What Keeps A Train On The Track?

My engineering family and friends will find this interesting...

The 'Oklahoma!' Quiz

From Mental_Floss. Click the image to take a 14 question quiz about the musical Oklahoma! (my all time favorite).

Have You Ever Had A Bad Airline Luggage Experience?

Have You Ever Had A Bad Airline Luggage Experience? Well, maybe you should sing about it.

Dave Carroll tried to go through the usual channels. When the Canadian singer-songwriter noticed his guitar being thrown around on the tarmac by United Airlines employees, he didn't storm off the plane or threaten anybody. He waited until he reached his destination, found that the guitar was indeed broken, and tried to get satisfaction from the airline's customer service reps. But after nine months of fruitless phone calls, he finally turned to his last resort: writing songs about the whole mess. Here's the first part of a promised trilogy about one airline's cruel indifference to a shattered guitar.

Thanks To Woot

Shoud You Trust Consumer Reports?

I was recently reminded of Consumer Reports testing of the Suzuki Samurai SUV. CR put the vehicle through it's 'standard testing' and ruled that it was unsafe and people should not buy it. Suzuki sued and through the process of discovery they acquired copies of the tests that CR conducted. The six videos below show how CR apparently manipulated their findings to provide them with press conference material, regardless of accuracy.

I questioned CR's motivation even more when I sold cars for a few years. There would be CR reviews of a vehicle and I would find multiple instances where the review did not match what I could see with my own eyes (both with my brand and competitors). The more I compared their reviews with my experience the more I realized that I could not trust them.

All of this to say, “don't trust something just because it is in a magazine”. Businesses are motivated by money. Whether it is ad revenue or subscription sales, they are in a position to have to do things to bring in the $ necessary to pay their expenses. Nothing sells as much as controversy so publications are frequently put in a position to create it if they cannot find it in the real world. I don't know if this is what when on in the case of the Samurai, but their test results sure look that way.

Video 1: Time-2:55
Video 2: Time-3:31
Video 3: Time-3:04
Video 4: Time-2:39
Video 5: Time-1:00
Video 6: Time-1:49

Why Do You Keep Refusing The Gift Of The Desert Road?

A great perspective from Stuff Christians Like.

Your thing, your dream or goal or vision could be a million different things, and when it doesn't happen, when it takes longer than we want, it's so easy to get frustrated. To get disappointed, to think that the time delay is because maybe you're not doing something right. Maybe God is mad at you. Maybe if you were a better Christian things would be happening faster and you wouldn't be on a desert road.

But what if that's not right?

What if God loves you too much to send you to war? What if He loves you too much to throw you into situations you're not ready for?

What if that desert road is a gift?

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