"The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more."

~ Jonas Salk (1914-1995) US physician and microbiologist

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my ship." -- Louisa May Alcott

Notes from Baby Boomers

This is really funny! But NOT! . . . and we Boomers thought we were so "radical" back in the '60s.

Please be ESPECIALLY careful when you use the term "thongs"--to us it otherwise denotes "flip flops". . hmmm.

Fashion No-Nos: Many of us (those over 40, WAY over 40 or hovering near 40) are quite confused about how we should present ourselves.

We're unsure about the kind of image we are projecting and whether or not we are correct as we try to conform to current fashions.

Despite what you may have seen on the streets, the following combination DO NOT go together and should be avoided:

1. A nose ring and bifocals ESPECIALLY if there is a chain attached from the nose to other body parts. . .

2. Spiked hair and bald spots or hair implants

3. A pierced tongue and dentures

4. Miniskirts and support hose

5. Ankle bracelets and corn pads

6. Speedo's and cellulite

7. A belly button ring and a gall bladder surgery scar

8. Unbuttoned disco shirts and a heart monitor

9. Midriff shirts and a midriff bulge .

10. Bikinis and liver spots

11. Short shorts and varicose veins

12. Inline skates and a walker

And last, but not least . . . my personal favorite:

13. Thongs and Depends

14. Tattooes and potbelly

Please keep these basic guidelines foremost in your mind when you shop.

This is really funny! But NOT! . . . and we Boomers thought we were so "radical" back in the '60s.

Please be ESPECIALLY careful when you use the term "thongs"--to us it otherwise denotes "flip flops". . hmmm.

Fashion No-NosMany of us (those over 40, WAY over 40 or hovering near 40) are quiteconfused about how we should present ourselves.

We're unsure aboutthe kind of image we are projecting and whether or not we are correct aswe try to conform to current fashions.

Despite what you may have seen onthe streets, the following combinations DO NOT go together and shouldbe avoided:

1. A nose ring and bifocals ESPECIALLY if there is a chain attached from the nose to other body parts. . .

2. Spiked hair and bald spots or hair implants

3. A pierced tongue and dentures

4. Miniskirts and support hose

5. Ankle bracelets and corn pads6. Speedo's and cellulite

7. A belly button ring and a gall bladder surgery scar

8. Unbuttoned disco shirts and a heart monitor

9. Midriff shirts and a midriff bulge .

10. Bikinis and liver spots

11. Short shorts and varicose veins

12. Inline skates and a walkerAnd last, but not least . . . my personal favorite:

13. Thongs and Depends

14. Tattooes and potbelly

Please keep these basic guidelines foremost in your mind when you shop.

code monkey: n

1. A person only capable of grinding out code, but unable to perform the higher-primate tasks of software architecture, analysis, and design. Mildly insulting. Often applied to the most junior people on a programming team.

2. Anyone who writes code for a living; a programmer.

3. A self-deprecating way of denying responsibility for a management decision, or of complaining about having to live with such decisions. As in “Don't ask me why we need to write a compiler in COBOL, I'm just a code monkey.”

Source: http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/C/code-monkey.html

Bulwer-Lytton contest

For you lovers of good writing, these are the 10 winners of this year's Bulwer-Lytton contest -- AKA Dark and Stormy Night Contest (run by the English Dept. of San Jose State University), wherein one writes only the first line of a bad novel.

10) "As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it."

9) "Just beyond the Narrows, the river widens."

8) "With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description."

7) "Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the East wall: 'Andre creep... Andre creep... Andre creep.'"

6) "Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved."

5) "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eking out a living at a local pet store."

4) "Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do."

3) "Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor."

2) "Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning of the word 'fear'; a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies."

AND THE WINNER IS.....

1) "The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly, 'You lied!' "

Peter principle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from Peter Principle)

The Peter Principle is a theory originated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter which states that employees within a hierarchical organization advance to their highest level of competence, are then promoted to a level where they are incompetent, and then stay in that position.

This follows from the use of promotion as a reward for success. As long as a person is competent in his current position, he will be promoted to the next higher one. By iteration, the only way a person can stop being promoted is to reach a level where he is no longer able to do well, and thus does not appear eligible for promotion.

The theory was set out in a humorous style in the book The Peter Principle, first published in 1969. Peter describes the theme of his book as hierarchiology. The central principle is stated in the book as follows:

In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.

Although written in a lighthearted manner, the book contains many real-world examples and thought-provoking explanations of human behaviour. Similar observations on incompetence can be found in the Dilbert cartoon series (see The Dilbert Principle).

The employee's eventual incompetence is not necessarily a result of the higher-ranking position being "more difficult" - it may be simply that the position is different from the position in which the employee previously excelled, and thus requires different skills which the employee may not possess. An example used by Peter involves a factory worker whose excellence at his work results in him being promoted into a management position, in which the skills that got him promoted in the first place are no longer of any use.

One way that organizations attempt to avoid this effect is to refrain from promoting a person until that person already shows the skills or habits necessary to succeed at the next higher position. Thus, a person is not promoted to manage others if he/she does not already show leadership, for instance.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. . .

During some point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand:

TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started to drown. But the friend saved him
After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:

TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now, you write on a stone. Why?"

The other friend replied, "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But when someone does something good for us,
we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."

LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them. Take the time to live! Do not value WHAT you have in your life, but value WHO you have in your life