My Driver's License Has 'Abraham Norman Albertson', But My Friends Just Call Me 'Ab Norm Al'

YeA! I got to be a good boy today and be "The Returner of A Lost Wallet" at the grocery store. [{(Of course, looking back on the event I now realize it would have been nicer if I would have left the credit cards and cash in the wallet as well)}]

{&^)-

Hopefully you know I returned the whole thing!!! I didn't even open it but gave it to management.

My East Coast friend responded that she knew that I would have returned the wallet. A random act of kindness!

So while still in my wonderfully cheery mood, I wrote this story as a response. I had started working on it earlier in the day right before finding the wallet.

Title: My Driver's License Has 'Abraham Norman Albertson', 

But My Friends Just Call Me 'Ab Norm Al'

I got called into the office today. I was so excited, I thought, "WOW!!! first day on the job defending my small part of the world against terrorists, and the like", and thought maybe I am getting a commendation, I was elated!

I burst into manager's office and started thanking him for letting me participate in the greatest job in the world - but then he cut me off with a perplexed look on his face.

"Norm, we are going to have to let you go" - he sighed

"What?!?!? After only ONE day on the job? After all the wonderful acts of heroism today? Its tough being a security guard here at Wal-Mart", I exclaimed

"NORM!!! This is going to be the FOURTH time today I tell you that you are NOT a security guard! We hired you to bring the baskets back in from the parking lot! I have no idea how you got hired! And why did you have to tackle, tazer and handcuff that elderly lady at the front door who was coming IN the store just now?!?!?"

"She came in through the Exit Door and I asked her to leave and come back in through the proper Entrance and she started to get rude with me"

"NORM!!! That was the WIFE of the district manager of Wal-Mart!"

I replied, "Yes, I know, and she's my mother, too"

Baby Elephants Cubed

(Warning: Fiction)

So I get this wonderful idea for a business venture. I offer to dig a cube shaped hole in my neighbor's front lawns. Seven feet x seven feet x seven feet. Why? To capture baby elephants.

I explain to my neighbors that I will pay them 2 cents a cubic foot per month and then split the proceeds for any baby elephants we capture. The baby elephant market is very lucrative. They tell me that they haven't seen any baby elephants around our part of Texas running loose. I reply that the baby elephant traps that I already have in service must be doing their job, but you never know. Do you want your petunias trampled? Do you want small children scared? What about the poor defenseless kitties and puppies? (The weak minded ones start to come around by then - the smarter ones have already ran me off with a broom)

"Why 7 feet?" - they usually ask. I reply that is the optimal size for catching baby elephants. If they are much bigger than that, they are too hard to handle, and smaller ones, not enough money to pay the postage.

"How do you get the baby elephant to get in the hole?"

"A mirror" I reply

"A mirror?" they are puzzled and intrigued

"Yes, you put a small mirror at the bottom of the cube and the baby elephant peers over the edge and see another baby elephant at the bottom of the cube, "a friend!", and jumps in. If the elephant is too big, it won't fit in the cube, and eventually moves on down the street. If its too small, it becomes frightened by the now-much-larger reflection in the mirror at close range and jumps out of the hole."

I even offer that I will be glad to fill their hole back in if they decide they no longer wish to participate at a future date.

So ... (literary pause) a couple months go by. The first person to buy the "hole" story is getting irritated with their 7x7x7=343 cubic foot non-productive baby elephant trap, even though I have paid them $6.86 per month. They call demanding their front yard hole be filled back. I let them know there will be a  $1715 charge (or $5 a cubic foot) to put the dirt back. They are upset. I reply that it is in the contract that they signed. $5 a cubic foot for me to put some dirt back. They demand their dirt back freely and say they will fill it in themselves. I remind them that the next paragraph in the contract shows that they sold me their dirt. They ask how much I will charge to get their dirt back and not fill in the hole. $2 per cubic foot just for the dirt, plus mileage. By this time they are getting livid. They say that they will just get someone else to do it. I remind them of the next paragraph in the contract that states I have a lease on the hole for as long as I pay them $6.86 for the cube. AND if they have someone else fill in the hole there is a $10 per cubic foot penalty, as damages against future earnings for capturing baby elephants.

Then they ask, "I thought you originally told me that you would be GLAD to fill in the hole if I wanted to end the 'hole' thing"

"At $5 a cubic foot, wouldn't you be GLAD too?"

This story is a not-so-far fetched representation of the real ordeal one of my friends went through when dealing with a credit card processing company after they decided not to use the card reader at their business, even though it was never installed.

No neighbors, elephantine or human, were harmed in the making of this story.

Invention Link: The Next Invention in My Blog

Beating Al Gore with Carbon Ba-nano Tubes

Episode 5 

I let the dog outside so that he would not hear the following conversation. I didn't want him to get upset ahead of time over the coming events or be worried about me.

I asked my wife if she would mind me being gone for 3 weeks.

She said 'no' and then asked where I was going never taking her eyes off the video games, virtual farming and being the mayor of pixelville.

Outer Space. I told her that I was going into outer space to try out my new invention of a faster-than-the-speed-of-light instantaneous mechanical telegraph using carbon ba-nano-tube technology and eventually use a version of it to create the Internet in space before Al Gore got a chance to do it. I wanted to build the first test expanse of the invention for the range of say, the distance from Earth to Saturn, approximately 9 astronomical units or roughly a billion miles. I figured that it would take almost 3 weeks to "spin" 3 carbon ba-nano-tubes in parallel a billion miles and then do some testing. Plus install my cute new little atomic hinge device a thousand times once every million miles. Its a good thing I asked for a portable Scanning Electron Microscope for my birthday. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I got the idea when I saw some dust on my mini-blinds in motion and while thinking about my recent banana that got ashed to a crisp by "being in the hot wrong place at the not right time".

The region of the solar system where the planets circle the sun is rather "crowded", so I plan to go straight up, from an earth perspective, into an "emptier" space about 200 million miles to get away from the material junk and a substantial amount of gravitational pull of the planets.

Hyperlink Wikipedia Photo in motion Nanotube

 

(Used with Wikimedia Commons permissions)

I have been stealing diamonds for a very pure source of carbon, and finally have enough for this project. My nano tube generator is capable of producing 3 tubes in parallel out its "spinnerets". I have nicknamed the device トリプル蚕, the Japanese word for "Triple Silkworm". I realized I could have made it entirely from recycled diamonds, but a few weeks ago when I randomly said the words "carbonized banana,,, nano,,, nano-tube,,, carbon ba-nano tube", I just cracked up laughing, and thought, "I am going to have to include some banana carbon as well, just so I can name it that, that is such a cool name, 'carbon ba-nano-tube'"

The essence of the invention is that you can push a carbon nanotube in the friction free world of outerspace quite easily. The result is an instantaneous movement at the other end if you do it right. The three strands of nano-tube run parallel (flat side by side) and every million miles there is a nano scale hinge that connects all three tubes. They swivel about the center tube, so the net effect is that when you push or pull the left tube, the right one does the opposite and the center tube remains motionless. And they can be pushed with incredible ease and at great speed.

So then I just install an amplifier circuit and recording - display - local broadcast junction box out on the end of the triple nano tubes, and then I have a communication line that works faster than the speed of light to transmit information across the vast emptiness of space. And then once I have multiple robotic "factory" craft built, I can bridge the communication gap between this solar system and my home. That way if I can't actually be with my mother on planet Oklahoma, I can use my Skype-in-the-Sky video approach to at least chat with her. "Oklahoma" isn't the real name of my home planet, but I'm not allowed to reveal its name, so I use the place where my "Earth Mother" is located for its code name.

"Are you my mother?" I have waited 20 extra years to hear her voice, and see her face. I hear Elton John sing in my mind '... and I think its gonna be a long long time ...' and I smile and think, well, not much longer, Rocket Man.

My wife said sure, but just make sure to get all the laundry caught up, kitchen cleaned and extra groceries bought before I go. And don't forget to get the oil changed in her SUV. Oh, and finish building that robot that takes out the trash.




Reference: 'Rocket Man' lyrics by Bernie Taupin, from the 1972 Elton John album 'Honky Chateau'

Invention Link: The Next Invention in My Blog