QUARANTINE BLOG # 536

September 17, 2021

Today, as you can see is QB 536, but it is another milestone in blogging for the folks from 233 Woodland Drive.  Today is Blog 1000 overall.  Early in our cruise time (and that 536 means we’ve been on dryland for way too long) we started doing a blog.  I just went to the first year – 2010 – and found Blog # 1.  

We were sailing on the Grand Princess, one of the ships that got wacked with the Chinese Virus in 2019.  It is a lovely ship; we’ve been on her several times and hopefully will again – that’s the beauty of it.

Here is that first blog, all 172 words of it.

Monday

After waiting in line for over an hour with the great unwashed, watching the elite and other super passengers pass through into the great beyond, Bonnie and I were finally allowed to enter another waiting area.  There a wonderful man named Domino looked at my boarding letter, and said sign here, and go there.  In five minutes we were in the ship, looking for our stateroom.

We are once again in officer’s quarters, but this time we are actually above the water line, and we have a port hole – a rather big window to be exact.  We do not have our luggage yet, so we may be washing our clothes in the sink each night, but hopefully before too much longer our four suitcases will arrive at stateroom 7125.  How in the world can two people take four suitcases for 14 days?  Oh well.

The ship sails in 2 minutes so we are going up on deck.  When our luggage arrives, I will take some pictures and attempt to post them.

One reader commented that if his family went on a cruise, it would probably take 20, maybe 30 suitcases for a 14 day sailing.  His name is not published to protect the innocent.

👉  As promised yesterday, here is the story of the Flatiron Building in NYC.

The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a triangular 22-story, 285-foot-tall steel-framed building.  

As with numerous other wedge-shaped buildings, the name “Flatiron” derives from its resemblance to a cast-iron clothes iron.

This flat iron is from the F.Y. Lung Kee Chinese laundry, which was started in 1896.  It is available on eBay for $1,200 buy it now, plus $4.95 shipping.

The steel was so meticulously pre-cut that the frame went up at the rate of a floor each week.  By February 1902 the frame was complete, and by mid-May the building was half-covered by terra-cotta tiling.  The building was completed in June 1903, after only a year of construction.  This video was taken on June 4, 1903 – a great contemporary view. 

The “cowcatcher” retail space at the front of the building was added in order to maximize the use of the building’s lot and produce some retail income. 

Built by the Fuller Company, a leading architectural firm of the time, the building also housed publishers, an insurance company, a patent medicine company, music producers, and a landscape architect.  The first tenant in the cowcatcher was United Cigar Stores.  

The Flatiron Building is currently undergoing an $80 million upgrade, installing central air conditioning and other 21st century amenities.  The work is expected to be done next year.

A view of the Empire State Building from one of the offices, September 2006.

Monday, more iconic buildings in the Big Apple.

👉  It was in Mrs. Hamilton’s fourth grade class at Loch Lynn Elementary school that I learned about chlorophyl and how its absence in cooler fall weather made leaves turn the bright autumn glory colors.  When I told Mom what I had learned she said I had spoiled fall leaves for her – she liked to think about Jack Frost painting them with a special brush and a bucket of paint.  I think she was joking, but if you’ve ever looked at food in advertisements and thought that they looked better than anything that was ever on your plate, let me tell you that it was really Jack Frost and his artists tools.

For instance, when strawberries or apples have a shiny, appetizing look, its because the photographer sprayed them with hair spray or deodorant.  That keeps the color from fading and makes for great ads.

Those fancy ice cream Sundae’s are not filled with delicious ice cream.  They are made with an unappetizing scoop of shaving cream.  The shaving cream doesn’t melt and gives the photographer lots of time to get the picture.

And those great hamburgers you see on TV or in print ads are nothing you want to eat.  To start with the meat is seared for about 20 seconds on a side to keep the patty plum and juicy.  Then the grill marks are added with hot skewers.  Finally, the rich color is done by adding shoe polish.  If I’ve ruined your Big Mac’s two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions I’ll conclude this bit by telling you that the seeds on the sesame seed bun are glued on.  Eat up.

👉  And just for giggles:

Don’t make me explain this one to you.

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

“You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us to a spacious place” (Psalm 66:12).

Every testing is designed to deepen and develop the life of faith.  This psalmist’s witness is impressive: he went through the worst that people could do to him; he experienced the best that God willed for him.  When he sings he does not catalogue his scars, he pulsates praise.

Prayer: Almighty God, you rescued from the waters and delivered from fire.  Too often, though, I fail to make the connection between what you have done in the glorious past and what you wish to do in me right now.  Help me to make the connection through the hours of this day and to sing my joy through Jesus Christ.  Amen.

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