John and Derek's personal blog

Happy July 4th

Greetings from Derek "No-Rant" Etnyre. I'm writing this as we are on route to Des Moines, IA - right now we are a few miles south of Keokuk, IA on Highway 61. Yes - John is driving - he does not let me drive the motor home. We just passed by some of the flooding from the Mississippi River. The water has receded quite a bit, but temporary sand and plastic wrap levee's still line the road in several low spots. So far the trip has been uneventful. Getting out of the greater St. Louis area was a bit stop and go for 20 miles, but it could have been much worse. Our fuel economy has been around 7 mpg - a bit low because of the hilly terrain. I think it will improve once we get to the flatter parts of Iowa. The skies are overcast and we have been getting some occasional rain showers - but nothing too heavy.

We talked to the other members of the rally and one has already arrived, one will arrive in a few hours and we will probably be the last ones in.

I'm feeling much better, but my throat is still store and the glands on the side of my neck are still swollen... I think a good nights sleep will do me good.

Work today was very exciting - I got nothing done except fixing problems, documenting the status of all the databases I support and making sure I have as much code checked in as possible. Since I will be away from work all next week, I attempted to get everything in order so others can easily step in and make minor changes as needed. I managed to leave and get to the RV park by 2:40. We were on the road by 2:45. John had everything stowed, the truck connected and was ready to head out. He started to drive as I changed out of my work clothes

Prince has been a very good cat - he has been sleeping in his travel box and not making a fuss too much.

I will append to this posting when we arrive.... we still have 198 miles to go ... so probably arrive around 9:30pm or later if we stop to grab something to eat... or perhaps I can cook something up while driving down the road... how long does a meatloaf take in the convection oven

Update: We made it and got all setup without incident. Have a good night.

Hello all, John here.

Derek left you with all the fun at Pride Fest, while I was coming down with a nasty bug. Sunday I woke to a scratchy throat and a headache, which quickly manifested into all out attack of me. I decided to bail on Pridefest and try laying down for a while... Didn't help much, and didn't sleep well that night either. I tend to run "cool" so a temp of 99.5 is considerably warmer than normal for me. Today though I think I am through the worst of it, but now the nasty big has grabbed a hold of Derek, who has returned from work early and went right to bed. I hope we are both healthy enough for the big trip in a couple days.

Speaking of that, we are departing for Des Moines, IA Thursday. We won't arrive until Friday AM, but if there are any of you out there who are looking for a fun (I am exaggerating a bit) spot for the 4th of July, we still have several sites left in our group circle. Just shoot me an email and I will get you the specifics. In preparation for the trip I took my big HF antenna down today and stowed that, and also laundered the bedsheets, since the fever has been making me go through periods of hot and cold, this AM they were just soaked in sweat-- Yuck. It is nice to do laundry during the week, since nobody else is in the room, and you generally get to use all 4 machines yourself.

I got some sad news from the Hanson Family, Jason's grandfather passed on Saturday evening. I knew Bill Hanson long before I met Jason as he was the crazy mailman that served our house in Appleton where I spent the first 8 years of my life. Turned out after meeting Jason on an old BBS in Appleton (the "Enterprise") that he had a grandfather (our ex-mailman) with a cottage where we moved to on the lake. Small World! I do send condolences to the entire Hanson Clan, "Wild Bill" was a great man, and will truly be missed by many.

I do want to take a slight political turn here today, as the State of California has assigned a Proposition Number to the Anti-Gay Marriage amendment. I know we have a lot of readers out in CA, so make sure you get your butt's out to vote and Vote NO on Prop. #8! and lets put this thing to bed for good out there.

Since you're all thinking you got off easy with the Political BS today, think again, I got some more for you. This one is something to think about long and hard too. It is about what I am going to call "Thought Stoppers" a term a friend of ours who is in the broadcast industry put on the table Sunday night. "Thought Stoppers" are just like they sound, they are sound bites, a word, a phrase, or that one key note that makes you stop and think "that word sums up what I was tring to get across". They have their place in communication (all types) but they also can be highly misused. You see how You, I, or Mr. Webster define a specific term may be close to what the actual meaning of the string of words that is being replaced by the "Thought Stopper", however, it isn't always exactly the same. The nuances, the arguments and the thought as been completely removed from the real definition by using that one word, phrase, or keynote. It's use does exactly what the term "Thought Stopper" implies, it stops further thought about the idea being communicated. Whilst this might be a great tool to say win a debate, or to sell a useless product nobody really wants or needs, it also can cause a lot of undue harm. See people, you have to remember that most people that are in contact with you can't possible know everything, and the truth is they are most likely so lazy they won't go out an educate themselves so they do know the facts. This is why "Thought Stoppers" are so effective in a campaign. I can shout a buzz word, and bang, the issue that I am totally against because I have a reason no one knows about to be against it, is now one that everyone is relating to by using a term that is close to that meaning, but doesn't capture the issue in it's entire state. Now, you have a whole group of people shouting this "Thought Stopper" and not really understanding what it means to be against this particular issue, while in fact the actual term is totally irrelevant, it's use sparks the fire in the people to promote the idea, an idea they probably wouldn't even care about if that term wasn't used. I do hope my rambling there made some sense to some of you...

Here is the example of late that I might help. Socialism! I saw a bumper sticker on the back of one the coaches here in the park that said "Stop Socialism -- Vote Republican" Now, we live in the United States of America, a Republic, a Representative Democracy, not a straight democracy, but one that has free elections to vote in theory anyone who is a legal citizen of good standing into public service to represent our views in our government. I have also heard this term used by several other people over the last few weeks which is probably why that particular bumper sticker stuck out to at me, but none the less, it quite pissed me off. Why? Because it makes the layman stop thinking about what the issues on the table are. It is saying we should vote for the GOP just because the other party is "Socialist" and we quit thinking about it, and move on. Acutally it is a quite brilliant tool, since the GOP isn't saying that the Dems are a bunch of Socialists, but the sticker is letting your mind draw that conclusion. So, to be fair I went and looked up Socialism and sorted through tons of web pages of material, and found one thing that particularly sticks out with a Socialist government... THEY DON'T HOLD FREE ELECTIONS! So knowing that little tidbit, what do they mean then? Obviously the GOP thinks that the Dems give too much to the underprivileged through the form of Social Programs such as welfare, and the proposed National Health care. So there is the connection... Social Programs has become Socialist Government. Hmm, I wonder what the GOP thinks the Bear Streans Bail out was? Or Enron, or how many Airlines have we bailed out under GOP watch? Or how about all those tax breaks the oil companies still receive? Hmm, I guess when we give aide to help a theoretical self entity like a cooperation it isn't a Social Program because it really only protects the profits of those who are invested in that particular entity... Hmm.

My entire point here isn't to pick on the GOP, it is to highlight that we need to watch for this kind of spin in our daily lives. The Brilliant uses of this technique are the most subdued. They are the embers that just fell to the ground, yet ignited the entire west coast's forest. Our job IS to question EVERYTHING. Don't be afraid to find the truth, even if you know you might not like it, the truth is the only thing that will move us forward.

Ok, enough for one day.

Have a goodnight,

John

Greetings from a cooler St. Louis. I front went through last night and the weather is in the mid 70's. The weather made for a nice St. Louis Pridefest and parade today in Tower Grove Park.

This morning at 10:00am we meet with 14 friends at Crusoe's for breakfast and then headed over to the Pridefest and waited for the parade to start.



The parade was 90 minutes long and comprised mostly of local and state politicians, GLBT organizations, and various bars. There were not many floats and most were not much to look at - but everyone in the parade was enthusiastic, all smiles and waves and enjoying themselves. Here is some pictures that I took with cell phone camera - of couse I left my cell phone at home.....















The weather was a bit odd during the parade - it was cloudy, then sunny, then cloudy, then rainy, then sunny - it kept changing. We got a bit wet for 5 minutes - enough to make a mess out of drag queens makeup.... The dark haired boy standing next to us with nothing but a blue speedo thong looked cold during the rain - looks like he a major case of "frightened turtle"

After the parade, John did not feel good and went home to lay down. John felt find yesterday and then this morning he woke up feeling ill with headache, sore throat and fever.... It seems like he gets under the weather more here in St. Louis then anywhere else we have been....

I stayed at the Pridefest and walked around with Perry and sat with the Lambda Car Club most of the afternoon. The St. Louis chapter of the car club is hosting the 2009 Nation Lambda Car Club Event - so they were selling t-shirts as a fund raiser. I then walked around with Doug and Mike checking out all of the booths. There were lots of cell phone providers, political, HRC, holistic medicine and gay trinkets setup. My guess is that there were around 60 different vendors setup along the sidewalks. The main entertainment was Martha Wash. I did not get very close, but she sounded good. I only like a few of her songs - mostly stuff from the early 90's. Her newer songs and albums I don't care fore....

It was interesting to see Miller Brewings extensive sponsorship of the Pride Fest. Their banners and logo were all over the fest grounds. You would think that the St. Louis Pride Fest would have more sponsorship by Budweiser - since their corporate headquarters is less then 5 miles away. I know Miller does not have a perfect record of GLBT support, but they still seem much better then Anheuser Bush. I will continue to enjoy my Miller products...

It was nice to sit at the Pride Fest and people watch - you saw people of all ages, gender and race. I only saw one anti-gay protester - a black guy misquoting Bible verses and doing his hateful "Jesus Speak" ... but he did not stick around for long.... I did not see any fights, or shouting or anything close to that... it was cool seeing over 1000 people all getting along and enjoying the fest...

At 6:00pm we went to the Four Seasons Vietnamese restaurant with Doug, Mike and 5 members of the car club. We meet most of them before at Glenn and Steve's Christmas party. Supper was good I had hot tea, pot stickers and then sweet and sour chicken. I ate too much, but it was very tasty.

The RV park is very busy this weekend - it is almost at full capcity - mostly with couples in town for the Shriner's Convention. John has not had many positive experiences with the Shriner members this week - he says that most of them have been pompous asses with like to bitch, moan and complain about anything and everything. He's helped many of them back into their sites and most don't follow his hand signals and end up almost, or actually hitting power boxes at their sites and scratching up their RV's. I won't be surprised if someone hits a water pipe and then John will be stuck digging a big hole to fix it and etc.... Here's a few pictures I took of the RV park:





The Shriners will be here until next weekend - so I'm sure John will have a trying week... I'm glad we are going on our week long trip to Des Moines starting next Thrusday afternoon. I think we both really need a beak from our jobs.

Yesterday I finally finished the last missions in StarCraft - so I'm all done with it. Yeah!! I put the game up for trade on BarterBee so someone else can request and enjoy it. It feels really good to have accomplished the goal I set out to do. Now I'm going to work on another game that I have, but never finished - Rail Road Tycoon 3. It is a simulation game similar to Sim City where you build railroad empires to accomplish various goals. I like trains so the game will be lots of fun. There are 16 different scenarios that you need to complete to win the game.

Hello all John here.

Mark & Craig's visit went well. They spent most of the day doing tourist stuff while Derek was at work, and I was assisting at the park. They are great couple, and hopefully will become great friends of ours, as we certainly enjoyed their company. Last night we had a late dinner at Vito's, which was the first time we have been there. It was a nice Italian place, I had the beef tortellini, which was excellent, and Derek the seafood ravioli. We then returned to say goodbye, since they planned to take off early this AM.



Mark & Craig are en-route to Hannibal from here, and then on to a tour of the midwest. Sounds like an awesome trip. It would be nice if our paths cross again.

Not a whole lot going on here, but I did get some disturbing news from the internet... With all the talk of Marriage in CA in the news I did some interesting research. Now, just to clarify my feelings on Gay Marriage, I really don't need a ceremony or document to prove my love or relationship with Derek, however I do desire the legal rights, and if it were conducive to those things we would be investigating that possibility. Right now we are Wisconsin Residents, and for the time being will remain that way for a number of reasons. If we change residency I would be inclined to do so for tax advantage, and unfortunately, California isn't on the short list. At this point, I really applaud all those who are following through with their commitments and ceremonies, however until it is federally recognized, or at least the states are equally forced to recognize a marriage from another state as valid, I really don't see the point. In any case it is a total mute point, if we decide to remain Wisconsin Residents. Seems that great amendment that I got so excited about in the last election (2006) that outlawed any domestic partnership or marriage other than that of one between a Man and a Woman, also imposed some "penalties" to the citizens of Wisconsin if the seek marriage in a state other than Wisconsin. So, that would mean we would actually face criminal charges, with a penalty of up to $3000.00 and/or 9 months in prison, each. Now, how god-damn stupid is that?

Moving on, the park is ramping up for the big Shriner's Convention coming to town. So far the ones who have made it to the park have been classic ass-clowns, and clearly have done nothing but drive those little cars most of their adult life, because none of them can drive an RV, let alone back one up. One particular camper I spent almost an hour trying to get parked yesterday. It was a total circus, and to make matters worse he refused to listen or watch my instructions, and continuously questioned my commands with snide comments. He is fortunate that I didn't own the park, I would have certainly told him to leave. The situation became almost amusing when I found out I took his reservation and told him we were full, but he insisted on being put on the waiting list and took the first available site. If you can't drive, go get some damn training, or at least listen to those that are trying to help you. I don't want to see you hit anything, cause damage to your rig, but mostly, I don't you to damage something that I will have to dig up to repair.

That's all I got. Have a good day.

John

Work has been very busy so far this week. It seems like I keep getting more issues to take care of then I can keep up with.... so I'm programming my way out of the pile of issues.... it seems like I'm gaining a little bit of headway.... my goal is to get everything done by the end of the week. The "light at the end of the tunnel" is that I get to start a new project when I return from our weeklong July 4th vacation. The new project will start with two weeks of requirement gathering. Starting a new project from the beginning is a luxury that I don't get to do very often....

This afternoon Craig and Mark made it to the RV park as planned. They have a gorgeous 43 foot 2008 Monaco Dynasty. We stopped over to their motor home for cocktails and to get acquainted in person. They are super nice and it was fun swapping stories of our lives, RV adventures and other RV'ers blogs we read. I enjoyed checking out their motor home with all of the electronics and amenities. I like how the interior felt very homey and was not "over the top". We then headed out to Square One Brewery. The restaurant was not very busy and we had decent service. I had Square One's grouper special and it was ok.... I'm glad that I tried the grouper, but I don't think that grouper is my favorite fish - I still prefer mahi mahi or Salmon. For dessert we had a strawberry cake that was yummy. I split it with John and he had 3/4th of it - and I didn't think he would like it - he does not usually like strawberries.... I hope we can spend some more time with Craig and Mark before they leave St. Louis.....

Flooding is still occurring up and down river from St. Louis. A levy broke yesterday in St. Charles, MO (23 miles North West of us) and other levies are in poor condition - so there is potential for more flooding. CNN carried the story - here is a link to it: St. Charles Levy Broke. It is sad to see people's homes flooded and lives disrupted by something out of their control. If you are planning a trip in the Midwest, make sure to call head an check with the Illinois, Iowa and Missouri Departments of Transportation for road closures.

Now I'm off to bed... need to get my beauty sleep before another exciting day of programming....

We had a routine weekend - nothing too exciting going on.

On Friday evening we meet Perry and Doug at Seamus McDaniels for supper. We had never been there before, but Doug wanted to try it out. They are known for their large hamburgers and onion rings. They were very busy, but we did get a table right away.. probably lucky.... We had a waiter who just did not have it together and seemed overwhelmed by how busy they were ... so service was slow.... it took close to 30 minutes by the time we received our drinks and got our order in. When the food arrived, it was ok.... it was big.... I had a buffalo chicken sandwich that had lots of zip to it and was very sloppy to eat... the waiter dropped my onion rings in the kitchen and brought them out a few minutes later... oh well.... I had one of John's... I think this would be a good place to go to during the week when they are not so busy....

John went to breakfast with Perry and Rich S., while I stayed home and slept in a bit. I was a bit drained so sleeping until I was done felt really good....

On Saturday John decided to take the interior skylight down above the shower to investigate some spots he noticed on it. We were worried that it was mold growing and wanted to take care of it before it did any damage. The interior part of the skylight was held in place by some screws that were covered by little plastic protectors. Once removed, John discovered that the spots were not mold, but glue that had seeped out of some joints when the motor home was made. John then used a little white spray paint over the glue so he will not notice them anymore. Everything is back together now and it looks like new....

I did seven loads of laundry on Saturday morning. I got some dirty looks by some amature RV'ers because when I emptied out the first four loads of laundry, I then put three more in right away. They were not around when I did this, but when I went to get the first round out of the dryers and to get the last three loads moved from the washer to the dryer, the were in the laundry room glaring at me and talking to each other about how they will not have enough time to do their own laundry. I assume they needed to be done by noon - the check out time.... oh well... I then proceeded to fold my undies - making sure they saw my exotic Hello Kitty thongs and other assorted dainties while humming "I'm Coming Out".... they did not stick around long

Then Saturday afternoon we went over to the Super Walmart in Collinsville, IL to get a few items and groceries. John first got his hair cut at one of the hair places in the strip mall around Walmart. While waiting to get his cut, we walked over to Game Stop and checked out their selection of used video games for the XBOX 360. This place is a trap and I always end up picking out something to play.. .this time John did. He picked out a Star Treck game - Star Trek Legacy. I read the game manual while John got his do done, then we headed over to Wally World. The store was busy, but we managed to find everything we went for, and then some. We ended up getting $200.00 worth of nothing..... but we had not been grocery shopping in 2 weeks and needed lots of staples and etc....

We stayed in on Saturday evening - John prepared some really good breaded pork chops with a raspberry reduction over top of them - very yummy. We then both played video games. I'm not sure how impressed John is with the Star Trek games - he seems to be getting a bit irritated with it.... I'm still playing StarCraft. I only have a few more levels to go before I have the entire campaign completed.... perhaps sometime this week....

Today I slept in again while John went to breakfast. Saturday's sleeping in had gone so well that I decided to do it again. No regrets. The weather was very erratic - it would be stormy for awhile and then clear off and be nice for awhile. It kept doing this until around 3:00 this afternoon when it cleared off and stayed that way. We stayed inside, played video games, watched TV and did inside stuff. We went to supper with Perry and Paul B. at Michael's - a greek restaurant. We had been here before and it is good. They have good Gyros...

Tonight I sat outside and read for an hour, before I started to get sprinkled on.. then went in and played StarCraft some more and get myself mentally prepared for another week at work....

Hello all, John here...

Not much going on in STL this week, all kinda flew by pretty quick. I had to work Tuesday and Thursday on Blinds with George, we finally finished the big library job. I am glad that is done, I hate working with George on blinds, and I really hate hanging off a ladder trying to take them down. Somehow I managed to pull a muscle in my right abdomen, it has been a big annoyance, hopefully it isn't more than a pulled muscle.

I talked with Dave, and it looks like we are still good to go to Des Moines, IA for the 4th. Derek and I are a both excited about getting out of STL for a while and seeing everyone. This is our big vacation this year (Whooo Hoo Des Moines!), after that our plan is to buzz up to Forest City to see the Winnie Factory, and then over to WI to my father's wedding. I have a suspicion though that Forest City might get crossed off the list since it is the week before the big Grand National Winnie Rally, and I don't think they will be doing tours...

We are also excited to get some visitors this coming week. Mark and Craig from Palm Springs have been reading our blog for the last couple years, and have decided to stop over next week for a couple nights. We can't wait to meet "Blog Buddies" as Mark says. We love to get notes and meet readers in person.

Wednesday I decided to take apart the wet bay on the camper. I have been noticing a very faint smell outside of the camper in that area, but have found no evidence of leaking, so I figured I should check before it gets worse. I did find one of the clamps a couple turns loose but no standing water. I removed the Winnie installed 1/2 inch foam insulation from the inside of the bay and replaced it where I could with 2+ inches of new High Density foam. Hopefully that will cut down on some drafts this winter. I haven't noticed the smell the last couple days, but I am not convinced I found the problem. I do however at least have the piece of mind that it isn't the black or gray tanks leaking.

Today, I gave Randy (one of the workcampers here) a hand in moving his cargo trailer (28 ft tandem axle enclosed trailer) over to the site where they are holding their last big garage sale. His only way of moving it is with his Motor home, and it's a big pain in the butt to tear down just to move a trailer. I offered to move it for him with the Pickup, and he was very happy to let me! All worked out fine and I was back here about 1:00.

The weather here has been pretty nice, late spring like if you will. We did have a nasty thunderstorm last night, but today turned out very nice. I didn't want to sit inside the rest of the day so I decided to take another stab at my tool bays, and reorganize and pitch what wasn't needed. I made some headway, and rid us of some unnecessary items that I have collected. I also cleaned out the bed of my truck, which tends to be a collect all of all the left overs of various projects, and pitched a much of stuff there. I jsut keep thinking every 100lbs is a 1/10th of a MPG. Seems to be pretty good motivation. I would gather I got rid of at least 100 lbs today.

Other than that, not much going on. Stay safe, and have a good night.

John

Greetings from St. Louis. The weather here has been gorgeous - in the lower 90's with a cool breeze. I go outside during my lunch break and it has been difficult going back inside to work.... Wish I could sit by the pool, have a drink or two and soak in the sun. Last weekend I got too much sun and my face has been peeling a bit, but not too bad.... I have been using some aloe vera gel to sooth my skin.... I hope to get some more sun this weekend to help even out my complexion....

Tonight was the last night of my SharePoint training at New Horizons. The training was kinda fun to do and it was nice to go to a training center to get away from everything and concentrate on the subject. So now I have a certificate that shows I completed the training and I've already added it to my resume. I'm now in the process of signing up for the SharePoint Level 2 course and hope to begin it next week.....

The training center was not very busy - it was me and two older ladies learning Microsoft Office stuff. I felt a bit sorry for the instructor because the two ladies were not catching on to some basic concepts very easily and he was trying to be patient with them.... one concept was how to find a document on your hard drive after your downloaded it from the internet and forgot the file name and which folder it went to. My answer is to get a Macintosh because it has a downloads folder right on the task bar that fans out and show your recent downloads....

I received a package from Amazon.com in the mail today. I ordered a Mighty Bright XtraFlex2 Dual Super Led Book light and Season 1 of Nanny 911..



I got the book light so I can sit outside longer in the evening in the cool evening air and read books and magazines. I also want to use it while reading in bed - the lights above the bed are a bit harsh... The Nanny 911 dvd was an impulse purchase (I'm allowed to now and then). I've been watching the show in the CW while working out, but never see the ending of each episode... I enjoy watching dysfunctional straight married couples attempt to be good parents and fail miserably. I'm thinking that perhaps John could get into baby sitting during the day...

Here's another Llama picture from over the weekend:



I checked the archives to see what we were doing on this day in past years:

2007 - at the RV park in Columbia, SC trying to determine if a llama was living in the front seat of a pickup truck.
2006 - at the trailer park in Bloomington, IL - just got done with relationship study at the University of Illinois in Campaign-Urbana.

it is fun being able to look back over the last 3 1/2 years and see what we did.... August will be the 4th anniversary of the blog....

The computer is back in good health today. Running Verify Disk and Repair Disk Permissions in the Disk Utility did the trick - I'm now able to log in with the main account. This is the first big issue I've had with my PowerBook G4 since I purchased it 3 1/2 years ago - so not complaining too much.

Work was fine today. Over my lunch break I attended the St. Louis Lotus Technologies Users Group meeting. The meeting featured a demonstration of some utility programs for Lotus Notes programmers that I wanted to see. The demo was good and I learned a few things....

The rest of my workday was spent working on fixes to applications in production.... sooo... much fun....

So now for our weekend with Scott.

John picked up Scott around 11:30am on Friday. They spent time doing a whole lot of nothing around the RV until I got home..... We then went to Square One Brewery for supper. They have several fish dishes that were in the realm of being healthy for Scott. I had Artic Char - it was their special and is not on their regular menu. This is the first time I've had Char and it was good. It tasted like a fresh water fish, but it had the texture of Salmon. I paired it with an IPA ale - Square One describes it as "This full bodied, dark golden ale is brewed with a larger proportion of hops and malt to give it a rich, malty taste and clean, bitter finish. ". It is a nice in-between beer - in between a Pale Ale and a dark beer....

On Saturday we started out having breakfast at Chris's and then from there we went to the St. Louis Transportation Museum. They have lots of cool, old trains and cars to look at. Their car collection is not large, but what they have is really unique. My favorite was a Chrysler Turbine Car that had a turbine engine and a Stanley Steamer car that ran on steam power. Then we checked out all of the trains.





They have lots of very old and unique train engines dating back to the mid 1800's. I wish I would have taken more pictures of the big steam engines. It is amazing to see how large they are and how many moving parts they have. We were able to ride in a old Chicago Transit car and also a miniture train - similar to the ones that the St. Louis zoo has. Seeing all of the trains makes me want to have a train set again... but no room in the mo-ho....



On Saturday evening we invited friends (Steve, Joseph, Perry, Doug and Scott) over to have a cook-out at the RV park. We served everything from the tailgate of the Subaru so we were technically tail-gating... very hetro straight guys of us... John grilled hamburgers that were yummy and we had potato salad, cole slaw and bean salad! Steve brought a frozen chocolaty moose cake that was very decadent.

On Sunday morning we meet Perry and Rich A. for breakfast at Crusoe's. After breakfast John dropped off Scott and I at the St. Louis Arch so we could get some exercise. We walked to the steps at the base of the arch and checked out the flood waters from the Missippi river. Then Scott played Rocky and ran up and down the stairs a bunch of times...





We then walked across the Eads Bridge that goes over the Mississippi river for some more exercise and to see the river:





We then talked back over the bridge and walked through downtown and back to the RV park. Then on Sunday afternoon Scott and I headed over to Grant's Farm to see their horses. I remember going here when I was a kid, but I don't remember much. When we arrived we checked out a stable with young Clydesdale horses and their parents. The horses were really cool to see up close. We then took a tram through their deer park and to the main part of Grants Farm.







Grant's farm has a nice little zoo with goats, lemurs, camels, parrots, kangaroos and LLAMAS!! Llama, Llama, Llama... LLAMAS!!









After Grant's Farm we meet John back at the Mo-Ho and then went out for supper at the Four Seasons. After supper we watched two movies at home.. Juno and Alvin and the Chipmunks. Bet you can't guess who picked these titles out Anyway... Juno was actually pretty good - made me giggle alot. The chipmunks movie was about what you would expect. The computer animation in it was very good and they were very cute. The chipmunks voices bothered me a bit - they seemed more shrill then the original Chipmunk recordings - so some of the songs the did were a bit hard on the ears.... not sure I would see it again.

So that was our big weekend and you know why I was so tired on Monday.....

Scott made it to his next stop, San Diego, on time and as expected. Make you check out his blog at www.scotthicks.com for more pictures of the weekend and etc...

Greetings from St. Louis.... This is Derek.

We are having a problem with our main computer - the PowerBook G4. For some reason it is not letting us log in under our main account. I was able to log in under an alternate account and I'm clearing some cache files and running "Repair Disk" to see if it helps.... My guess is that something associated with the main account has become corrupt or something.... perhaps it's time to get a new computer

We had a wonderful weekend with Scott - I have lots to write about and pictures to share - but not tonight.. due to computer problems and because I'm tired.

I was dragging ass all day at work and then I had my first SharePoint training session at New Horizons tonight from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. The training was interesting and I'm glad I'm taking it, but now my eyes are fried - very sore and tired from looking at computer screen for over 10 hours today.

To read a bit about our weekend from Scott's point of view - check out his blog at: www.scotthicks.com.

I will write about our weekend and upload pictures tomorrow evening....

I'm off to bed....