Time to RUN!

Two gas company servicemen, a senior training supervisor and a young trainee, were out checking meters in a suburban neighborhood. They parked their truck the end of the alley and worked their way to the other end. At the last house, a woman looking out her kitchen window watched the two men as they checked her gas meter.

Finishing the meter check, the senior supervisor challenged his younger coworker to a foot race down the alley back to the truck to prove that an older guy could outrun a younger one.

As they came running up to the truck, they realized the lady from that last house was huffing and puffing right behind them. They stopped and asked her what was wrong.

Gasping for breath, she replied, "When I see two men from the gas company running as hard as you two were, I figured I'd better run too!"

Wisdom from Pilots

Pilots' Wisdom

1. Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory.

2. If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. If you pull the stick back, they get smaller. That is, unless you keep pulling the stick all the way back, then they get bigger again.

3. Flying isn't dangerous. Crashing is what's dangerous.

4. It's always better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were down here.

5. The ONLY time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

6. The propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane used to keep the pilot cool. Because when it stops, you can actually watch the pilot start sweating.

7. When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No one has ever collided with the sky.

8. A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the plane again.

9. Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.

10. You know you've landed with the wheels up if it takes full power to taxi to the ramp.

11. The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival. Large angle of arrival, small probability of survival and vice-versa.

12. Never let an aircraft take you somewhere your brain didn't get to five minutes earlier.

13. Stay out of clouds. The silver lining everyone keeps talking about might be another airplane going in the opposite direction. Reliable sources also report that mountains have been known to hide out in clouds.

14. Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of take offs you've made.

15. There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.

16. You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.

17. Helicopters can't fly; they're just so ugly the earth repels them.

18. If all you can see out of the window is ground that's going round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the passenger compartment, things are not at all as they should be.

19. In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminum going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose.

20. Good judgment comes from experience. Unfortunately, experience usually comes from bad judgment.

21. It's always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward as much as possible.

22. Keep looking around. There's always something you've missed.

23. Remember, gravity is not just a good idea. It's the law. And it's not subject to repeal.

24. The four most useless things to a pilot are the altitude above you, runway behind you, gas back at the airport, and a tenth of a second ago.

25. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are, however, no old, bold pilots.

Sermon Samples

My pastor friend told me his chruch installed sanitary, hot-air hand dryers in the rest rooms. After about two weeks I dropped by to see him and noticed workmen taking them out.

I asked him why. The pastor confessed that they worked fine, but said when he went in the men's room after the previous Sunday's service he found a scribbled note above one of the hand dryers that read, "For a sample of this week's sermon, push button."

Not surprisingly, the dryers were out, paper towell dispensers were back in.

The Pirate

A sailor meets a pirate in a bar, and they take turns recounting their adventures at sea. Noting the pirate's peg-leg, hook, and eye patch, the sailor asks, "So, how did you end up with the peg-leg?"

The pirate replies "We was caught in a monster storm off the cape and a giant wave swept me overboard. Just as they were pullin' me out, a school of sharks appeared and one of 'em bit me leg off".

"Blimey!" said the sailor. "What about the hook?"

"Ahhhh...", mused the pirate, "We were boardin' a trader ship, pistols blastin' and swords swingin' this way and that. In the fracas me hand got chopped off."

"Zounds!" remarked the sailor. "And how came ye by the eye patch?"

"A seagull droppin' fell into me eye", answered the pirate.

"You lost your eye to a seagull dropping?" the sailor asked incredulously.

"Well..." said the pirate, "..it was me first day with the hook."

The Perfect Man

The preacher said, "There's no such thing as a perfect woman. Anybody present who has ever known a perfect woman, stand up."

Nobody stood up.

"Those who have ever known a perfect man, stand up."

One elderly gentleman stood up.

"Are you honestly saying you knew an absolutely perfect man?" he asked, somewhat amazed.

"Well now, I didn't know him personally," replied the little old man, "but I have heard a great deal about him. He was my wife's first husband."

Giving up Golf

The minister drove into a sand trap. He picked up his golf club, broke it but didn't say a word.

Then he picked up the golf bag and tore it to shreds but didn't say a word.

He then took out all the golf balls and flung them into the woods but did not say one word.

Finally he muttered, "I'm going have to give it up."

"Golf?" asked the caddie.

"No" he replied. "The ministry."

Take me out to the ballgame. . .

Two old guys, Abe and Sol, are sitting on a park bench feeding pigeons and talking about baseball, like they do every day.

Abe turns to Sol and says, "Do you think there's baseball in heaven?"

Sol thinks about it for a minute and replies, "I dunno. But let's make a deal: if I die first, I'll come back and tell you if there's baseball in heaven, and if you die first, you do the same."

They shake on it and sadly, a few months later, poor Abe passes on.

One day soon afterward, Sol is sitting there feeding the pigeons by himself when he hears a voice whisper, "Sol ... Sol ..."

Sol responds, "Abe! Is that you?"

"Yes, it is, Sol," whispers Abe's ghost.

Sol, still amazed, asks, "So, is there baseball in heaven?"

"Well," says Abe, "I've got good news and bad news."

"Gimme the good news first," says Sol.

Abe says, "Well... there is baseball in heaven."

Sol says, "That's great! What news could be bad enough to ruin that!?"

Abe sighs and whispers, "You're pitching on Friday."

Penguin Power

A man is driving down the highway and passes a state motorcycle officer.

The officer notices the man and also sees that he has 4 penguins in the backseat of the car. The officer chases down the car and pulls the man over, and after a short inspection of the vehicle says to the driver "what are you doing with 4 penguins in your car?"

To which the man replies "Just taking them for a ride officer."

Visibly upset, the cop instructs the man to take the penguins to the zoo.

The next day the same man is driving down the same highway and is spotted by the same motorcycle cop. Again the cop gives chase and pulls the car over and upon inspection sees the same 4 penguins in the backseat only this time the penguins are wearing bright colored swim trunks and sun glasses.

The cop, really ticked off this time, says, "I thought I told you to take those penguins to the zoo yesterday"

The man smiles and replies, "I did! They liked that so much that today I decided to take them to the beach!"

Optimist vs. Pessimist

An optimist sees the best in the world, while a pessimist sees only the worst. An optimist finds the positive in the negative, and a pessimist can only find the negative in the positive.

For example, an avid duck hunter was in the market for a new bird dog. His search ended when he found a dog that could actually walk on water to retrieve a duck. Shocked by his find, he was sure none of his friends would ever believe him.

He decided to try to break the news to a friend of his, a pessimist by nature, and invited him to hunt with him and his new dog.

As they waited by the shore, a flock of ducks flew by. They fired, and a duck fell. The dog responded and jumped into the water. The dog, however, did not sink but instead walked across the water to retrieve the bird, never getting more than his paws wet. This continued all day long; each time a duck fell, the dog walked across the surface of the water to retrieve it.

The pessimist watched carefully, saw everything, but did not say a single word.

On the drive home the hunter asked his friend, "Did you notice anything unusual about my new dog?"

"I sure did," responded the pessimist. "He can't swim."

Juan the Smuggler

Juan comes up to the Mexican border on his bicycle. He has two large bags over his shoulders. A guard stops him and says, "What's in the bags?"

"Sand," answered Juan.

The guard says, "We'll just see about that. Get off the bike."

The guard takes the bags and rips them apart; he empties them out and finds nothing in them but sand. He detains Juan overnight and has the sand analyzed, only to discover that there is nothing but pure sand in the bags. The guard releases Juan, puts the sand into new bags, lifts them onto the man's shoulders and lets him cross the border.

A week later, the same thing happens. The guard asks, "What have you got?"

"Sand," says Juan.

The guard does his thorough examination and discovers that the bags contain nothing but sand. He gives the sand back to Juan, and Juan crosses the border on his bicycle.

This sequence of events repeats every day for three years. Then one day, Juan doesn't show up. The guard meets up with him in a cantina in Mexico.

"Hey, buddy," the guard says, "I know you're smuggling something. It's driving me crazy. It's all I think about. I can't sleep. Just between you and me, what are you smuggling?"

"Bicycles," Juan says.

Epitaphs

Actual epitaphs from real tombstones:

In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery:
Anna Wallace
The children of Israel wanted bread
And the Lord sent them manna,
Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,
And the Devil sent him Anna.

Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery:
Here lies
Johnny Yeast
Pardon me
For not rising.

Uniontown, Pennsylvania cemetery:
Here lies the body
of Jonathan Blake
Stepped on the gas
Instead of the brake.

Anonymous in Stowe, Vermont:
I was somebody.
Who, is no business
Of yours.

In a Georgia cemetery:
"I told you I was sick!"

Margaret Daniels grave at Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia:
She always said her feet were killing her
but nobody believed her.

Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont:
Here lies the body of our Anna
Done to death by a banana
It wasn't the fruit that laid her low
But the skin of the thing that made her go.

Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York:
Born 1903--Died 1942
Looked up the elevator shaft to see if
the car was on the way down.
It was.

In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery:
Here lies an Atheist
All dressed up
And no place to go.

And, Dr. Fred Roberts, Brookland, Arkansas:
Office upstairs