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Today I read of an engagement gone seriously wrong. Although, reading through the article I realized that had I been in that situation, things would have gone differently. Amy and I are a little different than the two in the article.

The incident started with a man concealing his $12,000 engagement ring in a helium balloon, with the idea of actually ‘popping’ the question. I don’t understand why he had not attached the balloon to something of a greater weight than the buoyancy. Long story short, his plans of proposing went up, up, and away with the ring. After following it for a couple miles in the car, he lost the ring.
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Unfortunately, I am easily bored. My mind wandered during a meeting at work today as we were talking about leveraging your strengths. So I started drawing on my notepad.

When you’re confused, sit down and think it through.
Ignore people who put you down.
Never, ever, ever give up on yourself.
Andrea Gwyn, 12

If nothing is in the refrigerator, don’t eat dog food.
Never cheat because it’s not worth it.
Samantha Jean Fritz, 9
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An engineer took a cruise to the Caribbean. It was wonderful; the experience of his life. But, alas, a hurricane came up unexpectedly and the ship went down. He was swept onto the shore of an island. No people, no supplies, nothing.

He explored but found nothing other that some bananas and coconuts. He was desperate and forlorn, but what could he do? For the next four months he ate bananas, drank coconut juice and looked for a ship to come to his rescue.
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In a survey of 4-8 year olds, kids share their views on love. But what do little kids know about love? Read on and be surprised that despite their young and innocent minds, kids already have a simple but deep grasp of that 4-letter word.
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This was forwarded to me at work. At first, I just thought he would get all the words wrong. Well, I guess that is partially right. You have to feel bad for the guy, trying his best in front of the whole congregation.

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This is a picture of a capacitor from a Chinese company, after being cut open. Inside, it is just a small capacitor. There are two problems with this. First, capacitors are rated with two values: Working Voltage and Capacitance.  The most important is the working voltage. On the large cap, it is listed as 50V. Notice the smaller cap is 35V. When a capacitor is submitted to over voltage for a long period of time, the dielectrics (the insulator between the two sides of the capacitor) in the capacitor break down and it explodes. Yee-haw. The capacity issue is a little less troubling. You bought 6800uF, but were only given 2200uF. You got a capacitor that is 1/3 of what you thought it was. These are most commonly used in power supply filters and the device it is used in will be subject to the power line frequency hum, do to poor filtering. The business model on the company is genius. By capacitors, put them in a pretty case, sell for more money. A quick search shown retail cost of the small capacitor at about $1.50. The large one, near $3.00. Genius. Until power supply capacitors start exploding.

This is why you’re not allowed to play in the cockpit!!

Actual Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) Transcripts and pictures of the destruction below:
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The following is a genuine hoot. This was an actual letter sent to Ryan DeVries from The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, State of Michigan. The letter is standard government babble, but the humorous part is the response given after the letter.
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This owner had motorized his BikeE as an attempt to stay close to much stronger riders on lengthy rides. The motor was sizable and could propel him along at speeds in excess of 30 MPH. All was well and good until… Well. He brought his bike in his dealer with a serious problem. It seems the chain had managed to jam in the sprocket assembly and instead of the wheels turning the bike was shortened in length.

You have to see these photos to believe the story:
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