The Shark

There was a very wealthy Texas millionaire who lived in a giant mansion in the middle of his cattle ranch. He owned dozens of expensive cars, a yacht and even a full size airplane with his picture painted on the side. Every once in a while, this millionaire would hold lavish dinner parties and invite anyone who would come. People hated his constant bragging about his possessions but would attend these dinner parties because the food, drinks and entertainment were so good.

At the height of the evening during these dinner parties, the millionaire would gather his guests around his Olympic size pool in which he kept a man eating shark. He would always make the following challenge. He would say, “If there’s anyone here man enough to swim across this here pool, I’ll give one of three things. I’ll give him either one million dollars, or, 25 percent share in my cattle business, or, the hand of my beautiful daughter in marriage.” One evening, just as he finished giving this challenge, there was a splash in the pool.

Everyone turned to see a man still dressed in his dinner jacket swimming as fast as he could across the pool. He got out just in time as the shark barely missed him.

Everyone around the pool began to cheer and shout. Once the noise died down, the millionaire said, “I’m a man of my word. What do you want? The million dollars?”
The man who swam across the pool, still out of breath said, “No, I don’t want the million dollars.”
“Oh”, said the millionaire, “Perhaps you want 25 percent of my cattle business.”
The swimmer said, “No, I don’t want that.”
“Well then!” said the millionaire, “You want to marry my daughter.”
“I don’t want to marry your daughter.” said the man.
“Well what in the world do you want son?” said the millionaire.

“All I want” said the man, “is... the name of the person that pushed me in that pool!”

Some Engineer Bashing

A boy was crossing the road one day when a frog called out to him and said, “If you’ll kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess”. He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week.” The boy took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.

The frog then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I’ll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want.” Again, the boy took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess, that I’ll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won’t you kiss me?”

The boy said, “Look, I’m an engineer. I don’t have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool."

Junior Engineer

Junior had just completed a course in statics and dynamics. He had learned that in equilibrium Sigma F (sum of all forces) = 0 and that F=MA, and armed with all his new knowledge got a summer job as an assistant to a building inspector on a construction project.

One evening after the workers had gone home, Junior found some bricks that should have been removed, up on the third floor. He decided that rather than bother the workers, he would remove them himself. The elevator shaft had a wooden barrel tied to a rope over a pulley suspended overhead. From the ground floor, Junior raised the barrel to the third floor landing and tied the rope at the ground floor level. He then climbed up, put all the bricks in the barrel, and returned to the ground floor. At this point, he forgot that in order for equilibrium to exist, Sigma F must equal zero. He untied the rope and, before he had time to think, he was 10 feet off the floor. He continued up the shaft as the barrel of bricks came down.

At the second floor, Junior and the barrel of bricks met. Considerable skin was scraped off and a few predictable exclamations issued forth. Junior continued up and the bricks went down.

Now, all this time, F = MA, and by the time the bricks reached the floor, the velocity was quite high. The acceleration, in a negative sense, was tremendous upon hitting the concrete floor. In fact, F = MA was so great that it knocked the bottom out of the wooden barrel.

Once again the forces were unbalanced, and Junior came back down the shaft. Once again they met in the middle, with more scraped skin and more flowery language, but this time F = MA was so high that Junior dropped the rope.

Once again the forces were unbalanced. The barrel fell down and hit Junior on the head.

Junior wrote to his accident insurance company citing four accidents: One going up, one coming down, one when he hit the bricks, and one when the barrel hit him.