God and the Geese

This is an old Christmas story to explain the coming of Christ that I got from e-mail. Hope you guys enjoy it and may you find God & peace in your life. Have a merry Christmas! God bless you!

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God and the Geese

There was once a man who didn’t believe in God, and he didn’t hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays.

His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have faith in God and Jesus, despite his disparaging comments.

One snowy Eve, his wife was taking their children to service in the farm community in which they lived. They were to talk about Jesus’ birth She asked him to come, but he refused. “That story is nonsense!” he said. “Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That’s ridiculous!”

So she and the children left, and he stayed home. A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening. Then he heard a loud thump. Something had hit the window. He looked out, but couldn’t see more than a few feet. When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on his window.

In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese. Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn’t go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. A couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed.

The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It’s warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm. So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside.

But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn’t seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them. The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them, and they moved further away. He went into the house and came with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail leading to the barn. They still didn’t catch on.

Now he was getting frustrated. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only go t more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe. “Why don’t they follow me?!” he exclaimed. “Can’t they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?”

He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn’t follow a human. “If only I were a goose, then I could save them,” he said out loud. Then he had an idea. He went into barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese.

He then released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn — and one-by-one, the other geese followed it to safety. He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind:

“If only I were a goose, then I could save them!”

Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier. “Why would God want to be like us? That’s ridiculous!”

Suddenly it all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like the geese–blind, lost, perishing. God had His Son become like us so He could show us the way and save us.

As the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and pondered this wonderful thought. Suddenly he understood why Christ had come. Years of doubt and disbelief vanished with the passing storm. He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer:

“Thank You, God, for coming in human form to get me out of the storm!”

Source: E-mail 

Emotional Guidance Scale

Quite a few friends of mine shared this ‘Emotional Guidance Scale’ on Facebook recently:

The chart is simple and direct and it makes a clear distinction towards positive and negative emotions. It also shows the different level of emotions and how one emotion may lead to another, going either upward towards positivity or downwards towards negativity.

Positive emotions can snowball up and build up powerful momentum that can support us and push us forward in achieving our goals and create incredible results. And as shown on the chart, negative emotions can also snowball, but it drags us back more and more. I would relate it to a growing black hole that sucks us of our energy to grow itself until we have nothing left and just stop moving.

I have experienced both spiral in my life and I think this is a great ‘check-in list’ to support myself in checking how are my feelings or reactions toward a situation. A simple picture like this is sometimes all it takes to remind myself to stop and have a look at where I am and how I am feeling. And once I know, I get to make a choice to be on the powerful upward spiral. 😀

Donating Platelets

About a month ago, I signed up with a hospital to be a platelet donor for a distant relative. After the hospital staff checked to make sure I qualified, I was told that they will call me when my donation is required. I got that call this morning. As I have my first experience donating platelets today, I would like to share that with you.

So what are platelets? In general, they are small cells without nucleus that is part of your blood. They play a role in forming blood clots when you get cuts to stop bleeding.

Platelets donated are normally used to support people with cancer or people with diseases that lower the platelets count such as malaria.

I have donated blood quite a few times before but this is different. When you donate blood, they basically collect the blood with whatever that comes with the blood to a bag and it’s done. For me, that normally takes less than 30 mins.

Plateletpheresis device in storage state

For platelet donation, you have to go through the ‘Plateletpheresis’ process. A device is used to draw the blood, separate the blood cells, plasma & platelet, collects the platelet into a bag, and pump the rest back into your body. This whole process is a cycle. And the device will perform numerous cycles to collect a bag of platelets.

Plateletpheresis Device all ready to collect Platelet

Also, your blood type does not matter in Platelets donation. As long as you are healthy enough to donate blood, you can donate platelets. However, you cannot donate both blood and platelets at the same time.

The major factor is the size of the veins in your arm. The bigger the vein is, the easier it is for the device to draw and pump the blood back into your body. As such, normally a male donor is preferred as woman tends to have smaller veins.

Me in the donation process

During the blood drawing process, anticoagulant were added to the blood to prevent the blood from clotting inside the machine (like the normal blood donation).  Then, in the machine, the blood cells, platelets and the plasma were separated and collected into different bags. The platelets &  plasma were both yellowish in color. After the platelets have been collected in a cycle, the plasma and blood are mixed back together and pumped back into my arm. The cycle continues until a bag is collected.

I was told the donation process usually takes about an hour plus. Mine ended up taking almost 2 hours. I watched half of ‘Jaws 2’ on HBO while waiting. Really a good classic movie and I enjoyed it.

The bag of platelet donated

This was the bag of platelet that was drawn from my blood. Platelets can only be kept for up to 5 days maximum. That is why hospitals will normally only call the donors when there is a need for it. For this bag, it’s probably going to be used tomorrow. Hope this will help the uncle.

Well, I hope this post will shed a little light on platelet donation to you. Perhaps it might encourage you to donate platelet to save another’s lives. 🙂

A Quote for Monday

I just noticed my friend Yew Hang’s messenger status today:

” 连早上起床这么难的事你都办到了，今天还有什么事可以难倒你？”

which translates to:

“If you can even accomplish the difficult task of waking up today, what else is there that you cannot do?”

Indeed, that hardest thing to do in a day for me is to get out of bed in the morning. If I can accomplish that, I guess there really isn’t much that can stop me for the rest of the day. This is a great quote to start the day, especially Monday. 😀

The Tomato Story

A funny old story, which may be based on a real person’s life.
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The Tomato Story

A Jobless man applied for the position of “office boy” at Microsoft. The HR manager interviewed him then watched him cleaning the floor as a test.

“You are employed” he said. Give me your e-mail address and I’ll send you the application to fill in, as well as date when you may start. The man replied “But I don’t have a computer, neither an email”.

“I’m sorry”, said the HR manager. If you don’t have an email, that means you do not exist. And who doesn’t exist, cannot have the job.”

The man left with no hope at all. He didn’t know what to do, with only $10 in his pocket. He then decided to go to the supermarket and buy a 10KG tomato crate.

He then sold the tomatoes in a door to door round. In less than two hours, he succeeded to double his capital. He repeated the operation three times, and returned home with $60.

The man realized that he can survive by this way, and started to go out everyday earlier, and return late. Thus, his money doubled or tripled everyday.

Shortly, he bought a cart, then a truck, and then he had his own fleet of delivery vehicles.5 years later, the man is one of the biggest food retailers in the US .

He started to plan his family’s future, and decided to have a life insurance.He called an insurance broker, and chose a protection plan.

When the conversation was concluded the broker asked him his email.The man replied,” I don’t have an email.”

The broker answered curiously, “You don’t have an e-mail, and yet have succeeded to build an empire. Can you imagine what you could have been if you had an e mail?!!” The man thought for a while and replied, “Yes, I’d be an office boy at Microsoft!”

Source: E-mail
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My take on the story:
When people do not let circumstances stop them and continue to work hard to move forward, they will always find a way to achieve their goal with amazing results.

Building the Eiffel Tower!

I got this Birthday gift from my friend Kenc almost 3 weeks back.

I was excited then and wanted to build it up as soon as possible but instead, I left it there in the original packaging and kept procrastinating. There were a few times that I had the thought of doing it but I gave myself the excuse of being too tired, too complicated, takes too much time, etc. So nothing got done.

I had the thought of building it up again at around 00:50 this morning just as I was about to hit the bed. The same old excuses came up, but this time, the quote ‘If not now, then when?’ came to my mind. I decided to just build and complete it.

So I started @ 01:04.

Took me almost an hour but I manage to get it done and clean everything up by 02:00.

The completed Eiffel Tower:

The side the looked best:

I must say, I am quite happy with the tower. 😀

And after completing it, I realized that all the excuses earlier are no longer valid. Procrastination was conquered by action!!

So next time if you are procrastinating on something, ask yourself, ‘If not now, then when?’

The Invisible Car

Behold! The first invisible car in the world!

The invisible car is really cool! And all they used to make it invisible are just LEDs on mat.

This is actually Mercedes’s Invisible Car Campagin to promote their new vehicle which uses the fuel cell hydrogen technology.

I really loved the idea and message behind the campaign and how they put this together. 😀

If you wanna know more about the campaign, you can read it up @ digital trends’ website.

Flash Flood!

Flash Flood!

I had a minor breakdown today. I was at customer’s place for a meeting today and when we were done, it saw that it was raining heavily outside. I was not aware that the rain has brought a flash flood just outside of the customer’s place until I received a call which I took outside of the meeting room. I was walking around then and saw through the binds that the drain were overflow. So I went closer to have a look.

I was shocked to see that the area where my car is parked is flooded with water. From the view of the first floor, it would seems that the water going downhill (the customer place was on the middle of the hill) could not clear fast enough and was overflowing from the drain out onto the road and the place where my car was parked. This is the place I normally parked when I come to this customer’s place and I never had this issue the past few time while I was here and it rained.

The water had already covered the exhaust pipe of the car. I had a minor breakdown then as thoughts and fear about the car being damage or breakdown came to my head. I managed to snapped out of it. I went out of the customer’s place and checked my car even though it was still raining moderately. Besides the exhaust has submerged, the front side seems to be dry due to the uneven road. The engine is not wet yet and most of the interior of my car is still dry though some water was leaking in slowly.

I fear that if I start my engine then, the water might get into it. After some discussion and phone calls for advice, it was decided that it would be best not to start the car now as the whole exhaust probably was filled with water. I tried to push my car but was unable to due to the force of the water flow and uneven ground. Luckily 2 of my colleagues who were at the meeting had not left and offered their help. The 2 colleagues helped me to push my car forward out of the flowing water. We were all wet. I could see lots of water dripping out of the exhaust pipe and I decided to wait till most of the water have dripped out before starting the engine. I was really grateful for the help of the two colleagues who left after that.

I called another colleague for advise on how to check the engine and perform the task he suggested. After try to get as much water out of the exhaust pipe as I can, I used a lot screw driver to lightly hit along the exhaust pipe underneath the car and determine if there is still a lot of water in there from the sound. I plugged out all the cables to the spark plug, shifted to gear 1 and then tried to start the enginer. I was informed that this will have the engine push air into the exhaust pipe and push the water out and is less risky for the enginer as there is no spark to actually start the engine. After that I plugged the cables back and tried to start the car. It started!

I blow the engine for about 10 minutes and later drove the car to a nearby slope facing the car uphill and continue to leave the car running for another half an hour. This was done to ensure that the car is heated up enough and that any water left would evaporate. After that I drove home through the rain and traffic jam and reached home an hour later.

A small part of the car interior was wet, the bottom of the car is dirty with rubbish stucked here and there, including the wheels as well. I removed some of the rubbish and put some newspaper on the wet part to soak up the water and then went back home. All my clothes, wallet and shoes (new shoes that is less than 2 weeks, darn it!) are wet to the core. I spend another hour to clean everything and took shower.

This has been a bad experience for me, but I am glad that the car is working fine. All I am hoping now is that my shoes will dry properly and will be fine.

P.S: I am no car mechanic, and I don’t really know if what I did was the best or correct way to handle a car that has the exhaust pipe submerged. If any of you have knowledge or experience in handling this, please share it so that it may be of a reference in the future. Thanks.

How to overcome Worry?

A friend posted on facebook today: ‘How to overcome worry?’

So I shared this old song that always cheer me up when I am worry. 😀

Google Does a Barrel Roll

I bump into something fun today…

1) Go to Google page.
2) In the search box on the page, type in ‘do a barrel roll’.
3) Press the ‘Enter’ key or hit the ‘Search’ button.

Enjoy!! =D

Hope that was fun for you too!

P.S: This works with Web Search, Image Search & even Google News. Doesn’t work on Google Map though… =P