Archive for June, 2010

Yikes! Just caught a glimpse of my reflection in the bathroom mirror. This would not be a good day to ask “Who’s the fairest of them all?” The mirror would roar with laughter … then I’d throw something at it and wind up with seven years’ bad luck.

Beauty has never been one of my preoccupations, but it sparked an interesting discussion a couple of nights ago when my mother and I drifted into conversation about my friend, Marvene. Several years ago, Marvene married a family friend I’d known since junior high—one of my brother’s college roommates. Time passed, we became close, and one day I realized: My goodness, that girl is beautiful! Now, if Marvene’s having a bad day and doesn’t want to ask the mirror who’s fairest of them all, she knows she can call me for positive reinforcement.

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In March, when Virgin Atlantic Flight 404 departed Los Angeles for New York at 10:10 a.m. EST, passengers never imagined they were jetting toward a hostage crisis. High winds forced 404 to divert from JFK to Stewart International 90 miles away. The plane landed at 5:15 … and the nightmare began.

Most people don’t realize the Land of the Free ceases to exist at the door of a commercial airliner. The plane may be free to move about the country, but no matter how long it’s been sitting on the tarmac, ain’t nobody free to leave the plane. For about seven hours the flight crew forced passengers to stay on that aircraft. No exercise. Little water. A few rationed potato chips and cookies. Can’t sleep in cramped seats.

Can you imagine letting someone get away with treating you like that?

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 Nooooo! Stopppp! I ran toward my friend, making wild arm gestures, desperately trying to wave him off as he unwittingly stumbled toward the precipice …

Too late. Crash and burn.

Okay … so my friend didn’t really take an accidental header over the side of the world then spontaneously combust. And my dramatic slo-mo attempt to save him was all in my head. I wanted to save him. The second he veered from his prepared comments into “I shouldn’t tell this story, but …” it was clear he needed saving. But I could only listen helplessly as he off-the-cuffed himself off the cliff. Later, as he tried to defend his inappropriate anecdote, he probably thought spontaneous combustion wouldn’t have been so bad.

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Launching a Web site is kind of like juggling watermelons. You can handle two, but when you try to add the third, things get a little complicated … which is why regular readers of MoveThatMountain.com have missed seeing new content in recent weeks. After posting more than 135 articles, I needed to work through a few blog-related tasks that aren’t as comfortable for me as writing.

Now that my grip on the watermelons is more sure, readers can expect new content about five days a week. And for those juggling watermelons of their own, here are a few words of inspiration to help you through the rough, um, patches:

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Poor Virgil was a sweet young man saddled with total ineptitude. Whatever he touched, he broke. No matter how simple the job, he botched it. Finally, given the easy task of polishing a set of keys, he managed to wear away the grooves, rendering the keys useless and sealing the door they were supposed to unlock.

Faced with this latest example of his incompetence, his cousin Barney berated his stupidity, leaving Virgil hanging his head in shame and defeat.

Fans of The Andy Griffith Show recognize the plot from the episode “Cousin Virgil.” But most of us have witnessed similar interactions between managers and employees—or worse, between parents and children. People screw up and other people berate them. We may have been on the giving or receiving ends of similar experiences.

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Did you know every hour you spend driving knocks 20 minutes off your life expectancy because of the increased risk of being involved in a fatal collision?

Neither did I.

Before the price of gasoline went sky high, I used to drive around just for the heck of it. Stress release. Sometimes I’d drive for a couple of hours. Taken in context with that statistic, now it sounds like I was ingesting slow poison.

Yikes.

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