Something I got from Tom to start your week.

TEACHER: Why are you late? – STUDENT: Class started before I got here.

TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor? – JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables.

TEACHER: Glenn, how do you spell ‘crocodile?’ GLENN: K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L’ – TEACHER: No, that’s wrong – GLENN: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it. (I Love this child)

TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water? – DONALD: H I J K L M N O. – TEACHER: What are you talking about? – DONALD: Yesterday you said its H to O.

TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn’t have ten years ago. – WINNIE: Me!

TEACHER: Glen, why do you always get so dirty? – GLEN: Well, I’m a lot closer to the ground than you are.

TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with ‘ I. ‘ – MILLIE: I is.. – TEACHER: No, Millie….. Always say, ‘I am.’ – MILLIE: All right… ‘I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.’

TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down his father’s cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn’t punish him? – LOUIS: Because George still had the axe in his hand…..

TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating? – SIMON: No sir, I don’t have to, my Mom is a good cook.

TEACHER: Clyde, your composition on ‘My Dog’ is exactly the same as your brother’s.. Did you copy his? – CLYDE: No, sir. It’s the same dog. (I want to adopt this kid!!!)

TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested? – HAROLD: A teacher

The following is an actual question given on a University chemistry mid-term. 

The answer by one student was so ‘profound’ that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? 

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following: 

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. 

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.  This gives two possibilities: 

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. 

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. 

So which is it? 

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, ‘It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,’ and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct……leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my God.’

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

Joe the lawyer died suddenly, at the age of 45. He got to the gates of Heaven, and the angel standing there said, “We’ve been waiting a long time for you.”

“What do you mean?” he replied. “I’m only 45, in the prime of my life. Why did I have to die now?”

“45? You’re not 45, you’re 82,” replied the angel.

“Wait a minute. If you think I’m 82, then you have the wrong guy. I’m only 45. I can show you my birth certificate.”

“Hold on. Let me go check,” said the angel, and disappeared inside. After a few minutes the angel returned. “Sorry, but by our records you are 82. I checked all the hours you have billed your clients, and you have to be 82…”

In addition to my MacBook Air, another component of my metamorphosis from the PC world to Apple is my latest verison iPad.  Many have asked the question whether or not the iPad can replace a notebook computer and my answer is a qualified yes. Qualified because it depends on what you need to accomplish. On my last two trips, one of three days and the other two days, I left the MacBook Air at home and traveled with the iPad. Had it been necessary for me to send an email to one of my larger groups the iPad would not have worked, no option for Outlook so no way to use Send Individually.  (In my post of a couple of days ago I expanded on Send Individually.) For everything else that I needed to do; manage email, compose documents, view content and view attachments the iPad worked perfectly.

Let me explore a few of the components that make this possible. Two of the components are parts of the iWork family from Apple, Pages and Numbers. As you probably surmised Pages is a word processing application and Numbers is a spreadsheet application, both are Microsoft Office compatible. Another component that is most helpful, and one that I am using creating this post, is the built in capacity to dictate into applications on the iPad. While the speech recognition is not on the level available from Dragon’s Naturally Speaking, it is certainly more than adequate for rough draft work. Both Pages and Numbers are available through the App Store for $9.99 each which is certainly not a budget buster. By default both of the programs store your documents on iCloud making them available from any device that provides iCloud access. As long as you have a compatible printer printing from either application is painless.  Also you can email documents directly from the applications.

I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss one other component that makes what I do on the iPad possible, my Belkin keyboard case. A couple of weekends ago, as part of a three day golf tournament, I managed two calcutta’s with 18 teams and fairly involved spreadsheets on the iPad using Numbers. Without the Belkin I may have been able to do it but no where as efficiently or easy on the operator.

With an increasing number of newspapers and magazines available in digital format the iPad is the perfect way to access this content to the point where for the most part I have cancelled the print subscription. While in most cases you can also use a laptop to access the content the form factor is not as ideal and in some cases the format available on the iPad is superior. Each morning I begin the day with a couple cups of coffee, my iPad and read three digital newspapers.

Am I ready to give up my MacBook Air? No but having said that neither am I willing too give up my iPad and find that I an using the iPad more and more.

Ten Things To Ponder

Number 10 – Life is sexually transmitted.

Number 9 – Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Number 8 – Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

Number 7 – Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks, months, maybe years.

Number 6 – Some people are like a Slinky–not really good for anything, but you still can’t help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.

Number 5 – Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospitals, dying of nothing.

Number 4 – All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

Number 3 – Why does a slight tax increase cost you $800, and a substantial tax cut save you $30?

Number 2 – In the 60s, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

Number 1 – Life is like a jar of Jalapeno peppers–what you do today might burn your ass tomorrow.

– – – and as someone recently said to me: “Don’t worry about old age–
it doesn’t last that long.”

Well it has been two months since we left Arizona for Minnesota and for the first time since the original IBM PC was introduced in 1981 I have not used a Windows PC in that time. Reason being I left my HP 18″ laptop in Arizona – on purpose – to see if I could comfortably exist with only my Apple MacBook Air. Things have gone well and I have been able to complete everything without any problems. As I noted in an earlier post, I do run Windows under Parallels on the MacBook Air primarily because an Outlook add-in, Send Individually by Sperry Software, is not available for the Mac version of Outlook. I use Send Individually when either sending to larger groups than my ISP will allow or when I only want each recipients name to be displayed when sending to multiple addresses.  Also, because even paranoids have some real enemies I still use the Windows version of Quicken. I suspect with the next update of Quicken for the Mac I will make that transition. For other work I use Mac software, Microsoft Office, a neat inexpensive publishing package called Swift Publisher, Adobe Acrobat and Chrome.  Evernote is my filing cabinet where I store documents, emails and any other items that I want available from any device. I have Evernote installed on the MacBook Air, my iPad, iPhone and on my HP laptop and have full availability regardless of which device I have. If you haven’t found Evernote yet you owe it to yourself to take a look.

For a confirmed Windows PC person to have found the transition to Apple this easy is really quite remarkable. With the advent of iCloud and the seamless integration on all of the Apple devices it will make it tough to even consider moving back to the HP in the fall.

One sometimes has to wonder what our political leaders are thinking?  Take for instance the hub bub over the use of places like Las Vegas and Hawaii as destinations for conferences and meetings.  Hard to forget the hit that Vegas took about three years ago. What they seem to forget is that the hospitality industries in Vegas and Hawaii employ people and when they were trashed it caused a large number of layoffs. Further it no doubt contributed to the crash in the real estate market in Vegas. What makes this even more amazing is that Vegas is one of the least expensive locations to hold conferences and the like. Hawaii while not inexpensive is typically less expensive than similar accommodations in places like San Francisco and New York. By the way, the last time I looked Vegas and Hawaii are in the United States so it is not like the money is going overseas.

On another front we just witnessed two prosecutions that probably should not have happened. While there is no doubt that John Edwards is at best a scoundrel and probably worse, spending millions of our tax dollars attempting to find him guilty of criminal activity based principally on the testimony of a liar was destined to fail. Similarly, pursuing Roger Clemens twice – the prosecution screwed up the first trial by disobeying the judge’s order – then tried again. The second trial covered 8 weeks and 48 witnesses before the jury returned an acquittal on all accounts. Here again the prosecution’s case hinged on the testimony of one person. All for what? Was whatever Roger Clemens might or might not have done worthy of spending millions of our tax dollars? I think not principally because who cares. What national interest was in play here? Some would say that you can’t lie to the Senate but before embarking on something on this scale one would hope there would be a little more substance.

The amount of money spent on these boondoggles makes what was spent on the GSA Vegas jaunt and the upcoming 9th Feds trip to Hawaii something less than rounding errors and look at the amount of press and the level of accusations these produced. I will leave it to you to speculate as to why things like this happen. For certain it is not because someone is concerned about how our tax dollars are spent. Unfortunately I doubt that it is to see that justice is done.

THESE ARE “ACTUAL” QUOTES TAKEN FROM AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS.

Thanks to Tom for this one.  Some of these might qualify for the “Darwin Awards”.

1) “Since my last report, this employee has reached rock-bottom and has started to dig.”

2) “I would not allow this employee to breed.”

3) “This employee is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definite won’t be.”

4) “Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.”

5) “When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change feet.”

6) “He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle.”

7) “This young lady has delusions of adequacy.”

8) “He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.”

9) “This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.”

10) “This employee should go far, and the sooner he starts, the better.”

11) “Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thingy to hold it all together.”

12) “A gross ignoramus…144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus.”

13) “He doesn’t have ulcers, but he’s a carrier..”

14) “I would like to go hunting with him sometime.”

15) “He’s been working with glue too much.”

16) “He would argue with a signpost.”

17) “He brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room.”

18) “When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell.”

19) “If you see two people talking and one looks bored, he’s the other one.”

20) “A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on.”

21) “A prime candidate for natural de-selection..”

22) “Donated his brain to science before he was through using it.”

23) “Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train ain’t coming.”

24) “He’s got two brains, one is lost and the other is out looking for it.”

25) “If he were any more stupid, he’d have to be watered twice a week.”

26) “If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you’d get change.”

27) “If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean.”

28) “It’s hard to believe he beat off 1,000,000 other sperm.”

29) “One neuron short of a synapse.”

30) “Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; he only gargled.”

31) “Takes him 2 hours to watch ’60 minutes’.”

32) “The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.”

It has been a while since I posted anything from my reading forays but here we go.  First the old friend, in this case Stuart Woods.  His latest, Unnatural Acts, is in the Stone Barrington series and as always provides an engaging read.  In this one the evolving Herbie Fischer plays an increasing role.  Woods fans will remember Herbie as the ner-do-well that always managed to find trouble even if he had to go out of his way to look for it. Herbie is now an attorney and actually manages to even do some things right.  Dino, Barrington’s police lieutenant friend, faces a dilemma when a former lover and FBI agent, turned serial killer reappears with explosive results.  As is Wood’s want you will also find a sprinkling of other Woods characters making cameo appearances.  As you track through the story of Herbie attempting to help one of the law firm’s top clients deal with a problem son, you will be looking for the unnatural act and believe me you will find it. The sometimes larger than life characters, particularly the villains, that are a cornerstone of Woods offerings are here and in full bloom.

I stumbled across the new acquaintance, Karin Fossum, very much by accident – Amazon had a choice of her books for $0.99 one day and I thought – what-the-hell – at that price I would give one a try and even if I didn’t like it I wouldn’t lose much.  Well I liked it and liked it a lot.  Fossum is a Norwegian author and the setting is, not surprisingly in Norway.  The book, Don’t Look Back, is part of a series that features a smart and enigmatic Inspector Sejer as the protagonist who weaves his way through a seemingly unexplainable murder of a teen-age girl in a small Norwegian town where everybody knows everybody. As Inspector Sejer peals back the layers of secrets, lies and deceit like the layers of an onion a seemingly unrelated event proves key the unlocking the mystery.  Fans of the Stieg Larsson’s Girl That Kicked the Hornets Nest series will certainly be at home with this book and author. Given how much I enjoyed this book I will be moving on to others in the series and will provide updates.

The U. S. S. Constitution (Old Ironsides), as a combat vessel, carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. She carried no evaporators (i.e. fresh water distillers).

However, let it be noted that according to her ship’s log, “On July 27, 1798, the U.S.S. Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum.”

Her mission: “To destroy and harass English shipping.”

Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum.

Then she headed for the Azores , arriving there 12 November. She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.

On 18 November, she set sail for England . In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 English merchant ships, salvaging only the rum aboard each.

By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted. Nevertheless, although unarmed she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland . Her landing party captured a whisky distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn. Then she headed home.

The U. S. S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February 1799, with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whisky, and 38,600 gallons of water .

GO NAVY!