Cape Girardeau History and Photos

November 21, 2012

Looking for Presents?

Wife Lila was honored at a retirement party Sunday night. She is part owner with Son Adam of DedicatedIT, and has been working in the company for the past nine years.

She was given a plaque recognizing her service: In Appreciation of Nine Years of Service and Corporate Mothering… Invoices processed: 5,799; Bills Entered: 4,154; Trips to the Bank: 1,854; Countless Errands; Being a Second Mom to All of Us; Nice as Pie at All Times.

The photo shows her holding her retirement package.

Click Here

Son Matt explained yesterday how clicking on this button to do your Amazon shopping will put a little money in my pocket (in case Lila’s Lotto ticket doesn’t pay off) without adding to your cost. I hate to sound like a PBS fund drive, but this site costs a bunch of money to maintain.

I burn more than $500 bucks in gas for each trip to Cape; that doesn’t include lodging on the road and meals. If Mother didn’t put me up at home, I couldn’t afford to spend a month or more at a time in town. My Nikon film scanner cost $1,800. Last month I had to replace a $500+ drive array and populate it with another $600 worth of drives. My desktop computer needed upgrading about 18 months ago and one of my two monitors died recently. I don’t mind donating my time, but it hurts to reach for the old checkbook to pay out real money for hardware, supplies, travel and services. The only solace I can take is that it’s cheaper than being owned by a boat.

Looking for photo equipment?

If you come to this site, you’re probably coming to look at photographs. Here are some links to equipment I’ve used to produce the contemporary photos, plus some less expensive cameras.

Nikon D40 – my first digital single lens reflex camera. I shot close to 40,000 photos with it before trading it to Son Adam.
Nikon D3100 – Adam bought this on eBay and thought it was more camera than he needed, so he traded it to me for my D40. It’s a better camera than the D40 and it’s actually cheaper.
Fujifilm FinePix JX500 Digital Camera – The battery compartment on the Kodak digital camera I bought for Mother a few years ago was broken, so I went looking for the easiest no-frills camera I could find. It takes good pictures for way under $100.
Canon PowerShot D10 12.1 MP Waterproof Digital Camera – Grandson Malcolm has one of these. I sure wish I had one when I was covering hurricanes. It’s waterproof, shockproof and takes great pictures.
Hoya Super Multicoated Ultrathin circular polarizing filter – There’s probably no accessory that will make your photographs more dramatic. I keep it on the lens to protect the front element and to remove reflections and to darken skies. Make sure you pick on that fits your lens. (My Nikon lens takes a 52mm.)
Domke PhoTOGS Vest – I used fishing vests to hold film and gear for years. A professional newspaper photographer named Domke developed a camera bag in 1976 that became the industry standard. I like working from a vest, so I was glad to see him design one with the right kinds of pockets and made of heavy cotton.

Finding your way

Mother and I like to say the day’s not complete until we’ve found a road we’ve never been on before. Sometimes, it’s nice to know where you are and how you’re going to get back home. I’ve had several flavors of Garmin GPS units on my bike and car.

Here’s the one I’ve found does a good job in my van – the Garmin Nuvi 760. It’s large enough to read, is generally accurate and has been dependable. Its beanbag mount rides very comfortably on my steering column.

Electronic Toys

About 10 years ago, we hooked Mother up with WebTV, a klugy way to connect with the Internet using a keyboard and her TV. It was a slow dial-up connection that used an obsolete browser. One of the guys at work won one of the first iPads and sold it to me for a fair price. We gave it to Mother for her Birthday Season three or four years ago, not sure she would adapt to it. Now, I think she’d give up her TV before she gave up her iPad. It’s been a great way for her to keep up with her extended family. If you have an elderly relative, open up a new world for them. They may adapt to the digital world faster than you think.

This is the latest flavor of iPad.

Wife Lila wanted a new, lighter, faster laptop to take on her cruise to Alaska. After consulting with The Boys, I ordered a Toshiba Satellite P775-S7368 17.3-Inch LED Laptop, which was a really sweet machine.

When it came in, though, she thought the 17.3″ screen made it too large for her to carry easily. Adam sold it to a client, and I ordered a Toshiba Satellite P775-S7368 17.3-Inch LED Laptop to replace it. I liked the bigger screen of the other laptop, but I borrowed this to take back to Cape to power my presentations. It was a lot faster than my 4-year-old computer and had an HDMI port.

I always hate to rely on equipment provided by others, so I bought an Epson EX7210 Projector. It was easy to set up, light and performed flawlessly. If you have to do formal presentations, I recommend this highly.

Very few of you need as much redundant data storage as I do, but I’ve been very impressed by my Drobo S 5-Bay Storage Array. If you look at the price, you can see why I’m hoping you click on the Amazon link for your shopping.

November 20, 2012

Thankful? Support Ken Steinhoff

Howdy, all. Special guest post today by me, Matthew Steinhoff.

If you like Ken Steinhoff, the CapeCentralHigh web site and want to support them both, please click the above magical button and go about your regular, online holiday shopping business.

Great Photographer, Writer; Lousy Money Extractor

My father, Ken Steinhoff, is horrible at making this photo and history web project pay. I keep telling him that people love his work and want to support his continued efforts. I keep telling him that if, just once and a while, he’d go ‘hey, folks, the next time you do some online shopping, click through from my web site‘, they’d do it.

The thing is, Dad hates trying to get people to part with their money. He won’t sell ads. He gives away photos as if they were water. I had to twist his arm and drag him kicking and screaming just to get him to put the passive Amazon.com links on this web site to begin with.

How Amazon.com Helps Dad

If you click any of the Amazon.com links on this page and then buy something within 24 hours, Dad makes 6%, give or take. You spend $100: he gets $6.

(It doesn’t cost you anything extra to buy through his links. In most states, Amazon.com doesn’t charge sales tax so there is an extra savings for you. Most of the time, the price you get from Amazon.com is less than you could buy the product locally. In most cases, the shipping is free.)

[Ken Steinhoff aside: I encourage you to spend your money with local businesses, but if you ARE going to buy on line, then listen to The Kid.]

Malcolm Steinhoff, Ken's grandson, does all his online shopping through Grandad's Amazon links. — Malcolm Steinhoff, Ken’s grandson, does all his online shopping through Grandad’s Amazon links.

$6 Doesn’t Sound Like Much

The average American will spend $854 on Christmas this year. Of that, $384.30 will be spent online. In the last 30 days, 8,272 have visited CapeCentralHigh.com. Of those 8,272 visitors, 4,460 have visited his web site more than 26 times in the last 30 days. (They’ve read 25,000 to 35,000 pages in that time.)

If I could just talk 500 of his regular visitors to do half of their online shopping through his Amazon link — about $200 each with $12 going to Dad — he’d make $6,000.

That $6,000 would just about cover what it costs to spend three months a year in Cape Girardeau, camera and computer equipment repairs and upgrades and pay the site’s web hosting bill.

Save My Parents!

You’re gonna shop online anyway. You’re probably going to shop at Amazon. When you do, please click any of the Amazon links on this web site. It’ll help keep the heat on and the parents off my sofa. Thank you!

Cheers,
Matthew Steinhoff

November 20, 2012December 5, 2023

The Pie Safe

This is the time of year when thoughts turn to pie and presents. Sharon Rose Penrod and her Pie Safe in Pocahontas can help you.

Let me go on record that I support buying from local businesses like The Pie Safe, where most of the ingredients are locally grown. Some of the vegetables come from a 100-year-old garden on on a farm owned by her husband’s family since the 1880s.

Pie Safe used to be bank

The Pie Safe started out as the Pocahontas Bank in 1910 with deposits of $10,000, but it didn’t survive the Crash of 1929. It served a variety of uses over the years, including being an insurance office and a home.

Safe has 24-inch walls

The ornate safe with its 24-inch-thick concrete walls still dominates one wall.

“It found me”

Sharon Rose and her husband, Monte, had been active in Jackson’s farmers market when she decided to turn her talent for baking into a business. “I didn’t find the bank, it found me,” she said of her building. The cafe has been open since June 12, 2012.

No real menu

The Pie Safe doesn’t have a formal printed menu. There’s a whiteboard with the specials scrawled on it, but “some days I run out of stuff, so I’ll tell customers, ‘Here are the ingredients I have. What would you like to make me out of them?'”

I showed up the other day just before closing time. “I’ve got my heart set on some of your coconut cream pie (topped with REAL whipped cream, not “calf slobber”).

“I don’t have any left,” she said.

The lip quiver worked

I put on my saddest face and gave her the patented lip quiver.

“OK, I might be able to whip one up while you’re eating,” she relented.

“I’ll chew slowly,” I promised.

When I finished up, she said, “I don’t think this is going to have time to set up.” I offered to eat a piece and take two with me.

“I don’t want to sell this”

“I really don’t want to sell this,” she remonstrated. “The whipped cream is sliding into the base. I’m not going to be able to cut it.”

“How about if I take the WHOLE pie? I’m headed up to the museum at Altenburg. I can pop it into the fridge in 20 minutes.”

Against her better judgement, she let me take it.

For the record, she was right. It never DID set up solidly, but Mother and I didn’t care. We were more interested in taste than appearance. We managed to polish it off in two days.

Got her baking skills from mother

She says she got her baking know-how from her mother, Shirley Schroeder Petschke, whose photos grace the walls.

Where is it?

If you can find Pocahontas, which is north of Cape Girardeau and south of Altenburg, you won’t have any trouble finding The Pie Safe, which is in the heart of downtown. (Don’t blink.)

It’s open from 6 am to 2 pm Wednesday through Saturday. The phone number is 573-833-6743. You can send Sharon Rose email at srpenrod@gmail.com

Tell her Ken said “Hi” and to start working on a coconut cream pie for when I come back in a couple of months.

Pie Safe photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

November 18, 2012

The Candy Dish

Mother said Son Matt had mentioned something about a candy dish, so Mother asked if I’d take a photo of this green one to see if this is the one he was thinking about.

I posted the picture on his Facebook page and got this response: “Yes. That always used to be in the living room.”

Niece Kim Steinhoff-Tisdale wrote: “I think I remember that one! With all the stuff Gran has acquired throughout the years, it’s amazing how much I can actually remember! Man, I love that woman!”

Brother David chimed in: “That was the “original Gran’s” (Elsie Welch) candy dish.

So, Mother sent it south with me for Matt and his family. Grandson Malcolm will be the fifth generation of our family to eat candy out of it. Mother’s request: “Always keep it full.”

It made it to Florida

This is Matt holding the candy dish at Son Adam’s house in Loxahatchee, Fla., proving that I delivered it safe and sound.