St. Louis Gallavanting

Ernie doesn't get up into the big boy bed very often so this was an event.

Viry and Lolo brought Emelia over to the apartment to meet Ernie.

Later on I met up with Seago and Hank at the Golden Hoosier to tell tales and curse our enemies.

One of my favorite parts of coming to St. Louis is how cheap everything is. I couldn't resist the mini beer cooler full of Busch for $15. What a deal.

Hank got scared and went home so we headed to Up Down to play some classics. We had apparently wandered in on Barbie night so there were some interesting costumes and other strange pink occurences.

City Museum then Up Down

For this second chunk of time in St. Louis I got a room at the Drury Inn & Suites Brentwood. 

It was a fine hotel but something kind of funny and notable was they had this weird happy hour free buffet thing. They also gave me some free drink tickets. It was like the dinner version of the free hotel breakfast.

I mentioned recently when I went to a Cardinals game that Molina and Wainwright are retiring soon and so go their very own Budweiser can. Lydia was jealous of my beer can collection and destroyed it, so I don't have a good home for these. She's a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

Seago and I volunteer at Strange Loop every year in exchange for free passes. I like to volunteer for the opening day party thing at City Museum and give guests their credentials. It's a fun way to do a shift and it doesn't conflict with any of the seminars.

I remember when I first started coming to this conference I didn't yet have a software job and so was incredibly intimidated by the other people at the conference. I didn't like talking to the booth workers in particular because they would ask about my job and then I'd have to reveal I was a bum. Now my badge says "Microsoft" on it and I feel like I've accomplished a lot.

After the shift we checked out Up Down in the Central West End.

I was forced to show Seago why people fear me on the Nintendo 64.

It's embarrassingly satisfying to complete an arcade game. When I was a kid I would only get a few quarters so I played the first bits of every game. Now I have infinity quarters so I can actually see how the games from my childhood end. I used to play the crap out of this X-Men game. These were fun because there are four player spots so a random person could hop in at any time to give you reinforcements.

I like this place a lot. There's always fun retro pop culture on the walls and playing on the tv sets.

Fringe Vaccine Benefits

Spending a lot of time doing the usual constant reading about death rates and vaccine minutiae. I wonder what these new magical mRNA vaccines may help us with in the future. If they could cure cancer that would be cool so that I can die the way I deserve: milkshake overdose.

Our apartment managers are doing their part by... putting up a poster a year into the pandemic about washing your hands. Great work.

Lydia breaking the internet.

I'm amused by the deals available to people with a vaccine card and I fully intend to abuse all of them to the greatest extent possible.

For today's trick we showed up at one of my favorite arcade bars and picked up a cup of free game tokens. I didn't want to actually use them as I still don't really trust indoor spaces, so we took the money and ran.

I'm rich!

A Very Geeky Gala

My code bootcamp alma mater LaunchCode had a little fundraising event that I invited Seago to in order to thank him for his service.

I chatted with Square and Launchcode founder Jim McKelvey. We both figured out what to do with our hands during a photo.

There was bottomless food trucks and booze.

There were ego stroking snacks.

There were romantic photo booths.

I got to wear a cool badge.

Later on at arcade bar Up Down we accomplished something I will treasure more than my bachelor's degree: completing the arcade version of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker.

I'm realizing that my mom being stingy with the quarters was the only thing holding me back from greatness as a youth.