Everyone knows I am a stickler for proper spelling and grammar. As bad as the English language is, once you've learned it, it's not that hard to get right. Here are some words that trip a lot of people up (even though the little red squiggly line under a word means you spelled it wrong):
vacuum
definitely
separate
desperate
license
accommodate
tomorrow
grateful
February
Wednesday
-ist instead of -est for superlatives
...and anything with i before e except after c...
Here are some that are often used in the wrong context, or also just spelled incorrectly (know the difference!):
your, you're
too, to, two
there, they're, their
affect/effect
accept/except
Feel free to add more in the comments.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
The Bauer of Love
This past weekend one of my closest friends got married. Ray Bauer wed his girlfriend of several years in a lovely ceremony at Queen of All Saints in Oakville. If you don't know Ray, he worked with me for many years at Frankie G's, is now a Physical Therapist, plays drums in the band Glorious Blue, and was the guy in my wedding with the long curly hair. For his wedding, I acted as the Best Man.
The whole series of events surrounding this wedding were spectacular. Since I was the best man, I received the fortunate pleasure of organizing the Bachelor Party! When I got married in '08 we all decided it would be awesome to go to Las Vegas. After short deliberation over deciding between a few different destinations, Ray too ultimately chose Vegas. We went at the end of July and had a blast - there were about 10 of us, including 6 of the 8 groomsman and of course the bachelor. Needless to say we tore that town a new one and were able to one-up my party by not repeating some of the same mistakes, as well as trying out a few new things.
This past weekend was basically a 3-day series of events culminating into the big "I do" and ensuing reception on Saturday. My trip into St. Louis started on Thursday morning so I could get in, grab my tux, and make it to the early evening rehearsal at the church. This was followed by a lovely dinner party at Sage in Soulard... the Filet was delicious! Also a nice surprise, was since Dave and Kathy (parents of the groom) were hosting this dinner, they provided custom made coasters with our pets' pictures on them that we could take as party favors! It was very cool and a good way to start off the festivities. I also received custom cuff links and a sleeve of Titleist Pro-V1 golf balls as my groomsman's gift.
Since Friday was an "off" day the boys took the afternoon to hit the links. We played an 18-hole best ball tournament at the Acorns in Waterloo, IL. This was great because it was like a second bachelor party for the people who weren't able to make it out to Vegas. There are also a lot of people who played that I am friends with and haven't gotten to see in a while, so it was good to get out and swing the clubs with them all. Afterward we hit the Sports Pub in Oakville for drinks and more fried chicken than you would ever want to see.
Saturday was the big day, so it followed the traditional course. Aside from the handing off of the bride by her father, and the exchanging of rings and vows, and the big kiss, I would have to say the highlight of the ceremony was when I adjusted the back of Ray's tux to make sure it was in ship-shape, imitating the tidying the Matron of Honor was performing on the bride's dress. The wedding party followed up the ceremony with a bus ride out to the park for pictures. This trip was not without incident as one of the groomsman proceeded to choke on his sandwich and Ray had to administer the Heimlich Maneuver to dislodge it... in his defense, this was a result of a medical condition and not necessarily his own negligence. After his life was preserved and everything back on track, we drove around to two different photography locations before settling on the third - Concordia Seminary - which actually turned out nicely because of the Gothic Architecture and nature in the background. We then made our way to the reception, all singing karaoke style to the jams Ray had put together in the CD player.
The reception was held at Crowne Plaza in Clayton, MO. This was convenient because they have a very nice hotel attached to the ballroom... or vice versa. Again, standard operating procedure except for the maybe 300+ guests and the groom's band breaking into the DJs set with their own performance... oh yeah, and the bride supplying a cart full of Dunkin Donuts as a surprise for the groom, who coincidentally loves doughnuts! The dinner was fantastic and the booze was flowing. The music selection was awesome too. I had to give a speech and thought I would rock and roll through it, but I may have been a bit upstaged by the speeches of the Father of the Bride and the Matron of Honor who both knocked theirs out of the proverbial park.... meh, at least mine was the last one that was delivered. It was long, I cracked jokes, and I got a little choked up, so it had all the makings of a good Best Man's toast, I suppose. Oddly enough the after party was held in Ray's parents hotel room with the bride's parents and a few other people - none of whom were the bride or groom...
That was pretty much it for the festivities. Kristen and I were lucky enough while in town to have drinks and brunch (on 2 separate occasions) with friends of her's from grad school, and also to help my little nephew celebrate his 7th birthday, which is shared with my 29th (blog post pending on that topic)...
The whole series of events surrounding this wedding were spectacular. Since I was the best man, I received the fortunate pleasure of organizing the Bachelor Party! When I got married in '08 we all decided it would be awesome to go to Las Vegas. After short deliberation over deciding between a few different destinations, Ray too ultimately chose Vegas. We went at the end of July and had a blast - there were about 10 of us, including 6 of the 8 groomsman and of course the bachelor. Needless to say we tore that town a new one and were able to one-up my party by not repeating some of the same mistakes, as well as trying out a few new things.
This past weekend was basically a 3-day series of events culminating into the big "I do" and ensuing reception on Saturday. My trip into St. Louis started on Thursday morning so I could get in, grab my tux, and make it to the early evening rehearsal at the church. This was followed by a lovely dinner party at Sage in Soulard... the Filet was delicious! Also a nice surprise, was since Dave and Kathy (parents of the groom) were hosting this dinner, they provided custom made coasters with our pets' pictures on them that we could take as party favors! It was very cool and a good way to start off the festivities. I also received custom cuff links and a sleeve of Titleist Pro-V1 golf balls as my groomsman's gift.
Since Friday was an "off" day the boys took the afternoon to hit the links. We played an 18-hole best ball tournament at the Acorns in Waterloo, IL. This was great because it was like a second bachelor party for the people who weren't able to make it out to Vegas. There are also a lot of people who played that I am friends with and haven't gotten to see in a while, so it was good to get out and swing the clubs with them all. Afterward we hit the Sports Pub in Oakville for drinks and more fried chicken than you would ever want to see.
Saturday was the big day, so it followed the traditional course. Aside from the handing off of the bride by her father, and the exchanging of rings and vows, and the big kiss, I would have to say the highlight of the ceremony was when I adjusted the back of Ray's tux to make sure it was in ship-shape, imitating the tidying the Matron of Honor was performing on the bride's dress. The wedding party followed up the ceremony with a bus ride out to the park for pictures. This trip was not without incident as one of the groomsman proceeded to choke on his sandwich and Ray had to administer the Heimlich Maneuver to dislodge it... in his defense, this was a result of a medical condition and not necessarily his own negligence. After his life was preserved and everything back on track, we drove around to two different photography locations before settling on the third - Concordia Seminary - which actually turned out nicely because of the Gothic Architecture and nature in the background. We then made our way to the reception, all singing karaoke style to the jams Ray had put together in the CD player.
The reception was held at Crowne Plaza in Clayton, MO. This was convenient because they have a very nice hotel attached to the ballroom... or vice versa. Again, standard operating procedure except for the maybe 300+ guests and the groom's band breaking into the DJs set with their own performance... oh yeah, and the bride supplying a cart full of Dunkin Donuts as a surprise for the groom, who coincidentally loves doughnuts! The dinner was fantastic and the booze was flowing. The music selection was awesome too. I had to give a speech and thought I would rock and roll through it, but I may have been a bit upstaged by the speeches of the Father of the Bride and the Matron of Honor who both knocked theirs out of the proverbial park.... meh, at least mine was the last one that was delivered. It was long, I cracked jokes, and I got a little choked up, so it had all the makings of a good Best Man's toast, I suppose. Oddly enough the after party was held in Ray's parents hotel room with the bride's parents and a few other people - none of whom were the bride or groom...
That was pretty much it for the festivities. Kristen and I were lucky enough while in town to have drinks and brunch (on 2 separate occasions) with friends of her's from grad school, and also to help my little nephew celebrate his 7th birthday, which is shared with my 29th (blog post pending on that topic)...
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
CityGarden
The format of this blog will be a review combined with my traditional style of post: my rambling stories or opining of the goings on inside sports, or whatever else I write about.
This past weekend I was in StL for my mom's surprise 50th birthday party - which was on Friday evening. With that, Kristen and I made plans with some old friends - two of whom just had a baby - to get together and hang out on Saturday evening. So that left our Saturday morning/afternoon pretty much open. We decided to use this time to visit with our niece and nephew while at the same time alleviating my sister and brother-in-law of their parental duties for a few hours. Bella had a dance class in the morning, which we weren't able (allowed?) to attend, so we made a plan to take them out afterward and see something cool within their hometown.
After much deliberation, I decided I wanted to take them to CityGarden... even if maybe to satisfy my own curiosity about the newly developed public area in the "Gateway Mall" corridor of Downtown St. Louis. I wanted to check it out and I knew it was kid-friendly if not kid-oriented. We picked them up and got down there with no expectations and little knowledge of what there was to do. We quickly found entertainment in the form of an interactive sculpture - a large, hollowed-out, bronze head that the kids (and smaller adults) can climb into and hear the echos of their little voices. This sculpture sits atop a tilted platform that has a thin sheet of water cascading down it in front of the head. This took Nathan a good few minutes before he got bored with it and we moved on to the next attraction.
Alas... the wading pool! My mom has a pool in her backyard and these rugrats love going swimming in there. That love affair spared no exception at this urban park. No sooner did Nathan see the other kids splashing around than he was shirtless in the 2 feet of water swimming around and putting his head under... at one point he even showed me how he could walk across the bottom on his hands. Bella enjoyed this "station" on the self-guided tour as well. It was perfect depth for her... no floaties! There was a small waterfall and some rocks at one end. We had fun (yes, we, I joined in too!) jumping from rock to rock. I was about to get a picture of Nathan under the waterfall with the water splashing all over his head when we were kindly asked by someone wearing a CityGarden polo not to cross the rock area and under the waterfall as this was a rules violation... we complied. I was impressed that there was someone, maybe if not a lifeguard, but someone guarding the safety of the wading pool participants.
The kids weren't bored with the wading pool, but I wanted to keep going and have them experience the entire 2-block park. So on we went to the "dancing water" fountain where the kids continued to get wet. This time though the water source was not a stagnant (albeit chlorinated) pool, but a series of jets spitting water up from the walking surface. They loved running through the "forest" getting splashed by "trees" of water and when the jets alternated off and on in a musical chorus of squirts, they enjoyed timing being underneath one jet just as it shot out the water. This was a neat station, but as soon as Nathan discovered the smaller wading pool in this area, we needed to divert his attention once again, to maintain stimulation.
We made a quick stop at an LED screen with a camera attached, shooting video of the park. this attraction acted as sort of a reverse mirror where you could see your movements for the camera projected onto the screen. The screen was facing south (with intense sun exposure and glare) and the LED bulbs made the picture kind of difficult to see, so we didn't last long at this station. Also, the fact that the kids saw the ice cream truck and wanted a treat didn't help this thing's popularity. So we chilled for a minute and had our "Serendipity" ice cream that we bought out of an old fire truck.... kitschy, yet ironic.
We finished up the snack and washed off in the two water features on our way back out of the park. Before we left we stopped off at another somewhat interactive sculpture. It was a series of bent steel beams standing on end, in the shape of large horseshoes standing up. The kids could climb on these and slide down the arc, representing a simple, fun "jungle gym" type attraction.
That was pretty much it. We had seen most of the sculptures, swam, played, ate ice cream, and it was all FREE (except the ice cream). There was a cafe there that we did not stop at or enter. I suppose they sold lunch (which the kids and we already had) and coffee and drinks - none of which we needed to indulge in - so we bypassed it... perhaps another time. The architecture of the building was stunning, however.
I said this would be a review, so allow me to give a blanketed critique, aside from the commentary above.... Obviously, for "free" things to do in St. Louis, the Zoo is the top pick. But that can get kind of old if you've gone enough, and I know we've gone once already this year with the kids, so we wanted to change it up. Being free wasn't necessary, but it's an interesting sociological experiment to find the gems. So the sculpture was nice and eye-pleasing for the adults, along with the native plantings and overall ambiance stimulating all the 5 senses. The kids obviously had plenty of things to occupy their attention with the multiple water features - kids love getting wet in the summer time - and the interactivity of most of the sculptures. All in all I would say this place is a huge step forward for the advancement of non-sports related activities in downtown St. Louis. I will always insist that this site should have been buildings and the garden built either on the Arch grounds or in the grassy patch just west of Tucker in front of the Kiel Opera House, BUT for what they've done - whether the siting location was political or not - they did a fantastic job with this urban oasis... and I'd love to go back again (which is the whole point), probably in the evening when the lights are on!
See for yourself: www.citygardenstl.org
This past weekend I was in StL for my mom's surprise 50th birthday party - which was on Friday evening. With that, Kristen and I made plans with some old friends - two of whom just had a baby - to get together and hang out on Saturday evening. So that left our Saturday morning/afternoon pretty much open. We decided to use this time to visit with our niece and nephew while at the same time alleviating my sister and brother-in-law of their parental duties for a few hours. Bella had a dance class in the morning, which we weren't able (allowed?) to attend, so we made a plan to take them out afterward and see something cool within their hometown.
After much deliberation, I decided I wanted to take them to CityGarden... even if maybe to satisfy my own curiosity about the newly developed public area in the "Gateway Mall" corridor of Downtown St. Louis. I wanted to check it out and I knew it was kid-friendly if not kid-oriented. We picked them up and got down there with no expectations and little knowledge of what there was to do. We quickly found entertainment in the form of an interactive sculpture - a large, hollowed-out, bronze head that the kids (and smaller adults) can climb into and hear the echos of their little voices. This sculpture sits atop a tilted platform that has a thin sheet of water cascading down it in front of the head. This took Nathan a good few minutes before he got bored with it and we moved on to the next attraction.
Alas... the wading pool! My mom has a pool in her backyard and these rugrats love going swimming in there. That love affair spared no exception at this urban park. No sooner did Nathan see the other kids splashing around than he was shirtless in the 2 feet of water swimming around and putting his head under... at one point he even showed me how he could walk across the bottom on his hands. Bella enjoyed this "station" on the self-guided tour as well. It was perfect depth for her... no floaties! There was a small waterfall and some rocks at one end. We had fun (yes, we, I joined in too!) jumping from rock to rock. I was about to get a picture of Nathan under the waterfall with the water splashing all over his head when we were kindly asked by someone wearing a CityGarden polo not to cross the rock area and under the waterfall as this was a rules violation... we complied. I was impressed that there was someone, maybe if not a lifeguard, but someone guarding the safety of the wading pool participants.
The kids weren't bored with the wading pool, but I wanted to keep going and have them experience the entire 2-block park. So on we went to the "dancing water" fountain where the kids continued to get wet. This time though the water source was not a stagnant (albeit chlorinated) pool, but a series of jets spitting water up from the walking surface. They loved running through the "forest" getting splashed by "trees" of water and when the jets alternated off and on in a musical chorus of squirts, they enjoyed timing being underneath one jet just as it shot out the water. This was a neat station, but as soon as Nathan discovered the smaller wading pool in this area, we needed to divert his attention once again, to maintain stimulation.
We made a quick stop at an LED screen with a camera attached, shooting video of the park. this attraction acted as sort of a reverse mirror where you could see your movements for the camera projected onto the screen. The screen was facing south (with intense sun exposure and glare) and the LED bulbs made the picture kind of difficult to see, so we didn't last long at this station. Also, the fact that the kids saw the ice cream truck and wanted a treat didn't help this thing's popularity. So we chilled for a minute and had our "Serendipity" ice cream that we bought out of an old fire truck.... kitschy, yet ironic.
We finished up the snack and washed off in the two water features on our way back out of the park. Before we left we stopped off at another somewhat interactive sculpture. It was a series of bent steel beams standing on end, in the shape of large horseshoes standing up. The kids could climb on these and slide down the arc, representing a simple, fun "jungle gym" type attraction.
That was pretty much it. We had seen most of the sculptures, swam, played, ate ice cream, and it was all FREE (except the ice cream). There was a cafe there that we did not stop at or enter. I suppose they sold lunch (which the kids and we already had) and coffee and drinks - none of which we needed to indulge in - so we bypassed it... perhaps another time. The architecture of the building was stunning, however.
I said this would be a review, so allow me to give a blanketed critique, aside from the commentary above.... Obviously, for "free" things to do in St. Louis, the Zoo is the top pick. But that can get kind of old if you've gone enough, and I know we've gone once already this year with the kids, so we wanted to change it up. Being free wasn't necessary, but it's an interesting sociological experiment to find the gems. So the sculpture was nice and eye-pleasing for the adults, along with the native plantings and overall ambiance stimulating all the 5 senses. The kids obviously had plenty of things to occupy their attention with the multiple water features - kids love getting wet in the summer time - and the interactivity of most of the sculptures. All in all I would say this place is a huge step forward for the advancement of non-sports related activities in downtown St. Louis. I will always insist that this site should have been buildings and the garden built either on the Arch grounds or in the grassy patch just west of Tucker in front of the Kiel Opera House, BUT for what they've done - whether the siting location was political or not - they did a fantastic job with this urban oasis... and I'd love to go back again (which is the whole point), probably in the evening when the lights are on!
See for yourself: www.citygardenstl.org
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