The Most Dangerous Thing On The Trail Wasn't A Bear

I just got back from hiking another 70 mile section of the Appalachian Trail. At the rate I'm going, I will never complete it, but that is actually fine with me. I won't have to figure where else to go hiking for a long time. I had been on the trail for days before I was hit with fear. That may sound strange to people that could not imagine sleeping outside in the freezing cold with no fire. Sure, there were many things that could take you out in a heartbeat, like falling, a heart attack, or even getting sick enough that you could not get yourself back down the mountain, but the fear was something else, and I think this kind of thing comes into play at work as well.

We do really scary things every day and get used to it. I mean, just crossing a busy intersection in your car requires a leap of faith these days. Like most people, I got nervous when the plane that was taking us to the hiking spot hit a bit of turbulence and I started getting images of the plane coming apart like in the TV show LOST. I knew in my head that flying in that plane was way less dangerous than the ride to the airport in the car, but I wasn't used to riding in a plane...I do it rarely, so I didn't have that hardened part in my brain to ignore the danger.

Actually what really scared me on the trail sounds like something really foolish looking back. My brother had decided we needed to get off the trail and hit a hostel for the night because the weather was forecasted to go bad quickly in the evening. The only place we could find close by that would pick us up was a religous cult group that ran an organic farm and hostel, and gladly took in hikers for free..and fed them. I did a quick google search and found blogs saying they were seeking lost souls on the trail and hoped to find new converts that would donate all of their earthly possessions to become a part of the collective. I was saying, no way, I'd rather sleep in the woods, while my brother was voicing that he would welcome a good opportunity to debate religion with these people. I called my wife and told her the address and said if you don't hear from me soon, call the cops!

We get there, the people are as nice as could be, and fed us, and gave us a place to sleep and never said one thing about their beliefs. In fact I was really interested in their little market and how they made their money. Really, really nice people....and while I had spent my time worrying about them, I almost got killed by a car while crossing the road to wait for pickup....crossing Route 9 at rush hour in the woods of West Virginia was probably the most dangerous thing I've done in my life, and it wasn't until later that I realized I had been worrying about the wrong thing....once again.

Mechanic's Logic

A group of us were working on a project and suddenly something was wrong with the code. Immediately one of the coders said "What was the last change that was made!? Put it back the way it was!"
I was laughing inside, because we frequently used this logic back when I was a teenager. You always figured that the last thing that was done was the culprit. We summed it up well in a situation where my junker car wouldn't start one morning. We all scratched our heads about why the car worked the day before, but now wouldn't start. "What was the last thing you did to the car? " my brother asked. "I put air in the tires. " I replied.
"Well, then let the air back out!" he exclaimed, as if the issue was patently obvious....

Better Than A Win

I watched this soccer match the other night and the opposing team was getting stomped, but what I remember even more than the score or the goals made, was this young woman. I know they were down three points and I don't remember noticing her that much before, but it seemed like suddenly she was ON and played like this was the final match in a big tournament.
I knew the feeling well. Once long ago I played in a doubles tennis league and we were getting stomped by a couple of guys that had sandbagged their way into our recreational league. My partner had already given up, and the guys on the other side of the net were laughing and joking to each other about where they were going to get beer after they finished with us. I don't remember the score or much of anything else, except that feeling of cold water running down my back and my eyes bulging. I never left the net except to serve after that and my only purpose was to hit the ball right between their feet. I didn't want to win...I wanted respect. I played about 30 minutes of the best tennis I ever played in my life and only now wish that I could summon that feeling whenever I wanted it.....

The Microscope And The One Thing You Have To Do Well

Although I don't own a microscope right now, I must admit that I can't hardly walk past one without taking a peek down the lens. I've always been a bit of a lab rat. As a young child some of my favorite toys were a chemistry set and a microscope. I still like to admire Pyrex glass and microscopes whenever I come across them. They have pretty much disappointed me though. Most of the time I can see just about nothing through the lens and shake my head wondering if I still haven't figured out how to use one or if I need the really good ones you see on science programs, the kind that that fill up half a room and display everything on a TV monitor.
A number of years ago, I had my young children at the local science center for some show that involved dinosaurs. We were in the little shop where you could buy science center souvenirs, and there was this cool microscope. It was very crude looking, like something from the middle ages, a brass tube mounted on a piece of iron with a mirror on the bottom for light. I saw the price tag, $90 and thought, "Man, they have some pricey toys in here."
A young young woman that noticed me checking out the 'scope, came over and told me how this was created by a local man that had spent a career in the optics business, working for a company I recognized as a maker of quality binoculars. She said that he spent all of the money putting in the best optics you could get and fabricated the rest in a machine shop. Well, it sure looked like that's what he did. I peered down the lens and could not believe it. I called my wife over and we spent the next 30 minutes grabbing everything we could find and sticking it under that microscope. You see, I looked at microscopes for the visible details that would make them valuable; light source, stereo eyepieces, multiple lenses for varying amounts of zoom, etc. This microscope had none of that. Like I said, it even looked homemade, or like something you might find in one of those nautical antique stores.
But, it did one thing right. I saw images that I had only seen before on television, on those science programs. This guy was smart. He thought, what is the one thing that a microscope has to do well? If I do that, then nothing else matters. If some people won't buy it because of it's looks, then they are the people that buy microscopes without looking down the lens....I'm not sure I want them as customers.
I want to be as smart as that guy.

What I Learned From A Dead Fish

I remember being young and frustrated in my job and while out fishing with a friend I remarked that I felt much like the fish that were making a lot of noise in our cooler. We were catching mackerel that day, and those are some serious fighting fish. Long after they were brought into the boat and hook removed, they were still banging around in the cooler. "They just aren't smart enough to realize that it's over.", I said, thinking that it was very much like my career.
Then, on the way back home, as we were bumping across the bay, we hit a bigger piece of chop and the cooler lid flew open and a mackerel went flying out into the water. I stood there with my mouth open, realizing that the intelligence of the fish wasn't what was in play...it was their unwillingness to be dead....

Meetings That Really Count

As we rode back from the beach, talking of surfing, photography, girls, life, business and
even a bit of politics, it came to me that this meeting was full of content. Nobody was
checking their email and everyone wanted to contribute. More than I wanted to talk,
I wanted to hear what my friends had to say. We really were a team. We were
all out their doing our own thing, but always ready to share, always ready to save
one of us if we needed help.
My kind of meeting.....perhaps the next evolution in business will be to make it more like surfing. Instead of cubes, we will have towels on the beach...

The Professor

It was my first class in school that used an auditorium and my school was pretty small at the time, something like 7,000 students and most classes had about 30-40 kids in them, but there were a few of these introductory classes that held over 300 and this one also happened to be an emerging new subject; Sociology.
The professor walked on stage and he immediately became my perfect stereotype of what a professor should be; in his 50's, wild, white bushy hair and a big white mustache. I still remember his first words as his assistants busied themselves passing out papers to all of us in the audience.

"If all you are seeking is an A in this class, merely look up the answers to the questions on the papers I am passing out. If you want to learn about Sociology and the world you are living in, come to my lectures, because nothing from them will be on the test."

This guy tapped into my head like no other had before and created a longing in me to learn for it's own sake. It was as if he knew that there were people that didn't see a grade equalling a good job, and were after knowledge itself.

I learned a lot from him in the 4 years I attended that school. He became my advisor and I remember him predicting that someday there would be machines that would spit out a whole book for us instead of having to borrow them from libraries (this was back in the early 1970's). He knew that computers were going to be big, but it was still too far away in the future.

Dr. Burton Wright retired from UCF a long time ago, but his influence upon me still lingers..