Coffee Break 92 February 20, 2007 Gung Hay Fat Choy! or is it Kung Hey Fat Choi, or Gung Ho Fat Choy, or Gong Xi Fa Cai?  It is my understanding all those greetings say Happy New Year.  I sure hope so.  Our Chinese friends and clients began celebrating their New Year on Sunday, February 18th and will continue for 15 days. In honor of  them we have a Lunar New Year that you might also enjoy. Have you donated yet or are you still sitting on the fence?  My daughter Leanne really needs folks like you to get on her team by making a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. While she has raised more than $4,000, she only has until March to meet her goal of $6,100.  Please help by making a tax deductible donation of any amount.  It will be greatly appreciated not only by Leanne and me, but especially by those stricken with these dread diseases.  I hope you're thinking Okay, you've convinced me.  I'll make a donation now.  And, remember we welcome your participation in Coffee Break. Send us your jokes, trivia, things to ponder, tips and noteworthy items.  If you have a suggestion of something you would like to see here, be sure to let us know that, too. Take care and stay in touch, Joanne Your San Francisco Bay Area Real Estate Broker     Special Announcement ... Take a look at this incredible new item ...  Super Battery - Portable Powerbank! -a Universal For Cell Phones, PDAs, iPod® and More! Rechargeable USB Power Bank Features: Universal USB Charger - One AC Adapter for All USB devices. Connecting with provided AC adapter, SuperBattery can charge most USB devices and its unique "Slow Charge" method can prolong your USB device´s battery life! Unlimited Compatibility - SuperBattery can charge any iPod® model, most cell phones, handheld games and PDA. Comes with 4 power tip adapters for cell phones. Many other power tips are available upon request. LED Flashlight - Convenient super bright LED Splash Proof Design - SuperBattery is Splash proof so it´s perfect for outdoor use. Keep it in your car, RV or boat  Only $39.90 Free Shipping For More Information and to Buy Now   Our thanks goes to Ms. Barbara Jones for bringing us this information. Mastectomy Hospital Bill in Congress ... If you know anyone who has had a mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards.  Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure.  Let's give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for two days after surgery. It takes two seconds to do this and is very important ... please take the time and do it! Please tell everyone in your address book.  If there was ever a time when our voices and choices should be heard, this is  one of those times. If you're receiving this, it's because I think  you will take the 30 seconds to vote on this issue and send it on  to others you know who will do the same. There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act  which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour  hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about  eliminating the "drive-through mastectomy" where women are forced  to go home just a few hours after surgery, still groggy from  anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached. Lifetime Television has put this bill on their web page with a  petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on. PLEASE! Sign the petition by clicking the link below. Before clicking here to sign the petition you might want to directly contact U.S. Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) who together with Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT) renewed their support for breast cancer patients by reintroducing The Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act. This take about two seconds.  Please tell your friend and family on behalf of all women.     Computer Tip ... Our thanks goes to Mr. Jim Knudsen for bringing us this information. Beware of those petitions people send you! Just a word to the wise.  E-mail petitions are NOT acceptable to Congress or any other municipality.  To be acceptable petitions must have a signed signature and full address. Heads up with "prayer chains" - be wary. Even those for our military personnel.  Almost all e-mails that ask you to add your name and forward on to others are similar to that mass letter years ago that asked people to send business cards to the little kid in Florida who wanted to break the Guinness Book of Records for the most cards.  All it was, and all this type of e-mail is, is to get names and "cookie" tracking info for tele-marketers and spammers to validate active e-mail accounts for their own purposes. Any time you see an e-mail that says forward this on to "10" of your friends sign this petition, or you'll get good luck, or whatever, it has either an e-mail tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and e-mails of those folks you forward to, or the host sender is getting a copy each time it gets forwarded and then is able to get lists of "active" e-mails to use in spam e-mails, or sell to others that do. Please forward this notice to others and you will be providing a good service to your friends, and will be rewarded by not getting 30,000 Spam e-mails in the future. (If you have been sending out the above kinds of email, now you know why you get so much Spam!) Check it out: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.htm    Now, this weeks Goodies ... What Do You Really See #1  ~ Thanks to Ms. Barbara Jones I bet you see TEACH, right?  This one is quite tricky.  Can you see LEARN? In case you missed it.  Learn is the reflection of teach.   The Darwin Awards ~ Thanks to Mr. Jim Knudsen "Darwin Awards" are given for people who prove that those who are unfit sometimes don't survive -- and why. CALIFORNIA...  A 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran," -- accidentally jogged off a 100-foot-high cliff on his daily run. NORTH CAROLINA... Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beach-goers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach on the outer banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital. CALIFORNIA... Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.   DELAWARE... Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in Selbyvill, Del, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger. HONORABLE MENTION: NEW JERSEY... Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover township, NJ, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, when a quarter-stick of dynamite blew up in their car. While driving around 2 AM, the bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what would happen, but apparently failed to notice the window was closed. RUNNER UP: WASHINGTON... Tacoma, WA, Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic.  The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM.  Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy river water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. "All I can say" said Bingham, "is that God was watching out for me on that night. There's just no other explanation for it."  Bingham's foot was never located. AND THE WINNER: FROM GERMANY is.... Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt (Paderborn, Germany) fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let it fly, and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop!  Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him" said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. "With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along and during that time he suffocated. What Do You Really See #2  ~ Thanks to Ms. Barbara Jones You probably read the word ME in brown, but when you look through ME you will see YOU!   A Dog's Purpose From a 4-Year Old ~ Thanks to Ms. Florence Pierson To all of you who have loved and lost a furry friend… Being a veterinarian, I was called to examine a ten year old Irish  wolfhound named Belker. The dog's owners, Ron, his wife Lisa and their little boy, Shane, were all very attached to Belker and they were hoping for a miracle. I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family we couldn't do anything for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home. As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would be good for the four-year-old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt as though Shane might learn something from the experience. The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker's family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last  time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away. The little boy seemed to accept Belker's transition without any difficulty or confusion. We sat together for a while after Belker's death, wondering aloud about the  sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives. Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped up, "I know why." Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me.  I'd never heard a more comforting explanation. He said, "People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life  -- like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?"  The four-year-old continued, "Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they  don't have to stay as long."   Wet Pants ~ Thanks to Ms. Patti Smith Come with me to a third grade classroom ... There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a Sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly Imagine how this has happened. It's never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it . When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives.   The boy believes his heart is going to stop, he puts his head down and prays this prayer, "Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now!  Five minutes from now I'm dead meat."   He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered. As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a gold fish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of The teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy's lap. The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to Himself, "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!"   Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the Boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out.   All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule That should have been his has been transferred to someone else - Susie. She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. "You've done enough, you klutz!"   Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"   Susie whispers back, "I wet my pants once too."   May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to do good.     Remember:  Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.   Frog or a Horse ~ Thanks to Mr. Jim Knudsen   New Winter Virus Alert ... Maybe ~ Thanks to Mr. Jim Knudsen There is a dangerous virus being passed around electronically, orally, and by hand. This virus is called Worm-Overload-Recreational-Killer (WORK). If you receive WORK from any of your colleagues, your boss, or anyone else via any means DO NOT TOUCH IT. This virus will wipe out your private life completely. If you should come into contact with WORK, put your jacket on and take two good friends to the nearest grocery store. Purchase the antidotes known as Work-Isolating-Neutralizer-Extract (WINE) or Bothersome-Employer-Elimination-Rebooter (BEER). Take the antidote repeatedly until WORK has been completely eliminated from your system.  You should forward this warning to 5 friends. If you do not have 5 friends, you have already been infected and WORK is controlling your life.   Picture of the Week - Thanks to Ms. Florence Pierson In case above is hard to read; here it is again: One week after being born, six baby skunks were abandoned by their mother.  Luckily, we had just weaned five kittens off of our resident farm cat a day before and hoped that perhaps she might take them on as her own.  She was reluctant at first, but she let them nurse - a positive sign.  Two weeks have gone by and the six little "Stinkers" are thriving and their new mom couldn't be happier.  She has become quite devoted to them and even carries them around to show them off to visitors.   Thank you for being with us in this new year.  Your contributions make this page a must stop for many.  I hope you liked what we had to offer in this issue. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome.  When you come across something funny or informative and in good taste, please send it along.  I would love to include it with your name and our thanks.  May 2007 bring you all you hope for and much more. Make it a good week, talk to those you love, and come back soon. Joanne Joanne L. Gardiner, Broker e-PRO Realtor® Advantage Realty Clock Tower Commerce Center 3205 Whipple Road Union City, California 94587 (510) 429-4800 Our primary services in the San Francisco Bay Area are: East bay real estate,  Hayward real estate, Castro Valley real estate,  Danville real estate, Dublin real estate, Fremont real estate,  Newark real estate, Niles real estate, Pleasanton real estate, San Leandro real estate, San Lorenzo real estate, San Ramon real estate, Sunol real estate and Union City real estate. Peninsula real estate, Palo Alto real estate, Foster City real estate, San Mateo real estate, San Carlos real estate, Burlingame real estate, Belmont real estate, Half Moon Bay real estate Types of real estate in which we specialize:  houses, condominiums, townhomes, garden homes, PUDs, single family homes, mobile homes, module homes, duets, residential income property, duplexes, tri-plexes, four-plexes, small apartment complexes and special use properties.

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