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December, 1996 - The Spirit of
the Season
Our gift to you . . . thanks for taking the time to visit!
May your holiday season be filled with good friends, good work and gratitude for the wonders of our world
- Short Course in Human Relations
- The World We Live In
- The Value of Friends
- The 'Net Before Christmas
- The Twelve Bugs of Christmas
Short Course in Human
Relations:
The SIX most important words:
"I admit I made a mistake."
The FIVE most important words:
"You did a great job!"
The FOUR most important words:
"What is your opinion?"
The THREE most important words:
"If you please"
"Would you please?"
The TWO most important words:
"Thank you"
The ONE most important word:
"We"
The LEAST most important word:
"I"
The World We Live In: The Paradoxical Commandments
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
. . . Kent M. Keith from his book Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments - Finding Personal Meaning In A Crazy World Copyright � Kent M. Keith 1968, 2001 www.paradoxicalcommandments.com (previously erroneously attributed to Ken Keyes)
The Value of Friends -
where ever we find ourselves, friends make life enjoyable
A constant friend is thing rare and hard to find. - Plutarch
Friendship is a marriage of the soul. - Voltaire
Friendship is a union of spirits, a marriage of hearts,
and the bond of virtue. - William Penn
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. - Carl Jung
A friend is someone who knows all about you and loves you just the same. - Elbert Hubbard
Family and friends are hidden treasures.
Seek them and enjoy their riches - Wanda Carter
Without friends, no one would choose to live, even if he had all other goods. - Aristotle
Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
I'd relax, I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
If I had my life to live over,
I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and stay that way later in the fall.
I would go to more dances. I would ride merry-go-rounds.
(This
snippet is usually attributed to Nadine Stair, 85 years old. However, there is
apparently a long history of folks who have modified it since its first publication by Don Herold in the Reader's
Digest in 1953).
It's Never Too Late To Have A Happy Childhood:
Walk in the rain, collect rainbows, smell flowers, stop along the way, build sand
castles, watch the moon & stars come out, say hello to everyone, make up new rules, go
on adventures, act silly, take bubble baths, hold hands & hug & kiss, dance, laugh
& cry for the health of it, feel happy, say the magic words, trust the universe -
Bruce Williamson
A friend is a gift you give yourself. - Robert Louis Stevenson
Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. - Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
There is no greater love than that of someone who encourages another to be themselves, to grow into someone new, risking that they will find their way without them.. - Barbara Taylor
Follow your dream . . .
take one step at a time and don't settle for less, just continue to climb.
If you stumble, don't stop and lose sight of your goal, press on to the top . . .
For only on top can we see the whole view,
can we see what we've done and what we can do, can we then have the vision to seek
something new . . .
Press on, and follow your dream. - Amanda Bradley
Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think and in all things keep ourselves loyal to truth and the sacred professions of friendship - Longfellow
If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give. - George MacDonald
The entire sum of existence is the magic of being needed by just one person. - Vi Putnam; Hard Hearts are for Cabbage.
and a few
seasonal chuckles . . .
The 'Net Before Christmas
by Jim Trudeau & Jay Trudeau (1991)
(with apologies to Clement C. Moore)
'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the nets
Not a mousie was stirring, not even the pets.
The floppies were stacked by the modem with care
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
The files were nestled all snug in a folder
The screen saver turned on, the weather was colder.
And leaving the keyboard along with my mouse
I turned from the screen to the rest of the house.
When up from the drive there arose such a clatter
I turned to the screen to see what was the matter.
Away to the mouse I flew like a flash,
Zoomed open a window in fear of a crash...
The glow from the screen on the keyboard below
Gave an electronic luster to all my macros.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a little sleigh icon with eight tiny reindeer
And a tiny disk driver so SCSI and quick
I knew in a nano it must be Saint Nick.
More rapid than trackballs his cursors they came,
He whistled and shouted and faxed them by name.
"Now Flasher! Now Dasher! Now Raster and Bixel!
On Phosphor! On Photon! On Baudrate and Pixel!
To the top of the stack. To the top of the heap."
Then each little reindeer made a soft beep.
As data that before the wild electrons fly,
When they meet with a node, mount to the drive,
So up to the screen top the cursors they flew
With a sleigh full of disks and databits, too.
And then in a twinkling I heard the high whine
Of a modem connecting at a baud rate so fine.
As I gazed at the screen with a puzzling frown
St. Nicholas logged on though I thought I was down.
He was dressed all in bytes from header to footer
And the words on the screen said "Don't you reboot 'er."
A bundle of bits he had flung on his back
And he looked like a programmer starting his hack.
His eyes how they glazed, his hair was so scary,
His cola was jolt, not flavored with cherry.
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a GIF
And the pixels of his beard sure gave me a lift.
The stump of a routine he held tight in his code
And I knew he had made it past the last node.
He spoke not a word but looked right at me
And I saw in a flash his file was .SEA.
He self-decompressed and I watched him unfold,
Into a jolly old elf, a sight to behold.
And the whispering sound of my hard drive's head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He went straight to his work without saying a word
And filled all the folders of this happy nerd.
And 'tis the whole truth, as the story is told,
That giving a nod up the window he scrolled,
He sprang to the serial port as if truly on fire
And away they all flew down the thin copper wire.
But I heard him exclaim as he scrolled out of sight
"Happy Christmas to All, and to all a good night."
The Twelve Bugs of Christmas
For the first bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
see if they can do it again.
For the second bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
ask them how they did it,
and see if they can do it again.
For the third bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
try to reproduce it,
ask them how they did it,
and see if they can do it again.
For the fourth bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
run with the debugger,
try to reproduce it,
ask them how they did it,
and see if they can do it again.
For the fifth bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
ask for a dump,
run with the debugger,
try to reproduce it,
ask them how they did it,
and see if they can do it again.
For the sixth bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
reinstall the software,
ask for a dump,
run with the debugger,
try to reproduce it,
ask them how they did it,
and see if they can do it again.
For the seventh bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
say they need an upgrade,
reinstall the software,
ask for a dump,
run with the debugger,
try to reproduce it,
ask them how they did it,
and see if they can do it again.
For the eighth bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
find a way around it,
say they need an upgrade,
reinstall the software,
ask for a dump,
run with the debugger,
try to reproduce it,
ask them how they did it,
and see if they can do it again.
For the ninth bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
blame it on the hardware,
find a way around it,
say they need an upgrade,
reinstall the software,
ask for a dump,
run with the debugger,
try to reproduce it,
ask them how they did it,
and see if they can do it again.
For the tenth bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
change the documentation,
blame it on the hardware,
find a way around it,
say they need an upgrade,
reinstall the software,
ask for a dump,
run with the debugger,
try to reproduce it,
ask them how they did it,
and see if they can do it again.
For the eleventh bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
say it's not supported,
change the documentation,
blame it on the hardware,
find a way around it,
say they need an upgrade,
reinstall the software,
ask for a dump,
run with the debugger,
try to reproduce it,
ask them how they did it,
and see if they can do it again.
For the twelfth bug of Christmas . . . my manager said to me,
tell them it's a feature,
say it's not supported,
change the documentation,
blame it on the hardware,
find a way around it,
say they need an upgrade,
reinstall the software,
ask for a dump,
run with the debugger,
try to reproduce it,
ask them how they did it,
and see if they can do it again.
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