Rodney M Bliss

July 9, 2018

How Old Is Modern?

I was actually cold yesterday. That’s nice considering that Utah, along with much of the rest of the country is very warm right now. The air conditioning was making the main bathroom a little chilly as I was getting ready for church. I considered what it must have been like for people before modern conveniences. Would I be able to survive without modern inventions? I’m a fan of historical fiction. I will often imagine how I would fare as “A Conneticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court”?

Or would I do as well as my ancestors who crossed the plains with Brigham Young in 1847 on their way to founding modern Utah?I looked around my bathroom and tried to identify the modern items that I would have to learn to survive without if I were magically transported back in time.Certainly not the air conditioning. That would be gone. And with the outside temperatures touching triple digits, that would be a large adjustment.

And the electric lights. Those would be gone. Of course, they were invented over 100 years ago. Do they still count? For that matter, what about the glass that was filtering out the sunshine. Wasn’t glass an invention? Sure, it was well before the electric light. But, someone had to invent it at some point.And then I realized the problem with my mental exercise. Everything is modern. Not just cars, airplanes and computers. Literally everything had to be invented at some point. So, when searching for “olden” times, how far do you go? 100 years? 500? 1000? 10,000? You would probably have to pick a tipping point, beyond which is “modern” and before which is “ancient” or at least “old.” Likely tipping points include the discovery of electricity. Or maybe the transistor, which made modern computers possible. Gunpowder? But, the Chinese invented and used it long before the Western world. Do you pick the invention or simply the introduction into world culture?Maybe you pick a date. Two hundred years ago, the United States was just finishing the second war with Britain. Slavery was still a stain upon the national consciousness. We were still 25 years away from the Civil War. Certainly seems like a different era.Is it the lifetimes of the people we knew? My great grandfather was born in the later part of the 19th Century. I remember visiting my great grandfather, but I don’t remember much about him except the smell of pipe tabacco. Maybe modern is defined by those we have known.Perhaps it’s the invention of writing. The ability to record our histories is what seperates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Humans have been inventing since we became humans. Inventions are soem of the things that make us human.If you think about it, even clothes are an invention, albeit one that predates recorded history. And our bodies have evolved to require clothes. If that was the standard, I have to admit that, no, I could not surive without “modern” inventions. What I can’t do is tell you which of the inventions count as modern inventions or not.

July 6, 2018

I Didn’t Work On The Flag Today (Well, almost)

July 5, 2018

Flying The Flag (And It Was Hot)

It’s hot. Of course, it’s hot. Utah in July is a desert. And hot. But, I’m sweltering more than normal. It’s 3:00pm and I’ve been sitting here since 12:30. I’m sitting on a bed of shale that is reflecting the heat of sun back at me. There’s shade just about 10 feet away. A nice Scrub Oak tree. But, that 10 feet is below me and the I worked hard for that 10 feet. Still my thermometer shows the temperature at 102. Yeah, it’s hot. I, along with two young men, am sitting on the North face of Grove Creek Canyon. Below and around us, we can see other volunteers taking advantage of what shade they can find. Above us, other volunteers are working to attach a flag to a kevlar line that stretchs 600 feet South across the canyon. The air is clear (and hot.) We can easily see the team that has assembled on the South side of the canyon. Sometime in the next hour they will start to pull that flag, all 75 ft by 155 ft of it across the span. Unlike yesterday’s abortive attempt, this time the flag will be largly unfurled as it’s deployed. Our task is to keep the flag from snagging on rocks and trees as it’s pulled across the canyon. At least that’s the plan. They’ve never deployed the flag that way and none of us are sure what will happen. We know that the flag can turn into a sail in the intermittent canyon wind. It could knock even the largest of us off our precarious perches. I do lots of hiking in Utah. It’s a desert, and while I don’t normally sit in the direct sun on a southfacing shale slope, I always take extra water. Typically I take a 2 liter bottle in a sling. My neighbor’s son is with me. He’s also well prepared. Unfortunately the other boy is not.

Eventually, I didn’t have to convince him. His arms were also starting to resemble tomatoes. It wasn’t really his fault. We weren’t going to be up here that long. As the afternoon wore on we shared stories and jokes. We shared snacks and of course, we drank water. Water is life in the desert. Eventually, we noticed that the Westward march of the sun had created a shady shelf about 20 feet above us. We quickly scrambled up and were grateful to get out of the heat. We were quickly joined by several other volunteers. And we went back to waiting. We had a great view of the team trying to get the flag staged. Those poor souls were stuck out in the heat and sun. Finally, we saw them snap the first carabiner onto the line. Earlier a drone had ferried spider-wire back and forth across the canyon. Each side had a line to pull and then secure the flag. A cheer went up from the sweaty volunteers. We scrambled out of our shady perch and took up our positions. The flag, when flying seems so graceful and smooth. Getting her into position was anything but. The flag weighs 450 lbs. The line it was on dipped slightly into the canyon. As we slowly fed the flag out and worked to both keep our footing and keep the flag off the rock walls, we could see the team on the South side manually pulling the cord, hand over hand. Another cheer went up from the parking lot hundreds of feet below as the flag was slowly cinched out from behind a rock ourcropping and became visible. The wind still threatened to frustrate us as it tantalized the prospect of the flag curling itself around the support wire, only to pull the flag back at the last moment. Finally, it was time to pull the cord. The lines bundling the flag started to pull off one by one. Like a diva making her grand entrance, the flag slowly revealed herself. Another cheer from below. The volunteers on the side of the mountain were too tired, or busy to do much more than smile at finally seeing all our hard work finally coming to fruition. We scrambled up the last 20 feet or so to where the line was anchored. The guys with the pull lines continued to position to the flag for optimal viewing. The person giving direction was at Macy’s, about 5 miles away. (It’s a really big flag.) Finally, we posed for the requisite pictures and wearily headed down off the mountain. I finally drank the last of my water. It was brackish and about the temperature of bathwater. But, it was wet and after all, it was still hot. Really hot.

July 4, 2018

A Day That Definitely Did NOT Go According To Plan

My feet hurt. You are supposed to break in new boots before you go hiking in them. I went on a fairly agressive hike today. But, I didn’t mean to. I also didn’t mean to be hiking up Grove Creek Canyon in a long line of men, boys, women and girls hauling a 450 lbs flag. No, today, definitely didn’t go according to plan. My little town of Pleasant Grove, Utah dreams big. Three years ago, a local man named Kyle Fox decided to surprise the community by flying a flag on the Fourth of July . That might not sound so suprising, except he was flying it suspended 600 feet over the mouth of Grove Creek canyon. You might think it would be hard to see a flag that high off the ground. To compensate for that, Kyle got a big flag. A really big flag. In fact, at 75 ft by 155 ft, it’s the largest free flying United States flag in the world. That’s a big flag. What started as an amazing gesture to his community has turned into a weeklong series of events directed by the Follow The Flag Organization. (followtheflag.org.) The main event is the unfurling of “Big Betsy” as the sun peaks over the tops of the Rocky Mountains on July 4th. Things didn’t go according to plan. The flag failed to unfurl fully. The problem is the canyon winds beat at the flag in it’s compromised state. It ripped. It tore. It literally twisted itself into knots. And then, it came down. Actually, the volunteers brought it down. The town held it’s breath as the volunteers assessed the damage. One challenge was how do you manage to lay out a flag that large? Well, you turn a blind eye to the “flag shouldn’t touch the ground” rule and you use the local high school football field. (Photo Credit: David N Junod)The rips were not as bad as at first feared. Three seamstresses were called in to work their magic and like Rumplestiltskin, spin treasure. But, these ladies didn’t have all night, they had three hours. Kathy Sweat ran a professional Brother sewing machine.Gaylyn Dalley ran a 1932 Pfaff machine that looked like your great grandmother might have used it. Liz Vincent provided expert direction drawing on her years of experience, much of it working with Kathy and Gaylyn at Pykes many years ago.Pleasant Grove Vikings football is a pretty good team, but these ladies were a literal all star team. I know this because I watched them repair one of the 5 foot tall white stars. When the sewing was done, it was time for the packaging. Twenty five people line the edge and slowly pull the flag toward them, one 2 foot wide fold at a time. When it’s finished, it’s wrapped in it’s green carry case and like a giant anaconda, snakes it way, supported by volunteers to the waiting truck. Next, it’s off to the mountains. Typically, the team spends from July 1-July 3 prepping the flag for display. Today, we had a couple of hours. It was still early enough in the day that we appreciated the “shady” trail as we formed a human train. On one shoulder was the flag, in the other hand was my walking stick. My knees are bad and that’s not an easy trail. We went up the South side of the canyon switched back toward the West as we crested the top 1000 feet above the canyon floor. We then came down another 400 feet on what might someday become a trail for goats. I love my little town. We turned out to enjoy a free show and then many of use ended up working. And working hard. However, I didn’t hear a single complaint. I didn’t hear a single cross word even. This was our celebration at risk and we each felt that it was our responsibility to fix it. We may end up a day late displaying in the world’s largest free flying American flag. That’s okay. The day might not have turned out the way we planned, but that’s also okay. And I now have blisters on my feet from hiking in new boots. But, considering the cause, I guess that’s okay too.

July 3, 2018

Out Of Sight. . .Can I have that Report by Thursday?

I live and work in Salt Lake City. Well, I work in Salt Lake City, but I live in Pleasant Grove. Well, I work in Salt Lake City most of the time. Other times I work in one or our other offices. My boss lives and works in Raleigh. Well, it works in Raleigh, but he lives. . . You get the idea. The point is that we work in different cities. In fact, different states. And if you can say that Utah is “West Coast” (we’re only one state away, but it’s California) then we can say that we work on different coasts. I once had a terrible manager. (My Manager From Hell.) Unfortunatley, it was early in my career. Not only did he ruin my time working on his team, but he scarred me for the rest of my career. I have this issue with my managers. Not all managers. Just my direct manager. It got to the point where I didn’t want to hear from my manager. I did my job, but I really would just as soon avoid dealing with my manager. It was a phobia. Of course, it was a phobia, or it was PTSD. I hesitate to use that term, considering how many soldiers come back from war having endured horrors that I cannot even imagine. Whatever it was, it had very littler to do with my managers and everything to do with me. So, you would think, if I become nervous interacting with my direct manager, that having him on the opposite coast would be ideal. And yet, it’s not. Because, like a kid afraid of the monsters under the bed, there’s really nothing to fear. I know that. And the fact is, my manager is probably the best person I’ve ever worked for. He has given me everything you can ask for in a good manager. He’s assigned me interesting tasks. He trusts me.I got an email today letting me know that he wants me to attend a leadership conference he’ll be leading at our Savannah location later this month. I find I’m torn. It’s almost like approaching a whitewater rafting trip. It will be fun, but it also has an element of uncertainty, of anticipation. So, now in addition to 30 year old issues with managers, I have to learn a whole new skill. Where before I had manager in close proximity that I didn’t want to spend time with, now I have a manager who’s not in proximity that I want to spend time with. Life has a funny sense of humor.

July 2, 2018

LeBron James Gets Appointed To The Supreme Court

Oh sure, I know he went to the Lakers, but it might have gone the other way.

Since the end of June we’ve been waiting on two important decisions here in the United States. Who will LeBron James pick to play basketball for, and who will President Trump pick to sit on the Supreme Court.

It would be easy to venerate the one decision and deride the other. But, both are important for different reasons.

Let’s start with the easy one. LeBron James is a great basketball player. The greatest of his generation and one of the greatest of all time. (Sorry, it’s Jordan for the top spot, but if you disagree you’re welcome to try to explain your wrong choice.) He announced a few days ago he’s leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers and then yesterday announced his new home with be the Los Angeles Lakers.

Who cares, right? I mean in the grand scheme of things, does it matter where a superstar athlete chooses to throw a round ball through a steel hoop?

I think so.

I lived in Chicago back in the 1980’s. It’s been almost 40 years. Many of the details are fuzzy. But, it was the year the Bears won the Super Bowl.

In fact, I moved from Chicago to Orange County California, the home of the LA Rams on a Thursday and the Rams played the Bears in Chicago the following Sunday.

I took my daughter to her first baseball game when she about 7. I can’t remember exactly, but it was the year the Mariners first went to the playoffs.

Many people in society mark time by sports events. Every baseball fan in Chicago will be able to mark time by the year the Cubs finally won the World Series, after 108 years of futility.

LeBron James has been to the NBA finals for 8 of the last 8 years. He makes a team a playoff contender simply by putting on the uniform. The Lakers have been pretty bad of late. They are now favored to make the playoffs.

Okay, so maybe where LeBron was going was important to some people. (Maybe just those that think like Rodney, but I’m writing the story, so it’s fine.)

Does the next Supreme Court justice really matter to me? It’s more politics as usual right? This president is reversing the policies of the previous president. The next president will probably be from the opposite party and will reverse this president’s polices. Why should we care about the Supreme Court justice the president chooses?

Because, the person the president picks (and he says he’s narrowed it down to two people, one a man, the other a woman) will change your life more dramatically than any single person has during your lifetime.

The Supreme Court is made up of 9 justices. And while the court is supposed to be neutral, the fact is that each justice has her or his own prejudices. Those prejudices typically fall along political lines. Four justices, Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas and Roberts are conservative. Four justices Bader Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan are liberal. That leaves justice Kennedy as the “swing” vote. Sometimes he votes with the Liberals (affirming gay marriage) sometimes he votes with the Conservatives (The Colorado Baker.)

Kennedy is leaving. The president will very likely appoint a Conservative to replace him. And with the Senate set up the way it is now, there is nothing the Democrats can do to stop the appointment.

With Kennedy gone, if the new justices is Conservative, the balance of power on the court will shift to the right. Roberts will probably become the new Swing vote justice. But, the fact that he’s already conservative means that the court will most likely rule more in favor of Conservative ideas.

If you are a Conservative, you are probably pretty pleased. If you are a Liberal, you’re probably pretty upset, if not terrified.

Many of the most important court cases of the last 30 years have been decided by a 5-4 vote. Some went Conservative, some went Liberal. The future ones will go Conservative. And justices are appointed for life, or until they choose to retire, like Justice Kennedy has.

The court will be conservative for decades most likely. And whether you are liberal, Conservative, or non-partisan, the court is going to decide cases that affect your day to day life.

So, LeBron dropped the first shoe yesterday as we found out he’s going to LA. The president is holding the other shoe. It should drop July 9. Personally, I betting he picks LeBron.

Whoever it is, our lives will never be the same.

June 29, 2018

I Still Don’t Trust My Mechanic

I don’t believe it. Well, I mean, I believe it, of course, but I don’t trust it.

My car has had a coolant problem from the time I bought it about a year ago. It leaked. It overheated. It drank anti-freeze like a drunken sailor on an open tab.

I tried lots of different things. I started with the easy stuff. Well, the absolute easiest was to just fill it with anti-freeze on a regular basis. Eventually, I decided I needed to deal with it.

I replaced the radiator cap.

I replaced the thermostate.

I replaced the water pump.

It still leaked. I took it to the professionals and they replaced some tiny little plastic elbows.

It still leaked.

Finally, I replaced the radiator. This was a big step for me for several reasons. First, it was a decision that I made on my own. That might sound weird, but typically I get a 2nd opinion. This time, I decided, “You know what? I think it’s the radiator.”

The second big step is that I did it all on my own. Again, normally, I wouldn’t tackle that big a job on my own. I’d ask a friend or neighbor to come help. I didn’t even ask this time.

And it went smoothly. I had to figure out how to disconnect it from the condensor. I only bent the condensor a little bit. . . (It will be fine.)

I got the old one out and the new one in.

And then I waited.

It didn’t leak when I refilled it with anti-freeze.

It didn’t leak the next day on my way to work.

It didn’t leak sitting in the parking lot all day.

It didn’t leak. . .again.

It’s been three weeks. And it’s been a warm three weeks. We hit 97 degrees yesterday. I checked my anti-freeze overflow resevoir. It’s still full. The car hasn’t lost a drop of anti-freeze in three weeks.

Problem solved, right? Hurray! I fixed it! Yeah. . .

My problem is that I just don’t trust it. And I think that’s because I don’t really trust the mechanic. It’s one thing to go to a garage and pay $500 to have a guy with a wall full of shiney tools “fix” your car. You can imagine there’s some magic that happens.

But, when you’re the guy crawling under the car. The guy with grease up to his elbows, and cuts on his knuckles. When you’re the guy who had to decide what was wrong and then fixed it, there is no magic. You know exactly what can still go wrong.

I’d switch mechanics, but it’s hard to beat the price of this guy. I guess, I’ll just have to wait and see if he can impress me over time.

I’ll let you know.

June 28, 2018

They Were My People. I Never Knew Them. And Now They are Dead

These are five people I’ve never met, and prior to today, I’d never heard of them.

And now they are dead.

This afternoon at 2:40pm Eastern Time a crazed gunman walked into the offices of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis Maryland armed with a shotgun and killed them.

He was apparently angry about a story the paper ran seven years ago about him. He sued. The paper won. He held a grudge.

I’m sure we’ll hear more about gun control and gun rights in the coming days. We’ll find out the make and model of the shotgun. By the time the coverage dies down, we’ll know not only where he bought it but how many shells he had in his pocket.

This really isn’t a post about gun control.

I’m a writer. These were writers. I’m a columnist. These were columnists. I’ve had people angry at what I write. This man was angry about what they wrote.

I don’t work in a newsroom. But, I do “newspaper” as they say. I write for my local paper. The Captial Gazette was described as a local paper. I do a column and occasionally an article for the Timpanogos Times. It the local paper for my little town of Pleasant Grove, Utah.

We live in a violent society. It’s not as violent as some would have us believe. But, it’s not as safe either. It took the police less than 60 seconds to respond to the shooting. And still, five died and others were wounded.

We measure tragedies by thinking of how close to home they strike. “I was almost on that plane.” “I used to go to that high school.” “My kid is the same age as those kids.”

The more distance we can put between us and the tragedy, the easier it is to “deal with it” and move on. “I’ve never been to the Middle East.” “I don’t know anyone near the site of that disaster.” “I live on a mountain, tsunamis aren’t a thing we worry about.”

This one strikes a little close to home. I’m a part time journalist, these people did it full time, but we shared a common ethos. We were of the same tribe. We both believe that there is value in putting words down on paper and we are all arrogant enough to think that there are people who care what we think.

And even in spite of a tragedy. We all know this universal truth, penned by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his play “Cardinal Richelieu”: The pen is mightier than the sword.

Rest in Peace.

June 27, 2018

The Amazing Defensive Power Of A Single Click

I used to work for a large non-profit org in Utah. I was the email manager. We put in a brand new email system. I started sending out status updates on the new email system. Originally it was once per day, but eventually settled down to once per week.

My emails were the stuff of legend. They eventually morphed into full on team reports. I not only showed status of the system, but highlighted my team members, upcoming announcements. It was about 10 pages per week. Two interesting things happened.

First, my fellow team managers had a little bit of an issue with me. After all, they were expected to report on their teams each week as well. Their “report” was typically a single paragraph typed up in a few minutes. They felt like they suffered by comparison.

But, more interestingly, someone asked,

We are a lazy species in some ways. Clicking through to a link takes a lot of work. And yet, here you are. You clicked through to this link. (Unless you are one of the hundreds that gets it emailed to you.)

Why? What inticed you to click through?

I can tell you what I tried. The title and the first paragraph are the most important. That’s the “hook.” I try to make the story sound interesting enough that it’s going to leap out at you from your normal newsfeed.

Entire books have been written on the power of that click, why people don’t click it and why they do. People much smarter than me could delve into the psychology of it. I just know that I have to start strong.

That click can be a defensive mechanism as well. I’ve written almost 1500 posts since I started this blog 5 years ago. And not once have I mentioned the following:

– The name of my current employer
– The name of the large non-profit I worked for
– The name of any of my kids or my lovely wife

Obviously, I’ve talked about all three of these things, but I’ve deliberately not called them out.

I used to not put a password on my wifi router. I hid the SSID, but didn’t bother with a password. I worked with some very bright engineers.

I now put a password on my wifi, but I don’t consider it that much more secure than it was when I had no password.

I’m counting on the laziness factor. Referring again to the list above, it would be pretty easy to find out the information I’m “hiding.” I have my LinkedIn! information in my signature at the end of every post. It lists my job history.

My facebook profile is somewhat locked down, but you could certainly figure out my lovely wife’s name. Getting my kids’ info would be slightly harder, but not impossible. Most of them have social media accounts and you could find them through my profiles.

So, why bother hiding the names if people could just go find the information anyway? Because people are lazy. Because even now, you’re thinking, “I might just go see what companies Rodney worked for. . .” But, you won’t do it.

Obviously, this blow has my own opinions and it probably goes without saying that they are not necessarily the views of my employer. But, I want to make sure I keep a wide gap between here and there.

This site gets indexed by google. If I never mention my company’s name it will never get associated with this blog in google.

In the Old Testament, the Israelites were attacked by “fiery flying serpents.” Basically, a bunch of poisonous snakes. The prophet Moses raised up a brass serpent on a staff and anyone who got bit could look at the staff and they would live. People who refused to look would die.

It was a simple thing. And a lot of people died.

That extra click is a powerful deterrent.

June 26, 2018

One Step Ahead

I have a house full of teenagers. And since we are in the summer months, they are around all day. I work from home occasionally and I can tell when they are on the internet.

I’m old enough to remember dial up modems. Back in the olden days, you had to attach a physical piece of hardware to the phone line. You could then call up your ISP and your modem and their modem would talk in ANALOG over your phone line.

Two things would happen. One is that if anyone picked up the phone in the house, it would screw up your connection and you’d have to dial back in.

Second, no one could use the phone while you were online. Yes, this was the days before cell phones. Your house had a single phone line that everyone shared. And there was no caller ID. In fact, when call waiting was introduced it broke how modems work. Call waiting was a series of BEEP BEEP BEEP. It would disrupt the modem conversation and you’d have to dial back in.

Oh, and it was slow. Like really, really slow. Downloading a single picture would take several minutes. If it was hi-res, or high resolution it might take an hour. It was okay, because most websites were plain text.

Today’s kids have no idea what we had to put up.

I have security on my home network, of course. In fact, I have my high speed modem that uses microwaves, instead of analog phone lines. And behind the modem is a VoIP phone box. It gives me a home phone and also acts like a physical firewall. It has two network cards and two different addresses. Next, it goes to my actual firewall. It’s a dedicated computer with two network cards in it. Next is my software router. It’s scans all devices on my network and only allows traffic from recognized devices. After that is my wifi router. The SSID is hidden and it requires a password, a really long and complicated password, to access.

No one is hacking into my house. It’s not that a good hacker couldn’t. It’s that why would they want to? I don’t have anything worth going to the trouble of fighting through two physical firewalls, a software firewall and an encrypted router. I have the equivalent of a 12 foot fence with razor wire on top, and there’s really nothing inside.

My challenge is my kids. They are already on the inside. And those firewalls not only keep people out, they keep those of us inside from getting to some of the more dangerous and seedy portions of the internet. I was a kid once. My kids are going to test the limits.

About every six months my software firewall “forgets” how to talk to my network. For about a week, I will have to chase down a rogue device that impersonates my firewall and conveniently let’s people go to places that are normally offlimits.

I play whack-a-mole with it’s IP addresses for a few days and eventually banish back to the land of texts between my kids and their friends. Of course, I never find the person behind the hack. There are serveral likely suspects, but like The Prisoner’s Dilemma, if everyone keeps silent, no one can get caught.

It’s nice to find times like today, where I actually feel like maybe I am one step ahead of my kids.

Rodney M Bliss

How Old Is Modern?

Like this:

I Didn’t Work On The Flag Today (Well, almost)

Like this:

Flying The Flag (And It Was Hot)

Like this:

A Day That Definitely Did NOT Go According To Plan

Like this:

Out Of Sight. . .Can I have that Report by Thursday?

Like this:

LeBron James Gets Appointed To The Supreme Court

Like this:

I Still Don’t Trust My Mechanic

Like this:

They Were My People. I Never Knew Them. And Now They are Dead

Like this:

The Amazing Defensive Power Of A Single Click

Like this:

One Step Ahead

Like this:

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives

Tell your friends about this!

Like this:

Tell your friends about this!

Like this:

Tell your friends about this!

Like this:

Tell your friends about this!

Like this:

Tell your friends about this!

Like this:

Tell your friends about this!

Like this:

Tell your friends about this!

Like this:

Tell your friends about this!

Like this:

Tell your friends about this!

Like this:

Tell your friends about this!

Like this:

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives