Got through the weekend

The weekend came and went fine, under the circumstances. All that rain we had through Friday played havoc with the tournament I was scheduled to referee in. I ended up with just four, shortened (25-minute half) games Sat. night, plus three league games Sunday afternoon. These were played on artificial surfaces, needless to say. They all went through with no real hitches. Obviously, there was no time for any Halloween activities for me. Mom did keep some treats by the door and there were a few kids who came by our house early Saturday night.
I'm at a fund raiser for Jean Carnahan's 2010 US Senate seat bit tonight, and run the IPMS St. Louis meeting tomorrow night. Info on the latter at http://www.ipms-stlouis.org/
Later.

A cold rain keeps falling

It's been raining a lot here in St. Louis this month, and the past few days have been no exception. Before the rain lets up tomorrow night, we may have around 3 inches of rain in this latest surge. Wet! Not having much fun at home now. Feel real draggy. I hope I can pick it up by this weekend, when I'm refereeing in a girls' tournament.
Speaking of refereeing, I worked a few games this past week. That included the middle on a under-17 girls' match Sunday afternoon. It was OK -- not real interesting, and no real hassles -- and I passed the maintenance assessment given of my work then. No major faults found by the assessor, just a few minor things to work on. I'm almost done with registration for 2010. Just have to take and pass the written test, which I can do online. Plan to do that later today.
Friday night was special at Mehlville High. The football game at home vs. St. Louis U. High was the benefit for Operation Ozzy. The school and its alumni were paying tribute to Mehlville's Number 1 fan, Tim (Ozzy) Osborn, who had fallen on hard times in recent years (unemployed and homeless). Thanks to a group of Mehlville High alumni on Facebook, we were able to track Osborn down (a classmate of mine, a St. Louis Police officer, found Osborn on the street), get him a place to live and some part time work, and set up a trust fund for him. I was so happy and proud to be a part of this effort. I remember Ozzy well from my student days, when he cheered on the Panthers from his seat.
That's it for now. Rain, rain, go away!

Quiet before it gets busy

Nothing much happening for me of late. Haven't been called in yet for temp jobs, and haven't heard back on a job I applied for late last week. I got in some soccer refereeing last Sunday, my first games in over a month. They went well and bode well for me this week. I have two game tomorrow night (MRL), one Saturday morning (MRL), and two Sunday (SLYSA), with a maintenance assessment being done on one of those Sunday games.
I mowed the lawns (front and back) earlier today. The front lawn mowing included leaves that had fallen off a tree in the middle of the yard. My parents greatly appreciated that I could help them out like this.
IPMS Gateway meeting tonight at Calvary Presbyterian. I have to open the fellowship hall and get it ready, then close it down. No problem, though, as it's not a huge job. I just like to pride myself on getting it done well.
Later.

Staying out of the rain

We had quite a bit of rain much of Thursday and into Friday morning. My soccer games this morning were called off due to wet grounds. Hopefully, tomorrow afternoon's games come off.
Speaking of soccer, I passed my referee fitness test last Sunday morning. Several of my colleagues also did the three-part test: 12-minute run around a 400-meter track; 200-meter dash; and, 50-meter dash. I was glad to have passed, as I had only really trained for this in the previous week, due to my recent temp work assignment. Glad to get this out of the way.
No word yet on any temp jobs, or any job openings. I did pick up a book I ordered, "Asperger Syndrome Employment Workbook," which should help me fine tune my job search strategy into the kind of work I would be highly suited for doing. I'll go over this in the coming week. Anybody out there with any thoughts and ideas is welcome to contact me here.
Just got a new combination DVD recorder/VCR, to replace by 4 year old device. After some fits and starts, it's hooked up to my TV. It runs DVDs and video tapes great, but I still need to figure out how to record programs off TV.
That's it for now. Talk to you later.

Recent accomplishments

Sorry I haven't written sooner, but I was kept busy by my recent temp job. The insurer was rushing to finish their project by the end of September, and we did so. At least, as far as proofreaders like me were concerned, it was done last Sunday, 27 September. I and other proofreaders and production artists joined the client's staff to put in some overtime over the past month, including weekends, to get the tailored documents proofread and corrected in print. They were most appreciative of what we temps did for this project, and I for one was very happy and honored to have contributed to the success of this project. They plan to keep us on file for future projects. I appreciate that; they are a fine company to work for and these are some very good people to work with.
In between all that, I was able to help at the IPMS Gateway to the West Invitational on Sat., 12 Sept. in Eureka. There was a pretty nice crowd at Hitters' Choice Cages for this event. About the same attendance and number of model entries as last year -- I have to think the recession has to do with that -- but the club made money on it, all vendor tables were wold, and there were some real nice entries in the model contest, which I helped to judge. Overall, a fine time was had by all.
Last weekend, Rick came up from Austin for a few days, with Alex (his soon-to-be-officially adopted 4-year-old son) in tow. They spent some time sightseeing, visiting Rick's friends, and having fun with my parents and I. They flew back to Austin on Monday.
That's it for now. Looking ahead Mehlville High's Homecoming this Friday night, and to my soccer referee fitness test this Sunday morning.

Remembering good days, and a tragic one

I'm off from work today. The client told me and my fellow temp proofreaders yesterday afternoon that they would not have any work for us this day, but should as early as Saturday. I will be unavailable for work tomorrow (due to the IPMS Gateway Invitational; more on that later), but may come in Sunday. We'll see. It's going well, with us trying to catch errors in the documents, after the group specific information has been dropped in.
Last weekend (Labor Day holiday) was a good one. Friday night, I went to a Mehlville-Oakville alumni party prior to the football game between those two high schools, hosted (and won) by Oakville. It was interesting to see some people who also went to my high school, although at different times to mine, and to watch a football game in person, which I have not done in 10 years.
Sunday morning, I ran line on two men's amateur soccer games, the first I had worked since mid-August. They went fine, despite wet field conditions (due to rain), and the men working the middle in both games passed their assessments. (The assessors also liked my work in these games.) I was a little sore in my legs from the workout, but was pleased.
Monday, I started off at the Greek Festival at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in St. Louis' Central West End neighborhood. It's the largest such festival in the country, with food, music, dancing, and crafts. I had lunch there and saw a bit of Greek dancing. Very nice. Then, I went to the Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) in the Shaw neighborhood of St. Louis for their annual Japanese Festival. That had music, crafts, food, judo demonstrations, and the setting of the Japanese Garden at the MBG. It was fun to take in the festival, and to admire the variety of plants the MBG had on display.
Tomorrow's the IPMS Gateway to the West Invitational model contest and swap meet at Hitters' Choice Cages in Eureka, Missouri. The Get Out section of today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch has our show mentioned about special events of this weekend, which makes me happy. We're also posted online at stltoday.com, riverfronttimes.com, toastedrav.com, kwmu.org, and kmov.com. Hope to see you at the show. For more info, visit
Today marks the 8th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. I was living in Dallas then, working as editor at Squadron/Signal Publications in nearby Carrollton. Just before 8:00 am (Central Time), I left my apartment in north Dallas to drive to the office. On the way, I headed to the Carrollton post office to drop off some mail. While on the road to the post office, I had been listening to a music station and turned to a news radio station, WBAP, to get the hourly news bulletin. The announcer mentioned that they would have ABC network news in a minute with an update on a plane crash into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. My first thought was that a small plane had somehow it the building.
I was in the drive through lane at the post office when the network news came on. The lead story was about the crash that occurred a few minutes earlier. The anchor then handed off to a reporter on the scene with a live report. The reporter mentioned the first crash and the resulting scenes of panic, with fire fighters and police racing to the World Trade Center, when he suddenly said "Oh my God!", or words to that effect, when the second plane hit the other tower. I didn't quite know what to think at that moment, as a pulled out from the post office and headed to Squadron/Signal, but something major and unprecedented had happened.
Arriving at Squadron/Signal a couple of minutes later on that warm, sunny morning in Carrollton, I heard on the radio the first reports that these crashes were an act of terrorism, and that President George W. Bush was notified while visiting a school in Sarasota, Florida. I came into the building and walked over to my office, which was then located on the far side from the main entrance, and a few of my colleagues and supervisors were already there and had heard about the attacks. A TV set was brought into the art department, a few steps from my office, and the set was turned on to one of the network stations, and for the first time I saw the video of smoke pouring from large caps torn into the sides of the World Trade Center towers. My immediate supervisor, Glen Phillips, was with us watching all this. He was a US Air Force veteran, who had served in Air Force Intelligence and was familiar with the Middle East. Phillips said "This has Osama bin Laden written all over it." This was before I heard anyone on TV or radio mention the group or groups responsible for this attack.
The news got worse over the next few minutes. I heard the first statement from the President about the attack, as he then hurried to fly out of Sarasota to return (eventually) to Washington. There was the plane hitting the Pentagon, the report of the plane crashing in western Pennsylvania, and the God awful scene as both World Trade Center towers came crashing down. I had mentioned about the time I had visited the World Trade Center in 1996, and going up to the roof of the one tower. Chuck Harransky, one of my supervisors, said he had also visited to World Trade Center one time.
My colleagues and I tried our best to work that day, but it wasn't easy. I turned on a radio mounted on a shelf above my desk to get the latest news as it came in. I normally did not do so at work, but this day was different. As the news came in on the rapidly developing story, I thought of my brothers Rick and Brian, and Brian's wife Gretchen, who lived in Brooklyn at the time and worked in New York. I was wanting to call them and see if they were OK, but figured the lines would be full. Finally, I called my mother in St. Louis and she told me she had contacted Rick, Brian and Gretchen and they were all safe. Rick worked out of his apartment that day and saw the towers burn and collapse from through his window. Brian was well away from Ground Zero. Gretchen was working in Manhattan, well away from the World Trade Center, but had to walk home across the Brooklyn Bridge, with thousands of other people. I was glad to hear of that news, but still stunned by what happened.
I went home at the end of the work day to check on TV and the internet on the latest of what happened. I saw the rescue workers in New York and Washington going through the rubble to find possible survivors and the bodies of the fallen. I also thought of my friend Bob McSpadden, an airline pilot who lived with his wife Beth in Lake Dallas, Texas, north of Dallas. Beth told me Bob was fine, and not anywhere near the danger zone that day.
I eagerly followed the story and its aftermath in the days that followed. That Wednesday night, the day after the attack, I was on the officiating crew of a men's amateur soccer game in Carrollton. (This was a make up game for one cancelled due to field conditions earlier in that season.) Our crew and some of the players remarked about unusually how quiet the sky was, with the civilian aircraft grounded for a few days. (This field was within the outer traffic pattern of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.) The following Saturday, before the youth games I helped referee, there was a moment of silence in memory of the 9/11 victims.
That's my story from that tragic day eight years ago. I thank you for allowing me to indulge in this memory. Let's all take a moment and remember the victims of these attacks, and to recommit to bettering this world to present such an attack in the future.
(I've attached a photo taken of myself during my 1996 visit to the World Trade Center. I hope you like it.)

Just a short note, addition

The IPMS Gateway web site, with info on the Invitational, is http://ipms-gateway.com