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IN THIS ISSUE

• Jacqui Knight has learned much from animals
• No Easter would be complete without its Easter bunny story
• Anita Henderson forwards a man´s comments on women drivers
• Jack Peaker admits that grandmothers don´t know everything
• Bruce Galway´s story claims that technology isn´t always the answer
• Gerrit de Leeuw tells about a senior´s excuse for fast driving
• Marco or Kinga de Muinck suggest politically correct expressions
• Jay has found a source for cheaper ink cartridges

Jacqui Knight, an adventurous woman from New Zealand, tells of the

LESSONS LEARNED FROM ANIMALS

Throughout my life animals have taught me some valuable lessons:

As children, my brothers and I learned about Nature, about animals. We always had pets. We were taught to respect animals, even the tiniest insects, and how to help plants grow. We were taught that everything had its place and its purpose.

One lesson I learned from the bumblebee. Do you know that NASA engineers, highly qualified scientists, have proven, without doubt, that the bumblebee is too big and poorly designed to fly? Itąs true.

The problem is, nobody has told the bumblebee that.

When I thought about that, I learned that all things are possible. You can do anything you want to in this life if you believe you can, and have faith.

We had a wonderful bach (beach house) south of Auckland city, and entertainment often meant wandering the beach and investigating rock pools. One day I learned a valuable lesson about making a difference. There was a woman walking along a beach, a beach covered with starfish after a storm. And as she walked along, this woman would stoop down, pick up a starfish, and throw it back into the ocean.

A man came up to her and asked why she was bothering about throwing them back when there were so many how could it possibly make a difference?

The woman picked up the very next starfish, threw it back into the ocean, and said, "It made a difference to that one."

I´d like to introduce you to five much bigger animals that have played a very important part in my life. In fact, for almost a year, my life depended on them and they got me into - and out of - all sorts of adventures, when I rode horseback the length of New Zealand. ( http://www.bitbybit.co.nz/jacquisjourney/pics.php)

First of all, I set off on my beautiful chestnut mare, Rosie. Now as you can see, she is beautiful, but she has a terrible thing about her, she is very vain. This wasnąt a problem I recognised when we lived and rode out in the country, and she didnąt know how beautiful she was. But when we started riding through towns she would admire herself in shop windows, and while she was admiring herself, she would often trip over her feet! Then she fell in love with my packhorse Doug, and she was quite besotted with him. In trying to catch up with him all the time, she would often cut corners of the track, and she soon had a horrible fall.

What´s the saying, "pride goeth before a fall"? She taught me a lot about looks not being so important!

Doug was my packhorse. When I bought him he was the plainest, dullest horse you could ever imagine. But I changed his name to "Kia Kaha", which means "be strong", because he had to be. He was carrying my bags.

He was a failed trotter, and was destined for the meatworks. But he took on a new lease of life and turned out to be Mr Personality.

Doug taught me about greed, and cunning, and fear.

When I bought him he would have spent most of his life in flat paddocks, or trotting flat tack around flat racecourses. Then I took him up and down hills, and round bends and on all sorts of surfaces. And took him on a beach, where he couldnąt believe his eyes the ocean and the waves!

The first time we came to a creek, he stopped suddenly and my arm stretched out and I lost hold of his rope. Fortunately he didnąt run away, and I had to ride back and get him again, and this time I wound his rope around my saddle and he had to follow Rosie or his head would have fallen off.

He soon learned he could play the same trick when he saw a patch of lush green grass beside the road. He would just stop and put his head down and start eating. When I rode back to get him he learned that if he flicked his head out of reach, I couldnąt catch him again and he could snatch a few more mouthfuls. I had to get off and stand on the end of his rope and then "wind him in" like a fish.

Well, pretty soon his rope got very worn from being dragged along, as he tried to keep eating grass and evading me, so I replaced his rope with a very shiny, very white one.

Now the next time he played his trick, and he flicked his head, at the same time a snake yes, you didnąt know we had snakes in New Zealand, did you! A very white, very shiny snake leapt up at his head, so he flicked his head the other way, and the snake leapt up at that side too. So he started running down the road away from the snake, but just as fast as he ran, the the snake chased him.

I eventually caught him!

To be concluded.

ED. NOTE: For a picture of Jacqui´s companions on her epic journey, go to the pictorial page of Jay´s site: http://members.shaw.ca/vjsansum/index.htm

Here is a story about

THE EASTER BUNNY

A man was blissfully driving along the highway when he saw the Easter Bunny hopping across the middle of the road. He swerved to avoid hitting the bunny, but unfortunately the rabbit jumped in front of his car and was hit. The basket of eggs went flying all over the place, and there was candy everywhere. The driver, being a sensitive man as well as an animal lover, pulled over to the side of the road and got out to see what had become of the bunny carrying the basket. Much to his dismay, the colorful bunny was dead. The driver felt guilty and began to cry.

A woman driving down the same highway saw the man crying by the side of the road and pulled over. She stepped out of her car and asked the man what was wrong.

"I feel just terrible," he explained. "I accidentally hit the Easter Bunny and killed him. There may not be an Easter because of me. What should I do?"

The woman told the man not to worry. She knew exactly what to do. She went to her car trunk and pulled out a spray can. She walked over to the limp, dead bunny, and sprayed the entire contents of the can over the little animal. Miraculously the Easter Bunny came back to life, jumped up, picked up the spilled eggs and candy, waved its paw at the two humans, and hopped on down the road. Fifty yards away, the Easter Bunny stopped, turned around, waved and hopped on down the road for another fifty yards, turned, waved, hopped another fifty yards, turned and waved again! The man was astonished. He said to the woman, "What in heaven´s name is in your spray can?"

The woman turned the can around so that the man could read the label. It said, "Hair Spray. Restores life to dead hair. Adds permanent wave."

Anita Henderson forwards this typical reaction to

WOMEN DRIVERS

This morning on the freeway, I looked over to my left and there was a woman in a brand new Cadillac doing 65 mph with her face up next to her rear-view mirror, putting on her eyeliner. I looked away for a couple of seconds and when I looked back she was halfway over in my lane, still working on that makeup. As a man I don´t scare easily. But she scared me so much I dropped my electric shaver, which knocked the donut out of my other hand. In all the confusion of trying to straighten out the car using my knees against the steering wheel, I knocked my cell phone away from my ear, which fell into the coffee between my legs, splashed and burned Big Jim and the twins, ruined the phone, soaked my trousers, and disconnected an important call.

Damn women drivers!

These are not new, but they are still funny:

AIRLINER HUMOUR

Tower: "Delta 351, you have traffic at 10 o´clock, 6 miles!" Delta 351: "Give us another hint! We have digital watches!"

One day, the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of the runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed, rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee. Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radio and said, "What a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?" Our hero, the Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with a real zinger: "I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like that and I´ll have enough parts for another one."

There´s a story about the military pilot calling for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked". Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down. "Ah", the pilot remarked, "the dreaded seven-engine approach".

Jerry, a student pilot, became lost during a solo cross-country flight. While attempting to locate the aircraft on radar, ATC asked, "What was your last known position?" Student: "When I was number one for takeoff."

Taxiing down the tarmac, the DC10 abruptly stopped, turned around and returned to the gate. After a hour-long wait, it finally took off. A concerned passenger asked the flight attendant, "What was the problem?" "The pilot was bothered by a noise he heard in the engine," explained the flight attendant," and it took us a while to find a new pilot."

"Flight 2341, for noise abatement turn right 45 degrees...." "But Center, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up here?" "Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"

Jack Peaker and many others forward this claim:

GRANDMA DOESN´T KNOW EVERYTHING

Little Tony was staying with his grandmother for a few days. He´d been playing outside with the other kids for a while when he came into the house and asked her, "Grandma, what is that called when two people are sleeping in the same room and one is on top of the other?"

She was a little taken aback, but decided to tell him the truth. "It´s called sexual intercourse, darling."

Little Tony just said, "Oh, OK," and went back outside to talk and play with the other kids.

A few minutes later he came back in and said angrily, "Grandma, it is not called sexual intercourse! It´s called bunk beds! And Jimmy´s Mom wants to talk to you!"

Bruce Galway sends this story, which illustrates that there is life beyond technology:

A SHORT STORY WITH A LESSON

An unemployed man goes to try for a job with Microsoft as a cleaner (Section Floors, sweeping and cleaning).

The manager there arranges for an aptitude test. After the test, the manager says "You will be appointed on the scale of $30 per day. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I can send you a form to complete and advise you where to report for work on your first day."

Taken aback, the unemployed man protests that he is neither in possession of a computer nor of an e-mail address.

To this the MS manager replies: "Well, then, that really means you virtually don´t exist and can therefore hardly expect to be employed."

Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and only having about $10 left in his pocket, he decides to buy a 10 kg box of tomatoes at the supermarket.

Within less than 2 hours, he sells the tomatoes singly at 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 before going to sleep that night.

Thus it dawns on the man that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up early and earlier every day and going to bed late and later, he multiplies his hoard of profits in quite a short time.

Not too long thereafter, he acquires a cart to transport several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again shortly afterwards on a pick-up truck. By the end of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pick-up trucks and manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes.

Considering the future of his wife and children, the Tomato Millionaire decides to buy some life insurance. Calling an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances.

At the end of the telephone conversation, the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order that he might forward the documentation.

When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the insurance adviser is stunned: "What, you mean to say you don´t even have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Can you imagine where you would have been by now, if you had been connected from the very start!"

After a moment´s silence, the tomato millionaire replied: "Sure! I would have been a cleaner at Microsoft!"

Morals of the story:

1: The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.

2: If you don´t have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a millionaire.

3: Seeing that you got this story via e-mail, you´re probably closer to becoming a cleaner than you are to becoming a millionaire.

Gerrit de Leeuw tells the story of a

QUICK-THINKING SENIOR

An Alberta senior citizen bought a brand new Corvette convertible. He took off down #2 Hwy, speeding at 140 kph, enjoying the wind blowing through what little hair he had left on his head.

"This is great," he thought as he roared down the highway. He pushed the pedal to the metal even more. Then he looked in his rear view mirror and discovered an RCMP Highway Patrol car right behind him, blue lights flashing and siren blaring.

"I can get away from him with no problem," thought the man. He pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, and flew down the highway at 180 kph. Then 190, and 220.

Then he thought, "What am I doing? I´m too old for this kind of thing." So he pulled over to the side of the road, and waited for the officer to catch up with him.

The officer pulled in behind the Corvette, and calmly walked up to the driver´s door. "Sir," he said, looking at his watch. "My shift ends in 20 minutes. If you can explain why you were speeding away from me, with an excuse that I´ve never heard before, I´ll let you go."

The man looked at the officer and said, "Ten years ago, my wife ran off with an RCMP Highway Patrol Officer, and I thought you were bringing her back."

"Have a good day, sir," said the officer, "and drive carefully."

Marco or Kinga de Muinck sends these

POLITICALLY CORRECT EXPRESSIONS

How to speak about women and be politically correct:

1. She is not a "babe" or a "chick" - She is a "breasted American".

2. She is not a "screamer" or a "moaner" - She is "vocally appreciative".

3. She is not "easy" - She is "horizontally available".

4. She is not a "dumb blonde" - She is a "light-haired detour off the information highway".

5. She has not "been around" - She is a "previously-enjoyed companion ".

6. She is not an "airhead" - She is "reality impaired".

7. She does not get "drunk" or "tipsy" - She gets "chemically inconvenienced".

8. She does not have "breast implants" - She is "medically enhanced".

9. She does not "nag" you - She becomes "verbally repetitive".

10. She is not a "tramp" - She is "sexually extroverted".

11. She does not have "major league hooters" - She is "pectorally superior".

12. She is not a "two-bit hooker" - She is a "low cost provider".

How to speak about men and be politically correct:

1. He does not have a "beer gut" - He has developed a "liquid grain storage facility".

2. He is not a "bad dancer" - He is "overly Caucasian".

3. He does not "get lost all the time" - He "investigates alternative destinations".

4. He is not "balding" - He is in "follicle regression".

5. He is not a "cradle robber" - He prefers "generational differential relationships".

6. He does not get "falling down drunk" - He becomes "accidentally horizontal".

7. He does not act like a "total ass" - He develops a case of "rectal-cranial inversion".

8. He is not a "male chauvenist pig" - He has "swine empathy".

9. He is not "afraid of commitment" - He is "relationship challenged".

10. He is not "horny" - He is "sexually focused".

You are undoubtedly aware that it is often cheaper to buy a new printer than it is to buy....

REPLACEMENT INK CARTRIDGES

Jay writes: I decided to see if I could find cheaper ink cartridges available in Canada. This is the site I found:

http://www.blankdvdmedia.com/

They sell DVDs, CDs, photo paper, and of course, ink cartridges. I looked up prices for an old printer and found that the cost for the colour and black cartridges combined was less than I paid for the colour cartridge I bought a while ago.

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."