Author Archives: Leonard

Friday Funny June 13, 2014 – The Elephant in the Room

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lwff

I bet you have been thinking to yourself that it has been awhile since you heard some good elephant jokes.  Well, here they are.

Enjoy!

What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the bill?  Look! Here come the elephants over the hill!”

So, what did Tarzan say when he say the elephants coming over the hill wearing dark glasses?  Nothing! He did not recognize them.

How can you tell an elephant from a grape?  The grape is purple.

What is it that looks like an elephant and flies?  A flying elephant!

What is it that looks like an elephant, flies, and is extremely dangerous?  A flying elephant with a machine gun.

What does a bald elephant wear for a toupee?  A sheep.

How can you tell if an elephant has been in your refrigerator?  By the footprints in the jello.

Why did the elephant paint his toenails different colors?  So, he could hide in the bowl of M&M’s.

What is red and white on the outside and gray and white on the inside?  Campbell’s Cream of Elephant Soup

How do you make an elephant float?  An elephant, some root beer and two scoops of ice cream!

What’s gray and goes round and round? An elephant in a washing machine! 

What’s the difference between an African elephant and an Indian elephant? About 3,000 miles!

What grey, has a wand, huge wings and gives money to elephants? The tusk fairy!

What’s the difference between an elephant and a piece of paper? You can’t make a paper airplane out of an elephant!

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. ~Anne Lamott
http://www.quotegarden.com

 

Hosed

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hose

I have a very strong dislike for garden hoses.  That may sound odd to you, you may very likely perceive garden hoses as being rather innocuous.    Who ever heard of a garden hose causing a real problem? – you might think.  Yet to me, garden hoses present an endless source of frustration.  l am sure you have noticed that a garden hose stretched out across the yard has a striking resemblance to a snake, I believe there is a reason for that.

The purpose of a garden hose is simple and straightforward, it is “supposed” to convey water from one place to another, from the house to the plants that need to be watered, to the car that needs to be washed, to the child who wants to play in its spray. 

The plan is obvious enough: attach one end to the spigot and to the other end attach a nozzle or a sprinkler of some sort and enjoy an uninterrupted supply of water.  

Well here is what happens when I use a garden hose.  First I attach one end to the spigot, then I attach the other end to a nozzle then I turn the water faucet on.  Next I wait for the water to come out of the hose, then I wait some more and then after I wait a while longer a small trickle of water comes out.  So, I unroll the hose from the reel.  Unfortunately this is not as easy as it sounds for invariably, the hose is knotted and twisted inside the hose reel.  This is one of the great mysteries of life because it is never knotted when I reel the hose in; however, somehow it is ALWAYS knotted and kinked when I reel the hose out.  So I pull and pull and pull some more, then I knock the hose reel over and kick it a time or two for good measure and eventually the hose is out.  The water trickle becomes a little stronger but there is still something amiss.  My next step is to undo all the places where the hose has twisted and folded over on itself restricting the water flow, even though I have the reinforced garden hose that has a lifetime guarantee to never twist or fold over on itself.  Once the hose has finally been straightened out, the water flows freely.  Of course now I notice that the majority of the water is gushing out all around the nozzle because the washer that I replaced the last time I used the hose has become cracked and dried and is no longer providing a very good seal.  I turn off the water, put on a dry shirt, replace the washers at both ends of the hose, turn the water on and, finally, everything works fine.  However, in the time it has taken me to have a fully functioning garden hose with an adequate flow of water, the clouds have darkened and a thunderstorm has rolled in.  By the time I get the hose reeled in, the skies have opened up, the rain has come, and I am once again soaked to the bone.

Which only serves to remind me once again that I have a very strong dislike for garden hoses!

 

 

 

 

Friday Funny June 6, 2014 – A Sad and Sordid Tale

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lwff

There was once a very troubled young man named Clint who never seemed to be able to catch a break. It seemed as if one setback only served to lead to another setback. Years of frustration and failure had left him broke, unhappy and desperate. His desperate situation led him to a desperate plan. He knew that his wife had a large insurance policy for which he was the sole beneficiary, so he decided that the only way out of his current circumstances was to arrange to have her killed.

Clint had a “friend of a friend” put him in touch with a shadowy and nefarious underworld figure who was known only by the fictitious name of “Artie.” Clint arranged a meeting with Artie in a dark and dreary alley. Artie explained to the Clint that his going price for “taking care of his problem” was $50,000, in small, unmarked bills. Clint said he was willing to pay that amount but nervously explained that he did not have that much money and that he would not have it until after the “problem” was taken care of and he had received the insurance payment.

Artie was not very pleased to hear this and insisted on being paid something up front. Clint took out his billfold and sheepishly displayed the solitary one dollar bill that resided in the well-worn wallet. Artie muttered under his breath, sighed heavily, rolled his eyes, and reluctantly agreed to accept the dollar as down payment for the service to be rendered.

Artie began to keep tabs on Clint’s wife and a few days later, he followed her as she made a trip to the local grocery store. Once inside, he surprised her in the produce department, overpowered her and strangled her with his gloved hands.

As the poor unsuspecting woman drew her last breath and slumped to the floor the unfortunate manager of the produce department stumbled unexpectedly onto the scene. Artie was unwilling to leave any witnesses behind, so he had no choice but to strangle the produce manager as well.

Unbeknownst to Artie, the entire proceedings were captured by the store’s hidden camera and observed by the store’s security guard, who immediately called the police.

Before he could even leave the store, Artie was apprehended. Under intense questioning at the police station, Artie revealed the diabolical plan, including his financial arrangements with hapless Clint.

And that is why, the next day in the newspaper, the headline declared:

ARTIE CHOKES TWO FOR A DOLLAR AT KROGER

Thought for the week

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” ~Abraham Lincoln

In Spring a Young Man’s Fancy Turns to Baseball

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softball 14 028

For as far back as I can remember, the coming of spring has meant the coming of baseball.  The cut off dates were different for school and Little League and I can still recall how disappointed I was in second grade when most of my friends could sign-up and play baseball, but I could not.  The next year I could sign-up for “minors” and I did.  I also signed up the next year and the next year and the next year until I have almost lost count.  I believe that outside of 1986 and 1987, I have played baseball or softball every year since 1968.  If I think about the years that I played on more than one softball team, I guess I have been playing for more than fifty seasons.

This evening I had the opportunity to play my first game of 2014.  A decade ago, I joked that I was going to play long enough to play softball with all three of my boys.  That happened several years ago and I have already been asked if I am going to play long enough to play with my grandson. 

Across the years a few dreams as well as a few bones have been broken on the diamond.  I played on some good teams and some bad teams, some undefeated teams and some soundly defeated teams.  Over the five years I made the Shiloh-Ft. McKinley Little League tournament team we won one game and lost six.  As a fourteen year-old, I managed to pitch a no-hitter and lose 1-0.  One year I stuck out almost fifty percent of the time and the next year I hit over .600.  But my baseball “career” was over when I turned sixteen.

But I just could not stay away from the game I enjoyed so much and so I turned to slow pitch softball.  I have been playing at church ever since with the occasional work team thrown in as a bonus.  I can still recall the day I looked at around on the Citizens Bank softball team and realized I was the oldest guy on the team, that was in 1997!

Why, at my age, do I keep playing?  For fun, when it quits being fun, it will be time to quit. But the anticipation of stepping into the batter’s box, the adrenaline of running down the first base line still trying to run out a hit, those rare instances when I can “see” the ball coming my way just as the batter begins to swing – those things keep me coming back year after year.  The hits may not be as frequent and there may be a lot more bobbles between the good plays but every once in a while there is the hit right where I want it to be or the lunge at just the right second that snags the ball and as long as those still happen occasionally, spring will find me once again longing to grab my glove and bat and head out for another game.   

Friday Funny May 30, 2014 – Deep Thoughts for Friday

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lwff

 

Happy Friday!  Every once in a while, it is good to pause, take a deep breath and ponder some deep thoughts.

Enjoy!

To me, it’s always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, “Hey, can you give me a hand?,” you can say, “Sorry, got these sacks.”

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.

It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.

Either you like bacon or you are wrong.

I want to be the reason you look down at your phone and smile, then walk into a pole.

If I don’t love something, is it still OK to set it free?

Just because I wear a sandwich board doesn’t make me some kind of hero.

I have this great trick where I can take a glass of ice water and, through sheer
concentration, bring it to a boil. Well, actually, I’ve never gotten it to boil,
but I did get it up to room temperature once.

For me, failure is not an option. It comes standard with everything I do.

I put out some Rat-B-Gon, but it doesn’t work. Not only isn’t the rat gone, it hasn’t
even moved for the last two days.

I have CDO. It’s like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, only in alphabetical order like it should be.

Five out of four people have trouble with fractions.

There are two kinds of people: those that can count and those that can’t.

Remember Clones are people two.

If quitters never win, and winners never quit, what fool came up with, “Quit while you’re ahead?”

If it’s true that we are here to help ‘others’—then what exactly are the ‘others’ here for?

If a man says something in the woods and there are no women there, is he still wrong?

If a cow laughs hard enough, would milk come out her nose?

If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?

So what’s the speed of dark?

Why do you press harder on a remote-control when you know the battery is dead?
A day without sunshine is like – Night.

On the other hand – you have different fingers

97.2 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Remember, half the people you know are below average.

The early bird may get the worm – but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap.

Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened?

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

Don’t miss the donut by looking through the hole. ~Author Unknown

Movie Wisdom

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VACATION12 003

I certainly hope that this Memorial Day you took time to reflect on the gift provided by those who gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we might have the opportunity to enjoy our freedom.

Weekend and holidays are often a great time to catch up on those DVD that have been gathering dust since you received them last Christmas or last birthday or some other time.  A quick search of the internet will provide a wealth of important things we have learned from watching movies.  Here are some of my favorites, feel free to add yours to the list.

..All telephone numbers in America begin with the digits 555.
…If being chased through town, you almost always take cover in a passing St. Patrick’s Day parade – regardless what time of the year. (Unless you are in New Orleans where there is always a Mardi Gras parade.)
…All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French Bread.
…It’s possible for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to provide instructions to you.
…Once applied, makeup and lipstick will never rub off – even while swimming or being adrift at sea for days.
…The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty.
…If you need to reload your gun, you will always have more ammunition even if you haven’t been carrying any before now.
…You’re very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
…Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.
…If your town is threatened by an eminent natural disaster or killer beast, the mayor’s first concern will be the tourist trade.
…The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.
…The Washington Monument can be seen from any window in Washington, DC.
…A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
…When paying for a taxi, don’t look at your wallet as you take out a bill – just grab one at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.
…Kitchens don’t have light switches. When entering a kitchen at night, you should open the fridge door and use that light instead.
…Mothers routinely cook eggs, bacon and waffles for their family every morning even though their husband and children never have time to eat it.
…Cars that crash will almost always burst into flames and roll down steep hillsides.
…The Chief of Police will always suspend his star detective – or give him 48 hours to finish the job.
…A single match will be sufficient to light up a room the size of the Rose Bowl.
…Medieval peasants had perfect teeth and clean, but ragged, clothes.
…Any person waking from a nightmare will sit bolt upright and pant.
…If the phone rings in the middle of the night, one has to turn on the light next to the bed before answering the phone.
…It is not necessary to say hello or goodbye when beginning or ending phone conversations.
…Even when driving down a perfectly straight road it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.
…All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they’re going to go off and they all have blue, red, yellow and green wires.
…It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting.
…A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
…It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts – your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
…When a person is knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, they will never suffer a concussion or brain damage.
…No one involved in a car chase, hijacking, explosion, volcanic eruption or alien invasion will ever go into shock.
…Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.
…When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.
…You can always find a chainsaw when you need one.
…Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds – unless it’s the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside.
…Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at that precise moment.
…If you pull your collar up and your hat down over your eyes, police will never recognize you.

 

 

Friday Funny May 23, 2014 – Summer Travel Ideas

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lwff

Happy Memorial Day!  This week kicks of the unofficial start of the summer travel season.  If you are still undecided about where to go this summer, here are a few suggestions if your travels take you to Indiana or Texas.

Medora, Indiana: where you can see the longest covered Bridge in the USA. This bridge spanning the East Fork of the White River took nine months to build in 1875. Unfortunately, you cannot cross this bridge when you come to it, it has been closed to traffic since 1972.

Alexandria, Indiana: boasts the World’s Largest Ball of Paint! Mr. Michael Carmichael has spent more than 30 years applying over 18,000 layers of paint to a baseball. It now weighs close to 1,500 pounds. And you thought that pitcher for the Yankees was applying a lot of foreign substance to the ball.

Aurora, Indiana: Woman Buried in Her Cadillac. Aurora Schuck loved her Cadillac El Dorado so much that she asked her husband to bury her in it when she died. When Ray passed away a number of years later, the vault was reopened and Ray was placed next to his wife. Mrs. Schuck was moved and has been a back seat driver ever since.

Fort Wayne, Indiana: Johnny Appleseed Grave. Here you can find the final resting place of America’s most beloved migrant farmer. The grave is in a well-marked memorial park, the plot surrounded by a wrought iron fence.

Indianapolis, Indiana: Elvis’s Last Concert Parking Lot Plaque. Market Square Arena was the sight of the last performance of The King on June 26, 1977. It was demolished blown in 2001, but the plaque remains. Just don’t step on the plaque with your blue suede shoes.

Seymour, Indiana: Graves of America’s First Train Robbers. The Reno Brothers pulled off America’s first planned train robbery, but the old adage about crime not paying was true for them, they were caught, hanged by vigilantes, and buried in the town cemetery.

Terre Haute, Indiana: The Wave We Were: Hairstyling Museum. This one gets my vote for the best named attraction. Here you can find scissors, curling irons, hair dryers, permanent wave machines, and hundreds of other artifacts that go back to the 19th century.

Waco, Texas: The Bear Pit. This is the home of the Baylor Bears, the mascots of Baylor University. The latest enclosure/habitat is not really a pit, and the bears seem to be well-tended. A place like Jellystone Park where you can, “Look at the Bears! Look at the Bears! Look at the Bears!”

Waxahachie, Texas: Munster Mansion. Charles and Sandra McKee built their home as a replica of the Munster’s house. Apparently the McKee’s have both too much time and too much money. The house is opened for special charity events, usually in October, and you can stop and snap a picture of the outside anytime.

Fort Worth, Texas: Logan’s Run Water Garden. The Fort Worth “Water Garden” opened in downtown Fort Worth in 1974 and was welcomed as an oasis of plants and wetness in the midst of a concrete jungle. The Garden is still a popular spot for lunch eaters and wedding photographers, but its “Active Pool” is especially loved by fans of the 1976 sci-fi film Logan’s Run. It was on its futuristic water-splashed terraces that the film’s bewildered-young-people-who-can-now-grow-old emerged from their dystopian domed city into the real world.

San Antonio, Texas: Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Art Museum. For over 50 years Barney Smith, retired master plumber, has turned toilet seats into works of art. He creates in his garage, and loves visitors. Barney turns 93 in 2014. At last count he had completed 1,069 toilet seats.

For even more unique out-of-the-way places check out http://www.roadsideamerica.com

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations, that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided Republic.  ~John A. Logan

http://www.qutegarden.com

 

 

 

The Importance of a First Date Movie

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Luke Bday 2014 130

Believe it or not, the first movie you see with a date is a pretty good indicator of the outcome of the relationship.  Don’t tune me out just yet.  The other day I was thinking about first date movies that I saw and I realized that they were very accurate indicators of what I was getting into.  (Not that I had that many first dates in my life – I only need one hand to count them and I don’t even need all the digits).  So, stay with me as I tell my tale.

“Follow Me Boys” – this was the first movie I ever saw on a “real” date.  I was only 16 and looking for something that would not embarrass me or my date and this Disney movie that had been re-released to theaters seemed like a safe bet.  Basic plot was guy comes to town and ends up staying in an effort to woo girl away from rival. Everything falls neatly into place and everyone lives happily ever after.  Yeah, like that happens in the real world.  Of course in real life, things never quite translate from a Disney movie and in real life one does not usually spend one’s life with the first person one ever goes on a date with.  Pieces seldom fall into place that easily.   Real life is never easy or neat.  Needless to say this was not my last first date.  Side note – Walt Disney died two weeks after the film’s original release.

“Night of the Living Dead” – a classic low-budget movie which probably should have been a real clue to the young lady I saw this with.  It is a movie about zombies and there are no “happy endings” in zombie movies.  Another thing about zombies is that it is hard to determine if they are dead or alive, just like it was hard to figure out if this was really a “date” or just spending some time with someone who became a very good friend.

“Sliver Streak” – a nice lighthearted comedy with a bit of mystery and suspense mingled in.  This one sounds like it would have the makings for a great and dynamic dating relationship.  However, the train runs out of control and the film ends with a rather spectacular train wreck.  First date movies of disasters and/or horror (see “Night of the Living Dead” above) are best avoided.  The relationship was fun, but it did not end well.

“Doc Savage, The Man of Bronze” –  a pretty cheesy movie that you have probably never heard of – a bad Indiana Jones movie a few years before “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”  The thing was, it had all the pieces: the handsome, dashing hero; the beautiful, captivating damsel; good versus evil – however, all the pieces just did not quite come together as intended.  At perhaps the most romantic moment of the movie, when everyone is waiting for Doc to tenderly kiss his damsel in distress he gives her a little tap on the chin and says, “Mona, You’re a Brick.”  The pieces were there, but things just did not work out for this relationship.

“The In-Laws” – (1979 version)  a movie about a couple preparing to get married, there was a lot of suspense, conflict, and comedy with some crazy parents mixed in as well.  Everything in this movie was just pretty messy and confusing leading up to and including the wedding. Now that sounds pretty much like real life and the young lady I took to see that movie as a first date has been my wife for more than thirty years now.

 

Friday Funny May 16, 2014 – Maybe This Was Not an Emergency

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lwff

 

I read a story this week about a lady in Gastonia, South Carolina who called 911 because her Subway Flatizza was made with mariana sauce instead of pizza sauce. (If you read the description of a Faltizza, they all have mariana sauce.) That just started me wondering what other non-emergency situations have resulted in 911 calls. So, I put on my top-notch researcher hat and found the following chosen especially for you. Enjoy!

  • “My son won’t give me the remote control.”
  • “Can an officer come over and tell my kids to go to bed?”
  • “I can’t find the movie theater and the movie starts in 5 minutes”
  • “Someone broke into my house and took a bite out of my ham and cheese sandwich.”
  • A woman in Oregon, called 911 because she thought a deputy who had just visited her house on a complaint was good-looking and she was interested in setting up a date, she ended up getting arrested instead.
  • A Florida woman called 911 because she was locked inside her car WHILE SHE WAS IN IT! Of course all she needed to do was manually pull up the lock on the door. 
  • Another Florida woman called 911 because McDonald’s was out of Chicken McNuggets, “This is an emergency. If I had known they didn’t have McNuggets, I wouldn’t have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don’t want one.” 
  • A Florida man (I am starting to notice a pattern here) called 911 because the sandwich shop left the special sauce off his hero. He was so upset he called twice. The first time about the sandwich. The second time, to complain that about the slow response time.
  • In Britain, a man called authorities to report a large and mysterious flying object that lit up the sky. He soon followed up the first call saying he had solved this mystery. He determined the large and mysterious object was, in fact, the moon.
  • The Regina, Canada fire department raced off to battle a reported fire at the nearby Canadian Football League stadium. Upon arrival, they were able to quickly determine that the report fire was a burning log displayed on the stadium’s giant video screen.
  • Police received the a call from Chinese version of 911 from a woman called the local 911 in China after her boyfriend refused to warm up her cold feet. This was quickly followed by a call from the boyfriend complaining that his girlfriend was too demanding.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. ~John Burroughs

WWW.QUOTEGARDEN.COM