A woman went to doctors office where she was seen by one of the new doctors. After about 4 minutes in the examination room, she burst out, screaming as she ran down the hall. An older doctor stopped her and asked what the problem was, and she told him her story.

After listening, he had her sit down in another room and told her to relax. The older doctor marched down hallway to the back where the first doctor was and demanded, “What’s the matter with you? Mrs. Terry is 63 years old, she has four grown children and seven grandchildren, and you told her she was pregnant?”

The new doctor calmly continued to write on his clipboard and without looking up said, “Does she still have the hiccups?”

(Thanks Cindy!)

Don Crowdis is an impressive man indeed. Born Christmas Eve 1913, he is one of the last remaining survivors of the Halifax explosion, the first host of CBC’s The Nature of Things, and, at 93 years of age, is currently one of the oldest bloggers on earth. These are just a few of his credentials. Check out his Wikipedia entry.

I highly recommend his blog, Don to Earth. He writes about life, questions, and his desire to finish what he has not yet finished. He has been blogging for 6 months or so and it’s a page turner for sure. From his posts regarding sex, his recent stroke, to the clever play on words he chose for the blog’s title. His most recent post, Honesty? Impossible - But Negotiable Of Course is a very well phrased philosophical look at what really consitutes a lie. He defines a lie as “an untruth told to someone who deserves to hear the truth”. Hmmm… makes you think.

Drop by Don to Earth. It gets a 5-Nerve recommendation from those who bring you Oh Me Nerves dot com!

Sometimes you overhear a conversation and just shake your head. I wonder sometimes if people know how silly they sound.

I work in an office environment. Good, clean, challenging work. The office hours are 8:30 to 5, two 15-minute breaks, with an hour to lunch. There is a good quality cafeteria on site with good prices. They brew Tim Horton’s coffee on site, and the coffee is free. Free parking. Heated in the winter, cooled in the summer. Sounds tough, eh?

So… I come into the office this morning and while my computer is booting up, I go pour my first coffee of the day. While adding the cream and sugar, I overhear these guys talking:

“There was a sticker on my garbage bucket this morning. It said, ‘Please remove garbage from bucket.’ I couldn’t believe it! They didn’t take my garbage because they had to take it out of the bucket? Man!”

“What?!?! They didn’t take your garbage? They left it there? Because you didn’t take it out of the bucket? We are too easy on these people. They are spoiled!”

I’m glad I didn’t make eye contact with the guy, because I would have just laughed at him. You’ve already read my summary of how “tough” it is around here. Now, these “spoiled” garbage men have to work overnight in minus 20 Celsius (not counting the wind chill factor) and go around the streets collecting other people’s garbage. Forgive me, but I think putting the garbage on the curb is not too much to ask.

Who’s spoiled? Hey dude, take your friggin’ garbage out of your bucket and stop whining about it.

As a blogger, I read other blogs. You know, being a blogger is kind of like being an exhibitionist. You expose a little of yourself; you open the curtains just enough to allow others to peer in. As a reader of blogs, you wander around the interhood, or neighborweb, looking into those windows until you find something that interests you. Once you do, you keep coming back.

I read several blogs on a regular basis for several reasons. Some are entertaining; some are from friends and colleagues; some are both. Others focus on how to build a community for your blog or how to use the Wordpress toolset to customize and personalize your blog. I recently wrote to one of these such blog authors, Liz Strauss, and to my pleasant surprise, she wrote back. I found some inspiration in that, but not necessarily in her words to me, but mine to her.

The thing is, I don’t really know exactly what I’m looking for. I’m an ex-programmer (Mainframe, COBOL, JCL etc) …. I picked up this blogging thing for fun a year or so ago. I’m spending time learning how to code and customize in Wordpress. (I get a feed from Lorelle that helps there.) Being an ex-programmer, I get quite a charge out of doing that. My problem is that I am finding it hard to get inspired. You know… because my audience is limited to those close to me, blogging kind of feels like publishing my diary. I don’t want it to feel that way. I want to find a balance of entertaining those who know me and those who don’t. (If I can entertain myself in the process, all the better.)

I may have been already answering my own question. In the last little while, I’ve been getting feeds from other bloggers like myself. Those with no particular goals or purposes… you know, informal blogs but not like those criticizing the government or corporation bashing… I’m seeing what those people write about, seeing what they find worthy of print, reading comments on their blogs, visiting those sites….

You know, this email feels very much like a blog entry. (Do you feel like the therapist that said “Tell me a little more about that. How does that make you feel?”)

What all this boils down to is there is no right or wrong in blogging. Write what you feel, what you think about, what amuses you. Write about something, anything, or nothing in particular. Write about the fact that you have nothing to write about. Heck, I’ve been doing that for a couple of years now.

You bloggers out there… where do you get your inspiration? What stirs up your creative juices?

YouTube or not YouTube. That is the question.

See below my first YouTube posting. I followed the rest of my family to Newfoundland for Christmas about 5 days after they went. In the meantime, I did some renovations to the basement that my wife was unaware I was doing. Every time she’d call and ask what I was doing, I’d say, “Oh, not much. Just puttering around.”

Putter… putter….putter…

Today is a day for random ramblings, miscellaneous muses, noteworthy news, and a little fficial&client=firefox-a”>alliteration.

My friend at The Rekounas Blog often shares YouTube videos that he finds humourous. He posts about some weird stuff, but sometimes he makes me laugh. Guess that makes me a little messed up too. Watch the video on this post, and you will understand how I became the people person that I am. Everything I’ve learned about management, I learned from Office Space.

Speaking of people skills and dealing with customers, Carl nailed it today with his account of helping his wife with a UTS error. If you’ve been there on the giving end of computer support, you know how he feels.

“I have four years of university schooling in computer programming, a tech degree in electronics, and 20 years of continuing education to maintain my professional licenses. I’m the GM of a firm specializing in custom automation design and coding for utility companies. On the side, I like to click around and screw up the computers of unsuspecting housewives.”

I snorted coffee out my nose when I read this one: “A major U.S. AIDS treatment group plans to file a lawsuit Monday that accuses drug giant Pfizer Inc. of illegally promoting recreational use of its blockbuster impotence pill Viagra.” I agree, I only promote corporate use of Viagra. What’s up with that?

Steal $70 million from a Brazilian bank and find yourself dead in a well. Who’d-a-thunk-it? Not me.

Employees of the UFC Workers Union go on strike. ‘Nuff said.

This lady in the States somewhere, died of fficial&client=firefox-a”>water intoxication trying to compete win a Nintendo Wii. Contestants had to drink large amounts of water and “Hold their wee for a Wii“. She lost.

Some people are pissed at Danny Williams. Jobs in Newfoundland? Who needs ‘em? We’ve got pride (and the rest of Canada to look find work in.) Ain’t that right, Dennis?

Speaking of work… I better get back at it, or I’ll be back in Newfoundland before I know it!