I'm in St. Louis, attending the Medicolegal Death Investigation course. There are 170 people attending, however, I was a bit surprised to find that there were only a handful--maybe 10 or 12--police officers in the class. It seems to be mostly Coroners, or CO Investigators, with a bunch of nurses and doctors as well.

As for the class itself, so far it totally rocks. It's a LOOONNNNG day of nothing but lecture, but it's just incredibly fascinating stuff, and I keep jotting down little snippets of things for story ideas. The mystery writers in my writing group are going to love me...LOL.

The hotel, the Hyatt Union Station, is incredibly beautiful, grand, majestic, you name it. However, I think it's just a bit bullshit that I have to pay 9.95 a day for high speed internet access, when I can go to a cheap-ass Best Western and get internet for free. Sheesh. So, I'm rationing my internet. I had to get online last night to order a new bench press shirt, so that gives me access for 24 hours. I probably won't get online again until late Wednesday or something, just so I don't get totally raped on access fees. (There's wireless access near the class, but I don't feel like lugging my laptop there every day.)

I also had grand plans to work out at a Golds Gym near here. Yesterday after class I changed into workout clothes, grabbed my gym bag, And started walking the .6 miles that the Gold's Gym Downtown St. Louis website and Mapquest said it would be. Well, I got down to where the gym was supposed to be (after walking through a not-fantastic neighborhood with my hand on my gun in my pocket) and discovered an empty building. So, I called Gold's Gym Downtown St. Louis, and learned that they had relocated another 10 blocks or so closer to the center of downtown. Not too far to walk, but too far to walk there and work out and walk back before it got dark. Oh Well. The extra distance makes it a lot harder, so I think I'm going to have to make do with the gym in the hotel. Bleh.