I was at the corner grocery store buying some early potatoes. I noticed a small boy, delicate of bone and feature, ragged but clean, hungrily apprising a basket of freshly picked green peas. I paid for my potatoes but was also drawn to the display of fresh green peas. I am apushover for creamed peas and new potatoes. Pondering the peas, I couldn't help overhearing the conversation between Mr. Miller (the store owner) and the ragged boy next to me.

"Hello Barry, how are you today?"

"H'lo, Mr. Miller. Fine, thank ya. Jus' admirin' them peas. They sure look good."

"They are good, Barry. How's your Ma?"

"Fine. Gittin' stronger alla' time."

"Good. Anything I can help you with?"

"No, Sir. Jus' admirin' them peas."

"Would you like to take some home?" asked Mr. Miller.

"No, Sir. Got nuthin' to pay for 'em with."

"Well, what have you to trade me for some of those peas?"

"All I got's my prize marble here."

"Is that right? Let me see it" said Miller.

"Here 'tis.. She's a dandy."

"I can see that. Hmmmmm, only thing is this one is blue and I sort of go for red. Do you have a red one like this at home?" the store owner asked.

"Not zackley but almost."

"Tell you what. Take this sack of peas home with you and next trip this way let me look at that red marble". Mr. Miller told the boy.

"Sure will.. Thanks Mr. Miller."

Mrs. Miller, who had been standing nearby, came over to help me. With a smile she said, "There are two other boys like him in our community, all three are in very poor circumstances. Jim just loves to bargain with them for peas, apples, tomatoes, or whatever. When they come back with their red marbles, and they always do, he decides he doesn't like red after all and he sends them home with a bag of produce for a green marble or an orange one, when they come on their next trip to the store."

I left the store smiling to myself, impressed with this man. A short time later I moved toColorado, but I never forgot the story of this man, the boys, and their bartering for marbles.

Several years went by, each more rapid than the previous one. Just recently I had occasion to visit some old friends in that Idaho community and while I was there learned that Mr. Miller had died. They were having his visitation that evening and knowing my friends wanted to go, I agreed to accompany them. Upon arrival at the mortuary we fell into line to meet the relatives of the deceased and to offer whatever words of comfort we could.

Ahead of us in line were three young men. One was in an army uniform and the other two wore nice haircuts, dark suits and white shirts....all very professional looking. They approached Mrs. Miller, standing composed and smiling by her husband's casket. Each of the young men hugged her, kissed her on the cheek, spoke briefly with her and moved on to the casket.

Her misty light blue eyes followed them as, one by one, each young man stopped briefly and placed his own warm hand over the cold pale hand in  the casket. Each left the mortuary awkwardly, wiping his eyes.

Our turn came to meet Mrs. Miller. I told her who I was and reminded her of the story from those many years ago and what she had told me about her husband's bartering for marbles. With her eyes glistening, she took my hand and led me to the casket.

"Those three young men who just left were the boys I told you about. They just told me how they appreciated the things Jim "traded" them. Now, at last, when Jim could not change his mind about color or size....they came to pay their debt."

"We've never had a great deal of the wealth of this world," she confided, "but right now, Jim would consider himself the richest man in Idaho ."

With loving gentleness she lifted the lifeless fingers of her deceased husband Resting underneath were three exquisitely shined red marbles.

The Moral : We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds. Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath.

Today I wish you a day of ordinary miracles
A fresh pot of coffee you didn't make yourself
An unexpected phone call from an old friend.
Green stoplights on your way to work.
The fastest line at the grocery store.
A good sing-along song on the radio.
Your keys found right where you left them.

IT'S NOT WHAT YOU GATHER, BUT WHAT YOU SCATTER THAT TELLS WHAT KIND OF LIFE YOU HAVE LIVED!

Mom comes to visit her son Kumar for dinner.....who lives with a girl
roommate Sunita. During the course of the meal, his mother couldn't help
but notice how pretty Kumar's roommate was.                           

She had long been suspicious  
of a relationship between the two, and this had only made her more
curious.

Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she
started to wonder if there was more between Kumar and his roommate than
met the eye.

Reading his mom's thoughts, Kumar volunteered, "I know what you must be
thinking, but I assure you, Sunita and I are just roommates." About a week
later, Sunita came to Kumar saying, "Ever since your mother came to
dinner, I've been unable to find the silver plate. You don't suppose
she  took it, do you?" Kumar said ,"Well, I doubt it, but I'll email her,
justo be sure."

So he sat down and wrote :

Dear Mother:

I'm not saying that you 'did' take the silver plate from my house, I'm not
saying that you 'did not' take the silver plate.. But the fact remains
that it has been missing ever since you were here for dinner.

Love, Kumar

Several days later, Kumar received an email from his Mother which read
Dear Son:

I'm not saying that you 'do' sleep with Sunita, and I'm not saying that
you 'do not' sleep with Sunita. But the fact remains that if she was
sleeping in her OWN bed, she would have found the silver plate by now
under the pillow...

Love,

Mom.

Lesson of the day:
Don't Lie to Your Mother...... .....especially if she is Indian! 

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

by Rachael Briggs

Foucault's episteme is quite continental
but diamonds are a girl's best friend.
And truth may be grand but it won't pay the rental
on those properties, or even these possibilities.
We lose hope as brains lose scope,
and we all lose our powers in the end,
but M-shaped or square-shaped
these symbols keep their shape:
Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

Stalnaker!
Kripke!
C.I. Lewis!
Hughes & Cresswell!
Talk to me, Castaneda, tell me all about it!

You may need to say that you're willing and able;
Well, diamonds are a girl's best friend.
You may need to speak of a possible table
that is made of ice,
or roll two dice, and count them twice.
Of course you'll purr when words refer,
but beware when they start to intend:
it's then that your diction invites contradiction.
Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

I've heard there are cases of strict implication
(diamonds are a girl's best friend),
and most modal notions have broad applications:
their use pertains to zombie brains and trolley trains,
and nomic laws, and moral flaws.
Their relevance just has no end,
so if you're convinced, hon,
then stand straight at... Princeton
Diamonds... Diamonds...
- I don't need Quine, gals -
but diamonds are a girl's best friend

Don't LOOK at anything in a physics lab.
Don't TASTE anything in a chemistry lab.
Don't SMELL anything in a biology lab.
Don't TOUCH anything in a medical lab.

and, most importantly,

Don't LISTEN to anything in a philosophy department

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?


Plato:                For the greater good.

Karl Marx:            It was a historical inevitability.

Machiavelli:          So that its subjects will view it with admiration,
                      as a chicken which has the daring and courage to
                      boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom
                      among them has the strength to contend with such a
                      paragon of avian virtue?  In such a manner is the
                      princely chicken's dominion maintained.

Hippocrates:          Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its
                      pancreas.

Jacques Derrida:      Any number of contending discourses may be discovered
                      within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and
                      each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial
                      intent can never be discerned, because structuralism
                      is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!

Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.

Timothy Leary:        Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment
                      would let it take.

Douglas Adams:        Forty-two.

Nietzsche:            Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road
                      gazes also across you.

Oliver North:         National Security was at stake.

B.F. Skinner:         Because the external influences which had pervaded its
                      sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a
                      fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while
                      believing these actions to be of its own free will.

Carl Jung:            The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt
                      necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at
                      this historical juncture, and therefore
                      synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Jean-Paul Sartre:     In order to act in good faith and be true to itself,
                      the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Ludwig Wittgenstein:  The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the
                      objects "chicken" and "road", and circumstances came
                      into being which caused the actualization of this
                      potential occurrence.

Albert Einstein:      Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed
                      the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Aristotle:            To actualize its potential.

Buddha:               If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-
                      nature.

Howard Cosell:        It may very well have been one of the most astonishing
                      events to grace the annals of history.  An historic,
                      unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt
                      such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to
                      homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurence.

Salvador Dali:        The Fish.

Darwin:               It was the logical next step after coming down from
                      the trees.

Emily Dickinson:      Because it could not stop for death.

Epicurus:             For fun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:  It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.

Johann von Goethe:    The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Ernest Hemingway:     To die. In the rain.

Werner Heisenberg:    We are not sure which side of the road the chicken
                      was on, but it was moving very fast.

David Hume:           Out of custom and habit.

Jack Nicholson:      'Cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored)
                      reason.

Pyrrho the Skeptic:   What road?

Ronald Reagan:        I forget.

John Sununu:          The Air Force was only too happy to provide the
                      transportation, so quite understandably the chicken
                      availed himself of the opportunity.

The Sphinx:           You tell me.

Mr. T:                If you saw me coming you'd cross the road too!

Henry David Thoreau:  To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow
                      out of life.

Mark Twain:           The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Molly Yard:           It was a hen!

Zeno of Elea:         To prove it could never reach the other side.

Chaucer:              So priketh hem nature in hir corages.

Wordsworth:           To wander lonely as a cloud.

The Godfather:        I didn't want its mother to see it like that.

Keats:                Philosophy will clip a chicken's wings.

Blake:                To see heaven in a wild fowl.

Othello:              Jealousy.

Dr Johnson:           Sir, had you known the Chicken for as long as I have,
                      you would not so readily enquire, but feel rather the
                      Need to resist such a public Display of your own 
                      lamentable and incorrigible Ignorance.

Mrs Thatcher:         This chicken's not for turning.

Supreme Soviet:       There has never been a chicken in this photograph.

Oscar Wilde:          Why, indeed? One's social engagements whilst in
                      town ought never expose one to such barbarous
                      inconvenience - although, perhaps, if one must cross a 
                      road, one may do far worse than to cross it as the 
                      chicken in question.

Kafka:                Hardly the most urgent enquiry to make of a low-grade 
                      insurance clerk who woke up that morning as a hen.

Swift:                It is, of course, inevitable that such a loathsome,
                      filth-ridden and degraded creature as Man should assume
                      to question the actions of one in all respects his
                      superior.

Macbeth:              To have turned back were as tedious as to go o'er.

Whitehead:            Clearly, having fallen victim to the fallacy of
                      misplaced concreteness.

Freud:                An die andere Seite zu kommen. (Much laughter)

Hamlet:               That is not the question.

Donne:                It crosseth for thee.

Pope:                 It was mimicking my Lord Hervey.

Constable:            To get a better view.

9 Words Women Use

1.) Fine: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.

2.) Five Minutes: If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour.
Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

3.) Nothing: This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing usually end in fine.

4.) Go Ahead: This is a dare, not permission. Don't Do It!

5.) Loud Sigh: This is actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing. (Refer back to #3 for the meaning of nothing.)

6.) That's Okay: This is one of the most dangerous statements a women can make to a man. That's okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

7.) Thanks: A woman is thanking you, do not question, or Faint. Just say you're welcome.

8.) Whatever: Is a women's way of saying $%#@ YOU!

9.) Don't worry about it, I got it: Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a
woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing it herself. This will later result in a man asking "What's wrong?" For the woman's response refer to #3.

Send this to the men you know, to warn them about arguments they can avoid if they remember the terminology.

Send this to all the women you know to give them a good laugh, cause they know it's true

Just up the road from my home is a field, with two horses in it. From a distance, each looks like every other horse. But if one stops the car, or is walking by, one will notice something quite amazing.

On lookiing at one of the horses, you'd realise that he is blind. His owner has chosen not to have him put down, but has made a good home for him. This alone is amazing.

Listening, one will hear the sound of a bell. Looking around for the source of the sound, one will see that it comes from the smaller horse in the field. Attached to her bridle is a small bell. It lets her blind friend know where she is, so he can follow her.

As one stands and watches these two friends, one sees how she is always checking on him, and that he will listen for her bell and then slowly walk to where she is, trusting that she will not lead him astray.

Like the owners of these two horses, Nature does not throw us away just because we are not perfect or because we have problems or challenges. We should watch over everyone and even brings others into our lives to help us when we are in need. Sometimes we are the blind horse being guided by our Spiritual Soul and those whom our condition places in our lives. Other times we are the guide horse, helping others

In Tamilnadu, there is a well known person by name, Mr. Jeppier, Chairman of Sathyabama deemed university and some more self financing colleges, always speaks in English. Students of that college have collected & published a book by name "Jappier's Spoken English"
 
... Njoy ...........some of the classic English sentences from the great "Jappier's Spoken English"

# At the ground.

All of you stand in a straight circle
There is no wind in the balloon.
The girl with the mirror please comes her...{Means: girl with specs please come here).

# To a boy, angrily:

I talk, he talk, why you middle middle talk?

# While punishing students:

You, rotate the ground four times...
You, go and understand the tree...
You three of you stand together separately.
Why are you late - say YES or NO .....(?)

# Sir at his best:

Sir had once gone to a film with his wife. By chance, he happened to
see one of our boys at the theatre, though the boy did no t see them.

So the next day at s school... (to that boy) - "Yesterday I saw you WITH MY WIFE at the Cinema Theatre"

# Sir at his best inside the Class room:

Open the doors of the window. Let the atmosphere come in.
Open the doors of the window. Let the Air Force come in.
Cut an apple into two halves - I will take the bigger half.
Shhh...Quiet, boys...the principal JUST PASSED AWAY in the corridor
You, meet me behind the class. (Meaning AFTER the class..)

This one is cool

"Both of u three get out of the class."
Close the doors of the windows please. I have winter in my nose today...
Take Copper Wire of any metal especially of Silver.....
Take 5 cm wire of any length....

Last but not the least some Jeppiar experiences ...

Once Sir had come late to a college function, by the time he reached,
the function had begun, so he went to the dais, and said, sorry I am
late, because on the way my car hit 2 muttons (Meaning goats).

At Sathyabama college day 2002:

"This college strict u the worry no .... U get good marks, I the
happy, tomorrow u get good job, jpr the happy, tomorrow u marry I the enjoy"

At St. Josephs college of engineering fresh years day 2003:
"No ragging this college. Anybody rag we arrest the police "

Here's the Difference between Focusing on   Problems  and  Focusing on  Solutions

Case 1

When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that the pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (ink won't flow down to the writing surface).

To solve this problem, it took them one decade and $12 million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.

And what did the Russians do...??

They used a Pencil!!!

Case 2

One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan's biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty.

Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty.

No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent whoopee amount to do so.

But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc., but instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Moral

Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems.

An ant can be killed in two ways......

#1) By lifting and pressing it by your hand....

#2) By Bombarding it with a missile.