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Our Daily Thread 7-11-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1798 the U.S. Marine Corps was formally re-established by “An Act for Establishing a Marine Corps” passed by Congress. The act also created the U.S. Marine Band. The Marines were first commissioned by the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775.

In 1804 the United States’ first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, was killed by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel. 😯

In 1914 Babe Ruth debuted in the major leagues with the Boston Red Sox.

In 1955 the U.S. Air Force Academy was dedicated in Colorado Springs, CO, at Lowry Air Base.

In 1977 the Medal of Freedom was awarded posthumously to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in a White House ceremony.

In 1979 the abandoned U.S. space station Skylab returned to Earth. It burned up in the atmosphere and showered debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia.

In 1985 Nolan Ryan (Houston Astros) became the first major league pitcher to earn 4,000 strikeouts in a career.

And in 1998 U.S. Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie, a casualty of the Vietnam War, was laid to rest near his Missouri home. He had been positively identified from his remains that had been enshrined in the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington, VA.

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Quote of the Day

“Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.”

John Quincy Adams

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Today would be this guy’s birthday. I couldn’t find many clips from the movie, so Broadway it is.

It’s also Jeff Hanna from this band’s birthday.

And this next birthday boy is very good. Can’t say I’m much of a fan of the band and front man he usually plays with, but with Mr. King I like ’em just fine. 😉

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Who has a QoD for us?

70 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-11-13”

  1. Just ending my day. Need to get up at 3am to catch an early flight back to Port Moresby in PNG. So home again, home again, jiggety jigg

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  3. Thanks AJ. I have been shopping here for foods that are difficult to get in PNG. My suitcase is quite interesting. I asked the quarantine folks in PNG what was allowed before I flew down here. Chocolate and milk products are allowed so I stocked up on chocolate. You know, the important stuff!

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  5. I enter a brilliant comment, and the screen says the pagn is not available.
    I don’t know if the problem is with my computer or Bellsouth DSL.
    😦

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  6. Chas, I’ve been having that trouble lately too, and I don’t have Bellsouth. I discovered if that happens, I can click the “back” arrow in the upper left corner of my screen, and the “Leave a Reply” box with my comment in it reappears. If I click “Post Comment” again, then it usually works, I think.

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  7. If money were not a consideration, what would you do? (This is a serious question as I figure out some things going forward). My flip answer is sit on a beach and read a book, but I am looking for something deeper here. What do you feel passionate about?

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  8. Thanx 6 Arrows, I’ll try that.
    Where there are two or more Marines today, there will be a party.
    It isn’t optional.
    You’ll have to ask JoeB if a marine and sailor can party together.
    😉

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  10. IT WORKS!

    I feel passonate about lots of things, Kim. What is the context of your question?
    I can’t make money doing things I’m passonate about.
    Rush says the secret of success is doing the thing you love to do.
    There are things I hate doing. I couldn’t make money trying to sell cars, or property or anything else, for that matter. I used to sell peantus when I was a kid. They sold themselves.
    I could have been a teacher. But I’m not smart enough. And I don’t like dealing with obstreporous kids.

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  11. Kim, I am very blessed that if money were no option I would still do what I do. I am very passionate about discipling the next generation for Christ. I do write for a magazine and I enjoy that. There is a certain amount of passion for that, but it feeds my larger passion both monetarily and it gets me into the community in an excellent way.

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  12. At the Naval War College, they talked about marines being dumb. “Even a marine can understand”. But the marines I knew were pretty sharp.
    But you do have to question the intelligence of a guy who will run into a beach where lots of guys are trying to kill you.
    Two of Elvera’s brothers were marines.

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  13. Rush has it a bit backwards I think. The secret to success is not so much doing what you love, but loving what you do.

    There is a certain amout of work to anything and I find too many people chasing the I-want-a-job-I-love dream. Or worse, they want to turn their love for Jesus into a career. I have met too many missionaries and pastors who it seems really should have been dentists or accountants. And I have met landscapers and baristas who do more ministry than some in “full time” service.

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  14. Good Morning…..we had glorious rain yesterday in the Forest…it smells so good outside! The rains were not so good for the burn areas in our area…mud slides in the Waldo Canyon burn area yesterday caused quite the chaos for drivers on the pass….thankful no one was injured…the effect on the cars were quite another matter….and a very scary situation for the drivers!
    I love your question Kim….it forces me to look deep and answer honestly….I would take care of as many elderly folk as I could in their homes…with respect and dignity as they live out their last years here on earth….how does one minister to so many needs?……
    Have a most blessed day today everyone…

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  15. Chas, when you storm a beach you can duck and cover. If your tin can gets torpedoed, well, there you go. Navy or Marines, is like asking, “What’s your pleasure, earthquakes or hurricanes?”

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  16. I could have been a teacher. But I’m not smart enough. And I don’t like dealing with obstreporous kids.

    You don’t have to be smart to be a teacher, you just have to know more than the students. 😉 Actually, I have unfortunately met too many fellow educators who are only smart in the subject they teach, but ignorant of everything else. As for your use of the word “obstreperous”, I wouldn’t say that to parents or administrators, as they might think you are calling the child an obscene name.

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  18. Chas. The Naval officers were just jealous of the Marines. Marines stress leadership. Marines, like their counterparts, enlisted sailors, use their abilities to adapt, improvise and overcome. There is only one group in the Military that are better than a Marine Ranger. That group are the elite Navy Seals.

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  20. Kim, one thing I enjoy doing is making donations to ministries so if money was available I would research ministries and portion out according to needs. I would probably like to spend volunteer time in the ministries, too. I would be in the company of Christians as I did the volunteer work so that would be nice. I enjoy writing so I would do that for the other part of my time.

    Another thing I would enjoy doing is writing curriculum and perhaps helping to homeschool some children. I did enjoy homeschooling, especially the getting to learn some things I missed the first time around myself.

    Of course, I do enjoy being in this small business with my husband, but my skills are not fully utilized here, so I could even do much of the above from this office where I sit 🙂 . This morning I will be collating a budget report my husband has prepared for his church since he does that kind of work voluntarily for the church.

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  22. Peter L, as a homeschool teacher you don’t have to be smarter than the student, but you do have to be smart and wise enough to match the curriculum and resources to the student’s needs and learning style.

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  23. Good thing the cleaning bug bit me. I was vacuuming the hall when I noticed a spot on the carpet. It was wet. I looked up and through a small pin hole water was dripping. Paul got up in the attic. The flashing around a vent pipe is leaking. We stopped the water in the attic to keep it from ruining the ceiling. We are under flash flood watch until 1 pm.

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  25. Even we’re getting rain, which is extremely rare. It never rains in Southern California (in the summer). We’re not getting much, but it’s been a nice smattering of water off and on for 24 hours with more to come today. We’re liking it.

    I love writing and working for a newspaper, I just wish the economic climate were better in the industry right now. It’s very tough.

    I think I had 3 stories in the paper today, yesterday was a very long one.

    The one I most enjoyed doing was the piece about Universal finally naming of the actor who will play the Zamperini lead role in “unbroken.” Of course he’s 22 and I’ve never heard of him, or the things he’s been in. 😉 But he’s cute (British) and is supposed to be an excellent actor. Nice career coup for him, I’d say.

    The film is supposed to be released on Christmas Day 2014. Woohoo!

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  26. I love the variety, too, that I have in my job — it can get crazy and confusing, you talk to dozens of people about all kinds of topics through the day, but I kind of like that. In the last 2 days I’ve had conversations with a film producer, police officers, humane society executives, museum curators and waterfront developers.

    Not to mention the random calls from folks just pitching stories to us. 😉

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  27. ‘Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You. Jeremiah 32:17 NKJV

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  28. Oh, and one of our beloved longtime gadflies who usually is quite tipsy when he calls from what must be one of the only pay phones left in America on some street corner near us. But, hey, he still reads our paper every day and loves to talk to us about all the stories ….

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  30. Ephesians 2 :11 Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— 12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

    I pray that we the Christian Church today come to the understand that the only way to heaven is Christ Jesus. That this false idea that there are many ways to heaven that society promotes goes against God’s Word and Christian cannot support such ideas. That we are redeemed by the blood of Christ.

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  31. Writers, editors, and other grammar gurus…

    I think I’m pretty good at grammar technicalities, but yesterday I got stumped trying to write something.

    Variations on what I wanted to write that I know how to handle are:
    before I test it.
    before Sue tests it.
    before Sue and I test it.

    I got stuck when I wanted to say:
    before Sue or I test(s?) it

    I could unpack it and say:
    before Sue tests it or I test it

    But that’s unwieldy. I just can’t figure out whether “Sue or I” is singular or plural. What say you all?

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  33. interesting Kim, before I decided to come to Png, I felt that the Lord asked me what I am passionate about and it is teaching and missions. I also like the variety in teaching, never a dull moment.
    off to the airport soon, even though it is still dark

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  34. Kevin, the rule I learned in school is that with “and” you use the plural, with “or” you use the one closer to the action.

    For example:

    my parents or my husand has that choice to make
    but
    my husband or my parents have that choice to make

    Sometimes if the correct way sounds too odd, I just recast the sentence, but that is the rule on that one.

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  35. Kevin, I’m not a writer or an editor, but maybe I’m a grammar guru 😉 so I’ll throw in my two cents. I believe “or” would indicate singular, and “and” plural, so under most circumstances, having “or” in the sentence, you would want to use “tests” as the verb; having “and”, you would use “test”.

    For example, “He and Sue test it.” Or, “He or Sue tests it.”

    HOWEVER, the use of “I”, which is also singular, like “he”, seems to break that rule. Don’t ask me why, but I think if you wanted to say “Sue or I”, then the verb should be “test”, since you would never say “I tests it.”

    Does that make sense?
    “He tests it.”
    “Sue tests it.”
    “I test it.”
    “Sue or I test it.”

    Maybe someone has a good explanation for why it would be “Sue or I test it”. 😉

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  37. Thanks. I ended up using “Sue or I test it” because it sounded better, though I couldn’t figure out a technical reason for it at the time. Cheryl’s rule about “the one closer to the action” justifies that. 6 arrows, I think you were intuitively following that rule when you pointed out that you would never say “I tests it”.

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  41. Jo, I also like the idea of what you do, but I would have to build up stamina to be able to teach in that kind of situation. Teachers are usually on their feet for much of the time. I think that is a good thing and more healthy than the kind of work I am in now where it is a lot of sitting.

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  42. “Could you also use ‘before it is tested by Sue or me’?”
    Technically you could, but that is passive voice and discouraged.

    “I vote for ‘Sue, or I test it.’”
    Except here we have an unnecessary comma.

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  43. Janice, I think you could, but that would put it in passive voice, which, in most instances, is weaker than the active voice (where the subject is performing the action rather than being acted upon).

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  50. In the army, “g2” is intelligence. So I can’t go by that. and -4e7ed159f923 would make a good password, but it is too hard to remember and type, so I just go by Chas.

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  53. My MIL was born on 7/11 and I went to the hospital to have our son on 7/11. He was not born until the wee hours of 7/13. Somehow my MIL thought I kept him from being born on her birthday. Not the case. I would have been very happy not to have gone that long in back labor, being put on twilight drugs for a day, being brought out of the drugs in hopes of having “natural childbirth” with a midwife, and finally ending up having a c-section since I was not dilating past a 5. He was 10 lb. 13 oz. I got to see him right after birth but then they kept him away from me for a day because I had a fever. That was happening 24 years ago. He was worth it!

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  54. Childbirth…we all have stories. Of course I had difficulty getting pregnant. I was the happiest pregnant woman I have ever been around. I had an easy delivery. About two hours of REAL labor and I didn’t know she had been born until I saw her. Yep, everything balances out, the teen years are much more difficult. 😉

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  55. Kim’s questions: My passion is for teaching. I knew for a long time that I wanted to do that. My siblings and I would play school in the summer, and I was the teacher most, if not all of the time.

    My teaching is in a different context now, though, than I thought it would be. I’ve taught school, and private music lessons (mostly piano), and homeschool now. There’s lots of variety within each of those contexts, with all the different personalities/giftings etc. of the students/my kids. I really enjoy that.

    Also, I view myself as a teacher of younger women now, being one of the “older” women the Bible mentions in Titus 2. I don’t have a blog, but I frequent the blog of a sweet online friend, who writes to Christian wives and mothers about their role in building a nurturing home to the glory of God. She has a lot of younger readers, and I use the opportunity I have to comment and encourage younger moms in the trenches with their little ones.

    I do the same face-to-face with moms I know locally as the opportunity arises. Yesterday my husband and I took 5th and 6th Arrows to the park, and we ran into a young mom from our church with her three children. We got talking about a lot of things, including the blessing of children, and in the course of the discussion, I mentioned that I was 50 years old and that a few months ago, I thought I was pregnant. Her eyes got huge, and she said, “Scary!” That was a great chance for me to respond that, though I hadn’t had a baby since having my youngest at 45, we would love to have another one if God willed it, and that I knew that God would give the grace to raise all our children, whatever age we were when they came to us, for His glory.

    A huge smile broke across her face, and she said how she’s discovered, too, how with each new baby she has, how she just falls in love with Jesus more and more. That blessed me so much to hear that!

    So, what can I say — I heart teaching! 🙂

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  57. Kim’s other question (“If money were not a consideration, what would you do?”).

    If I had lots of money (and my husband liked to travel, which he doesn’t), I would like to take road trips regularly so our family could see a lot of different areas of the country. I myself have been in about 15, or maybe a few more, states, but our kids have only been in two or possibly three states in their lives, in the same geographical area in which we live. Perhaps some day the kids will do that with their own families.

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  62. I can’t remember if you have a different email than Mike. I should clarify that I sent it to Mike’s, if that is different than yours.

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  64. I have not emailed anyone from this blog in quite a while. Not since the last marriage anyway.

    And to answer Kim’s QoD: I would get a small RV and travel to every state in the lower 48, especially the 9 I haven’t been to: Montana, N and S Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Minnesota, Florida, Maine and Rhode Island. We almost got the last two on our trip to the Northeast last month, but didn’t have the time. I would also put that RV on a ferry in Seattle and go to Alaska. From California, I would fly to Hawaii so as to get all 50 states in one very long trip. While on that trip, I would visit every public cave I could find. I love traveling and over the last six years have gotten an interest in cave exploring. Anyone want to go along?

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  66. Second Arrow lives a couple hours from us, and it’s mostly interstate driving when we go to visit her. I love to see so many different states’ license plates (and the occasional Canadian province, too) when we’re on the road to and from her place. One of the things I like about summer — seeing people from all over.

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