So Much For That

As anyone who follows sports in this country knows, the National Football League just allowed the St. Louis Rams football team to move to Los Angeles (from whence they came here 23 years ago). The request came from the Rams' billionaire owner, Stan Kronke, a man who had the good business sense to marry into the Walmart fortune. He had some very nasty things to say about our city, including complaints about attendance for a team that has had eight straight losing seasons. Suffice it to say that he is despised in these parts.

Good riddance. Regular readers know that I don't like American football - so deliberately violent, so callous about wrecking players' brains from repeated concussions and then throwing them out with the trash. It hurts St. Louis' pride to lose a major league sports team but I'd rather see my taxes go to schools and infrastructure than to a new zillion dollar sports stadium . 

The second picture shows a trailer near the stadium. Extreme discounts are available. The bottom shot is the 67,000 seat domed stadium where the Rams played. It's actually a physical part of the convention center. Maybe we can fill it with more monster truck shows or international soccer friendlies. (I still can't decide if soccer is an exciting sport or a college physics demonstration of Brownian motion.)

For man-and-woman in the street reaction click here. If you would like to read a cogent analysis of the greed and arrogance of NFL owners check this out.

I do believe this qualifies as the occasional rant.                  

3 PM: Fire To The North, Water To The East

I was going to post some more spring flowers today but, you know, more flowers. So I was sitting at my desk at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon in my usual torpor when I glanced out my window to the north (I'm in a northeast corner). High, billowing black smoke was rising from somewhere behind the football stadium. I looked at a couple of local news sites and found nothing. 

Then a glance to east across the Mississippi: the Gateway Geyser was having its mid-afternoon blow. This is directly across the river from the Arch. From my angle it's behind a grain elevator. It goes off at noon, 3 and 6 during the warm months, rising as high as the Arch itself when the wind is calm, like yesterday. The only one in the world that's higher is in Saudi Arabia.

Now if they could only direct that water canon back to the Missouri side.                       

Robotics

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Fighting, hoop-shooting, radio-controlled robots - who could resist? An organization called First Robotics seems to have made St. Louis its home for the championship competition. It takes place on the floor of our cavernous domed football stadium. High school students from all over design and build these gizmos. 

I could not get the clearest idea of the rules. Somehow the robots suck up basketballs off the floor and shoot them at hoops, the higher off the floor, the more points. They can also raid one another's zones, trying to disrupt the other team's shooting. The spectators were as interesting as the contests.

So What Is It They're Doing?

Well, I never did add more details yesterday morning. Slept a little late, then when downtown to shoot the flooding on the Mississippi (like this, for example). The outfit that sponsors the competition is called FIRST, which is an acronym for something-or-other whose last two words are science and technology. I can't find it on their web site. I also can't find an explanation of this competition, although there was a good one in the program book at the event.

As best I can gather, there are two sides, each with three robots. Each robot is from a different team so these "alliances" have to cooperate. The gizmos have to race around, pick up these inflatable shapes and hang them on rods on their own end. They may try to prevent an opponent from doing so. There are extra points for hanging the donuts in certain combinations on certain rods. It the last 15 seconds, the machines try to line up at four discs in the center with a tall metal pole rising from it. They release a mini robot onto the disc, which then climbs the pole in a second or two. The whole match takes just over 3 minutes. Confusing but exciting.

Downtown St. Louis 365 gets out the telephoto today.

Robot Wars

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The robotics championship for high school students was held in St. Louis over the last few days. It took place in the domed football stadium and adjacent convention center. The rules of competition were complicated. It's after midnight as I write this so I hope to add some details in the morning our time.

Downtown St. Louis 365 looks at the cavernous dome itself.