• The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the basement shack with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning, turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it…
    I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind, he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whoever he was talking with something about “a thousand marbles”.📷
    I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say. “Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job. I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter’s dance recital.”
    He continued, “Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities.” And that’s when he began to explain his theory of a “thousand marbles.”
    “You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.” “Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.
    Now stick with me Tom, I’m getting to the important part.”
    “It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail”, he went on, “and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy.”
    “So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away.”
    “I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.”
    “Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.”
    📷“It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. 73 Old Man, this is K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!” You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. “C’mon honey, I’m taking you and the kids to breakfast.”
    “What brought this on?” she asked with a smile.
    “Oh, nothing special, it’s just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out?
    Ihttps://kithillcounselingandconsulting.wordpress.com/resources-handouts/1000-marbles-story/
  • The donkey told the tiger, “The grass is blue.”

    The tiger replied, “No, the grass is green .”

    The discussion became heated, and the two decided to submit the issue to arbitration, so they approached the lion.

    As they approached the lion on his throne, the donkey started screaming: ′′Your Highness, isn’t it true that the grass is blue?”

    The lion replied: “If you believe it is true, the grass is blue.” Read more …

  • Hi Dana,

    Congratulations! We’re very happy to offer you a seat in the AWS MLE Foundations course for the AWS Machine Learning Scholarship program.

    Class begins Ju‍ne 2‍8, 20‍21 at 9:0‍0 a‍m P‍T

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  • Sharing this story from LinkedIn:
    “The man in the chair is Mr. Earl….Mr. Earl lives in the assisted living home next door to the shop.
    He has a memory disease that if you tell him something today he forgets, so if you tell him again tomorrow it’s like new information to him….
    His brother used to come to the shop and pay me every week to cut his hair.
    Then later Mr. Earl would come and ask me did his brother pay me so he can get a haircut, I would always say yes sir your debt is already paid….
    Mr. Earl’s brother died 5 years ago and he doesn’t remember, he still comes every week and always asks me is his debt paid….
    I ALWAYS STILL SAY YES SIR, YOUR DEBT IS PAID and cut his hair….
    I know Mr. Earl’s brother is in heaven looking down watching out for us THATS PAYMENT ENOUGH…some things are better than money….AMEN” 🙏💕
    Made me feel a lot better knowing there are beautiful acts of kindness still going on for a person for years.
    Credit: Marlo Matthews
  • A son took his old father to a restaurant for an evening dinner. Father being very old and weak, while eating, dropped food on his shirt and trousers. Other diners watched him in disgust while his son was calm.

    After he finished eating, his son who was not at all embarrassed, quietly took him to the washroom, wiped the food particles, removed the stains, combed his hair and fitted his spectacles firmly. When they came out, the entire restaurant was watching them in dead silence, not able to grasp how someone could embarrass themselves publicly like that. The son settled the bill and started walking out with his father.

    At that time, an old man amongst the diners called out to the son and asked him, “Don’t you think you have left something behind?”.

    The son replied, “No sir, I haven’t”.

    The old man retorted, “Yes, you have! You left a lesson for every son and hope for every father”.

    The restaurant went silent.

    One of the biggest honors that exist, is able to take care of those older adults who ever cared for us too. Our parents, and all those elderly who sacrificed their lives, with all of his time, money and effort by us, deserve our utmost respect.