I took a wrong turn on my way home from work yesterday. It’s not a big deal. I live in a small town that is smack up against other small towns. I was driving through Lehi, UT and trying to find a back way to my house in Pleasant Grove.
I ended up turning down Memory Lane instead.
(Photo Credit: irunoninsulin.com)
I found myself at the Lehi cemetery. I don’t regularly visit cemeteries and there are ones closer to my house. But, I have a friend buried in Lehi.
Clint McKell was larger than life. A former college football player, he was about 6’5″ and resembled a large teddy bear. Clint was a stand up comedian. But, like many comics he was a broken person.
It’s a strange irony that many comics are not what you would call naturally happy or upbeat people.
We laugh at our pain.
That’s what a friend told me at Clint’s funeral.
Clint’s demons were found in drugs. A typical story really. Football injury requires pain killers. The injury heals, but by then he’s already addicted. It cost him everything. He lost his job. He lost multiple jobs. He lost his wife. He, at one point lost my friendship.
See, being young and stupid and adding drugs to the mix makes for a terrible combination. Clint was my friend, and I don’t choose friends lightly. He made a mistake. It was a terrible betrayal of trust. And it shook me to my core.
To his credit, Clint realized his mistake. He reached out to me, asked my forgiveness and wanted to get together for lunch in a week to try to repair the damage and attempt to salvage our friendship.
Two days later he was dead.
He died before I could forgive him.
He passed away in the winter. There was snow on the ground although the day was bright. Comics deal with pain in what looks to the rest of world like a callous, hard hearted manner. They make jokes.
Clint was never a hack until his death?
What do you mean?
Well, overweight comic dies of a drug overdose? It’s been done a million times.
Someone brought a bottle of ginger and dropped it into his grave. His nickname was “The Big Ginger” for his bright red hair, a trait he got from his mother. His death was almost more than she could bear.
As I made the turn to head East around the cemetery towards Pleasant Grove, I thought about all of this and more. The cliches; don’t forget to tell them you love them, you never know when it’s your turn to go, forgive the past.
There is no witty, clever tie-in to computers or business in today’s post. No second story that I’ll attempt to weave into the first story to illustrate a shared point.
I did eventually manage to work through my grief and anger. It’s useless bearing a grudge against the dead after all. I hope he found peace in that eternal slumber.
Today’s post was simply because I took a wrong turn on my way home from work and found myself driving down Memory Lane.
Here is a clip of Clint performing comedy recorded just a couple weeks before he died.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Hey, Jared I need to be on a conference call tomorrow morning at 5:30. Will my visitor badge get me in at that time?
Sure, you’re badge is a universal badge. It will work just fine at 5:30 AM.
You’d think that would be simple, right? You didn’t detect anything ominous in that exchange did you? Neither did I.
I was visiting Richmond, VA for the opening of our new call center. As the IT project manager, I’d been working for months leading up to this day. We had one little issue to nail down. We had to send a license file daily to our client and we were still having issues with it (Not My First Rodeo.)
The file had to arrive by 5:00 AM Central Time. That was 6:00 AM Eastern Time. I set up a 5:30 meeting with my team members in Salt Lake City and India to guarantee we uploaded the file successfully. I was getting up at 4:30 to make my meeting, but the guys in Salt Lake were getting on the call at 3:30 AM. India was in the middle of the afternoon.
I arrived in plenty of time at our facility. Just like the local IT guy had said, the card reader turned a satisfying green when I scanned my card key. I pulled open the door and headed for the conference room where I was going to make the conference call from.
beep, beep, beep
That could not be a good sound. I looked at the display panel next to the door.
System Armed. You may now exit.
I knew what that was. Any possible confusion was removed 7 seconds later when the siren went off.
I had a class in high school called International Relations, or IR for short. One of the focuses for the semester was a trial of the Empress Dowager Cixi of China. The last of a long line of Chinese Emperors and Empresses.
My friend Kevin and I were assigned as defense attorneys. There were a couple kids who were prosecuting attorneys. Others were British sea captains, local merchants, even a Chinese prostitute. (Didn’t seem radical at the time, but not sure our teacher Mr. Kerrihard could get away with that today.) And of course, a student played the Empress.
The purpose of the lessons that stretched over several weeks was to force us to learn about 19th Century China. It was a fascinating exercise. The purpose of the trial was to put the dynasty on trial for actions that led to the subjugation of China by the European powers.
And that was the key to the issue. Kevin and I understood that we were defending not just the last Empress, but the entire dynasty. Our opposition didn’t understand that.
The results weren’t even close. The main prosecutor focused on the Empress and her actions. She showed how she was a corrupt official who essentially sold out her country for the promise of peace. Had the trial hinged solely on the actions of the Empress we would have lost. . .badly. But, we showed how previous emperors had been strong leaders who worked to keep their people safe. Sure there were some scoundrels, but there were also many good leaders.
Kevin and I won easily.
What’s this have to do with me standing in the lobby of our building in Richmond, VA with the burglar alarm blaring in my ear?
Perspective.
I stared at the burglar alarm panel and tried to will myself to learn the access code. No inspiration was forthcoming. I made my way to my conference room, just off the main lobby (where the alarm was located.) Closing the thick wooden door cut the sound down to simply loud from painfully loud.
911, please state the nature of your emergency.
Ah. . . I just set off my company burglar alarm.
What’s the address?
Yeah, I’m not exactly sure of the address. I’m from out of town and I don’t come to this building a lot. I think it’s Parham Road. It might be in Richmond.
Okay, I see it now. We’ve dispatched an officer. He should be there shortly.
In the meantime, I still had a conference call to do. I dialed into the conference call bridge a little before 5:30. I was the first one on the bridge. Out in the lobby, the alarm suddenly went silent. That was one thing at least.
I opened the conference room door and stepped out to check. . .and immediately set off the alarm again. Motion activated. Behind me I could hear people beeping into conference call.
Hey guys, thanks for joining us. Where are we at with the file?
I just emailed a copy to all of you. Rodney, check it for the right file name.
Looks good. Go ahead and upload it to the client FTP site. I need to step away from the phone for a minute. Be right back.
The alarm had timed out again. I hit the MUTE button on the phone and headed out to the front door where I could see a policeman standing. The alarm, of course went off again as soon as I set foot out of the conference room.
Are you Mr. Bliss?
Yes. Here’s my ID. I’m from out of town and they forgot to tell me about the alarm.
Okay, I’ll clear this alarm, but by law I have to come out every time the alarm company calls us. If I have to come back it’s going to be considered negligence and there will be a fine. You should call your monitoring company.
Sure. Thanks.
I retreated back through the earsplitting alarm to the relative quite of my conference room.
Rodney? Rodney, are you there?
Yeah, I’m back. How’d the upload go?
The file successfully uploaded.
Great. I’ll inform the client and let you know if there’s an issue. Bye.
I hung up the phone and started writing an email letting our client know the file was on their site. As I was writing the phone rang.
Mr. Bliss? This is the 911 dispatcher. I see that you met with our officer?
Yeah, he was really nice. He suggested I call our alarm company. I unfortunately don’t have that number.
Well, we can give you the phone number that your alarm company called us from.
Sure.
Fortunately, I was able to convince the alarm company that I wasn’t breaking into the building. Apparently not a lot of thieves call the cops on themselves. I still didn’t have a code to turn off the alarm. And while it was silent again in the lobby, I hid in the conference room, waiting to see people walking past the frosted glass.
Here’s an email that I sent to Jared later that morning.
Jared,
My card worked perfectly this morning. Thank you.
Do you know what else works at 5:30 AM?
The burglar alarm.
Oh. . .and cops. The local cops are also working at 5:30 AM.
I used my one phone call to call my mother. Never called Mom from jail as a teenager. Didn’t want to miss the opportunity!
Actually, I’m in a conference room kind of hesitant to open any doors for fear of I’ll set off the sirens again.
Thanks for the heads up on the alarm. . .thanks a lot.
Perspective.
In my high school IR class, Kevin and I won because we understood that we needed to address more than just the current Empress. She might be the focus of the current discussion, but we needed to understand that to answer the current question, we had to look at what else was involved.
A perspective I wish my coworker had when I asked “Will my badge let me in at 5:30 AM?”
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Cali Colombia is a beautiful city. We were here in this jewel of a city to welcome three preteen girls to our family. The house that we had called home for the last three weeks was a beautiful grey marble and offered amazing authentic Colombian dishes for each meal. And we had never had so many different types of juice. We never had the same type twice.
The food was great. Long on beef and vegetables. Not much pasta. And then one night the nice Colombian lady who worked there served broccoli. I’m not a broccoli fan. I’ll eat it so the kids will eat it. My lovely wife on the other hand, loves broccoli. She dished a big helping for herself and started to dish a helping for each of our girls.
No. No.
They were quite insistent. She tried to convince the girls in her limited Spanish that broccoli was good. They were having none of it. They insisted that broccoli tasted really bad. No amount of talking would convince them to try it. Finally, my lovely wife decided the best way to convince the girls was simply to show them. She picked up a big spear and plopped it in her mouth.
And that’s when she knew why my girls didn’t want to eat the broccoli.
There are two important lessons that we learned from the broccoli. Well, actually my lovely wife learned it. . .I didn’t actually eat any of the broccoli.
First, things are not aways what they appear. This isn’t a revelation to anyone, I know.
I was working as the Executive Vice President for Agile Studios. We made custom software for a variety of clients. One day a man walked in and asked us to build a commerce website. It was a fairly simple site. You come to the site, select a product and pay with a credit card.
My boss wanted to take the job. After all, it’s what we did. After the guy left I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea.
Second, trust the locals.
Why didn’t you like the deal?
Too many red flags.
Like?
Servers in an undisclosed location in Russia. He rolls his IP addresses every few days. We aren’t allowed to access the servers directly.
Do you think he’s a spammer?
Yeah, he’s a spammer.
My boss agreed we didn’t want to build a website for a spammer. Some deals were simply not worth it. And he trusted my experience.
Vinegar.
The reason my girls didn’t like broccoli? Vinegar. See, the traditional Colombian method for cooking broccoli is to boil it in vinegar. Like mistaking wasabi for guacamole, Colombian broccoli, or more accurately the vinegar it’s saturated with explodes in your mouth.
My girls got a good laugh and my wife and I got a great lesson in trusting the judgement of little girls who couldn’t speak a word of English.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Remember your lab is due on Friday, and I’m giving you a break and there’s no class on Thursday. Any questions?
. . .
Yes, Rodney.
Why is there no class on Thursday?
Well, I need to be out of town, so we are canceling.
Can’t you get a substitute?
Excuse me? Are you saying you WANT to attend class on Thursday?
Absolutely.
Everyone is excited to get the day off. Why do you think we should have class?
Because I PAID for that class day.
My classmates weren’t happy with me, and I didn’t convince the professor to get a substitute for his class. But, I think it illustrates an important point. Think about when you were in college, or if you are still in college, think about your classes. Who decides if you have class one day? Who is the one really in charge?
You might be tempted to say the professor. You’re classmates might agree. Mine certainly did. I’m sure the professor would agree. You’d all be wrong. The person who pays for a service is ultimately the one with the power. As a college student, you are paying. You, or your parents are paying a lot of money for you to be in that class.
After working hard to get into college. After paying a pile of money in tuition. After working hard to get into your choice of classes, why would you then let someone short-change you?
If you went to a movie and the theater decided to cut a 2 hour movie down to 1:45 you’d be screaming for the rest of your movie. If you went to a concert and 20 minutes before the end of the show they made you leave the concert hall, you’d be upset. If you were watching the World Cup and you missed 30 minutes. . .actually, you wouldn’t miss much, but a soccer fan would be upset. If you bought a book and twenty pages were missing out of the middle, you’d want your money back. If you order a 12 oz steak and they bring you a 9 oz, you’d feel cheated.
So, why when it comes to education do we consider it a treat if the professor announces he is going to shortchange his class?
We employee a lot of call agents at my work. These are people who applied to work for our company, dressed up in a tie to come to the interview. They interviewed with a supervisor. They took a drug test. Then, they waited anxiously for us to tell them they got the job.
And yet on a slow day; a day where we are getting fewer calls than expected, these people line up to volunteer for VTO: Voluntary Time Off. In other words, they worked to get a job and then asked to not work. They are hourly. It’s not like they get paid for VTO.
Roger is the Assistant Call Center Manager. He started as an on-phones agent. In his current role, Roger approves people for VTO. Every time he does, he shakes his head.
When I was an agent I NEVER took VTO. I used to work construction before getting my first job here. Now all I had to do was sit on the phone and talk to people? And they’d PAY me for it?
Yeah, that’s the type of attitude that led to Roger getting promoted to running a call center floor instead of being excited that his professor was cancelling class for the day.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Does that sound like the generators kicking on?
The lights flickered again.
Yes, I’m sure I can hear the generators.
And then the lights went totally out.
I’m in Virginia this week opening a new call center. We’ve been working on this project for months. I’ve been working on the project plan for this site since I started at this company four months ago. My coworkers had been working on it for many months before I was hired.
To say this was a critical launch would be an understatement. I have been obsessing about technical details for weeks. Would we get the license file to successfully process? Would our call copy servers record calls? Would our IEX data reports go out once we started taking calls?
One by one each piece fell into place. Our work was paying off. Each worry was resolved and as the day went on I felt better and better about the outcome.
See, we’ve had three launches and each time something went wrong. Not something that put the launch in jeopardy, but enough to cause me some anxious moments. I was determined that this launch wouldn’t have anything like that.
And then the lights went out. The Desktop Engineer immediately turned down a hallway away from the call floor.
I’m going to go check out the Data Center.
Okay, I’ll check the call floor!
And I headed down the long call floor past rows and rows of empty desks waiting for future agents, to where our group of brand new agents was gathered at the far end of the call floor.
Did any calls drop?
Nope. The phones and the computers didn’t miss a beat.
That’s a relief.
It’s great that this happened during the launch, don’t you think?
No, actually I didn’t think it was good that we had to test our emergency generators and our uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system during the most critical time of our very important launch.
I can’t blame my coworkers. While our call center windows are frosted over the thunder had been really impressive. And let’s face it, a power outage is an exciting event.
But, as an IT project manager, my goal is to make the launch as boring as possible from a technical standpoint. I don’t want any hiccups, anomalies, gremlins, or ghosts in the machine.
Sure we have processes and programs in place to handle contingencies just like this power outage we had, but that doesn’t mean I want to use them.
It’s like saying, ‘We went camping and used every single item in our first aid kit. Wasn’t that great?”
No. No it’s not.
But, I will say that having the generators kick on was certainly better than the alternative.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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My father was a professional gambler.
He didn’t like it. Oh, he might have enjoyed it when he was young. But, by the time I knew him, it was just a job. It was a job that he was pretty good at. Actually, he was really good at it. But, the hours were terrible. He had to hang out with people he often didn’t like. He had to spend his evenings in smoke filled rooms.
I asked him about it one time,
Why do you play cards?
It’s the only thing I can do that will earn enough money to pay the bills.
He was right. My sister and my mother were both in college. My brother and I were in high school. Dad’s job kept all that going.
Was it worth it?
Well, my sister graduated and became a school teacher. My mother graduated and started a CPA firm and then a financial investment firm. She later sold both for cash.
Yeah, it was worth it.
But, it meant he would never play cards with me.
The pop machine at work is broken. It occasionally kicks out an extra can of soda. This really disappoints me, for the same reason my dad wouldn’t play cards with me.
Ever completed a truly difficult project at work? Something that was impossible and then you did it? Maybe it was an impossible schedule. Like Star Trek’s “Scotty” you knew it would take 8 hours and you had 4? And you totally nailed it?
There is nothing that compares to that feeling. I remember when I first went to work and had a tough problem. As I remember it, I was working as a telephone technician and I was confronted by literally a wall of phone lines like a rat’s nest of copper wires. I had to find a single pair of wires in that mess.
After 45 minutes I remember thinking,
I’m tired of this. I don’t care any more. I’m ready to look in the back of the book for the answer.
But, there was no book. It was up to me. Thirty minutes later I found my pair of wires and fixed the user’s problem. And unlike a college homework, I had the satisfaction of knowing that I’d done something hard. And you know what? It was addicting.
That is why I became an engineer, a troubleshooter, a road warrior. And it felt GREAT!
And that’s why my dad wouldn’t play cards with me. And why the pop machine disappointed me when it kicked out an extra can of soda.
First the pop machine. See, our pop machine at work is free. It’s a commercial Coke machine with buttons down the right side and that little shoot that the cans come out of. It just doesn’t take any money. You walk up, press the button for the kind you want and out comes your can of Coke, or Dr Pepper, or Mountain Dew. (Yeah, I work with a lot of engineers. Caffeine is pretty much a given.)
With a normal pop machine where you put in your dollar, or $1.25, if a second can comes out, it’s like winning an itty bitty lottery. There’s some satisfaction. But when the pop is already free that second can is simply disappointing, not satisfying.
My dad played cards for money. He could look at a table of poker players, look at a hand of 5 card draw and figure out almost to the dollar how much it was worth. Same for a hand of Gin.
Like my second can of free soda, my dad couldn’t stand getting a hand of cards in a family game that would be worth money in a professional poker game. Cards were tools, not toys.
I’m glad my dad was able to support our family. I’m grateful that my company provides free soft drinks. But, I wish I’d had a chance to play cards with him. It was worth it, but it wasn’t without a price.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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I admire people who can do things I can’t; programmers, engineers, professional athletes. That’s probably why I got excited about the World Cup in Brazil. Otherwise I can’t really explain it. I don’t watch soccer. I don’t even really understand it. Well, I didn’t. Like most Americans I’m now an expert on soccer simply by watching a few games played by guys we’ve never seen nor will again.
I stood outside a bar in the Atlanta airport to watch the second half of the final featuring Germany and Argentina. My plane was boarding before it was over. I had to login and check the score after I got to my hotel in Richmond.; Germany wins it 1-0. I also noticed a headline that said, “LeBron James Says The World Cup Is Bigger Than The NBA Finals.”
Basketball is a game I understand. LeBron’s statement made me think. What would basketball be like if it was played by some of the crazy rules in soccer, or as the rest of the world calls it, football, or as the advertisers have dubbed it, Futball? (I don’t know either. It’s just one more of the things about soccer, I don’t understand.)
Here’s how some of the rules would apply to basketball.
First, goaltending would be totally legal.
Fouls shots would be attempted from the point of the foul and could be defended, so long as the defenders stood ten yards back from the shooter.
For flagrant fouls the referee would wave a colored duct taped card at them and warn them they better not do that again!
The court would be 110 yards long, because 100 yards would be too small.
Each team could only substitute three players per game, unless one of their players suffers a concussion. A scarily regular activity.
One player will wear a different colored uniform and he’ll be allowed to travel with the ball so long as he always stays in the key.
There are NO timeouts.
Instead of four twelve minute quarters, the game will be 96 minutes long divided into two 48 minute halves with a running clock. . .unless the ref decides it should go longer.
Only the ball has to stay in bounds. . .players can go out of bounds as much as they want.
Tripping other players is forbidden, but pushing shoving, grabbing, holding. . .all allowed.
After an hour and a half, the game will end in a 0-0 tie followed by a 15 minute overtime period which will also end in a 0-0 tie, after which teams will take turns shooting half court shots. . .with a goaltender.
When a player does finally score a basket, he will rip his shirt off and lay down on the court for no discernible reason.
Game highlights will be picture after picture of players ALMOST scoring a basket, and then flopping to draw fouls.
Cherry picking will occasionally be called offsides. No one will understand exactly why.
Instead of counting down to zero, the game clock will count up to some number between 90 and 122. No one will know exactly when the game ends except one referee. This will mean that last second game winning shots will be eliminated, but no one will care since they wouldn’t have gone in anyway.
And 3.2 billion people follow it religiously and claim they understand it.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Like some Kenny Rogers song, on a warm summer night in a small town, my family and I took our places in a grandstand full of moms and dads, kids and grandparents, many of them wearing cowboy hats and boots.
We were at the Lehi Roundup in Lehi, UT. And it wasn’t my first rodeo.
My current job is as a project manager with a large telecommunication company. I am responsible for a single large account. I was hired because I have Project Management experience, a lot of it.
We watched cowboy after cowboy wrestle steers, hog tie calf, and ride bucking horses.
Lehi is part of the rodeo circuit. The cowboys (and cowgirls in the barrel races) train for years to compete. It takes an amazing amount of concentration to stay on the back of 1800 lbs of twisting, jumping, jarring horseflesh.
Yesterday, one of my projects got derailed. Despite my best planning. Despite seeing the risk and trying to plan several contingencies. I failed. It does no good for me to point out that I was acting on what I thought was good information. I had completed tests with my customer that they said were successful. When we attempted production, it turned out our tests were flawed.
The last event of the evening is the bull riding competition. During the bull riding we watched cowboy after cowboy try and fail to last the required 8 seconds. One by one they ended up in the dirt of the arena floor. Those cowboys had each trained well. They were experienced. They came well prepared. And they failed to even get a score.
Today I will try my test again. There is a chance that if my test doesn’t pass today my entire project launch might be at risk. Everyone is watching me and this test. Yesterday we fell down, today we are getting back on the bull.
As the competition continued, finally one cowboy lasted the full eight seconds. Under most circumstances, his score would have been middle of the pack. Today, he was the only one to finish and he won the bull riding competition solely because he was the only one to finish.
If today’s test is successful, it won’t matter that yesterday we failed. And disappointing as it will be, if we fail today we will attempt it again tomorrow.
As I said, this is not my first rodeo.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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I have the pleasure to write for our local Pleasant Grove, UT paper. Below is a column that appeared recently, with added pictures.
The following is reprinted from “The Timpanogos Times” Saturday June 21, 2014. Pictures not part of original story.
Bliss Bits
By Rodney Bliss
Pleasant Grove’s signature downtown park became a little more pleasant last month. On a Saturday in May a local church group gathered to clean, paint, and improve the look of the park.
Much of the work may not be obvious. They spent hours scraping old paint off the bathrooms and pavilions.
New paint replaced the chipped, peeling and faded covering. They descended with an army of rakes to level the wood chips in the playground area.
The final task before the adults and dozens of youth could enjoy what was truly heavenly BBQ brisket, was to get a truck load of rocks unloaded into a new pet area outside the bathrooms.
I estimated the truck held about two and a half cubic yards of river rock. River rock weighs two tons per cubic yard: 5,000 lbs of rocks. The only method for getting the rock from the truck to the pet area was back breaking manual labor.
The kids swarmed the truck. Soon rocks were flying mostly in the direction of the pet area, and dangerously close to some of the youth. Someone produced several five gallon buckets and the task became one of sitting on the pile of rocks and picking them up one by one and putting them into a bucket that was then handed off to a young man waiting next to the truck who would dump it into the pet are and return it to let the cycle repeat.
It was slow work. Shovels weren’t much use for much of the time. Throughout the 45 minutes it took to empty the truck Brian Cryer of Pleasant Grove was cheering on the kids.
Come on, you guys are making great progress! Look at how much you’ve done already! You’re doing awesome. Not much left.
Afterward, I talked to Brian.
It’s too bad the truck didn’t have a lift.
Oh, it did.
What do you mean?
It’s a dump truck. The bed tips up.
But it’s broken?
Not as far as I know.
Ah. . .
Look, we could have finished this in about ten minutes. What lesson would that teach the kids? This way every one of those kids is going to feel like they contributed to making this park a nice place for people and their pets.
He did it the hard way on purpose. Brian understood that if you have to work for something, you appreciate it more. And he never mentioned a word of his real purpose to any of the kids.
What’s too easily obtained is too lightly esteemed.
I attended the graduation ceremony for Summit High School last month. You are probably not familiar with Summit. The class of 2014 totaled 43 graduates.
Summit is what’s known as an alternative high school. All of the attendees are in state custody, mostly in foster care. Some are there through their own choices, some through the choices of others beyond their control.
The Summit graduates reminded me of those kids emptying that dump truck. For many at risk kids, Summit high school is a school for second chances. And many of these kids took full advantage of that second chance. The class boasted an impressive number of recipients of the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence, which requires a 3.5 GPA, and even more impressive recipients of the Presidential Award For Outstanding Academic Excellence, which requires a 3.8 GPA and 90% attendance.
Unlike the kids unloading rocks, the Summit kids weren’t doing it the hard way on purpose. But what the two groups shared was the accomplishment of doing something hard, something they didn’t necessarily have to do.
The kids from the church group will remember their time moving rocks. Some might even remember it as being hard, but worth it. The Summit kids will remember that no matter what happened in the past or will happen in the future, they accomplished something hard. They accomplished something that many didn’t think they’d be able to do.
They did the hard thing.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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My friend Jeff was a nerd. And in fifth grade, being a nerd wasn’t a cool thing. But, Jeff really didn’t care. Because I was his friend he let me play with his newest toy.
(Photo Credit: Texas Instruments)
In 1976 this was the coolest watch on the planet. And Jeff had one. I remember him telling me it cost over $100. And I believed him too. Right up until I started researching this story. They were about $20. But in 1976, that was a lot of money for a 10 year old.
Three years later, Jeff’s watch wasn’t unique. . .everyone had one. In fact, it became natural to assume that your friends had digital watches. We used to love for people to ask us the time:
Do you know what time it is?
It’s exactly 10:57.
You could have just said ‘about 11 o’clock.”
Today, of course watches have largely fallen out of favor. Everyone uses their phone. Unless they want to make a fashion statement. I have a friend at work who wears a large watch. It’s stuck at 5:12. The batteries died and he never bothered to get them replaced. He has a cell phone.
A couple weeks ago I was in Southern Utah with my son and his scout troop hiking through “the narrows” in Zion’s National Park. The narrows is an incredible slot canyon. At times it’s only a few feet wide, with sheer walls on both sides that are hundreds of feet high. Not a place you want to be trapped in a flash flood.
I’m old school. I got a map and took a compass. The compass was overkill. The canyon goes exactly two directions: Up and back. But, the map was somewhat useful. We were looking for a branching canyon and the map helped us estimate how far away it was.
According to the map, it looks like it’s about another mile or so.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could download the map into your phone?
Why?
Well, then you wouldn’t need the paper map. You could just follow your phone.
I thought that sounded like a terrible idea. Why would I want to give up the experience of the map to stare at a phone screen?
But, I got to thinking. Looking around I realized that everyone had a phone. Everyone except me, I’d left mine at the camp on purpose. The Narrows hike is through a river. And yet, there were people with waterproof cases, or waterproof GoPro devices, or dry boxes. Everyone was busy taking pictures and videos of the river, the walls, each other, the water, themselves.
Is having a phone a “natural” condition? By that I mean are we to the point where if someone doesn’t have a mobile phone we think them odd? We expect everyone to have a phone, just as we used to expect everyone to have a watch?
And what does it say about me that I leave my phone every chance I get? Am I getting old? Yes, but I’m not sure that’s the cause.
I consider a phone as a temporary device. I’m constantly conscious that it has a limited battery life. I consider taking it with me a imposition. But, for many people. . .most people in the US, I think, it’s just always there. Want a picture? Use your phone. You don’t even have to ask IF someone has a phone, you can simply assume they do.
It’s a natural progression, I guess. It also got me thinking about what will come next. Will we all adopt google glasses and simply expect that everyone else is recording everything we say?
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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