GO! Network was established to serve the needs of individuals [in St. Louis, Missouri] whose employment has been affected by the current economic environment. GO! Network’s goal is to encourage, inspire, motivate and connect people to employment and entrepreneurial opportunities. The initiative will consist of a series of weekly seminars, professional workshops and job fairs.

Count me as one "whose employment has been affected by the current economic environment". We had some layoffs at my company this week, and though I was not one of the people laid off (yet), I'm still updating my own resume and prepping for a potential job search. :/

Elonka

GO! Network STL

Power remains out for many in the western parts of the metro area, especially west St. Louis county and St. Charles county.

Slept at my office last night. The power stayed on here, and it wasn't too bad. Felt sort of like being back in a military barracks, where everybody kind of had their own rooms, but you had to walk down the hall to go to the bathroom. I couldn't find anyone to play "Settlers of Catan", but we watched a movie and played some Skip-Bo.

The weather here is better than expected today. The "freezing line" that was approaching from Oklahoma, stalled about 5 miles west of the city. So everyone west of the line (around Troy, Missouri) froze last night. Those to the east, stayed above freezing. It was pouring rain for much of the night, which had the advantage of washing the ice off the trees -- they have sprung back up into "normal" shapes (minus a few branches). If the freezing line had been just a few miles east, things would be really bad right now. But as it is, the worst of the ice storms appear to be over, and now we just have to deal with plummeting temperatures -- expectations are that'll it drop another 30 degrees today, to "Arctic" levels.

One funny story about the sudden melting: Yesterday, one of my neighbors had put up a new birdfeeder on one of the iced-over trees, so that the birds would have something to eat. But then when the trees thawed, the branches raised up so much, that the feeder is now high in the tree, and my neighbor can't reach it anymore! So next time I see a birdfeeder way way way up in a tree, I'm going to wonder if it got placed while that tree was in an icier state. :)

As regards electricity: Power has been restored to a few homes, but about 80,000 are still without power, and the area is still under a state of emergency. The National Guard has been going from house to house, checking on people. Power in my own apartment appears to have been restored last night, but many other of my co-workers were not as lucky, and will again be sleeping in the office tonight (yes I've offered crash-space and access to hot showers).

Power outages by zip code:

Area Outages: 80,670


# of Customers
ZIP Out Served
62002 8 17618
62012 30 1701
62016 1 1476
62024 1 5420
62035 23 7443
62052 2 4849
62054 1 240
62092 1 1315
62206 4 7600
62220 1 10100
62226 1 14017
62254 6 2748
62288 1 1404
63005 1806 7995
63010 3 15698
63011 5099 16253
63012 2 4009
63014 43 259
63015 226 956
63016 3 3580
63017 3660 18872
63020 2 9708
63021 3705 23351
63023 6 2356
63025 492 5944
63026 131 19678
63031 405 21022
63033 162 19708
63034 75 7381
63037 589 1185
63038 889 2714
63039 63 552
63040 388 3366
63042 658 10771
63043 1762 11752
63044 1859 6027
63... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

St. Charles storm update - Monday

As of 7 p.m. Central on Sunday:

In zip code 63301, which serves 24,669 customers, 10,095 are without power.

In zip code 63303, which serves 17,941 customers, 8,585 are without power (one of those homes being mine).

If you check the map on this page and go to "zoom in" view, my home is right around the dot after the "t" in "St. Charles".

St. Louis power outage Information

A powerful summer storm slammed into the St. Louis area Wednesday evening, toppling buildings, street lights, tractor trailers and hundreds of trees.

At least 476,000 customers lost power, Metrolink was shut down . . .

"This is one of the worst storms we can all remember to hit the city of St. Louis in recent years," St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said at a hurriedly called news conference.

. . .
Until Wednesday, the two biggest storms to hit the area in the last few years were in July 2004, when about 225,000 lost power, and in August 2005, which affected about 250,000. It took AmerenUE crews four days to restore power to all customers in 2004 and five days in 2005.

. . .
Skies darkened with blowing dust, shingles flew from roofs, and windows were shattered, all before a drop of rain fell. Blowing dust and debris and then torrents of rain limited visibility on roads.

. . .
Near Lambert Field, strong winds ripped off part of the terminal roof and dumped it across several lanes of Interstate 70. Power was out to all but the East Terminal. The airport was open to some flights but with heavy delays.

Drivers heading east on I-70 near the airport could see camper shells strewn across the highway, twisted sheet metal wrapped around light posts and at least one burning building east of the airport.

I was out driving during the first part of this storm. Heading west on I-70 from St. Charles. At first, it just looked like there was a large darkened patch of sky to the right, typical of a large thunderstorm to our north. A few minutes later though, as I exited 70, I looked back to see what the interstate behind me looked like, and I could no longer see it. It was completely obscured by enormous brown clouds of dust that were blowing in from the north (especially unusual, considering that our weather usually comes in from the west). I proceeded south (heading to my usual Wednesday night sushi gathering with friends), but the weather was actually overtaking me. By the time I got out of my car, there was grit everywhere, and we could smell the fertilizer, since it seemed that the high winds (80 mph) had literally ripped the topsoil off of the farm fields to the north.

Our restaurant was in the lee of a shopping center, but we opened all of the blinds and curtains to watch the storm as we ate, and then afterwards went outside and watched the lightning go on for hours. Huge spidery webs of lightning going from horizon to horizon, my guess from all the static electricity generated by the dry dust in the air.

When I finally headed home, it was a path of destruction. Downed trees, inoperative traffic signals, etc. Though personally, the biggest downer of the night for me, was when I got home and saw that power had been lost at *exactly* 7 p.m., which meant that my TiVo hadn't caught this week's episode of "So You Think You Can Dance". Anyone know where I can download a copy?

Elonka :)

Record-breaking storm hits St. Louis

Book news
FROM LOCAL AND WIRE SOURCES

04/23/2006

Author update

A local code breaker is getting closer to cracking Kryptos, a sculpture on the CIA grounds in Washington with an embedded code that has stumped experts for years.

Two weeks ago, the Post-Dispatch featured Elonka Dunin, a St. Charles computer game company executive, about her new book of codes and puzzles. She co-moderates an online group devoted to solving Kryptos. The group has figured out three of four parts.

This is an interesting milestone for me -- my name showed up in a newspaper article, without me having talked to the reporter ahead of time. Granted, it's a local St. Louis paper that is just posting an update based on recent media attention that I *do* know about, but still, it was kind of an odd feeling. Like a new "fame" stepping stone.

Elonka

STLtoday - Entertainment - Books - Author update

A list of reviews of the various sushi restaurants in town, by some of the snootiest sushi snobs I've ever met in my entire life. They'll mark a place down just because the soy sauce dishes aren't in the right shape. ;) They also regard any restaurant outside of the immediate metro St. Louis area as being in a "cultural wasteland".

On the plus side, this site has the most comprehensive list of sushi restaurants in St. Louis that I've found.

I've sent in a few dissenting reviews, since I'm a bit more forgiving on some things (like I'm more interested in the quality of the sushi, as relative to price, and decor isn't as big a deal). Then again, I'm out in "cultural wasteland" territory, so what do I know? ;) We'll see if they post my opinions. If not, I may just have to make my own website . . .

Elonka :)

Sushi St. Louis

] A pay dispute in the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra has
] cancelled performances and the musicians are standing
] outdoors in picket lines. The musicians say they were
] locked out after they rejected a contract offer from the
] symphony earlier this week. Symphony officials dispute
] that.

(sigh) No Mozart for me this weekend. :/

NPR : St. Louis Orchestra on Strike over Pay

A list of the propositions and candidates in today's (very local) election. St. Charles County, Missouri.

Note to myself: I'm in Francis Howell School District... That's something I can never remember, so hopefully blogging it will help. ;)

St. Charles Voter Guide

Good resource for St. Louis jobhunters.

At this location, you'll talk to a counselor, and if you can justify it, they'll pay for a complete new look for you: New clothes, new haircut/style/perm, assistance in writing a resume and mailing it for you, setting up job interviews, and giving you free training on various software packages (Excel/Word,PowerPoint etc.)

St Louis Agency on Training and Employment

The St. Louis site for the "Dance Dance Revolution" community. Playing the DDR game is now my preferred form of exercise.

DDRSTL.com - Dance Dance Revolution, St. Louis