LOST?

[terry skinner]

LOST?

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces
height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and
shouts, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him
half an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man below says, "Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering
approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees
North latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees West longitude."

"You must be an engineer," says the balloonist.

"I am," replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically
correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact
is I am still lost."

The man below says, "You must be a manager

"I am," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you are going.
You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect
me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in the exact same position
you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault."

Terry & Diane Skinner
Webfooted in Washington
'76 Glenbrook

 

[richard bachert]

Emery, I KNOW this is WAAAAYY off topic, but I thought you and the guys
might enjoy this TRUE story:
When I was a young man, I was in the Junior Achievement program in Cleveland
(my home town). Our advisor was an older gentlemen (Gunnar Gabrielson) who
then worked with the old White Sewing Machine Company. When a young man
himself, Gunnar had worked with THOMAS EDISON as a lab assistant at Menlo
Park. Gunnar delighted in telling a story which pointed out the difference
between theoretical and the sort of practical intellect for which Edison was
famous. The lab was visited one day by a group of esteemed mathematicians
and physicists. At one point during their tour, Edison handed them one of
his glass envelopes for the light bulb he'd just perfected and asked them to
tell him the volume of this complex shape. They spent nearly an hour
burning up their slide rules and finally produced a solution. Edison
glanced at it and declared it to be incorrect. Incredulous, one of them
asked him how he knew that. Without saying another word, Edison walked to
the sink, filled the bulb with water -- and poured it into a graduated beaker!

I'll take Ol' Tom's method every time...
Dick 75 PB in Atlanta

>In a message dated 5/13/99 9:23:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

>
>length."
>
>Emery Stora
>77 Kingsley
>Santa Fe, NM A former engineer just catching up with old mail
>