Water, Water Everywhere

“When it rains, it pours.” After essentially no rain in weeks (other than a small drizzle last week), a big thunderstorm passed through tonight. I had just headed out for a short drive over to and around Creve Coeur park — about the only decent outdoor activity with the 100+ degree Fahrenheit temperatures —when a bit of a storm started to appear on the northern horizon. I tried to go around it, but given that I needed to head back north to go home, that didn't work so well.

I was on the river bottoms in St. Louis County, but went up and around to try another approach. When I came back down, what I would say were straight line winds (based on later examination of area damage) were stirring up gravel, debris and dust — not the kind of stuff I wanted to drive my car through. So, I made a u-turn, went back up the hill and holed up under the shelter of a Philips 66 at Hog Hollow Rd. and Olive Blvd. in case it hailed. I spent about an hour there, watching the front come in, the rain pour like crazy and the power go on and off. I switched between XM's Instant Traffic and Weather and KMOX (“the Voice of St. Louis”) trying to find out how the storm was doing, but I think for the most part they were taken aback by the intesity of this storm as much as I was. The KMOX news editor didn't even have time to prepare for the hourly local news because he was too busy reporting on this storm.

The poor station attendant at the gas station kept having to turn people away from the gas pumps since they apparently take 10 minutes to start up, and the power wouldn't stay on for more than 10 minutes at a time. One fellow stood there for probably 30 minutes trying to finish filling his tank before giving up. One time that the power was on long enough for the registers to work, I went in and bought a bottle of water to drink. The sirens went off, but I never heard on the radio where the tornado was.

Back home, the storm has definitely left its mark on the subdivision, taking down large parts of trees, siding, and so on. Traffic lights are on the fritz and power is still out to several hundred thousand homes (especially on the St. Louis side, it seems). Apparently, part of the roof on Lambert-St. Louis International Airport's one concourse blew off and was laying on several lanes of I-70.

This was suppose to be just a small storm for those of us north of the city, I was told. Conversely, another storm system coming in tomorrow afternoon is suppose to be severe. I think I'll try to avoid that one.

Muny and Other Exciting Stuff

Today, I took the day off and yet it was packed full trying to do various things, finally topped off with a delicious “cherry” of going to the Muny. Unfortunately, I'm far too tired to talk about that just now, so I guess I'll just not say any more right now.

Hopefully I'll push myself to do a review of the Muny production the Wizard of Oz tomorrow.

Moving On

I completed the DVD a few days ago after exporting the video to DV from MPEG-4 within iMovie itself. I don't think I'll be doing any more direct MPEG-4 editing any more: DV just seems to work better. So now I can move on to bigger and better things.

To those of you nasty enough to spam blogs, I am now continuing the fight against you. Per the request of Ed, SAFARI can now block commenting on old posts, and we're not afraid to use it. Be scared, spammers, we will win. Ok, that was a bit over dramatic, wasn't it?

I have so many things I need to do and I'm not getting them done, but I thought I should at least check in. Happy Thursday!

Gibberish

Gibberish is all I can write. I am totally exhausted. I've been entertaining friends from out of town since June 5. It has a been a wonderful time, but after going from 8 or 9 in the morning until 12-1 at night for over a week, I am a bit slap happy.

But I am alive. G'night.

Spring Ozarks 2006

So, last week was my family's spring trip to Table Rock Lake. We left Monday, May 22, and came back on Saturday, May 28. As a whole, it was a great trip, with good weather other than one evening.

The most notable activity was probably the Spirit of America catamaran, which we had sailed on previously, a number of years back. This time, we were the only ones to set off on the 90 minute cruise, so we had the boat (and the crew of Captain Jack and his nephew) pretty much to ourselves. The ride circles around the large, open part of Table Rock that is next to the dam and is one of only a few opportunities to get a tour of the water; Big Cedar's very nice, private Go'in Jesse private boat ride is another option. As opposed to Go'in Jesse's $99 flat rate for up to four passengers (which includes drinks, soft or not — I went with bottled water), the Spirit lets you set sail for $20/person sans beverage. It's a fun experience to ride on the largest sail boat in the midwest, and Captain Jack is a pleasant captain who goes easy narrating the trip, but is happy to answer any questions you might have.

During this part of the trip, we stayed at Rock Lane Resort, a hotel on Indian Point, not far from Silver Dollar City. My grandparents and mother started going there in the early sixties, and its still chugging along. I'm the designer of their web site. It offers surely one of the best lake views of any motel or hotel on the lake, looking straight at the dam (albeit from several miles away). For dinner, we dined at the Branson Cafe (home of very good fried chicken and many, many delicious homemade deserts), a place we had not visited in quite awhile, and the Wooden Nickel, which also offers delicious fried chicken, along with some great barbecue. The latter has a unique salad bar built around an old tree (hence it is called “the salad tree”). The former has many very nice meals for $7 or less (desserts figure in at $2.50 to $3.50 and are well worth it); at the latter one should expect to pay $12-$15, unless you want a steak. For breakfast, we went to one of our favorite spots, Billy Gail's (named after the owners). Gail runs an amazingly clean, efficient restaurant and flea market, and always takes time to talk to us while we are there. The food is reasonably priced, very good and served very fast. Plus, the owners and workers are wonderful people.

We also went to Dogwood Canyon, which we had not been to in several years. Dogwood Canyon is one of the most beautiful places in the Ozarks, an enchanting canyon tucked between two Ozark mountains. The canyon features several streams, including Dogwood Creek, that are crystal clear and stocked with rainbow trout and other fish. There are really nice tram tours that run for 90 or 120 minutes, and the 120 minute one is well worth the extra time; it goes farther into the canyon as well as on top of the hills to the park's ranch stocked with longhorn, bison, elk and other fauna. Though it is called a nature park, it is a private park (owned by Bass Pro Shops and Tracker boats' genius owner Johnny Morris) and costs a very worthwhile $25 for a tram ride. Admission is less if you want to walk or bike the canyon.

Unfortunately, my trip there this time was a little less pleasant as the beginnings of food poisoning were getting to me at the park (I'm not sure where I got it for sure, but I suspect it was a fluke because everywhere we ate has been fine many, many times in the past). I was hoping it was something else, but by the time we left, I had a pretty good suspicion what was coming. A tram ride in the heat did nothing to mitigate the onset, either. I'll save the gory details, but let's say I didn't do anything too pleasant the rest of Wednesday and am just starting to get my normal appetite back. Minus the appetite, I felt better Thursday, although we stayed in our cabin at Big Cedar Lodge and read books, which is a nice way to spend a day. Over the trip, I read the Wager by Bill Myers, as well as returning to the Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancy and starting the Lord of the Rings from J.R.R. Tolkien.

Big Cedar, which we stayed at for a little over half our trip, is more of a “vacation experience” than just a hotel. The rooms have a “rustic elegance,” as the brochure says, offering a cabin like feel with pleasant decor (including more taxidermy than I'd normally be comfortable with, but done very tastefully). Big Cedar, set in Big Cedar Hollow, which goes down to Devil's Pool and Table Rock Lake, includes several hundred cabins and lodge rooms, two full service restaurants and a nice quick service restaurant. Devil's Pool Restaurant is a four or five star restaurant, yet it takes a gourmet twist on homestyle favorites, not entirely exotic fare. The menu prices are higher than average, at $16-$20 on average. The quick service Truman Smokehouse offers some really good barbecue ($5-$8), and this time I tried a cinnamon roll that was probably 6” in diameter ($4.00).

The weather was a bit hot for walking around Big Cedar, but like I said, it is so pleasant to sit in the cabin, that wasn't a big loss. Plus, we happened to get a lakeview cabin this time, which made staying “home” even nicer. We ordered in a Big Cedar Pizza Express pizza one night ($12.95), which had a delightful hand tossed crust.

The night I was sick, Big Cedar was nice enough to send me a (complementary) bowl of chick broth, saltine crackers, Sprite, ginger ale and a get well card via room service.

Big Cedar is another wonderland created by the vision of Johnny Morris, filled with impressive waterfalls and streams (including ones that purposely go over the entry roads you drive through), huge gardens filled with flowers and a mix of old and old-looking buildings filled with history. For those looking for activities, it has free mini golf, croquet, many walking trails, horseback riding, a full service marina, and a number of very nice pools with great vistas.

On the way home, we stopped at the Hen House in Bourbon, MO as always, and I got their Broasted Chicken I always talk about on here ($6.99, I believe). We also brought home some pie, of which they have some of the best. It was a toss up, I'd say, between them and the Branson Cafe for the best pie — both were great.

In all, you can judge a trip I go on — probably — by the number of pictures I take. Walking around the lake the first few days, and taking other jaunts, I managed to nab over 1,500 photos during the six day trek. It was just the kind of vacation I needed, minus the food poisoning in the middle.

In the News-Leader

Well, I'll post a real post tomorrow. In the mean time, Christopher said he wanted to know about my trip, and I thought I'd note you can learn about part of it in the Springfield News-Leader. No, don't go flipping to the “Crime Reports” section — sheesh. The News-Leader's cover story for Sunday was on travel in the Ozarks, and I happened to get interviewed by a reporter while dining at one of our favorite Ozark stops. You can read the report, here. The two reporters were there to interview the owners of the cafe, and since we're loyal, long-time customers, I went and talked to the reporters to tell them how great the place was.

More tomorrow.

Back at the Mic

Well, in my last post, I really did intend to post the continuation of my responses concerning Karl Barth, but time got away from me with the end of finals, the baccalaureate, commencement and finally heading down to the Ozarks for my family's annual spring trip to Table Rock Lake. I got back last night, but was too tired to post (from normal trip lag and food poisoning that I had midweek).

I'll post more on some or all of these things soon.

An Ending.

I'll hopefully resume my consideration of Karl Barth, looking at his alleged universalism, tomorrow. Tonight, I just don't have it in me. Finals normally drain my writing abilities, and they have certainly done that in the past week, especially given that I've also turned nearly 40 pages of essays in over the last week (the grand total for the past month being somewhere between 80-100 pages — I have to mention that to reassure myself I've accomplished something). But, if anything, the real drain tonight is something different: the departure of a friend.

This friend was a classmate of mine nearly two years ago in a British Literature course that she ended up in fairly randomly. I ended up in it because I had just switched from being a Business major to an English Lit major (my religion major staying constant throughout). While she was not a lit major, she was amazingly astute at it, and we began to talk. I ended up with a very dear, special friend whom I have talked to ever since. She is an international student, and though she is planning to come back to the States for an internship, she won't be coming back to Missouri. I think we'll stay in touch, but nonetheless it was sad to see her for the last time for who knows how long.

I'm just not very good at endings.

A Late Night Haiku
Oh! If a moment
Could be frozen and ne'er thaw,
But time does melt it.

Yes, I'm Alive and Kicking

This has been quite a busy period of time for me since I last blogged. In roughly that amount of time, I have turned in somewhere around sixty pages of papers, mostly in the first three days of last week. I'm feeling very good about that, now that all of those pages are done. The Honors Convocation at LU was last Sunday, my Mac minis came in on Monday (I picked them up on Tuesday), the National Day of Prayer was Thursday… busy, busy.

Then there were unpleasant parts, such as someone rear-ending me on Thursday, though fortunately no one was seriously hurt and a sheriff happened to be near by so all the reporting could be done quickly. The damage on my end is a presently slightly sore back and a damaged rear bumper on the Jeep. Not nearly as bad as it could have been. We'll see how well Progressive Insurance, the insurer of the guy who hit me, does about getting an adjuster out to take care of the bumper (and hopefully provide me with a rental while the car is in the shop).

I may post some excerpts or complete copies of the papers in the coming weeks. The longer ones cover the case for a Christian poet writing Beowulf, the rationale for a probalistic argument for God and an analysis of the different interpretations of the Faust tradition in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written, in my estimation) and Lord Byron's Manfred.

Y'all up to anything new?

We Got It Good

With the sole exception of when I'm returning from the Ozarks, I always find that taking a trip reminds me of just how good “we got it” (to use an old RCGA slogan) in St. Louis. Over the weekend, I went to Indiana for my grandfather's birthday. It was a fine enough trip, but I have to admit it felt really great to see the “The People of Illinois Welcome You” sign as I left Indiana and even better when I saw the “Welcome to Missouri” signs (complete with the official “Where the Rivers Run” stylized logo).

I may be biased, but I just love Missouri. The hills, the trees, the personality of the cities — I just love it. Indiana seems so flat and (no offense to anyone from there that might read this) bland. This wasn't the best time to visit, since the trees were all bare, but even when there is some green scenery, I still find something oddly uncomfortable there.

In other words, it's good to be home.