Posts

Showing posts from November, 2012

A Foggy St. Louis November Morning: Taking the Metrolink to Washington University

Image
The local weather folks had predicted a foggy morning, and boy were they right! I brought along the cheap little Sylvania video camera I received free from Swagbucks to record the very foggy weather here in St. Louis as I commuted to work on campus this morning. First off I parked at the Richmond Heights Metrolink station and started walking to the platform. I could not even see the platform area from my car! Once I was on the platform I had to pan around to look out at the fog covered nearby synagogue and also down the track. I was hoping to get the train as it appeared out of the fog, but I was not able to capture that. The other people on the platform must have thought I was an insane tourist or something. Finally I made it to the Skinker Station and started to walk towards the lovely Scott Rudolph Hall on the picturesque Washington University Danforth campus . I grabbed some footage across the parking lot towards the art school and then in front of me as I walked by Wh

My Teenage Son's Election Day Vote: No to UPS (and Amazon Release Day Delivery)!

Image
Today was Election Day which meant two things for my teenage son: 1) No School in his district and  2) Halo 4 was released! Combine those two facts and he thought it meant one thing for him - a full day at home playing Halo 4 with the millions of other young males celebrating democracy together on their Xbox 360's. However, he had made one fatal mistake. He pre-ordered his copy of Halo 4 at Amazon.com using their "release day shipping" option. If he had read the fine print , Amazon states that their shipping agent (namely UPS in this case) does not guarantee delivery at any specific time, only that it will arrive on that day before 7:00 pm. And when did his copy arrive? The UPS truck finally showed up at 5:45 pm which meant he only had 3 hours or so to immerse himself with Master Chief and company. And he had actually paid extra to receive it that late, when he could have paid less and just picked it up at GameStop  hours before, like the location less than a mile away