Craig's Blog

Can you hear me now...?

So the Brits lost the Mars lander Beagle 2. Damn bloody shame. It was a gamble at best that the craft would survive the landing and be able to land right side up so it could deploy it's solar panels. Guess it's just sitting there like a piece of junk among the martian rubble. We need to send up the Sprint guy with his phone -- “can you hear me now?“. Thought for the day --

In heaven, the Italians are the lovers, the Germans are the engineers, the British are the organizational leaders.

In hell, the Italians are the organizational leaders, the Germans are the lovers, and the British are the engineers

Lottery idea

Geils...

I came home yesterday to 2 large boxes that were delivered to what I thought was me. Much to my surprise (and dismay) the addressee was Greg Geil at a totally different address. I had a wtf moment and then it passed. I noticed it was some sort of food since it had big stickers to refridgerate immediately. So I hauled it upstairs and stuck it in the fridge. I went ahead and found Greg Geil's phone number in the phone book and called him up. I said “hello is this Greg Geil?”, “yes”, “hi this is Craig Geil, I've got some mail for you”. He was an old guy and wanted to know what it was. I wanted to say “but isn't it cool our names are almost the same?!“. So I open it up -- it was a nice ham and some other xmas dinner food. Looked real good. Then Greg asked who it was from so I found a card inside, from Herb. Oh Herb, yeah of course Herb. So Greg is picking up his meal mail tonite after work. I'm starting to wonder if Greg will be my evil twin with a fu manchu beard and mustache. Sort of like in Star Trek when the transporter screwed up and transported Kirk to the alternate evil Enterprise. If he salutes me with that fist to the chest thing, I'm outta there.

Farewell to Kings

Well they finally captured Sadam Hussein. I hear he's a little nuts, missing a few chapters, not all his xmas lights are on, etc. Good riddance. They should drop kick his sorry ass out the back of a cargo plane flying over the ocean.

Farewell To Kings - Rush

When they turn the pages of history
When these days have passed long ago
Will they read of us with sadness
For the seeds that we let grow
We turned our gaze
From the castles in the distance
Eyes cast down
On the path of least resistance

Cities full of hatred
Fear and lies
Withered hearts
And cruel tormented eyes
Scheming demons
Dressed in kingly guise
Beating down the multitude
And scoffing at the wise

The hypocrites are slandering
The sacred halls of Truth
Ancient nobles showering
Their bitterness on youth
Can't we find
The minds that made us stong
Can't we learn
To feel what's right and wrong

Cities full of hatred
Fear and lies
Withered hearts
And cruel, tormented eyes
Scheming demons
Dressed in kingly guise
Beating down the multitude
And scoffing at the wise
Can't we raise our eyes
And make a start
Can't we find the minds
To lead us closer to the Heart

Snowy weekend

We had a good 2 inches of snowfall last weekend. It was one of those snows where it snowed all day and all night yet somehow never accumulated to much. Wasn't too cold so it was kind of fun to walk around in. Annette and I and friends drove to an area of St.Louis I had never been to Saturday night called Lafayette Park. Wow, was I impressed. It's close to a lot of bad areas and borders the projects. Yet somehow a few entreprenuers took a chance and went into the area and bought up these historic homes that were falling to pieces. These homes are rich in French architecture and heritage and thankfully a big part of the history of St.Louis was saved. It's kind of like stepping back in time driving through the neighborhood, possibly what the rich part of St.Louis might have looked like 100 years ago. The beer barons putting on high society parties, horse drawn carriages taking the well to do's to their many social functions. Anyway we went to a swanky bar named Sqwires that was a converted wire factory/warehouse. A yuppie crowd in their fancy clothes sipping expensive coffee and listening to a live Zydeco band play. Upstairs they rented out lofts. We walked across the park in the snow and had some fine chocolate at the Chocolate Bar. Very good. Chocolate chip and macedamia nut cookie. We decided to come back and do a house tour sometime, perhaps check out some of the other resturaunts in the area. It's definitely an area to take out of town folks. Highly recommended if you find yourself in St.Louis and want to be close to downtown. The other renovated neighborhood I know about is called the Soulard district, which is close to the brewery (Anheuser-Busch) just south of downtown. Its the place to be during Madri Gras festival. The parade ends up in Soulard where once again the French tradition takes over and the whole area becomes one big street party. All in all I was more impressed with Lafayette however. Next time I go to Lafayette square I'll take the camera and share some pics with everybody. There is a link to some professional photos here - http://www.aeternus.com/square/

Blogging for Jesus

Mastercard Xmas

Merry Abstract Xmas

I have an idea. To remove all of the stress of buying gifts for xmas why don't we all create a greed fund like Chris has. You can send money electronically to your friends and family for xmas. As you recieve money you can forward it on to the next person on your list. After all the money has shifted around at the end of the standard 30 day xmas “shopping” season, the person with the highest P & L ratio has to have xmas dinner at their house. Sound like a good idea? Who's up for it?

Almost Cat In the Hat

Sunday I took Kenzie with me to see Cat In The Hat at the movie theater. The company I'm contracted to, Anheuser-Busch, rented out the one of the theaters as a holiday gift of sorts for it's employees and contractors and their families. The movie they picked was the “family friendly“ movie Cat In The Hat. It was a lot of fun, got to meet the families of those I work with. They had free pizza, brownies, cookies, popcorn, soda, etc. Kenzie ate a ton. She said this is just like being at home. The kicker (and there's always a kicker with free things right?) was they had assigned seating at the theater. They stuck Kenzie and I all the way in the front on the far right. Ever try to watch a movie from there? Obviously you can't. I suppose they gave the employees the better seats. So Kenzie frowned and I agreed. I called mom to find out what else was playing at the theater and we snuck out and watch Eddie Murphy's latest Haunted Mansion. Kind of a dumb film, scared Kenzie in a few places. But we had fun none the less. Another fun memory with Craig for her to remember :)

Xmas party

I went to a company xmas party last night. It's was my old company (Epic Systems) who had it. I still do side work for them from time to time. I'm good friends with the two owners, John and Matt. They handed out xmas bonuses but in order to receive it we had to give a short speech about our thoughts/stories on Epic. Kind of fun, I got picked first since I was their first employee. I talked about how we didn't have a copy machine in the beginning, we had to fax ourselves to make copies. Ah the good ol' days. Now the company is profitable and can afford such luxuries. It was nice to meet people I know that work there again. They hired a magician to do a short performance after dinner. He was good, he did the normal illusions like the rope trick, interlocking rings and disappearing hankies. There was an open bar, great food, relaxed atmosphere, good conversation. I found it kind of interesting that about half the employees didn't show up. I guess some people feel they spend too much time at work and would rather option out of the optional get togethers. Annette couldn't make it, she came down with a bad cold. Everyone asked about her -- she must leave impressions on people?

Shania Twain concert

I got the chance to see Shania Twain in concert last Friday. Annette bought me a ticket as a xmas present. We ended up going with most of her family, sort of a family night out. Lots of fun, even little Kenzie went along although she got tired and curled up in her seat and tried to sleep. It was an indoor concert, haven't been to one of those in quite sometime. One of the added benefits of being indoors is there's more opportunity for a “show”. Shania had fireworks and glitter blown all over to excite everyone. Sure you can do that outside but it's a bigger impact when everyone is squeezed together under a dome. When Shania came out on stage I noticed everyone had brought their cameras. Apparently some artists don't have issues with cameras at their concerts. Cool. I wish I would have checked into it and brought mine . I could have drooled over my own Shania Twain pictures . She is sooooo hot. She wore these tight jeans as her first outfit.. lordy it took my breath away. I would give anything to touch her hair. Is that perverted? Probably.. but I'm sticking with it :-) Anyway the concert didn't blow my socks off, it was good, she covered a lot of her hits inside of 2 hours. I expected more from her in the way of costumes and theatrics. I guess when you get right down to it, touring must suck for her. She's a mom now, very rich, has no need to tour anymore, probably misses her quiet life in Switzerland, so she's not going to pull out all of the stops. She likes making music but I expect her to pull back a lot on the touring, maybe become more like a European and only play a few select big US cities.