The Stranger

A friend sent me this powerful story in an email.

The Stranger

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small Texas town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.

As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger...he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies. If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry.

The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind. Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)

Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home... Not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our longtime visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn't permit the liberal use of alcohol. But the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly and pipes distinguished. He talked freely about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing. I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked... And NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents' den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.
His name?...



We just call him, "TV."



P.S. He has a wife now....We call her "Computer."

How to Properly Place People in Jobs

How To Properly Place People in Jobs:
1. Put 400 bricks in a closed room.
2. Put people being assessed in the room and close the door.
3. Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours.
4. Then analyze the situation:

* If they are counting the bricks, put them in the Accounting Department.
* If they are recounting them, put them in Auditing.
* If they have messed up the whole place with the bricks, put them in Engineering.
* If they are arranging the bricks in some strange order, put them in Planning.
* If they are throwing the bricks at each other, put them in Operations.
* If they are sleeping, put them in Security.
* If they have broken the bricks into pieces, put them in Information Technology.
* If they are sitting idle, put them in Human Resources.
* If they say they have tried different combinations, they are looking for more, yet not a brick has been moved, put them in Sales.
* If they have already left for the day, put them in Marketing.
* If they are staring out of the window, put them in Strategic Planning.
* If they are talking to each other, and not a single brick has been moved, congratulate them and put them in Senior Management.
* Finally, if they have surrounded themselves with bricks in such a way that they can neither be seen nor heard from, put them in Government.

The Denigration of Alfred E. Neuman

clipped from www.bigmattress.com the Denigration of Alfred E. Neuman

Plenty of reasons to worry....

Gingembre....Haiti

Gingembre Map — Satellite Images of Gingembre
original name: Gingembre
geographical location: Nord, Haiti, Central America
geographical coordinates: 19° 24' 0" North, 72° 1' 0" West



Gingembre google map

Our Atmosphere: Moments of Extreme Beauty Caught on Camera

Collections of the most colorful and crystal moments of the atmosphere caught on camera----After Entering Homepage, Navigation is on left side for each Type of Atmosphere



read more | digg story

Light playing on water drops, dust or ice crystals in the atmosphere produces a host of visual spectacles - rainbows, halos, glories, coronas and many more. Some can be seen almost every day or so, some are once in a lifetime sights. Find out where to see them and how they form. Then seek and enjoy them outdoors.

I wish that I could post a beautiful photograph from this site to illustrate how magnificent the images are, but the photos are well-protected. Had I been able to post one, however, it would have been the fogbow photographed on Carn Gorm, Scotland, in February 1999.

Iraq: the new plan

clipped from www.claybennett.com

A deeply significant political commentary (no pun intended).

Note the look on the American's face as he contemplates the significance of the new plan he's been handed.