Galloping Puns

Behind you is a lion running at the same speed as you and the horse in front of you.

What must you do to safely get out of this highly dangerous situation?

Get off the merry-go-round!

Do seahorses scallop?

Do sea horses scallop and trout?

But most just have 4.

There was a race horse named Pat, who was one of the greatest race horses to ever live. He set records that were near impossible to beat. After a long time of racing, he retired to an old stable with some old friends. They were very happy that he retired there to stay with him, and congratulated him on all of his records that he set.

Once Pat retired, he started keeping track of all the up and coming horses that were winning a lot. There was a race horse named Charlie that was doing really great and winning all his races. Pat saw this horse and watched him race. Charlie started to break all of Pat’s records and Pat was a little upset with this.

After a while, Charlie decided to retire after an extremely successful career in racing. By chance, Charlie decided to retire at the same stable that Pat retired in. When Charlie entered the stable, everyone went up to him to congratulate him on his records and wins. Pat went up to Charlie and said, “Hey Charlie congratulations on all of your wins! You broke a lot of my records and I was very impressed.” Charlie responds, “go away old man, I’m better than you ever were.” Pat was blown away by his response. He galloped away from Charlie with defeat.

After a while of thinking, Pat decides to challenge Charlie to a race. Charlie agreed to it and wanted to race right away. He said “We will race to the tree over there and turn around and come back and whoever gets there first will be the winner.” Pat was still healthy but he needed a few weeks to get his legs back into shape for the race. Charlie gives Pat 2 weeks to get ready.

After 2 weeks pass, they are ready to race. “Hey Pat, before we race I want to warn you that I win my races by passing them by the end. So don’t get all cocky and think you are going to win.” Charlie says. Pat thanks him for the warning and they start getting set to race.

The gun sounds and they are off to race. Pat starts out in front, and nears the finish. Out of know where, Charlie zooms ahead of Pat and wins the race.

Pat was very disappointed in his loss, but congratulated Charlie anyways. A dog comes up to them and says, “Wow, that was a fantastic race! Neither of you should be upset with that. You both were so great!” Charlie looks to Pat and Pat looks to Charlie. They are astonished. Charlie says, “Say that again! Say it again!” The dog says a little confused, “Well I just said that you both were so great out there.” Pat says, “Charlie! It’s a talking dog!”

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

So says the most recent Gallop Poll.

Gallop Polls

The Gallop-a-ghost.

And says "I'm going to check and see how far along you are," but was referring to my wife's contractions.

With the swiftness of a galloping cheetah, I say "can confirm she's 9 months pregnant, no need to check."

Wife: "Jesus..."

That's the findings of the latest gallop poll

...in the middle of the night.

Two dead men got up to fight.

Back to back they faced each other,

drew their swords...

And shot each other!

How do you escape Prison?

Bang your head against the wall until it's sore.

Saw your bed in half,

Two halves make a whole,

Crawl through the hole,

Shout until you're hoarse,

Climb on the horse and gallop away!