A young woman joined the army and signed up with the paratroopers. She went through the standard training, completed the practice jumps from higher and higher structures, and finally went to take her first jump from an airplane.

The next day she called home to tell her mother the news. “So, did you jump?” asked her mother.

“Well let me tell you what happened.” the girl said. “We got up in the plane and the sergeant opened up the door and asked for volunteers. About a dozen people got up and just walked out of the plane.”

“Is that when you jumped?” asked her mother.

“Uh, no. The sergeant started to grab the other men one at a time and throw them out the door.”

”Did you jump then?” asked her mother.

“I’m getting to that. Everyone else had jumped and I was the last one left on the plane. I told the sergeant that I was too scared to jump. He told me to get off the plane or he’d kick my butt.”

“So did you jump?’

“No. He tried to push me out of the plane but I grabbed onto the door and refused to go. Finally he called over the Jump Master.

The Jump Master is this great big guy about six-foot-six, and 280 pounds. He said to me “Are you gonna jump or not?’’

I said ‘No sir, I’m too scared.’”

“So the Jump Master pulled down his zipper and took out his Johnson. I swear Mom it was about ten inches long and big around as a baseball bat! He said, ‘Either you jump out that door or I’m sticking this bad boy right up your ass.’”

“So, did you jump?” asked her mother.

“Well, a little at first.”

An Irishman is stumbling through the woods, totally drunk, when he comes upon a preacher baptizing people in the river.   He proceeds into the water, subsequently bumping into the preacher.  The preacher turns around and is almost overcome by the smell of alcohol, whereupon, he asks the drunk, “Are you ready to find Jesus?”

The drunk shouts,”Yes, I am.”

So the preacher grabs him and dunks him in the water.  He pulls him back and asks, “Brother, have you found Jesus?” The drunk replies,”No, I haven’t found Jesus!”

The preacher, shocked at the answer, dunks him again but for a little longer.   He again pulls him out of the water and asks, “Have you found Jesus, brother?”

The drunk answers, “No, I haven’t found Jesus!”

By this time, the preacher is at his wits end and dunks the drunk again — but this time holds him down for about 30 seconds, and when he  begins kicking his arms and legs about, he pulls him up. The preacher again asks the drunk, “For the love of God, have you found Jesus?”

(get ready for this)

The drunk staggers upright, wipes his eyes, coughs up a bit of water, catches his breath, and says to the preacher, “Are you sure this is where he fell in??

A gas station owner in Virginia was trying to increase his sales.  So he put up a sign that read, “Free Sex with Fill-Up.”  

Soon a local redneck pulled in, filled his tank and asked for his free sex.  The owner told him to pick a number from 1 to 10. If he guessed correctly he would get his free sex. The redneck guessed 8, and the proprietor said, “You were close. The number was 7. Sorry, no sex this time.”

A week later, the same redneck, along with a buddy, Bubba, pulled in for another fill-up. Again he asked for his free sex. The proprietor again asked him to guess the correct number. The redneck guessed 2 this time. The proprietor said, “Sorry, it was 3. You were close, but no free sex this time.”

As they were driving away, the redneck said to his buddy, “I think that game is rigged and he doesn’t really give away free sex.” Bubba replied, “It ain’t rigged. My wife won twice last week.”

A lawyer runs a stop sign and gets pulled over by a sheriff. He thinks he’s smarter being a big shot lawyer from New York and has a better education than a sheriff from West Virginia. The sheriff asks for license and registration.

The lawyer asks, “What for?”

The sheriff responds, “You didn’t come to a complete stop at the stop sign.”

The lawyer says, “I slowed down and no one was coming.”

“You still didn’t come to a complete stop. License and registration please,” say the sheriff impatiently.

The lawyer says, “If you can show me the legal difference between slow down and stop, I’ll give you my license and registration and you can give me the ticket. If not, you let me go and don’t give me the ticket.”

The sheriff says, “That sounds fair, please exit your vehicle.” The lawyer steps out and the sheriff takes out his nightstick and starts beating the lawyer with it. The sheriff says, “Do you want me to stop or just slow down?”

One Sunday, sitting on the side of the highway waiting to catch speeding drivers, a State Police Officer sees a car puttering along at 22 MPH.

He thinks to himself, “This driver is just as dangerous as a speeder!” So he turns on his lights and pulls the driver over.

Approaching the car, he notices that there are five old ladies – two in the front seat and three in the back – wide eyed and white as ghosts. The driver, obviously confused, says to him, “Officer, I don’t understand, I was doing exactly the speed limit! I always go exactly the speed limit. What seems to be the problem?”

“Ma’am,” the officer replies, “you weren’t speeding, but you should know that driving slower than the speed limit can also be a danger to other drivers.”

“Slower than the speed limit? No sir, I was doing the speed limit exactly! Twenty-two miles an hour!” the old woman says a bit proudly.

The State Police officer, trying to contain a chuckle explains to her that “22” was the route number, not the speed limit.

A bit embarrassed, the woman grinned and thanked the officer for pointing out her error.

“But before I let you go, Ma’am, I have to ask . . . Is everyone in this car OK? These women seem awfully shaken and they haven’t muttered a single peep this whole time,” the officer asks with concern.

“Oh, they’ll be all right in a minute officer. We just got off Route 119.”

A young Irishman sat at a pub in the New World drinking beer and conversin’ with the barkeep. Another comes in and sits beside him. He says how you do and hears the lilt and says you be Irish? Yes I am. The first man yells barkeep give us another round and one for my friend here he’s from the mother country as well.

The second man asks-so where in the old country ye from. Dublin responds the first. Dublin you say – so am I and the second man hollers barkeep bring us another round and a shot of your best Irish Whiskey for me and my friend here.

Afterwards the first man asks from where in Dublin and the second man responds with the street and the first man says well I’ll be – so am I and yells barkeep another pair of beers and Irish Whiskey for the pair of us.

The phone behind the bar rings and the barkeep answers it. The owner of the pub asks – how is business. The barkeep responds – not too bad – The O’Malley twins are here getting drunk again.

As my MacBook Air is approaching it’s fifth birthday, and about to begin it’s sixth year, it occurred to me that I could, at any time, be faced with the prospect of either spending an uncharted amount repairing a five-plus-year-old computer or securing a replacement. Given those choices, I would find it most difficult investing in the current MacBook Air so I began to look around at the current options and came up with three.

• A new 13” MacBook Air
• A new 13” MacBook Pro with the Retina Display
• An iPad Pro with the Brydge Keyboard (The Brydge Keyboard for the iPad Pro will not be available until May)

Probably not a wrong choice in the lot. Even looking at the comparative weights didn’t sort out much – MacBook Air 2.96 lbs., MacBook Pro 3.48 lbs. and iPad Pro 1.57 lbs. plus Brydge Keyboard 1.54 lbs. total 3.11 lbs. Some might wonder why I include the Brydge keyboard in my analysis? I have used the Brydge keyboard with my current iPad Air and cannot imagine having an iPad without one. In my humble, or un-humble as the case maybe, opinion the Brydge is hands-down the best keyboard for the iPad and the way I use the iPad a keyboard is a must.

Even the cost is not a particular consideration. The MacBook Air with a 512 gb solid state drive and 8 gb of memory is $1,599.00. If I kick the processor up one notch, still not the level of the MacBook Pro, the cost increases to $1,749.00. Similarly equipped, but with a faster processor the MacBook Pro is $1,799.00. The iPad Pro with 128 gb solid state drive – the largest available – is $1,079 and the new Brydge keyboard will run $189.00 for a total of $1,268.00, less than the others but with less capability.

Even battery life didn’t provide much of a discriminator. The MacBook Air has an advantage; 12 hours vs. 10 for the MacBook Pro and 9 for the iPad Pro but any have more than sufficient legs for most of us for the day.

To be fair, I probably should have included a MacBook Air with slightly more modest specs – outfitted with a 256 gb solid state drive and 4 gb of memory the price drops significantly to $1,199.00. Pumping the memory to 8 gb adds only $100.00. I add this as to not scare off potential buyers with my fully specced out option. The 256 drive and 4 gb of memory is the configuration of my current MacBook Air that has served me well for five years. Having said that, the drive and memory are fixed and cannot reasonably be upgraded meaning careful consideration is the watchword of the day.

So the winnowing process begins. Right off I looked at a comparison between the MacBook Air and the iPad Pro and the iPad Pro came out the loser. While they are roughly the same weight the MacBook Air has substantially more capability. I will still have my iPad Air, and by the way use it a lot, so still can do those things that I prefer on the iOS system, all be it with a smaller display. Apple has made giant strides with iOS but for some applications and projects the options on iOS do not compare with OS X. Even factoring in the cellular capability on the iPad Pro, something not available on the MacBook Air, was not enough to make the iPad Pro a winner. Wi-Fi access is now almost ubiquitous and even where it is not available I have the option of setting my iPhone us as a hotspot which has the benefit of bypassing the insecurities typical of public hotspots.

Now left with the choice between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro things become more difficult. Balancing the one-half pound difference in weight against more power, more ports and the Retina display my current assessment is that the MacBook Pro will be the choice. But having said that, the margin is razor thin and think either could and would be a winner. Writing this ahead of Apple’s event on the 21^st of March I suspect leaves open the possibility that Apple will come up with something that is a game changer, but that is the risk we run with technology.

I would be remiss if I did not remind all to maintain full backups of our computers. Computers are more reliable than before but they do fail and once they fail it is more often than not too late to get your data back. I keep two backups at home and one online. May sound like a belt and suspenders approach but if something catastrophic happens to the house the backups at home are probably toast as well.

Now for a totally different subject. My transition from the PC world to Apple is total except for one item. And this item is important enough that my desk contains my old 18” HP laptop. Sperry Software has an add-in, Send Individually, for Outlook for Windows that allows sending email to multiple recipients without running into your internet service provider’s maximum number. As a bonus, it only shows the individual recipient’s email address, not the entire group. It is not something I use every day but do often more than once a week and have not been able to find anything for either Outlook for Max or Gmail that accomplishes this function except for things like MailChimp which get a little messy for more personal correspondence. So if any of you have found something please let me know so that I can free up some desk space.

A lonely widow, age 70, decided that it was time to get married again. She put an ad in the local paper that read:

HUSBAND WANTED: MUST BE IN MY AGE GROUP (70s), MUST NOT BEAT ME, MUST NOT RUN AROUND ON ME, MUST STILL BE GOOD IN BED!!!!!  ALL APPLICANTS PLEASE APPLY IN PERSON.

On the second day, she heard the doorbell.

Much to her dismay, she opened the door to see a grey-haired gentleman sitting in a wheelchair. He had no arms or legs. The old woman said, ‘You’re not really asking me to consider you, are you? Just look at you…you   have no legs!

The old man smiled, ‘Therefore, I cannot run around on you!’

She snorted. ‘You don’t have any arms either!’

Again, the old man smiled, ‘Therefore, I can never beat you!’

She raised an eyebrow and asked intently, ‘Are you still good in bed???’

The old man leaned back, beamed a big smile and said,

‘Rang the doorbell didn’t I?’