Youth Exchange Program Following Their Rotary Dreams

Official Upstate New York Temperature Conversion Chart submitted by YE Outbound Chair Dennis McDermott 60 above New Jerseyites try to turn on the heat. People in Upstate New York plant gardens. 50 above Californians shiver uncontrollably. People in Upstate New York sunbathe. 40 above Italian & English cars won't start. People in Upstate New York drive with the windows down. 32 above Distilled water freezes. Sacandaga Lake's water gets thicker. 20 above Floridians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, woolly hats. People in Upstate New York throw on a flannel shirt 5 above Philadelphia landlords finally turn up the heat. People in Upstate NY have the last cook-out before it gets cold. 0 People in Miami all die... Upstaters lick the flagpole. 20 below Californians fly away to Mexico. People in Upstate New York get out their winter coats. 40 below Hollywood disintegrates. The Girl Scouts in Upstate NY are selling cookies door to door. 60 below Polar bears begin to evacuate the Arctic. Upstate Boy Scouts postpone "Winter Survival" classes until it gets cold enough. 80 below Mt. St. Helen's freezes. People in Upstate NY rent some videos. 100 below Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. Upstaters get frustrated because they can't thaw the keg. 297 below Microbial life no longer survives on dairy products. Cows in Upstate NY complain about farmers with cold hands. 460 below ALL atomic motion stops (absolute zero on the Kelvin scale). People in Upstate NY start saying...."Cold 'nuff for ya?" 500 below Hell freezes over. The Buffalo Bills win the Super Bowl! Back to top         A Card Phenomenon! submitted by YE Outbound Chair Dennis McDermott This isn't a card "trick", it's more of a phenomenon. I can't begin to explain it; I only know that it somehow works every time. This is a little involved, so be patient. Take a regular deck of 52 playing cards (you don't use the jokers), and deal the cards face up. With the first card, you use its face value and then count from there up to 13 to complete a pile. For example, if your first card was a 10, you'd lay that card face up on the table, and then count out the next three cards as "11", "12" and "13". When the pile is complete, turn it over, face down on the table. If the next card is a 7, then start with 7 and count up from there ... 8, 9, 10, etc. to 13. Aces count as "1", Jacks are "11", Queens are "12", and a King, being "13" is a pile all by itself. If, when you come near the end of the deck, you do not have enough cards to make a complete pile of 13, hold onto them as "leftovers". You should now have at least 4, and probably more, piles of cards all face down on the table. Remove all but three piles and add the removed cards to your "leftovers". Of the remaining three piles, turn over the top card on two of the piles, leaving one pile with its top card still facing down. Add the two cards that you just turned over. If you have a Queen and an 8, your total is 20 (12 + 8). Whatever you total is, add 10 to it. Now, take the removed cards and the leftovers and count them. Suppose you have 37. In the example we used, you have a Queen and an 8 showing (equalling 20) plus 10 makes 30, and you have 7 cards more than that, so that means that the top card that you didn't turn over is a 7. Works every time!     Back to top       11 Things You Don't Learn in School submitted by Chad Hayden, PP Auburn Rotary Club , D7150 Charles Sykes, the author of "Dumbing Down Our Kids", volunteered for high school and college graduates a list of eleven things they did not learn in school. In his book, he talks about how the feel good, politically-correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality sets them up for failure in the real world. Rule 1:... Life is not fair; get used to it. Rule 2:... The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself. Rule 3:... You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone until you earn both. Rule 4:... If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure. Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity. Rule 6:... If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes. Learn from them. Rule 7:... Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes, and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room. Rule 8:... Your school may have done away with winners and losers but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This, of course, doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life. Rule 9:... Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time. Rule 10:... Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs. Rule 11:.. Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. Back to top You Know You're Drinking Too Much Coffee When: submitted by YE Inbound Exchange Student Paul Zonnenberg You ski uphill. You get a speeding ticket even when you are parked. You answer the door before people knock. You just completed another sweater and you don't know how to knit You grind your coffee beans in your mouth. You sleep with your eyes open. You have to watch videos in fast-forward. You can take a picture from yourself from ten feet away without using the timer. You lick your coffeepot clean. You're the employee of the month at the local coffeehouse and you don't even work there. You're so jittery that people use your hands to blend their margaritas. You can type sixty words per minute with your feet. You can jump-start your car without cables. You don't need a hammer to pound in nails. You don't sweat, you percolate. You walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it's not plugged in. Charles Manson thinks you need to calm down. People get dizzy just watching you. Starbucks owns the mortage on your house. You're so wired, you pick up AM radio. People test their batteries in your ears. Instant coffee takes too long. You channel surf faster without a remote. You're offended when people use the word "brew" to mean beer. You Thermos is on wheels. You have a picture of your coffee mug on your coffee mug. You can outlast the Energizer bunny. You don't even wait for the water to boil anymore. Your nervous twitch registers on the richter scale. You can't even remember your second cup. You help your dog chase its tail. You soak your dentures in coffee overnight. Your first-aid kit contains two pints of coffee with an I.V. hookup.   Back to top Consider This...   If you can start the day without caffeine, If you can get going without pep pills, If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches & pains, If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles, If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it, If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time, If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you when, through no fault of yours, something goes wrong, If you can take criticism and blame without resentment, If you can ignore a friends limited education and never correct him/her, If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend, If you can face the world without lies and deceit, If you can conquer tension without medical help, If you can relax without liquor, If you can sleep without the aid of drugs, If you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, or politics, Then, my friend, You are ALMOST as good as your dog.. Back to top Brain Teaser 2  submitted by Marlene Brown, Webmeister Scroll Down   S - L - O - W - L - Y   and   DO NOT CHEAT!!!!       SCROLL DOWN SLOWLY -   ONE LINE AT A TIME!             Try this and you will be amazed!   Don't look ahead!   Just do it step by step.   Go....             DO NOT SKIP AHEAD   Read this message ONE LINE AT A TIME and just do what it says.   You will be glad you did. If not, you'll wish you had listened!           You will probably need your caculator - you have one!   Look under Accessories!!         1) Pick a number from 1-9           2) Subtract 5           3) Multiply by 3           4) Square the number (multiply by the same number - not square root)           5) Add the digits until you get only one digit (i.e. 64 is 6+4=l0 then l+0=1. Or 45 is 4+5 = 9)         6) If the number is less than 5, add five. Otherwise subtract 4.         7) Multiply by 2         8) Subtract 6   9) Map the digit to a letter in the alphabet 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, etc...     10) Pick a name of a country that begins with that letter       11) Take the second letter in the country name and think of a mammal that begins with that letter   12) Think of the color of that mammal       (keep scrolling)         DO NOT SCROLL DOWN   UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE   ALL OF THE ABOVE         Ready for the Answer?   Here it comes . . .   DO NOT CHEAT!               You have a       from Denmark!   95% of the people come up with this answer! If you are one of the elite 5% - congrats!   Back to top         SANTA CLAUS: An Engineer's Perspective I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each. II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second -- 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them -- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance --- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. Compliments of the season!! David Medcalf Rotary Club of Over Wyre Assistant Governor 98-99, D1190 North West England 10-Dec-98 at 23:02:17 =================================== Back to top

Five Great Lessons ~1~ Most Important Question During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. "Absolutely," said the professor. "In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say 'hello'. "I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy. ~2~ Pickup in the Rain One night, at 11:30 PM, an older African American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rain storm. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help her - generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960s. The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance and put her into a taxi cab. She seemed to be in a big hurry! She wrote down his address, thanked him and drove away. Seven days went by and a knock came on the man's door. To his surprise, a giant console color TV was delivered to his home-A special note was attached. It read: "Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes but my spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband's bedside just before he passed away. God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others." Sincerely, Mrs. Nat King Cole ~3~ Always remember those who serve In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10 year old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" "Fifty cents," replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it. "How much is a dish of plain ice cream?" he inquired. Some people were now waiting for a table and the waitress was a bit impatient. "Thirty-five cents," she said brusquely. The little boy again counted the coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and departed. When the waitress came back, she began wiping down the table and then swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies - her tip. ~4~ The Obstacle in Our Path In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the big stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. On approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many others never understand. Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one's condition. ~5~ Giving Blood Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, "Yes, I'll do it if it will save Liz." As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away?" Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood. Back to top

If you're Java enabled, click here to enjoy a neat laugh. =================================== Back to top

Brain Teaser, submitted by Ray Allen, YE Secretary Follow these 6 steps and this will amaze you. It only takes 30 seconds. 1. First, pick the number of days a week that you would like to go out for dinner (or order carry-out or pizza). 2. Multiply this number by 2. 3. Add 5. 4. Multiply it by 50. 5. If you have already had your birthday this year, add 1748. If you haven't, add 1747. 6. Last step, Subtract the four digit year that you were born. Results: You should now have a three digit number. The first digit of this was your original number (i.e. how many times you want to eat out each week). The second two digits are your age!!! It really works, so spread the fun around by telling your friends to come take the Brain Teaser and find out for themselves! Back to top

Baby Camel's Question A mother and baby camel are talking one day when the baby camel asks, "Mom why have I got these huge three toed feet?" The mother replies, "Well son, when we trek across the desert your toes will help you to stay on top of the soft sand". "OK" said the son. A few minutes later the son asks, "Mom, why have I got these great long eyelashes?" "They are there to keep the sand out of your eyes on the trips through the desert". "Thanks Mom" replies the son. After a short while, the son returns and asks, "Mom, why have I got these great big humps on my back??" The mother, now a little impatient with the boy replies, "They are there to help us store water for our long treks across the desert, so we can go without drinking for long periods." "That's great mom, so we have huge feet to stop us sinking, and long eyelashes to keep the sand from our eyes and these humps to store water, but Mom" "Yes son?" "Why the heck are we in the San Diego zoo?" Back to top What is a Cat? 1) Cats do what they want. 2) They rarely listen to you. 3) They're totally unpredictable. 4) They whine when they are not happy. 5) When you want to play, they want to be alone. 6) When you want to be alone, they want to play. 7) They expect you to cater to their every whim. 8) They're moody. 9) They leave hair everywhere. 10) They drive you nuts and cost an arm and a leg. Conclusion: They're tiny women in little fur coats. What is a Dog? 1. Dogs lie around all day, sprawled on the most comfortable piece of furniture in the house. 2. They can hear a package of food opening half a block away, but don't hear you when you're in the same room. 3. They can look dumb and lovable all at the same time. 4. They growl when they are not happy. 5. When you want to play, they want to play. 6. When you want to be alone, they want to play. 7. They are great at begging. 8. They will love you forever if you rub their tummies. 9. They leave their toys everywhere. 10. They do disgusting things with their mouths and then try to give you a kiss. Conclusion: They're tiny men in little fur coats.   =============================== Back to top The Carpenter An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by. The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter's heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career. When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house," he said, "my gift to you." What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well. So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized, we would have done it differently. Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity. Your life today is the result of your past attitudes and choices. Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and choices you make today. - author unknown (submitted by Al Kalter)     Back to Top

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