12 days of Christmas ~ What REALLY happened!! ~ Early Evening Thoughts

You won't see this on a TV commercial - when gift-giving goes wrong - horribly wrong!!

The Twelve Days of Christmas ~
What Really Happened...

Letter sent on the first day of Christmas...

Miss Jennifer Masters
227 Aggar Avenue
Bigfork, Montana


December 14, 2000

Dearest John:

I went to the door today and the postman delivered a partridge in a pear tree. What a thoroughly delightful gift. I couldn't have been more surprised.
With deepest love and devotion,
Jennifer

Letter mailed on the second day of Christmas...

Miss Jennifer Masters
227 Aggar Avenue
Bigfork, Montana

December 15, 2000

Dearest John:

Today the postman brought your very sweet gift. Just imagine two turtle doves. I'm just delighted at your very thoughtful gift. They are just adorable.
All my love,
Jennifer


Letter sent on the third day of Christmas...

Miss Jennifer Masters
227 Aggar Avenue
Bigfork, Montana

December 16, 2000

Dearest John:

Oh! Aren't you the extravagant one. Now I really must protest. I don't deserve such generosity, Three French hens. They are just darling but I must insist, you've been too kind.
Love,
Jennifer

Letter mailed on the fourth day of Christmas...

Miss Jennifer Masters
227 Aggar Avenue
Bigfork, Montana

December 17, 2000

Dear John,

Today the postman delivered 4 calling birds. Now really, they are beautiful but don't you think enough is enough. You're being too romantic.
Affectionately,
Jennifer

Letter mailed on the fifth day of Christmas...

Miss Jennifer Masters
227 Aggar Avenue
Bigfork, Montana

December 18, 2000

Dearest John:

What a surprise. Today the postman delivered 5 golden rings; one for every finger. You're just impossible, but I love it. Frankly, all those birds squawking were beginning to get on my nerves.
All my love,
Jennifer

Letter mailed on the sixth day of Christmas...

Miss Jennifer Masters
227 Aggar Avenue
Bigfork, Montana

December 19, 2000

Dear John:

When I opened the door there were actually 6 geese a-laying on my front steps. So, you're back to the birds again, huh? Those geese are huge. Where will I ever keep them? The neighbors are complaining and I can't sleep through the racket.
Please stop.

Cordially,
Jennifer

Letter mailed on the seventh day of Christmas...

Miss Jennifer Masters
227 Aggar Avenue
Bigfork, Montana

December 20, 2000

John:

What's with you and those crazy birds? 7 swans a-swimming. What kind of terrible joke is this? There's bird droppings and worse all over the house, and they never stop with the racket. I can't sleep at night and I'm a nervous wreck. It's not funny. So stop sending me all these birds!
Sincerely,
Jennifer

Letter mailed by special delivery the eighth day of Christmas...

Miss Jennifer Masters
227 Aggar Avenue
Bigfork, Montana

December 21, 2000

O.K. Buster:

I think I prefer the birds. What am I going to do with 8 maids a-milking? It's not enough with all those birds and 8 maids a-milking, but they had to bring their cows! There is crap all over the lawn and I can't move in my own house.
Just lay off me,smart ass.
Jennifer

Letter mailed (return receipt requested) the ninth day of Christmas...

Miss Jennifer Masters
227 Aggar Avenue
Bigfork, Montana

December 22, 2000

Hey! Flushing Toilet for Brains,
What are you? Some kind of sadist? Now there's 9 pipers playing. And boy, do they play. They've never stopped chasing those maids since they got here yesterday morning. The cows are getting upset, and they're stepping all over those screeching birds. What am I going to do? The neighbors have started a petition to evict me.
You'll get yours,
Jennifer

Letter sent by overnight courier the tenth day of Christmas...

Miss Jennifer Masters
227 Aggar Avenue
Bigfork, Montana

December 23, 2000

You Rotten Sadist,
Now there's 10 ladies dancing. I don't know why I call those sluts ladies. They've been messing with those pipers all night long. Now the cows can't sleep and they've got the diarrhea. My living room buried in soft cow pies. The Commissioner of Buildings has subpoenaed me to give cause why this building shouldn't be condemned.
I'm sicking the police on you.
One who means it.

Letter sent by telegram the eleventh day of Christmas...

Miss Jennifer Masters
227 Aggar Avenue
Bigfork, Montana

December 24, 2000

Listen! Loser,
What's with the 11 lords a-leaping on those maids and ladies. Some of them are considering filing sexual harassment charges against ME for having those #@$*() lords! Those pipers ran through the maids and I'm convinced are beginning to think about the cows. All 23 of the birds are dead. They've been trampled to death in the mayhem. I hope you're satisfied,you rotten, vicious swine.
Your sworn enemy,
Jennifer

Letter hand delivered by a sheriff's deputy the twelfth day of Christmas...

Law Offices
Badger, Bender and Cajole
303 Knave Street
Chicago, Illinois

December 25, 2000

Dear Sir:
This is to acknowledge your latest gift of 12 fiddlers fiddling which you have seen fit to inflict on our client, Miss Jennifer Masters. The destruction of the house, of course, was total. All future correspondence should come to our attention. If you should attempt to reach Miss Masters at Happy Valley Sanitarium, the attendants have instructions to shoot you on sight.
Please note that under separate cover, the deputy who delivered this has a warrant for your arrest.
Wishing you the best for the holidays!
Badger, Bender and Cajole

Helping The Gene Pool ~ Early Evening Thoughts

I have to admit I've been watching a lot more "news" television than I should over the last several days. I've reached a stage of "You have GOT to be kidding me" over what the talking, frothing heads are choosing to be talking and frothing about. I really was needing something to make the day(s) better - something to offer some kind of hope.

Even though it's too early for the official "Darwin Awards" - they will come probably in January, there are some nominations that I thought I might share. The published purpose of the awards is stated quite simply:

The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of
the human genome by honoring those who
accidentally remove themselves from it...

These stories have been verified and are not urban legend. . . .

(July 16, 2008, Italy) Ivece Plattner, 68, was queued at a traffic light in his Porsche Cayenne sportscar. Before one reaches the light, there is a railroad crossing. As you might imagine, given Murphy's law, a train was coming.

The man did not let the queue progress forward far enough before he crossed the railroad. The safety bars came down, leaving the Porsche trapped on the rails. It took the driver awhile to realize he was stuck, according to witnesses. Finally, he jumped from the car and started to run -- toward the oncoming train, waving his arms in an attempt to save his car!

The attempt was successful. The car received less damage than its owner. He was pushed hard enough to land 30 meters away, and attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.

---

(8 March 2008, Czech Republic) Steel is valuable, especially the high grade alloy used in steel cable. Scrap metal dealers do not ask questions. They pay in cash. And a good supply of cables can be found in elevator shafts.

This particular goldmine was a towering shaft inside an empty grainery near Zatec, 40 miles northwest of Prague. The cable was tightly fastened, and the far end of it disappeared into the shadowy distance above.

After substantial wear and tear on a hacksaw, our man finally cut through the strong steel cable. At that instant, the counterbalance, no longer held in check, started to move silently downwards, accelerating until it reached the bottom of the shaft.

Result: one proud winner of a "terminal velocity" Darwin Award.

R.I.P.

---

The telephone company was replacing above-ground telephone lines with buried lines. In one sparsely populated farming area, if lines crossed a country road they would dig a trench halfway across, so rural traffic could continue through. Then they would fill in the trench, and dig a trench on the other side.

One morning, local farmers called the sheriff to report a smashed-up pickup. Inside were two ranch hands who were last seen the previous night, heading home after last call. You see...

On their way to the bars, the men had decided to play a prank. They stopped their pickup, and moved the flashing warning signs from the trenched side to the good side of the country road. Crime scene analysis later confirmed that they were the culprits who moved the flashing stands. Investigations also revealed that at the time of the accident, they were driving at an excessive speed with an impressive amount of alcohol in their systems.

No crime scene analysis is capable of determining whether the ranch hands forgot their prank, or chose to see what would happen if they hit that trench at a high rate of speed in the middle of the night.

No good prank goes unpunished.

---

Snowmobiles and alcohol are a dangerous mix. Then came the rabbit.

After a day spent partying and racing snowmobiles in the wilderness, a group of snowmobilers were headed back to their cabin, when up popped a jackrabbit! They gave chase. Several collisions were narrowly averted, and so all the snowmobiles backed off... except one.

This snowmobiler kept his eye on the quarry and rapidly closed in. The rabbit darted aside to save itself. The snowmobiler closed in again. The rabbit ran toward the road, where there was less snow. Trying to ram his rabbit before it crossed the road, the man accelerated to Mach 1.

But the rabbit had other ideas. It darted into the culvert beneath the road. Witnesses stated that the snowmobiler never even braked. There was a metallic crunch as the accelerating vehicle rammed into the culvert, followed by a blast that shattered the snowmobile into a thousand bits.

This brand of snowmobile had a fuel tank mounted in front. The culvert admitted the tip of the snowmobile, then cut into the cowling, spilling fuel over the hot engine. The body of the snowmobiler was blown twenty feet back into the field.

The rabbit's whereabouts was unknown.

---Rare Double Darwin!

Three hale and hearty young men had finished their basic training. Before heading out to their respective assignments, they decided to spend their few days of leave with one's grandmother, who lived in the town where they had completed basic training. The privates descended upon Grandmother, who filled them with home cooking and gave them soft beds to sleep in. Grandmother had a swing job to make ends meet, so the privates were left alone late into the night.

How could they repay her for her kindness?

Grandmother had three children. To commemorate the birth of each child, a pine tree had been planted in the front yard. In the fifty years since the last tree was planted, the pines had grown considerably, and the middle tree now blocked the view from the living room window. The privates decided that they would cut down that tree, letting the sun and the view into the room.

A case of beer went into the planning.

To keep the 50-foot tree from crushing the house, the privates reasoned that they would tie a rope to the top of the tree and pull the rope away from the house as the tree was cut.

The middle pine tree, the doomed one, was slightly closer to the house than the other two. The privates climbed an end tree, wound a rope through its upper branches, and threw the rope to a private in the middle tree. He tied the rope around the trunk. By this device, they could pull the rope from the ground. The middle pine tree would fall away from the house, and the privates were also clear of the path of the falling tree.

Climbing a pine tree is very sappy work, and scrapes and gouges are infliced by the natural roughness of its bark. But the hale and hearty privates completed the preliminaries without complaint. The middle tree was lassoed and levered by the rope running through the end tree.

So far, so good.

Two privates were situated on the ground, each straining to pull the tree away from Grandmother's house. The third private revved his 20 HP chainsaw and started to cut. Lo and behold, the tree actually fell away from Grandmother's house! However...

The rope-pulling privates had wrapped the rope around their waists, not considering that the falling pine weighed several tons. As the middle pine tree fell, both privates were ripped off their feet and smashed through the branches of the end pine tree. At the height of their acceleration, they broke through the top branches of the tree, and were briefly airborne before being jerked toward the earth when the middle tree hit the ground. The privates entered into Darwin history, either on the way up through the branches or on the way down to the cold, hard ground.

The event spoke for itself.

---

Somehow not being able to get the garland hung outside today seems to pale in comparison.

A Politically Correct ... Holiday ~ Early Evening Thoughts

The holiday season approaches, and the mail deadlines loom; yesterday was the last day to send regular mail to arrive for the holidays. While we sing of "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to non-gender specific personages," I thought it would be good time to look over somethings about what now has to be a politically correct holiday!

Here's something for that last minute gift:



Should you go a'caroling, I would be remiss if I didn't give you the correct version to sing:

Deck The Halls

Kristine Austin

This song uses the Spanish protocol endings on the refrain:
"Fa la la la la, la la la la-" Feminine
"Fo lo lo lo lo, lo lo lo lo-" Masculine

Deck the halls with boughs of non-endangered plant species
Fa la la la la, la la la la

'Tis the season to be self-actualizing
Fo lo lo lo lo, lo lo lo lo

Don we now our alternate-lifestyle apparel
Fa la la la la, la la la la

Toll the ancient non-sectarian-winter-solstice-equal opportunity holiday carol
Fo lo lo lo lo, lo lo lo lo

See the blazing log of non-sectarian-winter-solstice-holiday-non-endangered wood before us,
Fa la la la la, la la la la

Play the harp without unnecessary brutality and join the new paradigm chorus
Fo lo lo lo lo, lo lo lo lo

Sing we emotionally stable in a collective group effort,
Fa la la la la la la la la

Heedless of the weather patterns despite the effects of global warming,
Fo lo lo lo lo, lo lo lo lo

Fast away the mature year passes
Fa la la la la la la la la

Hail the new year without any implicit ageism, ye persons
Fo lo lo lo lo, lo lo lo lo

Dance in a non-hierarchical manner in merry esoteric measure,
Fa la la la la la la la la

While I tell of non-materialistic, non-sectarian-winter-solstice-holiday treasure,
Fo lo lo lo lo, lo lo lo lo

And hopefully, your cards will reflect the new found sense of the time of year.

A Politically Correct
Holiday (or no holiday) Greeting

Best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most joyous traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, but with respect for the religious persuasion of others who choose to practice their own religion as well as those who choose not to practice a religion at all;

Additionally, a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society great, without regard to the race, creed, color, religious, or sexual preferences of the wishes.

(Disclaimer: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.)


---this is a repeat, but bears repeating!!

Blue, Blue - My Love Is Blue ~ Early Evening Thoughts

After having been away for a "few" weeks, I thought my return to the blog would be somewhat unnoticed. Two emails quickly settled that idea. So, as promised ~ an explanation of "blue" ice . . . And while I explain this, my vice-president is at an undisclosed secure location.

In the 80's I worked for a major airline. Which one is somewhat immaterial, but I will offer the hint that it was in bankruptcy at the time with the pilots doing very interesting things to let everyone know we were operating that way.

Those of us in reservations were an unusual group of people. Because we were not at the airport, we were considered somewhat apart from the rest of the world. Although, in our customers minds we were the ticket counter and as such should be able to see people who were there or, in one case find out if someone had left a briefcase on the floor. I was sitting next to the person who got that call, and hear him say: "OK, let me look - OMG someone just walked off with it . . . " When he finally got the person on the phone calmed down and got him convinced that indeed he really wasn't at the airport and wasn't able to check for the missing item - he'd earned a trip to his supervisor. . . and not a pleasant one either.

As reservation agents we had a fairly powerful reservation system to use. We had access to multiple "windows" which allowed us to look up various types of information and display them all on the same screen. We could look up flights in one, fares in another, airport weather in yet another and return flights in a fourth.

As reservation agents we were supposed to only work on screens that had to do with the business of reservations. Alas for the airline, that was NOT the case. It wasn't too long after I started working there that I was introduced to the "dark side" of the system. (cue theme from Jaws here. . . )

We were connected to the various airports, hotels and car companies who all had sites resident in the system. There was no Expedia/Travelocity connection that allowed someone to go directly to another reservation system. All entries involving cars, hotels or such involved requesting what you wanted and pushing enter. At that point an electronic message would be sent (as I told my travel academy students) to the Valhalla of all computer requests - Actually ARINC (Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated)located in Chicago who would, in their own sweet time, send back an answer.

That's a long way around to say that hotels and cars kept quite a bit of detailed information available - all on "pages." They were updated by that company or by the airline itself. What was discovered was that - with a specific entry - we as reservation agents could update them as well. And a completely immediate, unmanageable and totally private system of IM's were born.

One that was used a lot was XXX car company - page 100. That XXX would ever get to that page was pretty slim - as in none. The chance that the reservations office supervisors or later the travel academy people would discover what was going on - even less.

That was an amazing world - IM's before IM's had even been invented, conversations with people from all over who knew of the place and some very seedy, funny and downright erotic stories and such. The kind of talk that would get one banned from AOL ... but very few knew about it.

That, however, is for a later post -- especially how those private conversations came back to bite me in the butt and cost me a job.

Blue Ice - quoting from Wikipedia: "Blue ice in the context of aviation is the frozen material formed by leaks in commercial aircraft lavatory waste tanks, a mixture of human waste and liquid disinfectant that freezes at high altitude. The name comes from the blue color of the disinfectant, and is a sardonic reference to the Blue Ice line of products used for cooling ice chests and similar applications.

Airlines are not allowed to dump their waste tanks in mid-flight, and pilots have no mechanism by which to do so; however, leaks can occur. There were at least 27 documented incidents of blue ice impacts in the United States between 1979 and 2003. These incidents typically happen under airport landing paths as the mass warms sufficiently to detach from the plane during its descent. A rare incident of falling blue ice causing damage to the roof of a home was reported on October 20, 2006 in Chino, California.

On January 28, 2007 at the Timberlanes subdivision in Tampa, Florida, under the approach path to Tampa International Airport, a red Mustang automobile owned by Andres Javaze was struck by a large block of ice estimated at 50 pounds which crushed the rear of the vehicle. A neighbor named Raymond Rodriguez reported hearing a whistling or whizzing noise as the ice fell from the sky before impact and watched as it smashed the vehicle. However, the chunk of ice was not blue and is not thought to have fallen from an airplane. The incident is being investigated by the FAA.

Blue ice became known to many people from the last 2003 episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under, in which a foot-sized chunk drops on an innocent bystander. It is also the title of a 1992 film where Michael Caine's character describes the concept of blue ice,and it also described on the tv show MANswers ."

Now, as reservation agents we had access to a lot of information, but nothing that involved maintenance or inner workings of the airport. . . until someone discovered that (long before blogs) someone at the airport was writing the "Blue Ice Newsletter" in the computer. Whoever was writing this had an acid sense of humor, biting wit and a complete command of what was happening on the ground/tarmac and mechanics role in the controlled chaos.

Who knew that airplane parts were interchangeable from one type of airplane to another? Who knew that "tug" operators (those zippy little luggage and plane pushing/hauling carts) could do so much damage. Who knew that it was possible for a few mechanics to service more planes than they should have - and get them in the air. Who knew that by canceling a return flight of an overseas trip, they were cannibalizing the parts into other aircraft - sending them on their way and when they returned, the parts would be pulled and the return trip of the overseas flight would "continue."

The author of "Blue Ice" knew, and it was written in black and white - well, more green - and was intended for airport personnel only. Don't ever put a members only sign on a site like that - at that time reservations would find out about it and pile in. And we did. We could find out about cancellations before anyone else and other interesting tidbits about what to fly and what might be best avoided.

Ever since then - "blue ice" has come to mean to me, something that simply continues to unfold in a highly dramatic and damaging way. Something that appears to be complete chaos - without form and void. Something that will simply not go away. Even when the tanks have been pumped. (OK, just how did you think those tanks on aircraft got emptied? By the blue ice elves?)

And since it's a mixture of excrement and disinfectant - the analogy is right there in plane plain sight.

--- more to come

Just A Thought ~ Early Morning Thoughts

I ran across this delightful quote the other day and the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I became . . .

This seems to be one of those simple sentences that becomes more interesting the more you think about it:









"You can not talk yourself out of a problem you behave yourself into. . . . "