The Ant and the Coffee Maker

It's a catchy title for a story. It reminds me of one of Aesop's Fables where there will be some lesson instilled in young minds who endure reading it. That's probably not going to happen in this tale. Although, somebody might learn something from my mistake. That's only a mere theory with no statistics to back it up whatsoever.

It started out just like every morning. I go to the bathroom, wash my hands, turn on the computer, and then I go make my cup of coffee. Once the coffee maker is started, I return to the computer to crank-start the ancient phone-line modem and connect to the Internet.
The coffee maker chugs and churns on the kitchen counter. It's a two-cup model and it does just about the perfect job of brewing our favorite gourmet blend coffee. One of our few lavish luxuries. I brew one single cup, which is rather large, and when mine is ready, I set the machine up for my wife.
Once I finally get connected to the Internet, I am assuming that the coffee machine must be pretty close to finishing. It's sad that dial-up takes so long, but that's the undying truth to the matter. Just in case, I begin the process of checking out all of my favorite web sites, to obtain my sports news and stats, check the weather, and of course, my own personal author based web sites data. Now, surely the cup of coffee is complete and only awaiting the perfect amount of sugar and cream to be added and consumed with delight.
On this particular morning, I abandon one particular web site and leave the home office to retrieve my much anticipated cup of coffee. To my surprise, I hear another unfamiliar chug emanate from the machine as I approach it. What on earth could have slowed this process down, I wonder? Okay, the fact is, it could probably stand to be de-scaled, you know, the old white vinegar and water treatment that cleans the sediments out of the insides of the machine. It's a fairly new coffee pot and, to my own chagrin, I realize neither of us has taken the time to exercise this important maintenance procedure in our quest to obtain the perfect cup of coffee on a daily basis.
I gather that it's a little too early in the morning to start such a cumbersome task and promise myself that once my wife's cup of coffee is done, later when she finally gets up, that I will undertake the procedure personally.
As I grab my cup of coffee, I notice despite the amount of water I put in, the machine has not yielded it back. Although the automatic shut-off switch is no longer illuminated, only a half of the cup is filled with coffee. I ponder putting some more water in the well after I lift the cover to see if there is any left inside, and to my surprise there is none. Where did it go? Did it evaporate? Was that the foreign chugging sounds I heard the machine make just a few moments ago? Was it steaming off the water that was supposed to go into my cup of coffee? I inspect the counter-top to ensure that I hadn't actually spilled the water when pouring it into the well. As I notice the dry surface of the counter, I realize that I'm in denial that the coffee machine just needs a simple cleaning and resolve to my newly brewed cup of ... espresso, I guess. No amount of sugar and cream will make this gourmet blend of coffee the perfect cup on this morning. It's too strong, obviously because the proper amount of water did not brew and filter through the heaping ¼ cup of grounds placed in the filter trap.
I like cappuccino, so I settle for the strong coffee that morning. As usual, before returning to the computer, I set up my wife's cup so all she has to do is hit the start button when she decides to finally get up.
The coffee is strong, but tolerable enough for me. I resolve in the fact that I will be making another one later on for my commute to work and the machine will be de-scaled for that cup, therefore, it's not a complete loss.
I return to the computer and browse more sites and gather more data and statistics. Soon my mind is finally submerged in thought and the coffee machine de-scaling becomes low on the thought process. That is, until I take another sip of my coffee and grimace down the mouthful. Hey ... it will wake me up proper, right?
A little while later, my wife gets up. She stealthily approaches me from behind, trying to adjust her sleepy eyes to the bright monitor of the computer and ensure that I'm behaving myself on the Internet, and then she wraps her arms around my shoulders and neck and places her head next to mine for our first "good morning" kiss. Satisfied with the fact that I didn't quickly close one window and was startled by her attack, I offer to get up and go push the button to the coffee machine. We have a joke ... sort of. She tells me I make a better cup of coffee than she does, so I tell her it's all in the way I push the button. I've extended this joke to the way I stir the cream in sugar in the final product. Counter-clock wise for several swirls and then one final clock-wise stir to slow the whirlpool of hot coffee down. It's the one clock-wise stir I insist is the "flavor stir," I tell her and she smiles, certainly not buying into my theory.
I push the button to the coffee machine again and listen to it come to life and begin the process all over again for her cup. Returning to the home office, I keep a watchful ear out on the chugs and churns to make myself aware if she is going to endure the same problem I did with mine. Much to my pleasure, when the cup is done brewing, the perfect amount of water has filtered through the machine and she now has a perfect cup of coffee sitting below the cone. Lucky her. I add her cream and sugar and do the whole counter-clock wise/clock-wise procedure, which produces yet another smile from her sleepy face and I hand her over the cup. She happily walks to the living room to sit on the couch with her coveted coffee mug and wait for the caffeine to kick in.
I tell her about my less than perfect cup of coffee and the fact that we need to de-scale the machine. She tells me the manual for the coffee maker is conveniently inside the cupboard right above it where we also keep the mugs, the grinder, and the coffee. To my horror, there are several procedures to de-scale the darn thing. It's not rocket science. It's repeating the same process over and over again and letting the machine cool down in between. I have to leave for work in just over an hour and now my second cup of coffee of the day has a threatened existence. I fervently begin the process, but before I do, I decide to unplug the machine and run water through the well and just tip it back out in the sink.
Now, considering the title of this story, I'm sure the reader is just waiting to find out why I chose to call it what I did. You can imagine what I discovered when I tipped the machine full of water over. There, at the bottom of the sink was a large, black ant. The big ones that grow almost an inch long. He had been sitting on the bottom of the coffee machine well and I had mistaken him for some sludge of some sort since he had been boiled for God knows how long and was not moving around. He was dead, of course.
Suddenly, my mind screamed out. I must tell my wife to stop drinking her coffee and I'll just make her a new cup! Then, the rational part of my brain spoke up. My wife is totally "bugged" out by bugs. Pun intended. She has certainly already had a few sips off of her morning coffee. And this ant is undoubtedly the cause of the machine acting up incorrectly when it brewed my cup earlier. Maybe the ant was trying to drink as much of the water as it could so it wouldn't burn as bad. Who knows? Only the ant and maybe God and neither one of them are talking to me. Listen, J. I say to myself. If you tell your wife that you just discovered this ant inside the coffee machine, not only are you going to ruin her first cup of coffee of the day, she's also not going to be able to enjoy the next one or the one after that. All she's ever going to remember is that the machine was breached by a bug once and it will never leave her. And it's not exactly like I was feeling any adverse effects from the ant. I felt okay. It's not like the ant was crushed and ground up in the coffee grounds and then brewed. It was inside the fresh water well. So we weren't exactly drinking ant-flavored Columbian coffee. We were drinking filtered ant-enhanced Columbian coffee.
Not telling my wife is a dilemma. She not only suggests that I be completely honest with her, she demands it. By not telling her about this grotesque discovery, I am lying to her. "Shut up" screams the rational part of my brain. "You're not lying! You're simply omitting the truth! And think of the repercussions she'll suffer with all of her future cups of coffee! By omitting this one minute detail, you're actually saving her and she will be able to enjoy drinking coffee for many years to come!" He was right. Swallowing down a large lump of guilt, I decided to keep my mouth shut. I drank the coffee. And I was feeling fine.
I cleaned the large, black ant out of the sink with a paper towel and threw it in the trash. I then set up the de-scaling process of the machine and by the time I went to work, I had just about the best cup of coffee ready that the machine ever made. I did check the well after it brewed. Nothing. The perfect cup of ant-free Columbian coffee. Yumscilly!
Of course, since there is humor in this tale, I decided to write it and in case you're wondering, my wife reads everything I write. Therefore, this is more of a therapeutic confession to her for me then it is a humorous essay on rational behavior. So my secret won't be secret for very long. Once she discovers this piece (and she will discover it because she finds everything!) she will confront me and ask me if this is true.
It's a dilemma, people. By writing this essay, I have forsaken my own choice to conceal the very thing I made a rational decision to hide from her. The quality of her future cups of coffee are now at stake and it's all because of me and that stupid, lousy, suicidal ant. Of course, I can be satisfied with the fact that this took place a couple of weeks ago, so at least she was able to enjoy all those cups of coffee in between without wondering what other foreign objects may be filtering through our home brewed coffee.
Now, I am stuck on what to write about in my next essay. The mosquito and the spaghetti sauce, or the spider and the underwear drawer. Another confession and another dilemma are just waiting to unfold.

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Proofreading Your Work Is Essential

When I was a student, having had to study English Literature during my degree, I found out a starling truth... a resource that I never thought that I would need... an online proofreader.

Having to do multiple essays, meet harsh deadlines, impress lecturers and do adequate research on your topic all at the same time, no wonder there is room for mistakes to occur in your written text. The truth really hit me one day when I worked on a large 7000 word essay. I knew that my content was good and my point was strong. I was sure that I was going to get an A on that essay, but, I was wrong.
Because of my multiple grammatical mistakes, multiple spelling errors, multiple misses with my punctuation, the lecturer that graded my essay ended up marking me down on a lot of things. Marks that I could have gotten if I had gotten my essay proofread before submitting it.
From that day, I pledged that I would not let that happen to me again. That's when I hired a professional proofreader from a then small proofreading company. They helped me to actually maximize my potential in each and every essay that I wrote.
You may ask, why didn't you just proofread the essays yourself? The answer to this is simple. You will NEVER be able to proofread your own document.
It is highly unlikely that you will be able to see your own mistakes. That's why you need expert proofreaders to aid you in what you are doing. Do a test, write a short essay. Ask a professional to overlook it over for you. Be surprised at what you missed.
The human brain is such that mistakes, especially written ones, are really hard to catch, even more so when you are the author. I'm pretty sure myself that I have a lot of mistakes in this document.
When I used that online proofreading service back while doing my degree, I saved a lot of my time and effort. The results of my degree were all the better. I felt like I had the more support that any student needs, especially while doing a degree where essays are integral. It's more support that will make you more confident in what you are submitting to your lecturer.
Don't exclude yourself from getting high grades. Get a proofreader to go through your document. Trust me, you won't regret it. I know.

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Applying for Scholarships Online - Tips For Writing Effective Scholarship Essays

Are you going to college? The good news is there is an abundance of money that you can tap for a free college education by applying for scholarships online. The bad news is you will have to write an essay to get it. If you truly feel it is bad news that you need to write an essay, then, you need this set of tips to make sure that you do get that money.

The first thing that you need to know is that you will need to put the essay question into a context for you to be able to write a convincing, compelling essay. If you cannot contextualize your thoughts, they will be just like cymbals clanging, making a noise but not moving anyone's heart. The question is: how do you contextualize the essay question so that you can write it excellently? You will need 2 kinds of information. One is about the sponsor. You should know what cause they represent, or what is the nature of their business, what is their stance about social corporate responsibility, or what are the things that they are averse to.
The other is your stance. How do you look at the essay question, what are your passions surrounding it? If it aligned with the sponsor's stance, make a good point of presenting why you share their views, and if you are opposed, make a strong argument of your opinion when applying for scholarships online.
When you write like this, you are not just theoretically answering an essay question which is usually hollow. You are writing a commitment, an engagement, a promise. If you can do this you will me across as someone who the sponsors can count on.
The second thing that you need to do is that no one can write a perfect essay the first time. You need to put it down, rest your mind, the reread your essay. Check for excessive emotion or too wordy sentences or phrases. Look out for innocuous words or statements that are better rewritten. Be alert for breaks in ideas as this will lower the value of your work.
Finally, keep a keen eye for spelling or grammatical errors. A perfect work is just that, perfect, with no errors of content or structure.Writing an essay as good as this one discussed here will surely bring you college education money by applying for scholarships online. Getting a scholarship for college does not have to be so hard. Apply now.

Here is the best resource for applying for scholarships online just click here to get your free education started now

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Your Heroic Journey - Becoming the Creator of Your Own Life Story

I have always been attracted to the idea that one's life is a story, one in which you are both author and protagonist. What I have learned is that this perspective is more than a literary fancy. It actually provides a perspective and a set of tools that can greatly facilitate personal transformation at any stage of life, and especially so at midlife.Let's look at this a little more closely.
First of all, if you are the author of your own life, then the narrative is always and only in your hands. You may, of course, be influenced by others, just as one author often inadvertently echoes the theme and style of another. But ultimately, the creative decisions are yours; you decide what gets in and what stays out, you decide how any particular event is to be portrayed or understood.
Second, a narrative approach to one's own life gives you the chance to re-evaluate the role played by the inevitable difficulties life entails. No author would ever attempt to write a story without conflict. Who would read it? What would keep the story going? As author of your life-story, you are free to take the position that things don't "happen to you." They are "written in" as a plot device to keep the action moving toward its final resolution.
And third, the resolution remains in your hands as well. This is as true of any episode in the unfolding story as is of the story as a whole. Aristotle said that no life can be pronounced good or bad until it has reached its end. This is because until the very last line is written, the possibility of transformation or redemption remains.
Let's say you are struggling through midlife. Perhaps you have a string of so-called "failures" behind you: perhaps a career that never got under way, or a string of failed relationships. What will you, as the consummate novelist you are, do with this material? How will your hero (that's you, remember) finally respond? Think about it. This is the stuff of great drama! No one becomes a hero without slaying a few dragons, and your life has graciously supplied all the challenges you need to now demonstrate your true heroic nature.
In fact, the moment when you feel the most thoroughly beaten down is precisely the moment of greatest dramatic and transformational potential. Here is the crisis, the point of greatest emotional tension (that's a literary definition, by the way), when your hero, propelled by narrative energy, experiences breakthrough and transformation.
Now this transformation can take many forms. So you need to ask yourself: What kind of story are you writing yourself into? A comedy, which in the classical sense means a story where the world after crisis and transformation is a happy one? Or a tragedy, where the transformed world is sad, broken but still noble and ennobling?
It's up to you...and only you. Which will you choose? But remember, where there's life, there's hope. While you're still writing, you can still write a happy ending.
Here are some books that will help you write your saga:

• The Story of Your Life: Becoming the Author of Your Experience, by Mandy Aftel
• The Story of Your Life, by Dan Wakefield
• The Hero's Journey, A Guide to Literature and Life, by Reg Harris

Two other resources that have been very helpful to me and may be to you as well include the following:

• The first is the DVD series The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Bill Moyers interviews with mythologist Joseph Campbell (or read Campbell's book by the same name if you're up for a project).
• My final recommendation is personal and probably pretty idiosyncratic. This is J.R.R. Tolkien's essay entitled "On Faerie Tales." Not only is this the first and greatest essay on what has sadly come to be regarded as children's literature, but, in his epilogue, Tolkien makes the connection between story, happy endings and his own deeply held religious faith. This is not for everyone, but some will some will find it pure Elven healing magic.

My name is John Lord. I am a teacher and a personal coach based in New York city and Puebla, Mexico. My personal mission is to help individuals who at mid-life are looking for proven ways to achieve personal transformation and success.

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Successful Steps to Good Essay Writing

Often students try to avoid essay writing in their normal study course. However, they forget that essay writing is the most important part of the curriculum. Today due to competition there is a high expectation from students. With the burden of academic subjects, students often become careless about essay writing. They do not get enough time to think about developing a good essay writing skill.

However, with the advent of technology, things have become quite easy for students. The online essay writing services educate the students how to write a good essay.
Consider these simple steps and become a professional essay writer:
1. Consider essay as a process and not a task bounded with deadlines. You have to consider reading, thinking, planning and organizing your thoughts. You have to understand the topic and study about the topic. Primary research is very important before drafting your thoughts. Once you are finished with research process, start thinking creatively about the topic and make notes or pointers, which will help you during documentation process.
2. The blank screen or paper in front of you while drafting essay is the most difficult part of the process. You must sketch out a plan before writing. Once you have written down your points, start assembling these points. Give each point a logical heading; this will help you to elaborate your points. These will later develop into paragraphs of your essay.
The most important subheads will include:
An introduction, which will explain the sources of your study
Main body, which is an analysis of your topic. It will include the opinions, comments and findings. You can quote about some scientific research or media studies.
Conclusion is where you force the reader to accept your points. You can conclude with quotes or even end with a question that will boggle reader's mind.
All these points will give you an outline to your essay writing. Do not stick to one point. This makes the reader disinterested in your writing.
3. Your correct English is the most compelling part of essay writing. Use simple but correct English. Your essay may not be flowery in writing but must have substance in the subject. If it is argumentative, you must collect enough data to make it genuine. To improve on these points you must read many editorial sections from magazines or newspapers.
4. Try to make a rough draft of your essay before submission. You must read it aloud and look for any changes if required. If your essay is long or it is a dissertation, you must prepare small drafts of paragraphs and then try to focus on each paragraph. Try to make pointers on these paragraphs, which will help you during the assembly of all paragraphs. Do not lose track of your point or argument. In case if you are lost, refer to points.
5. Essays are small samples of knowledge. You cannot elaborate on an endless discussion. You must give it a strong voice and back up with supportive arguments and discussions. The essay must invoke reader's thought process. Keep everything in moderation. Do not lose your focus.
Essay is an array of thoughts and ideas. Right alignment of thought process with strong command over English develops a person from good essay writer to professional essay writer.

Find out more essay writing tips at Study Guide.

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Essay Writing Services Are A Great Boon for Website Owners

Nowadays, it is universally agreed upon that one of the best ways of increasing traffic to your website is through article submissions. Well written, informative and SEO enriched articles can turn around the face and story of any website. However, as a website creator and owner, you might not have the time, resources or the knack for creative writing. Even though you may be an expert on your subject, you might still fail to write an informative and cohesive article on a topic related to your website either because of shortage of time or simply because your skills might lie in another area altogether. However, there is no need for you to despair in such a case, because there are a large number of essay writing companies that can create all kinds of customized content for your web site based on your needs and requirements.

Custom essay writing services today can produce anything ranging from originally researched and written term papers, theses and essays to articles and blogs for people, organizations, websites and individuals based on their needs and requirements. Most web based essay writing firms employ graduates as well as post graduates who are experts in their fields. These essay writing firms provide you with well researched, well written and original write ups on almost any topic under the sun. Most of these companies employ people who have graduated in their respective subjects, so you can rest assured that your article on Technology is not being written by someone who holds his or her degree in Philosophy. It is akin to getting a specialist to write for you.
Another good thing about these essay writing companies is that most of the good ones are extremely professional. After every article has been written, it is generally proofread by another expert and then scanned by a number of plagiarism testing softwares like copyscape etcetera, so there are no chances of your getting an article that is either full of mistakes or copied from somewhere else. At the same time, web based essay writing companies adhere strictly to their deadlines, sending you your write up as and when agreed, and many refuse to take payment in case the delivery is later than specified.
You might think that a service with all the above mentioned benefits would cost you an arm and a leg, but you would be pleasantly surprised at the reasonable amounts that you will be required to pay for your write ups. Due to the proliferation of a number of professional online essay writing services almost anybody and everybody can afford to get articles written to cater to their specific needs and requirements.

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AOL's New Model - Creator of Cheap Content

"Content really is a toddler on the Internet right now," says Tim Armstrong, a former Google executive. In March 2009 Tim Armstrong was named the chief executive of AOL. According to media analyst Ken Doctor, there is a huge change as to how people think about journalistic content creation now a days. He believes that five years down the line who so ever proves to be a winner, whether it's AOL or Yahoo or whoever is going to be very powerful.

Hence in order to prevail, AOL must create a lot of that content at as much of a low price as possible. Hence AOL has instituted many different sites with the primary aim of creating cheap content. There are some certain websites that pay up to $50 per news article to anyone who can reliably write sentences together to create reasonable quality content. This content would be fused in by AOL with its pricier professional content to generate significant web business.
However, even if AOL gets the content for next to nothing, still the AOL executives say that the content has to be good quality to be acceptable. According to the AOL executives this is necessary because search algorithms move back and forth of content that is qualitatively good enough in order to be popular. The higher the number of back links for a page with appropriate keyword or keyword phrases, the higher page would rise in the search rankings.
As once said by a very wise man, the world is constantly in need of unique and updated content on a regular basis.

A professional copywriter is one that can provide you with the best copywriting, content writing and creative writing services. Through such content in writing, you can be sure that your website would have its desired content made available.

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