I did several book reviews this year. I started reading through the 100 greatest novels ever written. I had read The Great Gatsby years ago, but had forgotten much of it. I enjoyed rereading it.
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“You’re not special for reading The Great Gatsby. We all went to high school.
Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.
Okie dokie. Let’s tone it down. I was just making a joke.
So was I. That’s the first line of the book.
What? I didn’t read the book”
– Internet conversation
I’m pretty sure I read The Great Gatsby in high school. Ms Thomas was a really good English teacher. I had her for Freshman Honors English and later as a Junior for AP English. She probably introduced me to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. However, I don’t remember it.
Everyone has heard of The Great Gatsby. The book was written in 1924. It’s been made into countless movies. Okay, you could probably count them. IMDB lists 5 versions including the 2013 version starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
If you are like me, you probably don’t remember the story. I remembered there was something about lots of parties. That was my recollection prior to rereading it.
At 178 pages, it’s a short book, but a rich and complex story. Not remembering anything from the story, it made the reveals in the book more striking. I was at times disgusted, surprised and saddened. The Great Gatsby is a tragedy. It’s not quite Shakespearian in that not everyone dies in the end. But, enough die to put a somber ending on what to that point had been a morality tale. The book is 100 years old, but in case, like me, you don’t remember the story and decide to reread it, I’ll keep my review spoiler-free.
What I Liked
I loved the characters. Even Gatsby who honestly is not a particulary admirable character pulled me in. I wanted to be his friend. I wanted to stand by him with Nick when his so called friends all deserted him. I also like the reference to the 1919 White Sox scandal where a group of gamblers conspired with ball players to throw the 1919 World Series. At the time Fitzgerald was writing his story, the Black Sox scandal was only a few years old. He made one of the gamblers a key player. As a baseball geek, I enjoyed it.
I also liked the way Fitzgerald moved us easily between East and West Egg and the ash lands. And ultimately the people in each of the areas were not all that different.
What I Didn’t
At times I got lost. Fitzgerald’s transitions were at times abrupt. I found myself going back and rereading a previous paragragh. For example, when we find out Gatsby’s real name, it took me several paragraphs to figure out that Gatz and Gatsby were the same man.
The story didn’t go the way I wanted it to. The guy I thought should get the girl didn’t get the girl. Fitzgerald’s story was much stronger and better than mine. But, it was with real sadness that I read parts of the story.
One glaring incongruity concerned the character Meyer Wolfsheim, is a Jew and the gambler who threw the World Series. At one point we find out his company is named “The Swastika Holding Company.” That name, especially for a business owned by a Jew would not be noteworthy in 1925. Obviously today, the idea of a Jew naming his company after the symbol of the Nazi Reich is unthinkable.
What It Means To You
There’s a reason that The Great Gatsby is still being read 100 years after it was written. It’s an enjoyable book and one that won’t bog you down reading through it on a Sunday afternoon. It’s an absolutely brilliant book and a gripping story.
My Rating
4 out of 4 stars
Stay safe
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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You knew that COVID stories had to appear on this list somewhere. Here’s the first one, but not the last that appears on this list.
Last Spring my lovely wife and son got COVID. We had to figure out how to deal with it.
Now, at the end of the year, another son has tested positive for COVID.
I’m hoping it’s not as much of a story in 2022.
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My house is too big. Really, there are six of us living here. Two high school seniors, two adult children, my lovely wife and me.
The house is about 3700 square feet. It has nine bedrooms, two and a half baths, (plus an unfinished bath), two store rooms, a large yard, and a slightly bigger than two car garage and a driveway that will hold six cars. We own two refrigerators, and a separate stand up freezer and a deep freeze.
It’s much bigger than we need. There was a time when it was the perfect size. When we moved in eight years ago, we had eight kids at home. (That’s why we needed the nine bedrooms.) When we were getting the house ready to move into, we had the remodelers build a 16 foot pantry in the dining room.
The house is on what I call a double-corner lot. There are streets on three sides of my house. Despite that it’s a fairly quiet neighborhood. Having all those kids, made shoving hundreds of feet of sidewalks and dozens of feet of driveway go fairly quickly.
We’ve considered what happens when we find ourselves as empty nesters. Do we down-size? I don’t think so. The current plan is to stay. Despite the size of the house, it’s actually a good fit for a couple, especially an older couple. The garage, the flat driveway, the laundry, kitchen, living room, master bedroom, and a room we turned into a library are all on the same level.
We could probably function quite well without having to go downstairs.
Yes, it’s a quite spacious and comfortable house.
And it’s getting really cramped.
Oh, there’s still just the six of us. And there’s certainly room for the six of us. But, we are starting to fall over each other.
We’ve been in quarantine for 8 days. My lovely wife is COVID+. My son was also. He recovered pretty quickly. (The boundless energy and resiliency of youth.) My wife, not so much. She’s been quarantining in the master bedroom. We leave food outside the door. We say family prayers via cell phone. We catch up on family stuff via FaceTime.
Tomorrow one son will be out of quarantine. Ironic that a kid who was COVID positive gets out of quarantine prior to those who were only exposed to someone who was COVID positive.
The rest of us get out of quarantine on Friday. Kids go back to school. My daughter goes back to her service mission at a local thrift shop. All except my lovely wife. She’s still working through symptoms. Her fever is gone, but her blood oxygen levels are still low. She’s on supplemental oxygen. If she moves too much it wears her out. She’s fainted simply trying to walk across the room.
So, our house has gotten pretty small over the past 8 days. And we are all ready for a break, to get back to our normal routines and out into the world.
Except for my lovely wife.
And me, of course. . . I work from home.
Stay safe
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) 2021 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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The fifth most popular post this year was about Masonic Chaplains. I served as chaplain of my lodge in 2021 and I’ve been asked to do it again in 2022. Here’s what I wrote about the role of Masonic Chaplains.
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Today’s Educational is on the different roles within Masonry.
Masonic lodges have a specific list of roles. Each has it’s own responsibility.
Worshipful Master
Senior Warden
Junior Warden
Senior Deacon
Junior Deacon
Secretary
Treasurer
Tyler
Senior Steward
Junior Steward
Marshall
Chaplain
We didn’t go through all roles, of course. The stewards explained their role. The Junior Warden explained his role. The Tyler gets an actual sword. he explained his role.
We only have a few minutes left, I want Rodney to explain the Chaplain role.
Chaplain is an interesting role. It’s not elected like many roles in a Masonic Lodge are. The Chaplain is chosen by the Worshipful Master. Our current Worshipful Master chose me. Naturally, I bought a book. I’m a writer. There’s always a book.
A Chaplain has a few enumerated responsibilities and a lot of unlisted ones. Not surprisingly the Chaplain says prayers. Masonic meetings are non-denominational. The only requirement is to belief in a Supreme Architect of the Universe. You can call him God, Jehovah, Allah or Flying Spaghetti Monster. (Okay, Pastaferians might have trouble getting in.) So, the prayers are non-denominational.
I’m a person of faith. In my faith we typically don’t offer memorized prayers. Oh, there are a few associated with specific ordinances. But, for the most part prayers are offered from the heart.
That’s not the case in Masonry. The prayers are written down, not necessarily memorized, but definitely preplanned. That was a change for me. I’m not used to reading prayers. And not writing them either.
But the Chaplain also has a counslor role. The Chaplain is tasked with bringing spirituality to the Lodge. I provide ministry services to the members in all ways and offer moral conscious experience as the officer of the lodge who is responsible for the spiritual and often emotional care of the Lodge, its members and their families.
That’s a lot more than just offering prayers. I don’t know how well I’ll do in this role. But, I do know that I’ll do my best to be there for the members of the Lodge.
Stay safe
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 blame you a bit if that headline means absolutely nothing to you.
Epic?
Agile?
The words have different meanings depending on the context. And without context, “The Epic Guide to Agile” could a great book about how to drive to some place called Agile.
This book is about project management.
Two things just happened: One, all the project managers reading this just went “I KNEW IT!” Second, everybody else just say, “So?”
Project management covers not just programming, but really any project that has a budget a set of features and a schedule. It could be building a deck. It could be planning a vacation.
This book isn’t about those. It’s 477 pages of details on how to make your software projects work better. It took me 3 months to get through it. (September 29, 2021 through December 13, 2021. I consider myself a fast reader. AND this is not just a topic I’m interested in, it’s the focus of my current position.
Three months is a long time to spend on a single book.
And that was part of my issue with the book. It’s very thorough. Dave Todaro is an engaging author. And he’s clearly an expert on Agile and Scrum. In fact, I bought this book because I needed to know what an Epic was in Agile methodology.
Epic: A collection of user stories around a central theme.
That’s my definition, not necessarily Todaro’s. When I went to Google, an excellent (short!) article on Epics appeared. It was written by Dave Todaro. When I wanted to know more, naturally I picked Todaro’s book.
And it was a good choice. Don’t misunderstand me. There’s just an awful lot of it. My understanding of Agile increased dramatically. And it’s a reference I’ll go back to time and again.
What I Liked
Todaro’s style is easy to read. He does a great job of breaking larger topics up into smaller bite-sized pieces. In fact, it’s clear he uses the Agile and Scrum methodologies in his approach to the topic. Each Chapter is well contained and I especially liked the Key Takeaways that ended each chapter. And since I bought the book to learn about Agile, Epics and Scrum, I really appreciated the education. It was like an entire Scrum Master course.
What I Didn’t
A course give you people to ask questions of. There are group exercises; examples. Reading this book was like a story I once heard of a man who tried to learn German in isolation. He did pretty well too, all the way up until he met an actual German speaker. The material is good, but without coaching and practice, it’s not as effective as it could be.
What It Means To You
If you are not a project manager, not much. If you are a project manager and your company is not moving to Scrum, then it still doesn’t matter to you. If you are a project manager and your company has adopted Agile, they will hopefully give you some training. If so, this book will be a great asset. If they are not training you, this book will be an even bigger asset.
My Rating
3.5 out of 4 stars (Assuming you are a PM, of course)
Stay safe
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) 2021 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Next week I’ll be posting the “Best of 2021” posts. Tomorrow, I’m planning a book review. So, today is the Christmas post.
Love your family.
Love yourself.
Be nice.
Stay safe.
That’s it. Merry Christmas and let’s hope for great things from 2022.
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) 2021 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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“Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame
But, I know, it’s my own fault”
– Jimmy Buffet “Margaritaville”
So, for Christmas, I make homemade toys for my grandkids. I’ve done it for years. It’s aa lovely image isn’t it?
Wooden toys. Handmade. Papa sanding a tiny toy car.
Very Norman Rockwell.
The reality is slightly different. This year I’m making:
– 3 footlockers
– a toy tractor
– a toy car
– a toy airplane
– Five names carved as wall hangers
But, I had plenty of time, right? Sure. And then my brother passed away the first week of December. And then I got sick for a week.
And that’s how I end up staying WAY past midnight the week before Christmas like the only Santa’s elf still working.
And contrary to Jimmy Buffett’s suggestion, there really is a woman to blame. Three of them in fact. None older than 8.
Will I finish everything before Saturday morning?
Well, if I don’t, I’ve got no one to blame but myself. I signed up for this.
Stay safe
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) 2021 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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The Toynbee Convector is a collection of 23 short stories by Science Fiction pioneer Ray Bradbury. It’s also the name of the first short story in the collection. The book was published in 1988. Certainly not the oldest book I’ve reviewed, but also not new. I’ve looked for the short story The Toynbee Convector for years.
The short story is a time travel story. But, it has an odd name. It’s named for Arnold Toynbee, an English historian and philosopher of history. Toynbee studied the rise and fall of 26 civilizations and concluded they rose by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities composed of elite leaders. There’s a reason that Bradbury chose to name his short story after Toynbee.
The story is about a time traveller who tells people he’s traveled 100 years into the future, seen how much the world cleaned itself up. Society responds to his revelation and does in fact clean itself up. (Spoiler alert!) He admits on the date of his “arrival” that he in fact lied about the whole thing.
It’s clear why Bradbury chose to name his story after Toynbee. The problem of world pollution was cleaned up due to people believing they could.
The Toynbee Convector, the book is 225 pages long. The Toynbee Convector, the short story is 11 pages. Why have I spent all this time focused on just the one short story? Because, it’s the entire reason I bought the book. And in fact, while short stories are my favorite type of story, Bradbury’s work is a mixed bag. The Toynbee Convector is every bit as good as I remember it. But, several of the stories fail to rise to the level of the namesake story.
I’m glad I bought the book. I’m glad to finally add The Toynbee Convector to my library, even if it’s just a 30 year old used paperback.
What I Liked
The first story, of course. Bradbury’s writing is timeless. The book is 30 years old. And many of the stories predate that, of course. But, they don’t feel “old.” They do what great science fiction should do. They take the reader far away, or very close to home. And, I enjoy short stories as a format.
What I Didn’t
Sadly, much of the book. The signature story had a clever reveal and engaging story. But, not all the stories had a similar reveal. Some where character studies. Some where travelogues. One bordered on pornagraphic. Some were excellent. Some were good and some were mediocre.
What It Means To You
If you are a Bradbury fan, you’ll find things in The Toynbee Convector that you’ll enjoy. As I said, the first story was worth it for me. If you are a science fiction fan, I’m not sure there’ll be enough to engage you for the entire 225 pages.
My Rating
4 stars out of 4: The Toynbee Convector short story
2 stars out of 4: The Toynbee Convector book
Stay safe
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) 2021 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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My father-in-law went into the hospital today. It was unexpected. Fortunately, he had my dear mother there to help him. He’ll spend a couple days in the hospital, but should mean a full recovery. My dear mother called me,
I think we’re just going to cancel Christmas this year.
They live in Arizona and were not planning to come visit. But, they were planning a Christmas celebration in Sun City. My aunt and cousins and their families are there. But, now it seems like, on top of everything else, it’s too much.
I think Christmas is different for all of us this year. Just as it was last year when this thing called COVID meant we’d have to suspend family gatherings for a few months. And a few months turned into several months and now we’ve lost track of how many months.
This year I decided I’d make Christmas presents. That’s a good plan in July. It’s a pretty good plan in October. It’s a risky plan in December. Especially if you get sick the week before Christmas.
So, I stare at the half completed presents in my garage, count the calendar days and try to decide how much I really don’t feel like getting out of bed.
Maybe Mom had good idea after all.
Stay safe
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) 2021 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Marilyn Monroe
James Dean
Buddy Holly
Richie Valens
River Phoenix
Heath Ledger
Tupac
These are people who most of us never knew personally. We watched them. We listened to them. We felt like we knew them because that was what their job was as entertainers.
Our entire experience as with their public personas. We knew them through their music or movies.
These people will never grow old.
Betty White will soon be 100 years old. She’s everyone’s favorite grandma at this point. But, this is what she looked like 80 years ago.
She was one of the young and beautiful at one point in her career. Today, she’s still beautiful, of course, but not the classic sense. We don’t think of this image when we see Betty White. We’ve seen her grow old. And we can’t unsee it.
We will never watch the people at the beginning of this post grow old. Because they died young, they will always be young. And since we only knew them through their public personas, we will always know them as young.
If I’d known I was going to live this long I’d have taken better care of myself.
– Keith Richards
Stay safe
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) 2021 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I have two questions for you:
1. Should schools in America teach Arabic Numerals as part of their curriculum?
2. Should schools in America teach the creation theory of Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre as part of their science curriculum?
I’ll bet I can bet how many of my friends and readers would vote. Conservatives would say:
No
Yes
Liberals would be reversed:
Yes
No
Am I generalizing? Sure. But, both questions are “bad” survey questions. And they are SO bad that they are very good survey question.
First, let’s talk a little about Bloom’s Taxonomy.
I used to write training materials, and more importantly, certification exams. We spent a lot of time talking about Bloom and his taxonomy.
The simplest questions to write are on the bottom. They are knowledge based questions. “When was the War of 1812?” “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?”
Knowledge based questions are typically considered poor exam questions. Memorizing is important for many fields, but knowing how to use that information is more important.
For example, knowing that Plutonium is symbol Pu and atomic number 94 with an atomic weight of 244 is not all that important. Knowing that ingesting .5 grams will kill you instantly is a lot more valuable to know.
Now, let’s look back at our survey questions.
1. Should schools in America teach Arabic Numerals as part of their curriculum?
2. Should schools in America teach the creation theory of Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre as part of their science curriculum?
In order to properly answer these questions you first need to know what Arabic Numberals are and who Father Georges Lemaitre was. And what was his theory?
Without that information you are just guessing. Survey questions, unlike certification exams, should focus on the lowest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
These were real survey questions. They were part of a poll conducted by CivicScience in May 2019. Here were the answers:
The majority of Americans don’t want use teaching Arabic Numerals and don’t want us teaching the creation theory of some Catholic priest in science class.
I mentioned these were bad questions. But, the research teams did a good job of writing their questions. Because they were not trying to figure out if Americans wanted to teach Arabic Numerals or the creation theory of Father Lemaitre. No, what they were really testing was would Americans allow bias to cloud their answers?
The research team assumed that a fair amount of the population would be unfamiliar with Arabic Numbers or Catholic Priest Lemaitre. And if they didn’t know, would they make a judgement based on incomplete information?
Would they show bias against Arabic and Catholic creation theory?
Would you consider donating money to El Kalah Shrine? What if I told you that the work they did was super important? You might be a little hesitant to donate. I’m guessing, you don’t know anything about El Kalah Shrine.
Have you heard of Shriners Hospitals? One is located in Salt Lake City. Shriners Hospitals are completely free to children. The hospital will even pay for parents to stay in a nearby hotel. My daughter was treated at a Shriners Hospital in Norther California.
The El Kalah Shrine is the organization behind Salt Lake City’s Shriner’s Hospital.
NOW would you consider giving them money? See how understanding the context changes the question?
Arabic Numbers are ALREADY taught in schools. In fact, other than some Roman Numerals used in English paper outlines, Arabic Numerals are ALL that’s taught. The digits 0,1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ,9 are Arabic Numerals. Interestingly without the concept of Zero, we would be unable to do multiplication or division.
How many people taking the survey would have said NO, had they understood what Arabic Numerals were?
Oh, and Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre’s creation theory? It has another name you are probably more familiar with. Father Lemaitre was the one who suggested the creation of the universe was a result of the Big Bang Theory.
How many people would object to teaching the Big Bang theory in American schools?
The writers of the survey were smart by being dumb. People thought they were answering questions about one thing and instead were actually revealing hidden bias.
Bloom would have been proud.
Stay safe
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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LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2021 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
