14 December 2010

Staying Warm and Busy

It's a cold day here in St. Louis, with the temperature at 18 degrees F right now. We got a bit of snow (about 2 inches) late last Saturday night/Sunday morning, and the snow is still on the ground. It looks like a bit of sleet is on the way for tomorrow.
Back on 2 December, I went to a happy hour in Ferguson with the StraightUp HookUps MeetUp group. We had a fine time at the Cork Wine Bar. Then, it was on to the Tivoli Theater in the Delmar Loop to see the documentary "Pelada," on two Americans finding and playing pickup soccer around the world. Very interesting film and I definitely recommend it.
The next night, after a brief visit to Stress Free Fridays, I was in University City for a birthday dinner honoring soccer great Harry Keough. It was a nice dinner and I got to chat with a coach who runs a youth soccer program in St. Louis, New Dimentions, which helps immigrant children bond with local kids. A worthy cause, I think. On Saturday the 4th, I refereed the first futsal matches of the new season. My partner and I made sure the coaches were up to speed with some rule changes for this season, and generally the games went well. I also worked some games last Saturday night.
Last Wednesday afternoon, I finished a project I started late last month for a friend, Tom Doll, an aviation historian and author. He asked me to type up the manuscript (text and photo captions) of his latest book and to save it on CD, so he can then them to the publisher. (Tom doesn't have a computer.) I got the job done and when I saw him in Clayton that night he was most appreciative of my efforts. The book should come out in the latter half of 2011; I'll withhold the details of what it's about until then.
Lately, I've been proofreading documents for a friend. He asked me to proof a report from his work place. I have done the first tranche of pages, and just received the next bunch yesterday for me to work on. Will get going on those later today.
A week ago, I ran the IPMS St. Louis meeting, in which we continued to add models to the display we have this month at our meeting site, the Thornhill Branch of the St. Louis County Library. It looks quite nice and I made sure to include club flyers in the case so people know who put this display on. You can find out more at http://www.ipms-stlouis.org.
That's it for now. I'm trying to stay warm. Later.