Happy Easter!

There are few things in life that baffle me more than Santa Clause (see my Christmas posts for details), putting pineapple on pizza or Justin Bieber's popularity. But one thing that also has me scratching my head is the whole idea of the Easter Bunny.

The tale goes that, once a year, a rabbit which has managed to get its paws on many coloured chocolate eggs will come to your house/flat/garden/cave and hide said eggs for your children to find. Seeing as this causes sibling rivalry to ascend to almost astronomical levels, mostly ending in screaming and tears, the only people who look forward to this time of year are dentists.

Or so you may think. In actual fact, Christian believers also look forward to this time of year. It is a time in which we celebrate the biggest sacrifice in history. The time when a loving Father in Heaven sacrificed His only Son so that we may come boldly into His presence. In the past, priests had to sacrifice animals in order to come close to God, but with that single act of sacrifice, God has ensured that we can be in His presence always, the debt having been paid. As a father myself I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like to have to sacrifice my only child on behalf of a sinful and ungrateful world. Jesus went through the most humiliating and cruel death known in the roman time, having steel nails hammered through His wrists and feet, fixing him to a wooden cross. Jesus knew what awaited Him, He was so anxious about it that He started sweating blood. When He was nailed to the cross, even God the Father turned from Him, as He had become the living embodiment of all our sins. Jesus cried out "Father, why have you forsaken me?!" As a father I would also not have been able to look upon my child dying so cruelly. I too would have turned my head, unable to witness their suffering. But Jesus knew He was doing His Father's will, He knew what His sacrifice would mean to a lost and sinful world. And just before He died, he proclaimed "It is done!"

This time of year we acknowledge that massive and heart-wrenching sacrifice. But we also rejoice that, three days after His death, He rose again. Our saviour lives, and through Him we too can have eternal life. All barriers separating us from our loving God have been removed. I urge you, if you have not yet accepted Jesus as your saviour, think of what He did with you in mind. And know that He loves you with a love that defies all human understanding. As He proved with the man who was crucified with Him, it is never to late to accept His love. No matter what you have done, He loves you and wants to be your provider and comforter.

The Outer Limits

I am a massive fan of sci-fi, so it should come as no surprise that I would be a fan of The Outer Limits. For those who don't know, The Outer Limits was a show featuring unexplained phenomena. Now while I am convinced that, given enough time, all mysteries can be resolved logically, there are some that just defy explanation. Is the Loch Ness Monster real, or was it just a large log floating about and looking all menacing? Is Big Foot real, or did they just happen to get a picture of me on the beach? Are UFOs real, or just the imaginings of concussed glue addicts? These are all questions that people have been asking for a long time. But now I have a new question. A very important one! One that will be on people's minds for centuries to come! And that question is quite simple: "What in the name of cinnamon flavoured flapjacks is going on in these pictures?!"

I have but one response to the pictures above....

A Total No-Brainer!

On an internet survey I completed the other day one of the questions was "Where would you live if you had a choice?" The question came with a list of options to choose from:

• A home by the sea
• A cabin in the woods
• Deep in the mountains
• In the city
• In the countryside
• A castle in Scotland

I didn't even have to think very hard to come up with my answer.....it would definitely be a castle in Scotland!

"But why?" someone asked me. Because it is a castle! In Scotland! The very fact that they felt compelled to ask me that question means that they are now off of my guest list and won't be allowed to visit me in my Scottish Castle. Who wouldn't want to live in a castle?! And one located in one of the most scenic and historic places on this planet! I know my two year old would absolutely jump at the chance!

Since childhood I have been fascinated by the idea of castles. And I have not outgrown that fascination. Okay sure, my first introduction to castles was Castle Grayskull in the Masters of the Universe series, which looked impressive but not very homely. Plus having a muscled blonde guy in a loincloth yelling things outside of your front door while pointing a large sword into the sky would get tiresome after a while. (He-Man reference, for those who didn't quite get it) When you are young castles are the stuff of legend. There is the aforementioned Castle Grayskull, and who hasn't heard of Camelot and imagined being a knight of the round table in King Arthur's Court. Although why such a fuss gets made about the shape of a table is beyond me! But then you realise that castles are real! And that there are castles all over the world! Just not in South Africa, which sucks.

I don't think I will ever get tired of the idea of living in a castle. And I don't think the fascination will ever fade. And if you don't agree that living in a castle in Scotland is the best thing ever, then you can go ahead and get off of my unicorn!

Things That Go "What?" in the Night

The other day I was having a discussion with someone regarding fears. There are all the common ones; snakes, spiders (shudder), the dark, Justin Bieber opening his mouth and so on. I myself have made no secret of the fact that I am not a fan of spiders. And you can't blame me! I mean, just look at this....

That cuddly little munchkin is called the Goliath Birdeater, and it is also the sole reason why I will never go to South America! But that got me thinking, what other types of fear are there? So I decided to have a look at some of the strangest (and very real) fears that exist on our strange planet.

Ablutophobia
The fear of taking a bath or a shower. Companies like Axe or Yardley must love these people!

Ergophobia
The fear of work or the workplace. Um, don't most people have this one?

Nomophobia
The fear of having no mobile signal. I'm pretty sure this is only in first-world countries.

Philophobia
The fear of falling in love. I can imagine these people are an absolute treat at parties!

Somniphobia
The fear of falling asleep. This is one that I definitely do not have!

Heliophobia
The fear of sunlight. I sense there might be a few vampires that agree with this one!

Chaetophobia
The fear of hair. Anyone that has a toddler with long hair will probably have this one.

Arachibutyrophobia
The fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. *facepalm

Haphephobia
The fear of being touched. Probably as a result of coming in contact with someone suffering from ablutophobia.

Oikophobia
The fear of household appliances. But then, we all know the toaster is secretly out to kill us all!

Coulrophobia
The fear of clowns. I get a feeling that Stephen King had something to do with this one.

Hylophobia
The fear of wood, trees and forests. I assume someone had a close encounter with a rabid squirrel.

Decidophobia
The fear of making decisions. These people must be a blast in restaurants!

Descendophobia
The fear of descending. It also has a fun twin called ascendophobia, the fear of moving upwards.

Chronophobia
The fear of time passing. Um, okay then.

Phagophobia
The fear of swallowing. I have no words....

Omphalophobia
The fear of belly buttons. Seriously?!

Phobophobia
The fear of phobias. So with this post I have literally made you wet yourself.

I end with a fun pop-culture inspired phobia....

Luposlipaphobia
The fear of being pursued by timber wolves around a kitchen table while wearing socks on a newly waxed floor.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ah, yes! Valentine's Day. A day where you show your appreciation for your significant other and provide them with enough chocolate to kick off early-onset diabetes or enough flowers to spark some major pollen allergies (and sometimes both simultaneously) all in the name of love. So if this is a day dedicated to showing your love and appreciation for your better half, what on earth do you do on the other days of the year? Ignore each other? Valentine's Day has always baffled me. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of gift-giving and showing appreciation for your significant other, I just don't see why you need an occasion to do it.

Delving back through the ages we find that the name of this annual celebration comes from Saint Valentine, the bishop of Terni. Not much is known about his life, but what is a fact is that he was definitely not considered the patron saint of love. No, the first attachment of romantic love to this particular day was done by Geoffrey Chaucer; poet, writer and all-round weird person. He invented many of the legends currently associated with Valentine's Day and also declared it to be a day of love and romance. In fact, in his poem Parlement of Foules (try saying that 5 times fast) he wrote the following:

 For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

Roughly translated this means "For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate." So the idea of birds hooking up for a bit of fun at the start of spring made him decide to declare this a day of love for all. I'd have been very wary of inviting him around to visit my aviary! So, to sum up, every year millions of people around the world celebrate a day made famous by a fourteenth century poet with a strange thing for mating birds. Think about that while you are munching on your heart-shaped chocolates!

 

Service with a Smile

We all have to deal with people on a daily basis. Clients/customers/fellow employees are part of our daily routine. And most of the time this is perfectly fine. But you get those times where someone says or asks something truly outrageous. Something so spectacularly useless that there can be but one response.....

Let's face it, people can sometimes astonish you with their sheer absurdity! Once, while working as a IT support technician for a company that shall remain nameless, I was called into a manager's office to fix a printer that wouldn't print. Being a manager this person liked to lord his superiority over others and loudly told me, so that everyone in the department could hear, to fix the printer or there would be trouble. Crawling under his desk I immediately found the problem and fixed it. When he asked (loudly, of course) what the problem was I told him, just as loudly, that he had unplugged the printer in order to charge his cellphone, thus rendering the entire department unable to print. On another occasion I received a call from an employee whose computer would not power on. I fixed it within seconds and told him to not unplug his computer in future. These are really simple examples of how tear-jerkingly stupid people can be at times.

Now that I am in the corporate space, I deal with much larger clients, but unfortunately the absurdity still follows me around. We provide a large number of mobile solutions to corporate clients and one day I received a call from one of them. He asked me if I could assist him with a formula in Microsoft Excel that he just couldn't get working. I assisted him and the problem was quickly resolved. He then thanked me and was about to hang up when I asked him what exactly his call had to do with our services. His answer? "Oh, nothing. I just thought you might be good with Excel." I've also had a client call me up to ask me where a particular server, that had nothing to do with us, was located in his server room. I politely told him that I do not deal with the server in question and instructed him to take it up with his in-house IT department, all the while wondering why he had called me in the first place.

Whether you are in the corporate space or in retail/services, I can almost guarantee that at some point in your career you have had the same thought that I have......

Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines

Let's face it, some jobs are just thankless and about as exciting as watching snails mate. There are a number of ways to deal with this. You can go stark raving mad from boredom or you can lighten up the situation with some humor. A prime example is being an aircraft mechanic. Not exactly glamorous. And pilots can get quite annoying to deal with, as they are the heroes in the spotlight! A while ago, airline Qantas released some of the best comments from their maintenance engineers who tried to make things a bit more humorous.

 

Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a 'gripe sheet', which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft.  The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Qantas Pilots and the solutions recorded by maintenance engineers:

Pilots: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
Engineers: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

Pilots: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
Engineers: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

Pilots: Something loose in cockpit.
Engineers: Something tightened in cockpit.

Pilots: Dead bugs on windshield.
Engineers: Live bugs on back-order.

Pilots: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
Engineers: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

Pilots: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
Engineers: Evidence removed.

Pilots: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
Engineers: That's what they're for.

Pilots: Suspected crack in windshield.
Engineers: Suspect you're right.

Pilots: Number 3 engine missing. (not running smoothly)
Engineers: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

Pilots: Aircraft handles funny.
Engineers: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

Pilots: Target radar hums
Engineers: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

Pilots: Mouse in cockpit.
Engineers: Cat installed.

Pilots: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
Engineers: Took hammer away from midget

I'll end this post with a radio exchange between an Air Traffic Controller at a small Florida airport and a bored pilot who decided to liven things up a bit. On a night approach to the airport, the pilot turned off his aircraft's identification beacon and radioed the tower to request a landing.

Pilot: "Sarasota Tower, guess who!"
The controller in the tower quickly turned off all of the runway and airport lights and radioed back:
Tower: "This is Sarasota control......guess where."
Needless to say the pilot quickly reactivated his identification beacon and was given permission to land.