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Have you ever flown in an actual propeller-driven airliner? Although it hasn’t happened often, I have.

Most of us don’t give a second thought to the thousands of small commuter flights that occur all over the U.S., but the fact is, there are still plenty of commuter routes where the prop plane is alive and well.

I remember once taking a short hop from Chicago, Illinois to Peoria, Illinois; approximately 130 miles as the crow flies (although I’ve always wondered why people think crows never fly in a zig-zag). But what made it, er, really fun was that it was right in the dead of winter – on January 2nd, in fact.

After we boarded, the pilot began preparing the plane for takeoff while the field crew started spraying de-icer all over the wings. This went on for some time (nearly 30 minutes!), and all the while the passenger next to me kept fretting about missing their connecting flight in Chicago. In the meantime I’m thinkin’, Keep goin’, boys - whoops, missed a spot!

I gotta tell ya - I wasn’t bothered in the least. Hey, I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned, they can take as much time as they need! See, this stuff they’re spraying all over the plane? Well, it’s to help prevent the plane from turning into an ice cube while at 20,000 feet! (Sadly, ice cubes aren’t known for their gliding characteristics.)

So, without further ado (because as you know, further do would make no sense whatsoever) I give you, maybe not the thought, but at least a Thought for the Day:

Sometimes it just takes time to do things right. Success is usually like that.

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Old Joke: How can you identify an “Army toolbox”? Simple! When you open it, all you’ll find are 11 sizes of hammers!

You say you’ve got a job to do, and don’t know how you’ll accomplish it? You’re afraid you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, or you’re taking on something you’ve never done before, and you’re afraid you don’t have the tools for the job?

Well, before you hit the panic button, you might want to consider the following story…

Back during the Vietnam War, there was this fellow doing observation duty in a helicopter over the jungle when the pilot got a call to check out possible enemy activity at a certain point on a nearby river.

The only problem was, their observation chopper wasn’t even armed! And, getting close enough to fire their rifles meant, of course, the reverse would also be true. Definitely a sure way to shorten their military careers!

I mean, even if there was something going on, there was literally nothing they could do about it except report it. And naturally, by the time anyone else arrived, the enemy would probably be gone. But, they checked it out anyway, staying high enough to avoid danger.

Sure enough, there was definitely a boat down there, and by all indications it looked like they were preparing to unload supplies, probably armaments of some kind. They reported it immediately, of course, but continued to circle around for awhile in frustration, wishing there was something they could do.

Eventually, the fellow in the back noticed a big clunky toolbox strapped down on the deck, and suddenly had a moment of inspiration. He asked the pilot to hover over the boat for a few minutes, and then with much grunting and shoving, pushed the heavy toolbox out the door.

It was a bull’s-eye! Not only was it a perfect hit, but it penetrated both the deck and the hull, plunging to the bottom of the river. Then, to everyone’s amazement, within a few minutes the enemy boat sank!

Mission accomplished!

So the next time you find yourself facing some new territory, my advice would be to take stock of what you have. I mean, you never know; you might be surprised what you can accomplish with just the, ahem, tools at hand!

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You know, it’s so easy to say what one would do in a certain situation, isn’t it? To paint a rosy picture that “surely” would have been, had it really happened (yes, I know – don’t call you Shirley).

C’mon, admit it; we all like to think the best of ourselves. And you know what? We should be positive about our self-talk and our self-image; that’s just good mental health.

Ah, but what’s the reality?

For, as Paul Harvey would put it, The Rest of the Story, you’ll have to pop on over to Successful Blog, where Liz Strauss was kind enough to allow me to guest post today.

But y’all come back now, y’hear!

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Over at 100 Bloggers, the topic this month is “favorite quotes”. Do yourself a favor and go check ‘em out.

In the meantime, I ran across one yesterday that is so wonderful, so incredibly outrageous, I just had to put it here for all my friends to benefit from.

Are ya ready? Here it is:

“Without my morning coffee, I’m like a piece of dried up roast goat.”

Wanna know who said it?

None other than Johan Sebastian Bach!

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I know you often think about keeping your customers happy - and you’re right to do so. But have you ever thought about the opposite?

I mean, do your customers appreciate what you provide so much that they would be willing to sacrifice just so they could stay your customer? Would they be upset if you went out of business?

In the past, it wasn’t unusual for the drafting rooms of a few of the larger engineering firms here in Houston to be basically just drafty old warehouses, or whatever else happened to be available. In fact, the biggest firm (this was many years ago) used an old remodeled aircraft hanger that was affectionately (or disparagingly, depending on your point of view) called The Barn.

Now close your eyes and imagine with me, if you will, row upon seemingly endless row of men (yes, men – in those days there were very few, if any, female drafters), in white short-sleeved shirts and ties, pocket protectors jammed full, all hunched over their drafting tables, laboriously designing the infrastructure of modern day society. (OK, that last may be a bit melodramatic. But it’s still true – most of the stuff those guys engineered back then is still for the most part functioning just fine today, thank you very much!)

Quick question: What is it that keeps all engineering offices fully functional? Nope, not computers (sound of buzzer) – the idea of using a computer was laughable back then. Uh-uh – it’s not electricity either (again, sound of buzzer – followed by sound of hammer repeatedly hitting buzzer); you can still function pretty well in the dark, you know. Hey, you finally got it (sound of cheering): it’s coffee! (Except, of course, in Asia where it’s probably tea.)

According to legend (as told to me by someone who worked there at the time) there was this young woman at The Barn whose job was to keep the coffee flowing freely all day long. She was a sweet girl, naturally gregarious (which is a ten-dollar word for “friendly and easy-going”), and very well-liked (after all, she provided coffee – the lifeblood of drafting rooms everywhere).

(Yes, I know. The idea of a young woman’s choice of career being spent serving coffee to hundreds of men is largely passé now. Try not to judge this story by today’s standards – remember this was a while back.)

Well, one day she came to work unusually depressed, and within a few minutes, word got out that she had been laid off. The news spread like wildfire; talk about your angry mob (sound of angry rabble) – it nearly started a riot! I mean, you would have thought the entire drafting floor had been closed for business.

However, as luck would have it, this was a room full of *ahem* engineers – if anybody could come up with a solution, they could, right? Right (sound of more cheering)!

So here’s what happened.

Coffee had always been free. Now, however, the company had announced plans to install automatic coffeemakers (something fairly new at the time), which is why they didn’t need the young lady to serve coffee any more. Coffee would still be free, but the downside was that the men would have to *gasp* make their own coffee! The situation was intolerable (sound of disgruntled murmuring)!

Suddenly Aero, the Superhero Engineer a couple of the more enterprising fellows whipped out their trusty slide rules (hey, why use pencil and paper when you can use a slide rule! Who says engineers don’t rock!) and quickly calculated that if every man in the room chipped in just a few dollars per week, they could actually match her former salary!

So they offered her the deal and she quickly agreed. Voila! Problem solved! The universe as we know it was saved, and the heavens rejoiced. (In fact, I think the clouds actually parted and a particularly bright sunbeam shone down on the building at that specific moment. Or so they say.)

OK, now let’s consider what happened from a business point of view.

This woman’s “business” was being shut down, because the company found a cheaper way to provide the same product (the coffee, in case you’re having trouble following along). Her “customers” got so upset about her losing her business that they were willing to pay money to keep her in business!

It wasn’t that they couldn’t get coffee. No, it was the service – or more accurately, it was the whole routine of coffee with personal service and interaction she provided that they couldn’t get anywhere else.

So here’s the sixty-four dollar question: Do your customers feel that way about you?

After all, it ain’t just customer service any more; these days it’s customer experience.

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Welcome to a brand spanking new feature here at the Zone! It’s called (as you may have already surmised by now) Airport Observations. Hey, say what you like about the hassles of traveling (go ahead – say it!), but one of the things I enjoy most is the chance to observe large numbers of people all crammed into a small area. It does provide me a great deal of entertainment, lemme tell ya!

Now, since I travel irregularly (and by that I mean there’s no set schedule, not that I, um, get irregular when I travel, don’cha know), you can expect this feature to pop up pretty much any ol’ time. After all, there’s just so much good stuff goin’ on out there; I just gotta try and capture it…

Maybe Two Heads Are Better…

Houston - Perhaps it’s simply because I don’t get out much, but this one’s a first for me: a guy wearing a baseball cap on top of a cowboy hat. Ya know, I’m not sure, but doesn’t that violate all sorts of local laws or something? Hey, Buddy, maybe you can get away with that sort of thing in New Jersey, or maybe even Wisconsin (I mean, after all, they wear cheese on their heads) – but this here is Texas!

As if that wasn’t unusual enough, I saw the same guy at least five different times after that, but each time he had a different hat on! So let’s see… first it was both hats, then just the baseball cap, then the cowboy hat, then both again (but this time the cowboy hat was on top), then… I mean, c’mon – how ‘bout makin’ a decision here!

Please Excuse the Delay

Houston – Again, although I fly several times a year, it’s still not really that much. As a result, I can say with some measure of trepidation that I have rarely experienced a serious delay. Once or twice, maybe, for weather in over thirty years isn’t a bad record if you ask me.

But as our boarding time got closer, then closer, then passed us and vanished into the distance (kinda reminds me of the old saying about deadlines: they make such a neat whooshing sound when they pass by), we finally heard the rather disturbing announcement: Ladies and gentlemen, please excuse the delay. Our flight has been held up while the maintenance crew evaluates a cracked windshield. Please bear with us as we determine whether or not to use a different airplane.

To which I, along with most of the other passengers, looked at each other and said words to the effect: “Uh, do we get a vote?”

Gone to the Dogs

Chicago – When I fly (in airplanes, that is), the dry air always makes me extremely thirsty, so usually the first thing I do when arriving at my destination (I mean, after the, um, other first thing) is find a place to buy a soft drink. At O’Hare, there’s a McDonalds that is ideally situated for that, except for the fact that there are usually about a million people waiting in line there. So this time I ended up at some hot dog joint.

There was a woman just picking up her order from the merchant as I walked up; her hot dog was literally mounded up with the most ridiculous pile of pickles, onions, sauerkraut, relish, and no doubt any number of other ingredients.

She must have missed the expression on my face, because she looked at me and said, “Now doesn’t this look just scrumptious?”

I looked at her and replied in my best Texas drawl, “Ma’am, I’m from Texas – to me, there’s only two things that belong on a hot dog – chili and cheese!”

We all had a good laugh over that one.

What About You?

Seen anything unusual, weird, whacko, or just plain unusual at an airport recently? Or even not so recently? Why not share it with the rest of us and give us all a chance to laugh?

If you’ll email your story to me at rhruzek@sbcglobal.net, I’ll post it here and give you a link! Send a photo too, if ya got it! Now there’s a deal for you!

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While on a plane last week, returning from Chicago to Houston, one of my fellow travelers leaned over to me and commented, “Hey, I just noticed something – there’s no row 13 on this plane!”

For some reason, this kinda caught my attention (mainly because it doesn’t take much to keep me entertained) and I began to reflect about that statement a bit. Actually, I don’t think there is a row 13 on any airplane.

This quirk isn’t limited to airplanes, either. In fact, there are very few buildings in North America with a 13th floor (assuming, of course, they’re tall enough to need one.)

I wonder; is it the same in the rest of the world? Oh, not necessarily the specific number; but are there similar “leftover” phenomena in other cultures?

So what’s with that? I assume the origin of this particular custom came from times past, when people understood less about the universe, and tended to be more, well, superstitious. But why is that tradition still prolonged today, in these supposedly more enlightened times? Will society always continue to be enslaved by the past?

There is absolutely no basis in fact for the belief that the number 13 is unlucky, is there? I mean, think about it: in fact there really is a 13th row on the plane – it’s just labeled “14”, that’s all. Can calling it by another name really make a difference?

So here’s a thought question for you: If you were assigned a seat in the 13th row of a plane, would you:

1. Be afraid to take it
2. Maybe take note of it, but not be concerned
3. Never give it a second thought

Just wondering…

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