Two hillbillies walk into a bar. While having a shot of whiskey, they talk about their own moonshine operations. Suddenly, a woman at a nearby table, who is eating a sandwich, begins to cough. After a minute or so, it becomes apparent that she is in real distress.

One of the hillbillies looks at her and says “Kin ya swaller?”
The woman shakes her head no.
“Kin ya breathe?”

The woman begins to turn blue and shakes her head no. The hillbilly walks over to the woman, lifts up the back of her dress, yanks down her drawers and quickly gives her right butt cheek a lick with his tongue. The woman is so shocked that she has a violent spasm and the obstruction flies out of her mouth.

As she begins to breathe again, the hillbilly walks slowly back to the bar. His partner says “Ya know, I’d heerd of that there “Hind Lick Maneuver,” but I ain’t never seed nobody do it!”

The passenger tapped the cab driver on the shoulder to ask him something. The driver screamed, lost control of the car, nearly hit a bus, went up on the sidewalk, and stopped inches from a shop window. For a second everything went quiet in the cab, then the driver said, “Look, mister, don’t ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me!” The passenger apologized and said he didn’t realize that a little tap could scare him so much. The driver replied, “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s really not your fault. Today is my first day as a cab driver. I’ve been driving a hearse for the last 25 years.”

In case you like stories and haven’t heard this one or received it in an email, here is a good one:

His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog. There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman’s sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved.

“I want to repay you,” said the nobleman. “You saved my son’s life.”

“No, I can’t accept payment for what I did,” the Scottish farmer replied waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer’s own son came to the door of the family hovel.

“Is that your son?” the nobleman asked.

“Yes,” the farmer replied proudly.

“I’ll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of education my own son will enjoy. If the lad is anything like his father, he’ll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of.” And that he did. Farmer Fleming’s son attended the very best schools and in time, graduated from St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.

Years afterward, the same nobleman’s son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia.

What saved his life this time? Penicillin.

The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill. His son’s name?

Sir Winston Churchill.

So we left for Dublin last Tuesday to go and celebrate St. Paddy’s Day in Ireland with our friend Barry and his girlfriend Carmel in Ireland. Lucky for us his apartment is right in the center of Dublin, so we could basically walk everywhere we wanted to go. Tuesday night we were pretty tired after the late night flight, so we just went to a nice little bar called Oceans for a quick drink, but we had to catch some Z’s since Wednesday (St. Paddy’s Day) was going to be a long day. Wednesday morning we headed out to the center of Munich to try and find a place to watch the parade, but unlike the parade in Munich, there were thousands of people along the parade route, so each spot was about 10 persons deep. Barry then decided to head to a bar that he thought we could watch the parade from since it was on the 2nd floor, and sure enough we got a good spot and the Guiness started flowing. After about a good 5-6 hours hanging out in the bar, we headed home and then back to Oceans for dinner…which actually ended up being really good.
Thursday was just me and Carmel since both Barry and Barbie had to work. We ended up walking all over town, and went to the National Art Museum for Irish artists (or something like that). It was free, so I can’t complain. That afternoon we pretty much just relaxed since the weather was on and off with rain. On Friday, both Barry and Barbie were able to get off work and join us for some tourist festivities. We ended up going to St. Patrick’s cathedral (which isn’t a Catholic church), the outskirts of Dublin castle, and the Guiness factory. The Guiness factory was cool, but the obvious best part is the Gravity Bar which is a bar on top of the brewery with glass all around so you can look out over the city of Dublin. This is where I got my first Guiness with a clover inscribed in it…you’ll have to look at the Guiness picture to understand what I mean. Anyways, Saturday ended up being a pretty relaxing day as we were all pretty spent, and Barry wanted to watch the Ireland vs. Italy Rugby game. We ended up just heading to the movies after the game and saw ‘21 Grams’, which I don’t recommend anyone going to see.
All in all we had a great time and can now say we celebrated St. Paddy’s Day(not St. Patty’s as some english speakers think) in Dublin, Ireland. As always we have a ton of pictures, so just follow the link to view them: Dublin Pictures

Barbie and I came to Amsterdam Saturday morning, and today is our last day here. We have thoroughly enjoyed our time here doing all sorts of things…everything being interesting in its own way. the first afternoon we did some walking around and eventually found the house of Rembrandt, unfortunatley it is just his house and some of his etchings…nothing worth seeing…just a tourist trap. That night we went to Boom Chicago which is a comedy club. Everything is done in English and it is mainly full of Americans…which they took full advantage of by ripping on Americans left and right. It is basically a mix of “Who’s line is it anyways” and “Saturday Night Live”, and we definitely recommend it…although the food is nothing to write home about. After Boom Chicago we headed over to the infamous Red Light District. Let’s just say it is an experience and probably worth checking out just for fun.

Sunday night we did some more tourist stuff like going to house where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Germans, and also going to original Heineken brewery. The brewery is a good time…you get 3 beers and a free gift with your entrance fee…nothing like giving your visitors alcohol to keep them happy. That night we went to the “Supper Club”, which is basically a restaurant where you lay down on beds and eat your meal. The food was great and the atmosphere was pretty cool. There was a guy doing Henna Tattoos and a masseus would come by and give you a massage if you wanted one. The whole place is in white and there is a DJ in the middle.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were work days, so we couldn’t do too much, but we did get to go see the Van Gogh museum on Monday evening, which was fairly impressive. His art style is very unique, although not particularly my taste. He did have some paintings which I liked, although they weren’t the ones that everyone knows about…”Portrait of Camille Roulin” and “Wheat Fields with Reaper at Sunrise“. Well, that is all from Amsterdam.

Yesterday I decided to bike into work since I kinda of slacked the day before on my biking duties. I only biked for an hour instead of 2 hours…then again I did run about 12 miles a few hours earlier, so hopefully you understand.

Anyways, the weather was nothing to write home about…unless you have a blog like myself, then you can write anything for the web. The Temp was -5 degrees Celsius (23 Fahrenheit), with a “feels like” of -8 degrees Celsius (17 F). Also, to make things more fun it was snowing. It took some time for me, and Barbie, to finally convince myself to bike the 16 miles to work on the trail that runs along the Isar river, and boy was I was in for it. I proceeded to get to the Dam by our house, make a right turn and half a second later I was on my back, and my bike a few feet away from me. Apparantely water freezes on concrete also. The worst part of the entire ride was not the cold, but having to concentrate on staying on the “tire” paths along the trail…since anything outside these two small paths was about 6 inches of snow. Needless to say I had a few run ins with the bushes and another near misses of falling, but I survived!

That evening I went to Dantebad to swim, and noticed there was one extremely fast guy swimming…too bad it wasn’t me. Wolfgang proceeded to let me know he thought it was Faris Al-Sultan… a german professional triathlete who is about my age, and finished 7th in the 2003 Hawaii Ironman. Everytime he would pass me I felt like a tugboat trying to compete with a torpedo! If I ever race against him, I am just going to grab his ankles and hang on, b/c I think him pulling me would still be faster than me swimming by myself.