Glen's Quotes Db (3169 total)

In 1978 two women began their own business-Wetherill Associates, Inc-in an industry you wouldn't typically associate with women entrepreneurs: automobile parts. Wetherill rebuilds and distributes replacement car parts. The founders (Marie Bothe and Edith Gripton) had the idea to to develop a business based on ethical practices; they wanted their company to be a living example of the maxim: "Right actions lead to right results. Wrong action leads to wrong results." As part of their training, employees were taught to apply ethical standards to all matters of their job performance. For example, sales people were told never to pressure customers, never to discredit competitors, never to use negative sales tactics, and-most of all-under no conditions were they to lie. So, what are the chances a company led by two idealistic women can survive in the dog-eat-dog world of used car parts? Most people who were asked that question in 1978 laughed condescendingly. But they're not laughing anymore. Twenty two years later, Wetherill Associates is still going strong. Sales are in the hundreds of millions; profits are in the tens of millions, and the company is debt-free.

Jayne O'Conner said, "I grew up thinking that someone was watching over me. I feel a little less watched over now." She was talking about the Old Man of the Mountain, a 40-foot tall natural outcropping of granite ledges in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, which looked like the profile of an old man. Two hundred years ago Nathaniel Hawthorn wrote a famous story about it: "The Great Stone Face." The image was on New Hampshire license plates and quarters and about a million souvenirs; it was the official state emblem. Sometime on May 1 or 2, 2003, in a heavy fog, the 700-ton face fell. It broke apart and slid down the mountain in the dark. Steven Heath, one of the residents of nearby Franconia Notch, said, "It's something that has been a part of our lives forever. At first it was disbelief. No one could believe he came down. It's like a member of your family dying." Another man said, "I'm absolutely devastated by this. It makes you wonder if God is unhappy with what is going on." There are times when it seems the most dependable, reliable presence in your life disappears into the fog in the middle of the night. The next morning, that "mountain" you've depended on is gone, and "it makes you wonder if God is unhappy." But the Bible teaches again and again there is only one Rock that will never crumble: "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever."[note to self--I need to get a photo of this]

Elephants in the Sky Using the Largest Living Land Mammal to Calculate Cloud Mass By Robert Krulwich Sept. 3— Ever wonder how much a cloud weighs? What about a hurricane? A meteorologist has done some estimates and the results might surprise you. Let's start with a very simple white puffy cloud — a cumulus cloud. How much does the water in a cumulus cloud weigh? Peggy LeMone, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, did the numbers. "The water in the little cloud weighs about 550 tons," she calculates. "Or if you want to convert it to something that might be a little more meaningful … think of elephants." Floating Masses Assume an elephant weighs about six tons, she says, that would mean that water inside a typical cumulous cloud would weigh about one hundred elephants. The thought of a hundred elephants-worth of water suspended in the sky begs another question — what keeps it up there? "First of all, the water isn't in elephant sized particles, it's in tiny tiny tiny particles," explains LeMone. And those particles float on the warmer air that's rising below. But still, the concept of so much water floating in the sky was surprising even to a meteorologist like LeMone. "I had no idea how much a cloud would weigh, actually, when I started the calculations," she says. Outweighing Elephant Populations So how many elephant units of water are inside a big storm cloud … 10 times bigger all the way around than the "puffy" cumulus cloud? Again, LeMone did the numbers: About 200,000 elephants. Now, ratchet up the calculations for a hurricane about the size of Missouri and the figures get really massive. "What we're doing is weighing the water in one cubic meter theoretically pulled from a cloud and then multiplying by the number of meters in a whole hurricane," she explains. The result? Forty million elephants. That means the water in one hurricane weighs more than all the elephants on the planet. Perhaps even more than all the elephants that have ever lived on the planet. And that is a lot of water. — ABC News' Justine Schiro and Alex Travelli contributed to this report.

What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better. -- Richard Sheridan