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Our Daily Thread 9-13-13

Good Morning!

It’s Friday! 🙂

Today is Milton Hershey’s birthday. So celebrate, and eat some chocolate. 🙂

On this day in 1788 the Constitutional Convention decided that the first federal election was to be held on Wednesday the following February.  On that day George Washington was elected as the first president of the United States.  In addition, New York City was named the temporary national capital.

In 1789 the United States Government took out its first loan. 😦

In 1922, in El Azizia, Libya, the highest shade temperature was recorded at 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

In 1948 Margaret Chase Smith was elected to the U.S. Senate and became the first woman to serve in both houses of the U.S. Congress.

And in 1971, in New York, National Guardsmen stormed the Attica Correctional Facility and put an end to the four-day revolt.  A total of 43 people were killed in the final assault.

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Quote of the Day

“If it happens, it happens… We can’t stop living.”

Walter Reed
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Today is Bill Monroe’s birthday.

It’s also Clara Schumann’s birthday.

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QoD

As I’m sure you’re aware, today is the dreaded Friday the 13th. 🙄

I find some people’s superstition of, and response to the day to be really annoying. Does today, or is there any other day, that gets a similar reaction from you?

70 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-13-13”

  2. Good morning. First? It’s been a while since I’ve done that. Up early with a little one, who is now back to bed.

    My husband and one of his brothers were both born on Friday the 13ths. No big deal about that as far as any of us are concerned, although my MIL goes “Ooh!” when she talks about it, probably more joking, though, than anything. I don’t think she’s particularly superstitious.

    Hubby and I got married on a Saturday the 14th (we also met on a Saturday the 14th). So “14” became “our number” that we liked and wanted to get married on a 14th for that reason. I also love the fact that two of our kids were born on a 14th (exactly ten and eighteen years from the date we met).

    I’m predicting after all this typing that someone or two perhaps sneaked in before me. 😉 Have a good day/night, all!

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  6. Good morning! May I join the conversation? We have had more rain this week than the entire year proceeding. Had planned to take the kids to the state fair today, but there is flooding between here and there. Will wait until next week and take a day off of school.

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  7. RKessler, If you live in Colorado, I saw the pictures.

    After you play “Grand Ol’ Opry Classics”, you will have an option to play “Footprints in the Snow”.
    Sometime, around 1943-44, (when I was about 14) we lived in a rickety three room house in what was called the Iron Dog. It was summer and the windows were open. One night, I was trying to go to sleep and some neighbor kept playing “Footprints in the Snow”. It was on the old 78rpm record. Over and over again. Must have been two hours I listened to Footprints in the Snow.
    I think of that incident every time I hear the song. I don’t hate the song, it just brings back memories.

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  9. I am in central New Mexico. The news reports that Carlsbad and the Guadalupe mountains got 11 inches yesterday. That is almost equal to their annual rainfall. Facebook friends posted some awesome pictures. Have been wondering about NancyJill, Not sure if the rain went that far north.

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  11. Good morning, everyone! Friday! Last day of my usual 3 day work week and I’m tired. Imagine how tired I’d be if I worked a full week like most people 🙂

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  12. Thanks so much for the Clara Schumann piece, AJ. I’ll admit to not being very familiar with her repertoire, but what a piece that movement of her piano concerto was! I was doing other things while I listened to it, and I thought, Did it end like that? After so much power and energy, the piano dropped out about a minute before the end, and then quietly came back in the final seconds and faded to nothing. Incredible piece and very mesmerizing — I had to listen to it (and watch the video, too) a second and a third time! Really loved that music! I’ll have to find the rest of the concerto now! Thanks much for the selection 🙂

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  15. 6 Arrows,

    Clara is very good, and has an interesting story as well. She was a child prodigy, and went on her first tour of Europe at age 11, accompanied by her father.

    They say the song above was written by her at the age of 13 or 14. 😯

    When I found that out, I liked it even more.

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  16. I have a grammar/editing question. When you use an expression that has an abbeviation, you say something like this, “We live in the United States of America (USA).” My question is, if the expression isn’t normally capitalized but the abbreviation is, do you capitalize the expression anyhow? The example I have is, “This client uses a learning management system (LMS).” Should i capitalize Learning Management System?

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  19. Me too, AJ. I went to Wikipedia, interested in learning more about her, and read that there. It’s so fascinating reading about child prodigies, and listening to that concerto, you really can hear a lot of musical maturity already.

    I had also heard sometime years ago, from which source I don’t recall, that she played very fast, and some of the tempo markings she had put in her husband’s piano music scores were, in the opinion of some, much too fast that the pieces would lose some of their musicality if played as rapidly as suggested.

    I suppose, with eight kids, she had to play quickly so she could hurry up and get back to them! 🙂

    Speaking of that, I have to get back to my kids. And today they’re going to be getting some music appreciation featuring Clara Schumann. 🙂

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  20. My son was born on Friday, the 13th of January, 1984. So he says it was the 13th day of the 13th month of 1983. How about that? By that system, in a few months he turns 30 on 13/13/13.

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  22. Good rainy, windy, cold morning everyone!! The flooding here is astounding….roads washed out to the north of us, flooding to the south of us…we are at 7400 ft and our forest was so dry that this liquid sunshine has been a blessing for us, while a curse for others….Colorado seems to have been in the perfect storm this year….bringing the worst fires in history and now flooding…perhaps we should all go smoke some weed and forget it all!! just kidding….just kidding…no really!! 🙂

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  23. If it’s “THE” Learning Management System, yes. If it’s just “a” learning management system, no. For us it depends on if it’s a formal title of a company or a program or product — as opposed to just a descriptive phrase for something.

    Some things that are now used quite generically in our language — like Frisbee or Kleenex — have to be capitalized due to patents.

    A flying plastic disc requires no capitalization. 🙂 But who talks like that?

    So these cute little black-and-white stenciled cats have been turning up on walls all over our town. They’re true-to-life size and often put at the bottom of the wall, so they can look like a real cat sitting or walking along the sidewalk. But they’re all pretty much the same cat.

    I’m trying to find out who’s doing it and why for a story today — of course, it’s already sparked a firestorm debate among those who say it’s no different than common graffiti and those who say it’s in a different category because the cats are so, well, cute. 😉

    Actually they all look like my cat Annie Oakley. One of my friends said she must have landed a modeling gig during her time spent wandering outside every day while I’m at work. For all I know she’s got her own bank account by now.

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  24. Nancyjill & rkessler, we’ve been seeing those pictures, that’s some serious flooding.

    Someone at work yesterday asked me (jokingly) if I thought the NJ disasters may have some sort of ‘biblical’ message or cause.

    Of course, any sort of weather — hot, cold, stormy, not stormy — is always attributed to global warming somehow. 🙂

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  26. Donna there are many in CO who believe this is the wrath of God spilling down upon our land due to the “liberalism” of our state….

    I was born on the 13th…only it was a Tuesday….my maternal grandmother was extremely superstitious….which influenced my mother…who tends to be somewhat superstitious…but not to the extreme of her mother…

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  28. nancyjill, I believe that God is sovereign over all things … including the weather. So while we may not “know” God’s mind in exactly why these things are occurring, I believe that catastrophes like these are always a good time to at least ask the questions, to reflect — and to repent and renew our spiritual focus.

    Of course, trying to explain this to 2 cynical reporters (one a secular Jew the other a fallen-away mainline Presby preacher’s kid) who are being wildly facetious in even asking the question (on deadline, no less, and shouted across the newsroom to me) is beyond complicated. 🙄 There are theological nuances that just wouldn’t translate well in a short answer (if they were even interested).

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  29. I was born on Friday the 13 in the month of September in the year 1957. It was a very good year. I hope the world is a bit better because of it. But, I am sure my actions are balanced out by my heart. Fortunately, God makes all things new.

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  34. It’s Friday? Now why did I think it was Thursday?
    And it’s the thirteenth too. No wonder I’m having a bad day!

    I’m ill with all kinds of really unimportant situations today. I think I should just clock out and go home…

    Yeah, that’s the ticket. Go home and play.

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  39. Happy Birthday Mumsee
    Has the guy returned to the Nest?

    Linda, at 10:53. I would think that if the name, etc. isn’t something capitalized, you wouldn’t use the abbreviation. Informally, we use abreviations for common phrases, BTW, OTOH, but I wouldn’t in an officiall communication.

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  40. Bonne Anniversaire, Mumsee. Knowing how highly you regard the language, I thought you would appreciate the customary birthday wishes in French 😛

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  42. Thank you all, for the kind good wishes. What was that Phos? I am afraid I could not hear all of the sounds in that greeting, it was like letters were just abandoned…But I appreciate it anyway!

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  43. Happy Birthday to you…
    My poor little Amos has kennel cough and sounds horrid. It’s like croup in babies only you would believe what he is spitting up…after I coughed and hacked a while trying to clean it up, Mr P took over. I have an overactive gag reflex.

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  45. Re Friday the 13th: I once bought a car on that date, my Toyota Corolla that I bought at five and drove till she was fifteen and wrecked by a drunk driver–best car I ever had. I named her “Friday” in honor of the date and with a nod to Robinson Crusoe’s Friday.

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  46. I almost missed the funnies by anonymous.
    I like the first one best. Justice was killed at Benghazi..
    Reagan did the same thing at Beirut, but we all thought it was a bunch of wackos.
    We never realized we were at war until 9/11.
    Some don’t admit it now.
    You can only lose if you don’t show up for the fight.

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  47. To answer the question of the day, I find superstitions “fun” to know about. I often forget which shoulder you are supposed to throw the salt over if you spill the container and black cats don’t cause me to panic (snakes do that). I do have black eyed peas and cabbage or turnips on New Year’s Day. I don’t happened to have a real silver dime to cook in the pot with them. My grandmother did though. Not that it ever helped. I still mostly avoid stepping on crack on the sidewalk but don’t worry about breaking my mother’s back or anything. I have walked over and under and around lots of ladders (that could explain a few things if I let it).
    I have never really understood the significance of Friday the 13th.

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  48. Donna, I had to laugh at your reference to Frisbees with this that you said: “A flying plastic disc requires no capitalization. 🙂 But who talks like that?”

    I guess it wouldn’t be appropriate to warn someone, “Look out for that FPD flying toward your head!” 😛

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  49. Kim, I don’t rightly remember either, but I think it once has a religious (Catholic?) significance.
    No one takes it seriously today.
    I had an uncle (aunt’s husband) who was very superstitious and he knew every one of them.
    If he saw a black cat, he would turn around.
    I don’t know many of them. i.e. the “crack in the sidewalk” makes me say, huh?

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  50. Happy birthday, mumsee.

    I was at one of the daughter’s when her dog had come down with kennel cough. No fun for the humans or the dogs. She didn’t have a man around to help clean up any of it. Same with the problem at the opposite end of the dog, after being in the kennel another time. I was there when the man said he would always take care of it all and take the dog with him when he had to be gone. 😉 Good thing she likes the dog.

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  51. I do have black eyed peas and cabbage or turnips on New Year’s Day.

    Funny how different cultures do different things on New Year’s Day for “good luck”. In Spain, people eat one grape for each stroke of the clock bell at midnight, 12 total. Some areas use raisins instead. I think in the areas where olives are the prevalent crop they eat those. I like olives, but 12 so close together? I think I’d prefer the grapes.

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  56. Chas, It’s not so much an “official communication” – it’s a Business Requirements document, in which it is our policy to spell out the expression the first time it’s used followed by the abbreviation in parens. Then after that, it’s OK to just use the abbreviation. Two that fit this category in the current doc are learning management system (LMS) and access control list (ACL).

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