I hated this book. I mean, I don’t hate it now, but it took me 40 years to read it.
When I was in high school, well back in the last millenium, I was a terrible student, except when it came to English. I loved English classes. I once scored 250% of the total possible points in a short story class. The teacher, to encourage students to read outside of class, gave 10 points extra credit for every short story we read. I loved short stories, (still do) and I read books of the collected short stories of Clarke, and Twain and several others. My extra credit was much more than my base points.
I still remember many of the titles I first met as a young high schooler; The Most Dangerous Game, A Separate Peace, Winter of Our Discontent. As part of Advanced Placement English, we had to read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
I hated it. Remember, I was a kid who loved reading. I devoured the Lord of The Rings trilogy at least 8 times in high school, and read everything Mark Twain ever wrote.
But, Wuthering Heights was horrible. I struggled through it like one would taking a dose of nasty medicine, or a visit to the dentist. I was happy to have completed it mostly so I never had to touch it again.
Fast forward about 40 years.
My grandmother, Venda Castleberry, had been a high school English teacher. When she passed away, some of her books came to me. I’ve written in the past about the joy I got out of reading a book she had annotated. (Book Review: The Grapes of Wrath.)
I received her copy of Wuthering Heights. It’s an impressive looking volume. Published in 1943, the book is almost closer to Emily Bronte (who died in 1848) than it is to me today.
The book took it’s place on my overstuffed bookshelves more as a kind reminder of my dear departed grandmother than as a volume that I had any intention of delving into.
I tried it once. . .didn’t take.
But, recently, I decided that maybe I was being overly harsh. And it had been such a joy reading her notes in Steinbeck’s masterpiece, that perhaps, with grandma’s help, I could find what I’d missed in this “classic” all those years ago.
I found more than I ever expected.
Before I talk about the story itself, the introduction was fascinating. It was written by Emily’s sister Charlotte Bronte. She explained not only the short life and tragic death of Emily, but how the three sisters, (including their younger sister Anne,) assumed male pseudonyms to write and publish in the mid-19th century. It was a window into a completely different time.
The story of Heathcliff, one of literatures true bad boys, started out better than I remembered. And it continued to get better. I was immediately drawn into the story of the Yorkshire countryside with its eclectic cast of old and young, good and bad and those in between. Each page included underlined passages or margin notes in my grandmother’s hand, guiding me, the reader.
And then I discovered, tucked into the pages of the book, a treasure I never expected. I found her teaching notes. Two pages, front and back with questions, answers, insights, comments.
The book, which was already proving to be entertaining, suddenly opened up in a whole new way.
I knew what I thought of poor Mister Lockwood’s condition, but here was someone who had studied the story offering her view on it. I loved it. And I savored the chapters after that.
It was with no small amount of sadness that I came to the end of the tale. I even spared some sympathy for Heathcliff in his final days, a tribute to Ms Bronte’s extraordinary talent at painting a rogue that we can feel sorry for.
I came away from Wuthering Heights, obviously, with a much different view than I approached it. Once again, my grandmother opened up the wonders of literature to me.
What I liked
The personalized notes were, clearly, a huge blessing. But, even aside from them, the story was engaging, thrilling. Bronte’s prose is as fresh and exciting as if it were written in the twenty-first century rather than two centuries past. The character development was amazing. Like worried grandparents, watching a troubled child from afar, we see Heathcliff from his earliest beginnings and a bad start, through to his ultimate end. Bronte takes us to live in the moors and paints the beauty and the starkness with equal clarity.
What I didn’t
The names and relationships. Bronte starts the book by having Lookwood, the narrator, pushed into a situation where he doesn’t exactly know the relationships between the characters. He eventually figures it out, but it’s challenging as a reader at times to keep them straight. If I were reading it again, I’d print out the cast of characters from the Wikiepedia article and use it as a guide. And while the prose is brilliant, it’s also nearly 200 years old. At times, it squeaks like an old door that’s not been opened in years.
What it means to you
My kids have AP English this year. They’ve never heard of Wuthering Heights. There are so many great works of literature, that schools and teachers have to pick and choose, and at least in our district, Bronte didn’t make the cut. And Bronte would have difficulty competing with today’s style of “action-packed, with a big reveal” style of writing. Still, if you decide to reach back into a different time, and want a windows into a different century, while also being entertained with a gripping story, Wuthering Heights has stood well the test of time. (And if you happen to find handwritten notes from your grandmother, that’s just an added bonus.)
My Rating
Three out of four stars
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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This week the NFL announced their “solution” to the issue of athletes kneeling during the national anthem. They will fine the teams and allow each team to set their own policies. They also said that athletes could choose to stay in the locker room during the anthem if they preferred.
I think it’s a terrible decision by the NFL. But, not because it’s censorship. It totally is censorship, but that’s not why it’s a terrible idea.
The protests started two years ago with an athlete named Colin Kaepernick. He first sat during the anthem, but later after talking with a member of the military he switched to taking a knee. Kaepernick is not protesting the military. He’s also not protesting the national anthem. He is, or was, attempting to bring visibility to the issue of police violence against young black men.
You know how Major League Baseball uses pink bats every Mother’s day to draw attention to breast cancer? Yeah, his protest was like that. He was joined by additional players over the past two years. Kaepernick is currently without a contract and may never play in the NFL again, but the protests live on.
The NFL has an attendence problem. They are blaming the protests. And honestly, if someone doesn’t bother to really look into the purpose behind the protest, it’s easy to simply dismiss it as “Those over paid athletes are disrespecting the flag and the men and women who fought and died for it!”
None of that is happening. But, the perception is there. So, the NFL decided to attempt to eliminate the protests via fines. The reaction to the NFL’s directive have been just as misguided as those who misunderstand the purpose of the protest.
Is the NFL censoring the speech of the athletes?
Yes. Absolutely. And that’s perfectly okay.
I can hear you now, “But, Rodney, what about the 1st amendment? Don’t they have a right to speak?”
Sure they do. But, they do not have a right to be protected from the consequences of their speech. What consequences? In this case, potentially fines, or even getting dismissed from the team.
See, the first amendment doesn’t come into play here.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishgment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
“But, Rodney, it’s right there, ‘no abridging freedom of speech.’ Isn’t that what the NFL is doing?”
Yes, the NFL is attempting to abridge their speech. And they have every right to. The 1st Amendment doesn’t apply to a private business. It only applies to the government.
Imagine I came to your house. Could you legally censor my speech while at your house? Sure, you could.
– Please don’t swear around my kids
– Please don’t tell my kids that Santa isn’t real (or reveal that the Easter Bunny is)
– Please do not pray
You have every right to censor my speech. If I refuse, you can force me to leave. Facebook has the same rights.
– No fake news, please
– No pornograpny, please
– Nothing that violates our terms of use
Other businesses have the same freedom to censor speech in their places of business. Now, let’s consider the NFL players who are protesting.
– On company time
– On company property
– Wearing company uniforms
Think about your company. Would they be okay with you protesting in a way that is alienating customers while you were on company property, on the clock and wearing a company uniform?
Maybe you have a very forgiving company. Mine would bounce me out the door so fast, I wouldn’t have time to clear out my desk.
And if there was a legal issue with the NFL doing this, don’t you think the NFL players, with their million dollar contracts would have hired a lwayer and protected their “rights.”
No, the NFL isn’t making a mistake because they are censoring their athletes. They have every right to do that. But, this protest is now two years old. And it’s continued for two reasons. One is that the athletes care and the other is that young black men continue to die at the hands of police.
The NFL had a chance to partner with the protesting players and be a force for good. They could have devoted even a fraction of their revenue to fund an entire anti-violence program. They could have done amazing outreach. After all, the protest is happening at the football stadiums, but it’s not the NFL that is causing the problem.
They had a chance to stop the protests by focusing some attention on solutions. Instead they are coming across as tone deaf. I’m predicting that none of those fines will ever get paid. The NY Jets owner has already said he doesn’t intend to fine his players.
The NFL has taken a bad situation and made it worse. But, they didn’t violate anyone’s 1st amendment rights. That’s not much of a consolation.
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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Andy Grove was the CEO of Intel Corporation. He worked in a cubicle. I don’t mean sometimes. Andy Grove didn’t have an office. Like all executives at Intel his desk was in a cubicle. This isn’t a post about “open workspace.” In fact, I think the “open” concept where everyone sits in the bullpen has tons of problems and I would rarely use it.
So, I think Grove was doing his company and himself a disservice by insisting everyone be in a cubicle. But, it seemed to work for them, so who am I to criticize?
As an employee and as a manager, you can use Office Space to your advantage. The trick is you have to not care.
Microsoft had a policy where the most senior person on the team got to pick their office first. Not by position, but strictly by who had been at the company the longest. My buddy was on a development team. They moved into a new building. My friend had seniority over everyone. He picked the large corner office. His manager was two doors down in a (much) smaller office.
It was a mistake for my friend. In fact, it was too much longer before he was forced out of that team. But, if he hadn’t cared he could have turned it to his advantage. If he’d opted for a smaller office and arranged for his manager to get that office, the manager would be happy and would see my friend as a valuable team contributor. The key would be that my buddy would have to not care.
The same thing can happen as a manager. If you get to assign seats in your group, put some thought into it. My role at my company is unique. In a company of 150,000 I’m the only person with my title. I answer to a Senior VP of IT. But, he basically assigned me to report to a VP over Operations.
IT has a very utilitarian view of offices: if you have direct reports you get an office, if not, you don’t. It’s a very “IT” sounding solution; easily tested for and requires very little human decisions.
In the Operations world, they are much more about personal circumstances of the position and the person. On the IT side of the building I get a cubicle. On the Operations side, I get an office.
But, my office is small, interiior and has no windows. Across the hall are the Operations Managers. Their offices are huge, easily twice the size of my office. They all have windows.
Let me describe the heirarchy of the Operations department. The Operations Managers answer to the site directors. The site directors answer to the VP of Operations. The same VP of operations who is my effective boss.
If I’m a peer of the highest ranking manager in the building, why don’t I have a big office with a window? Mostly because I don’t want one. I think I could probably get one if I really tried to pull weight. I would burn a huge amount of political capital to get it. And the offices are full. Someone would have to give up their seat. And it’s a seat they’ve been in for months. How would they feel about me after I kicked them out of their office?
I need stuff from these guys. I need them to help me. I need them to like me. And, despite the fact I chose to write a few hundred words on the subject, I honestly don’t care. I’m sure there are times were people think, “Wait, isn’t Rodney the equivalent of a senior manager?”
If they think that, I want them to also think, “I like working with Rodney, he’s approachable and very helpful.”
Whether I push for a big office or not is not the make or break decision of how successful I can be at my position. But, it’s one of dozens of smaller decisions designed to help me get what I need to be successful, while helping my coworkers feel good about my role.
And that may be the biggest benefit that Andy Grove garnered from his misguided “Everyone in a cubicle” policy.
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’ve never been a great student. I think a big part of it was growing up with undiagnosed ADHD. Regardless, I did well enough to graduate from high school and get into a good school.
Adult life started fairly soon after college did. I got married. My lovely wife had a baby and I went to work. And college had to wait. Don’t get me wrong, it was a trade I was happy to make. (And still am.)
Later I went back to school. In fact, a did it a couple of times. Each time making a little more progress and struggling through my classes. But, life kept pulling me out of the halls of acadamia.
But, there was one semester. One glorious semester where it all clicked. I had enough money (temporarily) to go to school fulltime and not need to work.
I’d had good success in business. I was starting to get a feel for project management. And I approached the semester as a project. It really fit most of the criteria:
– Projects have a start and end date
– Projects have a defined budget
– Projects have a list of features/deliverables
I also found a study partner. Fortunately, our classes matched up closely. The fact he was 15 years younger didn’t bother him, so it didn’t bother me.
I did everything that your counselors told you to do to succeed at college. I sat at the front of the class. I did the reading before class. I worked through every homework assignment until I understood it. I got to know my professors. (It’s easier for them to give good grades to someone they know.) I went to campus in the morning and stayed there all day.
And it worked. I found I had an aptitude for the subject matter. I soaked up the material like a sponge. The labs, typically my nemesis, sailed through the automated graders. My lab partner typically submitted his first and explained to the TAs where their grader was broken. I was often the second person to submit them.
And then disaster struck. My hard drive failed. It took about a week to get it replaced. With most classes I did okay, but I fell behind in one class by a week. The class was 100% labs and tests. I did all the labs, but turned them in a week late, suffering a 10% penalty. I couldn’t seem to get back in front of the calender.
Finals time came around and it came as an utter shock to me that I was carrying a 4.0 GPA. Well, I was in every class except that lab class. I ran the numbers. Even with 100% on the final exam, I would fall below the score for an A.
Did it matter? No. Did I care? Absolutely!
I went to see the professor.
I wonder if I could ask for some consideration on my class score?
What did you have in mind?
Well, I’ve done all the work in your class. I’ve been in class every day. I got a 97% on the mid-term. I’ve turned in every lab assignment. I’ve done the work. It’s just that my laptop crashed halfway through the semester. That put me behind.
Why didn’t you get caught back up and on track?
Well, the amount of time I have to devote to your class is pretty inelastic. I had enough time each week to do one assignment, but not two.
What would you suggest?
I was hoping that if I get an A on the final, that you might waive the late penalties for my labs. It would give me an A for your class and I will achieve a 4.0 this semester.
Well, I don’t know that I can commit to that right now, but let’s see how the final goes, shall we?
I never studied so hard for an exam. I achieved a 98%. The rest of my classes also went well and I was waiting on my professor to see if I’d achieved my one (and so far only) perfect semester.
I didn’t talk to him again, but when grades were posted, it showed a solid A for his course. I wasn’t even disappointed that I’d missed the Dean’s List. One of my classes was listed in the course catalogue as 3 credits, but it was actually only 2 and at 8 credits for the semester, I fell one below the minimum needed to qualify for the Dean’s list. It didn’t matter.
The next semester we took the rest of my college money and adopted a group of three sisters from Colombia and I had to go back to work.
But, for one glorious semester, I succeeded at college.
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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Okay, everybody back to one.
I was planning to go in early this morning, get a jump on my email and shadow Arthur as he escorted our client representative through our building. Instead, I was crawling around under a 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix. It was very much a redneck scence. The car wasn’t exactly up on blocks. I used jack stands instead.
I was completing a “simple” job that I started yesterday evening. I set out to change the oil and replace the brakes. I was well prepared. I had 5 quarts of 5W-30 conventional motor oil, a new Wix oil filter, the brake pads for all four brakes and a brand new jar of brake grease.
It didn’t go as planned. The oil change went smooth. And the front brakes went well. I broke one of the back brakes. Specifically, I broke the cylinder in the left rear caliper. (Oh. . .THAT’S Why It Didn’t Work.) By the time I figured out I’d broken it, the auto parts store was closed.
That brought me to today. I had no way to work, so I borrowed my wife’s car and went to get the new caliper from the auto parts store. While I was at it, I decided to replace the rotor on one wheel. I should have planned for it before, but I didn’t want to delay finishing. . .too late!
Everyone makes a car payment. You either pay the bank or you pay the mechanic
– Lloyd V Bliss. . . or you pay the auto parts store
– Rodney M Bliss
I actually made good time and counted it as a really long lunch. I still got company work done in the morning and the afternoon and of course, we have more maintenance going on in the middle of the night.
When I got done, I took the car for a test drive. It worked great. In fact, the car is running better than it has since I bought it a year ago. I considered what was recently done.
– Oil change
– New brakes (including a new left rear caliper and a left front rotor)
– Tires rotated so the best ones are on the front
And some other work was also done recently
– New water pump
– New thermostat
– New radiator cap (It might sound minor, but it really isn’t)
– New engine mounts
I also topped off the following fluids
– Brake fluid
– Coolant
– Oil (during the change)
– Automatic tranmission fluid
It was, in many ways, like a new, or at least new…er car. But, when I got it all put back together, it looked exactly like it had at the beginning. All that work and not a single thing to show for it. It looked like nothing had changed, and yet a long list of things had changed.
I’ve often thought how my regular job is a lot like these repairs. At the end of the day, my office looks pretty much the same as it did when I started. But, if I’m doing my job well, there should be many things that have changed. During the day, my desk looks worked at, but at the end of the day, like a good mechanic, I put all my tools away. They are waiting for me the next day.
Like a movie director who has just filmed a complex scene and now wants another take, everything is back to first positions, or “back to one.”
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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Good judgement comes from experience
Experience comes from poor judgement
I broke my car.
It wasn’t my fault. Well, it wasn’t anyone else fault, but it totally wasn’t my fault.
I recently took a road trip from Pleasant Grove, Utah to Moscow, Idaho, over to Pasco, Washington, back to Moscow and then on to Pleasant Grove. It was about 2000 miles. And my brakes started squealing at about the 500 mile mark.
Squealing brakes are actually a designed feature. Your brakes have asbestos pads that press against a rotor to stop the car. A rotor is a big metal plate about the side of an oversized dinner plate.
When your brake pads get low, there’s a piece of metal that will come in contact with the rotor. It doesn’t hurt anything, but that metal on metal squealing reminds you to take your car in and have its brakes replaced.
I was too smart for that. (I was too smart for my good, but I’m getting to that.) During the road trip the brakes started to get really bad. The went past the squealing to the grinding. Grinding is when the brake pad is totally gone and you have metal on metal, the metal brake pad on the rotor.
Today, I decided to fix my brakes. I had the pads already. I bought some brake grease, and I was ready to go. It can cost as much as $200 to have brake job done. I can do my own for less than a quarter of that.
The front ones went fine. To replace your brakes, you jack up the car. Then, you remove the tire. It’s a good idea to put jack stands under your car. And by “good idea” I mean, the same as “it’s a good idea to wear a helmet and use your seatbelt. Next, you remove the calipers. There are two very tight bolts on the back of the calipers. You will bruise your knuckles breaking those bolts loose. . .every time.
After you take off the calipers, you then remove the old brake pads and mounting hardware. You put some brake grease on the contact points of the new pads. You put them and the new hardware back on the car.
If you attempt to put the caliper back on at this point, it will not fit. The cylinder has been depressing as your brake pads wear down. You’ve now put new (wider) pads on and the cylinder is too far out. You place one of the old pads on the inside of the cylinder and use a C-clamp to push the cylinder back into the caliper housing.
It’s not hard. Well, the cylinder is pretty stiff, but the process is pretty easy. And if you’ve done one set of brakes you’ve pretty much done them all. Except for the rear disk brakes on a 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix.
Front braks are always disk brakes. Rears can be drum brakes or disk brakes. Mine happen to be disk brakes. So, I did what book says. (I didn’t actually read a book.) I took off the wheel. I took off the caliper. I replaced the pads. And that’s where it all went wrong.
I couldn’t get the cylinder to compress. Noting I tried worked. I put the c-clamp. I tried bracing it with wood. I tried prying on it.
Finally, I called my neighbor. He’s my “car guy.” He brought over even bigger pliars and tools. We actually broke one of the tools trying to push that stupid cylinder down. . .and THEN we got smart.
We went to youtube.
The guy on the video took us through the process for changing rear disk brakes on a 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix:
Remove the tire
Remove the caliper
Replace the pads
Be sure to not try to compress the cylinder, or you will break it. These cylinders screw back in.
And there it was. We quickly switched to the side we hadn’t touched yet. It screwed in nicely and we put the brakes back together. The side we had pushed on? Nope. Broken.
And now my car is broken for another day. A new caliper will be about $75. And I’ll have to work from home tomorrow.
I, along with my neighbor and his mechanic son, all now have the experience to show good judgement when changing the rear disk brakes on a 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix.
It was an expensive lesson.
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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It’s been 38 years and I remember it like it was yesterday.
May 18, 1980. I was 16 years old. It was a Sunday. My older brother and I were getting ready to leave from church. We lived in Lacey, Washington. Lacey is a suburb of Olympia, which is pretty much a suburb of Seattle which lies 40 miles to the North.
But, our attention that Sunday morning, all those years ago was South, not North. One hundred and twenty-five miles from Olympia, or about 100 miles as the crow flies is Mount Saint Helens.
Prior to its explosion, it was one of the prettiest looking mountains in the Cascade range. Located a few miles from Portland, it was a popular hiking destination. Mount Saint Helens had the longest “slide path” of any mountain in the Cascades. You could start near the top and using an ice axe for a brake, slide down for thousands of feet.
The explosion that Sunday morning blew about 1300 feet off the top of the mountain. Rather than a rounded dome, it now sports a mile wide crater on the top. The ash cloud went over 15 miles into the air. More than high enough for us to see it from our front porch in Lacey, Washington.
Looking South, we could see what looked like a bank of clouds. But, if you paid close attention, the clouds were alive, continuing to grown and morph in the clear morning sky.
Mount Saint Helens had been active for awhile. No one was surprised it blew up. The intensity was unexpected. The initial blast, in addition to blowing 1300 feet off the top of the mountian, flattened about 230 square miles of vegetation, mostly Douglas Fir, Cedar, Hemlock and other evergreens native to Washington. Over the next nine hours it threw more than 0.67 cubic miles of ash into the air. It had a force of 24 megatons of thermal energy. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima had over a thousand times less energy at 15 kilotons.
It killed 57 people.
The ash cloud would eventually circle the globe, but first it turned day to night for Eastern Washington. The ash fell like snow. But snow that would not melt. It got everywhere. Cars sucked it into their engines, clogging filters and freezing engines. It piled up on roofs, threatening to collapse them under its weight. It covered acres and acres of seedlings that were just starting to sprout. But, in a strange benefit, after causing so much harm, the ash on the fields turned out to be a blessing. The crops thrived under their thick grey blanket and grew bigger than ever.
I went to work for my grandfather the following summer in 1981, and as we drove farm trucks in and out of a field, the entrance would quickly turn to a dust bowl several inches thick.
Mount Saint Helens was the most expensive and destructive volcanic eruption in American History.
And it happened 38 years ago today. Those of us who lived through it will never forget it.
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 not sure if it was Arthur’s first Major League Baseball game. I know it was his first visit to PNC Park in Pittsburgh the home of the Pirates.
We had a bit of an adventure to actually get to the stadium. (In 500 Feet Your Destination Will Be On The Right. . .Some Flying May Be Required.) As we finally parked, it was a short two block walk to the stadium.
As we planned the trip to the game, Arthur asked about tickets.
Have you bought the tickets yet?
It’s a Tuesday night game. There will be no problem getting seats.
If the parking lots were any indication, there were going to be even more seats available than I thought. Most of the ticket booth windows were closed. I walked to the main ticket window and sure enough, had no trouble getting seats. We picked seats on the 3rd baseline, on the 300 level. They were probably more than we needed to pay at $19 per seat, but the ticket seller assured us they were great seats.
We entered PNC Park and it hit me.
It always hits me.
I’ve never played baseball, but I’ve been attending games since I was 13 years old and my dad took me to the old Kingdome in Seattle to watch the Mariners play.
Walking into the stadium, even before you see the field, is a full body experience. PNC Park, is a “retro” stadium. Build less than 20 years ago, but designed to look much older.
Sight? Check.
We had skipped dinner with the anticipation of eating at the ball park. I could smell the burgers and dogs. I had the Italian sausage with onions and peppers.
Smell? Check.
Taste? Check.
Even though it was a sparce crowd, we could hear the organ (Yeah, it’s a high-tech soundtrack, but it sounded like an organ.) We heard the mumble of the PA announcer grow louder as we made our way toward the inclined ramps leading to the upper levels.
Sounds? Check.
I stopped and bought a Pirates cap, a tradition I follow at every new stadium I visit. I opted for the old “pillbox” style, popular many years ago. It’s polyester, but feels like wool.
Touch? Check.
We wound our way up the first set of ramps, as we rounded a piller, there it was. An emerald field with a rust colored infield.
Wow
I turned to see that Arthur had stopped and was simply staring. And it was quite a sight.
Yeah, that view never gets old
We made our way to our seats. They were as good as the ticket seller had promised, with a great view of the field and a view of the river and city skyline on the other side of it.
It didn’t matter that we weren’t fans of either team. It didn’t matter that the Pirates were leading their division or that the Chicago White Sox were in the celler in theirs. It didn’t matter that we didn’t arrive until the fourth inning or that we had to leave in the eighth to make the three hour drive back to Columbus and our business meeting the following day.
We simply sat and soaked in the experience of being at the ballpark on an early summer night. The weather was perfect, the Italian sausage was delicious, the atmosphere was magic.
What a night out for baseball.
(Oh, the Pirates shut out the White Sox. I think the it was 4 or 5 to 0. Honestly, I wasn’t pay that much attention to the score.)
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 don’t think the Google assist lady likes baseball. . .and I’m sure she’s never been to Pittsburgh.
I made it to the baseball game. It was a three hour drive through a massive thunderstorm and the last half mile was the most challenging.
I’m in Columbus for a couple of days on business. Columbus is not that far from Pittsburgh. Well, it’s a couple of hundred miles, and it’s two states away. (You have to go through a narrow stretch of West Virginia.)
But, maybe it’s living in Utah, but a couple hundred miles just doesn’t seem that long. Sure, you have to make sure you’ve used the restroom before you leave and you should settle in for a lot of sitting, but if it’s important, three hours isn’t too terrible.
There are several Major League Baseball stadiums within driving distance of Columbus. If by driving distance you mean three hours or less. The Tigers and the Reds are currently on the road. But, the Pirates are at PNC Park this week playing the Chicago White Sox.
The game started at 7:05, my flight landed in Columbus at 3:00. My coworker landed a few minutes earlier. We knew that we would have time to get to the game. But, it was raining in Columbus. And it was raining all over the upper mid-west. And it looked like it was raining in Pittsburgh.
If you are about to make a three hour road trip, you kind of want to make sure that the game isn’t going to be rained out. The weather app, which had earlier put the chance of rain in Pittsburgh at 80% showed a 50% and didn’t call for rain during game time.
We decided to chance it. We checked into our hotels and headed East out of Columbus. This isn’t the first business trip I’ve been on with this coworker but it was the first road trip. He picked me up at my hotel,
Do you want to take my car?
No, get in, I’ll drive.
I could tell immediately this trip was getting off to a great start. He didn’t even let me use my phone to give directions.
As we headed toward East Ohio the rain got harder. And then it got harder still. Through the rain streaked windshield we saw flashes of lightening and heard the distant role of thunder.
I anxiously continued to check the weather app, which continued to show clearing skies over Pittsburgh. The Google Assist lady continued to give us directions. Somewhere around the West Virginia state line, the Google Lady told us there was a twelve minute delay ahead and she recommended we take an 80 mile detour.
So, off we went through the backroads of Ohio and then West Virginia and finally Pennsylvania. We made good time considering the rain. As we got closer to Pittsburgh, the skies started to clear. As we came out of the tunner, we saw the river stretched out in front of us. And no rain.
There’s a stadium.
It seems kind of empty.
Yeah, you don’t think they would have cancelled it?
Oh. . .
What? Look to the right. THAT is PNC Park, the baseball stadium. That other one is Heinz Field, the football stadium.
We laughed as the Google Lady directed us to exit the freeway. And that’s when it got a little weird.
My coworker was navigating. Well, his phone was. And I’m pretty sure she had no idea where she was going. We circled the stadium like a hawk eyeing a tasty meal, but just not able to reach it. We soon found ourselves headed across the river and back through the tunnel. That was definitely not the right direction.
We circled around and made anothe run at it. We once again found ourselves coming out of the tunnel and headed across the river. The stadium lights bright against the fading evening light. The Google Lady continued to give us directions which continued to fail to get us to the stadium.
We found ourselves once again headed up the ramp toward the bridge and that stupid tunnel. In a final bit of useless advice the Google Lady offered,
In 500 feet your destination will be on the right.
We just started laughing. It’s true the stadium was to our right.
We could even catch a glimpse of the outfield grass. But, to get to it, we’d have to stop in the middle of the road and pretty much fly, like a home run ball in reverse, across the outfield wall.
We went across the river, but turned off before the tunnel this time.
Let’s ignore her. Once you get across the river just head for the stadium and we’ll look for a parking.
With the river to our right and the stadium somewhere in front of us, it was a simple process to wind our way close enough to find parking. We walked the two blocks to PNC Park and looked for the walk up ticket window.
It was only the fourth inning. Still a lot of baseball left.
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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There are 30 Major League baseball stadiums. Twenty-nine are in the United States and one in Toronto, Canada. Major League Baseball is actually two leagues, the National League and the American League. Each league is divided into three divisions, the Eastern, Central and Western. Each division has five teams.
The winner of each division, is not surprisingly called the Division Champion. The playoffs pit the three division champions from each league and the best two teams that didn’t win their division against each other. The winner of that series of games becomes the Conference Champion. The conference champions meet in a seven game playoff called the World Series.
There are seven teams that have never won the World Series.
San Diego Padres
Tampa Bay Rays
Washington Nationals
Colorado Rockies
Milwaukee Brewers,
Texas Rangers
Seattle Mariners
Last year, the World Series went to the Houston Astros. The city was still recovering from the hurricanes that hit earlier in the year and the World Series win was a bright spot in a year that had few of them. Of the list above, only two teams, Washington Nationals and the Seattle Mariners have never even been to the Fall Classic. However, the old Washington Senators, who played in Washington DC from 1901-1960 won it all in 1924. Leaving hapless Seattle as the only Major League City to never send a team to the Series.
On the other hand, of the 113 times the World Series has been played, the New York Yankees have represented the American League 40 times. They took the championship 27 times.
The longest drought between championships was the Chicago Cubs. They won it in 1908 and then didn’t win again until 2016, 108 years later. But, hey, anyone can have a bad century.
The championship series was cancelled twice. Most recently in 1994 because of a players strike. The other time was 90 years earlier in 1904. Apparently the National League champs, the New York Giants didn’t want to play the AL winners, the Boston Americans.
The 2018 baseball season is in full swing. My hapless Mariners are just a game and a half out of first place in the American League West Division. “If the season were to end today. . .” Yeah, Seattle still wouldn’t be headed to the playoffs.
I don’t have much of a bucket list. I’d like to see my kids grown. Maybe dance at a grandchild’s wedding. I have a couple of other goals that are just for me. But, the one sure thing on my bucket list is to visit all 30 baseball stadiums and buy a fitted cap for every team. Currently, I’ve been to eight.
Safeco Field (Seattle Mariners)
Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs)
Turner Field (Atlanta Braves)
Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox)
Great American Ball Park (Cincinnati Reds)
Ballpark at Arlington (Texas Rangers)
AT&T Park (San Francisco Giants)
Camden Yards (Baltimore Orioles)
I’ve driven past the Rockies stadium in Denver and the old Comisky Park on the South Side of Chicago where the White Sox played, but never been in.
Tomorrow I fly to Columbus, Ohio for a business trip. My flight arrives at 3:00, but my meetings aren’t until the following day. It’s three hours from Columbus to Pittsburgh, where the Pirates play in PNC Park. I figure I can make it in time for the first pitch at 7:00pm. My only worry. . .they’re predicting rain.
Let’s hope they PLAY BALL!
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) 2018 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved