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What are you doing today, II

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There are some dead trees on the property, I had a little extra time this afternoon so I cut one down and cut it into firewood, after looking around I think I have enough dead ones to burn all winter. It takes about 4 hours to wack up a weeks worth.
 
Friday the lovely Mrs_Bob and I are heading down to St Louis. We are having part time foster son Kobe come with us for the weekend.

I'll be picking up our Russian fencer Dasha from the airport, Dasha, our "non-adopted" daughter will be staying with us in St Louis at our condominium.

There is a large national fencing tournament in the city. Dasha competes, representing NOTRE DAME, in the Women's Saber event on Sunday morning. She will be staying with us for the weekend. And while an alumnus of my fencing club, she will be not represent the club, but rather will fence for her university. I'm going to be there to "coach" her, but actually I'll take a back seat to her N.D. coach and I will really be there for moral support. I'm totally OK with that. The N.D. coach is considered the best Saber coach in the world right now and I am considered to be a crabby old man. So that all considered, she is better off with her coach coaching her an me just there for moral support.

No doubt pics will follow at some point this weekend.

Oddly, we will have our part time Foster Son, and our foreign exchange student 'daughter' with us but not our real daughter.
 
Lack of work due to shortage of materials today, we will be closed to let the "supply chain" catch up.

Everyone likes the idea of a three day weekend. Some have parties for Halloween. Sorta works out except for the smaller paychecks.

Therefore, I am the dock guy, janitor and greeter today.

Not hard work but,,,, the pay sucks
 
It rained here all day yesterday and today. So no progress on the room addition and deck.

Saturday should be dry but cool. I'll sleep in for a change and wait for the sun to warm the place a bit.

I did get three of the four support posts up. Number four is an easy one. So it is possible I will get to the plywood decking, and maybe the headers by end of day Tuesday. Hopefully, the wife can get them primed and painted weather permitting.

But first I must install wiring and then a vapor barrier membrane and lots of insulation. 10' X 20' of the deck gets that treatment.

The balance will be outside and gets TREX.
 
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Sitting in a condo in St Louis right now. The October North American Challenge fencing tournament started earlier today. Continues through the weekend. Dasha will be fencing on Sunday morning. We hope to have some fun in the city tomorrow, possibly taking Kobe to the zoo?
 
Welcome to St louis.

We arranged to have the weather here to remind you of home.
Cold, wet and dreary

You're welcome
 
It is pretty crappy weather here.

We had dinner at some gourmet burger place downtown.

Our apartment is a couple blocks away from the convention center. It is a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom loft apartment. No dining room table but we do have a pool table.

PRIORITIES???

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The number one maintenance issue of the Convention Center here in town, is patching bullet holes in the roof.

I don't mean to be impertinent, but why do you have an "apartment/condo" in downtown St Louis?
 
Today was the Iowa Pheasant season opener. Spent the day with some friends from the Des Moines are as we have for nearly 30 years hunting. Had some good shooting to, we ended the day with 14 birds. One of the guy s we hunt with is Maynard Reese's son. Maynard is a very well known wildlife artist. Real nice group of guys, I consider myself fortunate to know. Great day, and in the morning we are hunting again.
 
We have two big contracts with printers and tight deadlines. Both require collation and assembly of several components. We cannot process the products because they cannot get all the various materials to complete the work.

Two more days at the very least, our employees must stay home without pay.
 
Took a drive out to camp to inspect the damage after the explosion over the weekend. All is well with our site but a newer camper that moved in this summer is a total loss along with a permanent camp next to it.
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Superman/Jeff took me to lunch on his break.
Of course I'm looking like hell as I just did a thorough fall clean of my apartment. Lol
I said let me shower real quick and get ready, sonny boy.
He did.
I love my sons.
He's going to upstate NY this week with a friend and needed my advice about something.
Advice given.
😊

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I've procrastinated long enough with this, but I came home and threw a few burgers on the grill, swept and mopped the kitchen and dining area. While sometimes cleaning is more than a pain, the end result was well worth it.
 
I cooked up 2 gallons of oysters for our Masonic lodge tonight. Boy they are getting spendy, up another $20 per gallon to $140.
Not nearly as uniform of a batch of oysters. For several of the last years they have been very large. This year there are all sizes in the mix.
Not sure why. All of the gallon containers have been hand marked "select" what ever that means each year...
 
After fencing we went to Blueberry Hill for and early dinner, then drove home. Dropped off the lovely Mrs_Bob and Kobe then drove east to South Bend to drop Dasha off at her dorm. Then back west to home and was asleep about 1:30am.

Today I was at high school fencing practice and then stopped at the fencing club for about 30 minutes to pick up equipment for tomorrow.

Tuesday I drive down to Peoria to coach the Bradley University Fencing Club.

A few photos from the weekend in St Louis.

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I'm eating and enjoying what's left of my day. Hopefully tomorrow will go smoothly and there won't be another late truck due to driver shortages within the company. Fingers crossed.
 
Just got home from Bradley University, I guest coach the Bradley U Fencing Club. Its sad, they basically self-coach each other and teach each other bad habits. They want me there more frequently, but its a 2.5 hour drive to go there for a 2 hour practice, then I drive home 2.5 hours! I wish I could get there more often.

I taught them 3 new drills. They can practice those drills to increase their reaction time, speed and consequently their skills. There are 3 different weapons for fencing. So one of the drills I showed them had 3 different variations, 1 for each of the specific weapons. The other drills were non-weapon specific. Hopefully they practice the drills!
 
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