My Brother the Restaurant Reviewer

My brother, Ed, is doing stories for the Springfield News-Leader on the local restaurants around town. Here are links to two of the reviews:

Pappy’s

Anton’s

I haven’t been to Pappy’s but I have been to Anton’s.

Anton's is a great place to have breakfast. The food is wonderful and the portions are very generous. The place itself is very eclectic. There are all sorts of menus on the walls from all over the place. Some of them look rather old. There are also pots and pans hanging from the ceiling. You can see that in a couple of the pictures accompanying the article.

And in it’s a small world moment. About a year or so ago when I was out there we there for breakfast. We ended up talking with the owner. We told him that originally we were from northern Illinois. The owner, Anton Tasich, talked about going to a summer camp at a Serbian monastery in Libertyville. It just so happens that the monastery was in the town next to the one I grew up in.

By the way if you every go to Anton's for breakfast, I highly recommend the pancakes with a side order of bacon.

Video from the game

Here's a little video from the game.

The Second Extra Day

Well a second extra day and a really great one. We all went to see Missouri State play Illinois State at the new arena at Missouri State. A very exciting game. Illinois State was 11-0 coming into this game. We all felt like it would be a blow out but it wasn't at all. With 1.6 seconds left in regulation Missouri State in bounded the ball. They were down by 3 points. It was passed in. There was a little scuffle over who would control the ball. A Missouri State played finally got it and launched it from three point range. It went in as the buzzer sounded. Fantastic!!

Unfortunately in overtime things did not go Missouri States way. But they did not go quietly. They ended up loosing 72-69. But they had the final shot and it bounced off the rim. Just a great game.

An Extra Day!

I got an extra day. Not by choice but because the weather here in Springfield was so bad. An incredible line of thunderstorms went through the area. They started as far south as Dallas and extended all the way up past St. Louis. It was around 64 this morning. Now it is in the 30s. A big change in the weather. There was thunder and lightening.

I was all packed up. We put everything in my dad's car and headed over to Ed and Jennifer's to say goodbye before heading to the airport. Around 10:30 I got a call on my cell phone. It was an automated message from American Airlines saying my flight had been cancelled. It said I was booked on a 7 am flight (again!!) from Springfield to St. Louis. I'd arrive around 8 am and have almost 4 hours to wait until the flight into DC. I'm hoping if things go as planned to be home around 3:30 tomorrow afternoon.

So I got an extra day out of it. We went and saw a movie this afternoon. We saw Marley and Me. It was pretty good. Ed and I thought it was a little too long. Tonight we are going to go out to dinner and look at some Christmas lights.

Hopefully all will be calm and bright tomorrow.

These are a few pictures of the sculptures at the Springfield art gallery. We went there yesterday afternoon. It has a very nice collection but you couldn't take any pictures inside.

It's COLD

I woke up this morning and it was a balmy 2 degrees above zero. I feel like I'm in Chicago instead of Springfield, MO. It is supposed to slowly moderate over the course of the week. By tomorrow things should be back to a more normal temperature.

I'm all confused as to what day of the week. Saturday seemed to last forever. Oh yeah that's right that's because it did last for forever. I got up at three and didn't get to sleep until after 11 eastern time. So yesterday, Sunday, seemed like Monday. But today is really Monday. This is making my head hurt.

Anyway . . . Had a very nice day yesterday, Sunday. My dad and I got up early and did a little shopping. I only brought three pairs of socks. I'd done a wash right before I started packing. So I was putting clothes away while I was packing. I counted out the necessary number of socks I would need for the trip and put them in a pile. I was doing other things as well to get ready to go. I had to go downstairs for something. When I came back up, I put the pile of socks that were supposed to be packed into a dresser drawer. Thankfully I did pack a couple of pairs of socks. My dasd and I tried a couple of places but no luck. They were a drug store and a super market. But more importantly we picked up the necessary ingredients for me to make chocolate chip cookies. We were unsure if my dad had any vanilla so we bought some. My dad now has enough vanilla to last until something into the next century. We got home and I made cookies.

After that we went to a local restaurant called Aunt Martha's. I had pancakes. They were great! Then it was an afternoon of football. At the half time of one of the games Ed and I dashed back to my dad's and got the cookies. Later in the evening we had a fantastic spaghetti dinner that Ed and Jennifer made. Then it was more football. It was a nice relaxing day after that very long travel day.

In a little while we are off to go gambling. Somehow this had become a new family tradition helping to support Native Americans by going gambling. This all started when we went on a trip out to Washington state and my dad and I stopped at a casino. We had a blast. So on most trips we stop by for a spin of the slot machine and see how we do. Our best win was when we went to West Virginia a couple of years ago.

After that Ed and I are going to a computer store. I'm trying to help him figure out the best way to upgrade his computer set up. I'm thinking he doesn't need a new computer just some ad ons to his current lap top. I think more memory and an external monitor. Also an external hard drive. Staples and Best Buy have a terabyte drive for like $129. You can't pass that up. I found one online that was even less. I have to decide if I want to wait until I got home to get one or buy it here.

Hopefully this afternoon the temperature will get into double digits. That's going to feel like a heat wave!!!!

Off to Springfield

3:00 am on Saturday morning came early. Of course 3 am on any day is early. That's when I was up. The Super Shuttle was scheduled to pick me up around 4:30. I could have slept a little more but I thought it would be better to be up early. The alarm went off. I was good I only hit the snooze button once. Sam gave me a dirty look as if to say what the hell are you doing up so early.

I got up and had breakfast. I did a few more things around the house. I went through and unplugged everything that didn't need to be plugged in. Then I waited for the Super Shuttle.

The shuttle arrived just before 4:30. I was the first person to be picked up. After I got all my luggage in, we were off. We went to pick someone up in North West DC. After getting this person, we did a curious thing. We drove back on the same road we took from my house to get the second person. We drove about 3/4 of the way back to my house. We then fetched person 3. And then what did we do, well we drove back on the same road back to the same neighborhood that person two was in. We must have wasted at least 15 minutes with this back and forth. I have to say I don't understand why there wasn't more logic applied to the order of picking people up. After all the guy had a GPS in the van.

Anyway got to the airport around 5:30 which was in plenty of time for my 7 am flight.

The flight to Dallas was completely full. Not much to report about. No problems. Watched some of the inflight movie Fred Claus. I listened to some music using my noise reducing head phones which are fantastic. I read some of the Washington Post. Got into Dallas on time. I had about 4 hours to kill.

Dallas is a big airport. There's s tram called the Skyway which is a tram that takes you from one terminal to another. I got something to eat and then just waited. There were all sorts of military guys at the airport. I learned later that they'd just finished basic training. This was the leave they had before getting their permanent assignments.

The flight to Springfield was completely full as well. No problems again. Always nice not to have any problems. It took a while for the luggage to show but what they hey.

Ed and my dad picked me up. We went and did some quick shopping for dinner. Then we headed over to Ed's where Jennifer was and talked for awhile. Over to my dad's house where I made dinner with help of course. Ended the rather long day watching some football.

I had a really good night sleep. This morning I woke up and it was 4 degrees out. Brrrr

In one other quick note this is post 1,000 to my blog!

Mini-ice storm

There was another ice storm in Springfield about two weeks ago.

Not nearly as bad as the one last year. You can go here to read about it and see pictures.

But it was enough to cause a mess as you can see from these pictures that my dad sent me.
































My dad is hoping the tree guy will come tomorrow and take care of this. He cut some of the limbs off today but left the rest.


















My dad had just upgrade to HD from DirecTV like a day or two before the storm hit. Here's what the two receivers on the top of his house looked like. For a solid day he had no picture on either TV set. Slowly as the ice thawed the picture returned. The last channels to come back were the local ones. He does really enjoy HD now.

Off to the Casino

Last Thursday my dad and I were up early. Then again we almost are always up early. Sleeping late means getting up around 7.

My dad had discovered another place to go gambling. It seems there are several casinos in Miami, Oklahoma. To say this place was out in the middle of no where would be an understatement.

We were off around 7:30. It took about two hours to get there. There was some fog on the drive down too. We got a little lost once we got off the interstate. A sign or two directing people where to go would have been helpful.

Buffalo Run, that's the place we went to, is essential a big Quonset hut. And while the town of Miami is out of the way Buffalo Run is really out of the way. It is a couple of miles from the town.

It is not as large as the other casinos that we've been to but it is still a good size. It has slot machines as well as black jack and other card games. There is even a video blackjack dealer that you can play against.

We played slots. This time there were no big winnings. In fact we probably lost about $50 a piece. There was one machine that we were on that no matter how things ended up we never lost any money. I think it was a dollar machine. We could bet one dollar or three dollars and we never lost any money. Our total always went back to $5. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if we had one once but that never happened.

We left right around 1 and got back to Springfield in a little over an hour and a half. It is amazing how much ground you can cover when the speed limit is 75 miles an hour.

A Jolt in the Journey

Last Wednesday I headed out for Springfield. I got up around 5:30 to make my 8:25 flight. I decided that I could take the subway instead of trying to get a cab. I’ve never been very lucky in getting a cab around my neighborhood that early in the morning.

I’d printed out my boarding passes. I was told by a couple people at work that this would make things easier when checking in. I have to say they really didn’t. Either that or I didn’t do something so it would be easier. American was mobbed with people both inside and out. I wasn’t sure what to do. There was also no one to ask. Finally I just checked in again. I got my boarding passes and indicated the number of bags I was checking. Very quickly my name was called and the luggage tag applied. I walked the bag around to be x-rayed. I dropped it off and then just stood around for awhile. I had plenty of time before my flight was to take off. I watched the progress my bag made in getting x-rayed. It took some time. Bag after bag was placed in front of it but finally it went on its way.

It was time to head for security and the gate. I’m online for security. I get up to the guy and then I get my big surprise. My license expired in June. They let me go but I had to be checked. I was patted down and they used the wand on me and they also tested my shoes, coat, and carry on for any residue. I was told I was fine and that I could go on.

Now how does one describe what I was feeling. How to describe how I was feeling once I got to Springfield. I will just say I had hmm well a little melt down. Ok it was a big melt down. My main concern was whether I could get back to DC. My thinking was that DC is a big airport and Springfield isn’t a big airport. So maybe just maybe they might not be so forgiving and say sorry you don’t get to fly.

My brother found a TSA worker and asked him a few questions. My dad and I waited for my luggage. The time waiting helped me to calm down. My brother and I went back to the TSA guy and asked a few more questions. He asked if I had my social security card with me. I said no and thought to myself you aren’t supposed to have your card in your wallet just in case the wallet is stolen. The TSA guy said they would do the same thing in Springfield as was done in DC.

I decided to have my friend who was cat sitting go over to my house and get my passport and send it to me FedEx. Unfortunately it took an extra day to get out to Springfield because last Friday the city was fogged in and the FedEx plane could not get in from Nashville. I also didn’t realize that a signature was not required so it wasn’t necessary for someone to be at my dad’s house to sign for it.

That was the unfun excitement on trip.

Oh yes and the upshot on the license. Since its been expired for over six months, I have to take a written and driving test to get it back. I’ll start the process next week. I’d thought there was a DMV office right downtown essentially on the way to work but that’s not the case so now getting there will be a little more complicated. I’ve downloaded a rules to the road book but I want to see if there are a sample questions you can look at.

More clean up pictures

Here are some pictures of the cleanup going around my brother and sister-in-law's house. There is still more to do. My dad said that he talked to one of the tree guys. The tree guy says that some people are just letting the limbs hang from the trees. One can only wonder the additional damage that will be done from these limbs when a spring thunder storm comes along.

Pictures from the cleanup

Here are pictures of the cleanup that my dad and brother did at my dad's place. It still sounds like there is a great deal of work still to be done.








This was just damage from an ice storm. So the cleanup consisted of tree limbs. I can only imagine the amount of stuff that had/has to be cleaned up from Katrina.

Pictures from the storm

Here are a few pictures that my brother sent me that shows some of the damage caused by the ice storm. The first one says it all.