Into November; Family in Town

This past week has been good at work. A good amount of business at the car rental branch. We had a low key Halloween on Monday (31 October), with three of us dressing up as animals. I was not one of them.

It was off to Mark Twain Hobby Center (https://www.hobby1.com/) in St. Charles right after work Tuesday for the Mark Twain Model Club meeting. We had a demo on chipping techniques for weathered models. Brett Avants showed with a tank model how to weather a model using hairspray or chipping fluid. A handout was also provided that summarized this method. I also gave a talk about my visit to the National World War I Museum in Kansas City.

Another session of the Portuguese Language: Beginning II class was Wednesday night (2 November) at St. Louis Community College at Meramec (http://www.stlcc.edu/MC/). Elizabeth, our instructor provided to the college by the Viva Brasil Association of St. Louis (http://www.e.vivabrasilstl.org/home), guided us through more verbs and their conjugations. I came home from that class to see the Chicago Cubs win the World Series.

I was out and about a bit on Thursday. First, I got my Corolla's oil changed at Jiffy Lube (https://www.jiffylube.com/). Then, I succeeded at getting St. Louis International Film Festival (http://www.cinemastlouis.org/about-festival) at one Mehlville location each of Starbucks (http://www.starbucks.com) and Saint Louis Bread Co. (https://www.panerabread.com/en-us/home.html), on their community bulletin boards. The Festival began that night; my first volunteer shift is tonight at Webster University's Webster Hall, Moore Auditorium. I'm at the Tivoli Theatre late Thursday afternoon and Washington University's Brown Hall late Saturday afternoon. Hope to see you there!

Yesterday, my brother Rick, his wife Melissa, and their two children (Alex and Kate), arrived in St. Louis from Charleston, South Carolina for a visit. They came home with Mom just before I co-hosted this month's edition of Writer's Block (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/autistic-people-/2016/11/05/connected--writers-block-10am-pstradio-drama-the-princess-7-11am-pst). Host Tim Pylypiuk and I discussed time travel in literature, especially in science-fiction.

All of us got together at Chili's (https://www.chilis.com/) in Kirkwood for dinner. We were joined by Melissa's cousin Oliver Block, his wife Astrid, their two children, and Astrid's parents, who were visiting from Germany. It was quite a nice get together. Except for Astrid's parents, we were all at Calvary Presbyterian Church (http://calvarypresbyterianchurch.org/) for the Rememberance Day service, in which new sanctuary doors were dedicated to my late father Harold. After the service, we had cake, cookies and coffee in the Fellowship Hall, then went to Cafe Telegraph (http://cafetelegraph.com/) for lunch.

Later.