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Our Daily Thread 1-24-14

Good Morning!

On this day in 1848 James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter’s Mill in northern California. The discovery led to the gold rush of ’49.

In 1908, in England, the first Boy Scout troop was organized by Robert Baden-Powell.

In 1922 Christian K. Nelson patented the Eskimo Pie.

In 1952 Vincent Massey was the first Canadian to be appointed governor-general of Canada.

In 1965 Winston Churchill died at the age of 90.

In 1989 Ted Bundy, the confessed serial killer, was put to death in Florida’s electric chair for the 1978 kidnap-murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach.

And in 1995 the prosecution gave its opening statement at the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

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Quote of the Day

“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Today is the birthday of composer Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman.  From KuhluaDilfeng2, who has a very nice collection of classical music videos.

It’s also Neil Diamond’s. So here he is, with Mr. Cash.

And it’s Ray Stevens’ birthday as well. Here he is with the “Obama Budget Plan.” From RayStevensMusic

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Anyone have a QoD?

57 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-24-14”

  1. Good morning Aj and good afternoon Jo.
    It’s 3.4 degrees in Hendersonville. Elvera said that it’s too cold to go to the Y. I said that if she doesn’t go, I need to remember to take my phone, just in case. She’s getting ready now.
    See you all later.

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  2. Oh, my, that is cold. I agree with Elvera. I went to the weight room here today. First time in a month. Still in the 70’s here. Wow, did we get a lot of rain today. It is not cold and we do have covered sidewalks, so the kids never stay inside when it is raining. Well, today, for the first time in my nine years here, we blew the whistle and called them in. The teacher on duty said the rain was coming sideways and there wasn’t one dry spot out there. I invited grade one to come join my room for the rest of recess and they had a great time.
    Chas, I somehow don’t feel that 10pm is the afternoon. 🙂

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  3. With windchill it’s around 0, but otherwise 11 degrees in Atlanta. Truly stay inside weather. Just made my coffee blend of one part Seattle’s Best and one part Krispy Kreme from Sams. It has some zip with a little less expense.

    Twice now Bosley has brought her favorite toy to my husband when she wants to play. She has a few dog like behaviors at this kitten stage. Yesterday she got tangled up with a ball of yarn. We both learned our lesson from that. Every time she pulled to get away, the string tightened around her leg. So glad it wasn’t her neck. So yarn ball is no longer available.

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  4. It’s 28 degrees here in Houston, with freezing rain. I got a call at 5:30 that school is canceled due to extreme winter weather!!! There still saying we have a 70% chance of snow today, but I’m not holding my breath. Texans don’t like ice!

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  6. Good Morning, Y’all!
    I’m with you Janice! Stay inside weather here in your southern “suburb” as well…”Feels like” is 4 degrees outside the school. My classroom was 58 when I came in. Hope all have a blessed day!

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  7. Wow, I’m warmer than all of you. 34F heading to 43F today. Of course then it will drop down to 7 overnight and be cold again for a stretch. Stay warm and dry y’all.

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  9. Is it Friday Yet?
    We went to the Y. It’s up to 4.0 degrees now. the sun is up and it’s supposed to go up to 28 today.
    Six months from now eryone will be complaining about global warming.

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  13. It is 34 degrees in Orange Beach. I am showing waterfront property this morning!
    I looked in my file at the office and got my W-2 and my 1099. If I double the amount I earned January through the end of June last year it makes me want to throw up. Seriously, my head swam and my stomach churned and a knife ripped through me once again.
    On the plus side that amount is two thousand less than what the other job would offer without expenses and would be closer to home. I am trying my best to stay positive.

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  15. My house has another showing in about half-an-hour. Interesting that for the last year we had four or five showings, and this month alone we’ve had four. The realtor said lowering the price to $59,900 might get more interest, and I guess she was right.

    Real estate. It’s about as predictable as the weather lately.

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  16. The market is also improving and people are realizing that now is the time to buy before it turns back into a seller’s market. Real Estate follows about a 7 year swing. Everything crasshed in 2007-2008—we are at the 7 year mark. Ask you agent what the inventory supply is. If you are at less than a 6 month supply, your market is on the upswing.

    All that being said, if you get an offer that is at least 90% of asking price, don’t let the grass grow under your feet, sign it and GO!

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  18. Just tell her that she will probably be off when all those other children are still in school and in far nicer weather, Ann.

    Since we are often out and about in weather far below zero, it seems strange to hear people are staying home because of those temperatures. Of course, it is all what one is used to and prepared for.

    Years ago we toured a place north of Nashville, TN and the guide told us about a man who lived in a tree for the winter. It had gotten around three below that winter. It was hard to believe, but the city is two degrees today. That is not far from being below zero.

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  19. No need to stay warm, drink warm beverages and stay dry here. 😉 Although we are cooling back down to the 60s after a couple weeks of near- and above 80-degree days. And the nights are still chilly, in the 40s.

    Interesting when you think 40s sounds like a warm daytime temperature to most of you right now. But I can still sleep with my bedroom window open (I know, someday I will probably be killed by an intruder).

    We had some very dense fog the other night as I was driving home.

    There was a big retirement lunch yesterday for one of our online guys who started out with the paper in the early 1970s as a janitor and later transitioned to a writer then an editor. Crazy business back in those days. For a while he said he was a part-time writer and part-time janitor, probably the only person in the company to have such a job description. He only took journalism courses later at night.

    By the 1980s, one pretty much needed a BA to be hired as a reporter — now, that’s gone up to an MA. All of our interns have master’s degrees.

    Someone said journalism may come full circle one of these days as the business model is so rocky. So someday we may have janitor/writers once again. 🙂 Maybe it would be an improvement.

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  21. They’d certainly look at life from a different perspective.

    43 here.

    I’ve just had a fun conversation with our in-house missionary (until May). She met with a friend yesterday and they discussed the advantages of on-line dating. While we chatted, I realized I’ve only her positive stories–perhaps the bad ones don’t get out because the daters are embarrassed?

    How about you? Any meeting on-line stories (Kim and Cheryl need not comment)? Bad ones as well as good ones. We’ll assume you’re talking about someone else since most of us are married . . .

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  22. I don’t know of anyone in my sphere who met on-line that formed a romantic relationship. I have made Christan friends over the web as I have done at this site.

    A friend from high school who was widowed met her second husband through a country music magazine ad. That is as close to meeting “on-line” as I have known.

    Michelle, I appreciated your blog post. For some reason I was having trouble getting my comment posted. Facts do need to be checked out for articles and novels. History is not my strong point so I would not notice inaccuracies so easily as you. But I appreciate historical fiction to help me learn things I never knew before. I am hopeful that what is presented is accurate. I suppose some of what is presented in a comical type story might use exaggerations, but hopefully that would be easily discerned.

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  23. Actually, that sort of points back to yesterday’s discussion about children and media. I can exaggerate only if I know the people I’m talking to recognize the exaggeration. When people stretch historical stories those who don’t know the history will misunderstand.

    I remember being at the video store in 1996 and a kid wanted to check out Oliver Stone’s JFK, “because its one of my favorite movies.”

    “But he got the history all wrong,” I said.

    “He did?”

    See the problem?

    And since we live in such a revisionist period of time with photoshopping and the like, I believe a Christian, at least, has to be even more careful to write only the truth.

    (Which is why I spent most of yesterday researching where Oswald Chambers was on specific dates in 1916! It’s a good thing I’ve got a copy of his diary!)

    Blog is here: http://michelleule.com/2014/01/24/couple-wrong-facts/

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  24. Re: Online dating. I have two relatives (not immediate family) who tried online dating. The first one was successful and the couple is still married. The second developed a deep online relationship with the person and was about to meet them, when suddenly the person dropped out of sight – it turned out that the person didn’t even exist.

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  26. Thanks for the link to the KuhlauDilfeng2 page, AJ. Looks like good stuff there — I bookmarked it for future use. 🙂

    Temperature: we’ve been above zero all day, currently 22, with predicted highs in upper 20s with wind chills about 10 degrees below that. Tonight snow. Tomorrow much colder. A good day to head outside with the kids while the temps are fairly mild. (It seems that way to me, anyway, after all the below-zero days we’ve had this season.)

    Online dating: the widower of a friend of mine who died a few years ago met his new wife on a Christian singles site. They were both near the end of a (30-day?) free trial period on the site, and both had decided that they were not going to renew their membership after that, when they met each other there with only a few days left. At that time, they lived about three hours apart from each other. While they were dating, when she would come down, she’d stay at the home of another friend of mine, and he made similar arrangements when he would go up to see her in the area where she lived. It worked out beautifully, and they got married last summer.

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  27. Now my memory has been jogged about on-line dating. One friend said her son had done that and the young lady was wanting to marry, but her son was not ready for that. Another friend told me that her husband’s friend used e-harmony to meet nice Christian girls, but he had intentions other than marriage. I don’t think the first friend’s son had the same notion. He was much younger and just having difficulty in finding someone to date. I also remember now that a cousin who is probably in his fifties recently met someone by on-line dating and they both wanted marriage. Too early to say how that one will work out.

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  28. Not online dating, but a lady at work met her husband at UNC (That’s NORTH Carolina, folks)
    by a university program that matched people by personal assessment. It seems to work well.
    Last I heard, they were still married.

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  30. Michelle, I’ve heard some horror stories as well, enough that I was very cautious, with some careful limits in place. I didn’t give out my last name for a while, for example (though my husband had enough information from me that he actually googled and found my website our first day of contact! I gave him the name of a couple of books I edited, thinking I was safe because those books don’t list my name in them, but I’d mentioned one of them on my website and that was enough for him to find me. Whoops! I wasn’t very happy about it at the time, and I still tease him that I married a stalker).

    In fact, I had several mildly negative experiences before finding my husband. I even had one guy who was interested in another girl and ended up doing some stupid stuff that got him arrested–he didn’t threaten her or anything, just some stupid stuff that people thought looked too much like stalking and he blew off as a practical joke. Before my husband, I only met one other man in person, and I was careful to suggest a location that wasn’t very close to my home, and to get there a little early and park my car in the mall and not the coffee shop parking lot, with its license plate facing away from the coffee shop, so that I could be absolutely as careful as necessary when I left if he gave me any creepy vibes. He turned out to seem perfectly safe, just completely not my type. (He was paying several hundred dollars a month for medicine for two special-needs cats, for example, and he had to keep track of the time so he could get home and give one its special treatment.)

    When I was doing online dating, before I met my hubby, a friend at church told me that someone at her workplace was just about to meet her online friend in person. A week or so later I asked my friend how it went, and she said not well, that they hadn’t really clicked in person but they were going to give it a shot and see if they could start all over again. Weeks later I asked again, and was told it had ended badly–it turns out the guy was married!

    I have also heard stories of people who relocate for a man and then find out he’s an abuser, people who marry someone they hardly know and find out he has some really bad traits. In a book I proofread recently, one woman met in such a fashion turned out to have a really weird habit–she keeps a roll of toilet paper in her purse and snacks on it, admitting to going through about a roll a day.

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  31. Sorry, I know this is long, so I broke it in two . . .

    What I figured is the biggest “danger” of online dating is that this person is completely outside your circle. You aren’t meeting him in a place where you both know people, nor are you even being set up by a mutual friend. It’s kind of the modern version of a mail-order bride. My husband and I dealt with that issue by getting to know each other’s circles–he stayed with my elder and wife for several days at a time on each visit, and I stayed with his parents on my two visits (I was a houseguest of my in-laws for ten days they very first time I met them!!). He got to know my church people quite well, and I spoke to his pastor by phone before he came down for his first visit. Seeing his parents together really confirmed for me that everything was good. If I’d known them before I knew him, and knew they had a widower son, I’d have wanted to meet him, the family was that impressive.

    But there are advantages to online dating, too. One is that this person is already known to be someone who is interested in dating. That’s a biggie. Second, assuming they have told the truth on their profile (you can’t “assume” that, of course, but starting with that assumption), you already know enough about the person to do a pre-screening. You can reject outright the man who doesn’t want children or who smokes, for example. But I think another big advantage is that you are starting with the objective and not the subjective. You aren’t being carried away by how good-looking the other person is, and neglecting to find out if he is even a Christian; you are starting with looking at whether he is a good match, and with the shared understanding that both of you are “ready for a relationship” (and hopefully that means you are both ready for marriage, though I did find one man who was very confused on that question). The negative is the risk that a couple will think that the profile questions are all they need to ask, or will assume the other person is telling the truth. But then, in “real-life” relationships, one of the biggest dangers is not knowing much about the other person. My husband and I communicated in depth to be sure of our match, more than anyone else I know. That’s rare, but partly a result of our ages and partly because we’re both very analytical.

    Much like he googled me and found out my last name, once I knew his name I googled him. And what I found online confirmed what he had told me about himself. Granted, I didn’t find much, but I did find a record of a house he had bought with his late wife, listing both of their names, in a city he’d mentioned living in. I found some of his relatives linked to him. And I found several cities he’d mentioned. And, of course, I didn’t find any arrest records or anything of that sort. And his pastor gave him a very strong recommendation. Besides, his knowledge base matched who he claimed to be–he had knowledge in the fields in which he had worked, and (significantly) he had knowledge of Christianity that matched an insider with a lot of reading and a lot of studying. With all of that, I knew he was what he claimed to be; he wasn’t putting on a front. So I had no concern whatsoever that he would end up being someone completely different than I thought. And he hasn’t.

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  34. Well! I think I’ll just keep my 3-speed record player.
    I’ve been using it to convert vinyl to CD. Maybe I’ll keep my vinyl too. Though it does take more space than disks. I also have a bunch of cassetts.

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  36. I simply can’t imagine the cold that you all are experiencing. I don’t think that even in California I have ever seen it that cold. Here we only have rainy season and dry season. Hard to teach nationals about seasons.
    Thanks for posting about your weather. I do miss winter and summer. Each season is special.

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  37. The woman with the strange diet needs to see a doctor and get whatever she is missing in her diet.

    I know a couple of success stories from online dating. My brother has a wonderful wife. He ended up going all the way to the Philippines. The first time, he backed out from the relationship.

    Cheryl gives some good pointers for anyone going this route.

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  38. I particularly hate to watch movies or shows where the history is revised. I don’t mind if some aspects of someone’s life is condensed or imagined, but changing things drastically is enough to make me stay away.

    It is one reason diaries, auto-biography and news stories etc. are so needed. It won’t be long and all those survivors of Nazi Germany will be gone. Then what will be taught? It does make you question all those things that you have heard about way back when. I never cease to be amazed when I hear someone who went through the same time period as me, has a completely different take on what really happened. The younger ones aren’t sure whom to believe.

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  39. Well I told all of you things as I was going through it. I had them from 19 to 73 interested in my profile. I had to tell the 19 year old that I already had a teenage child I didn’t need another one. To this day Mr. P calls me “Mrs. Robinson” because I made the mistake of telling him about it. The 73 year old got quite snippy with me when I told him I didn’t want to date anyone older than my ex-husband (because I thought that was some of our problem) he informed me that all the men in my age group were looking for someone much younger than I am and I would be lucky to get someone his age.
    I was “chatting” one Saturday morning with a very nice looking man for Washington state who was coming to the area. He claimed to be a writer, and was quite charming until he just didn’t respond to the next chat. Never heard from him again and figured his wife must have walked in. One guy didn’t have his photo but contacted me. He was definately married and was just looking for variety. I reported him.
    I went out with one man, J, several times, but he stood me up for a date to go take photos of the Mega-Moon, or some such, then later that night he posted photos of an ex-girlfriend’s daughter dressed for prom. He had gone to take her photos. Don’t lie to me.
    I paid for one more month and that is when I found Mr. P. There were several others I was communicating with, but none that won.
    Once I fixed pork roast, turnip green, peas and butterbean, sweet potatoes, and cornbread, he was a goner. I couldn’t have gotten rid of him if I had hit him with a baseball bat. 😉
    As far as searching for him on line? He is a ghost. You can’t find him. Of course he was in Guantanamo with the rest of us were leaving our footprints on the internet. He has checked out so far, so I quess I will keep him.

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  40. Hey, this isn’t an “ad.” But for those of you who aren’t sure what you’ll do for insurance under Obamacare, my husband and I recently signed up for Christian Healthcare Ministries after finding that two of my brothers were extremely pleased with it and that it would save us a lot of money. (Cost per months is as little as $45 per month per person.) If anybody signs up using my name I can get a free month, but it’s well worth looking into apart from that. If anyone is interested and you have any questions, you can e-mail me if you have my e-mail address. If you don’t, I’ll find a way to let you know how to get in touch with me.

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  41. Kathaleena, a few years age difference can give a whole different viewpoint. My husband is only 5 years older, but high school in the Atlanta area changed drastically during those years. I don’t think husband ever saw any students stoned in class. Also, a black high school was shut down and all those students came to my white high school and we had race riots. I experienced having to walk to class with the black guys lined up on both sides of the hallway and when the girl got to the center of the group, they would form a circle around her. The girl would keep walking and they would break the circle to let her pass through. It was very intimidating. Husband never had to deal with junk like that. In events like that I saw history in the making. Now I am concerned that people who did not learn from history “are doomed to repeat it.” Referring to the “knock out game” and such. Anyways, I know you were talking about those who completely twist history and not those who like us would seemingly have a more common history but would have conflicting stories.

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  42. Janice, it isn’t necessarily just an age difference. My sister was a year younger than me and a year after me in school, so I knew some things about her classes as well as my own. Though I never attended high school, I knew that the class before me and the class after me both had some drug issues in junior high, whereas mine as far as I know did not. And my sister had a classmate get pregnant in eighth grade, which both of us found shocking. (We knew the girl, a sweet, gentle girl, and I wonder now if she was victimized or at least not altogether making a choice.)

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  44. Cheryl – Lee & I are indeed looking for affordable insurance, & will take a look at that. Thank you for posting about it. Do you have any idea how Christian Healthcare Ministries compares to Samaritan Ministries?

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  45. Jo – A former World blog commenter, “Kyle A” (I don’t remember if he used his full last name, so I’ll just use the initial), is a missionary with Mission Aviation Fellowship, in Wamena, Papua, Indonesia. How far is that from PNG?

    6 Arrows – I was taking a look at the blog you linked to, concerning FYG & her broken leg, & one picture had me wondering if they are Mennonite, or something somewhat similar. Do you know?

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  46. We have a weather advisory about iced roads. My Baby Girl is babysitting tonight and has never driven in these conditions. I sent her a message telling her what to do if she started sliding. I would really feel better if she would just come here instead of going back to her dad’s. I am closer to where she is. I would like it best if I could go get her!!!!

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  47. Karen, I know they’re Christians — conservative Christians, I’m pretty sure — but I don’t think they are Mennonite. I haven’t been reading at the blog for a long time, but in the time I have they’ve talked about choosing to wear scarves or other head coverings at least some of the time (maybe all the time). It did sound, though, like a choice and not a requirement, which, if I’m not mistaken, Mennonites require, right?

    I could be wrong about that. In any case, I don’t think this family has specifically said what religion they are.

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  51. We almost never have these types of weather conditions. I wouldn’t want to be out in this. She is safely under her father’s roof and I can unclench all my muscles…great workout!

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  53. Same here, Kim. Glad she is ok. I still remember the first time I drove in those conditions and had my car turn completely around. I decided to leave it that way and go back home. Never fun to drive in those conditions.

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  54. Once our company stops offering health insurance — which I’m guessing will happen in 2015 — I’ll definitely check out some of the alternative Christian health co-ops. The government plans are probably better out here since California is so gung-ho on Obamacare and has bent over backwards to get with the program. But I still don’t think the government plans are better (or cheaper) than what I have now with my employer.

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  55. Karen, my husband did the actual research on the plans, so I don’t remember what he found in comparing them. I have family on a couple different ones, and I have family that got “burned” on one of them and is now on this one. The one we chose, two of my brothers have been on it several years each, both have had surgeries, and both have had quick payments. Further, one brother had some sort of deductible, let’s say it was $3,000 (I’m not sure what it was), and he called about the surgery, and they said, “Call your doctor, tell them you’re ‘cash payment’ [because it doesn’t count as insurance, though it satisfies the Obamacare requirements] and see what kind of discount they’ll give you, and then call us back.” He did so, and when he called them back, they told him the discounts had met his deductible! He was astounded; he thought he was lowering the amount they would pay, not taking care of his own deductible. My other brother had some sort of story about payment so prompt his doctor was really pleased, too.

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  56. My employer-sponsored plan (Aetna PPO) has a $1,500 deductible, which I used to think sounded awful until I’ve heard that some of the Obamacare plans have a $6,000 deductible! Yikes.

    My premium runs close to $200 a month, though, so that’s high. Families pay a whole lot more than that, it’s all deducted from our (already shrinking) checks.

    Still, I’m grateful to have coverage considering that the entire health care/insurance system is about to go topsy-turvy. And then who knows what we’ll end up with.

    A friend whose business recently went under was without insurance for some time, however, and she told me her doctors were very good about charging her a lot less than she expected for “cash-only” doctor visits.

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  57. Karen, Papua is the other half of this same island. So not far, but it would be very hard to get there. These are regions with very few roads and you have to fly. the capital of PNG, Port Moresby is only accessible by air or boat. They have roads, but they don’t go far.

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