No Place to Land Puns

Surrounded by his son, his twin daughters and a haggard-looking nurse who looked about ready to end it all if only she could find the bloody switch, he was finally breathing his last.

His son, who loved him dearly and wasn't at all sure if he had been cut out of the will or not, burst into tears at the plight of a man who would look more at home in a red woolly outfit than he ever could in drab, white linen.

"I do not wish to die today, Anthony", he intoned fixing his gaze slightly above his son's left shoulder, "there is something you must do to save me."

"Tell me what to do dad, I can't bear to look at you this way", cried Anthony.

"There is a land, not far from here, where no one ever dies. It is not for dying you see. That is where I must go."

"Where is this place father? Tell me, and I shall take you to it."

"Take me there now", he said faintly as if in great pain, "Take me to, The Living Room."

Back a few decades, I was working in a program with a local college in the Middle East.

The name of the program for ExPats has the clever acronym of "IDEA" (hey, I said it was clever); which stands for "Inter-Departmental Educational Adjunct". It's interdepartmental because my particular specialty not only covers field geology but also paleontology and a bit of archeology thrown in for good measure. Everyone hopes to have a good IDEA...

ahem...

Well, we saddle up and head for the Dune Sea out in the west of the country, where the Precambrian, Cambrian, Silurian, Cretaceous, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene crop out and access is relatively easy and non-injurious.

Well, we caravan out, some 30 Land Cruisers, Nissan patrol, and the odd Mitsubishi Galloper strong. We all get our maps, compasses and split up into 5 or 6 special interest groups ("SIG's"); where each IDEA has his own GPS and LIDAR laser ranging apparatus. Reason being, that there are very few benchmarks out in the desert, and even those are constantly at the mercy of the shifting and ever-blowing sands.

Since we're split into groups and at any one time, ranging up to and including some 50 km2, when a real find is located, a device called the "DIME" (Digital-Interface Monitor Encoder) is attached and programmed into the GPS for location later; it is a digital sort of low-frequency transponder, developed from technology used by offshore drillers and jacket setters where benchmarks are even more transitory.

The way it works is rather simple. When something is to be marked for later retrieval, a series of wooden posts are pounded in a triangular manner around the find and the DIME is set, programmed with the GPS and attached to one or more of the posts.

That's the theory, at least.

Everything works well, especially all the hardened electronics and computer gizmos, but attaching the DIME to the stakes is the real problem. It can't be nailed, screwed or fastened with any sort of metal contrivance as that farkles the magnetic field and causes all sorts of goofy spurious signals. Zip ties don't last long in the heat and duct tape is right out. Many sites have been lost to the shifting sands this way.

Velcro doesn't work too well, as the sand fills the hooks of the receiving piece of velcro and soon renders it useless. String or fishing line work, but that's temporary (they melt). Glue or mastic are out as these are supposed to be temporary. Even plastic sleeves don't work due to the heat out

There once was a man who had a job driving a passenger train between two large towns. It could be a very dull job to some, but as the old saying goes, one man's trash is another's gold; he wanted to be a railroad man since he was a boy.

He was a wiz behind the controls of the train, and commanded the 15 car vehicle effortlessly as if he had been born to do the job. He prided himself on the fact that he could bend the rules and speed through curves and grades that made other motormen shiver and back off.

One day however, he wasn't so lucky and came round a bend too fast and derailed his train. He backed off the throttle and braked as much as he could, managing to only have one fatality out of 500 passengers on his train.

Months later there was a trial and he was found guilty of manslaughter in the highest degree, a capital offence in that land, and sentenced to die by electric chair. Punishment came swift, unlike most places, and 3 days after sentencing the former railroader was asked for his last meal.

"I'll have a banana," "Just a single banana?" said the perplexed guard. "The warden will grant you a feast and all you want is that?"

"Just a single banana." he said.

After he downed the fruit, he was strapped into the electric chair an hour later.... The warden hit the switch, lights flickered, and the crackle of electricity could be heard for over a minute...

...but our train jockey instead rose from the chair looking more like he got a stiff massage, rather than be put to death! Well in that nation, the law of the land states that if a man somehow survives being put to death, they must be set free...

...And so it came to pass that our engineer was let go...

And for whatever reason, he got his job back!

So he was back railroading again doing the job that he loved. You'd think he'd have been more cautious with this second chance he'd been given, but you'd also be wrong. Speedy Gonzales with a train license decided to gun his locomotive to hard and send it off the tracks again!

Of course, this time he was tried for the same crime, but at a different time (his was a fair commonwealth and double indemnity was simply unheard of!) So fair was their nation, that the jury came up with the same judgement and punishment. So three days later, when asked for his last meal, the engineer simply said "I'll have 2 bananas..."

Not less than 60 minutes after consuming the last morsel was he strapped into the chair and the switch thrown... And....

NOTHING.

Oh boy do I have a joke for you kids! Its called the cheerio joke.

So there is this land called cheerio land and in cheerio land there are 7 classes of cheerio, 0-5 and the frosted cheerios. Now there is this level 0 cheerio. Hes homeless, living out on the street, probaly an alchoholic. But he falls in love with a frosted cheerio princess. So one day he sneaks into the royal gala and goes up to the princess and asks her "will you marry me?" Now she says "I like your style, youre a good looking guy, a bit scruffy but I like you. Tell you what I will marry you if you can become a frosted cheerio" So our guy goes back with a determination and gets a job and starts to pay off his debts. Now by having a job and his debts paid he becomes a level 1 cheerio. So he works, and he works, and he works, and he WORKS and he finally becomes a level 2 cheerio. Now he goes back to the princess and askes her again, "will you marry me?" she says "no honey you really do have to become a frosted cheerio first." So he goes back and he works and works, hes a fryboy at McGrubers or something, I dont care. So he works and he works and he gets promoted at the restraunt and is making more money. And he works and he works and he works and by having that income raise he finally becomes a level 3 cheerio. He feels sucessful for the first time in his life but he is starting to fall back on his old ways. One day he goes to the casino and he loses and he loses and he loses and he gambled all his money away and he gets fired to boot because gambling is against company policy. So he is back down to a level 1 cheerio. He gets a job on a production line at a nearby factory and determines himself not to fall back ever again. So he works and he works and he works and he works and he WORKS, level 2, level 3, and he is doing great again. He is promoted to Floor manager of the factory and he is doing great and becomes a level 4 cheerio. But then one day a rival company sabotages their operation by putting poison in their toothpaste or whatever the hell they were making. They have to pay out damages and PR and the like and they declare bankruptcy. He is knocked back down to level 2 for the lack in income. But he is hired almost straight away by a branch of a huge conglomerate because they recognized how hard of a worker he is. So he works, level 3, works, level 4, and he works and works and WORKS. So he is promoted t

There once was a man from the Ukraine named Ivan Ivanavich. Now Ivan and his family were dirt poor, in fact they were so poor, that they had to sell the cockroaches and rats they found in their hovel to make some spare change to to feed their many family members. One day, Ivan decided it was time to travel to the United States to try and have a better life and miraculously he managed to get aboard a ship to the States. Now his journey on this ship was miserable, he was down in the bowels of the ship, which was flooded with rats and feces, but he hunkered down and gave it his all to survive this terrible journey. finally, one day he hears commotion above, they had arrived at last. Ivan walks up to the topside of the old ship and sees the New York Harbor. He stands there amazed seeing such a beautiful sight. Ivan starts his life in New York but he doesn't have a significantly better life than the one he left behind. Nobody is interested in hiring immigrants but eventually he lands himself a gig of selling old newspapers. He would go through garbage cans to find old papers and would sell them to people in the poorer part of town. He makes slightly more spare change, but not really enough to live a better life. In his spare time, which he had plenty, he decides to start free diving in the bay. He goes there each day, and started to get really good at it. One day, an owner of a Circus spots him diving and is amazed at how good he is. He decides to offer Ivan a job at his circus doing performance diving. Ivan eagerly accepts and begins his career as a circus member performing amazing high jumps into really small containers of water. After a few months of doing this he suggests to the owner one amazing jump to wow everyone and put his circus on top of the entertainment world. The owner contemplates this and eventually agrees. He rents a ship much like the one Ivan arrived in and placed the smallest container yet. The radio and tv crews, journalist all arrive to spectate the event of a lifetime. The hour arrives and Ivan begins his climb up a massive lighthouse on the edge of the cliff, and the ship is positioned into place beneath him. Ivan is very nervous but decides it's go time, and jumps from the massive lighthouse. As Ivan falls, he takes perfect form heading straight towards his target. As he dives a sudden wave pushes the ship ever slightly throwing off the careful alignment. Ivan hits the deck and goes straight through the top of the ship. The spectato