Near the intersection of Grand Avenue and Highway 44 in St. Louis stands the Compton Hill Water Tower, built in the 1890s to improve water delivery to city residents. The “guts” of the tower is actually a 140-foot-tall, six-foot-diameter standpipe. The city found that somewhat unsightly, so the brick and limestone tower was built...
I’d Like A Different “Like”
Facebook recently added some new ways to “like” your friends’ posts. Now, instead of a simple like or share on a post, you can also “love” it, you can laugh at it, you can be angry or sad about it, or you can say “wow!” The problem with all if them, though, is Facebook...
Seagulls And Sunrises
This land belongs to the gullsAnd the gulls to their cryAnd their cry to the windAnd their cry to the wind—David Gray Michigan City. It’s a town of about 30,000 people, nestled in the northwest corner of Indiana, across the bottom of Lake Michigan from Chicago. My family has vacationed there for upwards...
The Game After The Storm
It was 10 years ago tonight—July 19, 2006—that I had the best seats I’ve ever had for a baseball game, and it was one of the wildest nights I’ve spent at the ballpark. My brother, who at that time worked for Anheuser Busch, which at that time was one of the better employers in St. Louis,...
Reading List, July 2016: My Last (And Next) Five Books
What are you reading? It’s one of my favorite questions. Here’s a list of the books I’ve read recently, along with my best guess at the next few. I do this every once in a while on Shoulblog: previous posts are here and here and here and here and here and here. This time, it’s...
New Tricks For An Old … Grasshopper
This week the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials are taking place in Omaha, Neb. Since I recently began swimming again after decades away from the pool, I’ve been watching with extreme interest. Every four years, it seems like the technology for broadcasting the Olympics—and even the Olympic Trials—gets better and better, and the programming folks...
Support Shoulblog!
IMPORTANT: Please read and understand the comments below about required minimum donations before you even think about taking this seriously. So it’s time for me to come to you for help. Make no mistake: this blog will always be free, and I thank you most sincerely for reading it. That’s really all I want from...
The Captains’ Return … Returns!
There have been 161 posts on Shoulblog so far. And the one that, by far, gets the most traffic over time is About That Statue, a series of pictures of the Lewis & Clark Statue on the St. Louis riverfront. The statue, named “The Captains’ Return,” was somewhat unique in that it was regularly...
Inspecting The Troops
This picture was taken 20 years ago this week. It was back in the days of film, when you’d shoot a bunch of pictures, and then you wouldn’t know what you’d gotten until you saw the prints a few hours or a few days later. The occasion was a Coast Guard ceremony for the...
Fitbit
Apparently, bending over and tying my shoes is worth about 25-40 steps. The act of leaning over to my left side while I’m sitting at my desk, unzipping my briefcase and pulling out a phone-charging cord and then plugging it in, is also worth about 25 steps. Rubbing my wife’s shoulders while watching TV, about 30 steps...