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Welcome to a new edition of "Your Web Connection". We're glad you stopped by. I'm back at least for this column. You'll have Terry back in October since I have my right wrist scheduled for September 15. My left wrist is back to normal now and having the carpal tunnel release done was the best thing I've ever had done! I can now sleep at night without waking up with my arm asleep. We've got a bit of news first then we'll be talking about Labor Day in honor of today's holiday. We'll then have three blockbuster sites for you to take a look at ending up with our normal dose of jokes and life's ponderances. It's good to be back at the keyboard. I want to personally thank everyone who wrote wishing me the best with the surgery as well as the emails Terry received letting her know how much they enjoyed the column she authored. Thanks to all!

Lots has been going on here in the Mencke household. Probably the most important is that Terry had Lasik eye surgery done at the end of August. The results have been fantastic! There is still some adjustments to get used to, but she is coming along very nicely. After 33 years of wearing contacts and glasses, she has shed them. I don't want to give you the wrong picture, but Terry came out of the shower the other day and said, "I have toes! I didn't know I had toes!" You have to understand, for over 30 years she has never seen her toes in the shower since she couldn't see 5 feet in front of her. She is so excited! She is a firm believer in the procedure now.

Oh, I almost forgot, we have a new addition to our family. No, it's not what you're thinking of, it's a new Explorer! Our 1997 Explorer Sport lease was up in October so it was time to go in and figure out what our options were. To make a long story short, instead of keeping the truck, we walked out with a new 4-door emerald green Explorer. Plus we got an automatic this time. Our Sport was a standard which was not real good on my bad knee. While we were at Don Davis, we got to look at the new Excursion. That is one big truck! It is huge and very comfortable. Terry was amazed at how balanced the doors were.

Last night, September 3, we had a wonderful time we'd like to tell you about. Medical Matrix, the company that Terry works for, was invited to an evening at The Ballpark in Arlington. We were being hosted by the bank that the company banks with. In fact we had the use of their suite! Now we know how the other .5% watches Ranger games. We had no idea what to expect. All we were told was not to eat, they would provide "munchies."

First off we've never had the pleasure of getting to watch a game from one of the suites. What an experience! We could get used to watching in style very easily. Our "munchies" consisted of:

Poppers (enough to feed a small army)

A full brisket (sliced for us by our own attendant)

Several racks of baby back ribs

Quarter-pound hot dogs and all the fixins'

Potato salad

Seven layer bean dip

Full range of beer, wine, water and soft drinks

Desserts of our choice

http://www.certifiedmail.com/

 

National Archives Online Exhibit Hall

This is one of those sites that makes the NET worth its money. You hear constantly about the dark side of the NET and all the smut that is out there. Yes, it is there, but then you run across a site like this and it proves how valuable a learning tool the NET can be. Oh how I wish that I could have had this type of site at my fingertips back when I was in school. This is one of those site you can spend hours at and never get around to looking at all the fantastic exhibits.

We're talking about the National Archives and Records Administration Online Exhibit Hall. A few of the American originals housed at the site are:

• The Louisiana Purchase
  
• The police records of the Lincoln assassination
• Apollo 11 Flight plan
  
• Magna Carta
  
• The Emancipation Proclamation
  
• Declaration of Independence
  
• Our Constitution
  
• The Bill of Rights
  
• The 1941 Declaration of War against Japan
  
• President Kennedy's 1963 speech cards he used in Berlin
  

This is a splendid site to spend some time at learning all about our heritage and culture. Point your browser to:

http://www.nara.gov/exhall/

 

FREE Personal 800 Number

Yes, that's right, a FREE personal 800 number. I didn't stutter, I said a FREE Personal 800 number. This is one of the new crop of new FREE services that never cease to amaze me. I still wonder how these companies do it.

After signing up at uReach, anyone can call your very own personal 800 number and leave you a message that will be delivered to you via RealAudio or to your FREE uReach email address. So what's the catch? So far I've haven't been able to find one. Way cool!

The service is perfect for people who:

• Want their own personal voice mail.
  
• Are thinking about changing jobs or moving.
  
• Work in a very small business that doesn't provide voice mail.
  
• Students leaving school for the summer and want to stay in touch.
  

With your free uReach account you're allowed 30 minutes of phone time a month and unlimited access to your personal account on the web. When you sign up, you choose your personal ID and password to access your web account and choose your personal PIN for phone access. Not only do you receive a personal 800 number at UReach, you also receive:

• A permanent personal calendar for you to access
  
• An address book that can be accessed either through the phone or the web
  
• A personal bookmark folder
  
• File storage for up to 15mb
  
• Faxing services
  

None of the features will ever change as long as you continue to use uReach. uReach will never charge for the services they offer. At their site they say,

"that uReach may offer enhanced services (such as additional minutes above the free minutes offered). Don't worry, you will not be forced to upgrade from the free uReach.com service and you can continue to use the uReach.com service for FREE. There's no catch!

To get your very own FREE personal 800 number, point your browser to:

http://www.ureach.com/

 

NetHumor and Life's Ponderances

The Smarter Sex?

A woman and a man are involved in a car accident; it's a bad one. Both of their cars are totally demolished but amazingly neither of them are hurt.

After they crawl out of their cars, the woman says, "So you're a man, that's interesting. I'm a woman. Wow, just look at our cars! There's nothing left, but fortunately we are unhurt. This must be a sign from God that we should meet and be friends and live together in peace for the rest of our days."

Flattered, the man replied, "Oh yes, I agree with you completely!"

"This must be a sign from God!" The woman continued, "And look at this, here's another miracle. My car is completely demolished but this bottle of wine didn't break. Surely God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune."

Then she hands the bottle to the man, The man nods his head in agreement, opens it and drinks half the bottle and then hands it back to the woman.

The woman takes the bottle, immediately puts the cap back on, and hands it back to the man.

The man asks, "Aren't you having any?"

The woman replies, "No. I think I'll just wait for the police..."

 

The Parrot

There was this magician of some repute who was hired to do his act aboard a cruise ship. He had been there for several years, and since the crowd was in continual change, he did the same act over and over. He enjoyed the good life in this sinecure, spending most his time out on the Promenade Deck working on his tan, not new tricks.

One day the Captain bought a parrot, and over the months brought the parrot with him to see the nightly magic show.

Being a smart parrot, the bird learned all the tricks as to where the cards, flower, etc. were hidden by the magician in his act. The bird would say, "the card is up his left sleeve, the flower is under the pot, he hid the money under his shoe..." Because the parrot would only take about a week to catch on to his magic tricks, the magician was forced to continually learn new ones which was getting harder and harder by the day, and really cramping his "sun time." To put it mildly he HATED THE DARN PARROT, but since it was the Captain's he couldn't just weigh the bird down and deep six it.

Late one night the engine room exploded and the ship sank within minutes. Miraculously, the magician found himself clinging to a timber, floating in the water at 0200 dark in the morning. Alas, he was the only one left alive!

As the sun came up the next morning and he turned around what should be sitting 20 feet away on the opposite end of the log - his arch nemesis, the Parrot!

They glared at each other and said nothing. This went on for three days and neither said a word, just glared.

On the Fourth Day the Parrot finally broke the silence and said, "OK! I give up - what did you do with the ship!"

 

Dallas Cowboy Humor

Since it is time for the new season to start, I thought I'd share this one with you.

John Madden was in Denver to announce a football game one weekend when he noticed a special phone near the Broncos' bench. He asked Coach Shanahan what it was for and was told it was a hotline to God. John asked the coach if he could use it, and the coach said: "Sure, but it will cost you $100."

Madden scratched his head, then said: "What the heck, I need some help picking some games." He pulled out his wallet and paid the $100.

Madden was perfect that week.

The next weekend, Madden was in Green Bay when he noticed the same kind of phone near the Green Bay bench. He asked Coach Holmgren what the phone was for, and Mike said: " It's a hotline to God, and if you want to use it, it will cost you $100." Recalling the previous week, Madden pulled out his wallet and gladly paid the $100.

Once again, Madden was perfect.

The next weekend, Madden was in Dallas at Texas Stadium when he noticed the same phone near the Cowboy's bench. He asked Coach Gailey if it was a hotline to God. Chan said, "Yes it is. Do you want to use it? It'll cost you 35 cents."

Madden looked at Coach Gailey and said, "Wait a minute! I just paid $100 in Denver and $100 in Green Bay to use the same phone! Why in Dallas do they only charge 35 cents?"

Chan looked at Madden and replied very matter-of-factly, "In Texas, it's a local call."

 

First Aid

It was a stifling hot day and a man fainted in the middle of a busy intersection. Traffic quickly piled up in all directions while a woman rushed to help him. When she knelt down to loosen his collar, a man emerged from the crowd, pushed her aside, and said, "It's all right honey, I've had a course in first aid."

The woman stood up and watched as he took the ill man's pulse and prepared to administer artificial respiration. At this point she tapped him on the shoulder and said, "When you get to the part about calling a doctor, I'm already here."

 

Please practice safe emailing

As we rely more and more on email, it's wise to remember how easily this wonderful technology can be misused, sometimes unintentionally, with serious consequences.

Consider the case of the Illinois man who left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick email. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her email address, he did his best to type it in from memory. Unfortunately, he missed one letter, and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife, whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked her email, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a dead faint. At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen:

____________

Dearest Wife,

Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.

PS. Sure is hot down here.

 

MANAGEMENT STYLES

1. MANAGING BY WALKING FASTER THAN THE EMPLOYEES: These kind of managers you will always see in the corridor, ten steps away. "We'll have to talk" you can hear them say, just as they have disappeared around the corner.

2. MANAGING BY STARING OUT OF THE WINDOW: These managers you usually meet with their backside faced to you with their hands in their pockets. When you talk to them, their thoughts keep staring out of the windows.

3. MANAGING BY POST-IT'S: Some managers forget everything. They want to impress you with their "busyness" by continuously writing on Post-it's while you are talking.

4. MANAGING BY KNOWING NOTHING: These managers don't really know anything at all. They let YOU give answers. Meanwhile they fill the time with nice anecdotes of irrelevant cases.

5. MANAGING BY CONCEPTUAL THINKING: These people try to explain the present from a theoretical view of the far future. The idea that this never will work, completely satisfies them: They will always have something to talk about.

6. MANAGING BY HIDING INFORMATION: Information hiders are aware of the market value of strictly secret kept information. You must be very thankful to get any information at all. Beware of simulates from category 5!

7. MANAGING BY DOING EXACTLY WHAT THE BOSS SAYS: These managers prevent their bosses from creative thinking. Else they got more work to do.

8. MANAGING BY WALKING ONE FOOT BEHIND THE BOSS: In hierarchical organizations you can watch those groups walking in the corridor. The more equal managers are directly followed by the lesser equal managers, and so on.

9. MANAGING BY SMILING AND WEARING NICE SUITS: If you drink beer with them, lunch with them, smile to them and also wear nice suits, nothing can stop your career anymore.

10. MANAGING BY STUDYING: Despite their continual attendances of all kind of studies and congresses, they still belong to category 5. The longer they learn, the further they get from the practice.

11. MANAGING BY CREATING VAGUE OVERHEAD SHEETS: Do you know them? Those sheets with some big arrows,boxes or circles? These sheets provide the ultimate proof of their overall brilliance.

12. MANAGING BY OPEN DOOR AND EMPTY ROOM: This is a major improvement of the older 'OPEN DOOR' management style. Now you can really walk in and out anytime you want. Nobody ever knows where these managers are.

13. MANAGING BY SPEAKING WITH OTHER MANAGERS: This kind of managing is very popular. It will give them within a few hours the same information as an employee can tell them in 15 minutes.

14. MANAGING BY HAVING A NON SUPPORTING INFRASTRUCTURE: In an organization with a hopeless infrastructure, managers are really necessary. These managers will naturally prevent the organization from having a better infrastructure.

15. BUA MANAGEMENT ( BY USING ABBREVIATIONS ): This management style is ATRASACWOC. (Adopted To Reach A Shorter And Clearer Way Of Communication ).

16. MANAGING BY USING BUZZ WORDS: These managers like to bluff your head off with hip, nearly undefined, terms.

17. MANAGING BY REORGANIZATION: If they think there is nothing more to organize, they reorganize.

18. MANAGING BY BELIEVING: These managers must be spiritual educated, because they have no clues at all.

19. MANAGING BY FORGETTING PROMISES: If you remind them of one of their promises, the priority of that promise is too low to remember.

 

The Funeral Procession

This man, Tom, was standing by the side of the road when he noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery. A long black hearse was followed by another long black hearse about fifty feet back.

Behind the second hearse was a solitary man walking a pit bull on a leash and behind them were 200 men walking in single file.

Tom couldn't stand the curiosity. he respectfully approached the man walking the dog and said, "Sir, I know now is a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen a funeral like this before. Whose funeral is it?"

The man replied, "Well, that first hearse is for my wife."

Tom asked, "What happened to her?"

The man replied, "My dog bit her and she died."

Tom inquired further, "Well, who is in the second hearse?"

The man answered, "My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my wife when the dog turned and bit her and she died."

A poignant and thoughtful moment of silence passes between the two men.

Then Tom asks, "Sir, could I borrow that dog?"

The man replied, "Get in line."

 

Thanks for stopping by. Terry will be back next month. If you'd like to be added to our email notification list that will let you know when our column is updated, just let us know. We'll be glad to add your name to our list. The list is private, so you don't have to worry about your email address getting out. Because we use a very good GroupMail program, the notification letter has only your email address on it so no one knows who else is on the list. If there is a topic or site you'd like to see covered in the future, let us know and we'll take a look at it. See you the first Monday of next month!

---

Created by Chuck and Terry Mencke

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"Your Web Connection" was last modified: December 24, 2000

URL: http://www.web-connection.org/archive/webback/1999/conn0906.htm

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