One of the first activities I did last year after the pandemic struck was an annual family camping trip. Every May we try to do the “Baldy hike.” My boys first did the hike while in scouts. After they aged out of scouts, we continued the tradition and invited the girls to hike.
And while it’s camping, it’s mostly a hike. And not an easy one. The “short” route is eight miles with a 1500 foot net elevation change. If we actually summit Baldy, it’s another another 2500 feet. We typically summit every third year or so. The last two years we didn’t try it. This year it’s our plan for Saturday morning.
Last year I made the hike with my son and daughter. While we were hiking up the first day, we met a friend I knew in the community. We stopped and talked for a few minutes, shook hands and he went on his way.
And then I realized that shaking hands wasn’t allowed. We didn’t understand how the disease was transmitted. We didn’t know how contagious it was. We just knew we were supposed to stay away from. . .well, everybody else.
This year, it’s different. We know a lot more about the virus. We’ve all lost people to it. We’ve had members infected. We have “long haul” people. Those infected, and still affected. We also know how it spreads. Most importantly we know how to stop it. Vaccines, social distancing and masks. But, mostly vaccines.
Our family has been vaccinated. We’ve had our shots.
And yesterday the CDC said that vaccinated people can go back to our lives. We can go back to activities that we used to do.
Well, what we used to do was hike Baldy every May.
And it’s May, so our gear is packed.
I’m just hoping that the COVID pounds don’t make this year’s hike more brutal than previous years. Rusty or not, it feels good to be getting back to normal.
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 went to lunch today. That was unusual.
It was a business lunch. That was even more unusual.
It was inside, without masks. That was the most unusual.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) today updated their guidelines.
– If you are fully vaccinated, you can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic.
– Fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.
So, my friend Dana has been vaccinated as have I. Could we really just go to a restaurant, (5 Star BBQ in Orem) sit down at a table and have lunch? It should have felt normal. It felt really odd.
I watched a Mariners game today. Being 1000 miles away, I’m too far to get to a home game, but if I could,
The Mariners are now offering full-capacity, non-socially distant seating options starting at $10 for fully vaccinated fans.
– www. MLB.com/mariners
And I’ll bet you won’t have to wear masks in that section.
I love baseball, as many of you already know. It’s hard to play baseball in the rain. If it starts to rain, the game might be called off. Or, if the rain is just passing through, the game will be paused for a rain delay. The grounds crew puts a great big mask over the infield. The two teams socially distance and go to their respective dugouts.
After the rain passes, they take the mask off the infield, everyone runs back out and they resume the game right where they left off. If the batter had 2 strikes when the rain delay was called, he has two strikes when they resume.
It’s like the rain delay was suspended time. That’s what today felt like. The mask came off, the sun came out and the umpire yelled,
PLAY BALL!
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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Yesterday I told the story of how my brother and I remodeled my parents dining room without permission. (Careful What You Ask For)
That wasn’t the only time my brother and I remodeled our parents house without permission. After the episode with the dining room, you would think we had learned our lesson.
We didn’t.
Our family typically ate dinner at the dining room table. But, breakfast was at the breakfast bar. The kitchen island was a peninsula. My parents at the end. Us kids, typically oldest to youngest sat along the edge. I was often at the end of the row. Above the peninsula were kitchen cabinets and the stove hood suspended from the ceiling.
The problem was that the bottom of last cabinet was only about two feet above the countertop. That meant that to look at my dear mother while I talked to her, we both had to lean our heads down. An peer under the cabinet.
My mother complained about it often.
It’s not my fault she wasn’t always home when school let out.
The get to the bolts holding the cabinet up I had to get into the attic through the access in the garage. I then carefully crawled across the rafters until I was over the kitchen. Then, I dug through the insulation until I found the ends of the bolts holding up the cabinet.
With my brother down in the kitchen ready to catch the cabinet I carefully unbolted the cabinet. It slid down easily and we we had a detached kitchen cabinet. The end of the over-the-stove cabinet wasn’t finished, so we pulled some of the paneling off the cabinet we’d just removed and cut it to fit.
I thought it looked pretty good. We hid the now detached cabinet in the garage and waited for my mother to come home.
She was. . .surprised.
But, like the episode with the dining room paneling, I don’t remember her being mad. And while we certainly could have reinstalled the cabinet, I don’t think we ever did.
I know my kids sometimes read this. And they are all older than I was when I went crawling. through the ceiling. But, even today, I’m not going to be okay with them remodeling without at least mentioning it first.
My parents were much more understanding than I am.
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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Looking back, I’m surprised we didn’t get into more trouble for it. In fact, I don’t remember getting in any trouble at all. And I cannot decide if my parents were better parents than me, or worse.
Growing up, we moved around a lot. And then, in the fifth grade when I was eleven, we moved to the house that I grew up in. We were in that house until I graduated from high school. It was your typical four bedroom, two bath rambler.
It had a formal dining room and a kitchen bar. The dining room had the typical dark paneling that was so popular in the 1970’s. (It also had green shag carpet in the living room, but that’s not part of this story.)
My dear mother hated the paneling. She had often complained about it. So, one day my brother and I took it off. All of it. We stripped the entire dining room down to bare walls.
We didn’t tell my dear mother. We wanted to surprise her.
She was surprised.
If my kids did that, I’d be pretty upset. I don’t remember my parents being upset. Instead, they went out and bought some drywall tape, mud and wall paper. And we all learned how to finish off drywall. And for the next couple of weeks, we mud-ed and taped and sanded. And then mud-ed again and sanded some more.
And then we wallpapered the room in a beautiful pattern with vines and flowers and some kind of fruit. We spent a lot of time lining up the seams and smoothing out the bubbles.
And when we finally completed it, we stood back, admired our work and realized it was installed upside down. We hadn’t realized that the patter was supposed to show “hanging flowers and fruit. Everything was pointed up instead of down.
My dear mother, how had done the built of the work swore us all to secrecy.
If no one says anything, it’s not upside down.
She actually sent my younger brother to his room when he started to mention it to a neighbor. We never spoke of it again. (In fact, my dear mother may actually chastise me for mentioning it now.)
But, she’s the one who said she didn’t like the color.
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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“Watercooler Monday! How was your weekend? Did you do a lot? Nothing at all? Was it busy? Relaxing? Let’s chat about it!”
– Sys Admin “Steve Hofstetter’s old school chat board (and all-you-can-eat-buffet)”
I’m greeted by this message every Monday morning. Steve Hofstetter is a comedian and the “old school chat board” is a Facebook group of his online friends. (More than fans, less than real life friends.)
We talk about our lives. We talk about Steve’s comedy occasionally. It’s a private group so we can share details we don’t necessarily feel like sharing on our own walls. I’m an upbeat person by nature. I struggled with it today.
I lost my job on Friday. Things went downhill from there.
It really was a rough weekend.
I didn’t get fired. I got laid off. They look a lot alike and they evoke many of the same emotions. My company, Teleperformance, decided to downsize, and my position was one of the ones eliminated.
I’ve been through downsizing before. I’ve been on both sides of the table. It’s not easy on the ones doing the downsizing. It’s harder, of course, on those being downsized. But, it’s not easy on the people on the other side of the table either.
My manager was there, along with people from HR. It was all via Zoom, or rather Microsoft Teams. We met at 2:00 PM and by 2:25 I was no longer an employee. Oh, and my access was cut off. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. I wasn’t the only one being let go and they didn’t want me to possibly let others know who hadn’t been informed yet.
I get it. It’s not about trust. It’s business. There’s a severance package information about where to return my computer and name badge.
I really liked this job. I hope I like the next one just as much.
Saturday was the day before Mother’s Day. Many of my daughters are now mothers themselves. We decided we’d meet at our house on Saturday and then the girls could meet with their own families on Sunday. Great plan, right?
Well, it was a good plan until three of my daughters decided a weekend in Vegas was more important. And a son decided that a weekend with his girlfriend’s family in Idaho was more important.
Yeah, Saturday was bittersweet. We had some family at our house, but more were gone than home.
Sunday was Mother’s Day. My lovely wife got up and ready for church. . .and then her oxygen levels crashed to 85% and she passed out. Our neighbor is a nurse. She suggested we take her to the ER. Four hours later she was feeling better, but no closer to knowing what caused her symptoms.
“I’ve seen 100 patients with these same symptoms. A year from now, we’ll know more. Until then it’s just “post COVID” symptoms.”
– Dr Likes, Timpanogos Regional Medical Center Emergency Room doctor
She’s doing much better today. Thanks.
So, I lost my job on Friday and that wasn’t even the second worst thing that happened this weekend.
The great thing about IT is that there are are a lot of jobs in IT. I’ll be fine.
Hope your weekend was better than mine.
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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Sometimes you’re the windshield
Sometimes you’re the bug
– Mary Chapin Carpenter “The Bug”
Some days are diamonds, some days are stones
– John Denver “Some Days Are Diamonds”
Well, today I was a bug that got hit by the windshield. . .and then a rock fell on me.
“It’s just a flesh wound”
– The Black Night “Monty Python And The Holy Grail”
I’ll be fine. . .eventually.
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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Spring is here. And with it, many of the projects suspended in the Fall are ready to start up again. Last fall, we redid our sprinkler system. It was quite an extensive remodel. We added zones. We removed a zone. We added heads and we added a hose bib. Our house has three hose bibs that use culinary water. We pay for culinary water.
We also have now two hose bibs that come off of our sprinkler system, or irrigation water. In my little town of Pleasant Grove, we don’t have to pay a per use fee for our irrigation water. Personally, I think that’s a bad plan in a desert state. The idea is that everyone in the city can use it as much as they need. The reality is that people closer to the mountains, who live on what’s called “the bench” have first access to the water. People who live at the end of the delivery pipes, sometimes go without.
I wasn’t around when the system was put in. And even though I live on the bench and never have an issue with water pressure, I still think it’s a bad idea. Even with the rule that each house can only use water three days per week, it’s a system that won’t grow easily.
We installed a hose bib off the irrigation system so that we could do hand watering of the garden without using our culinary water. (The stuff we pay a per-gallon fee on.) So, last year, while we were redoing the system, we dug a trench about 70 feet long from our existing piping to or garden. By the time we finished it, the irrigation water had been shut off for the year.
My friend who installed the sprinklers left a pipe sticking out of the ground. He gave me a faucet to attach later. Well this Spring is later. Last week I decided to install the faucet. But, first I had to know if the system was set up.
The exposed pipe had acquired a spider and some other garden detritus. SLOWLY. . .I opened the shutoff valve. . .and got a face full of irrigation water at 80 PSI. I managed to shut it off before I stumbled back and stood there dripping water all over my garden.
I laughed. What else could I do? It was funny. At least I found it funny.
Yup, clearly the system was pressurized. I had the evidence all over me.
So, I got my PVC glue and parts and assembled my faucet. I then let it dry for 24 hours before testing it again.
I made sure the faucet was turned off and again, SLOWLY opened the shutoff valve.
And the 80 PSI pressure promptly blew the faucet into the air and gave me another face full of water. Again, I managed to get it shut off and then took stock. Unlike the first time, I now had an audience. I live on a very busy corner. There was a carload of teenagers going by just as I took the waterhose to the face.
They laughed.
I laughed.
We laughed together.
Clearly when my friend had assembled the stubbed out pipe last Fall, he didn’t attach the stub to the shutoff valve. More glue and 24 hours waiting later, and I had a working faucet. No face full of water this time.
I may not learn the first time. . .
I may not learn the second time. . .
But, by the third time I’ve generally started to get a clue.
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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Do you lose very much?
I lose. I’ve lost 134 times.
You count them?
This is baseball. We count everything
– For Love Of The Game
Often the final score of a baseball game is one of the least interesting numbers. That was the case in the Baltimore Orioles vs Seattle Mariners game today. The final score was Orioles 6, Seattle 0.
But, there was a lot more to this game than the final score. In fact, it was a game unlike any game ever in the past. There are 30 teams in baseball and each team plays 162 games. That’s 2,430 games per year for the league. Plus there’s the post season. And professional baseball has been played for over 150 years. that works out to over 218,400 games played.
In all those hundreds of thousands of games, what happened today in Seattle has never happened before.
Before we get to what happened, let’s talk a little about some unique instances in baseball. A typical baseball game is 9 innings, with each team getting 3 outs per inning. If the game ends in a tie after 9 innings, the teams keep playing.
Did you know that baseball is the only major American sport where the defense controls the ball? The other notable exception is Cricket.
Anyway, the minimum number of batters a pitcher can face in a 9 inning game is 27. (Unless, the home team is ahead going into the bottom of the ninth inning in which case the visiting picture could face three less, or 24. But, it would be hard for the home team to be ahead if the visiting picture faced the minimum. So, call it 25. But, if we delve into every exception, this will be a long post and this parenthetical comment is already too long. Just know that I really do understand the intricacies, and if you want to delve into them, I’m happy to discuss them in painfully excruciating detail.)
We’ll come back to the minimum number of batters. Today’s Orioles pitcher John Means faced the minimum. I once had a discussion with a fellow baseball nerd about the minimum number of pitches possible in a baseball game. A pitcher has to face 27 batters. If every batter popped out on the first pitch, the pitcher would throw 27 pitches. (No one has ever done that, by the way. The fewest was Red Barrett. On August 10, 1944 he pitched a complete 2-0 win by throwing just 58 pitches. For comparison, Means threw 113 today.) But, what about the minimum number of pitches per inning? That would be 3 pitches. One to each batter.
That’s happened 190 times according to the guys at baseball-almanac. But they didn’t always count number of pitches, so it’s hard to know for sure. Most recently Ryne Stanek of the Houston Astros had a three-pitch inning April 3, 2021.
Despite the fact that three is the fewest pitches, it’s not the most impressive inning. That would be an immaculate inning. Three batters, three pitches per batter, three strikes. There have been 38 immaculate innings in the long history of baseball. It’s one of the rarest feats ever.
Most recently it was Mariner’s ace Felix Hernandez who threw an immaculate inning (9 strikes, three strikeouts) on June 17, 2008.
A shutout happens when one team fails to score. (Means achieved a shutout, but he did a lot more.) Shutouts are not that common. In fact, pitching great Walter Johnson recorded 110 shutouts during his career.
Better than a shutout (and much rarer) is a no-hitter. A no-hitter is just what it sounds like. The batters don’t score any hits. There have been over 300 no-hitters in the history of baseball. That doesn’t mean no one makes contact with the ball. Batters can foul off pitches as long as they want. It’s not uncommon for a good hitter to regularly take many more pitches than 3 strikes (or 4 balls.) The longest at bat was San Francisco’s Brandon Belt. He had a 21 pitch at-bat back in 2018. He then hit a pop fly that was caught for an out. So, while he hit a lot of baseballs, because he didn’t safely reach base, it was not recorded as a hit.
Pitchers have achieved no-hitters and still lost the game. Someone could walk. Steal bases and eventually score. On April 23, 1964 Ken Johnson, pitching for Houston threw a nine inning no-hitter and still lost. In fact, it’s happened five times. But, most of the time if you pitch a no-hitter you win. Means got credit for a no-hitter today.
Better than a no-hitter, and of course rarer, is the perfect game. In a perfect game, no batter gets a hit, and no one walks. In fact, no one gets on base. There have been just 23 perfect games in the history of baseball. One of them was in the 1956 World Series when Don Larsen through a perfect game. The last perfect game was 2012. Again, it was Seattle Mariners elite pitcher Seattle Felix Hernandez. He threw a perfect game on August 15, 2012.
Means did not throw a perfect game today. But, he did record 27 outs and allowed no walks and no hits.
So, what happened?
Like I said, something that has never happened before.
In today’s third inning, Means was pitching to Seattle Mariners left fielder Sam Haggerty. Haggerty swung and missed at strike three. Normally, he would have been out, but the catcher missed the ball and it skittered off toward the backstop. Baseball has a rule called the “swinging third strike” rule. If a batter swings and misses and the catcher fails to catch the pitch, the batter can try to run to first base before the catcher tracks down the ball and throws him out.
It’s a strange rule even for baseball, which has a rulebook full of strange rules. Rarely does a batter actually beat the throw. But, Haggerty did. So, he got on base via a strikeout and wild pitch.
Haggerty then attempted to steal second but was thrown out by the catcher. So, Means still faced the minimum 27 batters, since he only faced three in the third.
So, no perfect game. But, John Means did throw a no-hitter. And while there have been many of them thrown in the past, this is the first no-hitter recorded accomplished via the dropped third strike rule.
I watched the game, as excruciating as that was for a Mariners fan. You never know what you are going to see at the ballpark.
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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It’s May. That means Spring in Utah. A little rain. Snow in the mountains still. Green grass. Flowers. And it’s time for our family to take our annual hike in the mountains.
It’s not today. It’s not even this week. It’s about ten days away. We’ll start on a Friday afternoon and hike up Grove Creek Canyon about 3 miles. There’s a natural spring there. That’s where we’ll have dinner. It’s only three miles in, but it’s about 2,000 feet in elevation.
After dinner it’s another hike of a couple miles and another 1000 feet or so of elevation. If we’re lucky, we’ll camp in a gorgeous campsite overlooking the entire Utah County valley.
It will be an especially cold night. It might be May, but at 6000 feet, it gets really cold at night. Saturday will either be another hike to summit on Baldy at 8,000 feet, or we may simply make our way back home down Battle Creek Canyon.
If we summit Baldy it will be 13 miles. Without diverting to summit Baldy it will be about 8 miles. It’s a hard hike. I’ve done it most years. Sometimes with my kids. Sometimes with the scouts.
My oldest son has gone with me the last two years. He was the first to offer to go this year. It might just be the two of us. I asked my other sons and they have work conflicts. And then I asked my daughters. They are 20 and 19 years old.
My girls have never been shy about doing outdoor activities. One of my older daughters is a captain in the US Army. The 20 year old went on the Baldy hike two years ago with us. The younger one hasn’t been before.
I thought you were going to give us some warning.
I did, this is your warning.
No, I mean so we could practice!
We’ll see how they do. I’m a slow hiker. She’ll probably do just fine.
The older girl invited her boyfriend. Nothing like a 10 mile hike to get to know someone. Should be fun.
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 took one of those Facebook surveys today. The ones were you answer 25 questions about various aspects of your life. I normally don’t post these on my own wall. But, if a friend posts them, I will answer it as a comment on their wall. One question struck me because my friend answered it emphatically yes, and I answered it emphatically no.
18. Would you go back to being a child if you could?
What would you say? When you’re kids you really want to grow up. It’s not uncommon for adults to reminisce and wish to return to the innocence of childhood. Maybe it’s because my life in a good spot. But, even if it wasn’t, I don’t think I’d want to be a child again.
“You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes
But, they’re the only thing you can truly call your own”
– “You’re Only Human” by Billy Joel
I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes. My kids think I’ve made more than I do, but what kid doesn’t? I’ve tried to learn from my mistakes. I view the mistakes in our lives similar to working out at the gym. I know some people who enjoy working out at the gym. I’m not one of those guys. Working out, for me, is a chore. But, like anyone I enjoy the results.
if you spent months working out, and finally got into great shape, would you change it? Would you give up the hours of work? I wouldn’t. Because if you give up those hours, if you go back to life before the gym, you have to also give up the gains.
“No thank you. I don’t get them dents buffed, pulled, filled or painted by nobody. They’re way too valuable.”
– Mater
My childhood wasn’t perfect. In fact, there were parts that were terrible. But, there were good parts, too. And I wouldn’t trade what I got for for an easier time. Or even a chance to go through it again.
“I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance”
– “The Dance” Garth Brooks
I don’t begrudge those who would gladly take the chance to go back, either to take a different path or to try to avoid the pain.
For me, ti’s not a tough question.
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