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whew !!!

IN THIS ISSUE

• We revisit the life story of Keith Elliott Stressed out?
• Miriam Ockenden has some ideas for coping
• Tom Telfer sends the story of a really bad day at work
• If you need excuses to buy vodka, here are some from Jack Peaker
• Marco or Kinga de Muinck forward these tech support horror stories
• Gerrit de Leeuw sends this story of an up-to-date grandfather
• Marilyn Magid and Carol Hansen suggest this week´s websites

Keith Elliott tells us some of his story, which I am reprinting because no-one else has sent a personal story for this week´s issue. <ahem!>

THIS IS MY LIFE SO FAR....

I was born in August ´37 on a small sustenance general farm in Eastern Ontario on the day when the neighborhood oat threshing ´gang´ were to process Dad´s stooks, but they had to pass over our place because Mom wouldn´t be up from the birthbed in time to prepare the grand noon dinner for 20 hungry neighbours.

Our community wasn´t electrified until ´48, so one well remembers homework by coal oil and later ´Aladdin´ mantle light. And Dad, who was 40 years older than I (as grandfather was to him), never much liked the idea of new-fangled mechanization, so such fads as tractors and milking machines were slow to be introduced around the Elliott homestead.

My parents, like most, were scarred for the rest of their long lives by the challenge of raising a family of three (I came along later) during the depression. On the night of October 31, ´29, all the homestead´s barns (cattle/horse/implements) went up in flames. One theory attributed the disaster to a smoking hobo taking shelter; another suggested internal combustion of the hay crop - whatever, it was a Halloween night that the old folks never forgot, and was a precursor to a string of depression bad luck which didn´t seem to lift until I came along <g>. In ´32 Dad had to sell his six best milkers for the total sum of $48 to stall off the bank and forestall sale of the homestead for back-taxes.

After completing Grade 12 in the four-room Continuation School in the village two miles from the farm, I wanted to get out and see the world. Our part of Eastern Ontario is ´hard-scrabble´ - thin soil over lots of pre-cambrian rock, and worked intensively for the past couple of hundred years - not a very rich area.

For me, like many of my local peers, the only way "out" was via the priesthood or the bank. Dad was a fervent Orangeman and Mason so that precluded option one (the thought of never-ending celibacy wasn´t very appealing to me anyway), so banking it was.

Eventually, 42 years ago, I met Marnie and we started our family of four. My main career was with the Federal Business Development Bank, and involved a lot of transfers and postings throughout Ontario.

After early retirement in ´89, we traveled across the country and I well remember passing through the Sicamous/Shuswap area and wondering what it would have been like to be part of the opening up of the area. Having read the story of the editor´s early life, we can today vicariously live the experience.

Miriam Ockenden sends some great ways to deal with the stresses of life:

STRESS MANAGEMENT

* Accept that some days you´re the pigeon, and some days you´re the statue.

* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

* Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

* Drive carefully. It´s not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.

* If you can´t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

* Never buy a car you can´t push.

* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won´t have a leg to stand on.

* Nobody cares if you can´t dance well. Just get up and dance.

* Since it´s the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.

* The second mouse gets the cheese.

* When everything´s coming your way, you´re in the wrong lane.

* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

* You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

* We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

* A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Tom Telfer sends this story of

A BAD DAY AT WORK

Next time you have a bad day at work, think of this guy. Rob is a commercial saturation diver in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an e-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to the local FM radio station, which was sponsoring a "worst job experience" contest. Needless to say, she won.

Hi Sue,

Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you´ve been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it´s not so bad after all.

Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.

As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It´s a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: we have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I´ve used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It´s like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my butt started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit.

Now since I don´t have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn´t stick to it. However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into my butt.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically.

Needless to say, I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling 35 minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression.

When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn´t poop for two days because my butt hole was swollen shut.

So, next time you´re having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt. Now repeat to yourself, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job...."

WOLVES

An old Cherokee Is telling his grandson about a fight that is going on inside himself. He said it is between wolves. One is evil: Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is good: Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

The grandson thought about it for a moment and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one I feed."

If you can bring yourself to use it for something other than drinking, Jack Peaker forwards these

REASONS TO BUY VODKA

1. To remove a bandage painlessly, saturate the bandage with vodka. The solvent dissolves adhesive.

2. To clean the caulking around bathtubs and showers, fill a trigger spray bottle with vodka, spray the caulking, let set five minutes and wash clean. The alcohol in the vodka kills mold and mildew.

3. To clean your eyeglasses, simply wipe the lenses with a soft, clean cloth dampened with vodka. The alcohol in the vodka cleans the glass and kills germs.

4. Prolong the life of razors by filling a cup with vodka and letting your safety razor blade soak in the alcohol after shaving. The vodka disinfects the blade and prevents rusting.

5. Spray vodka on vomit stains, scrub with a brush, and then blot dry.

6. Using a cotton ball, apply vodka to your face as an astringent to cleanse the skin and tighten pores.

7. Add a jigger of vodka to a 12-ounce bottle of shampoo. The alcohol cleanses the scalp, removes toxins from hair, and stimulates the growth of healthy hair.

8. Fill a 16-ounce trigger spray bottle and spray bees or wasps to kill them.

9. Pour one half cup vodka and one half cup water in a Ziploc freezer bag and freeze for a slushy, refreshable ice pack for aches, pain or black eyes.

10. To relieve a fever, use a washcloth to rub vodka on your chest and back as a liniment.

11. To cure foot odor, wash your feet with vodka.

12. Vodka will disinfect and alleviate a jellyfish sting. (Ed. The guy in the bad workday could have used this hint.)

13. Pour vodka over an area affected with poison ivy to remove the urushiol oil from your skin.

14. Swish a shot of vodka over an aching tooth. Allow your gums to absorb some of the alcohol to numb the pain.

I´m going out to get a bottle today and start living a healthier lifestyle. Silly me - I´ve only been drinking it!

Have you ever been guilty of looking at others your own age and thinking, "Surely I can´t look that old!" Well, you are going to love this one.

NOT US!

I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist when I noticed his diploma hanging on the wall. It bore his full name and I suddenly remembered a tall, handsome dark-haired boy with the same name. He had been in my high school class some 40-odd years before and I wondered if he could be the same guy I had a secret crush on then?

When I got into the treatment room, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was much too old to have been my secret crush ... or was he?

After he examined my teeth, I asked if he had attended Morgan Park High School.

"Yes, I did. I´m a Mustang!" he said, gleaming with pride.

"When did you graduate?" I asked.

"1959. Why do you ask?" He answered.

"Well, you were in my class!" I exclaimed.

Then that ugly, old wrinkled son of a bitch asked, "What did you teach?"

Marco or Kinga de Muinck forward these examples of the trials of

TECH SUPPORT

Customer: I´m trying to connect to the Internet with your CD, but it just doesn´t work. What am I doing wrong?

Tech support: OK, you´ve got the CD in the CD drive, right?

Customer: Yeah ....

Tech support: And what sort of computer are you using?

Customer: Computer? Oh no, I haven´t got a computer. It´s in the CD player and all I get is weird noises. Listen....

Tech support: Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!

Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?

Female customer: A white one...

Customer: Hi, this is Celine. I can´t get my diskette out.

Tech support: Have you tried pushing the button?

Customer: Yes, sure, it´s really stuck.

Tech support: That doesn´t sound good; I´ll make a note.

Customer: No. Wait a minute.... I hadn´t inserted it yet ... it´s still on my desk. Sorry....

Tech support: Click on the ´my computer´ icon on the left of the screen.

Customer: Your left or my left?

Tech support: Good day. How may I help you?

Male customer: Hello.... I can´t print.

Tech support: Would you click on "start" for me and...

Customer: Listen pal; don´t start getting technical on me! I´m not Bill Gates, damn it!

Customer: Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can´t print. Every time I try, it says ´Can´t find printer´. I´ve even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor, but the computer still says he can´t find it...

Customer: I have problems printing in red....

Tech support: Do you have a color printer?

Customer: Aaaah ... thank you.

Tech support: What´s on your monitor now, ma´am?

Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me in the supermarket.

Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore.

Tech support: Are you sure it´s plugged into the computer?

Customer: No. I can´t get behind the computer.

Tech suppor´t: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back.

Customer: OK.

Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you?

Customer: Yes.

Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. Is there another keyboard?

Customer: Yes, there´s another one here. Ah ... that one does work.

Tech support : Your password is the small letter a as in apple, a capital letter V as in Victor, the number 7.

Customer: Is that 7 in capital letters?

Customer: I can´t get on the Internet.

Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password?

Customer: Yes, I´m sure. I saw my colleague do it.

Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was?

Customer: Five stars.

Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use?

Customer: Netscape.

Tech support: That´s not an anti-virus program.

Customer: Oh, sorry ... Internet Explorer.

Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.

Tech support: How may I help you?

Customer: I´m writing my first e-mail.

Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem?

Customer: Well, I have the letter ´a´ in the address, but how do I get the circle around it?

A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.

Tech support: Are you running it under windows?

Customer: "No, my desk is next to the door, but that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his printer is working fine."

And last but not least:....

Tech support: "Okay Bob, let´s press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter "P" to bring up the Program Manager."

Customer: I don´t have a P.

Tech support: On your keyboard, Bob.

Customer: What do you mean?

Tech support: "P"... on your keyboard, Bob.

Customer: I´M NOT GOING TO DO THAT!

Gerrit de Leeuw forwards this story about

GRANDPA

Grandma and Grandpa were visiting their kids overnight when Grandpa found a bottle of Viagra in his son´s medicine cabinet. He asked about using one of the pills. The son said, "I don´t think you should take one, Dad; they´re very strong and very expensive."

"How much?" asked Grandpa.

"$10 a pill," answered the son.

"I don´t care," said Grandpa. "I´d still like to try one, and before we leave in the morning, I´ll put the money under the pillow."

Later the next morning, the son found $110 under the pillow. He called Grandpa and said, "I told you each pill was $10, not $110."

I know," said Grandpa. "The hundred is from Grandma."

Marilyn Magid reminds us of a site I have often mentioned in the past:

THE BREAST CANCER SITE

The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle). This doesn´t cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammograms in exchange for advertising.

Here´s the website: http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/

ED. NOTE: And while you are there, why not click on the other five sites? It takes me less than a minute to click on them all every day.

CHRIS BLISS, JUGGLER AND DREAMER

If you would like to watch Chris juggle again, go to this site sent by Carol Hansen:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4776181634656145640

If you wish to hear a radio interview with him, you will learn about that juggling act, and about Bliss´ efforts to put up monuments to the American Bill of Rights, in this time of the erosion of those guaranteed freedoms:

http://www.sonnyradio.com/chrisbliss.htm

You can also read this newsletter online at http://members.shaw.ca/vjsansum/index.htm and http://www.nw-seniorsonline.org/stories.html

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18."