This and That

Chicken Soup for the Soul

A Lesson from My Father We come by business naturally in our family. Each of the seven children in our family worked in our father's store, "Our Own Hardware-Furniture Store," in Mott, North Dakota, a small town on the prairies. We started working by doing odd jobs like dusting, arranging shelves and wrapping, and later graduated to serving customers. As we worked and watched, we learned that work was about more than survival and making a sale.

One lesson stands out in my mind. It was shortly before Christmas. I was in the eighth grade and was working evenings, straightening the toy section. A little boy, five or six years old, came in. He was wearing a brown tattered coat with dirty worn cuffs. His hair was straggly, except for a cowlick that stood straight up from the crown of his head. His shoes were scuffed and his one shoelace was torn. The little boy looked poor to me--too poor to afford to buy anything. He looked around the toy section, picked up this item and that, and carefully put them back in their place.

Dad came down the stairs and walked over to the boy. His steel blue eyes smiled and the dimple in his cheek stood out as he asked the boy what he could do for him. The boy said he was looking for a Christmas present to buy his brother. I was impressed that Dad treated him with the same respect as any adult. Dad told him to take his time and look around. He did.

After about 20 minutes, the little boy carefully picked up a toy plane, walked up to my dad and said, "How much for this, Mister?"

"How much you got?" Dad asked. The little boy held out his hand and opened it. His hand was creased with wet lines of dirt from clutching his money. In his hand lay two dimes, a nickel and two pennies-- 27 cents. The price on the toy plane he'd picked out was $3.98.

"That'll just about do it," Dad said as he closed the sale. Dad's reply still rings in my ears. I thought about what I'd seen as I wrapped the present. When the little boy walked out of the store, I didn't notice the dirty, worn coat, the straggly hair, or the single torn shoelace. What I saw was a radiant child with a treasure.

Cool Facts!!

Do asteroids have moons of their own? Asteroids sometimes have moons of their own. In August 1993, the Galileo space probe passed near asteroid 243 Ida and discovered that it has a tiny orbiting companion. The one-mile-wide rock (called "Dactyl") is the first known asteroid moon.

How did Ida get a moon? Scientists think Dactyl may have been knocked off Ida in an asteroid collision millions of years ago. Since then, it has slowly drifted around the larger chunk of rock, caught in its weak gravitational field.

More about Ida and Dactyl, including pictures: here and here More about the Galileo mission: here

Cool Music Site

MOUSEJAM Mousejam MOUSE JAM is an interactive music jam, no talent is required, just select your jam and click like a MADMAN.

ACCEPT CHANGE WITH A SMILE..
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Sooner or later comes a crisis in your life,
and how you meet it determines your future happiness and success.
Since the beginning of time,
everyone has been called upon to meet such a crisis.
A closer look will show you that most "crisis situations"=20
are opportunities to either advance or stay where you are.
Indeed most changes in your life will take place out of either
"inspiration" or "desperation".
Whatever comes your way,
give it meaning and transform it into something of value.
Your personal growth is the process of responding positively to change.
A precious stone cannot be polished without friction,
nor humanity perfected without trials.
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Have your

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30 Signs that technology has taken over your life

1. Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty's address book. The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line services, and your Internet address, which spreads across the breadth of the letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you have conceded that the first page of any letter you write *is* letterhead.

2. You have never sat through a entire movie without having at least one device on your body beep or buzz.

3. You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten, but you can't because there isn't one typewriter in your house -- only computers with laser printers.

4. You think of the gadgets in your office as "friends," but you forget to send your father a birthday card.

5. You disdain people who use low baud rates.

6. When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson talking with customers -- and you butt in to correct him and spend the next twenty minutes answering the customers' questions, while the salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head.

7. You use the phrase "digital compression" in a conversation without thinking how strange your mouth feels when you say it.

8. You constantly find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the phrase "digital compression. " Everyone understands what you mean, and you are not surprised or disappointed that you don't have to explain it.

9. You know Bill Gates' e-mail address, but you have to look up your own social security number.

10. You stop saying "phone number" and replace it with "voice number," since we all know the majority of phone lines in any house are plugged into contraptions that talk to other contraptions.

11. You sign Christmas cards by putting :-) next to your signature.

12. Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen keystroke symbols that are far more clever than :-).

13. You back up your data every day.

14. Your wife asks you to pick up some minipads for her at the store and you return with a rest for your mouse.

15. You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR are stupid.

16. On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham novels.

17. The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music rarely enters your mind.

18. You are able to argue persuasively the Ross Perot's phrase "electronic town hall" makes more sense than the term "information superhighway," but you don't because, after all, the man still uses hand-drawn pie charts.

19. You go to computer trade shows and map out your path of the exhibit hall in advance. But you cannot give someone directions to your house without looking up the street names.

20. You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.

21. You become upset when a person calls you on the phone to sell you something, but you think it's okay for a computer to call and demand that you start pushing buttons on your telephone to receive more information about the product it is selling.

22. You know without a doubt that disks come in five-and-a- quarter-and three-and-a-half-inch sizes.

23. Al Gore strikes you as an "intriguing" fellow.

24. You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you actually know where they are.

25. While contemporaries swap stories about their recent hernia surgeries, you compare mouse-induced index-finger strain with a nine-year-old.

26. You are so knowledgeable about technology that you feel secure enough to say "I don't know" when someone asks you a technology question instead of feeling compelled to make something up.

27. You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires.

28. You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own turns bread into charcoal.

29. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different opinions about which is better -- the track ball or the track *pad*.

30. You understand all the jokes in this message. If so, my friend, technology has taken over your life. We suggest, for your own good, that you go lie under a tree and write a haiku. And don't use a laptop.

Additions 31. You laugh and forward this message to more than 3 people.

32. Even worse, you laugh and forward this message to your entire joke mailing list.