saint louis

Earlier today, I had lunch with a few good (mostly online) friends at Rigazzi's on the Hill (in St. Louis). The food was so-so, the company was great, and the atmosphere in the restaurant was pretty good. It's a little bit tucked away next to Kingshighway, but not too hard to find (plus there's plenty of parking in the area).

I met Snup (from Snup's view from the back pew) for the first time; she seems to have a most excellent plan in place for the rest of her parish visits. She's about 1/10 of the way through all the parishes in St. Louis, and she's chronicling her visits to various parishes on her blog (link above).

I also met (for the second time) Mark Scott Abeln, who takes many excellent pictures and writes for Rome of the West, an excellent blog looking at the historical and architectural heritage of Saint Louis (with an emphasis on its Catholicity).

From the Saint Louis Review this morning: Pope Benedict XVI Bestows Papal Honor on St. Louisan

Pope Benedict XVI, has bestowed upon Dr. David Mueckl, PhD, DBA, the Papal Honor of Knight Commander with Star of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of Saint Gregory the Great.

The Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great was established on September 1, 1831, by Pope Gregory XVI. It is one of the five pontifical orders of knighthood in the Catholic Church. As part of the reform of the Papal Orders instituted by Saint Pius X, in 1905 the grades of the Order were modified by the addition of a Star for a higher category of Knights Commander as well as assigning to the Papal Knights a particular place in Papal processions and in ceremonies of the Church.

The order is bestowed on Catholic men and women (and in rare cases, non-Catholic men) in recognition of their service to the Church, unusual labors, support of the Holy See, and the good example set in their communities and country.

Well, six weeks after leaving the Seminary, I thought I'd provide a small bit in the way of an update about where I am now, as I have finally had a little time to settle into my new role as a member of the the non-seminarian laity. (You can see from my former post that I have figured out that cookies will now have to be made by me, rather than from some magical source that automatically replenishes the kitchen's cookie jar!).

The New Job

My brother, Joel, who went to Saint Louis University a few years ago, made two Flash animations about some of the humorous decisions and actions done by the University employees and administration. It's not meant to be an entirely negative presentation, but rather a lighthearted look at some of the crazy bureaucratic policies enforced during Joel's time at the University.

Links to the Animations

• SLU for U (The Original)
• SLU for U 2 (The Sequel)
• The Making of SLU for U and SLU for U 2

Note from Jeff Geerling: The following video and post was created by my brother, Joel, while he was a student at Saint Louis University (which is where I received my bachelor's degree in Philosophy!). I'm reposting his content on my blog since SLU no longer hosts student content on their website. See also: SLU for U (The Original), The Making of SLU for U.

Note from Jeff Geerling: The following video and post was created by my brother, Joel, while he was a student at Saint Louis University (which is where I received my bachelor's degree in Philosophy!). I'm reposting his content on my blog since SLU no longer hosts student content on their website. See also: SLU for U 2 (The Sequel), The Making of SLU for U.

Note from Jeff Geerling: The following post was created by my brother, Joel, while he was a student at Saint Louis University (which is where I received my bachelor's degree in Philosophy!). I'm reposting his content on my blog since SLU no longer hosts student content on their website. See also: SLU for U (The Original), SLU for U 2 (The Sequel).

To make this little animation, I used an application called Flash (version 4) from a company named Macromedia [note: Macromedia has since been bought by Adobe, who now sells the Flash animation program]. The Flash multimedia technology had become very poplular and nearly standard (Netscape, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc. come with the Flash plug-in preinstalled) on the Internet over the past few years. Besides creating animations like mine, Flash can even be used to create crisp, interactive websites (when used tastefully).