"Who are we?" "S-T-L!"

I kept hard at work at the car rental branch late last week, including Saturday morning (16 April). The latter was one of the calmer Saturdays I've been working at the branch--not that many rentals, not that many vehicles to clean and park. It went smoothly, needless to say.

That night, I drove to Smugala's Pizza Pub in Sunset Hills (http://smugalas.com/smugalassunsethills), where--after having a beer--I got aboard the Pub2Park shuttle bus that took me to Worldwide Technology Soccer Park for the Saint Louis FC (http://saintlouisfc.com/landing/index) home opener against Tulsa Hurricanes. I was part of a sellout crowd of just over 5500--myself joining in the chants of the St. Louligans (http://stlouligans.com/)--but the match ended in a 0-0 draw. Still, it was great fun and I'm looking forward to many more great matches this season.

The next morning (17 April), I was at Sportport (http://www.sportportintl.com/) in Maryland Heights to referee two under 10 boys league matches. These are 8-a-side, on a smaller field with 25-minute halves. It was my first matches since last fall and I did feel a bit rusty at first, but overall things went well.

After the matches, I drove to Shameless Grounds (http://shamelessgrounds.com/) in St. Louis' Benton Park neighborhood for the Sex Positive STL Meetup (http://www.meetup.com/Sex-Positive-St-Louis/). After lunch there--I had the Chauvinist Pig sandwich of ham, pulled pork, and bacon--the meetup had a discussion of Autism & Dating, with a certified analyst and a group member with Asperger's syndrome (like me) leading the discussion. It was very interesting and I got much out of it. The analyst invited me to contact me about how he could work with me to help me out in the social sector, and I plan to take him up on that.

Work this week has been good, and busy. Plenty to keep me occupied, for sure.

After work on Tuesday (19 April), I headed to Calvary Presbyterian Church (http://calvarypresbyterianchurch.org/) in Mehlville for the IPMS/Gateway (http://www.ipms-gateway.com/) meeting. Rick Keasey gave a demo on making display cases, and we had our Model of the Month "Beauty Contest."

On my off day today, I visited the IKEA store in midtown St. Louis (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/store/st_louis/indexPage) for the first time. I was most impressed by the place, with the size, variety and quantity of home furnishings available for purchase. I bought a couple of small items--a lazy susan for use on my model workbench, and a small picture frame--and had a nice lunch in their restaurant. Plenty to see there and I hope to be back in the near future.

After that, I went by CRM Hobbies (http://www.crmhobbies.com/) in south St. Louis, where I bought some filler putty and a small armor kit, which I hope to finish by next month's IPMS/Gateway meeting. I also have three other kits in progress, and I hope to have them all done next month.

Off to the Missouri Aviation Historical Society (https://moavhist.org/) meeting tonight. More on that--and this weekend's World War II Weekend at Jefferson Barracks County Park--in my next post.

Later.