QUARANTINE BLOG # 599

November 19, 2021

We begin with some ponderables about old age and aging:

● I was thinking about old age and decided that old age is when you still have something on the ball, but you are just too tired to bounce it.

● The older you get the tougher it is to lose weight because by then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good friends.

● Have you ever noticed: The Roman Numerals for forty (40) are XL.

● Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

● Some people try to turn back their “odometers.”  Not me.  I want people to know why I look this way.  I’ve traveled a long way and a lot of the roads were not paved.

● Ah!  Being young is beautiful but being old is comfortable.

👉  While we’re at it, a couple of senior t-shirts:

👉  Well, it’s about doggone time, not that I have an iPhone – or will ever have one – but the company has been selfish for too long.  Apple is finally letting some iPhone users fix their own phones, a sharp turnaround for a company that has long prohibited anyone but company-approved technicians from fiddling with its proprietary parts and software.  Users of two of the newest iPhone models and eventually some Mac computers will get access to genuine Apple parts and tools for consumer repairs.  Apple is launching an online store for self-service repairs early next year that will have more than 200 individual parts and tools for making the most common repairs on the iPhone 12 or iPhone 13. 

👉  In another long overdue movement in the telephone industry, cellular phone users finally got help from the major carriers in the war against fraudulent phone calls.  New technology, sparked by continual calls from consumers to Congress, and our elected officials finally responding, enables networks to verify that caller ID information transmitted during a call is legitimate.  Because there are still more ways to deceive users, we need to take advantage of every tool available to protect ourselves from these scumbags.

Verizon customers have access to Call Filter, a free app that automatically blocks what the company determines are fraudulent calls.  T-Mobile and Sprint cellular plans include Scam Shield which alerts users when a call is likely a scam and blocks more serious threats.  AT&T Call Protect blocks all known fraud calls outright and labels suspected spam calls so users can decide whether to answer.  Be sure you are using those free apps, and if too many fraud calls are getting through all providers have additional fee-based products.  

👉  You’ve got slower mail.  If you are mailing greeting cards, sending gifts or shopping on line this Christmas season, you may want to get started sooner than usual.  As part of a 10 year plan launched October 1 to overhaul the U.S. Postal Service, first-class mail is now allotted up to five days to reach an addressee, compared with the USPS’s prior standard of two or three days.  And for the second year in a row, the USPS has temporarily raised prices on end-of-year package delivery, effective through December 26.  The increases range from 25 cents to $5 per package sent via priority mail, first class, and other levels of service.

👉  QB has had several cat pictures lately, so today we are offering equal time to canine shots:

👉  Two panels from “Ooh You’re Gold” before we close:

👉  Anthony Showalter, principal of the Southern Normal Musical Institute in Dalton, Georgia, was a well-known advocate of gospel music. He published more than 130 music books with combined sales of two million copies, and he became known through the South for his singing schools in local churches.

Showalter took a personal interest in his students and enjoyed keeping up with them as the years passed. One evening in 1887, he was leading a singing school in a church in Hartselle, Alabama. After dismissing the class for the evening, he gathered his materials and returned to his boardinghouse.

Two letters had arrived, both from former pupils. Each of the young men was heartbroken, having just lost his wife. Professor Showalter went to the Bible, looking for a verse to comfort them. He selected Deuteronomy 33:27: “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” As he pondered that verse, these words came to mind:

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms; Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.

He scribbled replies to his bereaved friends, then, reaching for another piece of paper, he wrote to his friend, hymnist Elisha Hoffman. “Here is the chorus for a good hymn from Deuteronomy 33:27,” his letter said, “but I can’t come up with any verses.” Hoffman wrote three stanzas and sent them back. Showalter set it all to music, and ever since, these words have cheered us in adversity:

What have I to dread, what have I to fear, Leaning on the everlasting arms.

I have blessed peace with my Lord so near, Leaning on the everlasting arms.

“God, the eternal God, is our support at all times, especially when we are sinking into deep trouble. There are seasons when we sink quite low . . . Dear child of God, even when you are at your lowest, underneath are the everlasting arms” (Charles Spurgeon).

“However low the people of God are at any time brought, everlasting arms are underneath them to keep the spirit from fainting and the faith from failing, even when they are pressed above measure . . . everlasting arms with which believers have been wonderfully sustained and kept cheerful in the worst of times. Divine grace is sufficient” (Matthew Henry).

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