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WITandWISDOM(tm) - March 23, 2007 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: "Every decision you make - every decision - is not a decision about what to do. It's a decision about Who You Are. When you see this, when you understand it, everything changes. You begin to see life in a new way. All events, occurrences, and situations turn into opportunities to do what you came here to do." - Neale Donald Walsch author of Home With God, http://isbn.nu/074326715X Source: Weekend Encounter, by Dick Innes, Copyright (c) ACTS International, 2004, http://www.actsweb.org/subscribe.php ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: Grandmas and Grandpas . . . Grandmas are moms with lots of frosting. - Author Unknown What a bargain grandchildren are! I give them my loose change, and they give me a million dollars' worth of pleasure. - Gene Perret Grandmothers are just "antique" little girls. - Author Unknown A grandmother is a babysitter who watches the kids instead of the television. - Author Unknown Never have children, only grandchildren. - Gore Vidal Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you're just a mother. The next you are all-wise and prehistoric. - Pam Brown Grandchildren don't stay young forever, which is good because Granddaddies have only so many horsey rides in them. - Gene Perret Grandmother always made you feel she had been waiting to see just you all day and now the day was complete. - Marcy DeMaree Grandmas never run out of hugs or cookies. - Author unknown Grandmothers hold our tiny hands for just a little while, but our hearts forever. - Author Unknown If I had known how wonderful it would be to have grandchildren, I'd have had them first. - Lois Wyse My grandkids believe I'm the oldest thing in the world. And after two or three hours with them, I believe it, too. - Gene Perret If becoming a grandmother was only a matter of choice, I should advise every one of you straight away to become one. There is no other fun for old people like it! - Hannah Whithall Smith It's such a grand thing to be a mother of a mother - that's why the world calls her grandmother. - Author Unknown Grandchildren are God's way of compensating us for growing old. - Mary H. Waldrip You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. - Proverb An hour with your grandchildren can make you feel young again. Anything longer than that, and you start to age quickly. - Gene Perret The best baby-sitters, of course, are the baby's grandparents. You feel completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is why most grandparents flee to Florida. - Dave Barry I wish I had the energy that my grandchildren have - if only for self-defense. - Gene Perret Grandmother-grandchild relationships are simple. Grandmas are short on criticism and long on love. - Author Unknown Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children. - Alex Haley Grandmother - a wonderful mother with lots of practice. - Author Unknown A grandparent is old on the outside but young on the inside. - Author Unknown One of the most powerful handclasps is that of a new grandbaby around the finger of a grandfather. - Joy Hargrove It's amazing how grandparents seem so young once you become one. - Author Unknown If your baby is "beautiful and perfect, never cries or fusses, sleeps on schedule and burps on demand, an angel all the time," you're the grandma. - Teresa Bloomingdale Grandparents are similar to a piece of string - handy to have around and easily wrapped around the fingers of their grandchildren. - Author Unknown Grandchildren don't make a man feel old; it's the knowledge that he's married to a grandmother. - G. Norman Collie God Bless all Grandparents. Submitted by Corinne James and Jo Lynn Cunningham ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: If a Boeing 767 runs out of fuel at 41,000 feet what do you have? Answer: A 132 ton glider with a sink rate of over 2000 feet-per-minute and marginally enough hydraulic pressure to control the ailerons, elevator, and rudder. Put veteran pilots Bob Pearson and cool-as-a-cucumber Maurice Quintal in the in the cockpit and you've got the unbelievable but true story of Air Canada Flight 143, known ever since as the Gimli Glider. Air Canada’s Flight 143's problems began on the ground in Montreal. A computer known as the Fuel Quantity Information System Processor manages the entire 767 fuel loading process. But the FQIS was not working properly on Flight 143. This left Aircraft #604 without working fuel gauges. Estimates of fuel on board were done using a procedure known as dripping the tanks calculations. After a brief hop Flight 143 landed in Ottawa. To be completely safe, Pearson insisted on having the 767 re-dripped. Because of calculating errors, Flt. 143 left for Ottawa with only 9144 kilos, roughly half the 20,000 kilos actually needed to reach Edmonton. According to Pearson, the crew and passengers had just finished dinner when the first warning light came on. Flight 143 was outbound over Red Lake Ontario at 41,000 feet and 469 knots at the time. When a second fuel pressure warning light came on, Pearson felt it was too much of a coincidence and made a decision to divert to Winnipeg. Two minutes later, the EICAS issued a sharp bong--indicating the complete and total loss of both engines. At 1:21 GMT, the forty million dollar, state-of-the-art Boeing 767 had become a glider. Pearson glided the 767 at 220 knots, his best guess as to the optimum airspeed. Only Gimli, the site of an abandoned Royal Canadian Air Force Base remained as a possible landing spot. It was 12 miles away. Around the edges of the straightaway were cars, campers, kids, and families in abundance. To land an airplane in the midst of all of this activity was certain disaster. Six miles out Pearson began his final approach onto what was formerly RCAFB Gimli. Pearson says his attention was totally concentrated on the airspeed indicator from this point on. Approaching runway 32L he realized he was too high and too fast, and slowed to 180 knots. A glider only gets one chance at a landing, and they were committed. Quintal bit his lip and remained silent. Pearson touched down 800 feet from the threshold and used a mere 3000 feet of runway to stop. A general aviation pilot who viewed the landing from a Cessna on the apron of 32R described it as "Impeccable." The 767 was relatively undamaged. Both plane crew and the crowd on the ground escaped with some injuries. A job well done! Article published in Soaring Magazine by Wade H. Nelson / Lon and Dot Cooper, http://www.ssa.org/ Source: Chapnotes, mailto:xanmansa@chapnotes.org?Subject=Subscribe ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: Gas prices are so high that I can double the value of my car just by filling up. – Maxine Submitted by Quirk ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: A Cheltenham teenager has reportedly turned down £8.5million to sell his website. Nick Coates, 17, runs SharpeNews, a global news site aimed at young people, reports the Sun. It has had 89million hits in 18 months and rakes in £2,500 a month from advertisers. Several firms have made big offers but Nick insists he doesn’t need the money. He said: "I could walk away with about £4million - but I'm not interested in that at the moment." Nick started the site when he was just 12. It now has 70 contributors worldwide and has won awards including website of the year. He is also studying for four A-levels and even works ten hours a week at a local electrical goods store. SharpeNews http://www.sharpenews.co.uk/sn/ Source: Ananova http://www.ananova.com