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Our Daily Thread 3-18-16

Good Morning! 

It’s Friday! 🙂

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Here’s some video of the bird above. Sorry it’s so jerky, but because of my arm injuries, I have problems holding the camera steady on some days. 😦

Like I said before, these birds have a very distinct call. And loud too. 🙂

And then we have the wood ducks putting on a show. 🙂

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Anyone have a QoD?

 

32 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-18-16”

  2. The coffee is good and strong this morning. I made it weaker yesterday for Brother. Funny that he does not like robust, he hates Starbucks type coffee, and he wants some milk in his. I like it black without cream and sugar.

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  4. Brother still calls Miss Bosley by the name Crosby. They seem to get along okay now.

    Art has a sleep study tonight to check for apnea. Not good timing, but the previous one scheduled conflicted with a procedure date so got rescheduled.

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  7. It’s Friday!
    You know what that means?

    Hi Janice and Jo.
    Springtime has come to Hendersonville.
    It’s beautiful out there.
    But I have lots of yard work to do.

    I was talking to the neighbor across the street. He just came back from his winter in Florida.
    He said it was terrible down there. Temperatures in the sixties and messy.

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  8. Good Morning…or good night…it’s still very very dark outside..but it is white white white….8 inches of snow on the driveway….they are saying the town of Monument got 4 inches….oh it’s going to be an interesting ride into town!

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  9. Good Morning Chas and Ladies. Enjoy some political humor while you’re here.

    Some week, eh? The county in Illinois where I work had a lot of upset voters since there were not enough ballots. Now a judge has ruled that the county has to let those turned away Tuesday to get another chance. So they can go to the courthouse next week and vote if they can prove they tried on Tuesday but were turned away. It is Illinois, remember, and though this is a Conservative county, well, let’s just say there may be some cheating going on.

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  10. Good Morning Everyone. I was going to say that Spring is springing here. We are getting a lot of rain. Said rain has led to the discovery of what Mr. P and I will be buying each other next. French drains. The upside is that when they are installed our back yard will be more level.
    Today starts the 3 day weekend of the Fairhope Arts and Crafts Show and the Eastern Shore Art Center’s Outdoor Art Show. This is the 64th year.
    We are certainly enjoying the visit from Mr. P’s sister. She grew up in Easton, PA and now lives in Bethlehem. She is 17 years older than Mr. P and has shared a lot of family history. They share the same father, who she says was a spoiled rich kid who never grew into anyone nice. She speaks highly of Mr. P’s mother which says a lot about her. To have a step child in the 50’s and 60’s who adored you. She learned to cook from her stepmother and said that JL used to sew clothes for her and send them to her.
    Both Sister P and HER mother are/were artists so she is really enjoying being her and is excited about today. I am getting practice in showing off my little piece of paradise for those of you who will visit me. Last night we went back into town to see the lights as the artists were setting up their booths.

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  11. The email I received this morning shared this wisdom

    Don’t Widen the Plate

    In Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA convention.

    While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name, in particular, kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment — “John Scolinos is here? Oh man, worth every penny of my airfare.”

    Who the hell is John Scolinos, I wondered. No matter, I was just happy to be there.

    In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate. Seriously, I wondered, who in the hell is this guy?

    After speaking for twenty-five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he’d gotten on stage.

    Then, finally …“You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck. Or maybe you think I escaped from Camarillo State Hospital,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. “No,” he continued, “I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.”

    Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?” After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen inches,” more question than answer.

    “That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe Ruth? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?”

    Another long pause.

    “Seventeen inches?”came a guess from another reluctant coach.

    “That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear. “How wide is home plate in high school baseball?”

    “Seventeen inches,” they said, sounding more confident.

    “You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”

    “Seventeen inches!” we said, in unison.

    “Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?”

    “Seventeen inches!”

    “RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide home plate is in the Major Leagues?”

    “Seventeen inches!”

    “SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello!” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter. “What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches, or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.’”

    Pause.

    “Coaches …”

    Pause.

    ” … what do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him, do we widen home plate?

    The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows.

    “This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline. We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We widen the plate!”

    Pause. Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag.

    “This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?”

    Silence. He replaced the flag with a Cross.

    “And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate!”

    I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curveballs and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable. From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.

    “If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: if we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools and churches and our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to …” With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside. “… dark days ahead.”

    Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach.

    His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players — no matter how good they are — your own children, and most of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches.

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  13. From yesterday, sorry you couldn’t view the video. That country copyright notice has happened to me before with videos the rest of you shared, but I didn’t realize that I could watch clips put up by Irish TV and you couldn’t. Donna, it was Paddy Maloney of the Chieftains and John Sheahan of the Dubliners; they were chatting about how they went to school together, were trained in music by the same Brother, and how they both carried their tin whistles everywhere, which they proceeded to play together. I am envious that you got to see the Chieftains in performance.

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  14. Chas, maybe now you and Elvera can go vote in Illinois, too.

    roscuro, it was a fun concert. My friend had suggested it since she knew I liked all that Irish/Scottish/Celtic stuff, I’d actually never heard of them before, but I really enjoyed it. We didn’t have close seats, but that was OK. It’s always a treat to go to the Hollywood Bowl no matter where you sit. 🙂 And they always have summer fireworks on top of the good shows.

    Love the duck videos! We’re upping the ante here. … It looked like the one duck in Video #3 actually tipped his head, curious and dog-like, as he looked into the water at his reflection.

    I like strong coffee but always add a little bit of milk.

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  19. AJ, I especially like the one of the female wood duck. And by the way, I don’t have an arm injury, but I can’t hold the camera steady for video, either–it really needs a tripod. I have yet to get good photos of wood ducks, and keep hoping this is the year.

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  20. Kim, the Chieftains caused some controversy when they started to work with musicians who definitely weren’t traditional Irish. But I think they made some unique recordings by doing so, like this one with Sinead O’Connor (the song reminds me that it must be nearly the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Uprising):

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  23. Kim @j 10:46
    I like Johnny’s version better.
    But I don’t like the song at all. I know country is about sad stuff and women running out on their men (though it’s usually the other way in real life.). But this is too much.

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  24. Interesting story. True tale, stick with me here while I explain.

    You all know that all the money Lions raise in projects goes back to the community somehow. We pay our own way. We have a 501c3 Foundation and an Administrative fund. One of the ways we raise money for our Admin fund is a weekly drawing. Everyone buys a ticket.. One dollar per ticket. Three tickets for two. Ten for five dollars. The payout is the amount of money in the pot which consists of half of the money added to it by the drawing. Limit is $500. ($500 is the max that can be won.) Usually somebody wins before then.
    They have a drawing. If your number is selected, you draw a card. You win the amount shown on the card. Facecards = $10.00.
    Somewhere in the deck is a joker. The joker is the big prize. Whatever the pot is.
    If you .don’t like the choice, you can reject it and draw again for the pot, but you lose your chance to the previous sum.

    Confused yet?

    For weeks now, we have been at the $500 level, everyone rejects the prior card and goes for another chance. NOTHING.
    We have had $500 in the pot for weeks now, as the number of cards dwindled.

    Today we only three cards in the deck. One of which is a $500 joker.
    One of our guys won the pick and went to draw a card. First card, not the joker.
    Two cards in the deck, he draws, NOT THE JOKER~!
    That means that when the Lions meet again on April 1, they will have an April Fools drawing to see who gets to draw the single card left in the deck.
    And $500.
    What are the probabilities of that happening? I figure 1/52. So it can happen. But I never expected it.

    I won’t be there for the drawing.
    (Statistically, I say the probability is 1/52, but in the ten years this has been going on, with abut 45 drawing a year, it has never happened before. We have been to the $500 level several times. It doesn’t take long to get there.)

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  29. Snow covered very ice roads on the drive into town this morning….dry roads all the way home tonight….gotta love this weather….but it is 19 degrees out there! I’m going to relax this weekend….no going no where….well except for church….we’ll go to church 🙂

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  32. Chas, when I tried to look up last year when spring was coming this year, I found information that was all over the place. Some sources said it was late tonight, some said some time tomorrow, and some even said Monday. I was making a calendar, and I finally just put a photo of a robin among apple blossoms on today’s date and called it good.

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