breitling watches

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.

The infinite sky is motionless overhead

And the restless water is boisterous.

On the seashore of endless worlds

The children meet with shouts and dances.

They build their houses with sand,

And they play with empty shells.

With withered leaves they weave

Their boats and smilingly float them

On the vast deep.

Children have their play on the

Seashore of worlds.

They know not how to swim,

They know not how to cast nets.

Pearl-fishers dive for pearls,

Merchants sail in their ships,

While children gather pebbles

And scatter them again.

They seek not for hidden treasures,

They know not how to cast nets.

The sea surges up with laughter,

And pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.

Death-dealing waves sing

Meaningless ballads to the children,

Even like a mother while rocking her baby’s cradle.

The sea plays with children,

And pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.

Tempest roams in the pathless sky,

Ships are wrecked in the trackless water,

Death is abroad and children play.

On the seashore of endless worlds is the

Great meeting of children.

Isn’t it amazing how one person, sharing one idea, at the right time and place can change the course of your life’s history? This is certainly what happened in my life. When I was 14, I was hitchhiking from Houston, Texas, through El Paso on my way to California. I was following my dream, journeying with the sun. I was a high school dropout with learning disabilities and was set on surfing the biggest waves in the world, first in California and then in Hawaii, where I would later live.

Upon reaching downtown El Paso, I met an old man, a bum, on the street corner. He saw me walking, stopped me and questioned me as I passed by. He asked me if I was running away from home, I suppose because I looked so young. I told him, “Not exactly, sir,” since my father had given me a ride to the freeway in Houston and given me his blessings while saying, “It is important to follow your dream and what is in your heart. Son. ”

The bum then asked me if he could buy me a cup of coffee. I told him, “No, sir, but a soda would be great.” We walked to a corner malt shop and sat down on a couple of swiveling stools while we enjoyed our drinks.

After conversing for a few minutes, the friendly bum told me to follow him. He told me that he had something grand to show me and share with me. We walked a couple of blocks until we came upon the downtown El Paso Public Library.

We walked up its front steps and stopped at a small information stand. Here the bum spoke to a smiling old lady, and asked her if she would be kind enough to watch my things for a moment while he and I entered the library. I left my belongings with this grandmotherly figure and entered into this magnificent hall of learning.

The bum first led me to a table and asked me to sit down and wait for a moment while he looked for something special amongst the shelves. A few moments later, he returned with a couple of old books under his arms and set them on the table. He then sat down beside me and spoke. He started with a few statements that were very special and that changed my life. He said, “There are two things that I want to teach you, young man, and they are these:

“Number one is to never judge a book by its cover, for a cover can fool you. “He followed with, “I ll bet you think I m a bum, don t you, young man?”

I said, “Well, uh, yes, I guess so, sir. ”

“Well, young man, I’ve got a little surprise for you. I am one of the wealthiest men in the world. I have probably everything any man could ever want. I originally come from the Northeast and have all the things that money can buy. But a year ago, my wife passed away, bless her soul, and since then I have been deeply reflecting upon life. I realized there were certain things I had not yet experienced in life, one of which was what it would be like to live like a bum on the streets. I made a commitment to myself to do exactly that for one year. For the past year I have been going from city to city doing just that. So, you see, don’t ever judge a book by its cover, for a cover can fool you.

“Number two is to learn how to read, my boy. For there is only one thing that people can’t take away from you, and that is your wisdom. ” At that moment, he reached forward, grabbed my right hand in his and put them upon the books he’d pulled from the shelves. They were the writings of Plato and Aristotle-immortal classics from ancient times.

The bum then led me back past the smiling old woman near the entrance, down the steps and back on the streets near where we first met. His parting request was for me to never forget what he taught me.

I haven’t.

“So you think I’m courageous?” she asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Perhaps I am. But that’s because I’ve had some inspiring teachers. I’ll tell you about one of them. Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Lisa who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her five-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, ‘Yes, I’ll do it if it will save Lisa.’

“As the transfusion progressed, he lay in a bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, ‘Will I start to die right away?’

“Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give her all his blood.

“Yes, I’ve learned courage,” she added, “because I’ve had inspiring teacher.”

When he told me he was leaving I felt like a vase which has just smashed. There were pieces of me all over the tidy, tan tiles. He kept talking, telling me why he was leaving, explaining it was for the best, I could do better, it was his fault and not mine. I had heard it before many times and yet somehow was still not immune; perhaps one did not become immune to such felony.

He left and I tried to get on with my life. I filled the kettle and put it on to boil, I took out my old red mug and filled it with coffee watching as each coffee granule slipped in to the bone china. That was what my life had been like, endless omissions of coffee granules, somehow never managing to make that cup of coffee.

Somehow when the kettle piped its finishing warning I pretended not to hear it. That’s what Mike’s leaving had been like, sudden and with an awful finality. I would rather just wallow in uncertainty than have things finished. I laughed at myself. Imagine getting all philosophical and sentimental about a mug of coffee. I must be getting old.

And yet it was a young woman who stared back at me from the mirror. A young woman full of promise and hope, a young woman with bright eyes and full lips just waiting to take on the world. I never loved Mike anyway. Besides there are more important things. More important than love, I insist to myself firmly. The lid goes back on the coffee just like closure on the whole Mike experience.

He doesn’t haunt my dreams as I feared that night. Instead I am flying far across fields and woods, looking down on those below me. Suddenly I fall to the ground and it is only when I wake up that I realize I was shot by a hunter, brought down by the burden of not the bullet but the soul of the man who shot it. I realize later, with some degree of understanding, that Mike was the hunter holding me down and I am the bird that longs to fly. The next night my dream is similar to the previous nights, but without the hunter. I fly free until I meet another bird who flies with me in perfect harmony. I realize with some relief that there is a bird out there for me, there is another person, not necessarily a lover perhaps just a friend, but there is someone out there who is my soul mate. I think about being a broken vase again and realize that I have glued myself back together, what Mike has is merely a little part of my time in earth, a little understanding of my physical being. He has only, a little piece of me.

copy from others.

One fine day, an old couple around the age of 70, walks into a lawyer’s office. Apparently, they are there to file a divorce. Lawyer was very puzzled, after having a chat with them, he got their story.

This couple had been quarreling all their 40 over years of marriage nothing ever seems to go right.

They hang on because of their children, afraid that it might affect their up-bringing. Now, all their children have already grown up, have their own family, there’s nothing else the old couple have to worry about, all they wanted is to lead their own life free from all these years of unhappiness from their marriage, so both agree on a divorce.

Lawyer was having a hard time trying to get the papers done, because he felt that after 40 years of marriage at the age of 70, he couldn’t understand why the old couple would still wants a divorce.

While they were signing the papers, the wife told the husband. “I really love you, but I really can’t carry on anymore, I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK, I understand.” said the husband. Looking at this, the lawyer suggested a dinner together, just three of them, wife thought, why not, since they are still going be friends.

At the dining table, there was a silence of awkwardness.

The first dish was roasted chicken, immediately, the old man took the drumstick for the old lady. “Take this, it’s your favorite.”

Looking at this, the lawyer thought maybe there’s still a chance, but the wife was frowning when she answer. “This is always the problem, you always think so highly of yourself, never thought about how I feel, don’t you know that I hate drumsticks?”

Little did she know that, over the years, the husband have been trying all ways to please her, little did she know that drumsticks was the husband’s favorite.

Little did he know that she never thought he understand her at all, little did he know that she hates drumsticks even though all he wants is the best for her.

That night, both of them couldn’t sleep, toss and turn, toss and turn. After hours, the old man couldn’t take it anymore, he knows that he still loves her, and he can’t carry on life without her, he wants her back, he wants to tell her, he is sorry, he wanted to tell her, “I love you.”

He picks up the phone, started dialing her number. Ringing never stops. He never stop dialing.

On the other side, she was sad, she couldn’t understand how come after all these years, he still doesn’t understand her at all, she loves him a lot, but she just can’t take it any- more. Phone’s ringing, she refuses to answer knowing that it’s him. “What’s the point of talking now that it’s over. I have asked for it and now. I want to keep it this way, if not I will lose face. “She thought. Phone still ringing. She has decided to pull out the cord.

Little did she remember, he had heart problems.

The next day, she received news that he had passed away. She rushed down to his apartment, saw his body, lying on the couch still holding on to the phone. He had a heart attack when he was still trying to get thru her phone line.

As sad as she could be. She will have to clear his belongings. When she was looking thru the drawers, she saw this insurance policy, dated from the day they got married, beneficiary is her. Together in that file there’s this note.

“To my dearest wife, by the time you are reading this, I’m sure I’m no longer around, I bought this policy for you, though the amount is only $100k, I hope it will be able to help me continue my promise that I have made when we got married, I might not be around anymore, I want this amount of money to continue taking care of you, just like the way I will if I could have live longer. I want you to know I will always be around, by your side. I love you.”

Tears flowed like river.

copy from others.

In the 1940s, Breitling added a circular slide rule to the bezel of their chronograph models for use by aircraft pilots. This became the famous Navitimer model. During the 1950s and 1960s, a version of the Navitimer was offered by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association with the AOPA logo on the dial.

In 1961, Scott Carpenter, one of the original astronauts in the Mercury space program, approached Breitling with idea of incorporating a 24 hour dial instead of the normal 12 hour dial. This was needed because of the lack of day and night during space travel. Breitling complied, and produced the 24 hour Navitimer which Carpenter wore on his 1962 space flight. Breitling then proceeded to produce the 24 hour version as the so-called Cosmonaute Navitimer – under both Breitling and AOPA logos.

The Breitling Emergency version contains a radio transmitter for civil aviation use which broadcasts on the 121.5 MHz distress frequency and serves as a back-up for ELT-type airborne beacons. (For military users, Breitling has equipped the Emergency with a miniaturized transmitter operating on the 243 MHz military frequency.) Under normal conditions—flat terrain or calm seas—the signal can be picked up at a range of up to 90 nautical miles (167 km) by search aircraft flying at 20,000 feet (6,000 m). As of 1 February 2009, the  Cospas-Sarsat Satellite System will no longer monitor the 121.5/243 MHz frequency; however, the signal transmitted by the Emergency was never strong enough to be picked up by satellite, and Breitling has announced that, as these frequencies will still be monitored by aviation, particularly during the localization phase of a rescue attempt, there are no plans to modify the signal’s frequency.

Reuters reported that two British pilots, Squadron Leader Steve Brooks and Flight Lieutenant Hugh Quentin-Smith, crashed their helicopter in Antarctica and were rescued after activating their Breitling Emergency transmitter watches. The two pilots were in their lifeboat when a Chilean Otter aircraft found them after homing in on signals from their watches.

The Emergency is available for customers who do not hold a pilot’s licence, but they must sign an agreement stating that they will bear the full costs of a rescue intervention should they trigger the distress beacon. The model was heavily advertised by the Breitling Orbiter 3—both Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard were wearing the Emergency. Also, Bear Grylls wears an Emergency with yellow face and rubber strap in many episodes of Man vs.Wild.

An American teenager survived for nearly four months without a heart, kept alive by a custom-built artificial blood-pumping device, until she was able to have a heart transplant, doctors in Miami said on Wednesday.

The doctors said they knew of another case in which an adult had been kept alive in Germany for nine months without a heart but said they believed this was the first time a child had survived in this manner for so long.

The patient, D’Zhana Simmons of South Carolina, said the experience of living for so long with a machine pumping her blood was “scary”.

“You never knew when it would malfunction,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, at a news conference at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.

“It was like I was a fake person, like I didn’t really exist. I was just here,” she said of living without a heart.

Simmons, 14, suffered from  dilated cardiomy opathy, a condition in which the patient’s heart becomes weakened and enlarged and does not pump blood efficiently.

She had a heart transplant on July 2 at Miami’s Holtz Children’s Hospital but the new heart failed to function properly and was quickly removed.

Two heart pumps made by Thoratec Corp of Pleasanton, California, were implanted to keep her blood flowing while she fought a host of ailments and recovered her strength. Doctors implanted another heart on Oct 29.

“She essentially lived for 118 days without a heart, with her circulation supported only by the two blood pumps,” said Dr Marco Ricci, the hospital’s director of pediatric cardiac surgery. During that time, Simmons was mobile but remained hospitalized.

When an artificial heart is used to sustain a patient, the patient’s own heart is usually left in the body, doctors said.

In some cases, adult patients have been kept alive that way for more than a year, they said.

“This, we believe, is the first pediatric patient who has received such a device in this configuration without the heart, and possibly one of the youngest that has … been bridged to transplantation without her native heart,” Ricci said.

Transplant pioneer dies

Dr Adrian Kantrowitz, a cardiac surgeon who performed the first human heart transplant in the United States and who also developed lifesaving medical implants, has died. He was 90.

Kantrowitz died last Friday in Ann Arbor of complications from heart failure, said his wife, Jean Kantrowitz.

In 1967, Kantrowitz performed a human heart transplant three days after the world’s first was performed in South Africa.

But the transplant, on an infant who died several hours later, was only a small part of his life’s work to solve the problem of heart failure, his wife said.

Adrian Kantrowitz invented and for decades continued to improve the left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, which would later lend its name to his Detroit-based research company, L-VAD Technology Inc.

The device is designed to be permanently implanted in patients with otherwise-terminal heart failure, helping their hearts circulate blood and allowing them to leave the hospital.

Kantrowitz also invented other lifesaving cardiac devices, including the intra-aortic balloon pump.

He never retired, and “he never lost his mental alertness”, said Jean Kantrowitz. He was an avid pilot, motorcyclist and sailor.

Chinese Americans in the United States earn less than non-Hispanic Whites of the same educational level, despite having a higher educational level than the average population, a study has said.

The compilers of a 64-page report, A Portrait of Chinese Americans, analyzed data from the US Bureau of Census and the American Community Survey of 2006, science portal EurekAlert! Chinese reported last week.

The study, jointly carried out by the University of Maryland and the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA), said there are twice as many college degree holders among Chinese Americans aged 25 and above than among the general population, but they earn less than non-Hispanic Whites of all levels of education.

“Chinese American men earn $5,000 to $15,000 less than non-Hispanic Whites with the same level of education,” the report said.

The reasons behind the discrepancy include racial discrimination, perceptions of “a lack of leadership potential”, and differences between Chinese Americans and the majority in “standing out” and “receiving recognition”, Professor Larry Hajime Shinagawa of the University of Maryland, who led the study team, said.

Also, Chinese Americans do not earn increasing incomes with each successive generation, the study said.

Members of the “1.5 generation” – those who arrived in the US aged 15 or younger – receive the highest returns on their educational achievements, it said.

This is because these people have better language skills than their parents, the first generation, and are generally better educated, Michael Lin, executive director of the OCA and member of the research team, said.

The first generation has also not been totally Americanized, and still “maintains a drive” to pursue professional careers, he said.

While Shinagawa is optimistic about the future for Chinese Americans, he said the study implies a need for the development of “constituency groups” among Chinese and Asian Americans in the workplace that can lead to recognition, protection and advocacy.

Other ways to combat the lower income levels include sensitivity training for company managers, enforcement of civil rights laws, training programs for recognizing different kinds of leadership, and a redirection of management approaches, he said.

The Nobel Prize resulted form a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a propagator of violence – he invented dynamite.

Alfred Nobel’s will

Alfred Nobel’s will from November 25, 1895Five Nobel Prizes were instituted by the final will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist and industrialist, who was the inventor of the high explosive dynamite. Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last was written a little over a year before he died, and signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895. Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million Swedish Kronor, to establish and endow the five Nobel Prizes.(As of 2008 that equates to 186 million US dollars.)

“ The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way:

The capital shall be invested by my executors in safe securities and shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work of an idealistic tendency; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiological or medical works by Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm; and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my expressed wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.
”
—Alfred Nobel, Alfred Nobel’s Will

Although Nobel’s will established the prizes, his plan was incomplete and, due to various other hurdles, it took five years before the Nobel Foundation could be established and the first prizes awarded on 10 December 1901.The current size of the Nobel endowment fund is about $400 million USD.