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Pastimes : Laughter is the Best Medicine - Tell us a joke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: charlie mcgeehan who wrote (24419)	8/15/2002 4:43:50 PM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 62550

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted: "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am." The woman below replied: "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above alkali desert scrub habitat, 2.7 miles west of the Rio Grande near one of the remnant populations of the Rio Grande silvery minnow." "You must be a biologist," said the balloonist. "I am," she replied. "How did you know?" "Well, answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far." The woman responded: "You must be a project manager". "I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?" "Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise to someone that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is, you are in exactly the same position you were before we met, but somehow it's now my fault." ================= AND ON A RELATED THEME A shepherd was herding his flocks in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand new Jeep Cherokee advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and a YSL tie leaned out of the window and asked our shepherd: "If I can tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?" The shepherd looks at the yuppie, then at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers "sure!" The yuppie parks the car, whips out his notebook, connects it to a cell-phone, surfs to a NASA page on the Internet where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system, scans the area, opens up a database and some 60 Excel spreadsheets with complex formulas. Finally he prints out a 150 page report on his hi-tech miniaturized printer, turns round to our shepherd and says: "you have here exactly 1586 sheep!" "This is correct. As agreed, you can take one of the sheep," says the shepherd. He watches the young man make a selection and bundle it in his Cherokee. Then he says: "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me my sheep back?" "Okay, why not" answers the young man. "You are a consultant," says the shepherd. "This is correct," says the yuppie, "How did you guess that?" "Easy" answers the shepherd. "You turn up here although nobody called you. You want to be paid for the answer to a question I already knew the solution to. And you don't know anything about my business because you took my dog."