Howdy, y’all!

Hey, I’m not going to apologize for not writin’ so much lately. I mean, you’re not supposed to do that, right? After all, your friends don’t mind when you’re occupied with, y’know, the other stuff that sometimes just has to be done.

Still… I miss you guys! So lemme just leave you with a quick thought for the day:

The road to victory

looks a lot like

the road to defeat.

It’s just a mite longer.

I’ll be back real soon now, y’hear?

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[Note from the Proprietor: In case you're wondering what it's all about, well, we're smack in the middle of BLOGAPALOOZA! Hey, you're welcome to join in the fun if you like! All ya gotta do is click that cute little link and read all about it!]

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Guest post by Tony Cradic who writes over at Tony C Today

September: 700 Billion? That’s All You Need. No Problem… Troubled financial institutes look for my hidden money-sock.

October: More stimulus rebate checks? My poor great, great grandchildren… literally Can our great grandchild afford our spending habits?

November: If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts America has spoken and now he’s our President.

December: We’re number 1… wait… you’re number 1… wait… Talking the talk is just the beginning. I need to start walking too.

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My name is Tony Cradic, and I’ve been blogging since this past September. I love God, my family and my country as much as humanly possible.  I’ve traveled a lot of the world, but Tennessee is again my home.

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[Further note from the Proprietor: Hey, if you're interested in having your own "best of 2008" posts highlighted right here at the Middle Zone, then by all means, click on this link: (BLOGAPALOOZA: What I Learned From 2008) and read all about it! BLOGAPALOOZA will be open for entries from now until Sunday, January 25.]

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[Note from the Proprietor: In case you're wondering what it's all about, well, we're smack in the middle of BLOGAPALOOZA! Hey, you're welcome to join in the fun if you like! All ya gotta do is click that cute little link and read all about it!]

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Guest post by Danny Brown who writes over at Danny Brown

October: Taking Social Media Into The Real World

Social media allows us to interact in a way never before seen. The Internet is truly a small world for anyone taking part. Surely real life should be the same?

November: Social Media Is A Language Of Its Own

For anyone who gets social media, it’s all too easy to see it as the best thing since Web 2.0 started. But what about the ordinary web users who don’t see what all the fuss is about?

December: Why 2009 Is Going To Be Your Year

Greatness is all around us, despite life often trying to hold us back. All we need is the encouragement and support of others. How will you offer greatness?

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Danny Brown is the owner of Press Release PR, a boutique agency specializing in search engine optimized press releases and social media PR, and the founder of the 12for12k Challenge.

He has guest authored at leading web and search marketing site Web Analytics World and is a blog partner of the WebProNews and iEntry business networks.

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[Further note from the Proprietor: Hey, if you're interested in having your own "best of 2008" posts highlighted right here at the Middle Zone, then by all means, click on this link: (BLOGAPALOOZA: What I Learned From 2008) and read all about it! BLOGAPALOOZA will be open for entries from now until Sunday, January 25.]

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Howdy, y’all! It’s the end of the month once again, and as you may or may not know, that means it time for Great Quotes.

So, if you find yourself searching for some encouragement, inspiration or perhaps even just a chuckle or two, you’ve come to the right place. I think you’ll agree they may even impart a bit of wisdom – along with a bit of fun!

Check these out:

• We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. – Anais Nin
• I’m not sure I want popular opinion on my side — I’ve noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts. – Bethania McKenstry
• If we did all of the things that we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. – Thomas Edison
• What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens. – Benjamin Disraeli
• Sometimes when you look in his eyes you get the feeling that someone else is driving. – David Letterman
• The computer is a moron. – Peter Drucker
• The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. – Arthur C. Clarke
• Tell me your friends, and I’ll tell you who you are. – Assyrian Proverb
• The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them. – Sir William Bragg
• To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three people, two of whom are absent. – Robert Copeland
• I’ve searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees. – G.K. Chesterton
• The next time you make an assumption, see what happens when you do the opposite. – Brian Clark
• People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first. – David H. Comins
• Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. – Douglas Adams

And just for fun, I’d like to dedicate this last one to all the dreamers in the audience:

• Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will themselves not be realized. – Daniel Burnham

Howdy, y’all! Hey, since next week is going to be something special (come back tomorrow and you can read all about it), I’m posting this month’s Great Quotes a bit earlier than usual.

So, if you find yourself searching for some encouragement, inspiration or perhaps even just a chuckle or two, you’ve come to the right place. I think you’ll agree they may even impart a bit of wisdom – along with a bit of fun!

Check these out:

• It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge. – Enrico Fermi
• Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create. – Albert Einstein.
• Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted. – Fred Allen
• We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. – Oscar Wilde
• I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. – Thomas Jefferson
• It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• You can’t keep blaming yourself; just blame yourself once and move on. – Homer Simpson
• We learn something every day, and lots of times it’s that what we learned the day before was wrong. – Bill Vaughan
• Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog it’s too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
• That we are smarter than algae is a given. Whether we are wiser remains an open question. – Robert Frenay
• To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. – Gustave Flaubert
• If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk? – Laurence J. Peter
• The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. – Dorothy Parker
• There are no wrong decisions, only different paths. – Amy Palko

And finally, for a point to ponder on personal hygiene, I give you:

• People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily. – Zig Ziglar

Howdy, y’all!

Hey, it’s April Fool’s Day here at the Zone! (Or, “Robert’s Day”, as it’s officially known around these parts.) Actually, I suppose it’s probably April Fool’s day where you are too. (Awright – I can hear those snide remarks, you know. Some of you think it’s always a bit foolish around here. I want you to know I resemble that remark! Because it’s, er, true.)

Anyway, I was a bit busy last week, so this edition of Great Quotes is a bit late. But what the heck – who cares, right? Just remember, if you’re searching for some encouragement, inspiration or perhaps even just a chuckle or two, well, you’ve come to the right place. I think you’ll agree they may even impart a bit of wisdom – along with a bit of fun!

Check these out:

• It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all try something. – Franklin D. Roosevelt

• There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president. – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

• Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life. – Robert Byrne

• Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable than risk being happy. – Robert Anthony

• As you journey through life take a minute every now and then to give a thought for the other fellow. He could be plotting something. – Hagar the Horrible

• The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. – James Branch Cabell

• Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. – Sir Richard Steele

• I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. – Pablo Picasso

• He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met. – Abraham Lincoln

• My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what’s really going on to be scared. – P. J. Plauger

• Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. – Will Durant

• A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience. – Doug Larson

• The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution. – Bertrand Russell

• Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine. – Sir Arthur Eddington

• Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. – Will Rogers

And this month, in honor of April Fool’s Day and all fools everywhere (it’s good to know I’m in such great company!), I give you:

• This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them. – Bertrand Russell

It’s the end of yet another interesting month here at the Zone (and one with an extra day in it, no less!), and it’s time for another inspiring edition of Great Quotes. So, if you find yourself searching for some encouragement, inspiration or perhaps even just a chuckle or two, you’ve come to the right place.

I think you’ll agree they may even impart a bit of wisdom – along with a bit of fun! Check these out:

• The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark. – Agnes De Mille
• All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it. – H. L. Mencken
• We must walk consciously only part way towards our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success. – Thoreau
• The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action. – Frank Herbert
• Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. – John Lennon
• I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I thought: What good would that do? – Ronnie Shakes
• If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around. – Unknown
• A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for. – Grace Murray Hopper
• The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Life is a long lesson in humility. – James M. Barrie
• Don’t wait for your ship to come in. Row out and meet it. – Jeanne Dininni’s Aunt
• For every person who wants to teach there are approximately thirty people who don’t want to learn–much. – W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman
• Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines. – John Benfield
• Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened. – Winston Churchill
• Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time… The wait is simply too long. – Leonard Bernstein
• The two most powerful things in existence: a kind word and a thoughtful gesture. – Ken Langone
• The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale. – Arthur C. Clarke
• If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one? – Abraham Lincoln
• Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer. – Charles Caleb Colton
• Champions take risk, and pressure is privilege. – Billy Jean King

And as food for thought, here’s a particularly powerful point to ponder from one of the best known names in Business today:

• If you can’t think of anything or anyone to say “Thank you” to – I suggest you go see a shrink. – Tom Peters