Hiking, Business Trips And Babies
This Friday I’m going to climb a mountain. Well, I’m probably going to climb a mountain. It’s a small mountain called “Baldy.” Its summit is about 8500 feet above sea level. That might not sound like a little mountain if you are living in Seattle, or LA, or New Orleans. You know, places actually at sea level. But, I live in Pleasant Grove, UT. My house is about 5000 above sea level. So, the hike will be about 3500 vertical feet and 12 miles over two days.
We take the scouts on this hike every year. We are hiking with 12-13 year old boys. This is a hard hike. It’s been decades since I was a 12-13 year old scout, and it’s a tough hike for me. We had the hike planned for either this weekend or next weekend. . .depending on weather.
Hiking the Rockie Mountains in May is a chancy outing. We are expecting snow above 8000 feet this week. We are thinking it will clear off by the times we leave on Friday. In past years, we’ve hiked in freezing rain, and brilliant sunshine. There are been years it was all we could do to get up and down the canyons with no thought of the summit. Other years, the weather has been perfect.
This year we hedged our bets with the two weekends. It was only later that we realized that next weekend is a major holiday in the United States and next Friday is the last day of school. You know, school for those 12-13 year old boys. So, we are happy that the weather appears to be cooperating.
We recently welcomed a new grandchild to our family last Friday. We are thrilled, as you can imagine. Mother and baby are doing great. In the past we’ve grieved with some of our children as they’ve dealt with tragedy around their kids, so we take nothing for granted. The baby almost came the previous Friday. My daughter was at the end of her pregnancy and if the baby didn’t come on it’s own, the doctors decided to induce her. Originally, it was scheduled for May 5th. As the date got closer, the doctors decided to put it off a week.
I have a huge project going on at work. It will involve switching a large portion of our architecture to a new platform. I have four locations across the United States and the change will require me to spend two weeks at each location. Originally, we scheduled the transition to start in June. My summer was going to be very, very busy.
As we got closer to the due date, it became obvious that pieces of the project plan were not coming together as quickly as we needed them to. We made the decision to push off our transition to October. My summer freed up a little and my winter just got busy.
Despite being a technology guy, I am a firm believer in tangible tools. I have a pocket watch, I write letters and I keep a physical paper calendar. If it’s not written in that calendar, it’s possibly not going to happen. I write down just about everything; project dates, vacations and kids birthdays. And I end writing all of them in pencil.
You never know what will come up.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2017 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
