Odds and Ends

I don't know if anyone's noticed, but the last 30 days or so has been hot. Like, planet Mars hot. So, the last few Royals games have been a test of how true fans we are. This week, at least the game was in the evening so it just felt like you were in an oven, as opposed to the surface of the sun.

I finally got around to making Escobar a sign. I think he may have seen it during warm-ups and he didn't seem too impressed. But maybe he didn't see it, I couldn't tell. I like to think he really appreciates me, his number one fan!

We also went to the Christmas in July game and got this cool snowglobe! They played Christmas music during the whole game and even Santa threw the first pitch! The Royals may always have a terrible team but they get an 'A' for their promotions, it's always good!

We tried out a new restaurant after church on Sunday. (New to me, that is). We had a good group go- Bree, Jason, little Josie, Daylen, Nadine and Scott went to Grinder's in the Crossroads District. I had heard they had good philly cheese steaks, so I had to check it out!

Did you know authentic philly cheese steaks use cheese wiz? It sounds crazy but it's true! And it really is good!!

So, I'm on a huge book fix. I read "Water for Elephants" because I thought the movie was good and knew it would be a great story. The book was fantastic and I read it in just a couple days! It's a fast read and really interesting because it really paints the picture of the life of a circus in the Great Depression.

Then, I read "Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson. I love history and this book did not disappoint! It's about the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and it's a duel storyline of the Fair and a serial killer who lived closed to the fairgrounds at the same time.

I really enjoyed learning about this Fair and learned that it really affected life since then. First, they built the structures in the classic Greek/Roman style (columns, etc) and it's credited to influencing practically every public building since then. That's also a criticism because for decades afterwards, America's architecture was known for simply copying the European classical style instead of coming up with their own.

Because they worked so hard at creating a beautiful fairgrounds, it was also credited with starting the City Beautiful movement. At this time, the late 1800's, America's cities were dirty, polluted, in poverty and overall, not very nice. The Fair made people realize that having parks and clean streets and aesthetically pleasing buildings helps everything in your city. People take pride in the city, and end up taking pride in themselves. It's good for morale, good for tourism, etc. 

The World's Fair in Chicago was also home of the first Ferris Wheel, Shredded Wheat, Columbus Day and it influenced people- Walt Disney's dad did construction on the site and it's said that Walt was so impressed he created his Disneyland from it. 

Anyways, it's a great book. And I haven't even gotten into the part about the serial killer, H.H. Holmes, who was said to have killed 200 people!! He was America's first serial killer. Leonardo DiCaprio purchased the filming rights to the book in 2010 so be looking for a movie to come out in a couple years!

Fountain Update:

No. 76- White Chapel Cemetery, Gladstone

Til next time...Laura