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Thursday, November 9, 2017

Shrinking population

The way that folks peck at keyboards today makes me doubt that they ever took a typing class.  If you are doing it correctly you never look at the keyboard; you are supposed to look at the source material you are referring to, usually other typed material or handwritten notes.  The only way to gain any proficiency is through practice, practice, and more practice, as drilled into us by Miss Schroeder.  She did not abide any nonsense, especially from the guys who were usually seniors who knew, or hoped, they would be going to college.  The students were mostly girls, but none were as cute as I'd hoped but it didn't make any difference.  No socializing was tolerated.

Those were the days of manual typewriters with the inked cloth ribbons, top half black and bottom half red.  The precision and complexity of the mechanical parts impressed me, and there was no such thing as a lightweight typewriter, even portable machines were heavy for their size but you guys knew that already.  A truly skilled typist, besides being accurate, was able to type with all letters having the same density.  A heavy strike on the keys gave you a very dark letter and lighter strikes gave you lighter letters, but if all the letters had the same level of darkness you knew an expert was at hand.  I came close a few times but I never mastered that skill; not enough practice.

My laptop keyboard is pretty mundane, nothing fancy or high tech, and it lacks a separate numeric keyboard.  And I noticed something that I previously overlooked, there are tiny numbers on some of the keys.  When the 'num lock' is enabled those keys  emulate the layout of a numeric keyboard.  Will wonders never cease?  I wonder what else I don't know.

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Ever since Uncle Ken brought it up I've been having a craving for SOS; I must be a sucker for the power of suggestion.  Chipped beef goes back to the days before refrigeration, and it is more like beef jerky than anything else, the same but compressed and thinly sliced, which explains it's weird texture and mouth feel.  I'll have to try some again and see if it's the same as I remember it.

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Mr.Beagles isn't the only one who is shrinking with age.  A while back I mentioned to Uncle Ken that I'd recently measured my height and discovered that I'd lost about two inches, making me barely six feet tall.  I don't want to get any shorter but this is the kind of thing that I have no control over unless I cobble a device to stretch myself while I sleep.

I had to renew my driver's license yesterday and I mentioned the change in height and it must be a common thing for the older folk; they didn't blink an eye or ask any questions.

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I don't remember much about the theological details of baptism but us (lapsed) Lutherans were taught that any baptized Christian could baptize anyone else, no other qualifications required.  Splash the water, say the words and bing, bang, boom, you're done and on your way to heaven, or maybe just the Good Place.

And here's another tangent of Christianity we can all fly off on: what's the deal with the Trinity, and where did it come from?   Judaism was significant in that it was the first religion to have only one god, or God if you prefer, the original monotheism.  But then Christianity splits it up into three parts and I'm not sure why.  Before I go looking it up I'd like to hear the opinions of the other Beaglesonians.  Is it safe to say that all Christians believe in ghosts,  particularly if they are Holy?




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