July 10, 2019

Good morning crew,

Being chained (metaphorically speaking) to a desk for so many years has done a number on my body. Each year I gain a little more weight and it seems like no matter what I do I can't get rid of it.

I was complaining about this to the wife earlier this week when she suggested that cutting beer out of my diet would almost certainly help me lose weight. A couple minutes later I told her she was right. All of the laughing I had just done had certainly burned off a healthy number of calories.

But considering a serious solution I decided sugar was probably one of the biggest culprits. I am not a sugar addict, at least I thought I wasn't. We don't normally keep cake or cookies or pastries in the house, so cutting down on the refined poison really shouldn't be that hard.

What I hadn't counted on is that so many other products that I normally consume have sugar in them. Especially beverages. I can look at a fridge full of beer and turn away and say to myself, 'I'm not going to have any beer today' and then not think about it. But the last three days I have literally been fantasizing about a tall glass of tinkling, clear ice filled with ginger ale and lemonade. Or iced tea and lemonade, the famous Arnold Palmer, I just love those.

It's amazing. Last year I was able to completely cut out alcohol for two weeks with hardly any withdrawals or side effects (you can read about that little episode by clicking here) but the last three days I have been practically handicapped by a compulsion for a soda!

Laugh it up,

Joe

joe@gophercentral.com

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"A rare fish normally found only in the Amazon was caught yesterday in a New Jersey pond. Researchers believe the fish got to New Jersey the same way as everyone else: by giving up." -Seth Meyers

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"Facebook has just added a new tool for finding help during disasters. Unfortunately, then Facebook shows you photos of your friends having a much better time during their disasters." -Conan O'Brien

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"A new study found that most people cant go 10 minutes without lying. But since the study took 20 minutes nobody knows what to believe." -Jimmy Fallon

A wife asked her husband, "Honey, could you please run to the store and get a carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get a dozen."

A while later the husband returned with a case of quart milk cartons.

Staring incredulously at the 12-pack case of milk, his wife asked, "Why the hell did you buy so much milk?"

Her husband said, "They had eggs."

Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes

I was working in a scrap yard during summer vacation at engineering university. I used to work repairing construction equipment.

One afternoon, I was taking apart a piling hammer that had some very large bolts holding it together. One of the nuts had corroded on to the bolt; to free it I started heating the nut with an oxy-acetylene torch. As I was doing this, one of the dimmest apprentices I have ever known came along. He asked me what I was doing. I patiently explained that if I heated the nut it would grow larger and release its grip on the bolt so I could then remove it.

"So things get larger when they get hot, do they?" he asked.

Suddenly, an idea flashed into my mind. "Yes," I said, "that's why days are longer in summer and shorter in winter."

There was a long pause, then his face cleared. "You know, I always wondered about that," he said.