$4000 tip

Mohammed A . Sekhani is probably one of the luckier waiters around.  As a waiter at Gibsons, a ritzy steakhouse, he’s used to waiting on the rich and famous.  And I’m sure he’s no stranger to big tips either.

Even so, after a simple meal out (“simple”, in this case, included several $500 bottles of wine), Johnny Depp gave Sekhani a $4000 tip.  Not entirely unheard of, but still probably enough to make a huge difference in this guy’s life.

[Source]

Just part of the job

This is a shockingly touching story about ironworkers on the Golden Gate Bridge.  It’s also 8 years old.  That still doesn’t shake the impact of this kind of volunteer duty.

The ironworkers of the Golden Gate Bridge are also lifesavers.  Literally.  They pull volunteer duty to go try and talk down those who want to try and commit suicide by jumping off the bridge.  How do these grizzly macho men have the chance or the will to do something like that? 

But what qualifies these blue-collar rivet-wrestlers to perform the delicate psychological task of suicide prevention? Just this: There’s nobody else.

"We’re the only ones dumb enough to do it," Hopper says.

They’re the only ones with enough equipment, knowledge of the bridge and courage to go over the rail.

The suicide rescue duty is voluntary, but the bridge’s ironworkers all take their turns.

I honestly cant even imagine the pressure one would face trying to talk someone back from the edge of the bridge, especially if you’re trying to do so with very little training.

There’s no real reward to this, no extra pay, often no knowledge of what happens after.  Yet they still keep doing it.  Simply because no one else will.

[Source: SF Gate]

Honest Town gives me hope

This is a remarkable story about “The Most Honest Town in America” is truly heartwarming.  Lakeside, Ohio is apparently the place to be. 

This place is so trusting that no one even locks their bikes up.  I can’t even think of anywhere I’ve been in North America that’s like that. 

Even better, sometimes the shop owners just trust you.

At Marylyn’s place they even trust the proverbial kid in a candy store. The owner, Marylyn Burns, has a note that says, "We trust you. You are an honest and wonderful child of God. Wait on yourself and make your own change."
"We’ve had kids come in from the inner city and say, ‘What do you mean you trust us?’" Burns said.
I’ve always been a bit of a skeptic myself on this one. So I set up a hidden camera to see if I could catch someone red-licorice handed.
Dozens of kids came and went. But they all paid – right down to the penny.

I wish it could be like that everywhere.

[Source: CBS News]

Gives Me Hope

Most of you have probably seen the FML meme going around the internet and all over Twitter.

If you haven’t, it’s basically a collection of short posts by people telling the world about some awful thing that’s happened in their life.  It’s amusing, for sure, but not exactly happy.

The flip side is that its popularity has given rise to similar sites, like GivesMeHope.  This site is basically the mirror image, providing stories of kindness and joy that really do make you happy.  The more you read it, the more you can feel your spirit getting lighter.

Here are a couple of the “top rated”

I woke up one morning to hear the birds outside my window and my mother cooking breakfast downstairs. I’ve never cried so much in my entire life. I had been deaf since the age of 8.

———-

Freshman year, there was a crippled girl bound to a wheelchair. For 4 years, she did physical therapy and progressed to crutches. When we graduated a few weeks ago, she handed her crutches to an officer and walked across the entire stage. The applause from the seniors was deafening. She cried the whole way. GMH

—————

A little girl was dying of cancer and her younger brother had a match for the bone marrow she needed. The doctors told him it was a matter of life and death. After he had the surgery, he asked the doctors how long he had to live. He thought if he gave his bone marrow to let his sister live he would die but he did it anyway. GMH

You definitely should check it out.

Man carries girl with horrific injuries for four days

A farmer from remote Papua New Guinea got a call that his niece had been injured pretty badly.  Apparently she’d fallen out of her school window onto a sharp plant, which had ripped open her torso.  With her intenstines on display, this fellow went through an epic four-day journey with her, all to get her to safey.

He took her by canoe to the first aid station, and when there was no medic, he bandaged her and found an ambulance.  He then took another little truck, then a boat, and eventually managed to reach a reasonable medical station.  This finally arranged an air-evac to Australia.

That is one hell of an uncle.

Amazing 1000fps movie by David Coiffier

Talk about things that will cheer you up.

Check out this amazing slow motion video by David Coiffier.  It’s had to believe that something like this could be so clear, but it really gives you a new appreciation for things.

Crashes can end well sometimes

Not all crazy car crashes end poorly, according to the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

A woman who drove her car off a cliff managed to climb back up to the road…3 days later.  Apparently she crawled, injured, through a big drainage pipe under the road.

No matter what, she’s lucky to be alive and it can only be described as a huge day for her family.  Miracles like this make you feel a bit happier.

[Update:  This link has more details]

Amazing zoo pictures

Boston.com’s Big Picture series has run a beautiful little piece featuring pictures from the zoo.

Check out the photo series here.

It’s wonderful to see things like this from time to time because there’s some weird part of the human mind that just loves pictures of young creatures.  Baby animals in particular seem to have a soothing effect.

Little girl shows too much class

This is a wonderfully touching story, but for all the wrong reasons.

This poor girl lost her mother, but took the time to genuinely thank the cop that tried to come to their rescue.  After dialing 911, the cops raced to a house in Sacromento.

They tried to revive the girl’s mother and rushed to a hospital.  Unfortunately, the mother passed away.  Then comes the tug at the hearstrings.  The girl turns to the cop and says:

“I’m really grateful that you guys came and helped my family,” the girl told Sacramento police Officer Sunny Cranford. “You kept trying, even though you couldn’t do anything.

The Officers responded in kind, starting up a collection to help the family, and bringing this little girl a tremendous amount of birthday gifts.

Snow plows form convoy for transplant

Hello all! This is going to be my first post (hopefully first of many) to share some good news with you.

In Wyoming, a man scheduled for a liver transplant was snowed in.  This is the start of what could have been a tragic story, if it wasn’t for a quick-thinking police officer and the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT).  After Chuck Forbes and his wife were stopped on the way to the hospital at a road block because the route ahead was snowed out, a patrol officer spoke with the WYDOT supervisor.

Before you know it, help was on the way.

Snowplows convoyed with Forbes to escort him all the way to the hospital. Just out of the kindness of their hearts.

[Source: Buffalo News]