February 7, 2006
Warmer out. Didn’t get a paper this morning. It breaks my routine and makes me irritable. Had oatmeal and a muffin. Lots of talk about healthy eating with Kathy around the breakfast table. When Sue and I were in Cody for the Dude Ranch Association gathering, we had a dinner at the Irma Hotel and I sat across from a woman who regaled me with horror stories about teflon and aluminum. “Did you know if you fry something on a teflon pan in a closed room,” she told me for openers, “and you put a bird in the room, the bird will die?” Supposedly, the teflon materials are toxic, come off and into the food and then we eat the food. She went on to blame aluminum foil and its multi-uses as a cause for the dramatic rise in cancer in the 1950s. She said cowboys ate out of cast iron skillets and the iron came off and made them stronger.

Don’t know if any of this is true, but I made salmon last night in an iron skillet.

Working hard to work smarter. Juggling meetings and appointments and artwork. Need to stay focused. I remember reading somewhere that the challenge is to reduce the gap between your actual performance (inside the comfort area) and your potential performance (outside the comfort area).

“Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.”
—Stephen Covey

More Author Humblings
“Here’s what happened to me when I was doing a book signing at the Alamo. I had anticipated a holy experience and the gratitude of the masses when I walked in there that day. The first humbling came when an Asian tourist asked me in broken English (which is still much more than I could speak Chinese) how much the Alamo Salt and Pepper Shakers were, and then tried to pay me for them.”
—Alan Huffines

“Please join me in praying that I don’t say something we all regret.”
—Bono, at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington last week

Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
That Guy From That One Show In Rehab

“The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.”
—Joe Paterno