Wining

My husband and I were excited about a new wine store which opened near our house as we are always on the lookout for something different. You can do tastings, and all the wines are relatively inexpensive. We finally had time to go try it out on Saturday. When we entered the store, which is in a rehabbed warehouse - very nicely done, I might add - we saw one customer and two employees. We browsed a little, and the female employee finally came over and offered us a sample. A second customer came in, and she left us to go help him. The male employee eventually wandered over to see if we wanted a second sample, then he left us to go help the guy who came in after us. So, we waited for someone to explain how the store works to us, since we were newbies. No one ever did. In fact, a couple that came in after us got waited on the by female employee, and the male employee never approached us again. That will be my one and only visit to that business, and that might explain their lack of customers on a pretty Saturday afternoon.

Greetings from the Garden

Yesterday was beautiful in St. Louis - especially for this late in July. My daughter and I went to the Missouri Botanical Garden in the afternoon to see the new exhibit, "Niki." At 17 and a year from going off to college, I treasure the time we can spend together one on one. Katie is interested in photography and got a new digital SLR camera for her birthday. She is taking a photography class and needs to bring in photos for the next class. The Garden provided ample opportunities to take some shots. As we were walking along, I was thinking what's wrong with this picture? The mom has an old digital camera and the teenager has the expensive DSLR. Hmmmm... Well, here are a few of my shots, and they aren't too bad if I do say so myself!

American Idolize

Julie and I went to the American Idol Live Tour last Friday. It was amazing! We had followed the competition throughout the season, and it was awesome to see the final 10 live in concert. All of the performers did a great job, but I mostly wanted to see the two Davids. The crowd was loud and screaming (high pitched teeney-bopper screams) when Archie came out, and he did not let us down. His voice is simply exceptional. But when Cook came out, he brought the house down. Talk about thunderous applause! He really knows how to play to the crowd. It was fun to have one on one time with my niece since we usually have a bunch of relatives around. And this concert was the perfect place to hang out together!

What's Wrong with Americans?

The local free paper has a section called "Sound Off", where readers can vent anonymously about things that bug them. In the most recent issue, a parent wrote in one which was entitled "Unfair to car drivers." His (or maybe her) 17 year old driver was following a truck, both of them traveling 36 miles per hour in a 30 miles per hour zone. Now this person's beef was that the girl was pulled over by a motorcycle cop and ticketed while the truck driver was not. When she asked him why, he replied that he could not pull trucks over on his motorcycle. So this parent said that it seems a young girl was a much easier ticket than a truck, and ended the rant by saying "Shame on him." Where is this parent's outrage that his or her child was going six miles over the speed limit? Again this is a perfect example of trying to shift the blame to someone else instead of accepting responsibility for individual actions. To this parent and child, I would say "Shame on you!"

Model for a Day

We had Katie's senior pictures taken on Tuesday. Our friend Jim Diaz is a photographer who is looking to get into the senior portrait market, so Katie is his test model. We left our house at 7:10 in the morning to drive out to a horse farm in Wentzville. There we were met by Jim and his assistant, Mel, as well as a hair and makeup artist. Talk about every teenage girl's dream! Katie had several changes of clothes along, and her hair and makeup changed along with the scenery. Shots were taken in the barn and the hayloft, with one of the horses in front of a pond and ended up with some photos taken in a bed of wildflowers. Shortly after noon we headed back to the city to grab some lunch, then spent the rest of the afternoon in Jim's studio, which is located in an old firehouse in Lafayette Square. Here he took the more traditional senior portrait shots, and a few of Katie with her own camera as photography is a hobby of hers. We got back home around 5:15, and we have a whole new respect for the models and photographers who do photo shoots day in and day out. Now we can't wait to see the proofs!

Cordelia's Baptism

My great-niece, Cordelia, made the decision to be baptized. She is six years old, and at their church the individuals decide when they are ready for baptism. The service was very nice and I especially enjoyed the musicians, among whom was my niece Julie who sings and plays the guitar. Cordy is her daughter. Unlike a Catholic baptism, this church does the full body submersion. Way to go, Cordy!

My Computer is Back

My computer came out of its coma and has been removed from the infectious diseases ward. It seems to be running fine, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all viruses have been removed from it. In the meantime, I'm busy backing up my important documents to my external hard drive in case the computer comes out of remission!

Computer Crashers

This is day seven without my main computer. It got a virus while I was surfing the net looking at colleges for my daughter, despite my subscription based anti-virus program. Numerous attempts to clean up the hard drive utilizing various virus scan programs have failed. My computer guy is trying one last attempt to repair the system before we end up trashing it - literally. Besides the fact that I have not been able to attend to our business during that time period, a clean sweep means re-installing all my software. Or at least the software that I can find around here still. Let alone the operating system and Office, we are talking Quick Books, Quicken, genealogy, machine embroidery design, Photo Shop, and all the miscellaneous software for the cameras, camcorders, scanners, printers, networking - well, you get the picture. This is going to be a huge ordeal if the repair is unsuccessful. And so, to the little creep who thought it was entertaining to create this virus, I hope someone passes something along to his or her computer so that maybe it can be seen that this is so NOT funny!

Kirby's First Boat Ride

Jim and I took Kirby to see the new lake house that Jim's partner, Ted just purchased for his family. A mutual friend also owns a house at this lake, and he came over with his boat to give us a ride. Kirby is a little skittish at times, and I was sure he wouldn't get in the boat. But here he is, and he sure enjoyed the wind in his face!

A Word to the Whys

Why should you always back up the important stuff on your computer? Because you neve know when you might have a computer crash. My main computer has a huge issue. It starts up and lets me sign in, goes to my desktop and after about 5 seconds tells me it is saving my settings and then shuts itself down. I think I picked up a virus (despite a subscription based virus protector) while I was looking at college websites for my daughter. My computer guy took it away Wednesday, and every time he runs virus scans on it the computer freezes about half way through the process. This does not sound good. As it is the computer I use for our business, it is really a problem not to have it here. Fortunately I at least have my laptop so I can access email and take care of my blogs. I just wish I would have backed up the latest version of my book on my laptop so I could work on it. Since I can't do my job, I could be working on the book guilt-free.

We're on the Map!

I'm helping a friend with her political campaign, and she offered me a map published by the Webster Groves & Shrewsbury Chamber of Commerce to assist me in delivering post cards. Imagine my surprise when I saw our house on the cover of the map! I didn't even know such a map existed, much less that it had our house on it. Of course, I think our house should have been the big photo on the cover, and not the one that looks like it belongs in Germany. (Ours is in the lower right hand corner.) But it is still very cool to have our house pictured at all in light of all the beautiful houses in Webster Groves.