In this Newsletter ...

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Photos from the Slopes

From : Phil

Next Club Meeting

Wednesday 18th October 8.00PM at the Bear

Quiz night - teams of four - three prizes

EasyJet Middle Phase

From : Mike Broad

Photo of recently completed Middle Phase in EasyJet colours - I wouldn't have chosen these colours if I'd known that EasyJet were going to leave me stranded ar Rome Airport late one Friday night!

Not in the photo is a mound of balsa shavings and dust. The Middle Phase kit contains several slabs of balsa which need to be planed and sanded into an aerodynamic shape. I haven't got the patience for this, so the model in the photo is boxier that Chris Foss intended.

And finally ....

A shepherd was herding his flock near Frocester when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and D+G tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd, "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?" The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers, "Sure. Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, takes out a model glider with an onboard camera (apologies to Phil Wright), launches it, takes a ultra-high-resolution photo, and transmits the photo back to his Dell notebook computer. They young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-colour, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the shepherd and says, "You have exactly 1586 sheep."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep." says the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the shepherd says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my animal?" The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a consultant." says the shepherd.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the shepherd. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked; and you know jack about my business... "

" ... Now give me back my dog."