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Our Daily Thread 7-23-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1829 William Burt patented the typographer, which was the first typewriter.

In 1904 the ice cream cone was invented by Charles E. Menches.

In 1938 the first federal game preserve was approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Utah.

In 1954 a law is passed that states that “The Secretary of the Navy is authorized to repair, equip, and restore the United States Ship Constitution, as far as may be practicable, to her original appearance, but not for active service.”

In 1958 the submarine Nautilus departed from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, under orders to conduct “Operation Sunshine.”  The mission was to be the first vessel to cross the north pole by ship. The mission was completed on Aug. 3rd.

And in 1984 Miss America, Vanessa Williams, turned in her crown after a photo scandal. She was the first to resign the title.

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Quote of the Day

“The pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid, and if he is timid, he has to remind the hitter he’s timid.”

Don Drysdale

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It’s Allison Krauss’ birthday. So here she is with a couple of friends doing a medley.

It’s also the birthday of Blair Thornton, from this group.

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Anyone have a QoD for us?

50 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-23-13”

  2. I guess I will have to wait around a bit. I appreciate it that AJ is early as it is not yet 9pm here, but it must be too early for some others 🙂

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  5. Yesterday, I was lamenting that the squirrel is smarter than I am.
    Last night, a mouse took my peanut butter and left.
    I don’t know why the trap didn’t snap. It did when I touched a spoon to it.
    But I;ll get him. (or her)
    😦

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  6. Tychicus is now in our (Central) time zone. Jo is starting school tomorrow. That means this afternoon to us.
    I often wonder if those country singers who sing about “the blood of the Lamb” know and believe what they’re singing.
    I know Roy Acuff and Hank Snow did. I heard that Connie Smith was converted under the ministry of Rev. Jimmy (Rogers) Snow, Hank’s son.

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  7. A bit of advice I got in an e-mail this morning:
    “You know that tingly feeling you get when you see someone you like?’
    That’s common sense leaving your body.”

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  8. Anyone see the new study that shows we saved $14 Billion in health insurance premiums last year?

    Did anyone see any savings in their health insurance premiums last year? I didn’t.

    In fact.. my premiums went up 35% in January 2012 and I had to drop down three tiers to keep it the same. Now my copays and deductibles are higher.

    Some folks got a rebate if their insurance company didn’t keep the medical/profits ratio (80/20) in line…

    I didn’t’ see any of that either. You?

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  9. MiM- Those savings were all the former full time employees being laid off or reduced to part time so the company wouldn’t have to insure them. Our increases were due to the fact that the insurance companies were losing money because fewer employees were covered by their companies.

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  12. I told you that I attended the saddest funeral ever this past Sunday. The young may was 25 years old. His son will be a year old the end of this month. The ex-wife and mother of the child showed up in blue jeans, boots, orange lipstick, cell phone attached to her belt buckle with New Boyfriend in tow. He had the audacity to speak to the grieving mother of the young man who died.
    The young man died of complications from diabetes. He had had health issues for a while. His brother found him last Monday. There was no one in charge of the service. It was at a funeral home. The mother spoke, the brother spoke and several friends spoke. They all talked about what a great guy Jay was, but there was no hope given of ever seeing him again. He only lives on through his son.

    I want more than that. I don’t think I could bear the grief if I didn’t know I would one day be able to see my loved ones again.

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  13. No, MiM. I was being sarcastic. The “we” was all of us together, thrown into a mass of insured people, the whole saving money because fewer were paying in. fewer dollars going to the insurance company means the whole “we” saved money.

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  14. Kim, I know it’s hard to understand. But they don’t think about it. I’m talking generally now, not to a specific case. But it applies there too.
    They have a general feeling, “In a better place now”, Though they can’t state a reason for that. They say, “He’s looking down on us now”, with nothing to support that assumption.
    Then, they go out about their business without giving it another thought.
    It’s interesting to notice in Denny’s or Applebys on Sunday after church. There are obviously two kinds of people there. Those who have been to church and those who haven’t. The assumpion, never stated, is, “it’s their thing, it isn’t ours”. And that’s all it amounts to.
    “It just isn’t our thing.”

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  15. MiM, I got one of those rebate checks year before last.

    Kim, at my brother-in-law’s funeral, the deceased had a brother a few years younger who is not a believer and who is not living like a believer. At the viewing, he chatted with me a bit (after the hours were officially over), and he told me that he could only stand where he was (within sight of the body) because my sister was standing in a position that blocked his view. The sight of death bothered himn that much, and he freely admitted it. He should be afraid of death, and we’re praying that God will use that fear in his life to being him to Himself.

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  18. The west coast is awake!

    Our insurance has done nothing but go up for years now — and last year’s leap was the biggest. We’re not sure what the 2014 round will bring (we’ll find out in a couple months), but we’re anticipating another fairly significant increase. And so it goes …

    Kim, that does sound like a sad funeral. And orange lipstick? 😮

    Chas, I hear that a lot from unbelievers — “he’s in a better place,” etc. Everyone’s “spiritual,” they have a vague notion that we’ll all be happy someday in some sort of next life. And that’s all the further they go with all of that. Whistling past the graveyard. Maybe understandably, it’s especially common among younger people (meaning those who haven’t hit middle age, the stage at which one normally begins to grapple with their own mortality as parents and even some peers begin to die).

    On today’s historical facts — the typewriter and ice cream cone. Awesome inventions. 😉

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  19. MiM,

    If you were in an employer paid plan, the employer may have gotten a rebate. You may also have gotten one if you paid enough out of your paycheck.

    This is from last year, so things may or may not have changed.

    http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/health-insurance-rebates-is-your-check-in-the-mail/

    “- About 31 percent of Americans who have individual insurance are eligible for a rebate. They’ll get their checks directly in the mail, averaging about $127, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

    – For people who buy insurance through their employers, those rebates won’t come directly in the mail. They’ll first go to the employer, which decides how to distribute it. Employers who offer insurance can either send out individual checks to their employees, or put those rebates toward lowering future premium costs.

    The employer could also use the rebates as a lump-sum reimbursement to the accounts that pay premiums, or spend it in other ways that “benefits its employees,” according to the Department of Health and Human Services. This can include lowering copays or adjusting cost-sharing to cut group insurance costs.”
    ____________________________________________________________

    Now as for the 80/20 or 85/15 thing…. 2 cents on every 100 dollars isn’t much savings though. As always with this admin, the numbers rarely match the hype.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/07/18/obama-touts-false-benefits-of-health-insurance-rebates/

    “According to the White House, 8.5 million Americans will receive rebates for 2012 totaling $500 million, which works out to about $59 per person – or less than 0.02% (that is, less than two cents for every $100) of total healthcare spending in the U.S.

    The White House refers to this with the title “Obamacare in Three Words: Saving People Money,” but even that paltry “savings” is not really savings – because the MLR, perhaps unintentionally, actually encourages insures to increase premiums. And that increase is, in general, about 25% higher than the rebate that ends up being paid. So, it’s quite possible that those $59 rebates were paid for with $74 om increased average premiums.

    One reason – as I explained back in April – is that the MLR rule bases the rebate on a percentage of the premium, not on a percentage of medical costs. That means that an insurer who is constrained to keeping 20% of the premium can make more money by raising the premium and paying a higher rebate. For example, if average medical costs are $8,000 per family, the insurer could charge a premium of $10,000 and owe no rebate, leaving $2,000 for administrative costs and profit. Alternatively, they could charge a premium of $11,000. Assuming medical care costs still average $8,000, they would owe rebate of $800 to bring their total loss ratio to 80% of $11,000. This would leave them with $2,200 for administrative cost and profit – a gain of $200 compared to the no-rebate case. In general, for every extra dollar of premiums, the insurer can rebate 80 cents and keep 20 cents. Furthermore, if the insurer can increase medical costs – say, but paying doctors more – it can keep 25 cents for every additional dollar of medical costs.”

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  20. Basically, smoke and mirrors. You may get a check, but it won’t even cover the annual increase you already paid in many cases. Fuzzy math, just like their so-called deficit reduction.

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  21. My healthcare hasn’t gone up in years. Of course my taxes have. 😦 It is nice to know that I can go to the doctor and not worry about paying for it, but I think that also has people running to emergency with a cold or a simple cut.

    I also have to wait months for a specialist appointment up here.

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  22. Kim,

    You bring up an interesting point. Without Christ and the hope He gives us, what’s the point?

    Yesterday on FB I read something from my neighbor about a memorial service for a relative of his. The post wanted everyone to come and celebrate the life of (I’ll call him) Bob, who died “suddenly” a week or two ago. Knowing what was what, I had to do quite abit of tongue biting and just kept my mouth shut.

    You see the guy in question killed himself at the age of 32. What is there to celebrate about that? He left his son behind years ago, and now fatherless for the rest of his life, and he’s only 5. Again, why would anyone celebrate this? His ex will be attending, as will her new boyfriend. Again, why celebrate that? I just don’t see anything worth celebrating. Part of me feels like I’m just being a heartless jerk, but I just can’t see it, try as I might. There’s nothing here to celebrate. Mourning seems much more appropriate. He is lost, and there is no hope now of him ever coming around, or to Christ. That makes me sad, not celebratory. I just don’t get it.

    But I keep my mouth shut because I don’t want to be hurtful. But it makes no sense to me.

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  23. 😦 Some of you computer gurus out there tell me why the print on my screen is smaller than it was before.
    I haven’t touched anything. It just happened.

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  24. Chas,

    If you are using IE, in the top left corner is a tab that says “View”. Click that, you’ll see “Zoom”. Click that and you can magnify it up to 400 times it’s normal size. That should help. If it doesn’t, you should see an eye doctor. And soon. 🙂

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  25. Or just hold down the Ctrl key while you scroll your mouse wheel… If it makes it too small or too large, just scroll the other way.

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  28. Thanx. I tried both suggestions, and both worked. What happened is strange. I went to View, enlarged it, Went back. Then to try (ctr & +) That worked. I went back to where I was before and it was back to my original size.
    Strange.

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  29. It usually stays at whatever you had it at last when you closed your browser. If you’re not sure where it is, the View/Zoom place is the best place to check….

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  35. In 1904 the ice cream cone was invented by Charles E. Menches.

    I believe that was at the World’s Fair in St. Louis, but according to this Wikipedia article, it wasn’t Mr Menches:

    In St. Louis, Missouri during the 1904 Saint Louis Exposition, the Banner Creamery’s owner George Bang was selling ice cream. Allegedly, he ran out of bowls and was given rolled-up waffles to serve it in instead. Others credit Ernest A. Hamwi, a waffle maker at the World Fair, as the first inventor.

    Sorry to rain on your parade, AJ.

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  37. MiM,

    http://inventors.about.com/od/foodrelatedinventions/a/ice_cream_cone.htm

    “The walk-away edible ice cream cone made its American debut at the 1904 Saint Louis World’s Fair. Ice cream in a cone was served up by several vendors at the Fair. Nobody know for certain who made the first ice cream cone. Paper and metal cones had been used in Europe for some time to hold ice cream and it was known that edible cones were being served in England prior to the 1904 World’s Fair.”

    “Italo Marchiony submitted a patent in 1903 for a mold to make an edible cups with handles. On July 23, 1904, Charles Menches of St. Louis, Missouri started filling pastry cones with two scoops of ice cream.
    Most historians believe that there were over fifty ice cream cone stands at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and it is possible that several people invented the ice cream cone at the same time. However, the cone definitely become popular in America by way of the St. Louis World’s Fair.”

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    http://www.answers.com/topic/charles-e-menches

    “Charles E. Menches is credited with the invention of the ice cream cone. He and his brother, Frank, sold ice cream from a truck in their home town of St. Louis, MO. When the St. Louis World’s Fair took place in 1904, there were dozens of tents selling ice cream in dishes. On July 23, a particularly hot day, so much ice cream was being sold at the fair, that vendors were running out of dishes. Next to the Menches’ tent was a pastry-maker, Ernest A. Hamwi, who was selling sweet wafer pastries called “zalabia.” Charles Menches bought up all his neighbor’s zalabia, rolled them into cones, and began scooping ice cream into them. And, popular legend has it, the ice cream cone was born.”

    You would think there’d be better historical records for such an important invention…

    🙂

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  38. At the t;me, I suspect nobody thought much about it.
    I don’t think about it, I usually get a cup because I eat so slowly, it melts and drips out of the bottom of the cone before I finish.

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  39. I just finished Tom Clancy’s Against All Enemies.
    If you like Clancy, you’ll like this. It’s 756 pages long and has lots of intertwined stories. It’s hard for me to keep the Arabic and Mexican names straight. It’s about terrorism and drug running. Fiction, but as with all Clancy books, you can learn a lot. His books are well researched.

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  41. My office mates and I were just discussing ice cream cones yesterday. When I was a child I did not like the cone so much. Now that is my favorite part. I really like it because the ice cream is softer by that point and it blends so well with the cone. I think as a child I did not like blended textures so much but then my tastes matured. Now I enjoy mixing up flavors and textures.

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  42. I did not like the Neopolitan ice cream that my father brought home from the store. It had the combo of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry in side by side layers. As a child I hated the mingling of the flavors.

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  44. I visited Dad J in ICU this afternoon. They think he has cancer but I can’t find it. He has been having seizures and is non-responsive. We talked to him a while and there was nothing. As we were walking out both his daughter and I think he said Bye. We both stopped and looked at each other. We walked back in and she asked him if he was talking to her. No response so I said he was telling me bye not her since I am his favorite.

    He is 81 and knows Jesus. He could use a prayer or two from those so inclined.

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  45. Hi Tychicus, Cal is either a math or computer teacher and he goes on lots of long bike rides. I emailed them to look for you. It is a beautiful place, enjoy

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  46. Time to head for the first day of school and my Kinder class here in Papua New Guinea. 14 students and 8 of them are nationals. So glad for a smaller class this year.

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  47. Prayers for your friend Kim, that sounds tough. What a roller coaster you’ve been on for the past 2 weeks.

    I love Neapolitan ice cream I think because I tend to like plainer flavors. I love vanilla, chocolate & strawberry — but a tub of any one of those gets old for me fast and I rarely end up finishing it (when it gets ice crystals I dump it).

    So Neapolitan is perfect, it’s got all your basics with not extra nuts or cookie dough or other things they like to throw into ice cream flavors nowadays. I also am a big fan of chocolate chip (but I like the tiny chips, not those big chunks they put in the ice cream now).

    And cones. Love cones. They’re also a good way to limit your serving. Unless you wind up having 2 of them. 🙂

    Not that I’ve ever done that.

    Jo, glad your class is smaller, that helps I’m sure.

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  48. A nice day today. Yeah for chocolate chip! Hard to get ice cream here, so I have to make up for it when I am home. Australia has Magnum bars, so I got a pack of those when I was there.

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