“Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.”

– Winston Churchill

A great quote from a great book:

“Of the Seven Dwarfs, the only one who shaved was Dopey. That should tell us something about the wisdom of shaving.”

Tom Robbins – Skinny Legs and All

Don’t rule out working with your hands. It does not preclude using your head.

– Andy Rooney

My experience over the last couple of months with a new trade has definitely reinforced this notion. If you try hard enough, you can find a way to glide through just about any job without much critical thinking. Woodworking, if you want the final product to actually fit together, requires as much thought and decision making as anything I have done in the past. Well, maybe not Calculus, but I haven’t run across the need for differential equations in making a retail fixture or furniture. Yet.

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

– Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds – all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.

– Edward Everett Hale

The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you.

-Bill Murray “Lost in Translation”

The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, ‘In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!

– John F. Kennedy

In a postscript – After a couple of phone calls and some inner dialogue, I have decided that it is not only possible but incredibly opportune to visit LA and SF with resume in tow. December may not grant me a job, but it will give me the chance to plant my tree.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

– Leonardo da Vinci

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.

– Gerry Spence

“Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

(So, have I been distressed lately or happy, as evidenced by the lack of recent entries? Rephrased: indolence or indulgence in real life as opposed to in writing?)