Day 36

The start of week 6. Only 46 more to go after this (unless I write this for more than a year, we'll see).

Yes, anyone that want a Llywelyns cup can just ave one. You don't have to give me anything. Just let me know.

Anything else uniquely St. Louis?

It is hot today. I know this because I have spent a decent portion of the day on the exterior of the world. I'll start in the middle somewhere, because that suits my purpose better.

So, my parents have a huge yard. On a hill. I mean, it's almost an acre. And all on a hill. And all of the grass was pretty tall. Dangit. At least my parents have a 42" walk-behind (where you get to ride one of those little platforms on wheels things), so that certainly helped the cause, but those things are way harder to control than you might think. I know, you're saying, "I've seen hundreds of I am sure legal immigrants riding those things all over, it looks easy." Well, it's not incredibly tough, but it is tiring and can be a little tricky. So, I mowed the lawn. I almost made the lawnmower the awesomosity, but really, a lawnmower, just not that awesome.

After that I helped my dad replace some incredibly hard to reach spark plugs in his van. Soooo fun. Let me tell you. Well, after we got all those in, we tried to start the van. The alarm (of which he hasn't used in years and doesn't even have the remote for anymore) start shrieking. That is annoying (I eventually stuffed some rags in it because it kept going off). Now neither of us are experts when it comes to anything vehicular (see post where my brother helped fix my truck), so we can't figure out how to disarm this thing. Worse than that is that it has a starter kill feature. So the truck won't start. And we can't disable the alarm. Aarrrghhh!

After crawling in some very awkward positions to look at all the wiring under the steering column (and after we disconnected some stuff like the backup battery for the alarm), I found some fuses connected to wires going to a black box that looked like an alarm brain. I pulled one of those fuses just for fun and...presto, van starts. Woohoo!

Then I showered and here I sit. A/C feels so good about now.

Now, I skipped over this morning, because it includes today's awesomosity. You see, I have a good friend Ben Shepard (he and his wife Erin were previously mentioned on the blog for coming to watch my short film premiere, which you can see again at the Tivoli in November). Ben and I try to get together somewhat regularly to just talk about life, have some accountability, and just build our friendship. Ben works at SLU (dorm director or something, he lives on campus), and I live in South City, so the Central West End is a decent place to meet. We met at the Coffee Cartel this morning, and that is what is awesome today. For one reason, check out their TV commercial here. You can also look at their webcam (courtest of Fox 2) on their website here.

I think my personal favorite thing about the Cartel is that they have normal sizes. They even have the cups on the ledge by the register with the sizes written on them; small, medium, large; 12oz, 16 oz, 20oz; little, middle, biggest; etc. But then to beat it all, they have all the not sizes that other national coffee chains use such as grande, venti, etc. crossed out. (I'm the guy that always orders a medium or large at Starbucks, then when they say whatever Italian word that correlates to what I say, I reply, "sure".)

They have a huge patio, they have live music on weekends. People tell me they have decent food. They have FREE wi-fi (unlike some national chains). They are open 24 hours. They are not full of themselves. It's just a cool place, and I recommend it to anyone that has not been there before.

After that, I got home and noticed my parents outdoor cat, who had been getting pretty fat, was not so fat anymore. After a little searching and some help from my mother to get them situated nicely, here is what I found:

Awwww

Yes, she had 5 kittens last night. No, we are not keeping them. Does anyone want a kitten in about 6 weeks to go with the Llywelyns cup?

Here is a picture of me all sweaty and dirty in front of my parents huge lawnmower:


See you all tomorrow! Have a fantabulous Monday!