Here There and Everywhere

Expat wanderer

Lexiograms

My friend KitKat is on a roll. She knows how much I love words and puns and groaners (jokes so bad they make you groan because you don’t see ’em coming). Thank you, KitKat!

Lexiograms

1. A bicycle can’t stand alone because it is two-tired.

2. What’s the definition of a will? It’s a dead giveaway.

3. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

4. She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.

5. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

6. If you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.

7. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

8. When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.

9. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.

10. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

11. He often broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.

12. A lot of money is tainted. ‘Taint yours and ‘taint mine.

13. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

14. He had a photographic memory that was never developed.

15. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

16. When you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall.

17. Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.

18. When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.

19. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.

20. Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.

September 29, 2007 Posted by | Education, Humor, Joke, Language, Words | 4 Comments

Understanding Engineers

Thank you, KitKat, for sending me these. Nice to start the day with a grin! 🙂

One:

Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said,
“Where did you get such a great bike?”

The second engineer replied, “Well, I was walking along yesterday
minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike.
She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said,
“Take what you want.”

The second engineer nodded approvingly, “Good choice; the clothes
probably wouldn’t have fit.”

Understanding Engineers – Take Two:

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is
half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to
be.

Understanding Engineers – Take Three:

A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a
particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, “What’s with
these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!”

The doctor chimed in, “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such
ineptitude!”

The pastor said, “Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let’s have a word
with him.” [dramatic pause] “Hi George, say, what’s with that group
ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t they?”

The greens keeper replied, “Oh, yes, that’s a group of blind
firefighters lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last
year, so we always let them play for free anytime.”

The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said, “That’s so sad. I
think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.”

The doctor said, “Good idea. And I’m going to contact my
ophthalmologist buddy and see if there’s anything he can do for them.”

The engineer said, “Why can’t these guys play at night?”

Understanding Engineers – Take Four:

There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things
mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he
happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding
a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their
multimillion dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone
else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they
called on the retired engineer who had solved so
many of their problems in the past.

The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying
the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small “x” in chalk
on a particular component of the machine and stated, “This is where your
problem is.” The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly
again.

The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his
service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges.

The engineer responded briefly: “One chalk mark, $1.00. Knowing where
to put it $49, 999.00.”

It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.

Understanding Engineers – Take Five:

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil
Engineers?

Mechanical Engineers build weapons. Civil Engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers – Take Six:

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the
possible designers of the human body. One said, “It was a mechanical
engineer. Just look at all the joints. ”

Another said, “No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system
has many thousands of electrical connections.”

The last said, “Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a
toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?”

Understanding Engineers – Take Seven:

Normal people believe that …if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Engineers believe that: “…if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough
features yet.”-Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle

Understanding Engineers – Take Eight:

An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was
better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he
enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring
relationship.

The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the
passion and mystery he found there.

The engineer said, “I like both.”

The others: “Both?”

Engineer: “Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each
assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the
lab and get some work done.”

Understanding Engineers – Take Nine:

An engineer was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him
and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess.” He bent
over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up
again and said, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful
princess, I will stay with you for one week.” The engineer took the frog
out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog
then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I’ll
stay with you and do ANYTHING you want.” Again the engineer took the
frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the
frog asked, “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess,
that I’ll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won’t
you kiss me?”

The engineer said, “Look I’m an engineer. I don’t have time for a
girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that’s cool.”

September 27, 2007 Posted by | Building, Communication, Cross Cultural, Education, Entertainment, Humor, Joke | 12 Comments

Wooo Hooooo Doctor Diamond!

I am bursting with pride. And she’s not MY daughter, I have nothing to do with her success, she’s done this all on her own. My niece, Little Diamond is now DOCTOR DIAMOND!

I don’t imagine I will remember to think of her as Doctor Diamond all the time; I will probably still call her Little Diamond.

Little Diamond, Doctor Diamond, we are all so proud of you. We dance of joy at your accomplishment, and your determination, and how very very GOOD you are! Wooo Hooooooooo!

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So here is something very cool. There is a Wikipedia article that tells you all about academic dress for different levels of educational attainment. In the olden days, and at a very few universities today, gowns (like robes, kind of like abyaa3t) are worn to classes. With each level you attain – Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, Doctorate – you get to wear different additions – capes, hoods, etc.

Most of the time you never get a chance to wear them again after graduation. Unless you are an academic, and then you wear them for every university graduation. It is particularly colorful when all the professors troop in, very medieval, wearing their university colors and their degree colors (yes, those are different.)

Woooo Hooooo, Doctor Diamond, c’mon over here and we will have a robe made of silk with sparkles on it! Adventure Man asks if we get a family discount for consultations?

September 15, 2007 Posted by | Bureaucracy, Cross Cultural, Education, Generational, Relationships, Women's Issues | 11 Comments

You Want to Learn Pallet Dancing?

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September 7, 2007 Posted by | Arts & Handicrafts, Communication, Cross Cultural, Education, ExPat Life, Kuwait, Words | 12 Comments

Get an Early Lead and Hold It

The title line is from an old joke: a high school football coach tells his team the secret of winning – Get an early lead and hold it.

Many of you have asked about why it even matters to me what the Yemeni Star is all about. So I am going to tell you a secret from my childhood, a secret that got me through school with good grades.

It’s in two parts. The first is about getting an early lead – it’s called The Halo Effect and it is like getting an early lead and holding it. You work really hard and get good grades when you are young, and those early grades influence the later graders to give you the benefit of the doubt as you move up the grades. It doesn’t always work, but often enough that it has been given it’s own name.

The second secret is to develop an area of interest to YOU. For me, it was the stars. I loved (and still love!) stars, constellations, comets, heavenly rhythms, music of the planets, etc. For me it is God’s hand on this vast, cosmic scale. So I first started writing early reports on stars, constellations, etc. You know, how you have to write science projects?

From the constellations, I branched out into mythology – what a great study. So many references in daily life and literature refer to mythical beings and happenings, and if you don’t have a clue, you miss a whole level of richness. Like if someone refers to a Sisyphusian endeavor, you don’t have to run go look it up, you know they are referring to an almost impossible task. Between astronomy and mythology, there was enough material that I could take previous reports every year and ramp ’em up for the next year. I usually learned something, but the most important thing I learned was that I could succeed without having to re-invent the wheel every year.

If you can develop a particular field that interests you, your school life can be a lot more interesting. And believe me, we all know how deadening the school experience can be, unless you have really good teachers who can make it come alive for you. You have the most amazing tools available to you – a world of information, via the ‘net, and GoogleEarth – GoogleSky,, Wikipedia, and all kinds of illustrations available to add depth to your papers and reports. You are truly a generation who can have a lot of fun learning, if you take responsibility for your own education.

(Big hurrahs and shouts out here for Elijah, Swair, Magical Droplets,, MacoholicQ8, and all my other teaching friends, my classroom-warriors friends, heading back to do battle with and enlighten reluctant minds; you are my heroes!)

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September 7, 2007 Posted by | Alaska, Biography, Bureaucracy, Community, Cross Cultural, Education, Family Issues, GoogleEarth, Statistics, Tools, Uncategorized | 9 Comments