FSP 1.1

Century Building, Saint Louis

Save the Century has its own website.
Previously: Save the Century Building, part 1.

Century Building

Saint Louis news: the Century Building is still alive; the petition to
save it from an untimely demolition follows The National Trust's
Indictment in the Crime of the Century. [PetitionOnline.com].

Previously on unbuilding Saint Louis; More Saint Louis blogs.

The Boulevard Saint Louis (Brentwood)

The Boulevard brings a park-once (or ride a train !) and work, shop, and eat all in one place
development to the Clayton - Richmond Heights - Brentwood I-64 - I-170 edge city.

Compare to San Jose's Santana Row and Emeryville Bay Street.

Seen from LA: Saint Louis real estate market

The LA Times looks at the Saint Louis real estate market and finds
good values in middle class starter homes.

"We're generally a steady-as-she-goes market," said Bryan Kelsey, the chief
executive of Relocation Realtors in St. Louis.

Certainly, local property values are rising. But at a modest 4% to 6% a year.
Bidding wars do occasionally break out, and the best homes can sell quickly,
especially in the older, more exclusive, brick-and-cobblestone neighborhoods
near downtown.

Reported by LA Times and KTLA.

To track the real estate market, read Data Quick News.

Sad Saint Louis

Tour of devastation in northside Saint Louis.

Built Saint Louis tracks the decay of Saint Louis, MO.
Lovingly annotated with maps and walking tours.

Above, below: 1400 block of Bremen.

Some positive stories also at BuiltStLouis.

See also: Toby Weiss finds the best of what is left, and what may yet be built.

Additional snapshots of Saint Louis:

Above: Theodesia and Goodfellow, December 2002.

Below: on Clara just north of Page, 2002 January.

Grocery Strike

Dierbergs is a good grocery store for the masses when it's fuctioning normally.
Bright, clean, spaceous, orderly, well stocked. Alas they have locked out their workers,
and I won't be shopping there this week.

Pity there's no Adronico's, Draeger's or Ranch99 (oh, how I miss Yaohan) in STL.
The outstanding fresh seafood; your selection cooked for you as you wait.
But not in STL.

And WebVan and Kozmo, RIP.

For now I have to make due with Whole Earth Foods on Brentwood and
Wild Oats on Ladue.

Perhaps it's time for another trip to the coast.

For now, there's Ko's Lemmongrass and Pho Grand.

MINI agenda

2003 Oct 10-12: GM's Autoshow in Motion, UMB/Riverport Amphitheatre, Earth City, MO.

2003 Oct 14-17: Kumho Tire Challenge at Ikea, Schaumburg (Chicago, IL).
Kumho has MINIs, not Minis like this:

2003 October 18: Southern Missouri road Rally.
For those in St. Louis:
There will be a meet-n-greet at the Home Depot/Borders Parking lot at Watson Rd. and Lindbergh Blvd in the Sunset Hills Plaza.
We'll leave the parking lot at 9:30AM.
From there we'll take I-44 to the formal starting point in Cuba, MO.

Official Start Location (THIS IS A CHANGE):
The official starting location will be the Wal-Mart parking lot in Cuba. This is on the Southeast side of I-44 and Hwy. 19. The exit for Cuba, MO is Exit 208, exit and head south, Wal-Mart will be on the left hand side. The group from St. Louis should arrive between 10:30AM and 10:45AM. We'll leave the parking lot around 11:00AM.

2003 Oct 19: autocross and MINI meet at Tire Rack, South Bend, IN.

Silly CostCo maps

CostCo is a warehouse style big box retailer.

The goal is to find a CostCo near you (assume you are in zip code 63011,
or Clarkson Valley, MO).

Search by town and state, or by zip code.
This finds a reasonable list of CostCos.

The results show the CostCo on a map with detailed context,
and the results list each address. All good so far.

Selecting the South Saint Louis link brings a page exclusively about
that particular location.

Note that
1. The location's street (Rusty Road) in not shown on map

2. An exit route from freewys is not shown.
E.g., From I-270, should I exit from I-270, or change to I-55 then exit ?

3. The street (Rusty Road) is different from street listed on previous search
results page (South Lindberg (Lindbergh?).

Apple is much better:

Also good is the map from Pro-Retail.

Federal Coffee

Often the wait for airport security is less than the wait for
my morning latte. Perhaps we need federalized barristas ?

Lambert (Saint Louis, MO) airport, 6:35 AM.

Goats, Sheep, Rams

I've seen this Chinese New Year described as,
Year of the Ram, as Year of the Goat, and as
Year of the Sheep.

In STL, it will be known as Year of the Ram.

Christmas Eve

2002 December 24, 5:05pm

Winter Wonderland

View from office (Clarkson Valley, MO, at the intersection of MO-340 and MO-HH), December 2002.
Compare to the view in November.

Backyard, West County Saint Louis

The backyard at my office (Clarkson Valley, MO). A nice walk clears my head.

WiFi STL

WiFi in STL for the Creative Class. The warchalking
maps come in 2003.

meetup Oktoberfest

I'm in the transition form GreyMatter to MovableType.

Update 2002-Oct-23

The blog URL remains the same: http://omor.com/b/ . The permalinks have
moved, but GreyMatter messages 2-180 have been converted, (see archives
on left) and messages 181 to 240 are following soon. And there's two dozen
new messages in the draft queue.

Meetup STLBloggers' Oktoberfest.

Ikea

St. Louis may not be a great city because it does not have an Ikea.
A local Ikea experience inspires road trips from elsewhere.

Personally, I think Ikea veneer over particle board furniture is a bit shoddy,
but their kitchenwear is a great value. What's more, their catalogue and in
store displays are outstandingly helpful in selecting the right item for you.

_Transporter_

Saw Transporter where Jason Statham (the thinking man's Vin Diesel) and an under-utilized Qi Shu have a bad hair day. The twenty minute opening sequence is of almost _Ronin_ quality, from there it's downhill. Good use of southern French scenery and a memorable garage brawl in used motor oil. There's no point in spotting continuity errors (why is Statham so clean after the oil brawl ?) because the plot itself makes little sense as the Clive Owen type battles the duo of an Ethan Hawke type and an aging overly made up Ric Young (_Corruptor_). Thanks to Ryan, Don and Angeline for before movie conversation over conventionally labeled drinks. I'm looking forward to John Woo's Hostage.

Speedtrap

Posted a new listing to Speedtrap.org.

City: Clarkson Valley
Location: Clarkson Road / MO 340
Time of Day: Any time of day
Level of Enforcement: High
Type of Enforcement: Radar

Date: 10/2002

The two mile long strech of MO 340, aka Clarkson Road, from Kehrs Mill Road
in Chesterfield on the north side of Clarkson Valley to Clayton Road in Ellisville
on the south side of Clarkson Valley. Clarkson Road is four lanes plus generous
shoulders and a two-way left turn lane. It's posted at 45 mph in Chesterfield
and 40 mph in Clarkson Valley. Clarkson Valley residents are concerned about
traffic noise, and low speeds reduce noise. And as the surrounding area becomes
more developed, there is a desire to divert north-south traffic out of Clarkson Valley
and into neighboring towns. Enforcement is typically by in-car radar from moving
cars or cars parked on the shoulder or up sidestreet, from behind luscious trees.

Police cars are typically white Ford Crown Victorias or new Chevrolet Impalas with no lights
on the roof. At least one car is marked as Ballwin City police. (Ballwin is a nearby
city, they might share police equipment and staff). Morning rush hour 7-10 am they
run speed traps at least two days per week, and at other random times of day until
at least 9pm.

Update, STL --> SFO

Met various STL folk last week; summary of : St Louisans say the darnedest things; others took pictures.
Then I flew home to SFO. This weekend, I sold the precious BMW, and I hope the new owner enjoys all its ///M-technik splendor as much as I have. I just had to drive Palomares one last time. Well, three last times, actually.
Back to STL tomorrow, another 6900 Continental Onepass Elite for me.

Blogger meetup

Blogger Meetup day was last week. I was in Clayton, MO.
There I met James Durbin, another recent import from CA. I saw quite a few people with laptops, but didn't pester them all to see if they were STL.bloggers present for Meetup.
Next time I will bring a meetup flag or other icon.

St Louis life: St Charles chapter

The big excitement in St. Charles:
a radioactive dumpsite is opened up to gawkers.

St. Louis life, on film

Metropolis St. Louis films are out.

The _Metrolink_ movie shows a run-away train zipping through
a post-industrial wasteland. No driver, or driver all but cropped out
of the shot. No passengers. Horror movie trailer, or STL promo ?
Money shot of the Arch.

_Soulard_Market_ is colourful.
_Cinema_ should a crowd with beer in a night carnival-like setting.
It's difficult to shoot in such low light, but the film captures
the atmosphere well. And there was beer.

Most other films look like they could have been made anywhere.
It that a subtheme, STL, it's normal, it could be anywhere. ?

_Worlds_ is beautiful.
_Explore_ best captures the notion that there's opportunity
to see and do in STL.

The Saint Louis / mstl.org branding could be bigger
and bolder. I was looking for the mstl.org URL, but
the casual viewer might miss it.

All films available in Quicktime.

Old cars

The SCCA did not have to worry about how to classify
old cars, for they fell apart faster than they wore out
their tires.

"Generally odd little British cottage industry products made
in hobby quantities that were so unavailable that they
were not deemed a big problem. Cars that self detructed
faster than they wore out their tires. The idea seemed to
be these things would all go away if just left to their
own devices. It mostly worked that way.

King Midgets, twin cam Escorts, Morgans, TVRs, Griffiths,
Berkeleys, Meyers Manx, and microcars have all largely
disappeared without remorse or pain or autocross
classing debates." -- Dennis Hale.

STL, what to drive

Coming from the SF Bay to STL, I've always
wondered who drives Buicks and Cavaliers [NYT]
and other obscure autos I didn't see in SF.

STL, urban ?

"Location, the condition of the building -- Edison Brothers
kept the property in excellent shape. They liked the
flexibility; we have 300 suites in the first phase and
can get to 480 suites. That includes 63 condos on
three floors and four floors of indoor parking,".

St Louis BizJournal.

STL, again

Autoworkers for gas guzzlers:

[St. Louis Business Journal].

Drive-thru coffee: St. Louis, part 1 of many

From the West County section of the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

SUV drivers, Part 1: SUV drivers are are proud of themselves in middle America.

SUV drivers, part 2: Coffeehouses without community in another city that thought it could be Silicon Valley.