Don't tell me it can't be done when I believe it can

On a paticularly steamy Summer day a few years ago, I had an idea. I thought it was a good idea.

You see, I have a black car. I didn't really pick the color as at the time I purchased it I needed a car immediately and that was the color that was available.

Black cars offer some challenges. They are impossible to keep clean as they show every little spot, and they get extremely hot on the inside during warm weather.

Living in the San Fernando Valley, it gets mighty hot in the Summer here and my car sometimes gets so hot it feels like it might truly burst into flames at any moment.

So, as a person who is always trying to solve the problem, I mentioned my idea for a solution to a friend of mine.

"There has to be a way to use the increasing heat outside to actually cool the car on the inside. Like, by triggering a fan or something."

My friend, who I consider intelligent as he is a chemial engineer by trade, said, "It can't be done."

"What? Why not?" I wanted to know.

"It's a basic principle of physics -- you can't make cold from hot or vice-versa."

I didn't believe him then and I don't believe him now.

Especially since Toyota is using just such technology in their Prius.

I hate it when someone tells me that something can't be done. And I'm very happy that I was right and my friend was wrong.

It seemed so simple to me, and it turns out that it was.

So physics be damned, you can make cold from hot, if you use the right tools.

Now I'm trying to think about other instances when someone told me something couldn't be done and then somebody did it.

I'm not one to say, "I told you so", but it doesn't feel good to know that I was on the right track with my idea, that I wasn't alone in thinking it.

So I'll keep trying to come up with new solutions to old problems as I always have whether they seem impossible or not.