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Day’s Verse:
Give thanks to the LORD for He is good;
His love endures forever.
Psalm 107:1
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I burned my English muffin this morning. Fortunately not in the Oh my goodness, flames! sense, but a very large volume of smoke pouring from the toaster oven surprised me when I turned around to check on my breakfast. The kitchen fan didn’t seem to do justice to the amount of smoke, but I didn’t want to open the windows to let in the 27° air, either. Fortunately the smoke did not reach our smoke alarms and the little kitchen fan, working diligently, did successfully reduce the haze somewhat. After that I decided to give up on the charcoal briquettes in the toaster oven and go with cereal instead. Less likely to burn down the apartment. Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:
God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?”
“I do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die.”
But the LORD said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and as many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”
Jonah 4:9-11 (context)
~~~ Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:
God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Psalm 46:1
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Trying to archive some data, I got the following message:

Error: A severe error in the zipfile format was detected. Processing probably failed immediately

I like how it hedges its bets at the end there: It probably failed. Yet they also use severe error and immediately, which sound scary and authoritative in error messages. Make up your mind!

This error message kind of summarizes my whole day.

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Day’s Verse:
Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but he who hates correction is stupid.
Proverbs 12:1
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Looking for local candidate voting information — which is disturbingly scarce, actually — I encountered this FAQ entry:

If I cannot read or write English, can I vote?

Yes, as long as you are registered. You may ask any person of your choice to help you or you may request help from the election officials at the polling place.

Good thing they have this question answered in English. Non-English speakers might have been worried about not being able to vote. Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:
12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
Isaiah 55:12
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There’s something strange about mountains in New England, and I don’t mean that tall ones are 2,000 feet high. It’s taken me a while to assimilate the weirdness, but the walk hike Ian and I took around Mt. Wachusett today solidified it in my mind. The weirdness is this: Parking lots and crowds of people fresh from their cars swarming around the top of a mountain that you reached by honestly hiking up it. Not only does this seem like cheating, but to me it almost feels sacrilegious, like setting up a fast food court in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:
Why are you so downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
Psalm 42:11
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This morning was our first morning below freezing! When we left the house (late — 6:50, rather than 6:20 as usual, so it was probably a little warmer) our thermometer said 29°F. To celebrate, I’ll post a picture totally unrelated to the topic:

My feet thank Mom, who deviously provided me with a $20 gift certificate that bought me two new pairs of merino wool athletic socks from Landry’s. I have yet to try them out, but I already dub this the Winter of Wool. I’m giving wool a try on the feet insulation front. Try not to die of anticipation before I report back! Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4
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From Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennyson:

’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, sitting well in order to smite
the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
of all western stars, until I die.

… Continue Reading >>