DD/Freeple Thread 1

[ValerieUSA]

At least you remember the krill ... the poor plankton are forgotten.

[westmex]

My Uncle, my dog, me and my Dad.
Doing what I don't know???? Looking important maybe lol..

Bellingham,WA.

.....Westy.....

[lodwick]

Shot for being butt ugly?

Correct, the headline writers are not what they should be.

[lodwick]

Yep - either Darks is in a test-market area, or we've got either pervs or fems for letter carriers...Yikes.

[grannie9]

Lol.. that's cute. Looks like Mama Bear told you men to go outside and do something useful.. Maybe you were planting some veggies?

Or digging worms to go fishing????

[westmex]

We are posing in the front yard, so I just don't know what we are doing or suppose to be doing....

[Sundog]

Dear Habs,

Thank you for the observation.

If you don't mind me bending your ear for a few moments -- with everybody else listening in -- I'll share a few pearls with you, and they are pearls only because they were expensive lessons to learn.

A very kindly man once took me under his arm when I was at a real low point in my life and offered me a job and a place to stay. I took him up on it. The job was to be his grounds-keeper and the place to stay was his house while he was on vacation in Florida for two weeks. I'd come into town nearly a drifter; unemployed and impoverished.

He was no ordinary fellow, at 83 years old he was still in the prime of his life. He had 1,400 people working for him in 3 very profitable businesses. The bank hadn't given him a loan once so he turned around and bought the bank. We used to go around the lake by the town in his boat while he surveyed his properties for irregularities.

All I had going for me was a harsh upbringing by a Norwegian Step-Dad who had taught me nearly everything about fixing anything -- from electronics to woodworking to cars. Fred, the kindly man, simply expected me to fix whatever he found wrong with his place and it was an ideal association.

After a time Fred hired me in his ship yard and I moved to an apartment, but it was always kept secret at work that I had an 'in' with the owner: every Sunday I spent all day boating with him and conversing about all the things on his mind.

All good things must pass, and I went away to college (BYU) still flush with so much that he had explained to me. Education, experience, ingenuity, and years of trying to make worthwhile software followed, but Fred was constantly my hero. He passed away at 93, deprived of his freedom, in the grip of Alzheimers. I could converse with him in my mind, until one day it seemed he was called into a higher heaven, but that is my own take on metaphysical things.

He had said to me, "Don't worry about it. I didn't have any money, really, until I turned 50." and that was to me a prophesy of sorts. He engendered such loyalty among his workers, the hundreds of them, that even though the union recruiters stood outside the shipyard gates passing out fliers and brochures, the employees would take none of them.

When life passes you a lemon, make lemonaid. There is no hardship which can not become a benefit over time. There is never a reason to lose hope and neither is there any circumstance from which you can not be brought down. I could go on but it would only be saying over and over that the human spirit can be kept above this material world.

The new company is great. Sure they have problems, but for starters they have already generated more business for us in a month than we had for the whole year prior. We are working like lead dogs in the Iditarod race. Now we get on with our lives, and I enjoy having people around the world depending on software that keeps their factories running.

Lunch today was a hamburger in the mountains beside a fast running stream, under some big old pine trees. I had to walk a road not yet open to traffic for the snow on it. plus, shrimp salad, made from big shrimp, and an apple. Swing music from the BBC Big Bands Orchestra was playing in the car on the way, and I would like to think of good software sounding like that if only it could be put to music.

[grannie9]

You are so sweet.. smoooooooooch.

I guess I'd better go to bed now.. ;)

Night all.. I will watch the telly in my room for awhile..

[Sundog]

Shave the whales -- remember that gem from Dilbert?

And the correlary -- Envision Whirled peas.

Save the krill -- the penguins need them.

[grannie9]

Ohh.. welcome back Loddy.. Hope you had a good time on your short vaca.. ;)

[Sundog]

G'night Dear.

[Sundog]

Ugliest story I heard yet -- read it on a thread here yesterday -- Woman faced down a rapist that had broken into her bedroom -- managed to sever his testicles in the fight. He fled, she took the organs down to the police station for evidence. He showed up at a hospital with the wounds to his gonads, and the police rushed his balls down so the surgeons could reattach them.

It just makes you want to retch.

[Sundog]

That study on stupid people ought to be required reading in every College anthropology / phychology class. I don't know enough accolades to heap on that treasure. don-o said he had known about it for years, real gem of understanding there.

[lodwick]

Angels unaware.

What a super story...thanks so much for sharing it with us.

If we would treat everone with whom we come in contact, as we would wish to be treated...who knows what good things could happen for us all?

Big ups to you Sundog! God bless and prosper.

[lodwick]

Dang Dog - no more nut news...please.

Thanks friend. And I truly mean it.

(Our world has gone nutz enough.)

[lodwick]

Back barely - details later, if I can remember...I know that I got the best of one huge buzzard, and I do mean HUGE!

The insurance company will take care of the difference.

Stupid buzzard had no insurance card on which to file.

[Darksheare]

Southern Orange county is a huge test market area.

[Darksheare]

Yes.
It should be required reading, as well as a handbook for those heading into government work.

[Darksheare]

Maybe I'm an angel with clipped wings
Maybe I'm just another of the broken things
drifting through mem'ries faded scenes
Maybe I'm the dream instead of the dreamer
a cutoff scream in a darkened theater
Maybe I'm a knight bereft of his armor
an Arlington ghost in search of more honor
Maybe I'm a bird never meant to fly
a carousel pony going for the last ride
Maybe I'm a thought never thought again
a distant last parting of long lost friends
Maybe.
Maybe I'm an angel with clipped wings
Maybe I'm another of those broken things

[Windshark]

Hi Val....

No response about the etchings.

Oh well...

Hey.....Linda wants to know what kind of nice flowering trees would be good as gifts for a back yard in San Antonio....need good info ASAP.