MAYONNAISE JAR and TWO BEERS

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two beers from under the table and poured the liquid into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things - God, family, children, health, friends, and favourite passions -- things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, house, and car.

The sand is everything else -- the small stuff.

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "There is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will
never have room for the things that are important to you."

"So... pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first -- the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple beers with a friend."

The Horror of Blimps

by Scylla

Last week while travelling I stopped at a Zany Brainy store and saw that they had a blimp for sale. It's called Airship Earth, and it's a great big balloon with a map of the Earth on it, and two propellors hanging from the bottom. You blow up the balloon with helium put batteries in it, and you have a radio controll indoor blimp.

I'd seen these things for sale in Sharper Image catalogs for $60-$75. At Zany Brainy it was on clearance for $15. What a deal!

Last night my wife was playing tennis and it was just my daughter and I at home. I bought a small helium tank from a party store, and last night we put the blimp together.

Let me tell you, it's quite a blimp. It's huge. The balloon has like a 3 ft diameter.

We blew it up with the tank attached the gondola with the propellors, and put in batteries.

Then we balanced the blimp for neutral bouyancy with this putty that came with it, so it hangs in the air by itself neither rising nor falling.

It was easy and fun, and then I blew up another balloon and made Mickey Mouse helium voices for my daughter.

My three year old girl loved it. We flew the blimp all over the house, terrorized the dog, attacked the fish tank, and the controls were so easy my daughter could fly.

Let's face it, blimps are fun.

Alas, the fun had to end and my daughter had to go to sleep. I left the blimp floating in my office downstairs, my wife came home, and we went to bed, and slept the sleep of the righteous.

At this point it is important to know that my house has central heating. I have it configured to blow hot air out on the ground floor and take it in at the second floor to take advantage of the fact that heat rises.

The blimp which was up until this moment a fun toy here embarked on a career of evil. Using the artificial convection of my central heating, the blimp stealthily departed my office. It moved silently through the living and drifted to the staircase. Gliding wraithlike over the staircase it then entered the bedroom where my wife and I lay sleeping peacefully.

Running silently, and gliding six feet or so above the ground on invisible and tiny air currects it approached the bed.

In spite of it's noiseless passage, or perhaps because of it, I awoke. That doesn't really say it properly. Let me try again.

I awoke, the way you awake at 2:00 AM when your sleeping senses suddenly tell you without reason that the forces of evil on converging on you.

That still doesn't do it. Let me try one more time.

I awoke the way you awake when you suddenly know that there is a large levitating sinister presence hovering towards you with menacing intent through the maligant darkness.

Now sometimes I do wake up in the middle of the night thinking that there are large sinister and menacing things floating out of the darkness to do me and mine evil. Usually I open my eyes, look and listen carefully, decide it was a false alarm, and go back to sleep.

So, the fact that I awoke in such a manner was not all that unusual.

On this occasion I awoke to the sense that there was a large menacing presence approaching me silently out of the gloom, so I opened my eyes, and there it was! A LARGE SILENT MENACING PRESENCE WAS APPROACHING ME OUT OF THE GLOOM, AND IT COULD FLY!!!

Somewhere in the control room of my mind a fat little dwarf in a security outfit was paging through a Penthouse while smoking a cigar with his feet up on the table, watching the security monitors of my brain with his peripheral vision. Suddenly he saw the LARGE SILENT SINSITER MENACING FLOATING PRESENCE coming at me, and he pulled every panic switch and hit every alarm that my body has. A full decade's allotment of adrenaline was dumped into my bloodstream all at once. My metabolism went from "restful sleep mode" to HOLY SHIT! FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE OR DIE!!!! mode" in a nanosecond. My heart went from twenty something beats per minute to about 240 even faster.

I always knew this was going to happen. I always knew that skepticism and science were mere psychological decorations and vanities. Deep in our alligator brains we all know that the world is just chock full of evil and monsters and sinister forces aligned against us, and it is only a matter of time until they show up. Evolution know this, too. It knows what to do when the silent terror comes at you from out of the dark.

When 50 million years worth of evolutionary survival instinct hits you all at once flat in the gut at 200 mph it is not a pleasant sensation.

Without volition I screamed my battle cry (which is indistinguishable to the sound a little girl makes when you drop a spider down her dress (not that I'd know what that sounds like,) and lept out of bed in my underwear.

I struck the approaching menace with all my strength and almost fell over at the total lack of resistance that a helium balloon offers when you punch the living shit out of it with all the stength that sudden middle of the night terror produces.

It's trajectory took it straight into the ceiling fan which whipped it about the room at terrifying velocity.

Seeking a weapon, I ripped the alarm clock out of its plug and hurled it at the now High Velocity Menacing presence (breaking the clock and putting a nice hole in the wall.)

Somehow at this moment I suddenly realized that I was fighting the blimp, and not a monster. It might have been funny if I didn't truly and actually feel like I was having a legitimate heart-attack.

On quivering legs I went to the bathroom and literally gagged into the toilet while shaking uncontrollably with the shock of the reaction I'd had.

Unbelievably, both my wife and daughter had completely slept through the incident. When I decided that I wasn't having a heart attack after all I went back into the bedroom and found the blimp which had somehow survived the incident.

I took it to the walk in closet and released it inside where it floated around with the air currents released from the vents in there. I closed the door, this sealing it in, and went back to bed. About 500 years later I fell asleep.

***

At about 7 am my wife awoke. She had been playing tennis and wasn't aware that we have assembled the blimp the previous evening, and that is was now floating around the the walk-in closet that she approached.

The dynamic between the existing air currents of the closet and the suction caused by opening the door was just enough to give the blimp the appearance of an Evil Sinister Menace flying straight towards her.

This time the blimp did not survive the encounter, nor almost, did I, as I had to explain to my very angry spouse what motivated me to hide an evil lurking presence in the closet for her to find at 7 am.

I can order replacement balloons on the internet but I don't think I will.

Some blimps are better off dead.

20 Things we have learned from the movies

1. During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip joint at least once.


2. All beds have special L-shaped top sheets which reach up to armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.


3. It's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.


4. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.


5. Large loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people - whether they are employed or not.


6. Even when driving down a perfectly straight road it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.


7. At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.


8. A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.


9. If you decide to start dancing in the street everyone you bump into will know all the steps.


10. Should you decide to defuse a bomb don't worry which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one.


11. Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.


12. Extremely beautiful and intelligent women are likely to become prostitutes or welders.


13. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts - your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.


14. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.


15. Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned to a partner who is their total opposite.


16. When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.


17. Radiation causes interesting mutations - not to your future children but to you, right there and then.


18. If you are blonde and pretty, it is possible to become a world expert on nuclear fission at the age of 22.


19. Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.


20. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their archenemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers and man eating sharks which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.

Global Rich List
Feeling poor? Follow the link to find the antidote.

People get so caught up comparing themselves to the people immediately around them that they forget the incredible disparity between 1st and 3rd world countries. They always believe that they need this or that without giving thought to what the word "need" really means. People bold all kinds of things, but the list of things they need is actually quite short. Animals survived for millions of years without the modern amenities (thousands if you are a Creationist), so you can probably do without that big screen TV. At least for a little while...

African Food Crisis
Stop here to read about the lives of some of the poorest people in the world. And you thought you had problems...

Fun @ Chucky Cheese's

We were planning to go to American Adventure, but guess what? This is the week they start closing down! We found that it is no longer open on the weekdays, so we went to the backup plan - time with the rat. The kids, of course, were thrilled. And I must admit, it is cheaper than AmerAdvent! :)

E&A Hear the Baby

Here we are waiting to hear the baby's heartbeat. Emily and Alex are both excited, both to hear the heartbeat and just to be at the doctor's office. The baby is already real to them - Amanda is definitely showing, and Emily has felt the baby kick - but I imagine hearing the baby will really bring it home.

Bored on the Phone? Beware Jerk-O-Meter - Yahoo! News
I can't wait for this to be common place on all phones! Maybe a little feedback will help some of my coworkers learn to control themselves!

And maybe, in those rare instances, it will help me, too! :)