Intelligent Lifeform Exposes Himself to Deadly Radiation

Me, soaking in rays (photo Kathleen Scott)

Where I live, the coolest breakfasts in town (in my opinion) are hosted by Casa Garcia's Restaurant and Cantina. Here I am on a Sunday morning after a custom-filled omelet, sitting outside on one of their benches, enjoying the warm sun.

Actually, I was thinking that the solar radiation that had reached my cheeks had penetrated our planet's magnetic field and thin atmosphere. Most of the sun's deadly rays had been shielded and absorbed, and just enough made it through to give warmth to me and all the other lifeforms on the surface.

The radiation from our star is essential to life. It's the source of energy for plants and animals, and it allows water to exist in liquid form.

But sustaining life on Earth isn't our star's purpose. Actually, it has no purpose. It's simply a medium-sized star doing what stars do, blasting radiation, solar wind and occasional solar mass ejections into the space around it, all of which can destroy what we know as "life."

We're lucky that our planet has a massive hot liquid iron core that rotates far below the surface, creating a magnetic field in the space around our planet, which deflects most of what the sun sends our way. Much of what gets through is absorbed by our atmosphere. The little bit that makes it to places like Garcia's is enough to support life without destroying it.

As long as you aren't exposed too long. Stay out in the sun long enough, and your skin will start to burn. The rays might even disturb your DNA, causing skin cancer.

Mars wasn't as lucky as Earth. A smaller planet, it's smaller core cooled billions of years ago, ending it's ability to generate a protective magnetic field. The onslaught of radiation and solar particles blew away most of the atmosphere, and today only the tiniest remnants of carbon dioxide gas remain. Mars' surface is now an extremely cold, lifeless and deadly place.

This was what I was thinking when my wife took the photo. I know, I know, why can't I just enjoy being warm on a November day when the gentle folks in Buffalo are digging out from more than six feet of snow?

It's because I'm one of the intelligent lifeforms that now co-exist on Earth, and in my case I sometimes use my intelligence to think about stuff like this, especially when I can actually feel the rays bombarding my cheeks.

The sun, our oxygen-rich atmosphere, the abundance of water on our rocky surface, and our stable climate were not "put here" to make a perfect home for us humans. The Earth has been revolving around its star for about 4.5 billion years now, and the environment wasn't always ideal for life. We humans exist today because just the right conditions have accidentally come together after billions of years of Earth history.

In short, I'm lucky to be alive, breathing delicious air and feeling the warmth on my cheeks. I'm lucky to have been born, and I'm lucky I'm still alive. I've had several close brushes with death, and on this particular Sunday morning what I feel is, well, appreciation that I made it this far, far enough to reach Garcia's to enjoy a really great omelet.

I also entertained some radical thoughts about intelligent life in the universe, but you know what? That's another story....

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2014. Building Personal Strength .

From Texas: A Two-Step Dance That Improves Performance in the Workplace

I’ve lived in Texas just outside San Antonio for almost a decade now, and one of the cool things we enjoy here is Texas country music. Dance halls, ice houses and other venues feature live music almost every night. The tiny town of Gruene has three or four different venues, including Gruene Hall, the oldest continuously operating honky-tonk dance hall in Texas.

And yes, couples actually get on the floor and dance while the music is playing.

The dance step you see most is called the “Texas two-step.” Outside of Texas it’s known as the “country two-step.” Quick-quick slow, slow. Check it out:



You see how easy it is, and when it comes to dancing (which everyone knows is a form of foreplay) that’s how cowboys like it – easy.

When I’m not enjoying a local craft beer at a live music event, I’m probably thinking about more serious matters, such as learning and development and behavior change.

But it dawned on me recently that the difficult, all-important business of improving skills and changing behavior also involves a two-step.

At the most fundamental level, for training programs to succeed they need to be deployed in two steps - a kind of “learning and development dance,” so to speak.

Step One is feedback.

People need to know that something they’re doing is causing problems. Step One is to hold a mirror up to their behavior to help them acknowledge the issue, so they can begin doing the work to change and improve.

The unspoken assumption is that if intelligent, committed and well-intentioned managers and employees discover they need to change something, they’ll want to address it. They’ll make an effort to do so.

The assumption is that this kind of helpful feedback will empower the desired improvement.

This assumption is false.

Yes, most people are intelligent, committed and well-intentioned. But old behavior patterns have been reinforced and ingrained for years. Peoples’ brains are literally wired for the old behaviors.

So even if people want to make a conscious effort, in a fast-paced, challenging workplace old habits kick in automatically, and the conscious effort to do something differently often doesn’t happen. After several discouraging lapses, most people give up trying to change.

The only way to improve or change an ingrained behavior pattern is to rewire the brain – to stimulate the brain cells to connect in new neural pathways. This is the only approach that works. But it requires a long-term effort involving reinforcement, ongoing feedback, encouragement, and accountability.

This is the Step Two of the behavior change dance.

Most learning and development professionals and the managers they serve already understand Step One. For decades now, organizations have been using technology to help employees get the feedback they need.

The problem is, few of them understand Step Two. They don’t appreciate the kind of reinforcement, ongoing feedback, encouragement, and accountability that will give employees enough “reps” to rewire their brains. They don't appreciate how long it will take, and they don’t know if there’s a coaching technology that will support the follow-through efforts.

They do Step One. But there’s no Step Two.

So there’s no dance. And in most cases, behavior change doesn't happen.

So here I am working on my 20-ounce glass of brew, listening to Willie Nelson and watching couples dance. Yes, Willie Nelson – for real. This is Texas, man.

And the two-step is working its magic.

What most organizations don’t realize is that affordable technology support for both Step One and Step Two already exists.

20/20 Insight is the preferred feedback technology for a great many organizations worldwide. It has been making Step One easy for over 20 years now.

Strong for Performance, introduced in 2013, supports Step Two, the long-term coaching effort to ingrain automatic behavior patterns.

The learning and development dance really can happen. If you do Step One, followed by Step Two.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2014. Building Personal Strength .

Geologic Time and Dinosaur Tracks in the Texas Hill Country

I live only a couple miles from the Guadalupe River. Recently, with Everett Deschner as my guide, I walked along a creek that feeds this river, and he showed me dinosaur tracks imbedded in the stone creek bed.

The tracks were quite visible, made by a young half-ton plant-eating dinosaur while walking through the area.

Everett on right. Photo by Linnea S.

Deschner is the vice president of the Heritage Museum of the Texas Hill Country, not far from Canyon Lake. He explained that the Hill Country didn't exist at the time of the dinosaur, which was about 100 million years ago. At that time, this area was a flat, low-lying marshy area sometimes covered by the sea water of what we now know as the Gulf of Mexico.

He went on to explain that we can now see these tracks in the stone because of a series of chance events over eons of time.

First, the dinosaur walked through an area covered by moist tidal algae. His great weight would be enough to create deep tracks. Not long after that, hot dry weather dried the algae, preserving the shape of the tracks. Tides brought in mud, which filled the tracks. Over millions of years, sediment was deposited layer upon layer until the tracks were covered by about 10,000 feet of sediment. The great weight of all this mud created intense pressure and heat, which caused the algae to slowly harden into stone.

Millions of years later, this environment was pushed up by the movement of the continents. Then, after millions of years of weather and erosion, valleys, creeks and rivers formed what we now know as the Hill Country in central Texas. The creek I saw had eroded the sediment down to the layer of stone, making the tracks visible.

Dinosaur tracks in Texas are found only in the Hill Country. The land west of this region was formed before the age of the dinosaurs, so no tracks are found there. The land east of the Hill Country was formed after the age of the dinosaurs. Deschner told me that there are about 60 known dinosaur track sites. The best known site is at Glen Rose, Texas. I've seen those tracks, but the ones in the creek near my home were equally impressive.

Yes, it's pretty cool to have dinosaur tracks only a couple miles from my house. Translation: I can easily go see them anytime I want!

But part of the coolness is pondering the millions and millions of years it took to create them and then expose them. Geologists call these vast spans of Earth history "geologic time." I first heard this term from a park ranger at the Grand Canyon. My sister-in-law, a geologist, also likes to refer to geologic time.

Cosmologists and astrophysicists use the term "deep time" when referring to the events of the history of the universe, which involve billions of years.

I love studying the history of the cosmos and our planet, and while walking with Mr. Deschner, I realized that I'm finally able to imagine the unimaginable - the vast spans of geologic time and deep time.

It has taken me a while to gain this understanding. I remember standing on a trail on the way to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in 1996, and I sort of got it when the park ranger joked that the rocks were "older than God." But I couldn't comprehend the reality of 500 million years. He could have said 5 million or 5 billion and it would have made the same impression on me. I was just a man who would live maybe 90 years if I was really lucky, and 500 million years was too many years. It didn't mean anything to me.

But now, standing at the edge of the shallow creek bed, when the man pointed at the tracks and said "100 million years," my study of Earth history and the history of universe was paying off. His cool story about the origins of the dinosaur tracks came alive for me.

The next time my sister-in-law talks about the origins and ages of rocks, I won't feel stupid. I'll get it.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2014. Building Personal Strength .

Eben Pagan with Tony Robbins - Compassion and Acts of Kindness

I came across this brief video featuring personal development expert Eben Pagan, in which he shares his understanding of compassion with speaker and author Tony Robbins. His premise - that compassion is a much more powerful relationship skill than people realize, whether in business or one's personal life. Always articulate, Eben clarifies the practice of compassion:



Watching this video reminded me of a simple act of kindness that had a profoundly beneficial impact on me personally.

One day my friend, Clinton, who lives a few blocks from me, was talking to Ron, who works in the California wine industry and lives part-time locally to be near family. Ron said he was bringing several cases of wine to his new home here, but he wasn't sure how he was going to store it.

Clinton immediately connected the dots. He knew we were moving and had to get rid of our large wine cooler, so he told Ron about it. "It's huge. I'm sure they have to sell it, and you can probably get it cheaper than you'd have to pay for a much smaller one."

Clinton called to be sure we were home, then he persuaded Ron to come over to take a look at it. Clinton introduced us, and a sequence of events then took place. Ron said he loved it but would have to take some measurements to be sure it would fit in his house. When that checked out, we haggled over price.

Alexa, 8 weeks old

While this was going on, Ron told us that he found a tiny kitten crying at his back door, so he had started feeding it. He didn't know what he was going to do, though, because he had to return to California for a couple months. Since our cat Max had passed away, my wife, Kathleen, had been wanting a new kitty. When she went over to his house to see it, she was so taken with her that she brought her back for me to see. I have to admit, it was love at first sight.

"If you agree to this price, I'll take the cat off your hands," Kathleen said.

Then there was the matter of moving this restaurant-sized wine cooler from our house to Ron's. It had two french doors, each of which weighed 150 pounds. He rounded up some friends and family, and Clinton and I helped them disassemble the cooler and haul it down the street to Ron's house.

An hour later...

• The wine cooler we didn't know how to get rid of was in Ron's dining room.
• We were $900 richer than we were when we got up that morning.
• A desperate little homeless kitty had found a loving home.
• And we had a beautiful new spirit in our lives.

We named her Alexa, although I still call her "Baby Girl." Ten weeks later she had grown to four times the size when we got her, our older cat Ernest has adopted her as his little sister, and we can't imagine living without her.

Alexa, 4 months old

All the events of that fateful day happened because Clinton was so persistent about facilitating an act of kindness. There was nothing in it for him. He just wanted to do something nice for his friends. He didn't know that the consequences would be life-changing.

We don't know how Baby Girl ended up in the woods in our neighborhood, but she was lucky that she came to the right house, that Ron was living there at the time, that he was goodhearted enough to care for her, that we would meet Ron because of the wine cooler, and that discovering and adopting Baby Girl would become part of the negotiation.

They talk about "random acts of kindness." Hey, acts of kindness don't have to be random. Just do them! You never know how wonderful the ultimate consequences will be.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2013. Building Personal Strength .

Celebrating Excellence - A Memorable Birthday Burger

People who know me know that I'm not big on birthdays, especially my own. No party. No cake. No candles. At some point in my life I realized that celebrating my existence is something I should do every day, not just once a year. So that's what I try to do.

In that same spirit, I sometimes say, "If you want to give me a present, please don't wait until my birthday to give it to me." Taking my own advice, I did buy myself something for my birthday - a new sound system for my TV. But I gave it to myself five months before my actual birthday, thereby adding an extra 150 days to my total enjoyment of it.

However, my wife, Kathleen, loves to celebrate birthdays, and she said she wanted to take me out to eat to celebrate. Without hesitation, I suggested we go to the Alamo Springs Cafe for a burger. The cafe is 75 miles west of here, but their burger is ranked #3 in the state of Texas by Texas Monthly magazine. I tried it once before, and it's worth the trip.

Texans know beef, and burgers are a big deal here. And I think it's  good to celebrate excellence, wherever you find it. I've also sampled the burger featured by The Roundhouse in Bastrop, 75 east of here. This one was ranked #38. Eating it was an awesome experience, but believe me, the Alamo Springs Cafe's burger is actually better.

Yes, I do have a thing about burgers, but they aren't a part of my regular diet. Kathleen says, "Eating burgers will kill you." I say, "Moderation in all things."

After lunch, we drove 14 miles to Fredericksburg, and while Kathleen visited the art galleries there, I parked myself at the bar in the Crossroads Saloon, where I drank one of the local beers while I watched my favorite basketball team, the Duke Blue Devils, blow out the competition.

My kind of birthday, one I won't soon forget.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2013. Building Personal Strength .

Dancing in the Dark - An Old Ax Gets Sharpened

2013 Photo by Kathleen Scott

I met Warren at the farmer's market in downtown Fredericksburg, Texas. He was the elderly gentleman wearing a black cap with the inscription, "U.S. Army Air Corps - World War II Flyboy" on the front. The sign at his booth said, "I sharpen anything that cuts."

I told him he didn't look old enough to be a World War II veteran, but he said he was 88 years old. And still showing up to do something useful in the world. "Do you get much business here?"

"It keeps me busy. I set up here and at the New Braunfels farmer's market."

"I go to the New Braunfels market every Saturday. Can you sharpen an ax?"

"Sure."

My ax had never been properly sharpened, so it was practically useless. But I kept forgetting to bring it to the market. Finally I got the bright idea of storing the ax in the trunk of my car, so if the blade-sharpening man showed up, my ax would be only a few steps away.

On my next trip to the New Braunfels "Farm to Market" I saw his booth and handed him my ax. "It's in bad shape," I said.

"That's a good ax you have there. You want to hear an ax story?"

Are you kidding me? I have a Ph.D. in literature. I write stories every day. You might as well ask a little kid if he wants a candy bar. "Absolutely."

"Well, I have an ax just like yours. I live out in the country and I always keep it sharp. One day I was driving home in my truck and there was a grass fire next to the road. I got my ax out and cut some branches and started beating the edges of the fire. Then a young woman stopped and she started helping. She had a wonderful singing voice and later on she sang all over the country."

"What did you do in the war?" I asked.

"I flew B-17s. When the war ended I was a flight instructor."

An image of those old bombers formed in my mind. "Wow. B-17s. That must have been pretty scary." I told him that in Vietnam I went on over a hundred combat missions but returned without a scratch.

We were both silent for a moment. This kind of talk was a little out of place next to the mundane necessities of life, like buying fresh vegetables and sharpening an ax.

"Do you know the song, 'Dancing in the Dark'?" he asked; and without waiting for my answer, he began to sing:

Dancing in the dark
Till the tune ends
We're dancing in the dark and it soon ends
We're waltzing in the wonder of why we're here
Time hurries by, we're here and gone...

It felt strange to be the one-man audience of an old man's song. It was as if he needed to tell me something, and the song was the best way to do it. When he finished I said, "I've heard this song a million times, but I never paid attention to the lyrics. For a love song, it has a pretty existential message."

"Yes, it does."

So for just six dollars I got a nice, sharp edge on my old beat-up ax, plus a gift I hadn't bargained for.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

My Galveston Ghost Story

I recently accompanied my wife, Kathleen Scott, on a visit to Galveston, Texas, to help her research an article on Texas ghosts.

I took her word for it that Galveston was well known for its legends and ghost stories. All I knew was that it was supposed to be a lovely coastal destination, at least until Hurricane Ike blew through in 2008, producing massive flooding damage. I was curious how much they had been able to rebuild - or if there was still a lot of damage.

To set the record straight, there was practically no evidence of damage anywhere. I discovered one of the great coastal cities of the U.S., a vibrant community with lots of cool food, festivals, parks, history and many other fun venues, including a great beach on the Gulf of Mexico with a permanent carnival called Pleasure Pier.

And ghosts! There were quite a few ghost-themed tours. In addition, it was remarkable how many of the locals wanted to talk about their own encounters with ghosts. Kathleen came away with more stories than she can ever use.

One of the more interesting stories was told to us by the fellow who sells tickets at the Pier 21 theater. When his mother died, he was tortured by the suspicion that his brother had murdered her. It was never proven, but soon after her death, the image of his mother appeared to him one night saying, “Let it go. I’ve already forgiven him.” Her ghost never returned, and he never spoke to his brother again.

Galvez Hotel, Galveston, TX

I usually take in stories like this with a mixture of empathy and skepticism. But that night, I had a ghost experience of my own. We were staying in the Galvez Hotel, a beautiful structure that has stood across the street from the beach for over 100 years. The concierge had taken Kathleen on a tour of the hotel, relating all the best-known ghost legends. One of them had to do with the fiancée of a seaman. Every day she would go up to the western turret to gaze out to sea, looking for her lover's return. When she learned that he lost his life in a storm, she committed suicide; and hotel guests have reported seeing her ghost in the hall and in the room, which was across the hall from our room.

One night I was about to fall asleep when I saw a strange, intermittent flickering of light in the room, as if distant lightning was reaching our window. Also, from time to time I would hear a brief, high-pitched moaning sound. I got up to check the window, but the sky was clear. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I was a stranger to this town, and if a spirit was causing these disturbances, then bring it on!

The manifestations kept me awake until I discovered the true cause: a faulty smoke detector.

But sometimes the experiences that people have don’t have a practical explanation. They're actually seeing something they can’t explain, like the case of the man who saw the image of his mother. I had a similar experience 45 years ago in the Army Ranger School.

My buddies and I had been on a long-range patrol for more than a week. The patrol had us lugging 60-pound packs, weapons and radios up and down the mountains of northern Georgia. We subsisted on one small ration a day and about four hours sleep on cold ground. We were exhausted and hungry. Thanksgiving, the most logical time to end the patrol, had come and gone. We had no idea when the ordeal would end.

One afternoon, we stopped at the top of a hill to rendezvous with a resupply helicopter. I looked beyond the valley below and saw our basecamp. To me, this was a sign that we were close to the end of our mission, and I excitedly pointed this out to my buddies. They didn’t share my excitement, saying they didn’t see the camp. When I looked back at the valley, I saw that they were right. There was no camp, just a grove of young trees.

That was a humbling and confusing experience. I chalked my hallucination up to fatigue, and I didn’t think about it again until much later in life, when I was studying how the brain uses the occipital lobes at the back of the brain to create visual images from sensations of the optic nerve. The eye gathers light from the external world, sends it to the visual cortex via the optic nerve, and the brain creates the images.

I also determined that visual images in dreams are created exactly the same way, using image data stored in memory instead of input from the external world. Visual memories work the same way, as do images created when we exercise imagination. Understanding this, ghost sightings have a rational explanation. In moments of emotion or stress, people can simultaneously perceive both images excited by the real world and images stimulated from memory or imagination. It happens all the time, just as it happened to me in Ranger School.

It’s such a common human experience that ghost stories abound, especially in a place like Galveston, which has a history of pirates, hurricanes and other traumatic events. So if you like ghost stories, you really ought to go to Galveston. Once you get there, people will gladly share them with you. And while you’re there, discover why Galveston is such a cool town.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Painted Buntings, Miracles and the Meaning of Life

Painted bunting, 2012 photo by Kathleen Scott

Painted buntings are one of the most outrageously beautiful birds in the world. When we lived in Florida we found them, but only rarely. We had to travel quite a distance to get a glimpse, and we had to know where they were.

In spring in the Texas Hill Country we can look out our kitchen window every day and there they are. Painted buntings are among the birds that migrate into our yard to enjoy our free, all-you-can-eat bird restaurant. It's a good place to hang out in warm weather and raise a family.

And every single time I see one of these impossibly beautiful birds, I think: a miracle. And after watching one of them for a few minutes, I am reminded once again of the meaning of life: to work hard at doing what I do best, for me and my family, and to be my best self, surviving as long as I can. 

Just as these birds do every day.

More photos of the painted bunting by Kathleen Scott...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Benini and the Sculpture Ranch - Glorious Art Treasures Hidden in the Texas Hill Country

Texas is a big place. And within its vast plains and mountain ranges and Hill Country ranches are countless hidden surprises.

For example, when my wife Kathleen and I visited Glen Rose, a tiny town of west of Fort Worth, we not only discovered the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center with 30-million-year-old fossils exposed on the ground and giraffes, zebras and other large animals who ate from our hands, in the town itself was Barnard's Mill and Art Museum, a 150-year old restored mill that houses what may be the most important collection of American western art in the world.

Texas is like that. Hidden treasures. To find them you must seek them.

Recently we discovered another hidden treasure. Accompanying my wife as she researched an article about what she calls the "Texas Hill Country Open-Air Sculpture Trail," we discovered the Benini Galleries and Sculpture Ranch, a 140-acre property that used to be part of Lyndon Johnson's ranch.

Entrance - Benini Galleries and Sculpture Ranch

For more than ten years, the ranch has been home for over 110 large outdoor sculptures. The works of over 40 artists, they include a diversity of styles that will satisfy practically anyone's tastes.

At the center of this remarkable arts destination is Benini (known only by that name), who has been painting for more than 60 years and whose works have been shown in over 160 one-man exhibitions world-wide.

When Kathleen and I showed up one morning to see the sculptures, Benini was there to greet us. He and I began to talk, and I found him so interesting that I opted to continue the conversation rather than tour the outdoor gallery.

As a painter, he has put in his 10,000 hours many times over. He was born in Italy and by the age of seven he began painting in watercolors and has continued painting ever since. A fiercely independent spirit, as a teenager he left the Catholic church and his home to travel around Italy, subsisting on works he painted in public places. In the winter he worked menial jobs and continued his development by copying the masters in museums. In his twenties he found work with the Alpine ski patrol and a cruise ship. When the ship reached the Bahamas, he decided to take up residence, where he painted nudes and island life. In his thirties, he moved to central Florida and became a sensation by painting symbolic roses in an ultra-realistic style on very large canvases.

He became a focus for an art in Florida, but then he sought a more compatible environment in which to work, and he and his new wife Lorraine moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. During the 1990s, Benini's love of the arts and his desire to encourage it stimulated new interest in art in Arkansas. For Benini, art always trumps the business of art, which is why he exhibits only in one-man shows and public institutions - never private galleries. Even today he doesn't expect artists to remit a percentage from the works sold at his ranch.

When he once again felt the need to escape the distractions of attention, they moved to an isolated spot in the Texas Hill Country, which reminded him of the terrain of Italy. Once again, his fame and willingness to promote the careers of his colleagues have created a center of activity, which today is beginning to encroach on his ability to focus on his art.

This history of moving to new venues reveals a spirit that requires the freedom to focus on his work. And not just freedom from distractions - freedom from people who try to define him and guide him to produce certain kinds of work. Neither follower nor leader, for four decades he has refused to be a part of the mainstream art scene, with its art movements, dealers, agents, critics and others who would try to pigeonhole him. Twenty years ago, when he sensed that people were calling him "the rose artist," he stopped painting roses altogether.

Benini - "Forbidden Love"

Indeed, his style of painting defies categorization. It doesn't fit any of the so-called schools or trends discussed by art critics. For decades now, Benini has been using a unique style he invented to satisfy his personal need for expression. It involves laying down over 20 layers of acrylic paint to create the illusion of dimensionality. The objects he represents on his large canvases - some recognizable, like stars and ribbons, and some more abstract - seem to pop out from their two-dimensional canvases and float in space. This effect, combined with his perfect control of color and provocative choice of subject matter, draw in the viewer's eye and make it hard to look away. What the viewer sees sparks emotional connections so basic they are hard to articulate.

I was taken off-guard by the impact of his paintings, partially because I usually prefer more representational art. I love art that offers up images from a recognizable world and helps me understand a new perspective of it. But as I said, Benini is impossible to pigeonhole. Today he paints highly subjective nonrepresentational subjects he calls "Courting Kaos."

Benini - "Face of God"

As Benini walked me through the substantial gallery of his own work, I was dumbfounded by this latest series. To me, they unmistakably expressed the elemental force of the universe - the way star systems form from gaseous nebulae, eventually igniting from the energy created by unimaginable gravity. Similar forces are at work at the subatomic level.

Since his father introduced him to speed-reading at the age of ten, Benini has been a voracious reader and lifelong learner. He showed me his personal library, which exceeds 18,000 volumes. He claims to read a book every day of his life. Since painting in acrylics requires temperatures in the 50s, he paints at night, sleeping only four hours a day.

As I said, he's a remarkable man who has produced a remarkable body of work, and this treasure is hidden in a remote part of the Texas Hill Country. He's invited us to visit again soon, so maybe this time I'll get a chance to walk around the property and see the other sculptures. Or maybe not, if Benini and I get caught up in another stimulating conversation.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

The Blazing Miracle of Sunlight on My Skin

2011 photo by Blaine

We live in the Texas Hill Country, and as we descended out of the hills on our way to the gym one winter morning, I noticed our sun - an astounding blazing star - coming  into view above the eastern horizon.

I know what the sun is. It is one of about 200 billion stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. Relative to these other stars, our sun is considered a "medium-sized" star, which means it's diameter is over 100 times that of Earth. It consists of extremely hot plasma, interlaced with electromagnetic fields. The heat is the thermonuclear energy that is released when hydrogen atoms in the sun's core are forced by it's massive gravity to fuse into helium atoms. Every second the sun creates the equivalent of millions of hydrogen bombs of energy every. The sun's gravity contains most of this energy, keeping it from blowing itself apart.

This process has been going on for more than four billion years and has used up half of the sun's original stores of hydrogen. The same violent process powers all stars. It is what our sun is.

Some of this energy escapes the sun's gravity and radiates into space and about eight minutes later the photons reach our planet. The solar radiation is diffused by our atmosphere, and the effect is what we call daylight.

Standing in the parking lot outside my gym, I felt the left side of my face warming. The sun's radiation was colliding with my skin, stirring up the molecules creating the sensation of heat. The other side of my face remained cool. I turned around and I felt the other side of my face warming.

I gave our star another quick sideways glance. I don't actually look at it because the solar radiation is so intense it would damage my eyes. I did't see a cartoon image. I didn't see a two-dimensional orb as in a photograph. I saw what it is, a mind-boggling massive spherical ball only 93 million miles away, alive with millions of fusion reaction explosions that continuously project unimaginable energy into space. This is the energy that warms us, so that the water on our planet is liquid, and our climates are compatible to life. And which enables photosynthesis on the surface of the planet, which is the process that creates plants, which are eaten by animals - both of which we humans use as food.

Knowing all this lets me perceive the sun for what it is and makes it impossible for me to take it for granted. It enables me to to appreciate it with awe and wonder.

Further thoughts about our sun...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

World's Best Gumbo - Nubian Queen Lola's Cajun Soul Food Cafe

One Saturday my wife Kathleen and I were in Austin, Texas, to visit family and see the Texas vs. Kansas State football game (brother-in-law Charlie has season tickets with great seats on the 30-yard line). Since it was a night game, we decided to check out the art venues of the East Austin Studio Tour. Going from warehouse to warehouse we enjoyed a diversity of talent, genres and styles.

At the end of an experience like this, Kathleen typically asks, "What was your favorite thing?" But my brain doesn't work that way, so I usually answer something like, "I didn't really have a single favorite." But this time I quickly responded with a clear winner. "Lola," I said. "The Nubian Queen."

Sometime around one o'clock on our tour of studios, we started thinking about lunch. And sure enough, inside one of the warehouses next to a wall filled with India ink drawings, a woman had set up a serving station. A customer stood there with a Styrofoam bowl up to her mouth, piled high with rice and sauce. "Looks good," I said. "What is it?"

"Étouffée," she said.

Nubian Queen Lola (2011)

Always the gatherer of stories, Kathleen engaged the server in conversation. She called herself Nubian Queen Lola, owner of the Cajun Soul Food Café in Austin, Texas. Kathleen asked, "When are you open?"

She had a big smile, a spoon in one hand and a baby harnessed to her back. Her answer was touching: "I'm closed on Sunday, because that's the day I go visit my husband. He's in prison."

LOYALTY. COMMITMENT.

"We open at five on Saturday, because that's the day I feed the community. I guess I do that every day, but on Saturday I go out into the community." I found out later that she feeds homeless people.

COMPASSION. SERVICE.

"We're open from 8 AM to 8:45 PM the other days. You need to come visit me at my café. You need to taste my fried chicken."

She was serving two dishes: Cajun gumbo and Cajun étouffée. Kathleen ordered one and I ordered the other, seated ourselves outside at a picnic table, and dug in. We shared. And oh my. My oh my oh my. Served on rice, it was authentic spicy Cajun gumbo made with filé powder, chicken and sausage. The étouffée wasn't greasy. It was peppery with crawfish, garlic, green pepper and onion. I had to go back inside and tell her. "This is the best gumbo I've ever tasted. This is the best étouffée I've ever tasted."

EXCELLENCE.

I took another look at this woman. Lola is more than a wannabe selling a couple dishes on the street. She's a serious businesswoman with strength of character, a real brick-and-mortar restaurant, a kick-ass website and a weekly radio show. She's an action-oriented woman with a big heart.

INITIATIVE. OPTIMISM.

Now you see why Lola was my favorite of the tour. Her spirit inspired me! After the game I came home and wrote another couple pages for the draft of my book, "Conversations with the Wise Aunt," in hopes that my story might someday be as delicious and as helpful to people as her Cajun food.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (2011 photo by Kathleen Scott, used with permission)

A Handful of Fossil Shells and Vast Reaches of Time

One of my favorite memories of the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center near Glen Rose, Texas, was the parking lot outside of the restricted area. While we were waiting for everyone to return to the shuttle vehicle, the guide reached down and grabbed a handful of what looked like gravel. He put it in my hand. "Fossils," he said.

2011 photo by Kathleen Scott

I looked at the material more closely, and sure enough, they weren't tiny pebbles. They were tiny shells. "Wow," I said. "How old are they?"

"Thirty million years old," he said. "All this land used to be under water. Millions of years ago, tectonic subduction pushed this land upward to where it is now."

Thirty million years is more time than the human mind can comprehend. Even though that much time is less than 1% of the age of the Earth.

How about 2 million years? Can you comprehend that? That's about how long humanoid species have existed.

Or 75,000 years? Which is 25 times as long ago as when Christ lived. That's how long modern human have been around.

Or 7,500 years? When written language was invented.

Or 1,000 years? That time-frame isn't so hard. That's how long we've had printed books.

Here's one for the kids - 60 years since the first digital computer and digital text files.

I love looking at these shells and contemplating the awesome reach of time since they were live creatures. That really happened. The Earth really is 4.5 billion years old, and it has an amazing history. We live on this planet. It's the only home we'll ever have. I think it's important to learn all we can about it, so we can appreciate it when we decide to pay attention to it.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

My Wife's New Ticket to Magic

My wife Kathleen and I have a lot in common. We both love nature and the arts. We're both into nutrition and fitness. We both write. And we're both big-picture thinkers. We strike a nice balance between reason and imagination, though I guess I'm the more organized, practical one, and Kathleen is the more outgoing, spontaneous one. In short, we not only have good common ground, we complement each other.  Thanks to her, I've learned more about birds, butterflies, fish, gardening, wine and travel than I thought my brain was capable of. Thanks to her, my life is ten times richer than it otherwise would be!

In a previous life, Kathleen was a successful commercial banker. But she hated the stress, so those days are over. For the past several years she's been working on the craft of writing. Always a good writer, she decided to write a mystery novel and a blog. Her posts on food and travel caught the eye of an editor at the San Antonio Express-News, and for more than a year she's been a regular contributor to the Travel Section. At this point, her list of publications is fairly lengthy.

Recently Kathleen created a new website, TicketToMagic.com, to make her published articles more accessible to editors and travel bureaus. And to her friends, who'd like to read the articles they've missed. If you know Kathleen or if you're just plain curious, check out her site. One of her articles may inspire you to attempt one of those getaway weekends. That's what she wrote them for!  

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Fossil Rim Wildlife Center - Close Encounters of the Best Kind

Kathleen and I went on a weekend excursion up to Glen Rose, a small town in north-central Texas. When we got there, the first thing we did was to visit the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, a 1700-acre non-profit preserve that is home to 50 species of exotic and endangered animals.

In our car we followed closely behind one of their customized open-air tour buses as it slowly meandered around the property. People come here to see the animals up close. But Fossil Rim is the opposite of a zoo. Instead of people roaming free to view animals in enclosures, the animals roam free while people watch from enclosures.

They provide bags of special kibble approved for feeding the animals. So the not-so-dumb creatures come up to the vehicles, where people are more than happy to feed them. The technique is to let them snarf a piece of kibble from the palm of your hand. These are very close encounters.

I feed a fallow deer...

I feed an aoudad...

At one stop, an adult giraffe stuck his head in the window for a treat. At another stop, two eager zebras crowded into one window. They're beautiful but demanding, best to throw the feed out the window!

The addax, AKA screwhorn antelope, is a critically endangered species of antelope that normally lives in the Sahara desert. They are usually about three feet tall at the shoulders and weigh about 200 pounds.

I feed an addax...

When you offer these large wild animals kibble, they are as sweet as they can be. The intimacy created by hand-feeding made me conscious of a real affinity. I looked into their eyes and thought, I like it when someone offers me food, too. Since the asteroid strike 65 million years ago, we both made it this far. They say your species is in danger. They say my species is in danger, too. You and me, Bubba.

We spent the night in a tiny tent-like bungalow with A/C and running water. After dinner, we indulged in a glass of wine while sitting in wooden chairs overlooking a large pond where the animals came for their own nightcap. In many ways, this experience is better than an African safari.

We were still sipping wine when it got dark, and we had a good view of the galaxy. No wi-fi, no TV, no phones, no outdoor lights, no nonsense. Just Kathleen, me, the wild animals and the cosmos.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (2011 photos by Kathleen Scott, used with permission)

Governor Rick Perry Sends Message - Texans Have a Right to Text While Driving

In the Saturday, June18, 2011 issue of the San Antonio Express-News, Gary Sharrer reported: "Gov. Rick Perry vetoed legislation Friday that would have banned texting while driving because he views it as a government effort to micromanage the behavior of adults.'"

Amazing, but true. I suppose he'd get rid of the law requiring people to buckle their seat belts, if he could. What's the difference? Both laws are intended to save lives. Both "micromanage" the behavior of adults.

By vetoing the bill, he sends the message that texting while driving is OK, even though he claims to believe the opposite. Either he doesn't care whether people die from inattention while driving due to texting, or he does care but is ignorant of why texting while driving is a danger. I just can't believe he's that callous. My theory is he's just ignorant.

I imagined a scenario where he's out hunting with his rocker and gun rights activist friend, Ted Nugent, on Nugent's ranch.

Nugent: "Hey Rick Baby, what's this b......t I hear about the legislature passing a bill banning texting while driving?"

Perry: "Yup. It's on my desk."

Nugent: "Well, g.....n, Rick. What's the deal? What liberal m..........r came up with this stupid idea?"

Perry: "The legislature is mostly Republican, Ted."

Nugent: "I don't give a s..t, Rick. Nobody's gonna keep me from texting in my car. I have a right to do anything I want in my car. What's the state of Texas coming to? What are you going to do about it, Rick?"

Perry: "I'm going to veto it, that's what."

Nugent: "Well all right, then."

Of course this conversation or anything like it never happened, at least not to my knowledge.

But here's what Perry doesn't know about why texting while driving is so dangerous. It has to with some well-known facts about how the brain handles information. It's this:

The human brain can focus conscious awareness on only one thing at a time. 

That's right. It's impossible to pay attention to two things simultaneously. Some people claim to be able to do it, but they're mistaken. The classic example is a pianist playing a song while carrying on a conversation with a listener. It looks like he's paying attention to both the song and the conversation simultaneously. But he's not. He's memorized the piece, he's played it countless times before, and he's playing now it automatically without thinking about it. His brain is working outside of conscious attention to play the song. This enables the pianist to talk back and forth with the listener. He might occasionally shift his attention to the piano, but during those brief seconds he doesn't hear everything the speaker says.

Unconsciously, your brain can do lots of things simultaneously. But consciously, it can pay attention to only one thing at a time. 

This physical, biological limitation is a scientifically proven fact. It no doubt exists to enable problem solving. If we could be aware of everything at once, our consciousness would be flooded with so much input that our brains couldn't sort through it in time to deal with it. But the requirement to focus consciously on one thing enables us to quickly figure out how to deal with it. It's actually a survival mechanism.

So when a driver is concentrating on keying in the right letters of a text message, guess what he has no awareness of. That's right. He won't notice changes in the traffic around him, like a turn in the road, a sign posting reduced speed, a pedestrian trying to cross, or a car braking.

The same is true of voice conversations on a cell phone, even the "hands-free" type. When you're truly paying attention to what's being said, you lose awareness of everything else. The best you can do is switch your awareness back and forth, which makes for inept conversation and dangerous driving.

Drunk drivers have impaired awareness of the road. Texters - while they're typing in text - have no awareness of the road at all. Now one technique might be to type in one letter, then quickly look back at the road. Then look away to type in another letter, etc. That way, your awareness of the road ahead would go blank for only two or three seconds at a time. This best-case scenario causes more impaired perception than drunk driving. You could look up and realize that you should have been braking and it would be too late. It's an unsettling thought.

In all fairness, Rick Perry is not the only person ignorant of the real reason texting while driving is dangerous. I've explained this to many people and not one of them was aware if it. They thanked me, but I don't know how many of them stopped texting while driving. You know how people have a way of shoving reality out of their minds...

That's why it needs to be against the law. And oh yeah, while they're at it, don't just make it illegal. Why not tell the public the real reason it's so dangerous? People do it because they're ignorant.

Like our governor.

Casting about looking for people with their feet on the ground and eyes open to the real world, I found this cute song.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Havasupai Indian Waterfall Relaxation Video

After five years in the Texas Hill Country, I've learned that the weather here is unpredictable. What will the winter be like? What will the summer be like? We never know. The reason is that cool air from Canada sometimes blows down to mix with hot air that sometimes blows up from Mexico. Or not. A lot of variability is possible.

This year we're having record drought. So far, only 1.5 inches during the past 6 months. It's not even summer yet and for three straight days the temperature has hit 100 F.

So to balance things out, I found this video on YouTube. It seems to be an Internet favorite...over 2.7 million people have viewed it. For all you folks who are trying to beat the heat, enjoy...



Need more? World's Most Beautiful Waterfall

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Rapture at the Farmer's Market - Still Big Business after All These Years

Kathleen and I go to the New Braunfels farmer's market nearly every Saturday morning. The produce is delicious, it's grown organically on local farms, and the vendors are people we know. There's always live music and a big crowd. If you want the best greens and tomatoes, you gotta get there early. And do you remember the children's book by Dr. Seuss called Green Eggs and Ham? You can buy green eggs at this market.

2011 photo by Kathleen Scott

On a recent visit, Kathleen and I were walking from the parking lot to the stalls when Kathleen started laughing. She whipped out her camera and took this picture.

I wasn't laughing. I first heard about the Rapture in 1973, when I was a much younger man. I was an Army captain and had recently survived a combat tour in Vietnam and two intense years at the Duke University Graduate School. With my degree in hand, I had arrived at West Point for a new assignment as an English professor. Quite a few of my West Point class of 1967 buddies were there to join other departments, so one evening we assembled at one of their homes for drinks. 

Most of my friends were talking excitedly about the Rapture. I was surprised at how many of my classmates and their wives had read the Hal Lindsey bestseller, The Late, Great Planet Earth (1970), and had passionately embraced the idea. I was a Christian myself, but I hadn't read the book and I hadn't heard about the Rapture. I remember how incredible it sounded to me. The end times were near, and one day all the faithful would be swept up en masse - physically - into heaven, while everyone else would be left behind wondering where they all went. The believers would be safe with Jesus, and the nonbelievers would perish in the apocalypse. My friends, who cared about me, didn't want me to be left behind. 

This was nearly 40 years ago. In a later book, The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon, Lindsey prophesied that "the decade of the 1980s could very well be the last decade of history as we know it." No, none of my friends were raptured. I sometimes wonder how long they continued to believe in it, or if any of them still do - like our guy with the zany pickup truck at the farmer's market .

Because apparently the Rapture is still a very big deal, or at least big business. Hal Lindsay's 1970 book sold over 20 million copies. He's still alive and prophesying and receiving royalty checks from it. In 1995 the first of the Left Behind series of 15 novels was published. These later became the basis for a series of popular movies and video games. 

End-of-the-world predictions have proven false countless times, but there seems to be a never-ending market for more. The Jehovah's Witnesses predicted the end in 1914, 1918, 1925 and 1942. Chuck Smith predicted Jesus would return in 1981. A Korean sect called "Mission for the Coming Days" predicted that the Rapture would happen on October 28, 1992. Edgar Whisenant predicted the end in 1989, then 1992, then 1995, and again later. John Hinkle of Christ Church in Los Angeles predicted that the end would come on June 9, 1994.  Radio evangelist Harold Camping set the end-date for September 6, 1994. When that didn't happen, he revised the date for May 21, 2011.

Hey, wait a minute...that was yesterday!

AP writer Garance Burke's Internet article, "Apocalyse believers await end, skeptics carry on," relates the experiences of Christians lured to California for the latest Rapture event, which didn't happen. What are the chances that Harold Camping will revise his prediction again? Or that believers will be taken in again? I would say the chances are high. According to the article, Camping's IRS filing reveals that his "Family Radio" enterprise received $18.3 million in donations in 2009 and had $104 million in assets, including $34 million in securities.

I've come to accept that this is the way the world works, at least in my lifetime. I have a deep respect for the human need for hope and faith and for the role the world's religions play in satisfying this need. But I'm always surprised at the strangeness of some of the beliefs, and how reluctant people in general are face up to hard truths.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Art and Sham Art - It's Important to Know the Difference

When Kathleen and I explore the Texas Hill Country, we usually go in search of the unique, the beautiful, and the excellent.

On one recent excursion, we visited the Laguna Gloria extension of the Austin Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. The indoor-outdoor venue was built in 1916 by Clara Driscoll, a remarkable woman who once fought to raise funds to preserve the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. The 12-acre property is situated on a hill a few hundred feet from Lake Austin. I enjoyed walking through the gardens and viewing the outdoor sculptures.

Alas IV (1993) Betty Gold

Until I came across this "sculpture," that is. It's title: "Alas IV."

Alas, indeed. It caused me to cringe and imagine this dialog between an artist and a welder:

"Look, you've got a nice variety of scrap metal here. What I'd like you to do is just pick up pieces at random and weld them together to make whatever shape comes to mind. Ideally, the sheets will come together at all sorts of odd angles. The finished piece has to be real stable, because I'm going to mount it outdoors. Can you do it?"

"Sure."

"Good. Can you have it done by next Monday?"

"If not sooner. But it's going to cost you $300."

"Not a problem. Go ahead, then, and when you get it about three feet tall, stop and call me."

Now, I'm sure nothing like this actually happened. The problem is, it could have happened and the result would have been at least as impressive as this meaningless stack of junk. It doesn't pass the "a-kid-could-have-done-it" test. Or the "it-could-have-been-knocked-off-in-a-couple-hours" test. Or the "I-could-have-found-this-in-a-dumpster" test.

Not everything that a human being can do automatically qualifies as art. You have to draw the line somewhere. Yes of course you can put it in a museum; but if it doesn't communicate anything meaningful and there's no visible evidence of achievement, I insist that it's not art.

I once saw a petrified turd pinned to the bottom of a cigar box in the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. I don't care what the art critics say, it's not art.

For a long time, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City displayed a set of seven large, pale canvases. The only shape on the canvases was a single horizontal line. The canvases had subtle differences, but for all practical purposes they looked almost alike. The group of paintings was entitled, "Seven Stations of the Crucifixion." With all due respect to the New York City poobahs, this is not art.

The Austin Museum of Art downtown has some impressive works by young artists. But it also has some ordinary furniture displayed in one corner. It's not there for the comfort of the visitors. No, some "performance artists" regularly come in for a couple hours, hang out with the furniture and pretend that they are in an incompatible relationship. I'm sorry. I don't care if university professors do ramble on about it, this doesn't make it art.

What is it, then? I heard one silver-haired lady loudly refer to it with a two-syllable word that begins with "b" and ends with "t." Yes, but to be polite, I'll call it sham art - artless concoctions displayed as if they were real art. Sham art per se doesn't surprise me or bother me. You see it for sale cheap in arts and craft shows all the time. What's bothersome is that many museum curators don't seem to know the difference.

Actually, it's more than bothersome. It pisses me off. Because there's a lot of real art out there. And if we are to treasure it and teach our kids about it, we have to know the difference. And stop displaying sham art in museums.

You want to see some real art? Go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Frick Collection in New York City, and look for some of the paintings of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675).

Or go to the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas in Austin. Catch their collection of renaissance and baroque art, or their James Michener collection of contemporary art.

Or check out this this outdoor sculpture and others by Charles Umlauf at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum in Austin.

War Mother (1939) Charles Umlauf

Well, the folks at the Austin Museum of Art told us they're going to have to close their doors permanently in a few months. Maybe they should have been more discriminating about what they put in front of the public....

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Buildingo Personal Strength . (2011 photos by Kathleen Scott, used with permission)

The Country and Western Music Business - Passion Required

Dan McCoy - New Braunfels, TX (2011)

As I entered the farmer's market in downtown New Braunfels one Saturday morning, I heard the familiar sound of live music. Each week a different group or singer is featured. I usually don't pay much attention, because...well, the level of talent isn't very high.

But this particular Saturday was different. It was a country and western singer named Dan McCoy. He had a mellow voice and the music and lyrics were original and thought-provoking. This guy is good, I thought.

Nelson Broyal - Blanco, TX (2010)

He reminded me of Nelson Broyal, a talented singer-songwriter of bluesy Texas country ballads who plays regularly in the Redbud Cafe and the Sunset Restaurant on the town square in Blanco, Texas.

I talked with Dan a little bit after his song. He's a local who writes and performs whenever he can get a gig. He told me that George Strait had recorded a couple of his songs. That's a big deal, because the only way a songwriter can make decent money is if a song becomes a hit.

When Kathleen and I visited the Country and Western Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee, we attended an interactive presentation by two Nashville songwriters, who explained the music business and answered questions. We learned that many singers don't write their own music. The songwriter gets a small cut of each sale, then there's a publishing agent's fee, and of course Uncle Sam. All of this happens more than a year after the song is recorded. If you do the math, you see that even for a Top Ten hit, it doesn't amount to a huge payday.

In the music business success breeds success. From time to time, a No. 1 hit will lead to another, and then lots of artists are asking for your music. It's like "the major leagues" in sports: this level of success doesn't come to many.

Dan McCoy looked to be in his late 50s, but he was giving it a go, doing the street singer scene with his pile of CDs and his donation bucket out front. I was impressed with how powerful his passion for music must be to not give up on his dream. There are tens of thousands of people just like him pursuing the same dream.

And I thought: These guys are just like you and me. You have to have this level of passion to achieve any dream. Passion is a requirement, because there are too many hard things to do. You'd never do them if you weren't passionate and committed.

And yet another thought: passion may be required, but it doesn't guarantee success, even if your passion causes you to achieve lots of talent. At least in the music business, you need luck. You need the "big break." You need to hit it out of the park. You need superstars like George Strait, Garth Brooks, Willy Nelson, or Dolly Parton to cover your song. And then after that the song has to be one of the lucky ones that listeners go crazy about. This kind of thing does happen, but not to most.

Dan McCoy and Nelson Broyal are the real deal. They're creative musicians and loaded with talent. So I did the same thing for Dan that I did for Nelson. I told him I loved his music and gave him $20 for his CD. Both were effusive with their appreciation.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (Photos by Kathleen Scott, used with permission)

World-Class Chicken Salad Sandwich

I was walking with Kathleen down West San Antonio Street in downtown New Braunfels, Texas, when my eye was drawn to one of those humorous signs that you see in gift shops. This message was displayed in old-timey white letters on a foot-wide dark-brown board:

MOTTO TO LIVE BY

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive, well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, what a ride!"

"That would make a good gift for Wilson and McDermott," I said.

She read the sign and laughed, but didn't say whether she agreed with me about the gift idea. I got the feeling that it wouldn't end up being a gift. She knows gifts. I don't. Or maybe she didn't agree with the message.

So Wilson and McDermott, if you're reading this, I'm afraid this blog post will have to do....

I thought the spirit of the message was a good one, but I'd take a middle ground. I would keep the chocolate and glass of wine and the skidding in sideways part, but maybe preserving my body would extend the ride, give me more woo-hoos.

A few doors down, we were at our destination, a specialty eatery and food shop called Gourmage. They serve breakfast and lunch, and some of the coolest cheeses, chocolates, sauces and food accessories in the world are available for sale. Kathleen had a smoked duck sandwich on cheese bread, with French onion soup. I sampled it. Awesome sandwich. Awesome soup.

I had the chicken salad sandwich. I guess I'm some kind of chicken salad sandwich freak, because if it's on the menu, I order it. It's as if I'm on some kind of quest to find the best chicken salad sandwich in the world. It has been a pleasant quest so far.

This sandwich included roasted chicken with parsley, chopped scallions and celery, dried cranberries and a sour-cream-and-mayo sauce on a delicious croissant. It was awesome. The wonderful smoked chicken salad sandwich served at the Gristmill Restaurant in nearby Gruene has been officially replaced by by this one. It was so good I wanted another one. I declared it the best chicken salad sandwich within 50 miles.

I've written about chicken salad sandwiches before.

So maybe I'm a chicken salad sandwich in one hand, glass of wine in the other hand, skidding in sideways kind of guy. To each his own. However you do it, I wish you endless woo-hoo experiences and arriving at the end of it all with no regrets over things you didn't do.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .