Coffee coffee coffee

This year for Valentines day my eldest son brought me a cup of coffee in bed. He got down the cup, brewed it, added milk and brought it in. It was great, but this has been at least eight years in the making. The boys both knew how to make a cup of coffee and had done this quite a number of times over the last few years.

I have asked him periodically to make me a cup, but yesterday he balked. The problem is that he has been making me coffee quite often recently. I guess it really depends on how you count it, but I suspect it would easily fit on ten fingers over the last three weeks.

It is completely understandable not wanting to do after a lot of repetition of a given task. I can only say that he is indeed lucky that his parents didn’t feel the same way about changing diapers over the first couple of years of his life.

Children on car selection

We were going to pickup my oldest at a birthday party and as I was not familiar with the location so I was using a navigation system. We had just missed our turn and were on a one way street. I may have made a remark or two but eventually we got to our destination.

I wish I could say that this was an isolated event, but to be honest it was not. It was actually the fourth occurrence in the last few weeks. On our way back home, a small voice spoke out.

David We cannot use this car any more
Me Why not?
David It keeps bringing us to the wrong places
Me Do I have to buy a new car?
David No, but we cannot use this one.

Somehow this train of thought gets broken, but then another small voice breaks out.

Timothy I know why the car keeps bringing us to the wrong places.
Timothy This car comes from Japan but we live in Germany.

Same time as last time? Same time as every time.

I don’t know how many times I have used the sentence “did you wash your hands” nor how many times I have heard the refrain “yeah yeah”. Did you use soap? “yeah yeah”. The ultimate test is typically “ok, let me smell your hands”. Usually, sometimes there is a tiny explosion, “grrr, ok” or perhaps a small grumble and run back to the bathroom.

On their return they always force their little soap cleaned hands under my nose.

Don’t forget to sing

I love a good birthday card, especially the funny or somewhat irreverent ones. Yet my sons really like the birthday cards that have rock songs, singing cats or superheros.

Knowing this, I have made the personal request to family that we get lots of these noisy types of birthday cards. I will have to admit I found the cards funny as well. My favorite had a picture of an opera singer on the front saying something to the affect you are not really over the hill until the fat lady sings.

On queue when opening the card an opera singer gives us her best “Laaaaaaaaaa” for about 10 seconds. My wife sometimes works late and night-shifts as required at work and because of this she can get cranky and sleep deprived.

It was after one of those night-shifts that my youngest decided to mix his love for audio cards with his love for his mother. She was laying there in bed asleep when he crept up right next to her head and I imagine with a childish grin slowly opened the card. The card is loud and when placed almost next to your ear it is very loud.

Yup, there was the expected jolt out of a sound sleep accompanied by some sort of outburst. Not quite expecting this, there was also crying due to the unhappy look of mommy’s face. However, within a few minutes everything went back to normal.

Even more short takes

You know you are working for a Fortune 500 company when …

  • Your boss’s boss sleeps in meetings
  • Your coworker surfts blogs and forums all day
  • You are requested to fill out the same form for two different departments even though you boss knows the other department has a copy.
  • Your boss seems to be on holidays more than at work.
  • Your coworker takes naps at works.

Consultants dictionary

Re-phase the projectThe project will not meet its schedule, it will be delayed.
InitiativeProject is a bad word usually requiring money and resources, we will use extra capacity of internal resources to do a project
Issue has surfacedProblem or bug has been discovered in your computer program

Management Styles

Keep to the “law”Problem or bug has been discovered in your computer program
Don’t have timeI either have a lot on my plate or I am not interested. I will just do the easiest solution even if that means negative repercussions later on.
In it for the moneyI have a budget and will personally gain more if I don’t spend it. Rather than using the budget for two personnel in my department I will keep those spots empty force the rest to work insane hours and get a bonus for saving money this year.
In it for the powerSome people just like being their own deity who can boss people around.

More short takes

Snow day

When I was growing up in Minnesota we had winter, sometimes we had too much of it. If we received too much snow there would be a snow day and school was closed. Over a cup of coffee we were comparing winter stories when I found out there is something that trumps a snow day, a coal week. It seems that during the winters in Slovakia sometimes there would be problems in procuring the necessary heating coal due to temporary budget problems.

In those cases the school would be closed for a few days or a week.

The truth will set you free

You left the meeting early, why?
It was boring.
What did you do then?
Read some Android documentation.

Non-monetary opportunity costs

For instance, an individual could choose not to ask a girl out on a date, in an attempt to make her more interested (“playing hard to get”), but the opportunity cost could be that they get ignored – which could result in other opportunities being lost.
From wikipedia

Short takes

Where do you think you are

A couple of guys went into a somewhat grubby looking bar in the eastern Europe looking for something to drink.

Patron: Hmm, I would like to have wine.
Patron: Perhaps a nice Chardonnay
Waiter: Red or White. You have to realize just where %&$# you are.

Rules of Communism

Don’t say anything
If you do say anything don’t write it down
If write it down don’t sign it
If you sign it don’t be surprised

Wonders of Communism

Everybody had a job but nobody did anything
You could never buy anything but everybody had everything
Everybody has been stealing but nothing was ever missing

A Russian joke

Somebody comes and knocks on the door and a housewife answers. Do you need any wood? She looks over at the pile of wood and says no. The next day when she wakes up and opens the door all of the wood is gone.

Its just a training exercise

If you can imagine the scene, a bunch of youths are standing around with a hatchet daring each other to do some damage to that cherry tree. Finally George cuts it down, perhaps gets a few points with his peers, but as he is getting ready to tell his father the truth he must be thinking what a bad idea that was.

That story is possible, but it is also possible that when the biography of George Washington was written after his death there were a few things that were added for flavor. I can only imagine that in some police in the bomb squad were sitting around thinking that exact same thought – wow what a bad idea that was. You would need to go back a couple of days to get to the beginning of the story.

The police wanted to test out their security so they planted some plastic explosives in some suitcases to see if the bomb dog could find the explosives. Planted explosives doesn’t mean that it was a coordinated event where the passenger knew what was happening but rather that the authorities secretly placed actual plastic explosives into his suitcase.

Why place the explosives into a suitcase that is arriving when we can put it into one that would actually be departing. It is not completely clear if the dog failed find all of the explosives, they were not all removed or if the police simply lost them.

What would be the worst possible place for that explosive to show up in? If you were thinking somebody headed for Dublin, Ireland you would be correct. You would have thought that the police would have had one of their officers with the best grasp of the English language contact with Ireland immediately.

It actually took about three days, a bomb squad cordoning off of two blocks of the city, and locking up an innocent man for a few hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_Police_training_explosives_incident

FIFA World cup soccar

In 2006 Frankfurt, Germany was one of the cities hosting the world cup. Ghana had made it to the world final and where competing for the quarter finals tonight. This was actually the first time that an African country had made it this far. They gave it their all, but unfortunately they were playing against Brazil, and it just was not enough.

However, they did have at least one of biggest fans there to cheer them on. The reason I know this is because this guy must have been cheering, supporting his team to the point he was found “sleeping it off” sometime later. Germany was a good host country and to prove it they brought this individual to the hospital to make sure that everything was ok.

Well, initially there was not a lot known about the “sleeper” as he was out cold. Early on they decided perhaps he was a Ghana visitor. This was because periodically he would sit up in his bed and yell “Ghana” and the Ghana vs Brazil game was today.

During rounds the physicians were discussing this case when one of the doctors mentioned he thought the patient came from Ghana. This of course triggered him to sit up and yell Ghana. As a matter of fact, simply saying Ghana in a quiet room was enough to trigger the patient.

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