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Our Daily Thread 4-3-14

Good Morning!

On this day in 1829 James Carrington patented the coffee mill. 

In 1860 the first Pony Express riders left St. Joseph, MO and Sacramento, CA.

In 1865 Union forces occupy Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. 

In 1946 Lt. General Masaharu Homma, the Japanese commander responsible for the Bataan Death March, was executed in the Philippines. 

And in 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “mountaintop” speech just 24 hours before he was assassinated. 

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Quote of the Day

“Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.”

Washington Irving

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Today is Andrew Shirley’s birthday. From Switchfoot

And it’s Tony Orlando’s too. Pre-mustache.

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Anyone have a QoD?

58 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-3-14”

  1. That quote about distant friends is so true! Have you managed to keep up wih friends who move away or do those didtant friendships just fade away?

    I had kept up with friends in CA, AA and SC. Some are more consistently kept up with than others. I don’t do Facebook and that has limited my keeping up with the ones who prefer that over email or snail mail.

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  2. Morning all. Almost finished with my newsletter and worked on my portfolio today. We are having our WASC visit soon and the portfolio needed updating. Have a blessed day with Him.

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  4. I’m finding facebook very helpful and the church email prayer chain. It seems very few even email anymore. Yet I know all sorts of things from facebook. But mostly it is a place where cute pictures of my grandkids are posted. This morning I learned that Jack, 8, had surprised his family with breakfast – and it was tortillas with eggs, cheese, and something along with a strawberry decorating the plate. 🙂

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  9. Jo, if you would like you can find me through some of the other people on Facebook.

    It is another busy day here. I had two new agents start yesterday so I have to take care of setting them up and everything. At 9am we are having a “Contracts–How to Bullet Proof Them” Class.

    I will check in later.

    Evvy body BEhave

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  10. I just enlarged the tigers and saw how big those paw pads are. They do look almost like black rubber tires. I prefer the pink paw pads that Bosley wears. Her paw pads are the color of worn out bubblegum. And they hide quite a bit of stickiness for the unexpecting.

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  11. Good Morning everyone…we are living in Narnia once again…I’d send pictures but I know everyone is sick of the snow….we have 8 inches and counting..wet heavy spring snow.
    Facebook has been a great way to keep in touch with friends and family near and far…it seems it has taken the place of sending emails anymore…and hardly ever do I receive a handwritten card, letter or even note…I’m as guilty as the next guy…I should write letters more often 🙂

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  14. To Janice’s question:
    A few. I just found a friend of thirty five years ago. We have not had any contact since about ’81. She was a believer but has lost that. We have been talking and that is good. A school friend since fifth grade and I still keep some contact, at least once a year on her birthday. Friends met in other parts of the world, a little bit through email and the occasional note. A neighbor I have known for years, I visit her in jail and send her letters. So, yes, I keep in contact with a few in various ways.

    My lost friend I found by googling her and her husband and came up with a street address I wrote a letter to. It worked. I had googled her in the past and come up with nothing. Interesting that our addresses are out there for one and all. I could google map her address and learn more but I have not done that. Weird world in which we live.

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  15. Thinking about my “wise” remark about behaving. I thought of something Paul Harvey used to say. “Trouble always starts out being fun”. Not universally true, sometimes others can cause it while you’re minding your own business. But generally true.

    I keep up, via e-mail, with a friend I knew at USC. He says he remembers me from high school, but I don’t remember him then. He and I attended SWBTS together. He got me the part time job at the USDA Soil Conservation Service, where I worked part time while I was in seminary. I was a cartographic draftsman which helped me get a job with the Army Map Service as a cartographer.
    I also e-mail a guy I worked with.
    A couple of years ago, I joined Classmates to locate a girl who had attended my high school. I knew her, but she was a special friend of my sister. I reconnected them. She is the one who got me the job at Parker Lab, which got me a job at the SC Highway Dept. testing lab where I worked part time all the way through college,

    Sometimes I just take time to sit and cogitate in amazement about how some of these happenstances have worked for me.

    I’ve told you a dozen times about the happenstance of meeting this girl on the stairs of FBC Columbia.

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  16. Hubby and I have kept in touch with several of our good friends from high school. I think it’s easier to keep in touch when you have the same faith, careers and locations change, but God doesn’t. Facebook has made it even easier. Hubby’s closest friend from high school and his wife are currently looking for a home less than an hour from us!! They messaged us to please pray for God’s leading in selling their house and purchasing a new one in the new town.

    Facebook was a lifeline for me when we moved after 17 years to a very small town with no church and no believers. I have kept in touch with that old church family/friends for several years now, in fact, hubby is currently staying at one of our friends’ place while on a work trip. Their kids told him he was supposed to bring me next time 🙂

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  17. Sounds like my neighbor may have gotten a new puppy — or two. They had two labs, litter mates, who were over 10 and both had cancer. Puppies. 🙂

    I’ve kept up with several friends (though with most it’s only an intermittent connection) — and others have turned up on FB, people I’ve known since elementary school & Girl Scout days. Fun. But I need to send more cards, too, I used to do that a lot and now I’m horrible about it. I do have some Easter cards that never got sent last year, I’m hoping to get at least a couple of those out this year.

    Mumsee, glad you found your friend — so sad when people turn away from the faith, though. 😦 My experience with a couple of my childhood friends has been interesting as we’ve newly embraced the faith since we last knew each other. Sweet.

    More roller coaster rides at work — there’s been a shakeup at the top level of our newspaper chain on the east coast. No one knows exactly how that all will play out with us eventually, but one possibility is that our cluster of LA papers could get bought by someone else. A competitor paper in the county south of us has been aggressively moving into the LA area, particularly into the regions we cover, so the thinking is perhaps — if they have the money or can find it through partnering with someone else — they would likely be interested in acquiring us.

    As with all the many changes through the last 10 years, this could either be good or bad. Things are so bad right now that we’re hoping it will be an improvement. But newspaper history has proven that just when you think things can’t get any worse … They do. 😦

    For anyone who’s interested:

    http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/04/the-newsonomics-of-digital-first-medias-thunderdome-implosion-and-coming-sale/

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  19. Speaking of FB, it can put you into contact with things you might not have seen before. Case in point, last night my niece posted an interview her brother the goalie did with a local radio station. She commented she wasn’t happy with the beginning, but thought he did well.

    I happened to be looking at a photo of my brand new great niece in her father’s big goalie hands, and so I listened to the interview.

    I’m aghast.

    The interview was done a week ago by two jolly good old boys and what sounds like either a child or a young woman. They wanted to “get to know him,” and after fawning over what a tragedy it is all the handsome members of the team have wives and girlfriends “when you could have any girl you want– a big tall, handsome blonde Californian like you,” they moved on to their first question.

    “When you go to a porn site, what do you search for first?”

    He handled it well, coming up with a non-answer, but every feminist shred in my body rose up to scream “You sexist pigs!”

    SO insulting to him, his bride of 15 months (though they acknowledged she was pretty and smart) and this brand new baby girl. I was outraged.

    My niece agreed with me, noting we probably were not the intended audience, “but it is perplexing because MLS is supposed to be so family-friendly.”

    But I wonder–how can this possibly be of value to anyone, to imply everyone looks at porn and then to ignore Eric’s comment about he’s having a new little girl in a couple days?

    Angry great aunt steams . . .

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  20. In other news, I’m starting to write my punning rhyming third Christmas novella: The Yuletide Bride. 1870 Nebraska, it features a bagpipe. I’ve got the music on the CD player downstairs–that’s far enough away to appreciate but not endure. 🙂

    Any bagpipe players out there?

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  21. The oldest friend I keep in touch with was the first person I ever befriended when she moved in down the street from me when we were both 3 years old. She moved out of my neighborhood to a town about 30 minutes away when she was 15 and her parents’ divorced, but we’ve never lost touch. Now she lives in San Antonio, TX, but we see each other most years when we’re both visiting our families in MA and she comes to the Bay Area occasionally for various reasons, and she’ll always visit me when she does.

    One of my two closest friends is one I became friends with in junior high. She and I actually went to the same elementary school, but we weren’t friends there because I’m a few months older, so I was a grade ahead. She lives in MA close to her family now, but for about ten years, she lived near me in CA. But wherever she lives, we’re always in close touch, and we see each other whenever we’re in the same area.

    My friend and hiking buddy was originally my next older sister’s friend and is still closer to her, but she moved to my town a few years ago when her husband got a job in Silicon Valley. I’ve known her since I was about 18, but until a few years ago, I knew her only as my sister’s friend.

    We also have a close family friend, a woman a little older than me who is close to me and all of my sisters. She also lived in my neighborhood my whole life. When I was little, she seemed considerably older than me–6 years, and she was friends with my oldest sisters. But she and I became close shortly after I graduated from high school, and now I see her whenever I’m in MA because she’s still almost like another sister.

    And none of these are Facebook relationships. I guess I don’t make friends easy, so I hold onto the ones I have. 😉

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  22. Mrs L does FB and tells me what’s up with mutual friends. I cannot understand why someone would suddenly keep ion touch over FB when email was just as easy to use, yet they never did.

    And since I might not have a chance to do this tomorrow, here are the Friday Funnies</b? a day early.

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  23. Great one-sided phone interview with one of our local candidates going on next to me today:

    Reporter: “And you’ve been out of prison for how long now?”

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  24. I do send real letters and cards, though I don’t have any regular correspondence with anyone outside e-mail. I make my own cards and have become known for them, but it’s rather an expensive hobby. (The mailings will say “Save money by making them yourself!” But you only save money if you make multiples of identical cards. Once you start buying assortments of rubber stamps or any other tool, the cost adds up quickly.)

    For several years in college and after I was back in touch with my best friend from grade school, but she moved frequently (about once a year) and wasn’t always good at letting me know her new address, and eventually we lost touch. I am in daily contact with one friend from college and in regular contact with friends from several states.

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  26. I keep up with a few friends who have moved away (not very regularly though — mainly through Christmas cards), but most of my old friends have drifted away, as we tend not to do letter writing or long-distance phone calls, and I didn’t have email until 3 years ago, and have never been on Facebook. If I ever get onto FB, I’ll probably try to get back in touch with them and see what they’re doing now.

    As far as corresponding at Christmas, it’s mostly family and local friends, but I still hear yearly (or almost yearly) from my best friend from high school (we were in each other’s weddings), friends of my husband’s and mine whom we met in our early 20’s (and were also in each other’s weddings), a former co-worker and his wife when I was in college (my husband and I used to babysit their kids), and a friend who used to live around here and go to our church, but who has moved a few hours north of us with her family.

    I enjoy my small group of local friends, and the friendships I have made in internet land, and feel enriched and blessed by them and you. 🙂

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  27. Speaking of Facebook/social media and friendships, I found this to be a rather thought-provoking video on loneliness in the digital age. Not sure I agree with all of it, but it provides good food for thought.

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  28. Real question for you tech guys.
    Why does a radio/tv briefing by someone have to have a large bank of microphones? Couldn’t they just have one phone and everyone just plug into that input?

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  29. One of the musicians, who sometimes play in mutual shows with my husband, also plays a bagpipe. He will march in parades sometimes. He usually plays guitar or steel guitar in shows, however.

    People will keep in touch on fb, as opposed to emailing, because fb seems less personal. It is more a ‘public’ place than personal, although we forget that. It is easy to be on it, but not in direct contact.

    I am not good at initiating contact with others, for the most part. I appreciate those who are much better at it. I do enjoy visiting with some people whom I may see only once every few years. I have kept up with some people with Christmas Cards. It seems that is less and less, though.

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  30. But there’s also the FB message feature (which is private and, if both parties are logged on, operates as a live chat). I’ve had better results getting timely responses with that than I do email anymore. I guess email is becoming the land line of our age.

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  31. Donna, call me a person who prefers landlines, then. I was on Facebook for a few months, and I liked some aspects of it. It was fun, for example, to post a photo and have people tell me, “Wow, I love that!” And it was good to see smart essays that friends posted links to. The best part was seeing photos my young nieces and nephews were posting of their families, and to see links to their websites.

    But none of that seemed worth it to me, because I wasn’t willing to give Facebook permission to read everything I wrote to a friend or to use a photo I posted in any way they chose. I went on Facebook for one specific purpose, at the request of a family member, and while I was there I also “tried it out” to see how I liked it. I liked it fine, but it wasn’t worth it. And once my purpose for being on there was no longer valid, I got off. And since it was basically a choice between this blog and Facebook–I was not going to do both, long-term–I chose this blog. When World kicked us off, I figured this blog probably wouldn’t go much of anywhere, and once it fizzled I might get back on Facebook again. But here it is, and here I am, and I haven’t been “on” Facebook since fall of 2011.

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  32. As you all know I keep up with friends from 3rd, 6th,11th grade in a continuous conversation on FB. Today G was complaining about the sand at the Leo Carillo State Beach with the comment that if God wanted people to go to the beach He wouldn’t have invented swimming pools…Poor baby.
    I love being able to say ANYTHING to these people and not have to filter. No, what we write is not for public consumption although last night B who is gay posted something and I commented. His next post was “I love you Kimmy. If anyone has anything else to say address it to me”. He stopped me from being attacked.

    I don’t have a whole lot of friends but I keep the ones I have or as I like to tell my friends, “Once you are in, it”s a life sentence.”

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  33. Michelle, steaming with you. I can’t imagine we have fallen that low.

    Got my monthly internet bill and it is the highest yet. Must have been that hour long facetime when Jude was born. Worth every dime, or dollar!

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  34. Understandably it seems most on here are very loyal to their friends. Isn’t that a blessing when the world offers up so many opportunities to be treated poorly as Michelle indicated happened in that interview and also with that comment Donna overheard. I feel so blessed to have friends I still keep in contact with despite distance. It seems rather interesting that it seems my friends who I thought were more conservative may have become a bit more liberal over the years and my ffiends who originally did not have a strong faith in God hVe gone more and more in that direction.

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  36. I gave away the Christmas cactus I was keeping safely closed up in my son’s room. All its fronds were too enticing for Bosley. Today I opened up son’s room so Bosley has a new place to rediscover. She hasn’t been allowed in there since son went back to school in Janusry.

    Today I scheduled the spaying surgery for later this month. Time is rolling on by. It will be interesting to see if the spaying calms her down any.

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  37. My daughter got called out of class today. It was a phone call from Furman telling her she got the top scholarship–a full ride! They award it to four students, and she’s one of them. Praise the Lord!

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  40. Very wonderful news Ree. I was pleased to know that your visit went well.

    BG got a car. It is a silver Toyota Corolla 2010, 50K miles. She is understandably excited. She and her father will be moving in with Nana after he closes on the sale of his house. I think living with her grandmother will be very good for BG. Nana is 76 and takes no prisoners.

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  41. off to do my PNG taxes. I am a resident so must file, but they have a clause that says we don’t count as income gifts of love and affection.

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  42. hmmm…. trying to decide about a toyota corolla here. not registered so hasn’t been having safety inspections. My van won’t last much longer and I need a vehicle or can’t go anywhere at night. Prayers for wisdom appreciated.

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  43. Toyotas are good. Praying you’ll find something soon, Jo.

    Technology connection story: Sent an email to a source I needed to talk to about a public mural story I’m doing. Within 15 minutes he called me from his cell, he was driving through the desert when the email came through on his phone. Said I really also should talk to another guy so he’s going to send him a FB message to call me.

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  44. Wonderful, Ree! So happy for all of you.

    Kim, she should really enjoy that car. My own Corolla lasted till the age of 15 (it’s the car that got killed in a collision with a drunk driver), and that’s a newer car that any I’ve ever owned!

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  46. Great to hear, Ree!

    I learned to drive, and took (and passed) my driver’s test, in a Toyota Corolla. Good car, then and (it sounds like) now, too.

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  47. Kim – Wow, that’s almost a new car! Emily’s Civic is about 20 years old, I think, & our Impala is 10 years old. I hope she’s grateful.

    Ree – Praise God! You must be so proud of her.

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  48. As you know, I was disappointed that it will still be several days before my almost-former tenants are completely out. Then it occurred to me – all that stuff is in the kitchen, except for a couple pieces of furniture that I’m not sure if they’re taking or leaving. But the rest of the place is ready to start working on!

    Today Emily & Forrest were peeling the wallpaper off the walls in the bathroom, & washing down walls in the other rooms.

    So, we are moving forward at last!

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  53. Ree, congratulations, that’s very good news!

    And Karen, good for you, getting started on the upstairs. That must feel good to finally make some progress toward reclaiming your space.

    The reporter asking the candidate on the phone about his prison term today, by the way, was legit — he’d done time for attempted murder. And let’s face it, you can’t really write a story about a candidate without addressing that little incident. 😉

    My Jeep is an ’07 and has 78,000 miles. It still feels new to me. 🙂

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  54. It’s late here (11:00), but I’m wide awake… Lots of good news on here today…
    Congratulations, Ree, on your daughter’s scholarship–That is fabulous news!
    And, how exciting for BG! I had my first car for ten years–it served me well!

    As for the QoD: I am still best friends with a girl I met at the tender age of four. We moved five hours away when I was nine, but we saw each other every Christmas and Summer Break, and wrote lots of letters. I keep up with six girls from high school, who I’ll be seeing for our 25th reunion in May. We’ve rented a house for three nights –it should be really fun. When we get together, it’s as if no time has passed. My stomach muscles actually hurt from laughing so much after our last get together! I keep in touch with two old friends from Bandera and one from my sorority in college. Of course, I’m “friends” with many people on Facebook–but it’s not personal.

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  56. Thanks, everyone. We are, indeed, very proud of her!

    Donna, I know what you mean about the car feeling new. We just got rid of the first new car I ever owned–a 1990 Honda Accord with 277,000 miles on it. It didn’t really occur to me that it wasn’t new until it was at least 15 years old. I was 29 years old when we bought it, and 52 when I replaced it. (That was a year ago, but we kept it around and my daughter drove it to school for the past year.) So I figure I’ll be about 74 when I’m ready for another new car.

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