Today was one of the “last times for everything.”
. . .
Running out on the field for the senior game wearing number 17
There’s a last time for everything.
– “Last Time For Everything” Brad Paisley
Except for my son it was number 41, not number 17. Tonight was the last football game of the season for the Pleasant Grove Vikings. It was the first round of the playoffs. Pleasant Grove vs Bingham.
Football, like everything in 2020 was different this year. Social distancing, masks and each boy got five tickets. Often we didn’t even use all five. Today, it was my lovely wife and me there to watch our son’s final game.
We had to buy tickets in advance. Everything is online and paperless. Coming into the high school stadium we headed up to get our phone scanned. The ticket taker asked us
Are you BYU fans?
Excuse me?
I mean Pleasant Grove.
It was an honest mistake. I was wearing a classic blue and white BYU sweatshirt. We all came wearing sweatshirts, and coats. It’s been cold in Utah recently. Not today. It was warm. Sitting in the home field stands on the East side of the stadium we had a great view of the 4:00 sun.
The sweatshirt didn’t last long. Underneath I was wearing a classic blue and white Pleasant Grove Vikings T-shirt. Many fans were in classic PGHS colors. One of the cheers that Viking cheerleaders use is
Blue. . .and white
Fight, fight, fight
Blue. . .and white
Fight, fight, fight
At least I think that’s what the cheer was. Cheers like Army marching cadances are not particularly complex.
My lovely wife pointed out that Bingham’s colors were also blue and white.
It was a great high school game, although my son didn’t get a chance to play. The score back and forth. And Bingham won it on a last second field goal. The tournament is single elimination, so Bingham will move on and PG will turn in their uniforms. Their blue and white uniforms.
As we gathered our stuff and exited the stadium I thought about rooting for the blue. It’s the catch phrase for the Seattle Mariners who’s colors are blue and teal.
I should know. It was the cap I word to the game.
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Have you ever considered how they name hurricanes? (Why they name hurricanes is a different question for a different post.) But, how are they named. We know they each have a name. Some are famous, Katrina, Andrew, Sandy. Others, are only names in the weather report.
The first Tropical Storm of the season is given a name starting with A. If it becomes a hurricane, the name is applied to the Hurricane. Andrew for example, was the first of the season. The second Tropical Storm is given a name starting with B, and so on. The names used to all be female. Now, they alternate male and female.
The alphobetical names continue on through letter Z. Names are reused in future years, unless a hurricane is particularly destructive. Then, the name is retired. There will never be another Hurricane Katrina, Camile or Andrew among others.
But, what happens when they run out of letters before we run out of tropical storms? Then, they start naming them using Greek letters. No clever names, just the names of the letters.
Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
Epsilon
Zeta
(So far)
I’m not sure what the plan is if we run through all the Greek letters. Considering there a 24 Greek letters in addition to the 26 English alphabet, means that there are 50 names possible. The most we’ve ever needed was 28. That was back in 2005.
We have a similar problem when counting. Everyone understands we have the numbers 0 to 9. But, what if you need to count higher than 9? Perhaps you think that next number is 10? And in our base-10 number system, you are correct. But, not always. I’ll explain how the next number after 9 is A. Followed by B, C, D, E and F.
Computers are stupid. Perhaps in a general sense of “Why can’t this stupid computer work.” But, also at their heart. Computers understand exactly two numbers: 0 and 1.
There are two types of people in the world.
1. Those who understand Binary
At their heart computers are a series of zeroes and ones. How do you count higher than 1 when the only optinos are a zero or a one? The same way you count higher than 9 in a decimal number system. You move to the next digit, 10. You do the same in a binary number system. You count by moving to the next place. In a base-ten number system we talk about digits. In a base 2, or binary system, we talk about the next bit.
I was introduced to binary counting in one of my first classes at college. The professor started with a question to the class,
Does anyone know sign language?
I do.
Then, you are the only person in class that can actually count manually.
I’m afraid I spoiled the professor’s example. He had members of the class stand in a row and using either an ‘up’ or ‘down’ hand, we learned to “count.” When the person next to you put their hand down, you raised the hand next to them. When, you raised one hand you lowered the other.
He was explaining the binary number system. Just as with decimal counting each place represents a power of ten, in a binary system, each place represents a power of two.
0 == 0
1 == 1
2 == 10
3 == 11
4 == 100
5 == 101
6 == 110
7 == 111
8 == 1000
9 == 1001
10 == 1010
11 == 1011
12 == 1100
13 == 1101
14 == 1110
15 == 1111
16 == 10000
In this way it’s possible to represent any number using just zeroes and ones. Inside your computer, your tablet, your phone, your network connected device. They all store information as a series of zeroes and ones.
As you look at binary representations, you migh notice something about the number 7 and 15. Each of them is represented by all ones. A base-8 number system is called an octal numeral system. A base-16 number system is called a hexidecimal numeral system.
With four bits using zeroes and ones we can express numbers from 0 – 15. As you can imagine it’s pretty challenging to read and write binary numbers. Very few people can look at the number 1101 and immediately think: 13. And larger number are even more difficult.
10110111? Well, that’s 183, of course. (I had to use a calculator to figure that out.) So, we came up with an easier way to “count” in binary. We use a base-16, or HEX system.
0 == 0
1 == 1
2 == 10
3 == 11
4 == 100
5 == 101
6 == 110
7 == 111
8 == 1000
9 == 1001
A == 1010
B == 1011
C == 1100
D == 1101
E == 1110
F == 1111
And when we get to 1111 and add one more that takes us to 1 0000. In our HEX system, we move to the next order of magnitude: 10h. The 1 represents 16. In this way we can continue to count in binary without needed to list out countless zeroes and ones.
To make things easier we break up the binary numbers into groups of 4. So, the binary number 10110111? We woudl express it as 1011 0111. Assiging a Hex number to each group of four digits, we can express 1011 011 as B (1011) 7 (0111), B7.
This conversion easily goes both ways, of course. If I have a Hex number A5, I can easily convert that to a binary number A (1010) 5 (0101) or 1010 0101.
Yesterday I talked about something called a MAC address. Every network aware device has a unique identifyer that is expressed as six hexidecimal numbers. A4:E9:75:4B:10:3C.
We know can easily convert this to its binary equivalent
A4 == 1010 0100
E9 == 1110 1001
75 == 0111 0101
4B == 0100 1011
10 == 0001 0000
3C == 0011 1100
A4:E9:75:4B:10:3C is 1010 0100 1110 1001 0111 0101 0100 1011 0001 0000 0011 1100.
It should be clear why it’s more efficient to use a hexidecimal representation for large binary numbers. Hopefully it’s also clear why multiples of 2 are so important. I remember 8 bit computers. Today, most computers are 64bit. Meaning they can recognize memory locations up to 64 bit’s long. That’s
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 or FFFF FFFF. The Decimal equivalent is 4,294,967,295. We typically don’t round hexidecimal numbers. However, we often do with decimal numbers. This number is slightly larger than four billion. Or, four gigabits.
One of the consequences of working with binary and hexidecimal number systems is that IT geeks get very good at counting in the decimal equivalent of binary.
It’s not a very interesting party trick, but ask your IT friend how far they can count in binary off the top of their head.
One
10 Two
100 Four
1000 Eight
1 0000 Sixteen
10 0000 Thirty-two
100 0000 Sixty-four
1000 0000 One hundred twenty-eight
1 0000 0000 Two hundred fifty-six
10 0000 0000 Five hundred and twelve
100 0000 0000 One thousand and twenty-four
1000 0000 0000 Two thousand and fourty-eight
1 0000 0000 0000 Four thousand and ninety-six
10 0000 0000 0000 ??
Like I said, it’s not a very interesting party trick but it’s one of the few IT geeks know.
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
Tell your friends about this!
Hey, what’s your address?
172.168.15.10
No, I mean your local address.
127.0.0.1
Oh, you geeky nerd!!! I mean your physical address.
29.01.38.62.31.58
– Saved from purcaholictumbler.com
Yesterday I talked about your local IP address (Home Sweet Internet.) Prior to that I talked about your internet address which is like your street address, but not like your local IP address. (Bet You Don’t Know Your Own Address.)
Today I want to talk about the last address mentioned above, your physical address. It’s also called called the MAC address. MAC stands for Media Access Control. (But, no one calls it that.)
IP addresses can be duplicated, either by a malformed DHCP server handing out duplicate address, or because you are using using private IP addresses behind a router doing network address translation (NAT.)
But, MAC addresses are different. MAC addresses are unique, anywhere and everywhere all over the world. Every piece of electronic gear that has an operating system also has a MAC address. Your cell phone has one. Your laptop has one. Your computer has one.
Like the example above a MAC address is a series of six numbers seperated by a delimitor. It could be a period, or a colon. And whereas the octects in an IP address go from 0 to 255, the numbers in each portion of a MAC address go from 00 to FF. These are hexidecimal numbers. Hexidecimal numbers use a base-16 number system.
0 == 0
1 == 1
2 == 2
3 == 3
4 == 4
5 == 5
6 == 6
7 == 7
8 == 8
9 == 9
A == 10
B == 11
C == 12
D == 13
E == 14
F == 15
The largest possible value for each number in a MAC address is FF. Converting FF from hexidecimal to decimal yields a maximum value of 255. (There’s a reason this number seems so similar to the maximum value for the octet in an IP address. More on that tomorrow.)
But, there’s more information in a MAC address than just a series of six numbers. The MAC address is actually two parts. The first three digits are the organizational unique identifier (OUI.) The second set of three numbers are assigned by the vendor.
In other words, each vendor has a their own unique identifier that is the first three numbers. When the vendor builds their device, typically a network device, or card, they assign their OUI to the first three digits and then assign each card a different number for the last three numbers.
Okay, but who really cares, right? I mean, you never see the MAC address. This post might be the first you’ve heard of it. And while it’s all well and good to share these bits of trivia, is there any real practical application?
Yes.
I use Disney Circle as one of the firewalls on my home internet system. It’s a brilliantly simple interface and gives me very good control over the interent usage by the 5 young adults in my house. And while Disney Circle’s interface is pretty simple, it’s doing some cool computer stuff underneath.
Circle keeps track of the devices on your network using their MAC addrss. Oh sure, it will also display a name, but the MAC address is what really controls access.
That’s not an issue, right? Except that at one point I saw a new device appear on the network. It was called BRIANS iPHONE. I have a son named Brian, and he has an iPhone. There was just one problem. Brian’s iPhone was already in my system. So, why was it trying to join the network a second time?
The point of a firewall, like Disney Circle is to keep out unauthorized devices that might try to do nasty stuff on your network. Nasty stuff like set up a ghost access point on my network that lets people get around my firewalls.
But, maybe I’m being paranoid, right? Maybe for some reason his phone needed to rejoin the network. Not likely, but possible. How to know for sure?
Easy. I looked at the MAC address for the new BRIANS iPHONE that showed up. It was 96:5f:e8:61:41:f5. Is that an iPhone address? Can I find out?
Of course. There are several sites on the internet that will tell you who manufactured the device associated with a specific device. Apple has dozens of OUIs assigned to them. But, 96:5f:e8 isn’t one of them. In fact, 96:5f:e8 is not an OUI registered to any manufacturer.
What does that mean? Well, it means is the device trying to join my network under the name BRIAN iPHONE is not an iPhone, and is not a phone at all. It’s probably a spoofed MAC address on a device trying to hijack my network.
And just to be sure, I went and looked up the address for BRIANS iPHONE that is already on my network. It starts a4:e9:75. When I went and checked who that OUI was registered to, it came back Apple, Inc.
Your computer has mutlple addresses. Generally you don’t need to know what that address is. But, just in case you need to, now you do.
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
Tell your friends about this!
Hey, what’s your address?
172.168.15.10
No, I mean your local address.
127.0.0.1
Oh, you geeky nerd!!! I mean your physical address.
29.01.38.62.31.58
– Saved from purcaholictumbler.com
Yesterday I talked about how your internet address works. I related it to your street address. The pieces of your internet address tell computers how to find your computer. Or how your computer can find others. (It wasn’t as boring as it sounds.)
Now lets talk about your local address. Or your “home” address, 127.0.0.1. It’s also called the loopback address. But what is it?
Well, when the rest of the world talks to your computer, they talk to your IP address. But, what if your computer wants to talk to itself? Programs inside the computer can already communicate, of course. When you save a document, you can open it in another program. But, when you open an email, you computer is talking to an internet server. Just as you know if you can’t get reception, you can’t get to your new email.
Well, your computer has the ability to “pretend” it is talking to the internet. If I’m writing a network based program, I might want to use my computer to simulate both a client and a server. In that case, I would send a network connection to 127.0.0.1. That request would “loopback” to my own computer.
The loopback address is a special address. There are other “special” network addresses as well. Here are a few:
0.0.0.0 – 0.255.255.255……. Current Network
10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255….. Private Network
100.0.0.0 – 100.127.255.255… Shared space used for ISP for NAT
169.254.0.0 – 169.254.255.255 .Used by DHCP servers
172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255 …Private Network
192.0.0.0 – 192.0.0.255 …….IETF Protocal Assignment
192.0.2.0 – 192.0.2.255 …….Assigned as TEST-NET-1
192.88.99.0 – 192.88.99.255 …Reserved
192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255 .Private Network
198.18.0.0 – 198.19.255.255 …Private Network used for testing subnets
198.51.100.0 – 198.51.100.255 .Assigned as TEST-NET-2
203.0.113.0 – 203.0.113.255 …Assigned as TEST-NET-3
224.0.0.0 – 239.255.255.255 …Used for IP multicast
240.0.0.0 – 255.255.255.254 …Reserved
255.255.255.255 Reserved for “Limited broadcast”
And of course, your loopback address 127.0.0.1 – 127.255.255.255.
Okay, who cares, right? I can hear some readers now, “Rodney, you normally write more entertaining posts than this. But, you’re starting to lose me.”
Stay with me one more minute.
Everything on the internet has an address, right? We’ve talked about unique addressing. And just as two houses in the same town can’t have the same address, no two computers on the internet can have the same address.
Have you ever lived in an apartment? You know, one that has dozens or hundreds of units. Suppose your apartment was number 214. There’s no one else in your building that has apartment 214. But, does anyone else have apartment number 214 if they live in a different building? Of course.
The interent is like that. If you look at that list of “special” addresses you see several that are for “private network.” Those ranges of addresses are like apartment numbers. Your own private network can assign any and all of the addresses in that range. . .and so can the next company down the road.
But, how to we keep them unique? How does the Amazon.com order know to update my computer when my package is ready and not someone elses?
That’s where gnats come in. No, not gnats, NAT. NAT stands for Network Address Translation. IP addresses in a private network can’t be transmitted over internet. So, your company has a public IP address. The public IP address, like the address on the outside of your apartment building is what the public routes to. Once the mail gets to yoru building, then it is routed via your internal network. In your case, apartment numbers. In the case of the internet, your private IP address.
Let’s suppose you and your office mate are both logging into Amazon.com. (During a break, of course.) You both have internal IP addresses. You both make a connection to Amazon.com through your company’s internet connection. Amazon’s servers see two connection. They both are coming from your company’s public IP address. Amazon’s servers respond and the packets go back to your company router.
So, how does your company router now to send you the listing for trampolines and sent your coworker the listing for “Authentic snow sandles”?
Your company’s router is smart. When it translated the private IP address for your computer to the company public IP, before routing it on to Amazon.com, it put the information for your computer’s address into a specific port. It’s part of the TCP packets that get sent. The router assigned your office mate to a different port. And it keeps track of which computer is assigned to which port.
The interesting thing about NATing is that you don’t have to worry about it. The network router when properly set up does it all on its own. You don’t even know that your traffic is being NATted.
There’s one more address your computer has that has nothing to do with the internet address. Tomorrow we’ll talk a little about MAC addressing.
And it has nothing to do with McDonalds.
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
Tell your friends about this!
Hey, what’s your address?
172.168.15.10
No, I mean your local address.
127.0.0.1
Oh, you geeky nerd!!! I mean your physical address.
29.01.38.62.31.58
– Saved from purcaholictumbler.comEver wonder how your computer knows how to find things? Not on the hard drive, but on the internet? And why would you care? It’s all about addresses.
Wait, before I lose the huge part of the audience that isn’t interested in IP addressing and Natting, hear me out.
What’s your house address. I’m going to show you how understanding addresses on the Internet is just as simple and easy as finding the address in your own home town.
First, let’s talk about how you address a letter:
Rodney Bliss
456 S Main Street
Pleasant Grove, UtahLet’s start at the top first and then go from the bottom up.
Rodney Bliss
If you wanted to come visit me. You might ask someone in Pleasant Grove, “Where is the Bliss house?” And they would point you at my house. That’s like the URL, also known as the Uniform Resource Locator. (But, no one calls it that.) URLs are typically the bits we remember. Just as you would remember when you got to Pleasant Grove that you are looking for the “Bliss” house, on the internet we going looking for things by web address, or URL.
google.com
cnn.com
byu.edu
whitehouse.gov
army.milAnother time, I’ll talk about the parts of a URL. But, today, just think of it like the name on the mailbox. In my case, “Bliss.”
When your computer goes looking for a URL, it checks something called DNS, or Domain Name Service. This is the post office, or at least the old phonebook. You ask for a name “www.google.com” and DNS give you an address. That address will look something like 172.217.11.228. This is called an IP address. IP stands for Internet Protocol, but no one calls it that.
That address is broken up into four sub addresses, called octets. Each octect has a range from 0 to 255. So, the following are valid IP addresses.
0.0.0.0
0.0.0.255
255.0.0.0
255.255.255.255But, anything above 255 is an invalid address. So, the following are invalid IP addresses.
256.0.0.0
0.0.300.0
999.999.999.999And no IP address can be longer than 4 octets.
What’s that have to do with my street address? Now we are going to start at the bottom of my street address and compare it to an IP address, 011.022.033.044.
The last piece of data in my address is the state, “UTAH.” Think of “UTAH” as the first octet in my address.
UTAH == 011
Next, in my address is the city, Pleasant Grove. Just as there are multiple cities, there are multiple address under 011.x.x.x.
So, the city is roughly comparable to the second octet, 022. So far my address covers two octets.
UTAH == 011
Pleasant Grove == 022I’m sure you see where this is going. There are many streets in Pleasant Grove. Like most Utah cities and towns, it’s laid out in a grid. Center and Mail cross in the middle. From Main streets going North are 100 N, 200 N, 300 N, etc. Going South it’s 100 S, 200 S, etc. East and West of Main street follow the same pattern. The point is that each street is uniquely named. There can’t be two Center streets. The third octet can be though of as the steet name.
UTAH == 011
Pleasant Grove == 022
Main St == 033You are almost to my house. You made it to Utah (011). You found Pleasant Grove, UT (011.022.) You’re now on South Main Street. You just have to find my house by it’s street number. (123)
UTAH == 011
Pleasant Grove == 022
S Main Street == 033
456 == 044UTAH.Pleasant Grove.S Main St.456
011.022.033.044And here’s why the Internet uses IP addresses. Suppose I move and I sell my house to the Jones family. The house stays at the same address, of course. But, the name associated with it has changed.
In other words, the URL (bliss) has changed to (jones), but the physical address stays the same. How will people know that the URL is different? Because DNS gets updated and now it associates the physical IP address with the new URL.
Having read this far, you know understand the first line of the joke. But, there’s more to addressing than just your IP address.
Tomorrow I’ll going into more detail on why 127.0.0.1 is your home address. And we’ll talk about gnats, I mean NATs.
(BTW, that’s not my actual address. Sorry. Blame the trolls and the stalkers.)
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Today I didn’t something I haven’t done in months. I visited with my friend Gator. Gator and I don’t have a lot in common. Sure, we both live in Utah county. We both attend the same church. But, I’m married, Gator is divorced. I have 13 kids. He has one. I have grandkids almost as old as his daughter.
For whatever reason, Gator and I hit it off from the first time we met. Part of the issue I think is that we both have severe ADD.
Have you ever watched two people with ADD try to have a conversation? We don’t have one. We have a hundred conversations at the same time. Sometimes we take a side road, and forget where we left an earlier topic. Sometimes we take a side road, talk down it for 20 minutes and jump right back to where we were before.
Our conversations can take hours. And in those hours we bounce all over the intellectual map. It’s exhausting. But, it’s exhausting like a rollercoaster is exhausting.
Gator and I used to go to lunch once a month. I worked for Gator on a job once. I was out of work and he was remodeling a house for a friend. He paid me way more than it was worth to him so that I could have some gas money.
If you ask him, I’m sure he could name things that I’ve done for him. Honestly, I’m not sure what they were. He’s my friend and you help your friends when you can.
Gator had COVID back in January. He recovered, obviously. He’s one of the most interesting people I know. Humble, but surprising.
You realize I know the guy who wrote the study on hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness in treating H1N1, right. I mean, I MIGHT be a little biased in the discussion.
Anyway, Gator came by to do me a favor, as he often does. I have a bunch of junk that I need to haul off to the city sponsored cleanup day tomorrow. Gator has a trailer.
He drove it up from Provo to Pleasant Grove behind his car. Then he offered to load up the trailer and pull it, again behind his car, down to the drop off point.
We aren’t going to pull it with your car! We’re going to hook it up to my suburban.
Once it was hooked up, we decided to just chill in the backyard. We talked about anything and everything.
I realized that COVID, while it spared him and didn’t hit my family, had robbed us both of something.
It was nice to sit for a few minutes and remember what we used to do and hopefully can get back to again soon.
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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He was dying. We both knew that. It wasn’t something we discussed. He’d been dying for years, but this was different. It was the ending. But, like I said, we didn’t discuss it.
To the others in the airport he didn’t look like he was dying. He looked good in fact. Sure, he was in a wheelchair, but he was dressed to the nines. Starched shirt. Suspenders. Pressed slacks. I think he even wore cufflinks, although I can’t be sure. I do know he wasn’t wearing a watch. But, more about that later.
We were in Denver. Neither he nor I lived in Denver. He had traveled to Denver from his home in Olympia to reconnect with a long estranged daughter. The travel and the change in altitude was too much for him. His 72 years had included some pretty tough years, accidents, smoking for much of his life.
He ended up in the hospital in Denver.
Ilived then, as I do now, in Pleasant Grove, Utah. Utah and Colorado are next to each other, but that doesn’t mean that Pleasant Grove and Denver are. In fact, they are about eight hours by car. Or, in my case, Suburban.
Hey Mom. I think I’ll come to Denver. Sounds like you guys could use some help.
Oh no. That’s not neccessary. We’re only going to be here for a couple more days, I think.
Well, that’s perfect. I have to be back at work on Monday. I’ll see you Saturday morning.
It was Memorial Day weekend, 2009. My mother doesn’t like to ask for help. She doesn’t easily accept help. That’s why I didn’t ask her.
I left Pleasant Grove after work on Friday. I spent the night sleeping on my backseat at a rest stop off I-70 somewhere East of Denver. I pulled into the hotel Saturday morning just as my dear mother was headed to the hospital.
There were details to take care of. I talked to my dad a bit. And offered mild suggestions to mother on how to wrap up his unintended visit.
And that’s how we found ourselves having a pleasant lunch at DIA while we waited for their plane to board. My father was a brilliant conversationalist. He knew a little bit about everything and a lot about many things. Our relationship had been rocky at times, but that was behind us. I enjoyed his company. His sense of humor was often misunderstood by those who didn’t know him well.
My dear mother had packed his watch. It was one of those large clunky ones and she didn’t want him to have to deal with it through security and during the trip.
He, of course, kept insisting that she’d stolen it from him. And by “kept insisting” I mean he brought it up multiple times during lunch. Finally, my dear mother, who did still have her watch announced,
Well, it’s probably about time to head to the gate. Our plane leaves in a little over an hour.
I pushed the wheelchair while Mom handled the carry-ons. As we approached the gate location it was apparent that we were earlier than we expected. The gate area was empty except for a airline attendant standing next to an open door.
Are you the Blisses?
Yes.
Oh good. We’ve been waiting for you, but we were just about to shut the cabin door.
My father started to laugh.
She stole my watch!
Olympia, Washington where my parents lived, is in the Pacific Time Zone. Denver is in the Mountain Time Zone, an hour later than Pacific Time.
After working to arrange for their escape out of Denver, my dear mother nearly missed the flight because she forgot to reset her watch.
My last view of my father was as he rose from the wheelchair and made his way down the jetway. He might have thrown me a backhanded wave, I don’t remember. I do remember he was very well dressed and laughing at his stolen watch joke.
He looked good.
My father never went home. After he arrived in Olympia he went into hospice care. He never recovered from the trip. When the doctors told us that it really was the end, my dear mother called me.
Do you want to come and say goodbye?
No. We had that opportunity in Denver. I’ll come for the funeral.
My father passed away on June 12, 2009. His final words, spoken to my brother, was
I am a handsome devil
And he was smiling when he said it. Even now, eleven years later, he still inspires me.
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Hey, Rodney, how are you today?
It’s a question we all get asked. Sometimes multiple times per day. Sometimes it’s a coworker. Sometimes it’s your boss. Sometimes it’s a client, or a customer.
So, what’s your answer?
There are two common answers; both wrong.
If you have ever talked to a teenager, or tried to talk to them, you already know the first answer.
Fine
And honestly, it’s a “fine” answer. Not great. Not terrible. Not actually fine, or course. I mean not like fine china or fine dining, or fine linen. But, fine like not great, not terrible. I’m fine.
The other answer is the reason you don’t ask that guy Carl from accounting how he’s doing. He’ll tell you all about his gall bladder operation and how it contributed to his gout, and you’ll be happy to know that the rash seemed to clear up after putting that ointment on it twice a day.
No, you just try to nod at Carl with a brief, “Hello” and hurry past.
So, if you can’t say “fine” and you don’t want to overshare, what is the right answer?
I’m doing fantastic.
I can hear the objections now. That is going to sound so corny.
They wake us at six-thirty, just before the morning meal
While they’re taking our blood pressure, they ask us how we feel
And I always say “Fantastic, there ain’t nothing wrong with me
– The Highwaymen “Committed To Parkview
But, here’s the thing. When someone asks you “How are you?” they don’t expect a truthful answer. Not generally. I mean, do you? No, it’s become a question that doesn’t expectr an answer.
So, when you say, “fantastic” it’s just as believable as saying “fine.” The other thing it does is set expectations. You will catch people off guard. And you will intrigue them.
Don’t get me wrong. Answering “I’m fantastic” is not the start of a Tony Robbins seminar. Most of the time, you’ll get the same response you got when you answered “fine.”
But, you will have changed a perfunctary greeting into a chance to make the interaction match your greeting.
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I have a grandson that will be born soon. His parent decided that his birthday should not be born on Halloween. Instead, his birthday will be October 30. It’s a strong date, I think: 10/30/2020.
My daughter will be induced. It’s a high risk pregnancy and the doctors are worried about allowing the baby to go to full term.
My birthday is three days after Christmas. That puts it three days before New Years. My dear mother, really wanted me to be born on Christmas. I’m so glad she couldn’t pick my birthday.
Still having a birthday right in the middle of the holidays is really inconvenient. When I was ready to turn 15, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea. At the beginning of December I went to my dear mother and suggested I “postpone” my birthday for six months. I could have a party at the end of June. It was a perfect time. We would be out of school and nothing else much is going on at that time. My dear mother, no doubt stressed with the details of the holidays was more than happy to take one more thing off her plate at the busy time of year.
My plan only had one problem. When June came around, and I was getting ready for my big party, my dear mother didn’t remember our conversation of six months earlier.
But, you birthday isn’t in June? It’s in December.
And that’s how I missed my 15th, or 15th and 1/2 birthday.
Many years ago my lovely wife and I adopted a sibling group from a third world country. While filling out the reams of paperwork we discovered that two of the children had listed birthdays that were only six months apart. Not possible considering the kids all had the same mother. We pointed out the discrepancy to the adoption coordinator. And the paperwork was updated and a child had a new birthday.
I remember hearing a report on the radio in the Spring of 1999. They pointed out that babies concieved at that time would be born right around New Years Day, January 1, 2000.
The story stuck out to me since 10 months later in late January 2000, my son was born. We didn’t exactly pick his birthday. But, we didn’t not pick it either.
I have another child that as a baby was placed at a police station to be placed for adoption. The police determined the child was “about a month old.” They set the birthday as a month earlier. They picked the birthday.
We are in the “baby season.” A grandchild was born two weeks ago. As I mentioned, another will be born in ten days. And there’s one more that is due in December. But, the doctors are thinking they will probably induce my daughter.
She’s still deciding which day to pick for his birthday.
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I screwed up today. It’s not something I’m proud of. In fact I was pretty upset about it. It doesn’t happen a lot. (I still have a job.) But, when it does happen what do you do?
For me? I cc:’d my boss on an email that said, “I screwed up.” I explained how I had screwed up. And made it clear it was my own fault.
The details of the screw up aren’t really important. I misunderstood the details from a meeting. And then I misunderstood the follow-up email. And I spent a really nervous weekend and several days trying to solve the wrong problem and answer the wrong question. It didn’t work.
I suppose I could have tried to cover it up. I could have tried to explain that really it wasn’t my fault. I’m a pretty good writer. I could spin a reasonable sounding story. The problem is that I doubt it would convince anyone.
I mean, let’s face it, we are in the middle of a presidential election. We are lied to by professionals every day. And any time spent watching the news we have to try and figure out the truths from the lies.
And when we get done, we end up thinking they are all liars. That’s why I try to own up to my mistakes. For one thing, it prevents you from having to offer lame explanations.
If you tell the truth you never have to remember anything.
– Mark Twain
And admitting a mistake actually builds credibility. If you admit your mistakes, if you tell someone that you didn’t make a mistake, they ar emore likely to believe you. You become known as someone who tells the truth. And that’s worth something.
These are the things I told myself this morning as I explained my screw-up.
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved