Simple Interest Puns

I wish the same was true for my Credit cards.

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 once upon a time, there was a planet shaped like a cheerio. A small moon made of milk or tied the planet, going through the center of the donut shaped world. On this planet, lived an interesting species. They acted and lived similarly to us humans? But looked just like large Cheerios (with footings hands and feet like miis) Within this society there were levels of Cheerios: original, honey nut, and finally frosted. The originals were the backbone of the economy, doing the herd labor while the honey nuts ran the businesses and the frosted Cheerios (the top of the top) led the world. Our story today focuses on a single Cheerio. Born into an original Cheerio family, this lad learned the hard way how to work. From a young age, he was forced to get a job in the local milk refinery, where his dad worked. He grew up, and soon had a family of his own. His wife, son, and daughter all worked hard, but were happy. One day walking home from school, the kids found a runaway honey nut Cheerio pup, and decided to keep him. It wasn’t much, but it inspired our little Cheerio friend here. One day, he got fed up with taking orders, and demanded a raise. His entire family has worked in this one factory for three generations, and he wanted to move up in the world, not just for him but also his kids. His old boss however, did not have the power to promote this Cheerio, and he was forced to make a life changing decision: he would go to the refinery company and use every penny in the family savings account (under the bed) to try and get a higher position. After waiting on line for over a week, his appoint was finally here. After bickering and bargaining for hours, the refinery company boss saw a spark in this lad’s eye. He agreed to give this Cheerio a promotion to the honored honey nut glaze in exchange for everything this man owned, including the family’s prized honey nut dog. Was it worth it? Well pretty soon he owned his own milk refinery and was able to breed his own honey nut dogs, so yes, yes it was. Owning and operating the refinery went smoothly. Milk was transported from the moon to the planet using space busses, and the milk itself was funneled down to the refineries using large straws. After the milk was ready to drink, it was shipped off to be sold. He was happy working here, but eventually he realized it wasn’t enough. This Cheerio, once a simple original Cheerio wanted to follow the “American dream” and do the best he could. He wanted to become a frosted Ch

Made a trip to DC by myself and went to Ford's Theatre as part of the trip. I uploaded a couple picture's I took into an album and made a brief description of each, because I knew my family would be interested in looking. Then my father, who is normally a very silent man who rarely ever smiles (let alone cracks a joke), commented this.

Simple, yet effective.