the century.

The first noticeable change is the huge Havener Center at the corner of 63 and 14th Street. The Havener Center is a plush building that contains large ballrooms, student rec center, the University Bookstore, and an Einstein Bros. Bagels. Yes, they have real food options that aren't run by Chartwells! This building replaces what used to be the Student Health Center and a couple smaller buildings that really had no purpose that I can think of.



This new seal is pretty prevalent around campus.



But, I did manage to find one they hadn't changed to the new name yet!



Another noticable difference is that 14th Street is no longer 14th Street, but rather the more affluent-sounding "University Drive". The street is blocked off leading into campus so you can no longer drive in front of McNutt and Harris Hall. Perhaps it should have been named University Walk. Looking the other direction towards I-44, you can see that it is now five lanes. Five lanes!! With trees! And sidewalks! And, is apparently maintained by the St. Pat's Committee.



Here is a quick pic of the new Residential College. It's basically a dorm that promotes working on projects together, so they have a lot of little meeting rooms where students can work together with peers from the comfort of your luxurious five-star accommodations. Don't look too closely because you'll be mad just like me, considering what we endured at TJ. They probably even have elevators that work without the use of wire coat hangers!



This is a pic of Sara and her brother John in front of McNutt, where Sara and my own brother spent many days learning about the inner workings of the Earth's crust. Her brother still works on campus as an IT director and had a sweet Master Key that got us into any building or room we wanted to see. McNutt was pretty much status quo.



From there we headed over to the new Toomey Hall. In case you don't recognize it, it's okay because neither did I, aside from the geographical location giving it away. They basically demolished the ME Annex and completely remodeled the existing ME building and added a whole new wing. The building is huge. The new part was pretty nice. The ceilings in the hallways don't have ceiling tiles so the duct work and piping are all exposed. The idea is that these are mechanical engineers, so they better have an idea of how buildings work. They also enclosed the building's HVAC system in a glass room as a learning tool.



This is where ME Annex used to be. They inexplicably moved the statue of St. Pat out of his warm inviting place of rest in the library and stood him on this corner like a prostitute.


This is the lobby of Toomey. When they gutted the old ME building, they changed ME 104 to a smaller room a fraction of the original size by building a wall behind a row of seats about halfway up. Many of us had Freshman Engineering in there or at least watched a SUB movie or two.


Here's a view looking at Haevener and Engineering Management toward what used to be 14th Street.



Not much changed at the library. Still looks like they are tracking UFOs from the roof. The ever-present doom and gloom clouds and wind were also still there.



Is something missing from this photo? Can anyone guess what this barren patch of grass used to be? Anyone?



If you said UCE, you'd be correct. The building must have offended someone because they completely took it out and made sure to make it look like there could never, ever have been a building there. Ever.

One thing we were happy to see hadn't changed was the Puck. Sara commented that she was surprised it hadn't been upgraded to stainless steel like everything else.



My favorite building on campus is the Rolla Building, which is as old as the university itself built in 1871. Thankfully nothing has changed here, except for now all math classes are held here. The Mathematics & Computer Science Building (MCS) was downgraded to just Computer Science (CS). They unceremoniously ripped Mathematics right off the side of the building. That's okay though, I had Calc II there and wouldn't mind if that whole CS building just burned to the ground. I'm just sayin'.


From there, we walked over to the building everyone loved to hate, the Physics Building. This building looks like it's stuck in time. Almost zero changes except for some fresh paint in the hall. Wouldn't you be pissed if you picked Physics as your major and your building was still crappy like this when other majors have fancy pants high-tech electronics and microfiber couches in the computer labs?


The lecture hall was just as old and just as steep as we all remember, except with maybe a little more graffiti on the desks and a couple flat screens on the walls. At least they still use real chalkboards in this room and not those crap whiteboards. Is there a quiz today?



The Civil Building is really impressive. Too bad we all had to go to class in a building that had only one women's restroom. Now they have a building that looks like a museum! You know when you get those Phone-a-thon calls from a CE student every fall.... well y'all must've donated a LOT.



At least my name's on the wall!


Our last stop was TJ, the dorm Sara and I lived in for 4 years of our lives. We were surprised to see that the South Tower was undergoing renovations, so it was completely closed. What's funny is that the South Tower was a heck of a lot newer than the North Tower where we lived. I guess the construction wasn't that great. We also looked for Bill, hoping that he would give us fresh cookies or throw an ice cream sandwich at us.


The TJ lobby was completely rehabbed. It actually looked pretty nice. And, they actually *gasp* installed new elevators!


I'm sure everyone remembers how rickety those old ones were. They would notoriously break down on move-in and move-out weekends leaving everyone to schlep their stuff up and down the narrow stairwells. They were also notorious for getting jammed at the most inconvenient times. That's why once when I was stuck, I momentarily got super-human strength and pulled the doors apart and jumped out.


Personally, I think the saddest part is that they repainted the 5NN hallway and covered up all of our artwork!


I mean, who didn't want to see this Elvis Mary painted....


Or the blocks with our names on them...


Or this mural I painted...


They also got rid of Ariel in the bathroom!
Before:



After:

Okay, maybe that change was for the better.

But anyway, it was good to go back and see the old place. It seems hard to believe that so many years have already passed. I loved college and if this whole work thing doesn't pan out, I may just go back...



*I'm really just kidding. Of course they need money. I noticed a few of the classrooms didn't have a flat screen yet.

Where did I put those earplugs

Do you ever live vicariously through your co-workers? Not in a creey, intruding manner, but one where you more or less have no choice but to listen in?

My new co-workers love to talk on the phone. And, unfortunately, our company doesn't splurge on soundproofing. I've heard all about swine flu at daycare, the latest snags on hunting trips, and what happens when you take your family van to a Jiffy Lube that's not on the up-and-up.

It makes my life seem boring in comparison. But then again, boring is not such a bad thing.

We're in a road movie to Berlin

Check one more off my concert bucketlist.

Last night I got to see one of my favorite bands, They Might Be Giants (TMBG). My adoration for their sing-song, non-sensical lyricism stems back to the release of 'Flood' in 1990. 1990!!!!! I feel so old. I mean that's like 20 years ago. I don't feel like I should be able to say I have liked anything for 20 years except for maybe the Jetsons and Sesame Street.

The evening started off by having dinner at the historic Fitz's in the U City Loop. Fitz's is a famous rootbeer bottling company that's based in St. Louis. They have a building (originally built in 1928) on Delmar with an actual bottling line where their root beer and other sodas are made. Rob, Sara, and I enjoyed a few with burgers and nachos before walking a couple blocks (in the freezing cold!!) to the Pageant. The Loop is a funky area that has random shops and restaurants. You see a lot of college students hanging around from nearby Washington Univ. (Hence U City = University City).



The Pageant is a great place to see a show. It's small with a great layout. There's plenty of room on the first level, but the balcony is where it's at. The best part is that the balcony is 21+. They have some theatre-style seats as well as plenty of standing room and a full service bar. We had a great perspective to look down at the myriad of instruments on the tiny stage.



When TMBG took the stage, they looked identical to how they've looked for the past 20 years. The Johns were in top form. Their voices -- John L's especially -- sounded absolutely identical to the albums. Whatever they're doing, they must be doing it right!

97% of the setlist was from 'Flood', which is probably their best known album. They also played a few new songs from their upcoming album 'Here Comes Science'. (Check out the vid below for the Element song.) About a quarter of the way through the setlist, eerie spotlights flashed and alien keyboard sounds announced the arrival of the Avatars -- sock puppets controlled by the Johns. The Avatars were projected up on a screen by a seemingly-homemade camera perched on a drum and the Johns performed two songs as their alter-egos. It may sound lame, but it was freakin' brilliant.

My pix didn't turn out great, so here are some good ones from the Riverfront Times. It was such a great show!!

John Flansburgh


John Linnell


Meet the Elements