Baseball Goes On

The Busch Stadium and Ballpark Village area has been a ghost town as while there are games being played, no fans are allowed to attend.

This poor guy was watching through the fence. He got his snacks at a reasonable price, at least.

The stands were full of cardboard cut outs.

I bought a Nintendo Switch as something to entertain myself until the end of the world. I haven't played an Animal Crossing title in some time, so I was excited to see what was new.

A Stroll About Town

Roof, roof!

After the mask shortage it became fashionable for handy people to make their own. Lydia's stepmom made us a couple and we modeled them around the city. Mine's got like a little smile so that people know how friendly I am.

People are clearly getting pretty desperate for social interaction.

"In 1891 the Wainwright Building was constructed for St. Louis businessman Ellis Wainwright. It was designed by Louis H. Sullivan, a Chicago architect.

The Wainwright Building is the father of the contemporary skyscraper. Sullivan's design emphasized open, spacious interiors. Sullivan combined a load-bearing steel framework with architectural details taken from earlier load-bearing masonry structures. His large windows flooded the Wainwright Building with natural light. The airy construction allowed by the steel framework was a radical departure from the heavy concrete buildings of the time.

The Wainwright Building became a turning point in architectural history. It is now regarded as the pioneer of contemporary building design."

One Cardinal Way, the apartment building connected to Ballpark Village looks like it is about finished. I was annoyed because they were giving "hard hat tours" of the place while we were in Kenya and now it's too risky... so I may never get to see the inside of the place now!

Lydia demanded that we rewatch my favorite movie ever: The Matrix. She enjoyed that so much that she then insisted that we watch the rest of the trilogy and then the Animatrix too!

My work commute took almost two hours a day, so now that I work from home I have more time for things like leisurely bubble baths. You know, man stuff.

An Escape to the Drive-In

The coronavirus has cut me off from my family and friends, which is a bummer. What's kind of funny though is that with Zoom meetings, I end up seeing some out-of-town family more than I ever did before. 

I often up on a several politician's mailing lists during election years and I don't unsubscribe because I like to see what sort of things that are saying directly to their supporters. 

We walked over to Ballpark Village and admired the giant Commissioner's Trophy that lives over there now.

Another nice thing about the end of the world is that I spend a lot more time outdoors than I ever did prior, and so I feel much more connected to nature and aware of what it's up to.

A nearby gym is included in our rent. That gym is closed. I asked our landlord if that meant our rent would go down in the meantime. He said no.

I've always thought drive-in movie theaters were cool. I like movies, I like retro technology, and I like sneaking an actual trunk load of snacks into movies. Well modern movie theaters are closed along with everything else, so suddenly my drive-in interest has fully blossomed.

To give you an idea of how bored everyone is in the current climate, the trip from our place to the Starlite Drive-In near Potosi, Missouri is about 1.5 hours one way. We invited our friends Viry and Lolo to join and they readily agreed. And of course they had to drive in a separate car so that we didn't cough on eachother.

It was a double feature as drive-in movies always seem to be. I don't know if it was due to scheduling or because the first movie was some Jesus crap, but we only watched the second film which was The Way Back. It was not the typical movie that I would pay to go see but as I mentioned I don't get out much these days and at this point I would have paid to watch paint dry. I was surprised to really enjoy it. 
Ben Affleck played a guy who went back to his Catholic high school to coach their basketball team. So not only was it a decent movie but it brought back a lot of memories of my own high school sports experiences.

2020 STL Women's March

We started off our day attending the 2020 STL Women's March. One nice thing about living downtown is that all of the political marches happen there so it's really convenient to walk over and raise a ruckus.

Some shots of me marching like a real American hero made it onto the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's website.

After the march we popped into the Old Courthouse across the street. It is part of the Gateway Arch National Park and has a lot of good history. When it was completed in 1864 it was the tallest building in Missouri. Slave auctions took place here as well as the Dred Scott case, where Scott sued for his freedom because he had been transported from Missouri to Illinois, which was a free state. Scott lost here and lost again in the US Supreme Court, which ruled that the Constitution didn't grant citizenship to black people regardless of whether they were enslaved or free. The ruling went on to also strike down the entire Missouri Compromise.

Another bit of history that I thought was interesting was that the land that the courthouse sits on was donated under the terms that it was to be "used forever as the site on which the courthouse of the County of St. Louis should be erected." Well when the city left the county the courthouse ceased to be located in the county. So the descendants of the donors sued to have the land returned to them. 

There was some very archy Fitz's root beer in the gift shop.

Lydia was real scared of looking over the railing on the upper floors.

All of that history made us thirsty so we went on a beer sipping war path starting with Bailey's Range.

Played a little Oregon Trail card game at 2nd Shift.

Later in the night we headed to Ballpark Village to watch a sneak peek of Birds of a Different Game, a documentary about the 1980s St. Louis Cardinals.

Afterwards there was a live event thing "hosted by MLB Network's Fran Charles" that featured "a Q&A with Hall of Famers Whitey Herzog and Ozzie Smith and 80's fan favorites Tommy Herr and John Tudor".

The mechanical bull at PBR had seen better days. Sad.

We had some dinner at Drunken Fish and then went home. Busy night!