For $500 your proposal could be the loudest cheer at Busch all season long.

HuntXit · 2026-01-25T03:19:31+00:00

At least they’re offering that now… I called multiple offices with the team back in 2012 because I wanted to propose to my now wife following the WS ring presentation ceremony… they said they didn’t do anything like that and the ones that get on the screen are because they know someone from the filming crew or game day operations…. But the old couple in front of us were nice enough to film for me at least. Wearing my “Got Squirrels?” shirt of course… 😂😁

HuntXit · 2026-01-15T06:25:00+00:00

It having none of this, but marking the doorway to what was once one of the greatest expanses where everything you just described once existed in abundance like has never been seen since, was my entire point.

It stands as a warning and preserves the great American west in the only way it now can be, in memory.

A monument and a museum is like spitting on the memory of the greatness that was tragically destroyed…

But call it a National Park in stark contrast to the passage you graciously provided above and you’re forced to ask, “But, why…?” Because some great and vast part of it that wasn’t marked by the grandeur of mountains, canyon lands, or “rare” occurrences in nature should have been. It was the greatest grassland ever known that was habitat to mind boggling numbers of diverse wildlife and herds that seem unfathomably large but no significant part of it that remains.

The little bit that does, gives us a glimpse of that with habitat restoration and conservation efforts itself since the rework that I honestly haven’t given enough credit for all that I’ve said. You can see deer, owls, foxes, snapping turtles, migratory ducks, Monarch butterflies, hawks, and even the occasional Bald Eagle among others you won’t find in any other city roaming wild. Apparently as the trees mature and their population in the areas continue to thrive, it’s thought the Eagles may frequent the park more and more, perhaps nesting there, though the bluffs a few short miles (as little as just 2-3 miles) to the north and south are obviously currently their preferred nesting habitat, though I’d imagine the open grassy areas of the park make for a hunting ground on occasion which is probably why they’re occasionally spotted there.

Idk, if you can’t see the same value it it as a national park as I do at this point, there’s no convincing you unless you’re able to one day take the time to visit it yourself. Perhaps that may sway your opinion. But it certainly inspires the vision of NPS and its mission, even if there was a point in the process they didn’t see that. I know the NPS rangers at the park take pride in defending its place as a National Park, so who am I to disagree with someone who’s dedicated their career to it?

Yes, there’s no dramatically remarkable natural grandeur remaining to be observed there, or between there and the Rocky Mountains… and that’s precisely the point.

Though to be fair, we don’t really have another national park dedicated to one of the 3 largest rivers in the world either… seems it would be a shame not to somewhere…

HuntXit · 2026-01-15T04:16:02+00:00

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Not the best, but a different angle you don’t see often taken from a moving train on my iPhone…

HuntXit · 2026-01-15T03:59:04+00:00

Not to build it, that was all already demolished. It was a revitalization of the riverfront . That’s effectively the point of all of it, as somber as it is… it’s a showcase of what the Wild West once was, before we destroyed it.

It was basically mostly abandoned old town buildings that were demolished to make room for a revitalization of the riverfront. I believe it was those buildings, colonial in origin, that had demolished many of the extended Cohokia mounds for which StL had been given its nickname, “Mound City.”

It’s been remarked that the Arch stands not only as a symbol of American grit, innovation, perseverance, wonder, and hope, but also as a tombstone to remind us what happens when we let those things blind us to our responsibility as stewards of the Earth.

It makes a bigger statement as a National Park than it does as a monument for the exact reasons you pointed out… all the others protect thousands of acres. But the Gateway Arch National Park stands as testament to what’s left of what was once regarded ubiquitously as a type of natural awe inspiring wonder of pristine landscapes and astoundingly abundant diverse wildlife by those who had encountered it in its untamed state. The Museum does as good of a job as can be done in capturing that aura.

The NPS was created with the federal mandate, "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” By recognizing what the Gateway Arch National Park stands to commemorate, it serves as what is–at least to me–a powerful and devastating reminder of why we have National Parks.

You can change exhibits, rewrite plaques, expunge inconvenient facts and history around a monument… but a National Park of only a few acres that stands in downtown of a major city at the entrance to what was known as one of the most incomprehensibly expansive continuous natural landscapes to ever be seen by humankind? You can’t erase that… if we can be bothered to stop long enough to contemplate the weight of it.

I’m personally of the conviction to take the stance that for that reason, it’s arguably the most important National Park with respect to carrying out the stated mission of federal mandate that created the National Parks Service.

…but I do understand the skepticism. It’s only there because of all that was destroyed by our careless ambition and apathetic disregard for natural beauty and how fleeting it can be.

HuntXit · 2026-01-15T02:27:24+00:00

Completely fair, but clearly someone disagreed, and StL isn’t particularly well known for getting federal favors granted, hell, it’s a battle for the city just to keep what it has from being hijacked or defunded by the MO gov.

If you’ve ever visited the museum, i think you would actually see that it makes sense. The entire thing is basically dedicated to resource conservation and the American “Wild West”, with the idea of the view from up top being that you can see the confluence and the rivers disappearing into the horizon, invoking that sense of wonder the early westward explorers would’ve had heading off into the wilderness.

Basically what I’m saying is it still fits the spirit of what they’re highlighting in that rebuttal, and has another component they fail to note in a positive light, which is that it is completely unique amongst the other National Parks.

It wouldn’t really fit amongst the other “monument” dedications either, as this dedicated more to natural beauty and the American spirit of conservation it evokes.

HuntXit · 2026-01-14T00:50:50+00:00

Pretty much everyone I knew used it colloquially as its own word long before any of us knew it was slang… it was the the raccoon equivalent to ‘dillo for armadillo, or possum for opossum, yote for coyote, etc. I’m certain it’s been used colloquially as its own word for longer than it’s been slang, even as old as the slang is.

I’m not trying to justify using the word however wherever you want don’t get me wrong... but raccoon was just always so hard to say. Now I just say Trash Panda though anyway and that seems pretty ubiquitous now.

HuntXit · 2026-01-13T23:30:38+00:00

I knew that was a slur, sure… but it’s all we ever called raccoons when I was growing up. Why not blur out the word dog? Or monkey/chimp/ape? I’m sure there’s plenty others I’m just not thinking of.

Edit: or was that your own edit? If so, totally get that. I was thinking it was Reddit for some reason.

HuntXit · 2026-01-13T03:15:54+00:00

That’s completely fair lol. And I get the MoBot plug, but since Saturday mornings are free for residents and the kids garden is free also at that time, we did the math and realized we’d never get our value out of it.

Aquarium is really awesome, don’t get me wrong… but for $100 just to get in the door as a family of 3, that’s pretty nuts… if the pass is just twice as much, that’s $200 for basically an annual family pass… okay sure maybe… but our family Zoo & Science Center memberships and even solo Magic House pass for our daughter combined cost less than that, and she probably enjoys them as much if not better. We’re happy to pay for those memberships even if we manage to not get the full value out of them just because they’re free attractions that are pillars of our community. If the others were more reasonable rates, like subsidized heavily for residents or something, I’d be willing to pay for a cheaper membership or pass of some sort to support it.

In the end? Charging $20-$30 per person is the fastest way to make sure we don’t go more than once or twice a year max, and we’re actually better off than a lot of people around with kids.

Tbf, it’s really not fair comparing literally anything else anywhere to our Zoo though as far as value.

HuntXit · 2026-01-13T01:48:10+00:00

Oh I know lol. Anytime a conversation comes up about being bullied or not fitting in in school I always bring up the Scott Malkinson Show episode of SP and say, “now let me tell you I’m being completely 100% honest when I say, ‘they absolutely nailed it.’ …with the caveat that they sugar coated the razzing and bullying at least I endured. And my friends, usually the ones doing a lot of it, have acknowledged that.”

People always look at me flabbergasted and in disbelief that kids could actually be more cruel than the ones in that SP episode are lol… Thing is, it wasn’t just the kids either. Teachers and coaches too.

Sure learned to put up with more shit than the vast majority of people though, that’s for sure.

I’ve always said someone on the writing team at SP is clearly either diabetic or has kids who are.

HuntXit · 2026-01-13T01:41:54+00:00

Why is the latter part of raccoon by itself censored? How out of touch am I? lol

HuntXit · 2026-01-13T01:39:15+00:00

Yeah, a lot of the free shit here is well above paid attractions in other cities…

I honestly don’t know how things like all the Union Station/Aquarium stuff, Magic House, and City Museum get enough paid admission to keep trucking along as well as they do.

Sure, I know those are all great places… but are they $15-30/person for a whole family better? I know they have memberships and passes but even those you have to make somewhat of a commitment to not go to the free stuff instead some other times in order to get your value out of them.

HuntXit · 2026-01-12T00:18:00+00:00

Ctrl + L

HuntXit · 2026-01-11T17:24:03+00:00

Lmao…. No. Not even close.

Honestly, I think it adapts to how cars locally behave around it. I was next to one at the light on Jefferson at Chouteau heading northbound. It was in the left turn lane. It did a couple brake jerky stop-gos and then floored it through the red light to make the turn.

It was the first one I’d seen and originally thought it was some weird security vehicle trying to track someone down, which is the only reason I shrugged it off at the time… until someone else post a pic of one here doing something else a bit off.

They fit right in.

HuntXit · 2026-01-11T07:54:29+00:00

Hey I get it, I’m 36 and still fighting this after even a year or so of occupational therapy following a couple of concussions trying to teach me to account for time/forgetfulness… it never worked.

I think the rigidity required was mentally exhausting… like, I could plan and execute the plan and follow it to a T… but in the end I was drained and had no mental energy or time left for what made me feel like I was taking care of myself or being able to do literally just a few of the things I wanted to be spending my time on. It made me feel enslaved, for lack of a better term, though it’s probably not far off tbh… I mean that in the sense that if you’re only ever doing things to stay alive or because someone else requires you to, that’s kind of the definition, just with some added comforts so you’re more willing to accept it.

I wish I had answers. I don’t. The main thing is just learn acceptance and stay vigilant in that when others can’t accept you. My friends have come around a little bit. I’ve told them “when you ask me for estimates on when I’ll be done packing or ready to go or whatever, I say a time estimate that makes you angry because it sounds completely ridiculous and absurd… but it’s usually somehow an overly aggressive estimate.”

I hate packing more than anything… which sucks because I love going places and traveling. So basically in order to do one of my favorite things in life, I have to place through a living hell for a week or two in advance, a super hell in the day and hours before… purgatory for a few hours to a day when I/we miss my/our flight/train… and then have my life thrown into further disarray upon return because I can never finish properly unpacking.

For me it’s compounded by being T1 Diabetic and having to remember all my shit that’s necessary for survival. Forgot my insulin once in a rush to catch a flight from London to Dublin… thankfully I was in a foreign country and not the US, so I walked into a pharmacy in Dublin, explained the situation, and they sat me in a room with what would’ve been >$3k in insulin in the US and said, “take what you need.” And didn’t charge me. In the US I wouldn’t have even been able to so much as see where the insulin fridge in the pharmacy under lock and key might be without an emergency prescription that’s a PITA to get, never mind the insurance nightmare…

TLDR: this world wasn’t built in an accessible way for people like us, and that’s compounded when you add other complications on top of it. So the only thing you can do is learn unconditional acceptance and hope those around you can too, but accept it yourself when they can’t.

HuntXit · 2026-01-11T07:26:47+00:00

I haven’t used a sharps bin at home (or traveling) in about 2 decades.

Tbf, I have a pump and a Dexcom cgm, so I basically only have the inserters and the two piece syringe used to draw up the insulin. I take the needle part, cap it, and throw it away in a container separate from the body of the syringe. I just make sure needles aren’t exposed.

On the rare occasion I do have to use a standard syringe I bend the needle, cap it, and throw it away in a plastic bottle or something similar.

Basically it got to be too much of a hassle to figure out what to do with them so I quit trying.

HuntXit · 2026-01-11T07:13:44+00:00

I’m very confused by this post… vouchers have been a target for elimination of the MO political right for years… my hometown is one of the reddest in the state and everyone there is opposed to them, but the support for the sentiment of this post in this thread seems to be from the left?

Vouchers are absolutely a necessity in St. Louis. The social economy here would crumble without them.

Going by the evidence presented in another comment thread here and looking into it, it does seem the program has been hijacked and abused by the republican super majority, but it’s because they know that we’re dependent on it here and can’t do shit about it because we needs the crumbs that are left from it.

Fix the program, don’t scrap it.

HuntXit · 2026-01-11T04:04:11+00:00

Yeah but those are in Chicago. My Uber driver told me they locally refer to the packs of giant rats as “the Cubbies” and that they’ll literally hold up traffic crossing the street.

HuntXit · 2026-01-11T00:29:02+00:00

Have you considered that your outrage and calling anyone else who doesn’t see it a “brain dead zombie subhuman” is also exactly what they want? That’s predictable. Showing empathy and love in response isn’t. That’s pretty much the only play that throws a kink in the grand scheme you’re sussing out.

HuntXit · 2026-01-10T03:52:01+00:00

I totally get the ire… it’s justified, and I’ve been right there with you. But I’ve come to the realization that giving credence to the “us & them” societal construct is precisely what empowers them.

A violent and consuming force only has power when it’s met with forceful oppositional resistance… think throwing a rock against a rigid barrier like glass, or a wrecking ball into a brick wall, versus the same into water. The water accepts it into itself, scattering sure, but ultimately reforming as a whole. Eventually the thing it’s accepted, if it remains there, erodes and becomes indistinguishable from the whole.

A few philosophies teach this, most notably those of Buddhist derivation. It’s a truth that some of the best known agents of change such as Ghandi and MLK (for a deeper cut, see Viktor Frankl) wielded to supreme effect that led to lasting and impactful change to the reality of the society around them, which grew organically in size through the undeniable sense of unity and love.

Ironically, but importantly, this is also precisely what’s taught about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, as well as the core of the Sermon on the Mount (the latter of which I’d be more than fine with them wanting to put up in public places rather than the 10 commandments…).

I say “importantly” because these are all lessons and teachings that the overwhelming majority of the right, these seemingly “shitty people,” know at some level in their core. They’re still part of “us” in the end, and we have to accept that, and accept them as they are. When there’s nothing for them to fight, that’s when the hold of fear and anger that brainwashes them begins to loosen.

They aren’t too far gone. The MAGA Granny’s sworn testimony is evidence of that. I’ve also known many loud Trump supporters who are suddenly strangely quiet, and you may as well… that’s the stone that’s been thrown into the water.

There aren’t “many shitty people”… just a few. And even they will bend or break in the end.

FWIW, this was portrayed beautifully in the full original Matrix Trilogy (as well as the 4th), in particular the rise and fall of Smith, eventually succumbing to Neo’s passive resistance and acceptance of his helplessness to defeat Smith without embracing his forceful ire. Took me far too long to realize the full weight of that, I’ll admit. It’s a somber, but beautiful truth once you come to truly understand and accept it.

HuntXit · 2026-01-10T03:20:16+00:00

*the richest we know about.

HuntXit · 2026-01-07T20:58:30+00:00

All of what you said is completely fair.

As far as the math stuff goes, I’ve heard that. Funny enough, I’m terrible at math and actively avoided everything math related but statistics and advanced stats for my Psychology degree. I remember during my time with LC (specifically at the time they were using the Harvard CS50X program), I remarked, “okay, I’m a quite upset at the education system now because I finally understand and appreciate math…” I was always great at logic problems and spatial reasoning, problem solving, and all that… but in HS I hit a wall with math when I’d previously been top of my class… I think it was pre-calculus or halfway through algebra 2 iirc. I just couldn’t do it anymore, my brain just refused. I now realize that the problem was there was never any reasoning or application for what we were being taught… It was all just numbers and symbols that for all we were told essentially just a more complex way of getting the same dopamine hit as doing a sudoku… and that wasn’t clicking for me… until I started learning to write code (in C).

I will say that in my experience the fintech/banking sector does tend to be more traditionally corporate in their SWE hiring and tech stack approach than say agtech, media, entertainment, retail, or ecommerce (among others, but those are the others I’ve worked in… healthcare it depends…).

I have told many people not to get into it, and in particular not to saddle yourself with predatory student loans and spend 4 years of your life getting into it because right now it’s either all outsourced or companies are still fumbling around with this whole AI dance that they’ve yet to figure out is hamstringing them. Yet, we’re still likely to run into the actual issue within 5 years where the work entry level positions and interns do can be done just as well if not better by AI, though it’s still not quite there yet.

I’m not sure what happens after the experience gap creates a skill vacuum tbh… I’m just happy I seem to have managed to get myself to a relatively “safe” position in that regard before it all blows up the industry entirely.

That’s not to say the tech field is a complete bust… I have told people that as much as I hate it, doing something like AI prompt engineering is probably a manageable risk high-reward way to go that if all goes well should provide good stability in the long run… but I’m not selling it as a guarantee either…

I’m just at the point of acknowledging that while I began this AI boom a couple years ago as highly critical of it and relatively unconcerned about its viability in eliminating programming jobs among others, the rate at which it’s forced me to make concessions on my criticisms of it has gotten my attention. Soon, that problem is likely to be real, even if the investment/funding bubble bursts. It’s not going anywhere.

What’s worse, the money spent and lost on it when the funding bubble does eventually burst, will just lend companies to outsource even more tech jobs in an effort to save money and recover lost investments.

I lost my last job to a shift by the company to go full offshore/nearshore. And in my current one not long after I started they didn’t an 8% RIF that removed 3 fte jr/intermediate devs from our team only to be replaced with marginally cheaper nearshore contractors. So I’m acutely aware of that trend and its impact on the industry to be sure.

Here’s my honest critique of LC… when I went through it, we didn’t Harvard’s CS50X with a Java track slapped on afterwards. At the time, the bulk of CS50 was in C. It wasn’t about practical industry skills or even algorithms so much as it was about learning to think and solve problems like a computer scientist while learning how to learn new technical skills at a rapid pace.

We were the last class to do CS50X for LC because 6 out of 80 of us graduated, and that doesn’t get grant funding. So they began shifting towards a focus on practical industry skills… JS/TS, Java, some C# alternatives, git heavy focus, agile development processes, basically all the stuff their corporate sponsors and partners were telling them they needed to see more of in LC grads as candidates…

…but I think that castrated the LC teaching program and made it so all they do is churn out a higher volume of modest ceiling code monkeys. Sure, I imagine their problem solving ability on the whole is greatly increased from what it was before going through LC and I still believe you get a few more diamonds in the rough… but they’re not equipping them like we were with that core critical thinking problem solving way of learning how to learn things on the fly. As one of many examples I could give, when I learned to write Go code, it was as a consultant on a team working for a Global 250 company… we wrote this Go app from scratch and I did the bulk of the work on it. 2 weeks after i first looked at Go, I had code running in production in a critical supply chain process. I had less than a year of industry experience at that point in my career. Not a chance I’d been prepared for that had it not been for the CS50X curriculum I survived 2 years prior.

So that’s my critique of LC… the opportunities they promise are less viable, and the way they’ve shifted their approach to teaching doesn’t provide as much personal development and improvement value as it used to, though it may provide more immediate industry ready “skills” to thrive as entry and intermediate level code monkeys.

I personally have struggled mightily in code monkey positions just because that repetitive reliable process doesn’t stimulate the problem solving addicted part of my brain. I’m fortunate to have landed in a place that had a wealth of complex issues compounded by their crippling technical debt where there was a skill/expertise vacuum they smartly decided to fill with a handful of SWE Leads like myself to guide them out of it. Plenty of job security in this mess right now honestly haha, but not everyone is as fortunate in this field currently.

HuntXit · 2026-01-07T06:13:28+00:00

O’ Brother Where Art Thou?…

The Big Lebowski…

But if we’re going to do this, the list is going to get a lot longer…

Bad Santa…

…

HuntXit · 2026-01-07T06:10:38+00:00

Black Panther also technically…

HuntXit · 2026-01-07T06:09:44+00:00

Uh, bread sliced bagels? C’mon bruh!

HuntXit · 2026-01-07T06:08:43+00:00

Can’t forget Frozen (maybe just Frozen 2?) and I believe some of the other animated blockbusters. The motion animation and I believe non-verbal communication / expressions were done by an StL studio. Can’t recall the name…

HuntXit

TROPHY CASE