OT- Bored, Funny Stories.... - Page 2

OT= off topic. In other words, (IOW) it's not about dogs.

I LOVE that story! It's been around a few years, but it's still one of my favourites!

This one's dedicated to my late husband, who was a civil engineer. It was sent to him by one of his engineering buddies:

Hi everyone - I recieved this a couple of weeks ago and thought it just might take everyones minds off of the current debates. As usual it is a funny........

Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells...?
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads. Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. So, what about the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot proving bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story...

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.

The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's backside.

And you thought being a horse's rear end wasn't important

Chiristmass at the gate,   make a sincere  wish from the heart.
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but not like this one

Sunsilver,

That was the best thing I read in a long time, I copied  and saved it in my file.

Ibrahim

The good thing about these OTs is that posters are cool, no arguments

Thanks, Ibrahim!  I, too, have a flle with lots of funny stories in it!

Everything I need to know about life, I learned from Noah's Ark...

One :Don't miss the boat.
Two : Remember that we are all in the same boat.
Three: Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.
Four : Stay fit. When you're 600 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big.
Five : Don't listen to critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done.
Six : Build your future on high ground.
Seven : For safety's sake, travel in pairs.
Eight : Speed isn't always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.
Nine : When you're stressed, float a while.
Ten : Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Eleven : No matter the storm, when you are with God, there's always a rainbow waiting.

For the ladies:

The First Time's Always the Worst"

The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches
on fire.

That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside out. I'm pretty sure Victoria's Secret doesn't have a bra for that.

Suddenly, there was a loud popping noise. I looked down at my right breast to make sure it hadn't exploded. Nope, it was still flat as a pancake and still attached to my body.

"Oh no!" Gail said loudly. These are perhaps, the words you least want to hear from any health professional. Suddenly, she came flying pas me, her lab coat whipping behind her, on her way out the door. She yelled over her shoulder, "The machine's on fire, I'm going to get help!"

OK, I was wrong, 'The machine's on fire,' are the worst words you can hear from a health professional. Especially if you're all alone and semi-permanently attached to A MACHINE and don't know if it's THE MACHINE in question.

I struggled for a few seconds trying to get free, but even Houdini couldn't have escaped. I decided to go to plan B: yelling at the top of my lung (the one that was still working).

I hadn't seen anything on fire, so my panic hadn't quite reached epic proportions. But then I started to smell smoke coming from behind the partition. "This is ridiculous," I thought. I can't die like this. What would they put in my obituary? Cause of death: breast entrapment?

I may have inhaled some fumes because I started to hallucinate. An imaginary fireman rushed in with a firehose and a hatchet. "Howdy, ma'am," he said. "What's happened here?" he asked, averting his eyes.

"My breasts were too hot for the machine," I quipped, as my imaginary fireman ran out of the room again. "This is gonna take the Jaws of Life!"

In reality, Gail returned with a fire extinguisher and put out the fire. She gave me a big smile and released me from the machine. "Sorry! That's the first time that's ever happened. Why don't you take a few minutes to relax before we finish up?"

I think that's what she said. I was running across the parking lot in my backless paper gown at the time. After I'd relaxed for a few years, I figured I might go back. But I will be bringing my own fire extinguisher.

 Is this temperament or obdience!!!

Ibrahim, I read the story behind that photo once, and apparently, this was a graduation exercise for some police academy dogs in England. Wonder where they found the cat with enough chutzpah for the job of teaser?


FOR WOMEN ONLY


The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
--Helen Hayes (at 73)

I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray eyebrows.
--Janette Barber

Who ever thought up the word "Mammogram"? Every time I hear it, I think, I'm supposed to put my breast in an envelope and send it to someone.
--Jan King

A few weeks after my [breast cancer] surgery, I went out to play catch with my golden retriever. When I bent over to pick up the ball, my prosthesis fell out. The dog snatched it, and I found myself chasing him down the road yelling "Hey, come back here with my breast!"
--Linda Ellerbee

Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.
--Lily Tomlin

You know the hardest thing about having cerebral palsy and being a woman? It's plucking your eyebrows. That's how I originally got pierced ears.
--Geri Jewell

A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who never owned a car.
--Carrie Snow

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry with your girlfriends.
--Laurie Kuslansky

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
--Erma Bombeck

Old age ain't no place for sissies.
--Bette Davis

A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't.
--Rhonda Hansome

The phrase "working mother" is redundant.
--Jane Sellman

Every time I close the door on reality it comes in through the windows.
--Jennifer Unlimited


Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
--Charlotte Whitton

Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.
--Caryn Leschen

If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning.
--Catherine Aird

When I was young, I was put in a school for retarded kids for two years before they realized I actually had a hearing loss... and they called ME slow!
--Kathy Buckley

Behind every successful woman...is a substantial amount of coffee.
--Stephanie Piro

Behind every successful woman...... is a basket of dirty laundry.
--Sally Forth


Top Ten Things Only Women Understand

10. Why it's good to have five pairs of black shoes.
9. The difference between cream, ivory, and off-white.
8. Crying can be fun.
7. FAT CLOTHES.
6. A salad, diet drink, and a hot fudge sundae make a balanced lunch.
5. Discovering a designer dress on the clearance rack can be considered a peak life experience.
4. The inaccuracy of every bathroom scale ever made.
3. A good man might be hard to find, but a good hairdresser is next to impossible.
2. Why a phone call between two women never lasts under ten minutes.

AND THE NUMBER ONE THING ONLY WOMEN UNDERSTAND:

1. OTHER WOMEN!

(Send this on to all the women you are grateful to have as friends)

Ok, I'll share a true story that happened to me at work recently. It's the story of my Police K9's baptism.

To set the story up, I'm originally from NY now living in the south. I'm what some people in the south call a "damn Yankee"; a Yankee that moved south and didn't go back. I'm also Catholic; it has some bearing on the story. Where I work we have lots and lots of churches and 7-11's. We have one of each on every corner it seems. Now, I'm dealing with some culture shock in my new city. I never realized how many Baptist, Methodist, Protestant, Episcopal, etc. one area could have. So, I'm not exactly familiar with all of these different churches and their nuances. We don't get a lot of calls for service at churches; people usually behave when they are there. I do go to church when the burglar alarm goes though and here's my story:

I respond to a Baptist or Methodist Church (I'm really not sure, they all look the same to me) for a report of a burglary in progress. I show up and other officers are already on scene and a perimeter has been set up around the church. A large stained glass window has been smashed and someone could easily have climbed through the whole. I talk to officers on scene and they say they heard noises inside the church. The Pastor, Reverend, Minister.....the guy in charge of the church says no one should be inside. So, I start a search of the church and school with my K9 and two officers. I search the first floor on a long line just in case a janitor or someone I don't want bit is inside. We clear the whole downstairs and no one is found. I clear on second floor area where the organist plays at the back of the church and no one is there.

There is only one area to clear, the upstairs second floor above the altar. I open the door to the upstairs and I see a narrow, very steep winding staircase going up. It's also very dark. Last place anyone can be hiding. So, I give additional K9 warnings to announce my presence and that the dog is coming and anyone upstairs will be bit. No response, so I pump my dog up, take him off leash and send. Like a guided missile, full speed he flies up the narrow windy stairs. He disappears into the dark in search of the bad guy and I listen intently getting ready to move up the stairs behind him. All of a sudden I hear a big splash and a commotion. You never know what you will find in a dark building and I worry about what the dog has gotten into. Panicked, I run up the stairs and still hear splashing and water churning. I turn the corner and see my dog has jumped into some kind of indoor pool or big Jacuzzi, above the altar and is swimming. My dog swims out the other side and up the climbs up the stairs and out of the pool, shakes water everywhere. We finish the search and I walk outside, no one is found in the building. Outside I meet the Minister, Pastor guy and say in my NY accent: "There's no one inside, it's safe for you to go in. I have to tell you, I don't know what kind of church you have here, but you have a big hot tub, Jacuzzi, pool kinda thing upstairs over the altar? Well, just so you know my dog fell in it and swam around for a while." The Pastor replied that's our Baptismal pool, well your dog is clean now and baptized." I replied "That may be, but I'm not sure how clean your baptismal water is?"

Being Catholic a baptismal pool is like a sink, no where the size of a small pool. I had never seen a "Baptismal Jacuzzi" in a church before this, now I know where to search when my dog does need a bath. These things can come in handy.

Jim