Metropolitan Rural

Okay, I was going to post some smart ass comments about all the Post-Dispatch stories about Highway 40 they published over the weekend, but I decided to leave that subject alone.

 I decided instead to talk about New Years’ Resolutions.  What are you going to try and accomplish for this next year? 

I’ve never been much on resolutions myself, but last year I made my first one that I was really serious about.  My goal for 2007 was to lose 12 pounds.  More specifically, I wanted to lose 1 pound a month and be 12 pounds lighter by New Year.  You see, even though most people consider me skinny, I knew I weighed more than I had my entire life.  Add to that a family history of High Blood Pressure and Diabetes, and it was time to do something about it.  As of this morning, I am a full 16 pounds lighter than January 1st of last year (guess I can pig out tonight huh?, just kidding).

We started talking around home about what our resolutions will be for this next year.  My son said he wanted to be able to run better.  Well, from my experience this past year, I know one of the most important things about giving yourself goals is to make them measurable.  You see, I was VERY specific with my goal and had a way to track it throughout the year to know I was on pace.  I didn’t want to lose 12 pounds early and then put it back on.  I wanted to do it slowly and KEEP it off.  So, we advised my son to think about HOW he can know if he’s a better runner.  We talked about whether it is endurance our speed he wants to accomplish.  It turns out he wants endurance for playing soccer so he doesn’t get tires so easily.  Our suggestion to him was being able to run around the block twice without walking (we have a double block, so it’s about a 1/4 mile round trip). 

So, I’ve been thinking about mine for the coming year as well.  I have already set some financial goals for savings and debt repayment for the coming year, but I need some more personal goals as well.  The Christmas present to myself this year was a weight bench.  I’m planning on using that get into better shape.  By better, I’m planning on tracking my percent body fat this coming year.  I know I want to build more muscle and lose some more fat this year.  That might make my weight go back up some since muscle is more dense than fat, but I know I’ll only meet the goal by actually building muscle, so I’m okay with that.  I have yet to set an actual number at this point, but I’ll take some measurements tomorrow to give myself a baseline and then figure my goal from there. 

The other major goal I have for the year is to be able to park the car in the garage for next winter.  Currently our garage is overflowing with lumber that has been taken out from the basement demolition and leftover scraps from the fence project.  Other than that, the car will fit in there fine.  The problem is that we don’t have a key for the garage door and there is no electric out there to run the opener.  We’d have to get out of the car, walk through the back yard, through the regular door in the back and then open the garage door manually (we’d have to do just the reverse to leave as well if we wanted to lock to door).  That means I’ve got to finish up my basement project so that when the electricians come to wire the garage, I can have them re-wire most of the first floor of the house as well. 

If anyone needs any wood lathe let me know.  I’ll be swimming in it within a couple of weeks.  Also, if you are interested in purchasing some old wood tongue and groove bead board, I’ll have plenty of that to spare also!

BOB is a pretty great friend.

I can’t imagine winter in St. Louis without BOB.

BOB can be pretty expensive to keep around sometimes.

I check on BOB every few days to make sure he’s not under too much pressure.

If you have your own BOB you know what I’m talking about.

For those of you unfortunate enough not have BOB, I feel sorry for you.

It’s time to recover from the holiday now.  We’ve had our fun and it’s back to work.  At least I got a few things done on the house over the weekend.  I tore down some more walls in the basement to continue progress towards getting the house rewired. 

There is something oddly therapeutic for me when I’m working on the house or woodworking.  It always helps the stress to just melt away when I can sit back and look at the creation of my own hands.  I miss the feeling already.  I haven’t done much work on the house lately and I’ve been feeling it.  I can’t imagine buying a house someday that doesn’t need work.  If I ever do something like that, I’ll have to make sure the garage is big enough for a wood shop so I can start making furniture.  Otherwise, I’d likely go nuts in a short amount of time.

Thinking of that reminds me of my first couple places I lived after college.  I was in the Crystal Lake area of the Chicago suburbs.  Even in my little 1 Bedroom apartment, I did woodworking. I took an old door that was drilled wrong and used it to make a desk.  I put half round molding all the way around the door, puttied in the gaps and painted it to like it had inlays.  I stink at painting so you weren’t even close to believing that, but it was fun for me.  It looked like a thick wooden desk top when it actuality it was a cheap hollow core door with a built in hold for cords.

I lived in that place for a couple of years and then bought a 2 bedroom condo.  Even in just over a year there I put in new carpet, a new disposal, laundry shelving and changed the shower fixtures.  And the place was only 5 years old.  I guess in reality, I can’t stop tinkering no matter what!

I ran across this website the other day with loads of information to compare the cost of living, economics, schools, crime, etc. of all kinds of cities around the US.  I thought it was an interesting site.  It’s www.bestplaces.net

While looking at the information about St. Louis, I noticed the list of reviews for the city.  Of course, they were mixed with some people liking it and others hating it.  I would expect that for any city.  I found one review very interesting.  It was written by a lady with a screen name Lady Bug.  Here’s her review of St. Louis.

I’ve lived here for 13 years - originally from the Northwest. Most people I know who love St. Louis are people who haven’t lived anywhere else but Missouri. This is one of the ugliest cities in America. Crime is rampant. The highways are in major disrepair. Traffic is horrible. The commute from the suburbs is totally depressing, because all you see is strip malls, strip malls, and more strip malls. St. Louis is way behind other cities who have put a priority on renewing their downtowns. Every region of the U.S. has its own “culture”, and the culture here is weird. St. Louisans are just happy to go to the mall, sports events, and work in their yards, because they don’t know what else to do here. There are no scenic safe biking paths, no hiking trails, and there is no pretty and vibrant downtown - just malls. The parks are nothing special. What’s so awesome about the St. Louis Zoo? The cool cafes/restaurants/music scene may exist, but it’s all so spread apart. There’s no actual one place you can go to where it all exists in one location, where you can walk to all of it once you’re there. There is no “music scene” here, so if you would want to take a nice little stroll downtown and maybe sit down for a drink and listen to some beautiful live music, don’t move here. Someone wrote that a certain city in the Northwest was a little “redneck”. Well, St. Louis is far more “redneck” than anyplace in the Northwest. I call the St. Louis Metro Area the land of suburban sprawl, pickup trucks, soccer moms driving SUVs, strip malls, and ugliness. It’s great if you’re not a visual person, if you love sports, and if you don’t mind driving a long time to get anywhere. On a positive note, there are great educational opportunities here, low unemployment, and affordable housing. Portland may be cold and frequently overcast, BUT it has culture, beauty, a great transportation system, scenic bike paths and hiking trails, and a lot more to see and do than St. Louis. By the way, if anyone knows of another city besides Portland that fits my description of a great place to live, please let me know!

There are so many things I’d like to say about this review.  The first thing is, that this lady lives in Wentzville.  Yes, WENTSVILLE and is giving her opinion on St. Louis.   So, here is my rebuttal to the uniformed suburban view of this city:

• “one of the ugliest cities in America” - Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  This city is  a wealth of architecture and old housing stock.  Someone from the Northwest surely can’t appreciate the longevity and beauty of the craftsmanship here.  When you are used to more modern styles, you may not enjoy this as much, so I can understand the viewpoint.  Though, living way out where they do, most of what you see is crappy, cheaply built stuff.
• “crime is rampant”- Really?  How do you know?  All you know is what you see on TV and read in the paper.  Crime is NOT rampant in the city, despite what the media wants you to believe.
• “highways…. traffic… commute… strip malls” - Yes, all those things are horrible.  You know why?  You live in WENTSVILLE!  I’ve only been on an interstate 1 time in the last month.  I rarely have trouble with traffic and my commute is only 15 minutes by bus and passes by tons of unique stores.
• “There are no scenic safe biking paths, no hiking trails, and there is no pretty and vibrant downtown - just malls”- Have you seen the biking and walking trails in Forest Park?  Have you seen the local business districts in the city?  Washington Avenue, South Grand, Macklind Avenue, Cherokee???  I don’t remember being in a mall in the last year to be perfectly honest (well, except during my vacation to Orlando, and that was just to play mini-golf at the glow-in-the-dark place).
• “The parks are nothing special. What’s so awesome about the St. Louis Zoo?” - Okay, I believe Forest Park is one of the Largest Urban Parks in the US (about 50% larger than Central Park in New York)!  Nothing special?  What’s with the Zoo you ask.  Try finding a zoo of this quality anywhere in the country.  You’ll pay and arm and a leg to get in.  We are the ONLY zoo in the US with a dedicated nutrition center and we are one of the leading zoo’s in the world when it comes to animal care and breeding programs.  Oh, and let’s not forget our Botanical Garden either.

Oh, and just so you know I’m not biased from always living here, I did grow up in Missouri, but over near Kansas City.  I have lived in Chicago, Savannah and the Washington, DC areas in my life.  The things I love about those cities are some of the same things I love about St. Louis.  People, old buildings, neighborhoods and history.  St. Louis (the city) has all that and more. 

It seems to me, when the media is concerned especially, every bad thing about this are is always associated with the City.  It doesn’t matter if they are really talking about strip malls, crime, poor highways that may bee way out in St. Charles county, they will complain about “St. Louis” making people think the City is some horrible place.  But have something great happen out in Wentzville and you better believe they are going to say it was in Wentzville, not St. Louis. 

For good measure, I posted this as my own review of my fair city.

I got around to one of the items on my list of Things to Do and Places to See from a couple weeks ago.  We went sledding on Art Hill this past Sunday. 

Now, before I tell you about it, let me first preface this by saying and making it official, “I HATE snow.”  I know, hate is a very strong word and I use it on purpose.  I have been sledding about once every 10 years of my life.  Even has a child I avoided going outside to play in the winter.  Instead I would spend hours in our basement bowling with plastic pins and balls.

With that out of the way, I really enjoyed myself.  The snow was fairly well packed by the time we got there and the crowd, while large, wasn’t as bad as I had expected.  We had plenty of room and everyone watched out for others well as they were going up and down the hill (or down and up as the case may be).  Someone was even nice enough to pack together a mound of snow near where we were sledding to form a nice little ramp towards the bottom of the hill (note:  don’t go off the hill with 2 people on the sled!)

We stayed about an hour, which gave us a dozen or so trips down the hill.  It was warm enough we didn’t get frozen and cold enough the snow wasn’t melting too bad and getting you soaked either.  The view was spectacular (as always, the lights on the water even came on a few minutes before we left). 

Now that I’ve experienced this little part of St. Louis, I’m glad I did.  It’s not something I’m going to rush out to do again (if it wasn’t for the kid that is), but it’s something good to have experienced. 

Yesterday, I lost an hour of my life that will never return thanks to Mayor Slay.

How you ask?

It all started a couple weeks ago with the announcement of a gingerbread house decorating contest here at work.  All the departments in my building spent time making very elaborate setups.  There were everything from twinkling lights to mansions to a make shift snow globe.  The presentation and judging was set for 3:45 yesterday afternoon (I need to leave work by about 4:15 if I’m going to catch my regular bus).

We are standing around at 3:45…. waiting.  It’s 4:00 and still no sign of our “Celebrity” judge.  In debates of who it would be, I suggested it would be the Mayor and he probably wouldn’t be there.  By about 4:10, they finally got in touch with the celebrity and found out that he wouldn’t make it (he was tied up in “meetings”).  As it turns out, I was completely right, it was supposed to be the Mayor.  The least he could have done was have someone phone and say he wouldn’t make it rather than keep 50+ highly paid IT workers standing around waiting for him for a half hour.

We went ahead with the presentations and I got back to my desk at 4:20.  No way I can make my regular bus.  If it’s on time I’d have 4 minutes to shut down at work and walk 5 blocks.  Oh well, there will be another one a half hour after that.  So, I took my time and got everything wrapped up and left about 15 minutes later to head to the bus stop.

I let the wife know I’ll be a half hour late getting home.  I stand there, waiting on my bus.

5 minutes late…

10 minutes late…

20 minutes late…

It never showed, so, it was finally the bus that runs after that which showed up, a full half hour later (oh, and it was PACKED as well).  I phone the wife again to let her know I’d be an hour late because of the bus now. 

If the Mayor had showed up when he had promised, I would have been out of the office on time and home an hour earlier than I actually was last night.  It’s really the little things in life that make a big difference.  A simple phone call would have saved me an hour of time with my family.  Who knows how many other people missed things or were inconvenienced because our Mayor can’t keep a schedule and can’t have someone make a call when he will not be making a scheduled appointment. 

Last Saturday night I learned the benefits of what some would consider a nosey neighbor. 

We spent most of the evening over with friends celebrating a family birthday over in Rock Hill.  We drove home late through the snow and general nastiness.  We got home eventually and let the dogs out and got into our PJ’s. 

We then sat down to watch a movie and snuggled up on the couch (the boy was spending the night at the friends house).  The movie got over a little before 1 in the morning.  A few minutes before the movie was over, I noticed what seemed like cool breeze on my feet.

The movie was over and I got up to check it out.  When we had our AC/Heat Pump installed, we kept the radiators.  The heat pump is set a few degrees lower so it comes on if the pilot light goes out on the boiler.  I could definitely tell it was running when I went to look at the thermostats.  The boiler thermostat said it was 69 (the front of the house) and the heat pump said 67 (the back of the house).  I took one more step through the dining room and towards the kitchen when the wave of freezing cold air hit me in the face. 

I went on back through the kitchen and noticed our back door was wide open and the cat was sitting on the back porch.  Evidently we didn’t get the deadbolt shut when we let the dogs back in (there is no knob latch, just the deadbolt).  So, I got the cat back in and closed and locked the door.  I then let the dogs back out again. 

They started barking shortly after I let them out (not much fun at 1 in the morning for the neighbors).  I was on my way to check it out when the wife said something about hearing voices out front.  I turned around to go that way instead.  Just 2 steps from the door and the door bell rang!

One more step…

I looked through the large pane of glass covered by lace on the front door and I noticed a VERY large man in a police uniform.  I mean, this guy had to by 6′5″ and 250 lbs plus.  I opened the door a peck, and said hello.  His words were, “I got a report that your back door was open.”

I let out a sigh of relief.  I noticed my next door neighbor standing behind him saying he was worried when he saw it open (he was up with their new baby).  I thanked them for checking and explained what had happened and the officer left.

If you’ve never experienced this, it is both frightening at first and a huge relief in the end. 

My neighborhood e-mail list serve has been talking lately about the Southtown development at Chippewa & Kingshighway.  It’s now been a few years since it was finished and yet it sits mostly empty. 

From all the discussion I’ve gotten a better background on how the development occurred.  For those of you who know, this was an old JC Penny’s sight.  It now has a strip center anchored by Petsmart and Office Max.  There are several out lot buildings nearer the street and a Walgreen’s now on the corner.  Pretty much like any suburban shopping area you’ll find.

So, what I’ve heard from local residents was how much they tried to fight for a more urban development.  They attempted to get Walgreen’s to move their store to the corner and place the parking behind in order to provide pedestrian access.  No such luck, there on the corner is mass of asphalt right in front of the store.

There were also numerous request to do the same with the other areas of the development.  Keep the stores at the street and make them easy to walk into.  Nope, nothing buy asphalt from the street, a thing of beauty huh?

So, the developer came in, speculated on occupancy without getting firm contracts before building, failed to listen to neighbors and built a suburban shopping center in an urban environment.  Now, years later, it is still barren and lifeless. 

This area of Kingshighway could have really been a great part of town, but is instead a eyesore and source of neighborhood shame.  The nice urban shopping on the opposite side of Kingshighway is filled with 3 Pay Day Loans on the same block (2 of them side by side).  Further down the street sits the abandoned Avalon Theatre creating another hole in what could be a very nice street-scape. 

It all makes me wonder about these big commercial developers.  Why would they choose to so completely ignore the neighbors.  I mean, after all, aren’t they the ones who are most likely to patronize the very place they are wanting build?  So much for “The Customer is Always Right.”

Target over at Hampton and Chippewa did a little better job, but mainly because of their lack of real estate.  They made use of space by putting a parking garage under the store get sufficient parking spaces.  You see the same thing done over in Brentwood at Best Buy and The Sports Authority. 

It’s a shame they only do that sort of thing when they don’t physically have enough room for all the parking they want to create.  Too bad they don’t make more use of that in order to bring more stores up to the sidewalk and let pedestrians walk in while still having convenient parking for those who choose to drive.

The last 36 hours have been rather interesting around my house.  About 3:00 AM Wednesday morning our neighbors car alarm went off.  My wife and I’s bedroom faces the street, so we both woke up.  She looked out the window but could only see the flashing lights from the alarm do to the roof of our front porch.

The owner came outside to check on it and turned the alarm off noticing anything wrong with the vehicle.  He said he went back inside and sat watching the car until about 4:00 when he fell asleep again. 

I left for work about 6:30 and there, laying in our front yard, were the 2 back windows of his car.   I looked up and down the street, but didn’t notice which car they were from, thinking someone just dumped them I went on (there’s a street tree that block my view of the back half of their car).

The owner got up not long after and noticed the windows gone, including the back one (so, 3 in total).  He went out to check and his entire stereo system had been stripped.  He called the police to file a report.  They took the information and told him no one would come out in person unless he had a suspect. 

Wow!  Even if they can’t really do much, just having an officer there to respond to your needs is a HUGE comforting fact to residents.   I feel very sorry for the guy.  It’s not like he left a bunch of stuff in his car (those people should have known better) or something, it was an installed stereo where they yanked stuff out and cut wires.  The house next door is a 2-family that does have a parking pad out back (if you can call it that with the large sink hole in the middle), but no garage. 

To top it all off, another car next door had it’s alarm go off in the middle of the night last night also.  We just bought a new car last weekend and it makes me a little nervous.  We have a garage, but we don’t have good access to get into it.  It needs a new door and lock at the very minimum, and electric service and an opener preferably.  Guess this weekend will be a good time for me to make progress on preparing the garage for occupancy again.

So, over the past year and a half of living in the city, I’ve heard of a lot of cool things that I want to do sometime.  Many of them we’ve done before, but the list seems to be growing of things I haven’t done yet.  So, I thought I would share with you just a few of the things I want to do and Places I want to visit around our fair city.

• The Royale- I’ve heard lots of good things about this place and many of the city based groups I know have meetings there, but yet I’ve never been.  It’s only a few stop lights up the street, yet I’ve never managed to make it there.
• 52nd City- I met an editor (Stefene Russell) of 52nd City through the late, great Marti Frumhoff.  Stefene is also an editor for St. Louis Magazine and St. Louis At Home.  Very cool person, yet I’ve never gotten around to picking up an issue of their magazine.  Bad me!  Sorry Stefene, I’ll be sure to pick up one soon.  The website looks cool though and I promise to subscribe to the blog there also!
• Crown Candy Kitchen- The wife, kid and mother-in-law have made it up there for lunch before, but poor old me was at work.  I’ll make it up there someday.  I really want to see first hand how the development is going on Crown Village if nothing else.
• Bevo Mill - I’ve heard the food there is excellent and now that they are doing breakfast on the weekends, that just might entice me enough to drive the dozen blocks or so to get there!
• The Boat House in Forest Park - This is another place the rest of the family went to while I was working.  Hopefully they’ll take me along someday too!
• Pho Grand- We’ve been to several places on South Grand, but have yet to make it here.  It’s tough to do when you would have to go without the kid. 
• Black Thorn Pub- Read the reviews in the RFT about the pizza here and I’ve just GOT to try it some day.  The wait for one isn’t a thrilling idea, but something that needs to be done.
• Fabulous Fox Theatre - I’d love to go see a show there sometime, if for no other reason than to see for myself whether or not it’s truly Fabulous!
• Moolah Bowl/Theatre - Bowling and a Movie theatre in a converted building like that!  What’s not to like?
• City Museum- I’ve still never made it down there.  Just too much cool stuff to not go visit.
• Central Library - I LOVE our Buder branch of the library over on Hampton, but I still need to go visit the Central downtown to get an inner glimpse of the place.  I took the kid there a few months ago to get pictures for his 7 Wonders class, but it was Sunday and they were closed.

I’m sure there are some places I’m forgetting at the moment, but that should keep me busy for a while.  Any other suggestions for me out there?