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Our Daily Thread 7-29-14

Good Morning!

On this day in 1754 the first international boxing match was held. The 25-minute match was won when Jack Slack of Britain knocked out Jean Petit from France. 

In 1874 Major Walter Copton Winfield of England received U.S. patent for the lawn-tennis court. 

In 1957 the International Atomic Energy Agency was established. 

In 1983 Steve Garvey (Los Angeles Dodgers) set the National League consecutive game record at 1,207. 

And in 1993 the Israeli Supreme Court acquitted retired Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk of being Nazi death camp guard “Ivan the Terrible.” His death sentence was thrown out and he was set free. 

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Quote of the Day

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

Alexis de Tocqueville

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 Today is Lauren Barlow’s birthday. From barlowgirlmusic

And it’s Neal Doughty’s too.

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Anyone have a QoD?

83 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-29-14”

  1. Are we anticipating tomorrow?
    Oh! I see now!
    Good morning everyone.
    Jo, mysteries on the blog are solved quickly.
    Only so many options, and the culprits quickly give themselves away.

    🙂

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  2. Speaking of mysteries, those who come later will have no idea what I meant by that first statement and Aj and I aren’t telling.

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  3. Morning, Chas. A very busy day for me and, for some reason, decided to do a lot of cooking tonight of all the meat I bought today. I’m tired. Time for some sleep.
    I made a book for my class tonight with individual pictures of each one. Their name is at the top of the page, then a picture, then it says “I see Shelomith.” or Isai, or Kerame, or Lisah. They love to see pictures of themselves and will read it all year long.

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  4. Jo, when I was a kid, I would have thought that was neat.
    Of course, pictures were rather rare in those days.
    You guys don’t remember when pictures were rare and not everyone had a Kodak.

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  7. You don’t remember Kodak, AJ? I remember trying to get the best shot, but having to wait a few days to see the results. In one way, I miss those days. Now, I see kids with camera phones snapping away, taking pictures of anything and everything, then deleting the ones that didn’t turn out right, rather than patiently waiting for the best angle.

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  8. Yesterday when I was going to post a prayer for the requests my power was out on my phone. Still trying to figure what to do about that.

    I just had an email on One Drive Microsoft storage. Is anyone using that? So many options. Hard to know what would work best for each iindividual’s needs.

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  9. Lovely yellow bird. We do not have yellow birds here except for in cages. When I was a child I did see an escaped parakeet out in the yard one day. It made me sad to realize someone had lost their pet and that the bird would not live for long.

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  10. Good morning everyone. Yesterday was a busy one and I never did make it here to say hello. 8 am meeting, 9-13 Continuing Education, 4 pm meeting and 7 pm potluck to celebrate finishing Genesis!!!! We take the month of August off and will do a book next. I think it is “something” Hope about dispelling common belief of what heaven is.

    There will be a home inspection on the house tomorrow. They want Mr. P and the dogs gone from 8:30 to 12:30. He is handling it. I just can’t. I probably should run through tonight and make it at least look nice. I have lost whatever it was that living in that house gave me. It is simply 4 walls with so much stuff that it overwhelms me to think of packing it all up again and moving it. Que sera, sera.

    On a different note, as I was driving through town I saw Mrs. Dvorak walking to work. I first worked with her in 1992 at a bank. They were trying to retire her then. There was public outrage. If she wasn’t there who would balance their checkbooks? ( She taught me that skill). The phrase “beating a dead horse” was used. An age discrimination lawsuit followed. After she won it, she walked out the doors of that bank and into another one. Her loyal fans followed. B B & T bought out that bank about 4 or 5 years ago. A position was created for Mrs. Dvorak. She isn’t able to do much these days, so she is the official greeter in the downtown branch and lets people into their safe deposit box. Bank management says that as long as she is alive and can make it to work she has a job. She is an institution. She is somewhere between 90 and 95 which should give us all inspiration, that as long as we have a purpose in life, and put one foot in front of the other, we can keep going. I don’t think she has ever stopped.

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  11. Sweet story, Kim.

    Funny to think back on it, but when I was in my twenties, and maybe even thirties, I thought if someone had gray hair it meant they must be retired. It is good for younger people to see older people in the work force. They just need to be matched with the right position as some skill sets grow dimmer. I think when that happens other skill sets can be developed and keep them fresh in the learning.

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  16. Kodak was a generic name for camera in those days. Just as Kleenex is a tissue.

    🙂 While I was out, I needed to stop by the rest room. So, I went into the Chick-fil-a. I used their facility, so I thought I should buy something. (I always do.)
    So, I ordered a small coffee.
    IT WAS FREE!
    I told the lady that I felt guilty coming in just for free coffee.
    She said, that is OK..
    We’ll make it up later. I stop by there often for real food.

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  17. I know it isn’t R&R time, but I going to rant anyhow.
    I hate commercials, or other conversations that start with “I don’t know about you, but..”

    😦 Out to trim the bank now.

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  18. The Real, I don’t like to bother you in your important work but I left you a note on the end of yesterday’s thread. There is a matter that needs your attention. Thanks.

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  21. um…the Real? That issue on the end of yesterday’s thread still needs you attention. I hate to be a squeaky wheel and all….

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  23. Generally, I am a patient person but this is dragging on. I am off to swimming lessons though. I hope that has been resolved by the time I get home.

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  24. Kim didn’t show up yesterday; so I thought she might be angry at me for telling how she and BG spent five hours at the mall.
    The reason I knew is that my wife had three granddaughters. She loved going shopping with them. And they liked going with her.
    Her sister, Polly, once said, “In my next life, I want to come back as one of Elvera’s granddaughters.”
    Elvera grew up in a poor country family and she never had nice clothes. I told you before, she had an aunt who had lots of material and made five dresses, just alike. Elvera had to wear three of them as she grew into them. I grew up poor too, but I’ve passed most of it by.
    Elvera is still affected by it.

    A funny, to ilustrate :
    A couple of weeks ago, we were running out of toothpaste. We had to share a tube. So, when she went to the store, she bought a tube of toothpaste.
    I said, “You only bought one tube?”
    She said, “I only had one coupon.”

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  25. Cremation. The cost of a funeral is ridiculous and why waste all that money. Cremation is expensive also, but not as much. I do regret not have a grave marker for my dad so that I could put flowers or in future generations no one will know birthday and date of death. I know where I spread his ashes. When I really want to talk to him, I go sit by the Bay. He is in the waters he loved. Also it was his wish.
    Me?
    I have left instructions to be cremated. I would like to have the High Church Rite I funeral from the BCP. What they really do will be up to whoever makes that decision.

    By the way. I always thought it was creep to send plants for the family to take home until my father in law died in 2003. I have a peace plant that I brought home and I have managed to keep it alive. I HATE “funeral flowers” you know wreaths and such made of gladiolas or carnations. Ugh. I also hate roses as a casket spray. When my stepsister died and I picked out her spray I used FSU burgundy and yellow football mums and some other type bloom along with Bells of Ireland and some other stuff worked in. Everyone said they were lovely.

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  27. Are we all clamoring to see the note at the end of yesterday’s thread now? I think of the Peanuts specials where all the kids moved in a little bunch. …

    Oh, flash cubes. I’d almost forgotten …

    Jo, that book for your kids sounds wonderful. They’ll be thrilled.

    It amazes me how easy photos are now — with our phones, no less. And the quality is simply amazing.

    I took a photo class in collage, still have the 35mm Canon I loved and used for so many years, completely manual. And I remember the darkrooms, too. We had them at every newspaper office where I worked, you usually entered by this enclosed round push-style container. It’s also where some employes partied on occasion. Or so I was told.

    Go Mrs. Dvorak.

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  30. Are we all clamoring to see the note at the end of yesterday’s thread now?

    No big deal. Mumsee’s just jealous because I got on it this morning and made three posts to get to 75. I don’t know her problem. At least I don’t take a random post and claim it 100 or another favorite number.

    But this is post number 29 on July 29th.

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  32. I do not enjoy shopping. I go to one of 4 stores where I think the clothes are somewhat well made and look good on me. I go about twice a year, Spring and Summer.
    I know that Forever XXI is supposed to be owned by a Christian but to me the clothes look like where the hookers shop. They are skimpy and poorly made. There are too many of them and I get overwhelmed–BG always wants to just look. It was there where I told her I had hit my wall and it was time to go home. She did allow me to run by J. Jill where a lovely blue linen dress was on sale for $39.(15 minutes looking, trying on, and purchasing) I wore it yesterday and received many compliments. One of my agents told me I should wear that color every day.

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  34. Speaking of birds, I had way too much fun with my camera this morning.

    First, we had a species at our feeder we’ve never before seen on our property, though we have seen them at a state park we visit: redheaded woodpecker. It came several times while my husband was gone, and when he came home I showed him a photo or two. Then it came to a different feeder, and from there it flew to a cottonwood tree. I was taking photos of it when my honey said, “It’s back!” For a moment I was confused, until i realized there was one on the tree and one at the feeder, so we had a pair. Moments later, we found out the pair was feeding at least one fledgling, so I finally got some decent photos of a fledgling redheaded woodpecker, and we can add a new species to the list of birds that have come to the feeder. Also, he finally got to see the cedar waxwing I have seen multiple times. He didn’t get a good view of it, nor did I, but for the first time we saw more than one of them. (In that case it isn’t a pair, since the one I’ve been seeing is a young female, no “wax” yet.)

    I had my camera on “sports” mode (it takes photos quickly, so you can get action shots, several in a row), and when the female hummingbird came to the feeder, I got some lovely action photos of her, a good “sequence” of everything from coming in to the feeder to leaving. But then I discovered that another hummingbird that I photographed is a young male, with a few bright feathers growing in where his ruby-colored “bib” will be. Without a good zoom lens or binoculars, I never would have seen that detail, so that was a delight. (Similarly, I found out a few days ago that the rose-breasted grosbeak that has been visiting periodically is not a female but a young male. Yay! I’ve only seen a male once, and he wasn’t at our home, so I’d love it if he could survive to adulthood as one of our visitors.)

    My husband saw an indigo bunting practically right across the street from our house a few days ago. That’s a bird I’ve only seen once, and it’s one of his top favorites, so we’d both dearly love it if he would show up here. I joke that maybe he won’t come but he’ll send his mate. (He’s an electric blue but she is a boring brown.) Getting the female indigo bunting without the female is like getting the female rose-breasted grosbeak but not the male. They just aren’t the same bird at all.

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  35. Although I’m younger than some of you, I am well aware of what a Kodak is. I have an Insta-matic that still works. But no film. 😦

    Sorry Mumsee, not gonna happen. 🙂

    I had to do that to Peter once already because someone asked me to delete a post. But to do it now would just be mean. So I can’t….

    Unless you’re prepared to offer cash up front. 😆

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  36. Anyway, this season we have seen, in our yard, adult and young northern flickers, adult and young downy woodpeckers, adult and young redheaded woodpeckers, and also adult red-bellied woodpeckers. Elsewhere this season we have seen adult and young hairy woodpeckers (we only get them on our own feeder in the winter) and a young red-bellied.

    In all, in our yard this season we have seen the juveniles mentioned above, and also young bluebirds, white-bellied nuthatches, goldfinches (high in the tree, not a good look), robins, cardinal (young male), ruby-throated hummingbird, house finches, house sparrows, house wren, tufted titmouse, killdeer (technically it was in the yard next door, but was only a few yards from us), and mourning dove. Some of those juveniles looked just like adults, but parents were feeding them and thus it was clear they were young. The young downies are cute to watch, because they’re having a hard time figuring out the bird feeders and they keep landing at the wrong spots and looking confused. And one of them has found our hummingbird feeder and is returning to it repeatedly. Oh yes, we’ve also seen young turkeys, but not within our own yard–but in a field just the other side of our next-door neighbor’s yard, and thus close enough we could have seen them from our front door.

    We’ve also had multiple species of which we are only seeing adults, or young in adult feathering that come without their parents. So far I think the bluebird fledglings are my favorites in terms of cuteness, though I might change that if I saw mockingbirds or cardinals just out of the nest.

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  37. Love the colour of that dress, Kim! Very pretty.

    I did not realize that finches had such heavy beaks – thanks for correcting me, Cheryl. Mostly I just enjoy watching the birds that come to our feeder, leaving the id and picture taking to my husband.

    We took the quad down a few back trails this morning. Man, wolf tracks are HUGE! We saw lots of fresh tracks as we had a heavy downpour yesterday which made perfect track traps all down one of the trails. Fox, coyote, wolf, bear, deer, possible elk (or very large deer). We’re hoping it was an elk and that it brings its buddies along too.

    Now we’re going to head to the lake for a swim and then back home to get ready for spur of the moment company. We’re having watermelon and rollkuchen – yummy!

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  38. My first camera was a 110 that took flash cubes. I got it for my birthday or Christmas when I was 11 or 12. Unfortunately it was a hideously bad camera. Pushing the shutter moved the camera (it wasn’t just me, others had the same experience), so the only way to get non-blurry shots was to brace it on the floor or somewhere solid. For Christmas each year after that, Mom would get me one roll of film (developing included) and I’d buy flash cubes from her, one at a time, but at 25 cents a flash for a photo that had a 90% chance of being blurry, I avoided flash if I possibly could! (My sole “income” in those days was an occasional dollar-an-hour to babysit the very spoiled child next door, a buck an hour split three ways with my younger brother and sister.)

    When I got my first full-time job, I bought a Fuji 35 mm camera. It wasn’t that great a camera, in retrospect, but I got a lot of compliments on my photos and grew to really enjoy using it. I saw camera with zoom lenses (not very long zooms in those days, about 1988) and dreamed of owning one, but I simply couldn’t afford one, so it was just a dream.

    Then one day after college, I’d been saving up to fly to Arizona, rent a car, and drive through the state, spending a few days with my mom and a few days with an elderly friend (my “adopted grandma,” Esther) in Northern Arizona but taking day trips each day to a point of interest. (Grand Canyon, Sedona, Painted Desert, etc.) I decided that the time was right to get a camera with a zoom lens. So I asked a photographer friend for advice and bought an Olympus that was a really good camera. I took my Fuji along, too, loaded with black-and-white film so I could get a couple black-and-white shots at each stop.

    That Olympus broke when Misten was a puppy–I wanted the breeder to take photos of me when I went to pick her up, but my camera didn’t work! Really bad timing, and I meant I needed to get it fixed or get a new one quickly, or I’d miss weeks of shots of my long-awaited collie puppy. I went to a camera store and they said it wasn’t worth fixing. Without doing more research, I bought another Olympus (basically the same camera but with a slightly longer zoom) . . . big mistake. It wasn’t a good camera. It couldn’t take shots indoors at all, or anywhere the lighting was weak. But I used it for several years and learned to work with it.

    Then when we were getting ready to get married, I told my husband-to-be that I wasn’t happy with my camera and I was looking to make the jump to digital, but I didn’t know where to begin with research. I did want a new camera before our honeymoon, though. Well, he had already done the research for himself, and debated whether he wanted one with a zoom or one with a slightly sharper focus without a zoom. He bought the camera without a zoom, and I bought the one with a zoom, a Canon PowerShot.

    Now I have a different PowerShot, with a longer zoom and some of the quirks worked out. (The first one had way too long a wait between pushing the shutter and getting the photo, for example, and some weird positioning of buttons.) With it, I can get better quality photos than professionals could get when I was a child. (It takes much better wildlife photos than were being published in books in the 1950s and ’60s.) The hummingbird photos I took today couldn’t have been taken by anyone when I was a teenager. The technology just wasn’t fast enough.

    Sorry, this is way too long, and maybe no one cares about these details anyway! But to me it has been great fun to see cameras becoming user-friendly and affordable for amateurs.

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  41. The youngest among us who grew up with electronic flashes might not understand flash cubes.

    Old camera flash bulbs burned out with one use. You had to put in a new flash bulb for every picture.

    Flash cubes were a nice innovation. It was a cube with four flash bulbs, one on each side, that you plugged into the top of the camera. When you snapped the shutter, the camera would advance the film and rotate the flash cube to the next position. So you only had to change flashes every four pictures instead of every picture.

    Before I had an Instamatic, my first camera was a Polaroid Land “Swinger” camera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Swinger). It didn’t have flash cubes – you had to put in a new bulb for each flash picture.

    After you took a picture, you grasped a tab sticking out of the camera to pull the film out . You let it hang from your hand for a minute while it developed. Then you peeled the picture off and discarded the rest of the stuff it was attached to. Finally you applied a funny-smelling coating to the picture with a little squeegee.

    That gave you one black and white picture. And boy, was it cool not to have to wait a few days for the photo lab to develop it for you.

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  43. Thanks for the explanation, Kevin. When I read the discussion on flash cubes, I was trying to think what those were. Now I remember having seen them. Likewise, your second-to-last paragraph. I remember waiting for the picture to develop, then peeling the picture off.

    Speaking of developing film, I’ve got several roles of 35mm film that need developing, but I don’t know where a person can get that done anymore. Everything’s digital these days.

    Cheryl, we have many of the same birds you have, except I’ve only seen one red-headed woodpecker one time many years ago, probably a decade now. But we see pileated woodpeckers fairly often in the cooler-weather months, and hear them year-round. Those are magnificent birds.

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  44. Interesting trip down camera history lane, Cheryl.

    I had a little canon powershot pocket model, refurbished (so very inexpensive), for a number of years (bought it 8-10 years ago?), but the zoom on it was always inadequate for what I really needed. Otherwise, it was OK, but my iPhone camera actually seemed comparable to me after a few years — and much handier to use since the phone was always with me. The iPhones now have a zoom feature also, but it’s so-so.

    I recently bought a Nikon coolpix model on sale with a much better zoom (I always bemoaned the powershot’s weak zoom) and am really enjoying that, though I’m not used to toting around what seems like a bulky camera anymore. Still, it’s much lighter than the old 35 mm. And with built-in wifi, it connects easily with your computer for transferring pictures.

    I’m lucky, I’ve always had professional photo guys I work with to get advice from when I needed to know what to buy as far as picking a good layperson’s camera. (And don’t ask me to diagram that sentence, Peter).

    Technology changes so fast anymore that it’s very different from years past when you could use the same 35 mm camera for two decades.

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  45. And I still remember a professional-celebrity photographer answering, “The iPhone” when she was asked in an interview about the best camera you could buy these days. I’m sure other smart phones have comparable camera capabilities now as well.

    And you can even edit photos on your phone — basic cropping, brightening, red-eye removal functions are all included. Then, with a couple buttons, you send it to FB or via email.

    Remember impatiently waiting for your film to develop after a trip??

    Oh, and as a teenager my girlfriends and I though we were very innovative when we decided to take pictures with an Instamatic camera — but through binoculars — at a Beatles concert at the Hollywood Bowl.

    Alas, it didn’t work. We thought sure we’d figured out how to get close-ups from the back rows in those pre-zoom camera days.

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  46. The only camera I’ve ever gotten to call my own was that Instamatic. Now I have the camera with this phone. Husband has owned several nice cameras with different lens.

    As for birds, I saw a cardinal outside my window yesterday. I have not seen very many birds lately. Does an indoor cat scare the birds away with her longing eyes?

    I think cremation or burial is ok depending on the needs and wishes of the family. My brother thinks only burial is proper. I do like those flowers for funerals that you don’t care for, Kim. I like the ones you selected, also. Whatever brings comfort at that time for the family is most important. I don’t think it has to be what is in style. If a mother loved yellow and orange roses then use them, or whatever.

    I did just give a nice peace lily to our Sunday school teacher who moved. It seemed very appropriate and could be used as a decoration at the breakfast given for the family.

    Another question for anyone with a good solution. How do you quickly get shrink wrap off a new cd cover? I just used a pair of scissors and after many tries was able to catch enough of the edge to make a small slit to get the tearing process started. But it probably took ten minutes. Is there a quicker method?

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  47. I even know what a Kodak is! My first camera was a film, nothing fancy. It disappeared mysteriously during a missions trip to Mexico. My father had borrowed it and then absently minded set it somewhere and then it was gone. I didn’t have another camera until I was getting ready to go to Africa and someone gave me their old digital camera. Its technology is definitely a little out of date, but it does the job.

    I miss beauty of the old film photography, especially the black and white film – we have some old polaroid snapshots of my parents and their families when they were young, and the pictures look like etchings, each line is so well defined. I saw an exhibit of the black and white portraits of Yousuf Karsh, and the carefully prepared prints had almost a three-dimensional quality. I know the pixels are getting closer together in digital photos, but there is something about the liquid lines of the old chemicals which is lost now.

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  48. I would prefer burial. I just do not like the idea of burning a human body. It won’t matter for me, but for my parents or other relatives, it would. Of course, there are times when one has to make an exception, but generally, I think burial is the most respectful of the person who was… And I hate open caskets at funerals.

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  51. Cheryl, if you’re ever down in the Land Between the Lakes area of Kentucky/Tennesse, the elk there are from Elk Island National Park where we lived/worked for 17 years.

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  52. Like 6 Arrows at 2:13, I have this problem.
    I have three floppy disks that I can’t read. Nor can I find anyone who can read them. I showed them to middle GD’s husband who does programming. He said he has heard of those, but never worked with one. A three-inch floppy is to him what a Kodak is to me.

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  54. Thanks for the BarlowGirl clip, AJ. I saw them in concert many years ago when they were first starting out – the voices on those sisters! And not to shabby with the drums and guitars. That is one of my favourite songs of theirs, especially when I’m going through hard times or feeling low.

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  58. Fortunately, Michelle, I already have part of the data on hardcopy. Other stuff is photos of this house as it was being built, The only thing I would really like to have is pictures of our 50th high school reunion. All of that is likely gone forever, but I can’t make myself junk the disks.

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  63. Chas- If your willing, I have a computer that still reads the 3.5 inch floppies and has USB ports for the thumb drives. If you could mail them too me, I could convert them for you, as long as the floppies are form a Windows computer, not a Mac.

    As for developing film, Walgreens still does. I found this online that says they’ll do it and give you $2 off in store.

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  64. Peter, I would appreciate that. As I said, the only important one is the 50th HS reunion. If you will send your address to
    cwshull@bellsouth.net
    I will mail the floppy to you.
    It would be sufficient to send the images by e-mail, or I would play for a disk or thumb drive.

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  66. Thought provoking post from Piper today:

    “The perspective of Scripture is that God’s wrath solves moral dilemmas rather than creating them.” David Wells.

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  67. michelle’s alma mater is flooding. 😦

    A water main break is causing us to lose 35,000 gallons of water a MINUTE. In the middle of a drought. And it’s been going on for an hour now.

    Water bills = going up.

    http://abc7.com/live/

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  70. Has anyone ever heard of Matthew Smith? He writes modern, thoughtful music to old hymns. His latest is “Hiding Place“, with words based on a text by Jehoida Brewer (c.1752-1817). It’s a really good rendition.

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  77. Hey, the Real! If you will notice, somebody has been posting on and on again, you might want to delete a couple of his rants. Thanks.

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