Inspirational Stories: A Cry for Help

Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived: Happiness, Sadness, and all of the others, including Love.

One day it was announced to the feelings that the island would sink, so all repaired their boats and left.

Love was the only one who stayed. Love wanted to persevere until the last possible moment.

When the island was almost sinking, Love decided to ask for help.

Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said, "Richness, can you take me with you?" Richness answered, "No I can't..There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place for you here."

Love decided to ask Vanity, who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel, "Vanity, please help me!" "I can't help you Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered.

Sadness was close by so Love asked for help, "Sadness let me go with you." "Oh...Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself!"

Happiness passed by Love too, but she was so happy that she did not even hear when Love called her!

Suddenly, there was a voice, "Come Love, I will take you." It was an elder. Love felt so blessed and overjoyed that he even forgot to ask the elder her name.

When they arrived at dry land, the elder went her own way. Love, realizing how much he owed the elder, asked Knowledge, another elder, "Who helped me?"

"It was Time", Knowledge answered.

"Time?" asked Love. "But why did Time help me?

Knowledge smiled with deep wisdom and answered, "Because only Time is capable of understanding how great Love is."

Author: Unknown

Notice Outside a Pub In China

The Songjiang "Sustainable" Hotel near Shanghai

Near Shanghai, the Songjiang district has become a popular weekend destination for many tourists with its natural beauty and sprawling landscapes. And now the Songjiang Hotel might just become the newest and greenest attraction. While it may look a bit sci-fi, this hotel was designed for the real (green) world, with many sustainable features in mind.

This proposed hotel was designed by the firm Atkins, the same firm which has brought us buildings such as Tianjin’s Pile of Boxes and the Bahrain World Trade Center. The 400-bed resort will be located in a 100-meter-deep quarry located in the province and will contain restaurants, cafes, sport facilities, and even underwater public areas and guestrooms. Water will play an important part in the design, featured in many areas around the hotel. Waterfalls, underwater aquariums, and green areas will be integrated into the design to match the existing facing of the quarry.

The reuse of an already existing site means that the environmental impact will hopefully be smaller. The entire hotel is to be covered in a green roof, while the building will use geothermal energy for it’s electrical supply and heating. The quarry will also provide a good source of heat control and shelter from the environment.

The design of the building is meant to reflect the natural landscape of the quarry. “We drew our inspiration from the quarry setting itself, adopting the image of a green hill cascading down the natural rock face as a series of terraced landscaped hanging gardens.” said Martin Jochman. Needless to say, with such a cool looking site, you’d expect to get a design which will take advantages of it’s very extreme location, and you’d be correct. The hotel, will feature amongst other things: bungee jumping.

Quotes: Do not follow where the path may lead

You know an Indian movie when you see one .....

There are only two classes in society, either very rich or very poor. There is no middle class.

All cities are located near a mountain or at least a hill to facilitate chasing of cars on dangerous tracks.

All heroes have training in martial arts and driving all kinds of vehicles (including horses).

To make hero's task easier, villain’s henchmen generally approach him one by one.

All fights tend to shift towards a place which is stacked with empty drums.

If hero is being chased by villain(s) on foot, a bridge should be very near to the place with either a deep river underneath a railway line (with a train moving on it).

Empty wine bottles are always within a hand's reach to be broken and used for assault by the villain, although no known hero has ever got hit by such a bottle.

Towards the end of a fight when the hero has almost over-powered the main villain, the sub-villain always finds the heroine or hero's mother handy to hold her at gunpoint.

Children and animals are generally found to be useful in such situations.

Bullet ridden people always live for awhile, at least, to reveal incomplete identity of their murderer.

If one car is chasing the other, one of them will definitely bumped into a hand-cart containing fruits, generally watermelons.

The hero cannot fall in love with the heroine (vice versa) unless they first perform a dance number in the rain.

If you decide to start dancing in a field, everyone you bump into will know all the steps, and will be wearing coordinated outfits.

A heroine will have time to change outfits several times in one song, however short.

A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to cleanse his wounds.

If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.

Village girls who live among cows and sheep have perfect skin and are always beautiful.

Once applied, make up is permanent, in rain or in any other situation.

It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts - your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.

A large group of villains can be shooting at the hero.

He will never be hit, unless of course he is attempting to save the heroine.

A large group of villains can be shooting at the hero with machine guns, yet they will always miss. Every shot the hero takes from his small revolver will knock down at least ten opponents in a line.

As a rule of thumb, the hero has either his mother or father alive (or none of them - never both).

Young hero with old Amma as his mother is not actually her son but is the abandoned son of someone else or a wealthy person.

If two heroes are brothers, one is bound to be a criminal and the other a lawyer or police inspector. Generally the younger one stands a better chance of becoming an educated fellow because the elder one has entered the world of crime to provide for his school/college fees.

If a boy and girl are shown to meet in childhood, they meet again only after 12 years (mind you only one of them remembers).

If heroine's parents are going for an arranged marriage, the boy selected, in 90% cases, is the villain.

All honest factory owners have corrupt managers.

All building contractors are lusty and have an eye for the heroine or hero's mother.

If a hero is following heroine whose train has just left platform, by every chance, the heroine is standing behind him with her luggage.

Last but not least, despite the initial setbacks, the ugliest of the guys will get the most gorgeous of girls.

Urumqi, Xinjiang

Urumqi is the capital of Xinjiang, the last frontier in China. It is the center of culture, politics and economy of Xinjuang. It is a city where multi-ethnic groups of people live in mixed communities. These are the Han Chinese, Hui, Uygur, Kazakh and Mongol minorities. Although the Uygurs and Kazakhs are not Chinese in looks, most of them speak Putonghua, especially the younger folks. This is after all still China. Islam is the dominant religion, thus you see lamb sold everywhere.

Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang

Park, Urumqi

Urumqi Skyline

Urumqi Airport

Chinese stewardess on board Hainan Airlines enroute to Urumqi

Hotel room

Tianchi Lake

Uygur cooks in an Open Bazaar

Uygur girls

Uygur girl

Uygur girl in the sand

Uygur Youths

Urumqi International Bazaar

Roast lamb and chicken

Kebab seller in the streets

Goat's head soup

Shop selling Music instruments

Uygur Performer

Uygur Performer 2

Uygur cultural show

Dried fruits and nuts

Dried fruits and nuts

Day and Night over Europe and North Africa

This photograph was taken by the crew of the Columbia space shuttle during its last mission on a cloudless day.

It shows part of Europe, North Africa and the North Atlantic ocean with the sun setting from east to west. The right side of the photograph is already nightfall. The bright dots are the cities' lights as can be seen in Paris, Amsterdam and Rome. London, Lisbon and Madrid are still basking in daylight.

The sun is still shining over the Strait of Gibraltar while the Mediterranean Sea is already
covered in darkness.

Towards the left, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean you can see the Azores Islands with the Madeira islands slightly below them towards the right. Further down are the Canary Islands and further down south again, near to the western tip of Africa are the Cape Verde Islands.

The Sahara Desert is clearly visible at the bottom of the photograph. The vast expanse of the Sahara Desert can be seen clearly here both in daylight and nightfall.

Greenland is in the top left hand corner of the photograph. It is totally frozen.

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The Seven Wonders of the World

From my buddy Ms Huber

There is an easier way of committing suicide.

Don't be afraid to dream

A Twenty Dollar Note Lesson

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20.00 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?"

Hands started going up.

He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you. But first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill.

He then asked, "Who still wants it?"

Still the hands were up in the air.

Well, he replied, "What if I do this?" He dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.

"Now, who wants it?"

Still the hands went into the air.

"My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it, because it did not decrease in value. It is still worth $20."

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt, by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.

Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who DO LOVE you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE and WHOSE WE ARE.

You are special! Don't EVER forget it."

Count your blessings, not your problems.

Russian Sukhoi SU-30

Two of the coolest aviation photographs you can ever see. A Russian Sukhoi SU-30 fighter flying less than 2 meters off the runaway. You can't go anyway lower than that. Makes you wonder how the pilot can climb without a tailstrike. A thrilling moment and cutting edge shot of a 30 ton aircraft in cruising configuration but at grass altitude!

This photograph is awesome because it captures the grace and handling of the aircraft so well. The lack of a speed blur or flames from the afterburner almost makes the jet looks as if it was sitting on the runway.

A spectacular feat which confirms the fact that Russian pilots are still the best and the Americans have a long way to go. Absolutely breathtaking!

Another angle of the Sukhoi SU-30

You can fool some of the people all of the time .....

Sales? I like to think I have done well since I got here. Statistics do not lie.

As the adage goes, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

Photoshop's Error