Sometimes while sitting in the train, it can be quite entertaining watching the strange behavior of your fellow passengers. Especially when it results in an unbroken cycle of this and that which refuses to stop despite the obvious reasons.

Take for instance the overweight guy with a grayish beard who was sitting across from me yesterday evening. He kept trying to read his large hardcover book and stay awake at the same time, but that was too much for him and his tired mind. The book balanced precariously on his protruding belly, teetering back and forth as the train negotiated the various curves and bumpiness of the terrain ahead.

He'd nod his head a couple times, lay his chin on his chest, start snoring and then let his heavy book drop like a rock to the floor. The resounding bang! would startle him back awake, and then realizing that he'd just been reading, he'd bend down and pick up the book. Then he'd have to thumb through the various pages to figure out where he had stopped reading, but I didn't get the impression that he returned to the same page each time.

The cycle repeated itself very predictably. His head would nod a couple times, snoring sounds would occur and then bang! Time to wake up and start reading again. Now where was I?

The bang! would not only startle him awake each time, but also the passengers nearby would jerk from the unexpected strike.

I'm not sure how many times this comical scene repeated itself, but that is not important. What is interesting is that this person was obviously tired and refused to accept that fact, although he kept on nodding off over and over.

Why keep on going and not accept that you are too tired to read? If it were me, I'd simply put the book away and have a good nap. No need risking a giant bang and startling me awake each time.

Just because you fall down doesn't mean you cannot pick yourself up and keep on going until you achieve your goal.

Determination is good. Getting there is even better.

1. I was born when Sputnik 1 was orbiting the earth making that infamous bleep
2. My father was a navy doctor on a destroyer during world war two. He witnessed the battles of Tarawa, Iowa Jima and Leyte Gulf. Once his ship sunk a japanese submarine and there was just one survivor who was pulled aboard. My father saved his life by amputating the poor guys leg
3. I met my wife in Balestrand, Norway and fell in love with her instantly. After a romantic few days it was time for me to leave forever, but I couldn't bear leaving her. I asked her what I should do and she said just to leave, it was fun while it lasted, just leave. Feeling bummed I packed up my belongings and went down to the port. When it was time for the ferry to leave, I hesitated and at the last second jumped back onshore. Since then we've been together for twenty-eight years
4. I've been living in Holland since 1981 and still wonder to this day what my life would have been like had I decided to stay in the States. Was it the right decision, did I make a mistake?
5. I was named after Kiffin Yates Rockwell, a famous world war one volunteer pilot with the lafayette escadrille who gave his life for freedom fighting the germans. He is buried in Luxeuil-les-bains France and I've paid tribute to his final resting place twice, the first time with tears in my eyes
6. As a teenager I used to be a one handicap golfer and thought I'd become a golf pro someday. I would have played on the university team except that I was afraid I couldn't play golf and get straight A's at the same time. The ironic thing is that I gave up golf for medical school which I never even attended
7. My mother was born in Paris and came to America after the war. That makes me half American and half French. When I went to kindergarten no one could understand me because I had this thick French accent. After many sessions with a logopedist I finally learned to pronounce the 'th' and 'h' sounds. Even to this day some people say I talk kind of funny
8. My favorite subjects at school were always math and science. In second grade I went through the class workbook so quickly that my teacher Miss Bell introduced me to the fascinating world of long division. I looked at the divide symbol and went crazy
9. I bought the first TI calculator that could do square roots and a fun game for me was taking random numbers and seeing how close I could guess what the square root would be
10. During my algebra class in high school I was always very disappointed when the bell went off
11. I almost drowned once while on vacation in northern Crete. I wanted to show off to my wife what an athletic swimmer I was and dove into the stormy waters, not seeing the line of red warning flags. The tide pulled me under water and I thought I was going to die. I remember vividly seeing my wife in the distance and me waving my hand trying to holler help
12. As a kid when I went to bed I could close my eyes and make my bed float and spin every which way by just thinking about it
13. Even though I've played golf my whole life I still have not had a single hole-in-one
14. I once attended a concert with Fleetwood Mac, the Doobie Brothers and Boston, and from then on I became completely infatuated with Stevie Nicks
15. The first time I got drunk was when I shared a fifth of Jack Daniels with a friend, ran outside and jumped into the university fountain, and being completely sopping wet slogged through the freshman library in search of the girl I had a crush on. I must have really made a great impression on her
16. I attended a Stanford vs. USC football game with my father and afterwards got O.J. Simpson's autograph. I was just a kid and he towered over me
17. I was in the car with my sisters and mother driving south on highway 101 when it was announced on the radio that Niel Amstrong had stepped on the moon
18. After having graduated from a university two times I vowed never ever to study again. Since then my life has been nothing but one study after the other non-stop
19. I originally wanted five children but after the fourth my wife had had enough
20. I keep dreaming about Stanford almost every night. In the dream it's my nth year there and I still haven't graduated after so many years
21. After having built up a career in computer technology and having assumed various positions and roles, I still have the most fun when I get to develop and debug computer programs
22. I first started to get bald when I was twenty, I looked in the mirror and panicked. Fortunately it still took thirty years after that before my baldness really is starting to show through
23. I started biting my nails and cracking my knuckles when I was six and haven't been able to break those habits since then
24. One late evening I wasn't paying attention and my car started swerving out of control, spinning around two or three times and finally skidding into the other lane. If another car had been coming from the other direction I probably would have been killed
25. When I grow up I still want to become an astronaut

By making sure that I enter at the front of the metro rather than at the back, I figure that I speed up my walk to work by the time it takes to stroll a full metro length, say maybe forty-five seconds. That's a pretty significant win when you think about it.

However, by having to get there in the first place from where I am initially standing, I have to invest at least a full metro length to make it to the front of the metro. Let's avoid fooling ourselves from something that makes perfect sense, and subtract the forty-five seconds, please.

This so-called illusion therefore effectively cancels out any long-term investments by first incurring short-term debt which is never won back. Net result is thus zero. Entering the front or the back does not make any difference.

I was looking around when all of a sudden I thought I had discovered it but that was not to be the case.

A drone is not only an idle person who has no other purpose is life than to loaf off of others, but it is also a pilotless aircraft operated by remote control, a so-called unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

There was that Borg cube orbiting the Earth for awhile, but I am not sure if that qualifies as a real drone or not.

All those snobby buggers wearing three-piece suits, carrying fancy-looking laptops, and sitting so snugly in the first class train carriage, while I am packed in with the other poor normal folks in second, yeah those are first class drones that's for sure.

Drone was also the name of one of the Star Trek Voyager episodes.

Finally, there was that detective drone guy who popped up in many of the British crime novels during the last century.

I guess then that you can characterize a 'drone' as someone who has an irritating lack of manners and general decency.

We are just a bunch of birds without wings thinking that we can fly and not having the common sense to admit to ourselves that indeed there are certain limitations that keep us where we belong.

These limitations include: gravitation, the human body, (the lack of enough) air friction and worst but not least common sense.

This entry has been inspired by an interesting book I recently finished.

In my vision I stood atop a lofty cliff which fell off onto a distant sea whose vastness kept me in awe for an uncertain time which even to this very day I am still unable to measure in my mind.

So what did those innocent little screws ever do to deserve such an unfair fate?

To make matters even worse, I take my cordless Mikata driver-drill and ruthlessly drive each and every one deep into the interior of the wood never to see the light of day again.

Driven deep into nowhere to hold up a shelf, the side of a cabinet, or the door hinge, and then staying that way until who knows when.

If it weren't for the daily sacrifices of these many pointy and metallic heroes, not much else in the world would be standing right now.

Keep up the good work.

For a list of reasons why we craft the things we do check out this page for fun.