I just completed a 36-hour work day, and all the charter applications have been fedexed to NYC. It almost didn't happen, because, after I stayed awake all night to finish the damn thing, I fell asleep immediately after dropping it at the printer's and nearly missed the afternoon fedex pickup.

Which is why I had to drive to Harvard Business School, where there is a mailroom that has a six o'clock pickup. When you go into Harvard Business School, the first thing you encounter, other than very wealthy students wearing sweatpants in public, are sets of huge doors. Ten, twelve feet tall. When you pull them open, they have this funny little mechanism that just sort of helps you out ever so slightly. You still need to pull the door - it isn't like the supermarket - but after opening it about a third of the way it kind of goes by itself.

Now, this gadget does not change the way one opens a door, since it still takes a little effort to get a twelve-foot door going. But what it does change is your follow-through. The door takes over and then stays open a second before closing very slowly. It only took my going in and out a couple of times to realize that using a door like this all the time would very quickly make the habit of holding the door for anyone obselete. You'd just sort of be touching a door that was really staying open by itself.

That can't be good.