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Our Daily Thread 1-26-15

Good Morning!

On this day in 1788 the first European settlers in Australia, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, landed in what became known as Sydney. The group had first settled at Botany Bay eight days before. This day is celebrated as Australia Day. 

In 1802 Congress passed an act calling for a library to be established within the U.S. Capitol. 

In 1870 the state of Virgina rejoined the Union. 

And in 1905 the Cullinan diamond, at 3,106.75 carats, was found by Captain Wells at the Premier Mine, near Pretoria, South Africa.

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Quote of the Day

“One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.”

Douglas MacArthur

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 Today is The Tall Texan’s (Claude Gray) birthday.

And today is Eddie Van Halen’s birthday too. Don’t worry. I’ll spare you the Van Halen. We’ll let Tina S and her Excalibur play his best piece of work instead.

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Anyone have a QoD?

59 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-26-15”

  2. We once had an Australian bloke; an officer detailed to us. Other side, not in our division.
    He had a map of the world on his wall. It was upside down and Australia was on top.
    That’s the way the world is supposed to be.

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  5. Good Morning Cheryl and Chas….the sun has not risen as of yet…it already 38 degrees and we have an expected high of 62 in the Forest today…the snow should have a good melt day today!

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  9. Question for anyone who wishes to answer: How does your family handle putting flowers, etc., on grave sites of deceased family members?

    My brother has always been the one to do that. I guess my father instilled the tradition in him. Also, he lives very close to where our parents are buried. My husband and I do not put flowers at his parents grave sites. It is kind of nice for our son that both sets of his grandparents are buried in adjoining counties here in Georgia even though they did not live in adjoining counties.

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  11. Janice, @ 9:10. My mother wouldn’t let us use what she called “biwords”. i.e. Words instead of swearing, I never used the words , heck, darn, shoot, etc. Then I later learned:.
    “let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’– anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

    Yes and no don’t need modifiers. Sometimes, I say “oh me”, “ahhhhh”, That’s it.

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  12. I’ve never seen an “upside down” map, other than the Australian guy’s. There’s no logical reason the world map shouldn’t look like that. Except the cartographers were all in the northern hemisphere.

    I never put flowers on graves. But every time we go to Charleston, we visit the gravesite of my mother, father and little brother in Summerville. I really don’t know why. I only stay a few minutes, but somehow I feel that it needs to be done.

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  14. I sometimes say shoot or shucks and didn’t ever really think of them as bi words but they are. It just never crossed my mind what they stood for. If i drop something I typically say, “Oh, dear!” Alternatively, “Oh, dear me.” Or, ” Why did that have to happen?”

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  15. Aj, @ 8:58
    Can you tell how many times the site was visited? I often check in without commenting.
    Becky, my GD, has, on her blog, a listing of where the most recent posts were from and when they were made.

    And Dave says the “rabbitchasing.org” site has lots of hits. He doesn’t; know how many lectures were read.

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  16. I don’t think anyone in my family puts flowers on graves. I will meet all believers in my family someday, if I care to, I guess. When my parents died, I had no desire to see their bodies. I was driving home from picking our first son from the orphanage when my mother passed and I was with my father when he left this earth.

    I guess I will see them in heaven. Will I even care when I can see Jesus and the LORD? (or at least GOD’s glory!)

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  18. Another question, I know some of you are driving cars with lots of mileage. Both mine (’06 Honda) and my husband’s (’05 Saturn) went over 100K miles this month. I know I drove my Volvo to at least 169K (but we bought it at 69K), what’s the highest mileage you’ve ever driven a car and how did you keep it running so well?

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  19. From my devotional reading this morning: “It’s natural to want mercy for yourself but justice for others. It’s natural to be very aware of the sin of others yet blind to your own.” (New Morning Mercies by Paul David Tripp)

    For a while I was pretty good (off and on even then, though) about going to my parents’ grave on memorial day weekend to leave some flowers and make a brief visit to pray — my mom was so faithful to go to my dad’s and others’ graves every year, without fail, always on memorial day. I tended to make my visits on the Saturday of the long weekend, it felt good to do it and that way it was taken care of early on what is one of our rare long weekends.

    But I’ve been lax for several years now. Thinking about it, too, because yesterday was the 25th anniversary (how could it be so many years!?) of my mom’s unexpected death from a heart attack.

    The anniversaries were hard for several years following. Now they’re not particularly hard, although I never don’t think about it on Jan. 25.

    I should probably go this memorial day weekend.

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  20. My 1994 VW Jetta had (I think) 210,000+ miles on it when I sold it in 2008. I was good about regular maintenance and had an excellent VW mechanic (Walter’s VW) in town, the family was German and they were always so good about not doing more than was needed and finding ways to keep the costs down as much as they could. It was a hole-in-the-wall garage.

    My mechanic now is classier and more expensive, unfortunately. I miss the VW place but it’s now out of business and they didn’t do Jeeps anyway when I made the brand switch.

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  21. And it was pronounced “Vahlter.” 🙂 The oldest son ran it for most of those years after Walter retired, though — his name was Wolfgang. He lost a son to suicide, though, and his wife was very ill last I knew (years ago now), which I’m guessing is why the shop finally closed. 😦 Such a nice, hard-working bunch of brothers.

    The place was always jammed with VWs of every vintage, they really knew how to fix those cars and keep them running well.

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  22. I’m guessing we had close to 200,000 on a Mercury Sable. It was a car my brother drove in his pharma sales position so he put high mileage on it the first year or so before his company sold it. Brother is really good with keeping up his cars so we knew it had no problems even though it had a lot of mileage. As long as the car is regularly maintained and probably driven on a regular basis, it should last about that long unless you get a bad case of “new car fever.” 🙂

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  24. Chas,

    As a matter of fact, I can.

    As of now, we’ve had 2,430 posts

    Just over 69,000 comments 🙂

    And an additional 28,506 spam comments, which were deleted and not counted in the comment total.

    We’ve had 731,950 page views, with 1,732 being the best day. 🙂 There are actually more, but it doesn’t count mine when I’m logged in. It counts my comments, but not page views.

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  25. Michelle,

    Highest ever is 275,000 on a Volvo 240 wagon. And 265,000 on a Toyota Corolla.

    Change the oil regularly, and fix it when something isn’t right, don’t wait until it’s a bigger problem.

    Right now, an 08 Kia with 155,000 and a Toyota Camry with 133,000.

    Best advice, buy foreign. Most are now made in America, and a better product.

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  26. My “oldest” car didn’t have as many miles as years. It went to around 140,000 miles, I think, but was fifteen years old. It was a Toyota Corolla, and several things on it had worn out and didn’t seem worth the money to replace in a car that old. I repaired all mechanical things, but it had a large dent from someone sideswiping it when it was parked, its hubcaps had been stolen (which bothered my friends more than it bothered me that I hadn’t replaced them), and the driver’s window stopped rolling down and the passenger door stopped being able to be opened from the inside. So even though it was still “repairable” mechanically, I was ready to replace it, and then it got hit by a drunk driver and totalled, and I had the money from insurance to replace it. Oh yeah, and a Pep Boys had failed to put the oil cap back on after an oil change, resulting in oil all over the engine. They paid to have the engine steam-cleaned, but it had some seepage the rest of the time I owned the car.

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  29. We have high mileage vehicles also. Like AJ said, change the oil, fix things right away.

    I saw a link today that I thought was worth sharing for the homeschoolers here.
    http://www.dyslexiefont.com/
    I hope it helps someone.

    I went to a training last year entitled “Chronic Inflammation: Special Focus: Nutritional Interventions”. Perhaps there would be some relevant information for all of us who suffer from inflammation/pain. I would be happy to share the booklet of notes from the 8 hr seminar. I have it in a pdf format. My email is rkessler65@gmail.com.

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  30. Jo?
    Our Jeep Grand Cherokee currently has over 220,000 miles – we’ve just changed the oil and done regular maintenance and had no major repairs at all. I call it the jar of oil that never runs out. We have been blessed with this vehicle – it’s been hard used in it’s 9 years or existence.

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  32. The expression I’ve heard was “goodness, gracious sakes alive.”

    Interesting statistics Aj. You get approximately 11 views per comment. Makes sense, If I’m checking e-mail, or something, sometimes I log on just to see what’s going on. If nothing catches my attention, I just log out.
    But the interesting statistic is the spam count. Almost 30% of your traffic is spam. How does that happen? Sometimes I have to enter my password to get on. Is it somebody trying to sell something? Exotic Asian women? Notice that you’ve won the South African lottery? Or someone trying to influence the thread?

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  33. And yet, how does the “11 views per comment” play out when someone comes on and joins in the conversation, or even just leaves the browser open and checks again in an hour? Wouldn’t that be five or six (or in Donna’s case 25 🙂 ) comments per view, in some instances?

    What, in other words, counts as a “view”? Is a “refresh” a new view?

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  34. I wondered about whether refreshing the page equals a new view, too.

    I’ve been to Chas’ granddaughter Becky’s blog and others like it that say in the sidebar something like “A visitor from _________ arrived ____ minutes (or seconds) ago.” It’s always gotten my state correct, but never my city, and it doesn’t always list the same city every time, even though I’m almost always on my same computer every time.

    If a blogger doesn’t have one of those indicators in the sidebar, can he/she still determine where a visitor who doesn’t comment is coming from?

    And if I’m on a media fast and fall off the wagon and sneak a peek at your blog, AJ, can you tell I’m in need of a reprimand? 😉

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  37. So, serious post from a Cali friend on FB this morning (who frequents the mountains):

    ______________________________________

    “Is the problem with the storms hitting the East Coast that they just aren’t used to having much snow and don’t have enough equipment to deal with it? I’ve been at Tahoe many times where we would get 3-4 feet overnight. We would just hang out till they would plow the roads, usually within a few hours, then shovel our car out and be on our way. 20+ feet on the ground is not uncommon up there….”
    ______________________________________

    My guess is that NY, Boston, etc. are major cities and so the complications are multiplied by all the mass transit, traffic & business that needs to carry on.

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  38. 2001 Subaru Forester 302,000 miles. I used Mobil 1 and changed the oil and filter every 3,000 miles. I put it in a pond in North Dakota in 2013. It was running strong until I got it all wet.

    Change the oil and filter often. Use Mobil 1. Check the transmission fluid/oil.

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  39. I don’t leave my computer on a website. I back out. I may be mistaken, but I suspect that we’re using bandwidth all the time we are on-line. I reckon it like leaving the phone off the hook.

    I can’t understand all the fuss about a coming snowstorm. Three feet of snow is not unique to the Northern Virginia area. We didn’t get it every year, but it wasn’t unusual. We’ve been shut down three or four days several times.

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  40. Not sure whether refreshing counts as a page view. I’ll see what I can find out.

    It’s reasonable to assume that the 28,506 spam comments also are counted in the page views, but I’m not sure.

    Chas,

    Spammers are a persistent bunch, most are bots mass spamming google links. They’re easy to pick out. You’ll get like 20 comments dumped on a post that’s six months old, all over a couple minutes.

    Some are creative, and actually throw in something that looks like a comment, but then has a link to a website for Louis Vutton (sp?) handbags, cheap Mexican Viagra, Canadian Cialis, assorted porn, electronic, and computer equip. etc., etc..

    I do a quick scan and mass delete a couple times a day.

    I don’t like spammers.

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  41. Michelle- as others have said, regular oil changes help a car to run forever. I got 285,000 out of a VW Rabbit that I sold to someone on e-bay, who came out here from Portland, OR, and drove it back home.

    Right now I have a 2001 Malibu with 272,000 on it. So not just the foreign cars, but any good car can run forever.

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  42. Donna, I lived in Chicago when we got more than two feet of snow in a week. Well, Chicago was definitely used to dealing with snow, but that much at once is nearly impossible when you have traffic, cars parked on the street, etc. Plus, Chicago was quite built up (house lots–usually a two-flat per lot–were 25 feet wide and 125 feet deep, with on-street parking everywhere and few parking lots, and of course apartments took a lot less room for two units), and there became no place to put the snow. I understand some was dumped in Lake Michigan, and I understand some cities even haul it out (railroad?), but that assumes that you even have transportation out of the city. Parking lots might have snow piles (with lots of salt among the snow) eight or ten or twelve feet deep, and it might not melt for months. And remember, only a few places even had parking lots (fast-food restaurants did not), and of course Kmart doesn’t want half its expensive parking lot filled with snow. If we’d gotten six or eight feet instead of two, it would have collapsed buildings, buried cars and houses, and caused major, major flooding when it melted.

    When I lived in Phoenix, it didn’t have storm sewers. (It does now.) A mere quarter inch of rain would be enough to have water pretty deep in some streets. Half a foot would have immobilized the city–it wasn’t built for that. Thirteen inches of rain in two days immobilized Nashville, killed several people, and flooded hundreds or thousands of homes and businesses–because it isn’t like it’s simply 13 inches deep everywhere. It spills into rivers, which overflow and flood places in the low areas up to the second or third story. It’s cumulative damage. Cities that get thirty inches of rain a month can deal with it; likewise, cities that are used to five feet at a time can deal with it better (people have snowshoes, entryways into their home on the second level, and so forth).

    When Chicago got 104 degrees while I lived there, I sat outside reveling in it–the first time it had been hot in several years of living there, and it felt good. I sobered up, though, when I heard that 600 people had died. It really does depend on what you’re used to, and what you’re equipped to handle.

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  43. I get spam, too, and as I review it I think, “so what’s the point? What are they trying to achieve?”

    Wow, Bob, you change the filter every 3K? I change the oil religiously every 5K. but only do the filter at the recommended times or if the mechanic suggests it’s time. I get the oil changed at the car wash and it’s only been to the dealer once, I think.

    We’re thinking the 105K check is big, though, so it may go visit the Honda folks then. My husband’s Saturn had the ignition recalled and he took it in last week and had them look it over. They fixed several minor things, did the oil and lube, rotated the tires, etc, and it was $500. 😦

    OTOH, the car is running well. Our sons are both driving 1997s–a Toyota Tundra pickup and a Saturn. Cheap to drive, great gas mileage and that helps them afford the minivan they need for all the adorable grandchildren.

    I confess, I’m thinking of giving Stargazer my car for his PhD gift and getting a new one for myself–same model–but he doesn’t seem interested . . . Ha!

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  48. This isn’t merely a getting-a-lot-of-snow situation, it’s a blizzard (which means it includes high winds), at least here in Connecticut & going north. The power company estimates our state could have 100,000 or more homes without electricity, & the temps at night are going to be in the single digits.

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  49. On a lighter note.

    When a snowstorm is coming, it is typical for people to run out to the store & buy up a lot of bread, milk, eggs, water, etc. (There’s a Facebook page called the French Toast Alert System. 🙂 )

    I’ve seen on Facebook, & from what Lee told me, having been out delivering to stores today, that there are some pretty bare bread shelves out there, & one lady mentioned having to buy gallon jugs of water, because the bottled water was sold out in the store she went to.

    Then this evening, I read this in Isaiah 3:1…

    “For behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts,
    Takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah
    The stock and the store,
    The whole supply of bread and the whole supply of water…”

    Had to laugh!

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  50. Cars: about one hundred thousand on the van and about two hundred thousand on the Ranger. About one hundred seventy five thousand on the Subaru. We tried giving the Ranger to eldest about twelve years ago but he gave it back. I don’t believe his current car has that kind of mileage. Then we tried giving it to second son and his wife but they gave it back about ten years ago. I don’t believe their current vehicle has that many miles either. Then we tried giving it to eldest daughter about eight years ago, but she gave it back and I don’t think her car has that many miles on it. So we tried giving it to third son, but it came back again. His car does not have that mileage on it. Now we have tried giving it to seventh son but it does not seem to be sticking either, though he enjoys it and just changed the clutch and slave cylinder on it. They keep saying they don’t want it as it is about to fall apart. I don’t mind, I like it.

    Anyway, husband sees that they all get regular maintenance and that is good.

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  51. Since I am not yet in the 21st century, technology-wise (no smart phone), if my power does go out, I won’t be on here until it comes back on.

    Still praying we won’t lose it.

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  52. When we lived in New York we had snowstorms like that. Lots of snow, wind, power outages. the people seem to be well prepared. Though there are the few….Stay home, let the plows work, enjoy the down time, and then it is back to normal again.

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  54. Personally, I stay stocked up on basics, and so unless we just happen to be out of something important, I’d rather stay home if a storm is due. My husband likes grocery shopping more than I do. I’m happy with every two weeks; he could do just about every day. We’ve compromised at about twice a week. Last week, though, we went shopping in the morning and I said, “I think we’re about out of bananas.” (That’s one of his must-have items.) He didn’t think we needed them, so we didn’t get them.

    Two or three hours later we were in town to take a daughter to work, and he said we needed to go to the store. I asked why, since we’d just been. “We need bananas.” (He also had one other item.) I was a bad wife, I admit. I reminded him that I had told him we were about out of bananas. (I was amused, though, not mad.) I told him that was part of the reason I had told him we needed bananas, so that we wouldn’t have to go to the store again within a couple of days!

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  55. So happy to be back home. I got my sewing machine on the way home and then went to my daughter’s for Monday night family dinner. Turns out they weren’t haven’t it this week, but they had enough food for me. 🙂 Had a great visit with Jack and Caroline and saw all the projects that they are all working on. Even heard Jack recite a poem that he had written.

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  56. I went to McDonald’s yesterday. My brother and sis in law needed to stop for food. I did not need any as I had pancakes in my purse. But I did go in with them so I have been in a McDonald’s recently. I see they have calorie counts up on the board but not food contents.

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  58. In Virginia, like Cheryl, we stayed stocked up on basics. Still do.
    But we never bought water. We have enough empty milk bottles that we make our own out of the faucet. It’s much cheaper.
    I have never bought water.
    Yes, I do pay the water bill. ????

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  59. Well, I presume it would be people who like pancakes, plan to be away from home, and don’t like to eat out. That is interesting as my sister in law thought it was odd also.

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