A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings.  The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbor.  Before she says a word, Bob says, ‘I’ll give you $800 to drop that towel.’

After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob, after a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves.  The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs.  When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, ‘Who was that?’

‘It was Bob the next door neighbor,’ she replies.

‘Great,’ the husband says, ‘did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?’

Moral of the story:
If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

Lesson 2:

A priest offered a Nun a lift.  She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident.  After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.

The nun said, ‘Father, remember Psalm 129?’

The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again.

The nun once again said, ‘Father, remember Psalm 129?’

The priest apologized ‘Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.’

Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way

On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, ‘Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.’

Moral of the story:
If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

Lesson 3:

A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.  They rub it and a Genie comes out.

The Genie says, ‘I’ll give each of you just one wish.’

‘Me first! Me first!’ says the admin clerk. ‘I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.’  Puff! She’s gone.

‘Me next! Me next!’ says the sales rep. ‘I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.’  Puff! He’s gone.

‘OK, you’re up,’ the Genie says to the manager.

The manager says, ‘I want those two back in the office after lunch.’

Moral of the story:
Always let your boss have the first say.

Lesson 4

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.  A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, ‘Can I also sit like you and do nothing?’

The eagle answered: ‘Sure, why not.’

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story:
To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Lesson 5

A turkey was chatting with a bull.  ‘I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree’ sighed the turkey, ‘but I haven’t got the energy.’

‘Well, why don’t you nibble on some of my droppings?’ replied the bull. They’re packed with nutrients.’

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.  The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.  Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral of the story:
Bull Shit might get you to the top, but it won’t keep you there..

Lesson 6

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field. While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.  As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.

A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.  Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly
dug him out and ate him.

Morals of the story:
(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
(3) And when you’re in deep shit, it’s best to keepyour mouth shut!

THUS ENDS THE FIVE MINUTE MANAGEMENT COURSE

Thanks to Bits&Pieces: http://bitsandpieces.us/

GO S A I N T S !

Taiko drums, which most people associate with Japan, actually came to the island nation from China via Korea sometime between 500 BC – 300 AD. While I find western music drum solos with their snares and cymbals  quite boring, there is a primitive, atavistic quality to Taiko. Evidenced by Eitetsu Hayashi, founding member and the premier performer of the world-renowned groups “SADO-ONDEKOZA” and “KODO”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpmLzgdx5XM

What does it take to become a Taiko drummer? I’m afraid embedding of the following videos has been disabled on YouTube but you can see them by clicking on the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnq4hHv61DY

Taiko has spread beyond the shores of Japan to all corners of the globe…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqPciaTYfcg

Embedded memory from the womb. . .and you can hear it embedded here, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCccPGtjaCU

Today’s date is a numerical palindrome (a word, line, verse, number, sentence, etc., reading the same backward as forward)

1st of February 2010

01022010

Courtesy of http://bitsandpieces.us/

via:

http://thedw.us/

I found, and started playing, an interesting typing game on line the other day. The reason why I started playing the game will be revealed in the natural course of this article, but with the finding and playing of this game I started thinking about my personal, evolving relationship with the printed word.

That relationship started in the first years of my life when my mom and I lived with her parents while my dad was serving on the USS Logan (AP-196) an attack transport ship in the Pacific during WWII. Each evening my grandfather would tuck me in to bed and read me a chapter from one of Howard R. Garis’s  Uncle Wiggily books. While I liked the stories themselves, what I loved the most were the endings like this:

“Now, in case I see a green rose in bloom on the pink lilac bush, I’ll tell you next about Bully making a water wheel.”

“Now in case the little boy next door doesn’t take our baby carriage and make an automobile of it, I’ll tell you next about Bawly and Uncle Wiggily.”

“Now if it should happen that I don’t lose my watch down the inkwell so I can see when it’s time for my pussy cat to have his warm soup, I’ll tell you in the story after this about Bully’s and Bawly’s big jump.”

“Now in case that alligator doesn’t chase after me, and chew up my typewriter to make mincemeat of it for the wax doll, I’ll tell you in the next story about Grandpa Croaker digging a well.”

Of course the next story would be about Grandpa Croaker digging a well, or Bully’s and Bawly’s big jump or whatever the cliff-hanger ending was about.

I was so totally enthralled by these stories I vividly remember gathering up some paper and crayons determined to write my own book. Then, as I set out on this project it occurred to me that, at age four, I didn’t know how to write even a single letter let alone an entire book. No matter how brilliant my story might be, no one would ever understand the scribblings on the paper. Hell, seconds after scrawling out a line I didn’t know what it meant. So the dream was deferred.

When I started school I whizzed through Dick and Jane in about a week and started to devour just about everything I could get my hands on. I remember that in the second grade my teacher asked me how I learned to use commas. Well, DUH, if you read books you see them everywhere.

My father, back from the war, was a voracious reader. Books were everywhere and since he didn’t approve of comic books I had to read what was available. By third grade I had a library card and in the sixth grade I was tested as having the reading level of a college freshman. The only thing I thought strange about that was I thought all my classmates should be reading at that level, too. My mom, though she always said she enjoyed reading didn’t do much of it. After all, she had a husband and five boys to look after. What she did in lieu of reading was knit. She was a veritable loom. A Madam Defarge without the guillotine.

(An aside regarding my mother and her knitting. She made wonderful things. Well in to my fifties I still had sweaters she had made for me when I was in high school <and I was still of a size that they fit me>. Later in life I married a girl who only read one book <Valley of the Dolls> in the seven years we were married, but she was a seamstress. She made almost all of her own clothes. She could look at a dress in a magazine and then sit down and make one for herself. In their spare time both she and my mom created things that were useful and lasted for years while my father and I had stacks of books to show for our wasted hours.

I’ll never forget the evening when I was twelve years old and watching television sprawled out on the living room floor when she put her knitting aside, got out of her rocking chair and said, “come with me.” I followed her out to the back of the house where the laundry was located. “This is how you use the washer,” she said going through the procedure. “This is how the dryer works.” Then, setting up the ironing board she proceeded with, “This is how you iron a shirt,” and “this is how you iron a pair of pants.” And that was the last time she ever did it for me, and as each of my brothers hit the magic age of 12 they, too, learned the mysteries of the laundry room. There was absolutely nothing wrong with any of this and I firmly believe all mothers should do the same thing with their sons. It was so funny when I went away to college the first time I went to the laundromat to do my clothes. There I was putting my whites in one machine and my colored things in another while all around me were a bunch of guys reading the backs of boxes of laundry soap trying to figure things out.)

It’s a shame that boys weren’t required to take typing classes in high school. Almost all of the girls took typing and the ones destined to become “secretaries” took shorthand as well. On reflection all these years later both typing and shorthand should have been required courses for those of bound for college. The typing for the term papers we were destined to write with all their ibids and op cits, and shorthand for note taking in lectures.

I got my first typewriter, a portable Smith-Corona my senior year in high school and worked out a typing system that was to serve me for the next four decades. I didn’t learn how to “touch type.” I found it impossible to get a good, crisp impression on a sheet of paper with those keys that required the use of the little fingers. Instead what I pieced together worked this way: I used the little finger of my left hand on the Shift key and my index and middle fingers on the other left hand side of the QWERTY keyboard. My right index and middle fingers found the keys on the right side of the keyboard while my thumb worked the Space bar and my little finger hit the Shift key when a capital letter was required from the left side of the board. Even when I acquired an electric typewriter and pressing the letter “Q” no longer required brute force I  didn’t modify my typing style. Any I remember when I got a job where I got to use an IBM Selectric. Man, did I think that was tits, that little ball spinning around. State of the Art technology.

That system served me well through college, a short stint in the Public Information Office of the USS Lake Champlain (CVS 39). It worked for me as a general assignment reporter on the Cape Cod Standard-Times, as assistant editor of the Inland Printer/American Lithographer magazine, as an advertising copywriter and hospital public relations hack and a hundred or so freelance magazine articles. It is interesting to note that the reporters at the two news rooms I worked in (as a copy boy <yes, there was such a creature> at the Miami Herald and at the aforementioned Standard-Times) generally pounded out their stories with only three or four fingers. If you see old news reel footage of the likes of Walter Cronkite and Andy Rooney you’ll see them typing like that. The only people I ever saw “touch typing” in a newspaper office were the secretaries.

Despite my typing style, I was fairly fast and could pound out about 30 or 35 words per minute, but I was, of course, hampered with certain work that required me to look at a book or some sort of printed material and then type out what was necessary. I had to stop typing, look at the book and then back at the keyboard when I needed to type.

About 15 years ago I bought my first computer. It was then that I decided to learn how to “touch type” since you could buy a program that would teach you how to do it. Of course I modified the learning curve by not bothering to learn the keys with the numbers and symbols since I rarely use them in writing anyway and I’ll never have a job that requires a blinding typing speed anyway. With a little practice and playing the typing games when there wasn’t anything interesting to watch on the electronic cyclops my typing speed was pretty consistently in the low 40 wpm range and I no longer needed to look at the keyboard in order to type.

Recently, being bored, I looked up some online typing games to play and one has grabbed me. It’s a lot of fun. It’s called “Type Down.” The object of the game is to prevent a rising column of 20 words from reaching the top of the page. When you finish a group of words the next group’s speed increases and three groups represent a level. When you complete a level the next group’s words are longer and the speed is reset. Quite challenging. You can find it here…

http://www.onlytypinggames.com/games/type_down/

One of my favorite New Orleans piano players was James Booker. Not only was he a great piano player, but he worked for a time for the City of New Orleans and was a champion typist which shouldn’t be too surprising since the typewriter is simply another kind of keyboard.

Ever thought about owning your own B&B in a romantic location? Here’s your perfect opportunity. This 4,000+ square foot home with 3 separate apartments in Panama City, Panama is currently for sale.

It’s recently renovated and located in the quiet residential neighborhood of Balboa in what was formerly called “The Canal Zone.” It’s just minutes away from world-class restaurants on the Amador Causeway; the Albrook Mall, one of the biggest shopping malls in the Western Hemisphere; and down town Panama City, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in world is a short, 10 minute drive away.

The house has 8 bedrooms, 5 baths and 3 kitchens and is TAX EXEMPT until 2022!!!

I know, personally, that the house is EXACTLY as described. I spent five days there this year and if I had the where with all I’d consider it for myself.

If you’re interested and contact the owner, let him know you saw it here on the Old Salt’s blog (and in the interest of full disclosure, there’s a little something in it for me if you do.)

Healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which a human being can die.