QUARANTINE BLOG # 301

January 25, 2021

Had I known in March that it was the last time I would be in a restaurant I would have ordered the dessert. 

👉  Congratulations to blog reader Fran Stevens and her Kansas City Chiefs.  Now, stomp Tampa Bay in the Big Game!

👉  A little walk down memory lane.  Smile if you remember these.

👉  Last week Princess Cruise sold our favorite ship, Pacific Princess to an undisclosed buyer.  The smallest in the Princess fleet, there was something special about the intimacy of only 670 guests on board.  With all of the staff, the total persons at sea numbered about 900.  

The company said the sale of the cruise ship is in line with parent company Carnival Corporation’s plan to accelerate the removal of less efficient ships from its fleet.  The Pacific Princess sailed more than 1.6 million nautical miles and 11 world cruises.  

Bonnie and I sailed on her four times, two Atlantic crossings, one Caribbean adventure, and our first Panama Canal transit.  Struggling to recover from the coronavirus, when they are finally allowed to put to sea, Princess – and everyone else – will be sailing at a reduced guest capacity, and keeping the smaller ship made no sense financially.  Still, maybe the “undisclosed buyer” will be revealed and need a Guest Lecturer so we can put to sea on the Pacific Princess again.

👉  Friday I received a phone call from a number that began +880 and followed by 10 more digits (the next 4 were 1701, and I thought for a moment it was the Starship Enterprise).  No identification popped up and since I don’t answer a call unless it is from a name in my personal directory, I swiped it away.  I recognized the “+” as being the indication of an overseas call, and so I asked my personal research assistant, Gertie Google, to look it up.  That one came from Bangladesh, and I sure don’t know anyone in the nation formerly known as East Pakistan.

There’s so much meanness out there today, and I don’t mean just what Nancy Pelosi is up to.  Some scammers claim they’re from the jury commission, and ask for your Social Security number to confirm if you’re eligible for jury duty.  Or, “Congratulations, you just won a million dollars!” If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Scammers sometimes target elderly people, pretending to be a grandchild.  Someone claiming to be from Microsoft, Apple, or another tech company calls to ask if you’ve had computer problems.  You answer the phone and it’s the IRS, but the IRS never calls – they send mail.  Just remember what Sgt. Phil Esterhaus said.  Best bet: if you don’t recognize the answer, let it go to voice mail.  You can call the legit ones back.

👉  Several years ago, our son, Michael, bought us a DVR for our anniversary.  That way we never have to miss an episode of Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy! (To the powers that be: please choose Ken Jennings as the permanent host, after you’ve run through all of the guest hosts).  The best part of the DVR, as anyone who has one knows, is the fast forward button – no commercials.  I remarked the other day that now that the election and those mean and nasty commercials are over, we are back to ambulance chasers, a.k.a. lawyers – one call, that’s all.  Well, bumbling around YouTube I stumbled on some foreign commercials that are fun to watch.  Here is one for a German product, Eye Vital Capsules.

👉  Speaking of Wheel of Fortune, here is WOF Incredible Solve #2.

👉  One last song from the jukebox collection of car songs, Maybellene, written and recorded in 1955 by Chuck Berry.  The song told the story of a hot rod race and a broken romance, the lyrics describing a man driving a V8 Ford and chasing his unfaithful girlfriend in her Cadillac Coupe DeVille.  Rolling Stone magazine wrote of it, “Rock & roll guitar starts here.”

It’s not a hot rod song, but here is a classic Chuck Berry song, with all of his standard-setting guitar moves, “Johnny B.Goode.”

And just for fun, here’s Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future) introducing Marvin and Chuck Berry to the style the style Chuck would make famous.

👉   Today’s close is from Praying With the Psalms, by Eugene H. Peterson.

“Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent” (Psalm 91:9-10).

All the water in the world cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside; and all the troubles in the world cannot harm us unless it gains entrance to our hearts.  With such analogy faith is pitch and caulking.  Jesus payed, “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15).

Prayer: I know, great God, that no tribulations I face can separate me from your love, and no evil I encounter can confuse your purposes in me.  I thank you for your victory in Jesus Christ.  Amen.

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