A Memorable Birthday

I turned a year older yesterday (7 Feb.), and it was a happy time in a way. That was the day I got my new ride, after having evaluated used cars for the past two and a half weeks. That morning, I spoke with pre-owned salesman Chad Meyers at Weiss Toyota/Scion of South County and he said they had recently taken in a 2006 Toyota Corolla CE with only about 60,000 miles on it and that would fall into my budget. I checked out the car, test drove it, and told Chad I want it. We got a deal arranged, where I traded in my 2000 Saturn SL/2, which had about 145,000 miles on it for the Corolla. I just have a bit of formalities to work out (registration and title), but now the Corolla is mine. I'm real happy already with it and know it will serve me well for years to come. Weiss Toyota's website, by the way, is http://www.weisstoyota.com.

On a sadder note, I learned yesterday of the passing at age 84 of St. Louis soccer legend Harry Keough. His playing career included starting at right back for the USA in their 1-0 upset of England at the 1950 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. He later coached Saint Louis University to five national championships in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I got to know Harry in the mid-1980s, after he left SLU. We refereed a high school soccer game together in the late 1980s and ran into each other in various soccer functions over the years. Harry was a great man, on and off the pitch, and I will never forget him.

Later yesterday, after supper at home, I was interviewed by Erik Estabrook for his Naturally Autistic Radio show The Essence. He asked me about my editing work and how important that work is for writers. That marked three appearances for me on Naturally Autistic Radio in four days. Last Saturday (4 Feb.), I co-hosted the monthly program Writer's Block for one hour, then made my dramatic radio debut on Radio Drama in the next hour. I (literally) phoned in my role of Tim in "The Silent Affliction," a play set in high school. I used Skype for my calling in, to save money on my cell phone bill; however, it did cause some reception problems during the play and I was relieved of my role with about 15 minutes left for that reason. Still, I felt good about that performance and may do other roles on future Radio Drama shows. More info on Naturally Autistic Radio at http://www.naturallyautistic.com/radio-show.

Last weekend began on Friday night (3 Feb.) by attending my first Greater St. Louis INFJ Meetup at Kaldi's Coffeeehouse in Kirkwood, Missouri. It was a nice time, myself and three others, sitting in a booth and talking about each other. Look forward to more meetups of this sort in the near future. The next night, I refereed futsal at Creve Coeur Racquet Club. My partner and I had been scheduled to work three matches, but the first was not played as one team decided not to show. So we waited until the next game, which was an intense match involving two strong teams, but we got through it fine.

Later.