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

Now, I realize a title like that is likely to elicit responses along the lines of, “Well, it’s about time that boy got some help!” But it’s not what you think. Sorry.

When I was younger, I used to own a 1974 Dodge Charger, exactly like the one pictured here. Except, uh, mine was a dark olive green, and she had a white landau roof. Oh, and she also had a white leather interior (something I’ll never have again).

Now, that was a fun car to own and drive. She had a 400-cubic-inch engine, which was admittedly a bit large; but then again, she was a fairly heavy car. (Back then nobody even thought about gas mileage, and as a young adult, I was mainly concerned with, um, getting there fast.) She has the distinction of being the first car I ever bought new off the dealer’s lot.

You may have noticed I use the pronoun her. I named her Yolanda, of course. (And you have to say it like this: yo-LAHN-da.) Why Yolanda, you ask? Well, I’ll tell ya… keep on wonderin’.

Yolanda and I had some great times together, but she did have one major flaw. I only discovered it the first time I had to perform a tune-up. See, from the hood, it was no trouble reaching six of the eight spark plugs. Unfortunately, due to the size of the engine and the general closeness of the engine compartment (it was packed in there!), I simply couldn’t reach two of them from above. The solution: get underneath the car.

The problem with that was, as you may be able to tell from the photo, Yolanda was something of a “low rider”, if you know what I mean. She was the “street” version of a Daytona race car that was understandably designed with very low ground clearance. Too bad they carried that part of the design over, though. It was a tight fit, with barely enough clearance for my body (as well as my much younger and *sigh* slimmer) tummy.

If it hadn’t been so painful and strenuous, it would have been hysterical watching me skootch my way into position (displaying the amazing talent of moving across the ground using only shoulders and – pardon the expression, but there’s no better way to say it – butt cheeks). Finally, I managed to get where I could see the two wayward plugs, and that’s when I discovered yet another stupid idiotic design flaw challenge.

See, what with the engine mounts, the front suspension, and the stabilizer struts – not to mention the somewhat confined space – I could barely even see the darned things, much less reach ‘em. I spent quite some time considering possible angles of approach, but after wriggling around in every way imaginable, I finally concluded there was no way I could finish the job myself.

It was a tough thing to admit. I mean, I’m a guy – I’m supposed to be able to work on my own car, especially for something as simple as a tune-up. No, really; it’s right there in black & white in the Manly Men’s Code of Conduct Manual, page 72: Thou shalt perform thou’s own tune-ups.

Alas, and darn.

When You Just Can’t Do It Yourself

Has something like this ever happened to you? Well, not necessarily the car repair thing; I’m talking about times when it seems like, no matter what you do, you simply can’t “make it work” (whatever it happens to be)?

The way I see it, you’re faced with three options.

1. Give up. Yep, that’s certainly one option, isn’t it? After all, you didn’t really want to, um, accomplish that thing anyway, right? Why not just forget about it? On the other hand, hopefully we’ve all recently learned something from hitting brick walls, though…
2. Keep trying. I suppose you can keep trying, but what if you’ve exhausted every resource you have and still can’t do it? Isn’t it time to try something, you know, new? Remember the definition of insanity: doing the same thing while expecting different results.
3. Get help. There comes a time when you simply have to look for outside help to get the job done, right? So put the tools down and go find it. The fact is, no matter what the job, there’s probably plenty of people out there ready and willing to help you accomplish it.

Out of frustration (and, er, filled with the impetuosity of youth) I naturally chose option #1.

Well, at least I did at first. See, the frustration of spending literally hours of time, plus the physical effort of squirming around, fruitlessly trying to reach those stupid spark plugs made me want to just walk away and not think about it anymore. Man, was I exhausted! Hey, we’ve all been there, right?

But really, what would that have accomplished? I mean, Yolanda would have eventually started having problems and likely ended up with a much bigger (and naturally more costly) failure to deal with. So, displaying just enough intelligence to skip option 2, I quickly relented and switched to option 3.

Yep; it was time to call on the experts. Needless to say, I never tried doing that job again! From that day forward, Yolanda took a trip to the shop whenever she needed a tune-up.

It was a decision that changed my life!

You Can Profit from Giving Up

Rather than plunging into the Pit of Despair and suffering miserably from ignominious defeat (as well as receiving a somewhat scathing letter from the Manly Men’s Association), I actually realized three profound benefits from that decision.

• Freedom. With more time on my hands I gained a sense of freedom. I had wasted nearly 6 frustrating hours (what can I say? I’m a persistent guy) that day trying to do something I simply couldn’t do. And what’s worse, it would be pretty much the same situation every single time the same job needed to be done. So why waste the time? There were other profitable, necessary or even fun things I was suddenly free to do.
• Empowerment. I know this is going to sound a bit odd at first, but think about it with me for a moment (sound of millions of grinding gears). The fact is, I now knew something about my limitations. In a strange sort of way, knowing that gave me a better sense of who I was. And ya know what? Knowing yourself is always empowering.
• Peace of Mind. One thing Yolanda taught me was that there’s simply no way to keep up with every change there is. As automobile technology changed, the idea of me working on my own car became more and more problematic – I simply couldn’t keep up with it without continuous investment in time, money and energy. Now, that’s all right if I’d been a mechanic. But since I’m not; well, I don’t have to bother anymore.

I trust you realize, of course, that you face these same three choices every day – in your business, your life, and pretty much anything. I guess the question you have to ask yourself is, do you feel lucky?

Tell Me a Story

So what about it? When was the last time you had to make this kind of decision? Did you choose door #1, door #2, or door #3 – or is there another door I failed to mention? What made you choose the one you did? Did you go back and change your mind later, like I did?

Howdy, Y’all! I’ve been enjoying a few days off for the Memorial Day Holiday, so no post today. But I just wanted to remind you that our next What I Learned From… group writing project starts NEXT Monday! Yep, that’s right; it’s just around the corner.

So don’t forget to tune in, folks; you’re gonna love it!

By the way, if you’re wondering what the topic is this time, well – I normally don’t let the cat out of the bag early (and believe me, it’s tough gettin’ that cat INTO the bag in the first place!) But this time I’ll give you a hint. Two hints, actually.

First of all, if you know where to look, the topic has already been announced.

Second, do you remember that guessing game you used to play as children? The one where you thought of something, and then to begin the game, people would ask you, “Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?” Well, I’ll tell ya – it’s NOT a mineral!

See ya!

Today we in the United States recognize our debt of gratitude to those who have given their lives for the cause of freedom while in the military service of our country.

Many years ago when Mrs. MZM and I visited Washington D.C., we spent most of our time visiting the various Smithsonian Museums (there are many buildings that comprise the Smithsonian). Most of them are located in the area called the Mall, a long stretch of parkland that begins at the Lincoln Memorial and ends at the U.S. Capital Building.

Along with the museum buildings there are many memorials, including the Washington Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, and of course the afore-mentioned Lincoln Memorial. But the one that moved us the most was the Vietnam Memorial.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit, when I first heard about it and what it looked like, I thought it seemed, well, like it wasn’t enough. I mean, it’s a wall, basically. The names of the soldiers who were killed during the Vietnam War were inscribed on a wall in alphabetical order. That’s pretty much it.

Like I said, it sure didn’t seem like enough to me. I mean, these guys gave their lives over there. Surely there ought to be something a little more, I don’t know, more profound than just a simple wall.

But on that particular afternoon, we spent some time walking the entire length of that wall. It was, if I may say so, one of the most moving experiences of our lives.

The Wall is about 250 feet long, and starts out low, growing not upward, but downward below ground level to a depth of about 10 feet. The effect is to isolate the visitor walking in front of it in such a way that normal city noises almost cannot be heard. It introduces a sortof quiet, sacred feel to the experience.

The sheer number of names is almost overwhelming. The total number (now 58,260, including 1,200 listed as missing) becomes no longer just a number, but a visual testimony of vast proportions. The fact was, walking the entire length of the wall and reading name after name was far more moving than I would have expected.

One of the most interesting characteristics of the Wall is the smooth, polished surface. Composed of black granite, it reflected our images quite clearly, albeit dimly. As we walked past panel after panel, my reflection seemed to quietly remind me of the fact that these were ordinary people, and I was no different a person than they. It seemed to connect me somehow, in some indefinable way.

I’ll forever remember those few hours we spent there that day. It was a sobering reminder that the freedoms we experience here in the United States are not free; in fact, the cost can sometimes seem overwhelming.

I believe some wars were and are necessary, and some were or are not. But that’s not the point. This memorial does not, in fact, honor a war. No, it honors the memories of the fine men and women who gave their lives in the service of their country - that’s what we honor on this day.

Although I’ve never been called upon to serve my country in the military, I will always honor those who have done so, those who still do, and those who may be called upon to do so in the future. I never take lightly the freedoms we enjoy because of them, and to them I say -

- THANK YOU!

(Painting: Vietnam Reflections, by Lee Teter)

[For more details on the Vietnam Memorial, visit the website here.]

Do you remember the first time you ever saw a globe of the planet Earth; maybe even held one in your hands? How old were you?

I’m can’t remember for sure, but I was probably in grade school at the time. At least, I do remember having one in my room (at the end of my desk, right next to the jar of, er, newts).

I loved that globe because geography was a favorite school subject of mine; I could easily rattle off every US State and its capital. But more than that, I knew the names of almost every country and its capital, along with its location on the globe too. I’m tellin’ ya, I was good. (Alas, it’s something I certainly couldn’t do today!)

Have you ever really thought about just what exactly a globe represents? I’ll have to admit, I never have…

The World is a Really Big Place

Can you really grasp just how big the world is? I mean, as a kid, my world was really just a few miles across; pretty much the limits of where I could ride my bike. But think about it a minute here (sound of millions of gears grinding); that distance wasn’t even visible on the globe; the scale was just too small.

Even today, when the entire metro area of Houston, Texas is part of my stomping grounds (an area about 50 miles across), it barely shows up as a dot on the globe, and still many times too big. Now, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to travel quite a bit, even to getting around to the other side of the world once. But still, flying above all that ocean only emphasizes just how little we ever get to know.

Looking at all those countries (and all that water), I can only barely begin to appreciate just how big this planet is, and more importantly, how much there is to see.

The World is a Really Small Place

Y’know, not that long ago maps used to have on them the phrase, Here Be Dragons. It’s amazing to realize that nowadays, what with the proliferation of satellite imagery, GPS locators, and whatnot, but barely 100 years ago there were still significant portions of the Earth that had not been well-mapped yet.

Today, we can hold the entire globe right in our own hands because, well, we know what it looks like now. Every island, no matter how lonely and isolated; every mountaintop, calibrated to the centimeter – it’s small enough now to know what’s there.

Not only that, but with modern travel options what they are these days, no part of the globe is really all that far away, in either time or effort. Quite a bit different from those days of yore when explorers really put their lives at risk just to see what was over the next mountaintop. These days, you have to really try to get off the beaten path.

Picture this with me: a child holding a globe, his right hand covers Africa while his left hand almost covers the Pacific Ocean. Seems to me the real message is: See all this? It’s closer than you think!

The World Always Changes

One thing I noticed even as a kid (and believe me, as a kid I noticed very little outside the world of, uh, meeeee) was the fact that some things on that globe we no longer correct. For instance, there was a brief period when African countries’ names were changing practically every week. If someone were to ask me, “Where’s so-and-so country,” well, I couldn’t find it.

I began to realize that just because it was there on the globe didn’t mean it was up to date. Things changed around the world, especially political entities like countries. Even ideologies changed every now and then (and sometimes changed back – just look at Russia over the last 25 years).

Change was OK, though – hey, it happens, even to things as big as countries.

The World Never Changes

But… one thing that never changed was the fact that there was still, you know, there. It didn’t much matter what you called it. For the most part, the nature of the people who lived there was still pretty much the same on the day before the change as it was on the day after. Rarely, if ever, did anything substantial really change.

And generally speaking, people are the same all over the world, too. I mean, I’ve been a lot of places and found that a smile is still a smile, whether in Taiwan, Canada or Scotland. Most folks still appreciate a good laugh every now and then; a warm handshake (or whatever the local custom happens to be) or a good tall tale.

Tell Me a Story

So what about you? What can a simple thing like a globe tell you about life, the universe, and everything? Any profound thoughts on the subject you’d care to share with us? (Or even something, er, not so profound; I won’t mind!)

[Note from the Proprietor: In case the aliens have only last night returned you to Earth and you missed it, before you proceed I highly recommend you first go here and read Part 1. I'm just sayin'.]

OK, the question before the jury, ladies and gentlemen, is from Brad Shorr’s post, “Try”:

What do you do when you hit a brick wall?

Before going on, let’s quickly review where we ended up at the end of Part 1 (and remember, we’re interchanging the words brick wall with the words problem or challenge): Every time we encounter a challenge, there are two things that usually dictate how we’ll respond:

• Worth - Is the prize worth the struggle?
• Motivation - What’s my motivation?

Alrighty then; now that we’re up to speed, let’s move on. You may recall that Part 1 ended with a call for contributions to that vast repository of information known as the General Body of Knowledge. Well, time’s up (sound of buzzer)! Remember, as is typical in life, generally there’s more than one answer to any question of this nature.

The Readers Speak Up

Let’s pass the microphone over to you guys for a bit and see what you had to say. (Please note this is not a definitive list, it’s just to get the ol’ brain cells to tick over once or twice.)

• Trust Your Feelings. One way Jackie Cameron recognizes a brick wall is when “things don’t feel right”. Very astute, Jackie! Many times, if we’ll tune in to our surroundings we can often sense “something” isn’t right – even if we can’t tell what, exactly it might be (the “drat; I know I’m missing something here” syndrome). Life Lesson: Never underestimate your own intuition! I’ll tell ya; it would take a whole herd of books to catalog all the times I’ve been saved from disaster by stopping to just “feel out” the situation. (OK, let’s be honest here; it was mostly Mrs. MZM’s intuition, not mine, but let’s not quibble details, shall we? Me, I tend to blunder ahead like a brontosaurus.)
• Break It Down. Brad Shorr likes to break the challenge down into smaller pieces and take them one at a time; eventually they get easy enough to solve. It’s the ol’ “start in the middle” technique. This is a good one if the challenge is made up of lots of little things that can be done independently (if you think about it, many challenges may be like this; come to think of it, it’s how I wrote this particular blog post). Life Lesson: Identify the components a challenge is made up of and do the easy parts first. Sometimes a challenge is like a big, tangled knot; once you manage to work loose even a tiny part of it, it’s the key to unraveling the rest! So rather than get all hot n’ bothered about the parts you can’t do, work on the ones you can.
• Leverage Past Successes. Similarly, GL Hoffman leverages his experience to overcome challenges. Hey, you already know it can be done; it’s just a matter of repeating it. Of course, it’s a bit more powerful if you’re the one who did it, but still. Life Lesson: Take advantage of experience whenever you can. You know; you may find that most challenges fall into categories, each of which takes certain techniques to solve. Look for examples you can use to solve them. Why reinvent the wheel, anyway?
• Confront It. Another method is a kindof “look yourself in the mirror” technique. Jackie Cameron also likes to just ask herself, out loud, “OK you – just what is the problem here?” Notwithstanding the talking to herself thing, I’d say this isn’t bad. Have you ever been around someone so negative you just wanted to slap ‘em silly give ‘em a good shake say that to? Yeah, thought so; me too. Life Lesson: Sometimes you have to confront the problem right to its face. There will inevitably be times when it’s good to just point your finger at the problem and ask, “So what’s the problem here?”
• Seek Inspiration. Now here’s an interesting one. When stuck trying to write a poem or a story, Marcus Goodyear seeks inspiration by reading similar material. Can’t say I’ve ever purposefully tried it, but it sorta rings true just the same. I mean, there’s nothing like a good story to inspire another one, you know? (Seriously; just observe a bunch of guys in any gathering as they attempt to “one-up” one another’s stories.) Life Lesson: Good examples can sometimes provide keys to unlocking a challenge. It’s like Amy Palko’s photography: it inspires me to try something similar – and I’m not even a photographer!
• Question Everything. Karen Hanrahan likes to utilize lateral thinking when faced with challenges (yes, that’s what you’re doing, Karen!) By writing it all down in a journal she ends up with a “bird’s eye view” of the problem. It’s sorta like reading out loud – things just sometimes look different once they’re on paper. She finds it often provides the key to solutions. Life Lesson: Try examining the situation in a different way. A fresh look at the challenge may evoke things you may have missed. Asking for input from friends or trusted advisors can be very helpful – they’re not attached to the challenge like you are.

What About Bob?

Along about now you’re probably asking, “OK, Mr. Wisenheimer, so what about you?”

Well, after I’ve done the “run in circles, scream and shout” bit, and before I hit the panic button, I tend to approach challenges like… water.

You remember the water, don’t you? You remember how it behaved when it came up to a barrier of some kind, right? It eventually built itself up until it either went around, over, under or through whatever was in the way.

That’s the way water works. Given enough time (and as long as the water kept building), it simply couldn’t be contained.

In fact, it’s a little like project management: You just keep adding resources until the challenge is met and overcome. Then rinse and repeat for the next one. (Note: “Resources” is a word that includes just about anything you might need to accomplish something. Time, people, money, knowledge, etc. – they’re all resources.)

But what if your resources are limited, you ask? Once again, good question!

Well, I’ll tell ya; it’s hard to imagine you would ever run out of resources as long as you’ve got your friends out here! With the tools we have at our disposal these days, you can pretty much count on finding help for just about any challenge you may face. Why, just the other day I had a simple MS Windows question, and I used Twitter to get a quick and accurate answer (Thanks Chris!). Time expended: less than 5 minutes!

Now that I think about it, I realize that I’ve used most of the methods above at one time or another. And perhaps that’s the best lesson of all: There’s more than one way to do just about anything!

Talk to Me

So what about it, folks; what techniques could you add to this list? (C’mon; you know you want to!) When was the last time you overcame an insurmountable challenge? What did you do?

OK, ordinarily I don’t respond much to memes these days because they’ve sorta been in what’cha might call “bad odor” lately. Besides, there’s enough noise on the Internet these days without me adding to it (I mean, other than the *ahem* prose I write here at the Zone).

But when Brad Shorr hit me with this one, I gave it some thought (sound of grinding noise) and decided this one might just be worth doing. Timothy Johnson started it (in case you’re wondering who to blame thank) when he asked the question, “What are your most underappreciated blog posts?”

Don’t you hate it when that happens? It’s kinda like spinning plates – you work and slave to be the best plate-spinner you can be, and the only reaction you get is, “So what?”

Anyhoo, I went down to the basement and spent some time digging through over 500 posts (man, it’s dusty down here!), and came up with an even dozen posts I consider suitable for, as Mad Magazine used to say, reading… or wrapping fish.

So here, in reverse chronological order, I present:

• Hey, I Got Plans
• Invisible Changes
• Unconnected Bubbles
• The Hidden Stones
• The Ripple Effect
• Fear of Failure
• To Follow the Herd… or Not
• Are People Really Like Wine?
• Talk to Me
• Grrrrr. Bark. Woof.
• How Clever are YOU With a Quarter?

Finally, here’s the one from my list of “zeros” I had the most fun writing.

• How to Destroy the Earth. Really.

Y’know, the total lack of reaction to that last one has always surprised me. Although… there was a dark unmarked van parked down the street for quite some time afterwards.

I won’t tag anyone, but if you have some uncommented posts hiding away in your archives that you think would benefit from the light of day (after all, if you wrote them a while back, you probably have a different audience now), well, why don’t you lasso those babies and drag ‘em out here for us to see!