64 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 5-28-16”

  1. It’ Saturday. So everyone sleep in.
    Chuck & Linda came over from Greensboro the help us clean out stuff and decide what to move.
    ‘It’s hard on Elvera because she has lots of cookware and serving sets that we just don’t have room for in our “new” house. I understand, it was hard for me to throw out my Geodetic Astronomy and Statistics books. But they are no longer useful. We don’t have room for something that isn’t useful. But I am keeping some things that might have “historical” value. e.g. “Granddad used to wear this wings on his uniform.” We’re keeping lots of pictures.
    Have a nice Saturday.

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  3. While looking through stuff to keep/discard, I came across this that Elvera wrote in Nov, 1962.
    .
    “Not having change for the machines at the Laundromat, I put a half dollar into the coin changer. My four year old boy didn’t see me put the money in, but he noticed the change coming out.
    Immediately he exclaimed, “Oh! I’m going to have to tell daddy abut this, he said he needed some money?”

    I think I’ll keep it.

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  5. Good morning!! We are gardening here today. Grandson seems to be settled in. We wore him out yesterday. I have boys to cuddle this morning. Wishing everyone a blessed weekend.

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  6. Chas’s story reminds me of when my nephew was 4 or 5 and wanted something. His mother said they didn’t have the money. He replied, “Just write a check, mommy.”

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  7. We separated a doe from her buckling yesterday. I got lots of milk this morning! I think she will be a wonderful milker, once she decides it is worth her while.

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  9. Well, there’s always a prince … But I suppose that involves donning tights of some kind.

    Cute little chipmunk 🙂

    Chas, bittersweet job you’re having to finish, glad for the unexpected smiles and discoveries along the way that maybe help ease the way.

    It’ll be good when it’s done and you’re on your way to the next chapter. Once you can start putting things into the new house, the outlook might seem a bit brighter. Goodbyes (whether it’s people or places — especially homes) are just always hard, I don’t do well with them.

    Yesterday was exhausting, but I felt sorrier for my editor who was still there when I left (and was there when I got in) and will have to continue working some on all three upcoming days of the weekend, but at least he can do it from home. He has no backup (and because he’s management gets no extra pay for the longer hours). He’s beyond frustrated & tired.

    We’re so understaffed it’s pathetic. Everyone’s wiped out, trying to do way too much (which comes with mistakes when we’re on overload) and not getting to so many stories that we should be doing.

    The top bosses, meanwhile, are still busy-busy with the 2 new newspapers we purchased a few months ago and appear to be ignoring all of the rest of the mess.

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  10. My son and I have already walked our eighteen holes. A quick swim and it will be time to squire three pretty girls (my daughter-in-law and her two sisters) to the Colonial Golf Tournament. We can’t stay too long because my wife will have supper ready so we can watch the Thunder game. It is a tough job being a conservative male Texan, but someone has to do it.

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  11. In searching through my junk last night, I came upon a set of corollaries to Murphy’s Law.
    Someone came up with additional features.

    1. (The Law) In any field of scientific endeavor, anything that can possibly go wrong, will go wrong.

    2. Left to themselves, things always go from bad to worse.

    3. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will go wrong is the one that will do the most damage.

    4. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

    5. No matter what goes wrong, there is always someone who knew it would.

    6. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

    7. It is proven that if the prototype works perfectly, the production units will have a flaw.

    8 Machine breakdown is directly proportional to the need and the square of the urgency.

    9 If everyone has assured you that everything is fine, something is bound to go wrong.

    10. If someone tells you that you have everything you need to do the job. Laugh.

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  12. Son commented on how pleasant the weather is here compared to Waco. He had walked outside to a nice breeze and not 90° in the shade.

    We had a nice late dinner at Outback. If you are members of the awful AARP, as we are, you get 15% off your bill at Outback.

    I need to figure out setting up my new (refurbished) phone that T-Mobile sent. I thought I would get a truly new phone. We’ll see if this that they sent will work when I muster up courage to try it. I am on my tablet now.

    Earlier I was out in the carport and heard rustlings in the leaves nearby. Something was moving under the leaves, so I figured it might be a snake. I did not investigate further.

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  14. Son brought few clothes with him on the plane. I told him he still had some shorts here. He got into what was his old shorts drawer and pulled out a size 42! He was shocked because he wears size 31. I had told him awhile back that I was storing his things in a bin so I could use the drawer space for Art’s clothes. He had forgotten that. We had a good family laugh.

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  15. We love interns and have been able to get them some years, but that’s still is up to the “big” powers that be to OK the program for any given summer (since interns receive stipends, which means the company has to spend MONEY). 🙂 cough, cough.

    Interns would be a godsend. We’ll see. Maybe this year.

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  16. It’s always eye-opening to read the overnight FB threads to find out what was going on in town while I slept.

    Last night we apparently had a shooting at the beach (5 suspects, at least one armed, escaped, no info on a victim); a car flipped completely over, onto its roof, on one of the main drags through downtown; another car flipped over on the bridge that spans the harbor; an armed robbery at a 24-hour convenience store, not far from the beach shooting, drew heavy police response with helicopters (our version of “white noise” at night).

    The holiday weekend is off to a lively start.

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  17. Chas- I’ve seen those before. Another corollary:

    The probability of the toast falling jelly-side down is proportional to the cost of the carpeting.

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  21. Lovely pictures, Peter.

    Thank you all for praying. The trip was a challenge. It wasn’t the children; in fact, Eldest Niece and Second Nephew were such a help that I don’t think I could have done it without them. It was me. I had only 3 1/2 hours sleep the night before due to breathing problems and Youngest Nephew crying in the night. The drive is about 3 1/2 hours long, each way, but it helped to have somebody to talk to during the trip. They were very good, even when we got stuck in stop-and-go traffic for 20 extra minutes on the way home (a traffic light was out on a very busy section of road but everyone was treating it as a four way stop, just as they should). We reached home safely, which is the main thing, and the helping visit to dear friend went very well. I am now paying for my physical exhaustion with a cold. It is harder having a cold in hot weather – the heat and humidity increase the discomfort. However, Eldest sibling and spouse have returned, so I can rest.

    About a week ago I asked you to pray for a dying baby, grandchild of a couple at the church. She was born with severe abnormalities of the internal organs. The doctors held out no hope. Well, she is still alive and doing OK. Only time will tell, but the prognosis was only two days and she has outlived that.

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  27. Thanks for that report about the baby you mentioned, Roscuro. I’ll continue praying.

    Friends of my parents had a child born with a severe case of cerebral palsy. Doctors told the parents their daughter wouldn’t survive the week.

    When she made it to a week old, they gave her a month.

    Then a year…

    She made it to her 16th birthday, and went home to the Lord sometime within the next year.

    God and His mercy. A beautiful gift to all of us who knew and loved her.

    Praying for the precious creation that is that grandchild of the couple at your church of whom you speak.

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  28. Thanks for Holly recommendations.

    Thinking about son going to wedding today and also about Peter’s daughter’s marriage got me to thinking about how many weddings I have been a part of in the sense of flower girl, bride’s maid, or maid of honor. I was a bride’s maid for two weddings of friends from high school, bride’s maid for one college roommate, bride’s maid for one cousin, and bride’s maid for one friend from work who was also my last apartment roommate. That makes five times a bride’s maid. It could get expensive buying those gowns. I let the matron of honor, my only attendant at my small wedding use the gown I wore for my friend from work wedding. My matron of honor used lace to trim the gown I supplied so it looked different from the first occasion of use.

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  29. Nice wedding photos Peter, thanks for sharing them. They make a very attractive (and happy looking 🙂 ) couple.

    Had to write a correction for the coyote story (had a meeting date wrong) — see? mistakes get made; fortunately, they’re immediately fixable in online versions which I think are read far more than the print ones. In print, we have to wait until the next day and run a correction that you hope those who need to see will see.

    In between some house cleaning, I’ve been reading a book on coyotes trying to educate myself more. Fascinating animals, really, and I’m learning some things I didn’t know, of course, which is always good.

    I still don’t want a pack of them living across the street from me.

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  31. Donna, on my Facebook page I have a video of a baby wolf learning to howl. It is so cute! Also I just found a print of doggie heaven that I shared. It is soooo sweet.

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  32. Most baby anythings are cute. Coyote pups, too, but the author of the book I’m reading said they just can’t be made into “pets.”

    From the get go they’ll play rougher than your dogs and then, in adulthood, they will begin to challenge you, growl at you.

    when I first moved into this neighborhood, some 18 years ago now, there was a man who had a “pet” coyote that he’d walk on leash in the mornings with his (real) dog (though when they got to the canyon near my house, he’d let the coyote loose and he’d charge down into that ravine to be wild for a while before coming back up.

    I’d see him on morning walks as I was walking my dogs and the coyote just wasn’t very friendly. He said he brought it here from New Mexico where he used to live, probably as a pup but I don’t remember those details.

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  33. Probably the father of our modern-day coyotes 🙂 although they’ve pretty much migrated in from neighboring areas over the past couple decades on their own.

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  34. I’m reading a fascinating book I checked out of the library a couple weeks ago: Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing, by Jamie Holmes. An interesting read on how we cope (or not) with ambiguity in our lives.

    Here’s an excerpt I just read:

    In a climate where indecision is chronically unpleasant, opinions on both sides of controversial issues can become amplified as people flee the uncertain ground in between. When the world is less predictable, people are more likely to jump to conclusions or entrench their existing views. That’s the problem with striving for certainty or making rashly informed judgments of trust to escape from ambiguity. Urgently fixating on certainty is our defense mechanism against the unknown and unstable. However, what we need in turbulent times is adaptability and calculated reevaluation.

    (I hope doing a direct quote rather than a paraphrase does not violate copyright laws. Anyone who is more knowledgeable than I on that issue care to set me straight about that? Are small excerpts acceptable?)

    Anyway, that part seems particularly fitting in this election year, which I would describe as a rather turbulent time. 😉

    Lots of application in my personal life, too, which is full of ambiguity, something under which I tend to chafe and just wish for easy answers . . . resolution . . . closure . . .

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  35. Gorgeous family, Peter. Which was your son?

    I was never a bridesmaid, only a bride but I read the Scriptures or lit candles at a number of weddings.

    Second tier friend, I suspect . . . 🙂

    Or a great reading voice! 🙂

    I attended the birthday party dressed as a pre-ball Cinderella. The children loved my feather duster–they had never seen one before!

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  36. More information here from someone who’s read the whole book I described above. (I have only just finished Chapter 3.)

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  37. 6 Arrows – I can relate. One of my “life verses”, probably the top one, is Proverbs 3:5-6:

    “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
    In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.”
    (ESV)

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  38. Michelle- I the picture with the groomsmen, my son is second from left. He looks like he’s the oldest of them, and I think he is. The groom is 5 years younger than my son and the others are his friends (my son’s friends, too, as my son knew the groom before my daughter did).

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  39. Dog park ‘source’ spoke to pal in LAFD today, said resident in south part of town woke up today to find 6 (!) coyotes in his driveway. Sheesh. Yikes.

    “Suburban and urban areas offer a rich array of foods that are not hard to catch or come by, and no scarcity of cover, either … Most cities were built on or near major waterways, and have plenty of swimming pools and pet water dishes, so water is not a problem, either. The real surprising thing is that an animal as large as a coyote — and a predator at that — has been able to squeeze himself into this new landscape, and prosper. And prosper they have. City coyotes not only live longer than rural coyotes, but there are more of them, three to six times more, in every square mile of urban areas, than out where the buffalo used to roam or other wilder parts of the country.” — Myths & Truths About Coyotes, Cartaino

    Our community has an ideal habitat with so many canyons & ravines crisscrossing through town from the top of the peninsula hill down to the waterfront. One runs right beside my neighbor’s house (and continues on across the street, which is where the neighborhood ‘pack’ appears to live).

    Western coyotes are smaller than urban varieties (which often have bred with wolves). But they’re “hunting machines,” smart and becoming very adaptable to people.

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  40. “By 2010, it was estimated that there were 5,000 coyotes in Los Angeles, and at least 2,000 in greater Chicago, one of the most urbanized areas in the country. … Was the occupation of America’s suburbs and cities just the obvious next step to the awesome range expansion of the coyote in the past 100 years, or, as some people believe, the result of urbanization that has pushed animals and birds of all kinds across the country into new circumstances — or out of existence? No one is quite sure, but like the rat, starling, raccoon, oppossum, and skunk, the coyote has found life close to humans entirely possible — in fact, attractive.” — Cartaino

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  46. Good article. Seems coyotes are fun to have around until your dog dies.

    Speaking of Wilmington, and Donna was, Husband was just there. Now he is in Wyoming. He sure gets around for a nearly dead guy a year and a half ago.

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  48. The top photo on my story at that link, by the way, was taken of a coyote right across the street from me Friday morning, taken by my neighbor.

    So there goes the neighborhood.

    Coyote in the photo is heading toward a canyon (which is just a few feet away from where he’s shown in the picture here and is where I’ve heard coyotes yipping and yowling in recent months, it’s also right across the street from me & connected to a long-vacant lot). But before he dropped down into the canyon, my neighbors said he/she was trotting up and down driveways, sniffing at back and side gates.

    Attorney I interviewed who lost his BCs was fascinating guy, worked in the Clinton Admin (state dept) & in news production in the past, is obviously very bright and now on a personal mission w/the city’s policies on coyotes. He also writes for Huff Post (and has a hilarious self-written bio posted there). Great source & quite prolific when it comes to documentation, he’s sent me a few more emails over the weekend which I’ve not delved into just yet …

    Coyote overload.

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  49. And yes, I just did another story this past week on Wilmington’s waterfront plans. 🙂 So glad Mike has rebounded, that was a scary time health wise for a while, from the sounds of it.

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  50. Our hawk is also back in the neighborhood, this time every year he can be heard flying from tree to tree, provided the police helicopters aren’t flying too low or are being too loud.

    Loving life in the wilderness.

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  51. I have a friend who makes beautiful coyote fur trimmed jackets..

    Last year we lost a small dog, 18 chickens, and 5 turkeys to coyotes.

    My SIL in Las Cruces had her little dog killed right in front of her by 2 coyotes.

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  52. How awful, rkessler (the pet and livestock killings). Report this weekend also had a coyote killing a Chihuahua in a nearby city; owner let dog out in the backyard for his usual early morning break. Apparently coyotes are adept at picking up on routines if they live nearby — so they get to know when and where small prey is available.

    One of the most inane responses I see from the animals-first crowd is “they were here first” closely followed by “it’s time for us to adapt to them now.”

    What does “they were here first” even mean? What’s the rest of that argument — I assume there really is none. The atty I interviewed in the coyote story said his response to that is always “well, so were rats and cockroaches. So?’

    There are some really extreme animal rights folks and it’s impossible to even reason with them.

    Case in point: Did you hear about the gorilla who was killed when he started dragging and throwing around the 4-year-old boy who fell into the enclosure in Cincinnati (the boy was injured but no life-threatening injuries)? There’s now a “Justice for _____” (gorilla’s name, I forget what it was) campaign. (granted, the boy’s parents were clearly at fault for losing sight of him so this happened in the first place, but to fault authorities for killing the gorilla when a child’s life was endangered is just mind boggling).

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  53. They clearly weighed the alternatives (tranquilizer would have taken too long) and did what they needed to do. Very sad. Though I view living in a zoo as sad. Or a city……

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  54. That’s what I was thinking, too mumsee, that a tranquilizer would take too long and the child was obviously in immediate danger. It is sad all the way around, and the zoo, also needs to reinforce its enclosures (while the parents can share in the blame, I realize also that things like this can happen in an instance; stuff happens).

    I think zoos serve a valid educational purpose, though, and an appreciation for wildlife — especially when the animals are ones that could not survive in the wild anyway (that’s the case with our aquariums now, they more heavily rely on animals that have been treated for injuries, etc., but that wouldn’t survive well if re-released into the ocean).

    And zoos are being redesigned so that the enclosures are bigger and more like a natural habitat, so a little bit more comfortable for the animals that have to live there.

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  55. They are educational and the people who work there tend to care about the animals. There have been a lot of improvements in how they are housed, that is true. And in the wild, many would have a much more difficult life. I would probably be more comfortable with them if the animals did not know they were being watched.

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  56. The gorilla (which apparently was one of an endangered species) incident was tragic, but it sounds like officials responded in the most logical way, considering what was an imminent danger.

    Saw a CNN interview with Jack Hanna who concurred, he said the gorilla’s facial expressions indicated he was not feeling very happy with all of this and could have quickly and easily killed the child, barring intervention.

    Sad, but necessary.

    Now let the social media storm rage. 🙂

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  58. One point that struck me in today’s sermon was about obedience. When a child is told to do or not to do something they will often ask why. The parent then says “because I said so”. If we obey God only when we understand, then we are not obeying, merely agreeing. The point was that we need to obey Him even when we don’t understand the reason for it.

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  59. Since Donna got 57, I’ll congratulate her.

    Sad about the gorilla, but you are right that the parents needed to do a better job. And the animal rights people need to get a life. They are more concerned for animals than humans. It is a result of decades of Liberal education and its emphasis on evolution. If we’re all just equal animals, than the gorilla and the cockroach and the coyote have as much right as we do.

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  60. Kare, 6:52, very true.

    Our sermon today was on trust in the Lord in the midst of challenges. (And Karen O, those trust verses from Proverbs you quoted last night are among the verses I meditate on the most.) 🙂

    Our new pastor preached today for the first time. We’ve been without a 3rd pastor for six months, and our congregation is so pleased that he is now with us.

    Delightful family. He has a wife and five daughters, ages 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11. 🙂 They moved here all the way from New York City!

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  61. And animals with fur get extra rights, apparently.

    The concern for the coyote apparently goes back to past efforts to exterminate them in the U.S. They keep coming back stronger and have fanned out now to every state (except Hawaii, but they’re probably working on that). They’ve been often reviled (probably by those most impacted by them, whether it’s losing livestock or pets). So there are those coyote defenders who are politically quite powerful whenever issues arise in California.

    I get it (this book I’ve been reading has helped me understand where that comes from a bit more). But sheesh. They’re far from endangered and they absolutely pose a health and safety risk in heavily populated areas.

    A church friend in a neighboring city that has fought such battles in the past year or two tells me if we’re “really” lucky, the defender coyote dancers will show up at City Hall for our entertainment. We already have someone who has posted that if anyone kills a coyote, she’ll kill them.

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  62. I like watching coyotes out in the field, catching mice. I don’t mind that they did get one guinea fowl which are free ranging out in the neighbor’s fields. The guineas do me a service by patrolling for snakes but because they are basically wild, it is at risk. I would shoot them if they started coming on our property and eating our stuff. We put up the deer fence to give our children security. A coyote could take off with my eight year old. We don’t allow them to think we are their friends or subordinates.

    Around here, people might shoot a coyote and hang its body near the cows if the coyotes have been taking calves. It does seem to be a deterrent. I don’t suppose that would go over well in LA.

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  63. I understand why people are blaming the mother of the boy who went into the gorilla enclosure, but I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. The report I read said she had turned to take care of another child. It takes just a brief moment for a determined child to slip away.

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  64. “Around here, people might shoot a coyote and hang its body near the cows if the coyotes have been taking calves. It does seem to be a deterrent. I don’t suppose that would go over well in LA.”

    A collective shriek just went up from L.A.

    Karen, I agree.

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