What I've learned since turning 30.

These may not necessarily be in the order they occured.

1) When you are really craving a particular fall treat (aka pumpkin pie), make sure that all your ingredients have not expired before mixing everything else. Rotten evaporated milk, yeah, not so nice.

2) Fall colds suck! The weather here has been 80 one day (Monday) and 40 (right now) the next. I have been congested and coughing for two weeks and I want stable weather!

3) Having never owned a vehicle as large as the Titan, I'm very quickly learning which stores have small parking spots. Yesterday I went to Whole Foods to get a refill for my water cooler at home, only to discover that if I park in the spots as designed I would not be able to open my doors. I guess I'm destined to take up two spots in the back or bring someone with a handicapped hangtag with me when I shop there. That said, I'm still loving being up high and also the Sirius radio I had installed.

4) I'm nearing 1000 visits. My Flickr site is doing well, I've been good about taking pictures and updating it too. I've even had random comments from people there about my dogs. Charlie and Matt have added me to their list of Bloggers, and I've been meeting new people because of this! How awesome is that? I can only hope that my random thoughts and photos I post out here keep people coming back.

5) They actually make mini-fridges that run on 12V power. My Titan has a 12V power supply in the truck bed. Every year when we drive to Michigan for Thanksgiving we have to buy at least 10 Best's Kosher Salami for my Uncles since they can't find it anywhere but here. I can't believe I'm actually considering buying one. A cooler would be just fine, but how cool would that be to have a mobile fridge! Still thinking about that one.

6) Be responsible for your actions. Several weeks ago I misplaced the battery charger for my Canon. I have only had it a couple months, and actually am still on the first charge on both batteries after over 300 pictures but I did not want to get up to MI and go to shoot a picture and it die. Lesson learned: Keep it in the same place, and remember that it cost you $45 to replace it.

That's about all for now, simple days lately. Happy leaf raking everyone!

Crazy Dog.

Last night I played domestic goddess and did 5 loads of laundry and some cleaning in between fixing a friends laptop and also picking up another friend from the airport. At some point, I turned around and Fletch was asleep on my bed. This is normal, but his position was not. See below:



Crazy greyhounds! You wouldn't know it from looking at him, but he eats 6 cups of food a day! I wish I had his metabolism!

And the ball drops..

Today at 3pm the construction crew at Busch began demolishing the old stadium by wrecking ball. I watched it via webcast on KSDK. They are running a webcam throughout the entire process so if you get the urge to see what's going on check it out.

As a kid, a close family friend had season tickets in section 248. I can still remember learning my way around and the fun and fascination and excitement housed there. It is hard to believe that they are tearing it down to build something that houses 10k less 'commoner' seats, but as usual, money talks and boxes bring in more money.

Goodbye Old Friend.

New Truck!

As you may or may not know, I've been looking at big trucks lately. I've driven several, and last weekend I test drove a Nissan Titan and decided that my search was over. The local dealer here has been known to be shady in the past, and didn't have the model/color I wanted. So, I started searching the internet. I found what I wanted HERE. On Friday I sent them an email, and was it quickly responded to by a very helpful salesmen dedicated to internet sales. His offer was great, and I made arrangements to pick it up on Monday afternoon. My work gives your birthday off (you pick Friday or Monday if it falls on a weekend), so I headed north in my Accord on Monday morning to trade it. It was raining really hard half of the way there. Between the rain, and the stress of the new bumper ouchie and other issues, I was stressed out and very glad when it all turned out great and I was on my way in an hour or so. Here are some pics as it was getting ready for delivery.

Note the super-shiny chrome inserts in the grille. They couldn't find the price (I bought the owner's demo and he had this done himself) so they threw them in. Bonus.



From the back:



After that, I stopped at my friend Eric's house for trick or treats. They had more children on their street that night than I have ever seen for Halloween. Good times. I stayed the night there, and drove back early yesterday morning. Click HERE to see some photos from that night.

Time to get back to work.. Hope you enjoy all the pics :-)

My birthday weekend.

Hey all,

Sorry I've been MIA the last few days. My 30th was Saturday and I've been a very busy boy ever since!

Saturday, we took the dogs to a Meet and Greet at a pumpkin farm in Creve Couer. There were about 15 greyhounds there, along with a snake, and about 200+ people buying pumpkins and playing in the park. Here's some pictures of the dogs:

Tuck's in front, posing with another foster hound.



Thomas has Fletch, and you can see Kurt and Kris in the background.



Fletch and a very shy girl who wouldn't tell us her name :-)




After this, we went to the Greater St. Louis Marching Band Competition at the Edward Jones Dome. It is an all day event, of which we caught the last 3 hours. I had a great time driving down memory lane. We sat near the top, and it was kinda fun to see all the kids getting excited as awards time came. When we got back to my car, someone had hit my bumper and ran (again). Sigh.

From there I went to Freddie's where they were having a halloween costume contest. Having already been on the run for hours at that point I did not feel like getting into my costume. Next year I will though. I have a couple pictures from there too :-)

Josh and Sonia



Jason and Dieta Pepsi



Our Group



Round 1 of the costume contest:



Good times were had by all. I crashed late on Saturday night. Sunday morning I woke up and went to Mom's for the day. When I got there I found my brothers car in the driveway. He decided to surprise me and come home for my birthday. We had a nice day working around the house and making some new recipes. I bowled and crashed pretty early after all that.