Today's song is Laughter in the Rain by Neil Sedaka, released in 1975.

Recently I watched the 1954 movie, The Long, Long Trailer and laughed at the situations portrayed in that movie. I couldn't help but think how such a trip would be with my wife, Sherry.

That movie put me in a laughing mood for most of the next day. I recollected so many funny times in my life and would spontaneously start laughing about them. Laughter as we should know by now is key to our health. We need to laugh often to keep the right perspective on what really matters in life.

Tammy called me Friday afternoon and we started talking about funny events. She and I are working on a music project she is managing. Tammy has a sense of humor that is easy to trigger, especially with the stories I have to tell about life. At one point we were both laughing hysterically when I recounted the story of my first computer I'll describe next.

In June 1980 I purchased my first computer. I was right at the beginning of learning how to program in Basic. As anyone who has programed knows, the first programs are very simple, designed to make the student get comfortable with the technology one step at a time. My first Basic program that I wrote entirely on my own was this (required program line numbers shown in italic):

10 Print "Hello, Don!"
20 Goto 10

Running that program caused the sentence "Hello, Don!" to repeat very rapidly downward on the screen, causing an endless scrolling motion. I was very proud that I actually could make the computer do something all on my own. I called my wife Sherry over to see my work of art. We had the following short conversation:

Me: "Hey, Sweetie. Come look at what I got my computer to do."

Sherry: "What's wrong with the screen? Why is it flipping that way?"

Me: "Nothing's wrong with the screen. It's supposed to do that. I wrote a program to scroll my name across the screen."

Sherry: "We spent $300 on a TV that won't annoyingly flip the screen. You just spent $750 for a computer that does. I don't get it!"

Me: "Sigh"

Yes, my ego was deflated at the time. The more I tried to explain that this represented progress in my skills, the worse my new "investment" seemed in Sherry's eyes. Fortunately I persevered. As time went by this story became something to laugh about. Tammy said she could just imagine that scene and her comments caused me to laugh even harder.

To round out a weekend of enjoyment this entertainment ended up on my schedule:

• Saturday night I watched the 1968 movie, Funny Girl
• Sunday afternoon I watched a hilarious episode of Bonanza from December 1963: Hoss and the Leprechauns

That's my message for today. Find the humor in your life experiences. Share the laughter and the world becomes a better place, at least for a while.

I published two more iPhone Desktops in Portrait orientation.

I started a new image section, Favorite Header Image Combinations (example shown below):

I updated the Don's YouTube Picks page.

I'm smiling and wondering how my story above might sound in Old English and/or Middle English?

This is nothing to laugh about.

Want to know how to select random samples correctly?

It looks like Congress ran out of money for home owners with mortgage problems. I bet there's still plenty for Wall Street and Banks. Hint: They borrow all that money from China.

The long dry spell started. If you're coming to California, bring your own water.

John Madden continues to ride in style.

Sunday morning, someone from Elma, Washington looked at Wheel Of Fate and Circles of Life in immediate succession...

Found on the web links for April 26, 2009

Don