I attended an Eagle Scout Court of Honor Saturday night. The new Eagle is a great kid. I’ve been one of his scout leaders. Many of current boys in our patrol were also at the Court of Honor. One of them asked about the campout on Friday. My “I’m going to the mountains” moment.
I don’t want to talk about it.
Why, was it cold?
No, it was cancelled!
It’s just a camping trip, right? In fact, it was a one night trip. And it was the hardest, most difficult hike we do every year. It’s 12 miles and about 4,000 feet in elevation change.
I hate hiking. Well, that’s not totally true. I enjoy many aspects of hiking; the fresh air, the beatiful scenery, the waterfalls. The part I have trouble with is the walking up and down the mountains.
I used to be good at it. I used to be able to run for miles without tiring. I never even thought about the issues with hiking up a mountain.
Those days are long past.
Now, I take ibuprofen before the hike. I take ibuprofen during the hike and I take ibuprofen after the hike. And even then, I’m a slow hiker. I hike slowly up the mountain and I hike even slower down the mountain. Actually, I stumble down the mountain, one painful hobbled step at a time.
Why then would I look forward to, even be disappointed to not be able to make such a climb?
Partly it’s that this is the third time we’ve tried to make this hike. First was in May. I cleared my schedule. But, none of the other leaders were available to go in May. I didn’t bother to pack.
The high mountain ridges and saddles are beautiful in May. Spring comes late to the meadows above 6000 feet. When we make the ascent on “Baldy,” at 8800 feet, there’s still snow on the North slopes. We typically glissade down the snow fields.
We rescheduled our trip for August. But, just as Spring comes late to the high meadows, fall comes early. The changing leaves start at the highest peaks and march down the slopes through the early summer and into fall.
The meadow is full of aspen. It’s not visible from the valley floor. We assumed it would be vibrate. It can be brutally hot in the valley in August. Hot and dry. Perfect fire conditions. August had a big one in the South part of the valley. In fact, there were two fires, the Bald Mountain fire and the Pole Creek fire. Together they burned over 100,000 acres. That makes a lot of smoke. Most of the time that smoke blows East. Occasionally, it blows North.
The day before our campout the winds shifted. Unlike smog, which limits itself to the valleys, smoke clings to the mountains and goes where the wind blows. There is no escaping the smoke by climbing above it.
A 12 mile hike is challenging enough, but trying to do that hike in the smoke is insane. And we couldn’t risk the boys. I had packed for this one.
My backpack sat in the garage fully packed.
We rescheduled for November. Winter also comes early. It snowed last week in the higher elevations. Mt Timpanogos has a wonderful blanket of snow. We are hoping it’s the beginning of a good snow year.
The sun warmed the high meadows and much of the snow at the lower elevations had melted. We assumed it would be cold, but the forecast was for clear skies.
Our number of boys able to commit to the campout had dwindled the later we got into the year. We had two boys able to attend on Friday. I repacked my gear, switching out the warm weather gear for colder weather. My pack weight increased as I added thicker sleeping pads, and a heavier coat.
I drove myself to the trailhead for our 4:00 departure. The weather was gorgeous. The sun was warm without being too hot. A gentle breeze stirred the yellowing leaves. I was officially off duty. I’d arranged someone to cover my phone in case of any outages. I was looking forward to 24 hours of diversion.
Unfortunately, I’d missed a text from an hour earlier. The hike was cancelled. The boys, and leaders couldn’t make it.
We’ve are planning to do the hike in May. I’m not sure if we have rescheduled or cancelled.
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.
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I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essemtial facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
-Henry David Thoreau
When Thoreau “went to the woods,” he stayed for 2 years, 2 months and 2 days. He built his own cabin on land owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was a place known as Walden Pond and is near Concord, Massachusetts.
I don’t intend to spend nearly that long. And I’m not going to the woods. And I won’t be building a cabin.
But. . .
Thoreau’s quote calls to me this week. So, I shall go to the mountains because I wish to avoid distractions, to carry with me the essentials of life, and see if I could not what it had to teach, and not when I die, discover I had not lived.
Well, I’ll be camping this weekend at 6,000 feet in the snow, so hopefully the death part will come later rather than sooner.
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.
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I attended a football game today. It was the sophomore game for our local high school, Pleasant Grove Vikings. My son is on the team. It’s his first year playing football.
The game start time of 5:30PM was later than the sophomore games normally start. Fall has definitely come to Utah. It was about 50 degrees at kickoff and then dropped a lot after the sun went down. As parents we huddled on the aluminum bleachers and tried to stay warm. It was mostly a losing effort. It matched the results on the field.
Do you know why you attend a sophomore football game on a cold Thursday evening? You go to watch your son play, of course. My son is a cornerback, and he plays on the the kick return team. Cornerback is a position on the defense and the kick return team gets to play after the other team scores a touchdown or a field goal.
I love to see my son play. It makes me a bad fan.
My job has two parts: proactive and reactive. The proactive part I have to plan for and manage. The reactive parts can come out of nowhere. If something were to break right now, I’d pretty much drop what I’m doing and work on it.
The reactive part of my job is actually the funnest part. Sure, it can be inconvenient at times, but it’s rarely boring and I’m really good at it.
Offenses are proactive. They have the ball. They get to plan out what they want to do. They get to be the actors.
Defenses are reactive. They don’t get to do anything until the ball is put in play. They have plans, but those plans might change in an instant depending on what their opponents do. They are the reactors.
I enjoy the reactive aspects of my job the most. It makes me a good empolyee.
My son got to play a lot in the game today. I was happy. But, that’s the problem. The only way that my son gets to play is if the other team has the ball. If the other team has the ball, my son’s team has very few scoring opportunities. The defense did manage to score a safety. But, typically if your defense is on the field, it means your team isn’t doing well.
And when the other team scores, my son gets to play again. The other team scored 9 times. My son played a lot.
It’s hard for me to root for my son’s team. If the team does well, if their offense dominates the time of possession, if they prevent the other team from scoring, they will do well as a team. They’ll win. But, my son won’t play. I’ll go to the game, but mostly be bored as I watch my son patrol the sidelines.
My job is similar. When I have lots of outages, when I have to be reactive, address issues and find solutions on the fly, my job is much more exciting. If everything goes according to plan, I’m watching from the sidelines.
It’s safe, but it’s not quite as exciting.
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.
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Okay, I’m not actually under my bed. But, that’s only because there’s actually not any room under there. But, in my head? Yeah, totally hiding under the bed.
From what, you might ask? Nothing. Everything. I’m not sure. And I know exactly why.
Generalized Anxiety Syndrome.
It sounds fake. Like the name they make up when they can’t find a real reason for some problem or issue.
I discovered it a couple months ago. By that I mean I was finally able to put a name on my actions. I did it by reading an interview that Tom Arnold gave of all people. He explained how Generalized Anxiety Syndrome had made him feel. And I realized that was how I felt. He talked about what he did to combat it and I made a plan. I’m good with plans.
Genalized Anxiety Syndrome is great at screwing up the best laid plans.
I went to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor. I have a great doctor. She’s my family’s doctor. In fact, when I show up, they ask me about my wife. Everyone there knows her. Dr Springer is the doctor for all of my children.
The doctor perscribed an anti-anxiety drug. I took it. It takes a while to work. I gave it a while. It didn’t work.
I went back to the doctor. She told me to take more of the drug. Which is probably good advice. I’m taking more of the drug. It takes a while to work. I’m giving it a while.
In the mean time, I hide under the bed. I get up everyday and hide under the bed. I go to work and hide under the bed. I talk on the phone and hide under the bed. I attend meetings and hide under the bed. I come home and hide under the bed. I go to bed, sleeping on the top and I hide under the bed. And I get up and do it all again as I hide under the bed. It’s not comfortable under the bed. I don’t particularly like it under the bed. It’s dark and a little scary under the bed.
In addition to upping my meds, the doctor told me to get counseling. Actually, she told me this six weeks ago. And I’ve been meaning to get with a counselor. But, I cannot find any of them under the bed.
There are a lot of things that I can’t do under the bed, that I can’t find under the bed. Maybe the therapist can help me climb out from under the bed. Maybe the increased medication will help me climb out from under the bed.
Until then, I’ll just be waiting here. . .under the bed.
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.
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Autumn is the time when trees die. They aren’t supposed to really die, of course. We have the hope that with the Spring, the trees will once again bud out and they cycle will repeat.
Except this year, as the colors started to turn, summer heat gave way to cooler fall temperatures and the rains came, it brought the remnants of a Pacific storm. A rainstorm, even a slow moving one, is preceded by wind. Sometimes quite strong.
Is that supposed to be like that?
What?
That tree. The one that fell over.
A tree was completely down. Snapped about 3 feet above the ground. It wasn’t just any ordinary tree. It was a four-year old Maple. One of nine that we’d planted as bareroot sablings. At the time we planted it, the entire tree wasn’t much taller than the remaining broken portion of the trunk.
At that time, my neighbor, who has a beautiful lawn and trees, cautioned us that we might lose up to half of them. Instead, all nine grew. The shortest is 25′ tall. The tallest is close to 40′.
The sensible thing to do would be to saw off the broken portion, and get rid of it.
But, I just couldn’t.
Do you know that scientists cannot explain the evolutionary benefit that deciduous trees get from brightly colored leaves? Evolution works. We know that plants and animals, even people, adapt to their environment. Genetic traits that help the species to survive get passed on. Those that don’t, tend to get weeded out.
But, why brightly colored leaves instead of bland grey or tan ones?
We don’t know. But, isn’t it amazing that one of the things we find so magical and beautiful this time of year has no evolutionary benefit? It’s almost as if God himself decided to pain us a picture every fall. One respendant with reds, and oranges and yellows.
I didn’t cut down my tree. I noticed that the bark wasn’t completely broken all the way around the tree. I propped it back and braced the trunk.
Then, I secured it with ropes. . .A lot of ropes.
Maybe it will die anyway. Maybe the damage is too great. Maybe next Spring when the other eight Maples start to put forth new leaves, this tree will remain trapped in the death grip of winter. Maybe I can’t save this tree.
But, then again, maybe I can.
At least I’ll try.
See you next Spring.
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.
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Twice last week friends asked me about hew to get into the IT industry. They are young and just starting on their careers. In fact, they aren’t even sure they want to go into IT, but it sounds interesting to them.
And honestly, it’s a good industry. It’s just not as good as it used to be.
I had the amazing good fortune to get into the computer industry at the perfect time. I started at WordPerfect Corporation in 1988. When I started, all that was required was a recommendation and the ability to touch type. I became an email expert simply by being on the phones and answering questions.
In 1992, I went to Microsoft. They hired me because I knew the MHS Gateway. I stayed there for nearly a decade. During that time I became more of an expert on email. I wrote a couple of books. And I made a lot of money. I discovered something called “stock options.”
Microsoft’s stock was going up 20%-30% per year. We were all getting rich. Some people spent their money on fancy cars and expensive vacations. I spent mine adopting kids. Well, I built a big house too. But, mostly adopting kids.
And then it ended. Well, the jobs were still there, of course. But, in the year 2000 the stock market crashed. We, at least many of us, lost our fortunes. We went from being paper-millionairs to just regular IT workers.
The industry started to change as well. Microsoft stock stayed mostly flat. Gone were the huge stock portfolios. Gone were many of the cars, and houses.
Bill Gates, started Microsoft, of course. He was higher up on the wealth wave than any of us could imagine being. He eventually got marriaed and started a faily. He stepped away from the day to day operations of Microsoft. He started his foundation and worked on giving away his wealth.
He grew up. And the industry grew up with him.
When I started 30 years ago, the industry was like the Wild West. We did crazy things because we didn’t know any better. We tried outlandish things and if they failed, we tried something new, and we kept trying until we figured it out. Titles were created to fit the task. There were no certificiations so we created them ourselves.
Today, the industry is defined by certifications. A+, JCW, AWS, Azure, PMP, Microsoft, Cisco. The industry has titles that are well understood and defined. Program Manager, Technical Account Manager, Network engineer, Telecom engineer.
Salaries are published on places on glassdoor.com. Someone starting in the industry knows what to expect. If you stay in the industry five years, ten years, or twenty years, you have a pretty good idea what your salary would be.
The IT industry became the banking industry, with regular hours and job titles, tasks lists and clearly defined areas of responsibility.
There’s nothing wrong with the banking industry, of course. They are nice safe jobs. Solid careers. Just like the IT industry is now. All that’s left of the glory days are stories.
However, having spent my money on adoptions, I’m reminded on a daily basis of what my fortunes in the early days of the IT industry got me.
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.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2018 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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This is a post about politics that is not political. Well, that’s my plan anyway. You don’t come here for politics. You can get that many places online.
But, sometimes politics can teach us lessons about business and life. That’s my goal today. If I fail, just trust in the fact I don’t talk politics much.
Brett Kavanaugh
Unless you are someone with no connection to the internet, and no radio or newspapers. . .or any friends, you know who he is. He was nominated by the president for a position on the Supreme Court As they do for all Supreme Court nominations, Congress is required to provide “advice and consent.” So far so good.
Yeah, that’s about where it all went off the rails. I’m not going to offer an opinion on whether Bret Kavanaugh should be on the Supreme Court. That’s for those other political sites. What I want to focus on is the process and offer insights on why people are so passionate about this nomination.
Maybe it’s because Liberals will simply oppose any nominee that this president offers. And in fact some Democratic senators indicated their intention to do exactly that. Conservatives will claim that the Democrats are opposed based on the fact that he was nominated by the president as well.
It’s not true. How do I know? Justice Neil Gorsuch. He was nominated by a Republican president and fairly easily confirmed. It was largely along party lines, but a few Democrats voted for him.
Why was Gorsuch confirmed so easily and Kavanaugh is hitting so much resistance? To find the answer, we have to look back a few years. The fight isn’t really about Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, or even Merrick Garland, the judge nominated by President Obama to fill a vacant Supreme Court position. As most people know, the Republican Senate leadership utterly refused to consider Garland.
Was it because the Republicans were going to oppose all Obama nominees? No. Because Justices Sotomayer and Kagan were both nominated by President Obama and confirmed with some Republican support.
So, why Sotomayer, Kagan, Gorsuch and not Garland and Kavanaugh? It’s all about balance. As Americans we love balance in our government. It’s why the most productive periods of the past 40 years have typically been when the president was of one party and Congress was the other.
Think about it, President Obama spent most of his presidency with a Republican controlled congress. Just as President Clinton did. And President Reagan spent most of his two terms with a Democratic controlled congress. As Americans we want to balance power between the two parties. That’s why we typically change the party of the elected president every 8 years.
– Obama, Democrat, 8 years
– George W Bush, Republican, 8 years
– Clinton, Democrat, 8 years
– Reagan/George HW Bush, 12 years
– Carter, Democrat, 4 years
– Nixon/Ford, Republican, 8 years
– Kennedy/Johnson, Democrat, 8 years
– Eisenhower, Republican, 8 years
– Franklin Roosevelt/Truman, 20 years
Other than the Carter/Reagan/GHWB period, we pretty much switch out the party of the president every 8 years. What’s this have to do with the Supreme Court?
The Court is also balanced. Sure, justices are supposed to be impartial. They aren’t. No human is. No one is surprised that Justice Ginsberg is a Liberal, or that Justice Alito is a Conservative. We knew they were when they were appointed. And since the presidency has been switching back and forth politically, we’ve actually maintained a reasonable balance as Democratic presidents appoint Liberal justices and Republian presidents appoint Conservatives.
Occasionally a justice will turn out to be not as Liberal or Conservative as the president who appointed them thought they would be. And that’s also part of our system. But, we’ve had a fairly balanced court. It leans slightly left on social issue and leans slightly right on gun rights issues and business.
That brings us to the nominees. President Obama’s nominee Sonia Sotomeyor, a Liberal was nominated to replace Justice David Souter, also a Liberal. Likewise Elena Kagan was nominated to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who was also a Liberal, despite being nominated by a Republican president. When each of these women were seated on the Court, the balance of Liberal/Conservatives was largely unchanged.
That brings us to Merrick Garland. He was nominated to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the most Conservative justices. Had Garland been confirmed, the court would have shifted significantly to the left. Republicans were determined to use any stratagem possible to prevent that. And we ended up with the embarrassment of a standoff between a president putting forth a nominee and Congress refusing to hold hearings.
You would think that Democrats would have been anxious to get revenge two years later after the next president nominated a Conservative. You’d be wrong. Justice Gorsuch was confirmed 54-45. Three Democratic senators crossed the aisle to vote him in.
Why? Because it didn’t change the balance of the Court. Gorsuch, a Conservative was replacing Scalia, also a Conservative.
And now we come to Kavanaugh. Why the fierce resistance to him? Because he is replacing Justice Kennedy. Technically, Kennedy is a Moderate, but that just means he’s biased in ways that don’t match a political party. On social issues, Justice Kennedy has voted very Liberal. He sided with the majority in Obergefell vs Hodges, better known as the Gay Marriage case. And yet, he also sided with the majority on Heller vs DC, the landmark gun rights case.
Kavanaugh is much more consistently Conservative than Justice Kennedy was. And that will disrupt the balance of the Court. So, even though Democrats had little chance of stopping his confirmation, they have worked tirelessly to try to prevent it.
The last time we had a Conservative replacing a Liberal on the Court in a manner like this was 1991 when the elder President Bush nominated Conservative Clarence Thomas to replace the more Liberal Thurgood Marshall.
It looks like the vote on Kavanaugh will be this weekend. Fifty Senators have stated they intend to vote to confirm him, virtually assuring he will be our next Supreme Court Justice. And while people will claim that the fight was about drinking or lying or allegations of abuse, the root of all those efforts is the fact that his appointment will shift the Court to the right.
Justice Ginsberg has suggested that she intends to retire sometime in the next five years. If Trump is reelected president he will appoint another Conservative to fill any vacancies on the Court.
If a Conservative is nominated to replace Ginsberg, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
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.
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Don’t be a jerk
I was recently asked to moderate the facebook group for a friend who is an entertainer. He asked me and a group of others to step in and help out. We became the “Mod Squad.” His only rule is “Don’t be a jerk.”
There are a couple of other clarifications. For example, no political slurs. No disrespecting the patron or the moderators. But, generally the rule is just don’t be a jerk.
What makes his rule ironic, at least to his casual fans is that he has a reputation of being somewhat harsh to people who interrupt his performances.
I’ve moderated several forums over the years. At one point a few friends and I created a political discussion group. We intentionally invited both liberals and conservatives. The only rule was “No personal attacks.” We used different words than my friend’s forum, but essentially it’s the same rule.
Both rules bear a strong resemblance to The Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
All have the same message: Be nice to people.
It’s a message that has a business application too. Dale Carnegie introduced a training program over 75 years ago based on the teachings in his award winning book, “How To Win Friends And Influence People.” Carnegie would have fit well as a moderator in these forums.
Even nursery stories teach the message. “You catch more bees with honey than vinegar.” Although, I’ve never understood why you would want to attract bees. But, if you did, honey works better than vinegar.
I read a story about a guy who was eating in a diner. He and his friends were feeling pretty tough. He started harrassing one of the other patrons. Eventually he recognized that the guy he was harrasing, was Chuck Norris.
You could have beat me, easily.
Possibly, but what would that prove?
Norris understood that it’s better to be kind than to fight.
Too often we let our egos dictate our actions. We all want to feel important, respected, listened to. We find it hard to give others those same things if we don’t feel we are getting them first. And of course, the people we meet are feeling the same way.
Several people have suggested that my friend and his team of moderators won’t be able to make that one rule work.
However, my friend, and many like him believe that people are good. And that if we hold them to a standard, they will rise to that standard.
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.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2018 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I’m thinking of switching careers and getting into IT. Anyone got any advice?
The message was poste on a friend’s facebook page. I know this friend through a game we both enjoy, Star Trek Attack Wing (STAW.) Part of the attraction of STAW to me is that it specifically does not involve any computers.
I’m a decent player of Attack Wing, but I’m a certified IT expert. I have the experience and the certifications to prove it. My friend had asked which certifications were the best ones to focus on.
It depends on what you are interested in going into. The two biggest areas are security and the cloud. I would recommend the CompTIA certifications. Work toward Security+. You will probably need to get A+ and Network+. The other one to work on would be AWS, Amazon Web Services certifications.
I started in IT in the 1980s. I started at WordPerfect Corporation supporting their early email product, WordPerfect Office. I eventually became an acknowledged expert in my field. But, I didn’t start out as one.
Wordperfect provided their new support engineers two weeks worth of training. All of it on the company’s flagship product WordPerfect word processor. My first day they assigned me to the Office team. I was assigned to that team because they were shorthanded. I got about 15 minutes of training, and then was thrown on the phones.
Eventually, I got better. I didn’t have any certifications. There weren’t any in my particular area. Eventually I helped write them. First for WordPerfect and later for Microsoft.
The industry has grown up. At least when it comes to certifications, there are now certs for nearly every discipline. I’ve collected numerous ones over the years. Some, like the Project Manager Professional (PMP) I worked very hard to achieve and they provided me important skills to compete in my chosen field. Other’s like some of the CompTIA certs, I earned on my way to getting other skills.
I’ve thought about my friend just starting out. When I was starting out, just knowning how to type was enough. Now, it’s expected that not only do people starting in the industry know how to type, but that they have a fair to good understanding of the technology.
Also, when I started, the industry didn’t know how much to pay us. The pay was very different between different companies and different disciplines. And because everyone and every thing was new, there was a lot of uncertainty and a lot of money to be made.
The industry has grown up a lot. Salaries have stabalized, but much of the money has gone out of the industry. Not that you can’t make a good living. In fact, a very good living, but the crazy fortunes aren’t really possible anymore.
And the certifications are everywhere. It’s good, I suppose. We need a way to determine if people know what they are talking about. And certifications are one way of showing that. Sometimes it’s hard to separate knowledge gained through experience from knowledge gained in the classroom.
That’s the difference. In the early days we didn’t have either.
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.
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There’s a town in Southern Utah called Hurricane. You said it wrong. It’s pronounced “her-a-kin.” Well, a her-a-kin came to Utah today. I guess technically it’s a tropical storm at this point. It quit being a her-a-kin before it hit California.
Tropical Storm Rosa was expected around noon today. She held off until about 9:00 PM. It strange because our state was on fire just two weeks ago. In fact, the serious fires are not completely contained. I’m guessing that’s not going to be a relevant metric tomorrow.
In fact, we’ve had an especially dry and hot summer. In Utah, moisture is measured three ways, the height of the water in our resevoirs, the depth of our snow in the winter and the ground water level. Last year was a really wet year. Our resevoirs filled last summer. This was a bad winter. The snow levels were not good. And that led to the ground water levels being the lowest they’ve been in 40 years.
And we didn’t get a lot of rain this summer. In fact, I don’t think it rained at all during the month of July or August.
Because Rosa was delayed, I spent the evening working on my son’s car. I’m trying to replace his fuel pump. That means I have to drop the gas tank. I’ve never done that before and it’s taking me longer than expected. I just about had it down when Rosa showed up. Wind and rain and a lot of lightening. When you are disconnecting a large metal sack full of gas fumes, you pay an extra level of attention to the crackle of thunder and flash of fire through the sky.
When the storm front arrived, I had to physically hold down the pavilion I put up to shield me from sun and rain. It didn’t matter. The rain was blowing sideways and the pavilion was doing it’s best kite imitation.
And then the power went out. Yep. I’m done. I threw some jack stands under the pecariously balanced fuel tank and by the light of a flashlight packed it up.
And the rain is drenching the state as I type this on my phone by flashlight.
Welcome to fall and bring on the rain.
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.
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