QUARANTINE BLOG # 685

March 16, 2022

QUARANTINE BLOG # 685

Tis the season!  Not for the holly or the jolly.  Not for brightly colored eggs.  Not for a splash at the beach or in the pool.  It’s Bracket Time!  The only time of the year when the writer of the QB watches basketball, and this is only the college version, which is the best version.  I remember one year, when we lived on Cap Chat Street that Michael, Matthew, and I watched every televised game – that’s at least 50 games.  

The yard looked better when we owned it, and that scraggly little tree wasn't there.

If you want to join in the fun, go to the ESPN website, and pick your winners.  One picker I know did a bracket selecting the odd numbered teams and then did one selecting the even numbered teams – who is to say that’s not the best way.  However you do your brackets, maybe you’ll want to see how Rat, in Pearls Before Swine, did his.

👉  And now back to the hammer and chisel cave and mountain buildings – and every time I look at these pictures, I am amazed that the artisans used only those two tools!

The Ajanta Caves are made up of 30 Buddhist cave monuments.  The caves are considered to be one of the finest examples of ancient Indian and Buddhist art, with paintings and sculptures depicting the lives of Buddha.  Historically these caves were used by monks, merchants and pilgrims for rest or to escape monsoons. 

They are universally regarded as masterpieces of Buddhist religious art.  The caves were built in two phases, the first starting around the 2nd century BC and the second occurring from AD 400 to 650.

The Ajanta Caves constitute ancient monasteries and worship-halls of different Buddhist traditions carved into a 246 foot wall of rock.  The caves also present paintings depicting the past lives and rebirths of the Buddha.  

Panoramic view from a nearby hillside.

Next up, the 11 rock-hewn churches in the city of Lalibela, Ethiopia, that were built from 1181-1221.  Seven of the churches are free-standing and four are carved into the mountain.  King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela wanted to recreate Jerusalem in his own kingdom.  The churches became an important site for the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church and are still used for daily worship and religious festivals.

The churches were constructed from the living rock of monolithic blocks.  The blocks were chiseled out, forming doors, windows, columns, various floors, roofs, etc.  This gigantic work was completed with an extensive system of drainage ditches, trenches and ceremonial passages, some with openings to hermit caves and catacombs.

More on Monday.

👉  Brooklyn-based creamery Van Leeuwen created Kraft Mac & Cheese Ice Cream last year.  The initial 6,000 pints sold out in an hour, and the ice cream was lauded with praise as a genuinely enjoyable dessert.  A second run was greeted with equal enthusiasm, so last Friday Van Leeuwen announced that seven new flavors – plus Mac & Cheese – would be distributed exclusively to Walmart stores in all 50 states.  These seven flavors – which also include Planet Earth, Pizza, Hot Honey, Royal Wedding Cake, Bourbon Cherries Jubilee, and Wild Blueberry Shortcake – will be part of a “10-week” rotation Van Leeuwen plans to “refresh” over the summer.  The above flavors began rolling out at Walmart stores Nationwide on March 14, so if you want to sample them, you might want to hurry.

👉  A pair of Smilies:

👉  And now, a tech report.  It is my guess, if you frequent McDonald’s, you have ordered a McFlurry, milkshake, or an ice cream cone, only to be told, at least once, that the ice cream machine is broken.  I stopped at the McDonald’s in Thomson, GA 3 times during the last 12 months to order a strawberry shake for myself and a chocolate shake for the bride of my youth, only to be told the ice cream machine is broken.  I initially doubted the veracity of that claim because I remembered stopping at an Arby’s in Pittsburgh to order a jamoca shake, and was told the machine was broken.  Remembering what I had been told by workers at another fast food company, I asked, “Is it broken, or are you just cleaning it?”  The young person on the other end of the squawk box laughed and said, “We are cleaning it.  That’s what we are told to tell customers.”  And that was the same worker at the unnamed company told me.

Well, it turns out that Thomson was telling the truth.  The last time I got the “broken” message I went to a website called “McBroken,” and checked.  Yup.  Their machine was broken.  And when I went to the site a few minutes ago while writing this piece, it showed that 12.5% of McDonald’s in the Augusta area had broken ice cream machines (the one in Thomson is working).

Interestingly, the company that makes the McDonald’s ice cream machine, Taylors, also makes the ICM for Chick Fil A, Wendy’s and Burger King – but they are different models from the ones at Mickey D’s.  Two years ago, a firm called Kytch Inc., began offering a device to mount on the ICMs to alert owners about a breakdown.  The device sends out real-time text and email alerts that can prevent damage to machines.  Now there’s a multi-million dollar lawsuit saying McDonald’s is violating their copyright by trying to reverse engineer the Kytch device.

And all I wanted was a strawberry milkshake, but with Weight Watchers calculating a medium strawberry at 33 points – my limit for today and half of tomorrow – broken is good.

👉  And now, for your Wednesday morning contemplation:

●  Why do you have to “put your two cents worth in,” but it’s only a “penny for your thoughts?”  Where’s that extra penny going?

●  Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the car pool lane?

●  How did the man who made the first clock, know what time it was?

👉  A trio from “Ooh You’re Gold.”

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

“Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32:5).

If we hold our sins inside, hoping to hide them, they fester and poison our whole system. The only one who can do anything about sin is God. Confession is the act that brings sin out into the open and lets God take care of it.

Prayer: As I confess my sins to you, merciful Father, help me to be honest and thorough – not holding back, not denying, not making excuses – and so may I know the glad blessing that comes with forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Amen.

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