Back to work Monday morning and we had lots of vehicles to clean up and ready for the many customers that passed through our door that day. The same was the case the next day, with the added concern for freezing weather. I had some snow to clear off windows that morning, but easily handled. Concern with the weather did force postponement that Tuesday night of this month's Mark Twain Model Club in St. Charles. That meeting has been rescheduled for this Tuesday night.
My birthday in Wednesday (7 February) passed rather quietly. No mention of it at work. After work, I came home to dinner with mom, along with cake and presents. The latter included three casual shirts, which were most appreciated, along with a motivational book mom found, and a movie on DVD I had ordered, "Russian Ark." That night, I chilled out at home watching on DVD one of my all-time favorite movies, and one that was the top movie at the box office the day I was born: "Dr. Strangelove; Or, How I Learned to to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."
Off work Thursday, I went to Jiffy Lube (https://www.jiffylube.com/) to get my Corolla's safety and emissions inspections, as its state registration was due at the end of this month. After finding that my usual location in Mehlville was closing in three weeks, I headed a Jiffy Lube in Concord Village. They were able to do the safety inspection--it passed--but computer problems prevented them from doing the emissions inspection, even after rebooting the computer a few times. They folks there apologized for that, and promised they would get this fixed in the next day or two. I told them I would return in a week to try to get the emissions inspection done.
Home after that, I worked on my 2017 federal and state income taxed. Using TurboTax online (https://turbotax.intuit.com/), I followed the step-by-step instructions to work out my taxes. I ended up getting a nice refund from the federal government, and paying just a bit for the state. I successfully filed my taxes electronically, and printed off copies for my files and to mail to both the IRS and Missouri Department of Revenue--the latter with my payment. This was done during my lunch break the next day.
After getting my taxes done, mom took me out to Red Lobster (https://www.redlobster.com/) in Concord Village for my birthday dinner. I had a nice dinner featuring stuffed tilapia with langostino lobster. Yum. I washed that down with lobster lovers punch, a cocktail of Captain Morgan, Bacardi, and Malibu rum, shaken with berry and pineapple juice and served in a Red Lobster 50th Anniversary glass that I could keep. Very nice.
Back at work Friday--after buying doughnuts from Krispy Kreme (http://krispykreme.com/) for my colleagues--and we had a day that started off rather warm for this time of the year, only to get much colder later that day. Assistant manager Miranda got a big decorated cookie for my birthday, and I had a bit of that after getting lunch from Penn Station (http://www.penn-station.com/) in Ballwin. I helped get it all done by the time we closed up Friday night.
Yesterday, I was home during the day, doing a bit of work on my models and getting some preliminary work done for the IPMS/Gateway newsletter, The Arch Scaler News, which I need to get out this week. I also relaxed at home, mindful of the worsening weather coming that night. A wintry mix--ice and a bit of snow--was coming our way. That night, I learned by email that two soccer games I was to have officiated the next morning were cancelled, due to weather concerns.
Thus, I slept in a bit this morning, relaxed at home, then headed at midday to C4 at Creve Coeur Racquet Club (http://www.c4stl.com/) for boys futsal matches. I was scheduled to work four high school age matches; however, this past week, I was asked to yield my place in the third match of the set so a colleague could be assessed for upgrade. I agreed to this and so I watched that match from near the scorer's table. I trust my colleague passed his assessment. My three other matches went well, though they were a challenge at times and I had to pull out my yellow card a couple of times in these matches. Overall, though,they were fine and all was well at the end.
Watching the Winter Olympics (https://www.olympic.org/) from PyeongChang on TV tonight. I always enjoy the great smorgasbord of sports that is the Olympic games, and these games are wonderful to watch so far.
Later.
