Folded thought of the day:

Well... well... 

Thank you all for the sweet "Get Well" wishes -- providing me 
much needed strength and warmth on this on-the-recovery-trail 
Tuesday.  I keep requesting an I.V. but all I get is kind 
invitations to make me hot tea.  Such nice co-workers... 

And let's hear it for yesterday's guest editor.  Stepping 
up and taking care of business.  Such competence...  

One thing about being laid up in bed for hours and hours 
on end is that the prospect of watching television is 
much more appealing.  The head too woozy to read or write.  
And you begin to beg for a little distraction from all 
those fevered dreams and relentless thoughts.  

So you expend 95 percent of your energy reserves and sit 
up and click on the TV.  And then your back to the 
dreams within a minute.  Building up those reserves and 
sweating out the day.  Losing track of daylight and 
nighttime... of what other people might be doing on a 
holiday weekend... of what year it is and why there are 
other voices in the room.  Oh yeah, that television set 
must be on.  You'd turn it off but you've got two invisible 
500 pound weights sitting on your chest.  And you turned 
it on for a reason.  Just don't expect to remember what 
the reason was.  

You lie there taking it all in.  Doing time.  With those 
voices sounding off variations on the same theme.  All 
the same.  Talking Person of the Century, Athlete of the 
Century, Invention of the Millennium, and on and on.  And 
you lay there and laugh at how silly it all sounds.  
Thinking about the price of tea in China, and what you'd 
pay to have a nice hot cup delivered to your bedside.  

Don't talk to me of Gutenberg and his movable type.  
Not my type of guy.  The word is written on the walls, 
by the hands of man, chiseled to the bone.  Bleeding 
at the edge.  Signed and delivered in stony silence.  

Don't talk to me of Henry Ford and the Model T.  Yeah, 
I love cars but I ain't gonna buy any model post 1970.  
Look at these new car commercials.  Those machines 
don't got no soul.  Not like a '67 Plymouth.  So 
this invention, had good intentions, but lost direction.  

Not the airplane.  I'll climb aboard if I gotta.  But 
I still don't trust something that heavy that can fly.  
It's not natural.  

So, if I had to choose my invention of the Millennium, 
what would it be?  

Seems simple enough.  

The waffle iron.  First patented on Aug 24, 1869 by Cornelius 
Swarthout.   Such a pure, simple and beautiful invention.  
And if used properly, it could just possibly save the world.  
Face it, if we all had a piping hot waffle with maple syrup 
to start our day everyday, we'd all be in a much better mood.