Missouri Persimmons

At work today I was treated to one of the worst presentations ever assembled.

This was how to add your picture to your Linkedin page.

From now on every presentation slide I create will begin with "obviously".

Everyone being at home all the time due to covid is creating shortages in very strange products. Products such as 12 foot tall $300 skeleton lawn ornaments.

We hit Sandy Creek Covered Bridge State Historic Site. Anytime you go to a covered bridge in Missouri you're contractually obligated to mention that there are only four remaining covered bridges in Missouri.

I was still riding high on my recent pawpaw foraging victory, but one must not rest on one's fruity laurels. So I did some research on what other things I could eat for free. Turns out Missouri has wild persimmons. The very next park I went to had them on the ground! I'm on a fruit roll up!

These were on an actual tree that I couldn't cartoonishly shake to get fruit to fall down like last time, so I was reduced to gathering the few that I found on the ground.

The bridge was built in 1872, destroyed by flooding, then rebuilt in 1886.

They were nice but you can tell they are not domesticated because the fruit was small and the seeds were huge.

Arch Walk

Did some very important training modules at work.

This only serves to increase my lust for Missouri state park superiority. Long story short it you camp five nights at state parks in a year you can send in proof and get an amazing prize. Challenge accepted.

Still drinking down the beers I borrowed from Anheuser-Busch. They sure are generous.

A big perk of living downtown is that we can walk to the arch whenever we wish.

Prior to 2018 this place had the awful name of Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. When it became a national park, somehow without me noticing, in 2018 it got the more sensical name of Gateway Arch National Park.

I got a new St. Louisy phone wallpaper that I'm digging.

Another Day at PillarRx

The view through my office window at PillarRx in O'Fallon is nice because it's very scenic and natural.

This particular day it snowed just enough that the sun melted it all quickly enough that it was like watching the seasons move in fast-forward.

My boss was in town from Milwaukee so a few of us went to eat at Ethyl's Smokehouse & Saloon after work.

I was amused by challenging people to exercise competitions on my handy dandy new Apple Watch and dominating them.

Fury Road

My new job is out in O'Fallon, Missouri, which is a bit of a jog from downtown St. Louis. It can get a little Mad Max out there on the highway.

One Week in the Bag

I finished my first week of school without a single injury! Huzzah!

It wasn't a week without happenings though. My first problem was that I couldn't get my bike lock to unlock. I was eventually able to borrow another bike, but it didn't have a light on it. Riding your bike at night without a light is illegal in Japan. Its one of those offenses that no one cares about unless you are a foreigner, in which case you get pulled over and possibly a ticket. It didn't have a nice little basket for me to put groceries and whatnot in either, so it was kind of a pain. One of the teachers that lives near my house volunteered to help me with it, which was really awesome. He just pried the whole lock thing off with a pair of pliers... and now Im free! Happy time.


My next little dilema was furniture. This place is a decent size and lacked furniture except for bedroom stuff. There was not a single chair in the whole apartment. I was in need of at least a kitchen table and maybe a couch to fill out the room with the tv. Luck had it that a previous english teacher had left some furniture at the school. All I had to do was to mention it once, and everyone pitched in to load the stuff into a truck and drive it over to my place... all during time that I was supposed to be working... glorious. So I am now the proud owner of a kitchen table and chairs, and a new wardrobe thing. Now all I need is a couch and I will have the hottest pad this side of Tokyo Disneyland.


One day last week, I was given a good size stack of papers that the students have written in English, and I was told to correct them. Fine, I can do that. Then I took one look at the first one and realized the huge undertaking that it is going to become. Many of them are powerful bad. One of my favorite gems of a sentence is "That it can be it as for the first to be able to do it someday if I do not give up till the last." Its the sort of thing that you have to read a couple of times just to comprehend how awful it is. How do you "correct" this sentence other than just punching its writer in the face with a red pen?

The teacher's desks



There are several children's propaganda posters in the hallways. This is one of my favorites.

My latest complaint/observation about Japan. This particular ATM(!) is open from 8:45am-7:00pm. To add to this insult, I believe that my bank's ATMs are closed on weekends. How can you take such a beautiful idea and then execute it so terribly wrong? The whole point of ATMs is that they aren't supposed to close. They are supposed to be (gasp) CONVENIENT!

Here they don't mind making humans work amazingly long hours, but mindless cash dispensing machines? They have to rest!

I had a fairly eventful weekend as well, I'll write a bit about that shortly.

Wisconsin is Cold

Now I'm on my first business trip, upgrading a server at a Peterbilt dealership in Pewaukee, WI. Since everyone was headed north from Carlinville anyway, they just picked me up at my house in Springfield, which was awesome because I got to sleep a couple more hours. So in case anyone was wondering, it is in fact pretty freakin cold in Wisconsin. I haven't had much free time so far, but I think theres still a good chance I'll have time today or tomorrow to do something fun. I'm staying at a Holiday Inn on the company's dime, and all of my meals are covered. Other than that, though, working on the weekend after working all week is even a little less fun that it sounds.

Goin' to Wisconsin

Pretty much just boring work stuff has been happening during the last week, so I haven't had a whole lot to write about. Two coworkers and I are driving up to Wisconsin to do an upgrade of a company's servers this weekend. So, that's exciting. This will be my first trip where we actually do something, so I'm hoping I get to learn some cool stuff. I'll be out of town from this Friday till Tuesday or so depending on how things go. My friend Sam's birthday party extravaganza is going to be this weekend, so I am totally going to miss out on all of that. That's kind of a bummer, but there's not too much that I can do about it. On the upside, I have a couple of friends from school that I haven't seen in a while that live near where this job is, so hopefully I will have some free time to hang out with them. So, I will actually have something to write about tomorrow. Until then.

New Atari

So I stopped by my favorite auction house on the way back from work yesterday. I figured that the fairly heavy rain might deter some people, and that maybe there would be more space to move around and maybe some better deals. I was wrong, the regulars at this place are pretty hardcore. Most of the people there will hang out for hours, regardless of whether or not theres anything around that they want. Its like TV for country people I guess. This time a couple friends stopped by to see their first auction. I think that they were entertained, probably as much by the crazy people there as by the cool stuff. I ended up getting a nice Atari 2600 with several games for cheap. I was pretty excited about it. I ended up getting it to run after messing with it a bit.

Today our department had a little Christmas party at one of the office lady's houses. It was nice to see everyone in a more casual setting. Ive only been at work for two weeks now, and I feel like I am fitting in pretty well and getting along with my coworkers. Which reminds me, the atmosphere at the office is a lot more casual than you might expect. Everyone pretty much wears jeans to work everyday, and I don't think Ive seen anyone wear a tie so far. I hear everyone wears shorts in the summer. Definitely my kind of place.

Ive talked to a couple of people about the Jesus Camp preview on my last entry, and they were all as afraid of it as I am. This clip is a compilation of some of the really crazy stuff a little girl says in the movie. One of my favorite parts of the whole movie is when this little girl prays over her bowling ball to make a strike. Compelling. Enjoy.