Kaizen Media Blog

From Ananova

A Russian man lost his wife in a game of cards after putting her up as a stake instead of cash.

Andrei Karpov, from Murmansk, had run out of money in a game of poker and offered his opponent his wife instead of cash to stay in the game.

When he lost the game and his opponent Sergey Brodov turned up to claim his winnings his wife Tatiana was so angry she decided to divorce her husband and started a relationship with Brodov.

She has since married Brodov, and said she does not regret leaving her first husband.

She said: “It was humiliating and I was utterly ashamed. But as soon as my ex-husband did that I knew I had to leave him.
“Sergey was a very handsome, charming man and I am very happy with him, even if he did ‘win’ me in a poker game.”

The Secret to a Successful Marriage

A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.

For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover.

In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife’s bedside.

She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box.

When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totaling $95,000.

He asked her about the contents. “When we were to be married,” she said, “my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue.

She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll.”

The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two precious dolls were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness.

“Honey,” he said, “that explains the dolls, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?”

“Oh,” she said, “that’s the money I made from selling the dolls.”

Reported by Ananova.com

A thief has returned a mobile phone to his victim in China after she sent him 21 ‘emotional’ text messages.

Pan Aiying, was riding her bicycle when a motorcycle rider snatched her bag containing her mobile phone, bank cards and about £300 in cash.

The schoolteacher, from Qihe in Shandong Province, decided to try to persuade the thief to return her belongings, instead of going to the police.

China Daily, quoting the Qilu Evening News, says she wrote: “You must be going through a difficult time. If so, I will not blame you.
“Keep the money if you really need it, but please return the other things to me. You are still young. To err is human. Correcting your mistake is more important than anything.”
The following morning Pan found her bag in the courtyard of her home and found nothing had been taken.
The thief left a letter with the bag, saying: “Dear Pan: I’m sorry. I made a mistake. Please forgive me. You are so tolerant even though I stole from you. I’ll correct my ways and be an upright person.”

SYDNEY, Jan 23 (Reuters Life!) – An Australian abalone diver told rescuers he was partly swallowed head-first by a Great White Shark on Tuesday but managed to fight his way free, suffering a broken nose and bite marks around the chest.

Diver Eric Nerhus, 41, was underwater with his 25-year-old son and other divers off Cape Howe, near Eden on Australia’s southeast coast, when the 3 meter (10 foot) shark attacked.

Rescuers earlier mistakenly reported his age as 25.

“He stated that he was head-first into the shark,” a spokeswoman for Snowy Hydro SouthCare rescue service told Reuters after airlifting the diver to hospital.

“When he came to us he was conscious and alert but had a broken nose and lacerations to both sides of his torso and chest — bite marks all the way around,” the spokeswoman said.

Nerhus told fellow divers he didn’t see the shark coming as the water was so dirty that visibility was severely limited.

“It was black. He didn’t see it coming, but he felt the bite and then started getting shaken, and that’s when he knew he was in the mouth of the shark,” said local diver Michael Mashado.

The shark bit Nerhus around the head first, crushing his face mask and breaking his nose, fellow diver and friend Dennis Luobikis told Reuters.

NOTHING BUT THE VEST

“He was actually bitten by the head…the shark swallowed his head,” said Luobikis, adding a second bite by the shark saw it clench its jaw around Nerhus’ torso.

“The brunt of the bite was taken by his lead-weight vest. Its all over your torso. Eric said to me at the wharf that his weight vest saved him,” he said.

Abalone divers spend sometimes 6 to 8 hours underwater and use lead weight vests, not lead belts, to stay down. The vests spread the lead weight across the body, minimising back strain.

Nerhus fought frantically to free himself from the shark’s jaws and was eventually pulled back aboard his boat by his son.

“He pushed his abalone chisel into its head while it was biting and it let him go and swam away,” said Luobikis.

Luobikis said it was a miracle his friend had lived.

“Eric is a tough boy, he’s super fit. But I would say that would test anyone’s resolve, being a fish lunch,” he said.

Attacks by Great White Sharks are usually fatal because of the massive size of the predators, which breed in Australia’s cold southern waters, and the sheer force of their bites.

Sharks, including Great Whites, are protected in Australia.

Australia has had a number of shark attacks in the past year.

In December, a surfer off the southern coast survived an attack with minor injuries, while a 15-year-old boy swimming off a remote southwest beach had his leg bitten.

Last January, a scuba diver off the Western Australian city of Perth survived an attack by a Great White after fighting it off with his speargun and then his hands.

A 21-year-old woman died last January after she was attacked by three sharks while swimming off an island on Australia’s northeast coast. She lost both forearms and suffered wounds to the legs and torso.

The U.S. state of Florida annually records by far the most shark attacks.

Between 1990 and 2005 there were 341 shark attacks off Florida, according to the U.S.-based International Shark Attack File, www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/ISAF/ISAF.htm.

Over the same period, Australia reported 74 attacks, South Africa 72, Brazil 62 and Hawaii 57.

By Michael Perry
Reuters

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Ananova:

A British adventurer is on the verge of becoming the first person to skateboard across Australia.

David Cornthwaite will complete his 3,600-mile journey in Brisbane on Monday, having started his journey in Perth, in August.

The 27-year-old graphic designer, who started skateboarding less than two years ago, decided on his epic journey after waking up one morning and realising he hated his job.

Mr Cornthwaite, from Oxfordshire, told the Daily Telegraph: “I thought, the only thing keeping me going is the skate to and from work.
“I saw a Lonely Planet guide to Australia. There was a map on the back. Perth was on one side and Brisbane on the other and I thought, ‘that’ll do’.”
He prepared by skateboarding from John O’Groats to Lands End. That 896-mile trek, which he finished in June, took just over a month.
But Australia brought unique challenges. He has been blown off his board by the backdraft from huge road trains, had to swerve around huge snakes and had a race with an emu.
Multiple blisters and aching ankles, toes and feet, have kept him in almost constant pain for the last six weeks. Temperatures of 40C and above mean that he has gone through more than a dozen tubes of factor 30 sunscreen.
He has worn through 13 pair of shoes and has an over-developed right calf muscle which he likens to “a giant chicken breast fillet”.
The charity trek will raise £50,000 and smash the previous record for a long-distance skateboard, set by American Jack Smith who covered 3,000 miles across the US in 2003.
After finishing the journey Mr Cornthwaite plans to give motivational speeches and write a book: “I’m certainly not going back to the day job,” he said.