It was 90 degrees today.
Hot, right?
Maybe. But, even at 90 degrees, there’s a chill in the air. There’s a hint of faded leaves clogging the gutters and covering the yard. There’s a whisper of a crisp Fall afternoon at a football game. There’s a smell of roasted turkey and crisp apple pie.
It’s Labor Day weekend. Neither technically or symbolically the end of Summer just yet. But, the hint is there, like a shadow that hasn’t been cast yet.
I love this time of year. And Utah is a wonderful place for Fall. We go all out. My yard has eight maple trees. They are six years old and about 30 feet tall. Right now they are fully decked out with rich green vibrant leaves. But, in another few weeks they will start to turn and depending on exactly when the nights get chilly, my trees will light up in a blaze of reds, oranges and yellows.
Our mountains are already starting to hint at their Fall colors. Our mountains and canyons will be picture postcard quality soon.
High school football started last week. Pleasant Grove is a 6A high school. They opened their season against Orem high school, a 5A school. It wasn’t close. In fact, Orem crushed them 42-16. The only bright spot being safety that PG managed to score on a bungled punt attempt late in the third quarter.
My son, a Senior cornerback on last years team couldn’t believe how badly his former team got beat.
Ah. . .Orem is the four time defending 5A state champion
Really?
Yesterday University of Utah opened their season with a win. Tomorrow BYU has their first game.
Halloween is coming up. We don’t get into as much anymore since the kids are grown. But, then comes Thanksgiving. And after Thanksgiving the house gets decorated with our Christmas light show. It runs until January.
Fall is my favorite time of year. And it starts on Tuesday. . .even if it’s 90 degrees.
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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September 1 is an important day during a long baseball season. The dog days of summer are coming to an end. The final push for the playoffs is starting. Rosters are expanded as clubs can call up some of their promising AAA prospects.
Fifty years ago a game was played that no one really took note of at the time, but has since become one of the most important games every played.
The Pittsburgh Pirates were hosting the Philadelphia Phillies at the old Three Rivers Stadium. The Pittsburg lineup that day was,
Rennie Stennett 2B
Gene Clines CF
Roberto Clemente RF
Willie Stargell LF
Manny Sanguillén C
Dave Cash 3B
Al Oliver 1B
Jackie Hernández SS
Dock Ellis P
That lineup included two future Hall of Famers, Willie Stargell and the great Roberto Clemente. The rest were pretty good in their own right. Pittsburg’s Manager Danny Murtaugh penciled in Al Oliver at first base. This was a bit of a departure.
Oliver was normally an outfielder, but he occasionally played first base. But, as a left-handed hitter, he would not normally be in the lineup against a left handed pitcher (Woodie Fryman, pitcher for Phillies was a southpaw.) He did better than okay going 2-4.
But, Oliver’s success at the plate had little to do with the exceptional nature of the game. In fact, no one today cares that the hometown Pirates defeated their visiting cross-state rivals 10-7.
No, what made the Pirates lineup unique that day was that for the first time in the long history of baseball a starting lineup was all black or Latino players. It was briefly mentioned during the game, but it wasn’t really celebrated. The announcers made a brief mention of it, but only as a curiosity.
And next day in the papers? Not a mention.
You would think that would be inspiring right? All black and Latino team takes the field and the papers treat it as not worthy of note. Except that wasn’t the case. The newspapers didn’t mention it because they didn’t want to draw attention to such an event.
The same thing happened April 16, 1947, the day after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. The papers treated it like just another rookie call up. And thus it was with the September 1, 1971 game. Just another September game in Pittsburg.
Murtaugh was asked if he compiled his lineup with the idea of it being the first exclusive Black and Latino lineup. In typical baseball manager tradition he said,
“When it comes to making out the lineup, I’m colorblind and my athletes know it. They don’t know because I told them, but they know it because they’re familiar with the way I operate. “
I’m sure that Murtaugh would also explain that pitchers never try to hit batter. They’re just trying to pitch inside and occasionally one gets away from them.
If any team was going to accomplish this feat, it’s not surprising. Pittsburg had 13 Black and Latino players on their roster. More than any other team.
Fifty years on, people and even players in the game have started to gain a better perspective of just how important that game was. Catcher Manny Sanguillen,
Now that I’ve thought about it, that’s the best game I caught in the Major Leagues. That’s going to be part of history forever.
Yes, even if you have never heard about it, it’s one of the most important games ever played.
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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See that little red light that looks like a battery? It’s not supposed to be there. Well, it’s an important light, but it’s not supposed to be visible. If it’s visible it means that something is wrong. And if it comes on while you are driving down the freeway at 75 MPH, as mine has been doing for the past couple of weeks, it’s a very bad sign. . .light.
Your battery doesn’t actually power your car’s electrical system. The battery’s main job is to juice the starter. Once the car gets started, a device called the alternator generates electricity and feeds juice to the lights, the fan, the speedometer and allthe little lights on the dash.
A car battery puts out about 12 volts of power. When the alternator is working the reading on the battery should be somewhere around 13.5 volts or higher. (The alternator is recharging your battery as you drive.)
If you are getting less than 13.5 volts at the batter when the car is running, you have a bad alternator. Oh, and when that happens my car will turn on a little red batter light on the dash to let me know.
Yesterday, I decided it was finally time to replace my alternator. If I took it to a mechanic, it would cost about $350. I should say if I took it to a PROFESSIONAL mechanic. If I decide to do the work myself its $130 for parts. (Less the core charge when I take the old one back.)
Here’s a picture of my bad alternator.
Replacing an alternator is a pretty simple repair. You have to remove the electrical housing via a plug and a small 10 mm nut. And then you have to loosen one bolt that controls the tensioner and remove two other bolts.
Not bad to save yourself $200, right? Unfortunately for me, the second bolt, the one that disengages the tensioner is located at a very inconvenient spot. I own easily over 100 sockets. And the 12mm socket that I needed to remove this bolt? I probably have 6 of those. Some short, some long, some 3/8″ drive, some 1/4″ drive, some 1/2″ drive. And, of course I have multiple socket wrenches to use on these sockets.
I spent over an hour trying various combinations of sockets and drivers. The short ones wouldn’t give me room to get a wrench on them. The long ones pushed too far up against the side of the engine compartment.
When I finally found exactly the right combination of socket and wrench, the wrench wouldn’t move. The bolts are tight, I get that, but I didn’t have a lot of options for how to increase leverage. Finally, I pointed the handle up and put a two foot long steel pipe on the end and prayed I didn’t break the bolt before I broke loose the connection.
After an hour of trying, it was andy a matter 2-3 minutes once the bolt was loose. (And no broken bolts! Yay!)
Here’s the hole where the old alternator was and where the new one is going.
New parts always look so shiny when you put them into an existing engine.
The new one went in a lot easier than the old one came out. That annoying “hidden” bolt is a lot easier to deal with when you know going in exactly where it needs to be.
The funny thing about auto repairs is that you can spend a few hours tearing the engine apart and then putting it back together, but you never know if it was successful until you turn the key for the first time.
Fortunately the engine started right up. And not only was the battery showing 13.5 volts. It was well past that.
And when I drove it to work yesterday? No little battery light winking at me from the dash.
“And then there was (no) light!”
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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It only takes a moment’s distraction. Literally one second of not paying close enough attention.
Saturday I was working on a project where I was cleaning up a metal trailer, using an oversized sanding wheel on my grinder. Of course, I was wearing gloves. And a good thing.
I think my glasses slipped. I went to adjust them and my glove met Mr. Grindy.
And just like that my entire Saturday was rescheduled. Instead of hanging out in my driveway grinding on the tow dolly you see pictured behind the grinder. . .
I got to hang out in the IHC Urgent Care office in American Fork. When I walked in, the receptionist took one look at my hand and asked,
Are you bleeding?
Not if I hold it tight like this.
Well, hold it like that then. It going to be a while. We’re pretty stacked up today.
The bleeding did mostly stop. And I got a good look at what happens when a 60 grit sanding disk spinning at 10,000 RPM meets flesh (after chewing through a leather glove like butter.)
I really didn’t want to go to the Urgent Care. But, I realized there was no way that was going to close on its own. Unlike a knife that makes a clean cut, a grinder takes out a section of whatever it touches.
I drove myself to the Urgent Care. But, even before I left home I checked in with my kids to let them know I was leaving and a couple of people were dropping stuff off so watch for it. I walked up to my neighbor’s house. She’s a nurse and confirmed that I should go get it looked at. I checked with my son on where the nearest Urgent Care was located. Our normal one just closed.
Then, I collected a book (still slogging through Don Quixote, on page 550 of 800.) I picked up a bottle of Coke since I knew I would be waiting. I drove the 10 minutes to the Urgent Care. I mentioned to the receptionist,
It actually doesn’t hurt as much as I assumed it would.
Well, you’re in shock.
You think so?
Anytime our body gets injured we go into shock.
Maybe. One of the symptoms of being is shock is that you don’t always know you are in shock. But, I certainly didn’t feel like I was in shock. I found a nice soft chair in the waiting room just in case I had a reaction when I was no longer “in shock.” (I wasn’t.)
Eventually, after an hour or so, it was my turn to go see the doctor. . .after more waiting in the exam room.
I joke about the length of the wait, but that is exactly how Triage works. Medical professionals are trained to divide people into three categories.
- Those who can wait for treatment (That was me.)
- Those who need immediate attention (active bleeding, COVID, throwing up, etc.)
- Those who will likely die regardless
Seriously, in a disaster situation, medical professionals literally make life and death decisions. They have to sometimes look at someone, tell them, “You’re going to be okay,” and then ignore them to move on to someone who is more likely to be saved.
Medical professionals are first responders, too.
I wasn’t too upset at waiting. The doctor spent a while looking at the wound.
I’m glad you came in. But, grinder injuries are difficult because we have to stretch the skin to pull it back together. It’s going to leave a pretty obvious scar.
Well, I was never going to be a hand model anyway. And I’ve heard that girls like scars. My wife’s out of town for a week. I’m waiting until she gets back to let her know.
I decided to mix up my Saturday schedule. Instead of being outside sanding down the trailer, I’d hang out in my office and work on the computer.
This was the image when I first turned on my computer.
Well played Universe. Well played!
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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Sixteen years ago to the day, Hurricane Katrina barreled into the Louisiana coastline as a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 160 MPH. It would wreck havoc on New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast. It would eventually claim 1800 lives and cause over $100 billion dollars in damage making it the costliest natural disaster in US history.
Katrina didn’t start as a Category 5 hurricane of course. It started on August 23 as a tropical depression. It became a tropical storm the next day. It reach hurricane strength the following day on August 25 when it briefly clipped the Southern tip of Florida. Over the next few days it would eventually strengthen to a Cat 5, the strongest hurricane rating on August 29, 2005.
I was in Florida last year when a hurricane was bearing down on our location in Port St Lucie. I got out right before the storm would have made land fall. Many people were running scared. The airport was a madhouse. But, my friend Henry, a local, didn’t seem concerned at all.
You seem to be pretty calm in all of this Henry?
Yeah, my house is well above the flood planes. I’ve got food and water. I’ll be fine. Live in Florida long enough and you learn to deal with hurricanes.
Those of us in the rest of the country, especially here in the high mountain deserts of Utah, view hurricanes as just another story on the news sites. If we have friends in the path of the hurricane, we are concerned for them. But, otherwise we don’t give them much thought.
Unless. . .
My daughter was 12 years old when Hurricane Katrina was in the news. My daughter KATRINA. As a 6th grader it’s very existing to see your name in the news every day. She was excited. . .and then the storm struck. And those of us around the country discovered what a truly dangerous thing a Category 5 storm could be.
And my daughter no longer thought sharing a name with a hurricane was fun or exciting. Just the opposite. The name continued to be in the news, but the stories were now about death and dying, people trapped in the Superdome, looting, flooding, shootings.
Her namesake hurricane was killing people and destroying cities.
Yesterday, August 29, another hurricane hit the Southern coast of Louisiana. It arrived as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 150 MPH. It’s the second most powerful storm to hit Louisiana, behind only Katrina.
We won’t know the full extend of the damage caused by Ida for days. The state has already indicated that it will take weeks to restore lost power. I have many friends in Shreveport. I am praying for their safety. But, they are hardy stock and understand how to prepare for and survive bad weather.
Sixteen years to the day. That’s a coincidence, don’t you think? But, the even bigger coincidence to me is that Katrina has an older sister. Her name is Ila. Not exactly Ida, but considering Hurricanes are given unique names based on alphabet, Ida is close enough to Ila to make the coincidence definitely more than casual.
Stay safe, especially those in the path of what’s a very dangerous storm.
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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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.
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) 2021 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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You know how when you start a new job you really want to make a good impression, or at least you want to avoid making a bad one?
Yeah, I’ve been at my new job for about three weeks. (Having a great time, BTW. Thanks for asking) And today we had an 8:00am meeting with our big client. I was late. I was about 25 minutes late for a two hour meeting. I arrived to see a Slack message from my boss, “Are you joining the client call?”
He saw me as I walked through the door.
But, it wasn’t my fault.
It was. . .no one’s fault. It was God’s fault? See, we had a terrible lightning storm last night. It wasn’t forecast. In fact, the forecast calls for 10 day of beautiful last summer sunshine. So, this lightning storm came through last night. Lots of pretty lightning. Even some rain. But, lots of lightning.
And part of that lightning hit a transformer in my neighborhood.
Lightning: 1
Transformer: 0
We lost power. It was out for several hours. Of course it shut down all the computers and the digital clocks. I was all prepared to go to sleep and use my phone or something to figure out when I needed to get up.
I don’t use an alarm clock. My lovely wife needs more sleep than I do. I’ve learned over the years to wake up at a certain time. I check the clock, but only to tell me if I woke up too early.
But, none of that was going to be necessary. The power came back on before I went to bed. I reset all the clocks and I went to bed. Problem solved.
Well, it would be solved if there hadn’t been another power outage three hours later that again, killed all the digital clocks. When I got up in the morning, I had no idea what time it was. It was not 7:00am. It was closer to 7:30.
And that’s why I was late.
I’m glad I didn’t even have to bring up the fact that Pleasant Grove is currently under a boil order for all drinking water.
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 new job has been everything that they promised during the interview. I have a wonderful office. It’s got a beautiful view. (That wasn’t promised, but it’s a nice benefit.)
The salary, the benefits, exactly as described.
My coworkers? The team? Yep. All a bunch of great guys and a brilliant woman in charge of. . .just about everything in the office.
The job is a challenging, but really enjoyable. I’m still learning and I will be trying to come up to speed for a while. But, nothing that wasn’t explained.
But, now I’ve found something that wasn’t on the brochure. An added benefit that my current employer didn’t mention. But, it’s not something they are providing me. It’s something they aren’t.
Something unusual happened today; I got 4 emails. That might not seem exceptional. But, that was the total for the entire day.
At my previous job I got four emails. Of course, I got a lot more than that. I got on average about 80-100 emails per day. I got so many that when I went on vacation I would typically log into my email just to keep it down to a reasonable amount.
I’ve been at my job for about three weeks now. And in that time I’ve got a total of about 20 emails. The bulk were links to tools that I needed to install.
We are an in-office shop. And that gives us the freedom to walk down the hall and ask a question. My boss ends up in my office a couple times per day,
Rodney, how’s it going? What are you working on now?
And I can ask him questions, get clarification, or just talk about BYU football. I didn’t expect to not get so many emails.
It’s been an unexpected benefit. One that I didn’t realize I wouldn’t be getting.
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.
Follow him on
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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 was not a ball player. He was not what you would call a sportsman. I never saw him pick up a ball or even wear tennis shoes. And certainly never shorts.
But, I own my love of sports to my father. We watched everything at our house; basketball, football and especially baseball. (No, we didn’t watch hockey or soccer. Those weren’t real sports in our house.) My dad bet on some of the games. So, we learned about point spreads and over/unders. But, it was never (okay, rarely) about the bets. It was about the games.
I remember the heartbreaking 1977 series when the Seattle Sonics looked like they would win their first NBA title. Going into the series final against the Washington team, they had shirts made up that said, “Bulletproof!” The Washington Bullets beat them four games to three.
And I remember the next year when they went on to win it all over the defending champion Washington Bullets.
Neither the Bullets nor the Sonics are around anymore.
My dad took me to my first professional baseball game. The Mariners played in the old Kingdome. It was a terrible baseball venue. And my dad wasn’t thrilled with the venue. It managed to aggregate both is acrophobia and claustrophobia at the same time. Afraid of confined spaces and high places.
I didn’t realize until much later how much of a sacrifice it was for him to take me to those games. He planted a seed that didn’t bloom until years later. I really became a baseball fan in 1995 when Ken Griffey Jr led the Mariners to their first winning season.
But, it was my father way back during the bleak Mariner years that planted that seed.
My mother liked sports, but not like my dad did. Back in those years (the 1970’s) the NBA was so unpopular that they didn’t broadcast games live. They would show the games on tape-delay. In fact, during the 10:00 evening news, the sport caster, Wayne Cody would tell people to turn their volume down while he reported on the game if they were planning to watch the tape-delay. He would signal the audience to let them know when it was safe to turn the volume back up. The game started about 11:00pm.
My mother often fell asleep during the late broadcast. One morning, before she headed off to work, she asked me dad,
So, how did the game turn out?
Sonics lost it in the fourth quarter. Real heartbreaker.
Mom then went off to work at a state agency in downtown Olympia.
Too bad about the Sonics huh?
What do you mean?
You know, that heartbreaking loss in the 4th quarter.
Her coworkers just stared at her.
They didn’t lose in the 4th quarter, did they.
Not really. It was a blowout from the start. Sonics by 20.
Mom still fell asleep during the broadcasts, but she checked the morning paper to find out who won.
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.
Follow him on
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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 had a great post planned for tonight. It was witty, funny (are those the same?) anyway, it was brilliant.
Alas, it was not meant to be. It was interrupted by what else, COVID. My son-in-law is living alone on his ranch in Southern Utah. (His wife is currently deployed in Korea with the Army.)
He got COVID and I was the designated driver to take him food and drink and basically check up on him.
Sorry, not sorry.
We’ll be back tomorrow.
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.
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) 2021 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved