Down with the St Lunatics...

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Part of that was due to a visit from my sister in law Meredith and her boyfriend James a couple of weeks ago. They were between school sessions and were able to come out for 9 days. As part of their visit, we decided to take a mini-vacation trip out to Saint Louis and hang with the "St. Lunatics", as Nelly would put it. We went on a best of tour of the city. First, we went to Forest Park to go to the zoo. The weather was perfect for the animals to be up and active. We got to pet the stingrays, see the hippos swim and the big cats play. My favorite part of the zoo, however, was the chimpanzee environment. As usual, the entertainment came more from the animals outside of the enclosure than the ones on the inside. As we were standing there, 3 of the "locals" from the countryside strolled on up. One guy needed some dental work and the other was wearing some bib overalls. One of the chimps had gotten hold of a piece of junk mail and was tearing it up into small pieces. I made a comment about him "not liking the news" and the guy in the bib overalls blamed it on Obama raising taxes, (unfortunately, I can't do this justice...it took all I had not to laugh at this dude).
After the zoo, we had lunch at the Boathouse and went for a rowboat ride afterwards. After a quick nap, we hit a street art festival to see our friend Linda and have dinner with her and her new boyfriend at the Schafly bottleworks.

The next day we went to the Cahokia Indian mounds state park. They were holding the international atl atl competition. The atl atl is a spear throwing device. We got to try one out and I learned that Moriah has a great arm. After some more sightseeing, we headed over to The Loop for lunch at Blueberry Hill (a St. Louis institution..you need to go if you're ever in town) and ice cream floats for dessert at Fitz's. The only thing that could bring down such a great weekend was Buckeye football, as they laid a total egg during the USC game. Needless to say, I was glad to be out of town for that game.

After returning to Columbus, Meredith and James stayed for about a week. It was great to be able to hang out with them for a prolonged period of time. It made me wish that we could see Moriah's family more often. Unfortunately, the distance and the commitments of life make it hard. After I finish the PhD, maybe we can find a way to close the distance a little bit.

As always, it took a few days to get back to normal after having house guests (even though Meredith and James were perfect guests). The last couple of weeks have been pretty status quo. Fall quarter started at OSU and with all of the undergrads back, things are nosiy and crowded. Hopefully, things will quiet down pretty soon (and the undergrads will learn that you can be hit by a car...a guy can always dream). But with fall quarter comes home football games. Moriah and I went to the OSU-Illini game this Saturday. It wasn't quite a torrential downpour, but it did rain a lot in the first half. Even with our rain gear we got pretty soaked. In the end, the Buckeyes played well so we didn't mind the rain. It ended up being a pretty good time. Today we went to see The Goods at the dollar theater. I thought it was pretty funny, but it is raunchy. Overall, it has been a good weekend and hopefully we are charged up for the week ahead.