How long does it take to form a habit? With some of my kids, I swear it’s once is enough, if it’s a bad habit.
I’ve always heard two weeks. That’s how long I shot for on most of my New Year’s resolutions. When I started this blog, it’s how long it took before I started to feel like it might last.
But, the people who study such things say that it’s more like two months. Of course, there’s a standard deviation involved. According to a study done by University College London and published in the Eurpoean Journal of Social Psychology, it takes anywhere from 18 days to 254 days. But, on average it takes exactly 66 days.
Essentially that’s two months. I don’t know if the researchers in London were correct. But, we are half way to finding out. . .at least here in Utah.
It was exactly a month ago, March 27, 2020 that Utah’s Governor Herbert issued his Stay Home Stay Safe order. It shut down most businesses and encouraged us all to avoid non-essential travel.
Utah never issued a full lockdown order. We were one of the few states that didn’t. There are no laws forcing us to stay home. We don’t get pulled over for driving at the wrong times.
It’s strange. I’m an essential worker. Even though I can work from home, I could drive into the office if I chose to. And I even have a letter to show to any law enforcement officer or maybe my grandkids proving that I’m allowed free passage to travel to and fro.
It’s odd, having papers. Several years ago I ended up getting a letter, an offical letter from our recruiting office explaining that the offer for employement was being rescinded.
I got the letter the same day I met with my new manager. He found just as hilarious as I did. (Once I figured out it was in error.) I had signed up to get background checked and drug tested, even though I was already an employee. I didn’t get around to the drug test within the required 72 hours.
If you apply to my company and don’t get your drug test down within three days, we will withdraw the offer. It didn’t apply to me, but I kept the letter anyway.
I’ll probably keep the travel papers too. I may never see the like.
Anyway, today marks the one month mark for Utah. There is talk here, as there is most places of easing the restrictions. Of starting to open up the economy again. It’s unlikely that on May 27th we will be at the same place we are in on April 27th.
I hope not. I would hate for this to become a habit.
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 used to be part of a Toastmasters group. We met once a week. It was a fun group. At a Toastmasters meeting some members give speeches, others then evaluate the speeches and give feedback.
Most people join Toastmasters to become better speakers. And much of the evaluation focuses on being a better public speaker. They talk about how you walk, how to hold your hands, how to avoid all the “ums” and “ahs” that we put into normal speech.
But, there’s another side to Toastmasters. The best speeches are not given by the people who are most eloquent, or by the woman who stands in the right spot, or by the guy who doesn’t say um or ah at all. The good speaches, the best speaches, the memorable speaches, are the ones that tell a story. And the more memorable the story the better the speech.
We tell stories for many reasons. We tell them to entertain, of course. Books, movies, comics, even poems, tell stories. But, our best stories also teach us. And just as entertaining stories educate us, the best education stories entertain us.
While working at Microsoft, we were releasing a brand new email system. My job was to write training material. We needed to write a two week long course that would teach our support engineers all about Microsoft Exchange 4.0.
Have you ever sat through a two week technical training class? I’ve written thousands of pages of technical courseware. And most of it, especially new-to-product training, is boring. And it’s really hard to get people to retain any of it.
We took a unique approach to the Exchange 4.0 training. We decided that we would create a fake company. Originally we called it Volcano Coffee, but when we couldn’t get the web site for that, we switched to Contoso Corporation.
Exchange allowed for linking your worldwide email system. So, we built our labs around designing a worldwide communication system. I remember the work we spent coming up with cities in our fictional company. It’s actually harder than it looks. We neede cities that were non-controversial. If you want your training to sell in Taiwan, don’t make Beijing. If you want to sell your software in India, be careful about using Pakistani cities. Same thing goes for cities in the Middle East.
In addition, we couldn’t use any city that had two words in it. I remember how disappointed we were when we had to abandon Kuala Lumpur. New York City was out for the same reason. Chicago made the cut. As did Paris, London and to my consternation Reykjavik, which even today I cannot spell without looking it up.
The training was a success. It was some of the best training we had produced. And the idea of wrapping the training into the story of a worldwide corporation was both innovative and effective.
How effective? Go to the Contoso.com address in a browser. It redirects you to microsoft.com. And if you go to docs.microsoft.com site you can learn how to roll out Microsoft 365 Enterprise by watching the way the Contoso Corporation rolled it out.
Today, almost 20 years later, it’s still being used. I don’t know that I could tell you much about Microsoft Exchange 4.0 despite writing a book on it. But, you know what I can still tell you about? I can still tell you the story of the Contoso Corproation. I can even tell you about Volcano Coffee which came before it.
Stories help us rememeber. They teach us and they entertain us. And the best stories do all three.
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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What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?
– Robert Schuller
You’ll see Schuller’s quote on everything from cups to t-shirts. It’s inspirational, don’t you think? It’s one of those quotes that make you feel small, isn’t it?
At least it does for me.
Because, it’s correct, right? If you weren’t afraid you might fail you’d literally do anything and everything, right?
But, you aren’t doing anything and everything, are you? No. Neither am I. But, according to Schuller if I’d just stop being afraid, I’d be able to do anything.
I’m such a failure.
I’m not discounting Robert Schuller’s statement. But, I’m not taking taking it at face value either.
Got a call from an old friend we used to be real close
Said he couldn’t go on the American way
Closed the shop, sold the house, bought a ticket to the west coast
Now he gives them the stand-up routine in L.A.
– “My Life” by Billy Joel
I have several friends who are comedians. Some, like my friend Steve Hofstetter do world tours. Other’s like my friend Andy Gold do gigs around the country. And still others like my friend Chuck Ryan, do open mics in his area.
Steve has devoted years to his craft. He has multiple comedy albums. He’s published a book, “Ginger Kid.” Andy has been working on comedy for less time, but has a chance to be a professional touring comedian. Chuck has done comedy longer than Andy, but Chuck will probably never be much more than a local comic.
Is it because Chuck is afraid of what he could accomplish? No. Andy and Steve are both single. I don’t know how often Andy tours, but Steve travels about 300 days per year.
Chuck is divorced. He has children and grandchildren that he absolutely adores. Could Chuck have been a successful touring comedian? I don’t know. Would Chuck trade his family and life for a career as a professional touring comedian? Would he have accomplished that great thing if he knew he could not fail? I don’t think so.
Chuck works for a major airline. He’s a couple years away from retirement. He plans to retire in a couple years and devote himself fulltime to comedy and doting on his grandkids.
At this point you may be saying, “Chuck appears to have accomplished a great thing.” And I would agree. But, if he measured himself against Steve, or even Andy, he might feel like a failure.
I’ve made some terrible choices and decisions in my life. I once was a paper millionaire. Shortly after I lost it all and ended up homeless sleeping in my brother-in-law’s barn with my lovely wife and 12 kids. And I have certainly felt like a failure at times. But, I have my children, and like Chuck, I have grandchildren that I adore.
And I can’t think of anything I’d trade for that.
However, I still have my “great things” I want to try if I can overcome my fear of failure (or success, whatever that means.)
I’ve started on a new advernture today. It may be the start of my greatest commercial success. I’ll write about it more in the coming days and weeks.
Look to your success and realize that not every tradeoff results in a failure. But, be willing to dream the big dreams as well. Just don’t base your self worth on Robert Schuller’s quote.
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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My kids hate ginger ale. It makes them sick. And it’s Pavlov’s fault. You may not know who Ivan Pavlov was, but you’ve probably heard of his dogs.
Pavlov was a Russian physiologist in the 1890s. He did experiments with dogs. He wanted to measure salivation in dogs in response to being fed.
In his most famous experiment he rang a bell just before feeding the dogs. Later, he kept ringing the bell and didn’t feed the dogs. And he found the dogs still salivated as if they were being fed.
There’s even a word for it:
Palovian: related to classical conditioning, a learning procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus is paired with a previously neutral stimulus.
I got that from Dr Google.
Really it means that you can train your body to have a biological response to an external stimulus.
It’s not unlike PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, in that your body has a physical reaction to an external stimulus. Not nearly as severe, fortunately.
But, how did Pavlov make my kids sick?
We don’t drink a lot of soda at our house. Each kid gets to choose their birthday dinner. Typically that includes some combination of Sprite, lemonade and home canned grape juice. But, if it’s not a special occasion we don’t generally have soda.
Except when the kids get sick. We give them ginger ale and saltine crackers.
Tonight I asked them if they’d like some ginger ale. I’m not even sure how it came up.
I don’t like ginger ale.
Why not?
It makes me sick.
Another daughter joined in,
Yeah, me too.
It made no sense to me. For one thing, I love ginger ale.
My lovely wife and I were waiting to have dinner one night in a local restaurant up one of our beautiful canyons. Our table wasn’t quite ready and we sat in the bar. The bartender, for whatever reason took a liking to us. He fixed us a couple of virgin drinks using bitters and some other liquids in colorful bottles.
He fixed us multiple drinks. Each just a swallow or two. None alcoholic. As he fixed each one he’d hand it us and ask us to identify it. We were terrible at it. I never did manage to guess what it was, although it was enjoyable.
You can probably guess what it was. If you guessed ginger ale, you are right.
I’ve always loved ginger ale. It’s comforting, especially when I’m sick. It’s why I gave it to my kids when they were sick. And that’s where Pavlov and his dogs came in.
See, the problem is I only gave my kids ginger ale when they were sick. We didn’t have it any other time.
Do you live in Britain? Or friends who are British? How do you feel about root beer? It’s a popular drink in the United States. It has a unique taste. In Britain, that taste is similar to cough medicine. They don’t enjoy it at all. Root beer tastes like medicine to them.
And that’s what I’d done to my kids. I’d managed to associate the taste of ginger ale with being physically ill. No wonder my kids didn’t like it. It also explains why a half empty bottle of ginger ale would remain in the refrigerator for days while a similar bottle of Sprite would be gone in just a few hours.
Apparantly I had committed the same offense with saltine crackers. Same pattern: only ged them to my kids when they were sick.
Some parenting lessons you only learn after it’s too late to apply them. I mean, had I known I would have been feeding my kids chocolate and sugar when they got sick.
I blame Pavlov.
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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Have you ever heard of the Oxford comma? It’s a bit of geeky grammar controversy. Seriously, if you want to see writers argue, just bring the Oxford comma. It’s the designated hitter of grammar.
You’ve seen it before. The Oxford comma is the difference between calling Kennedy and Stalin strippers or just inviting them all.
We invited the strippers, Kennedy and Stalin
Versus
We invited the strippers, Kennedy, and Stalin
Did you notice the difference?
The first sentence means that Kennedy and Stalin are the strippers. The second sentence (with the Oxford comma right there between “Kennedy” and the “and”) means that we invited the strippers and we invited Kennedy and Stalin. (Why this particular example has come to define the Oxford comma, I have no idea. But, I’m not the first to call JFK and Stalin strippers.)
The Oxford comma has even found its way into the legal field. A group of Dairy workers won a dispute about overtime because the state law failed to include an Oxford comma.
I was thinking about commas and grammar today as I drove down I-15. (It’s okay because I was going to fill a perscription. Stay Home. Stay Safe.) There was a billboard that said,
Is your network hacker safe?
What do you think they were asking? Because they either want you to protect your network from hackers, or they want you to protect your network hacker. I’ve seen the billboard before. I don’t think an Oxford comma would fix this one. Maybe a hyphen? I’m not totally sure.
Punctuation, and especially commas have the ability to completely change the meaning of a phrase. I don’t just mean in a “JFK and a pole” sort of way.
There is a passage in a Mormon book of scripture called “Doctrine And Covenants” called “A Word Of Wisdom.” If you’ve ever wondered why Mormons don’t drink or smoke, it’s in that Word of Wisdom scripture. But, there’s more to it than just alcohol and tobacco. There’s also a part that addresses eating meat, or “the flesh of beasts.” It says
It is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine
So, is the commandment to not eat meat except in times of winter, cold or famine? Or is it saying that they should not only be eaten in times of winter, cold or famine? As in, eat them all the other times too.
With the comma? Don’t eat a lot of meat. Without the comma? Eat lots of meat. (BTW, the official position is the comma was placed there by God. Don’t eat lots of meat. . .unless it’s winter. . .or cold. . .or a famine.) But, the meat requirement isn’t enforced like the tobacco and alcohol parts are.
Commas can also keep you from some really awkward family situations. For example, one of the all time classic comma situations. One is a call to dinner.
Let’s eat, Grandma
But, remove the comma and you’re not calling her to dinner, you’re calling her dinner.
Let’s eat Grandma
Hopefully she’s not a stipper.
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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The first time I went to Haiti, I was expecting the rush of people to “help me.” In fact, when you arrive at Haiti, it’s very important to grab your bag as soon as it comes through customs. If you don’t a very helpful man in an semi-official looking white shirt with red epaulets will grab it and start “helping” you to a taxi.
Hey, that’s my bag!
No problem.
I want it back.
No problem.
Please give me my bag.
No problem.
No matter what you say, the response will be the same. All the while, the guy will be walking you toward the taxi stand. He will flag down a taxi for you. (Most likely driven by a friend of his.) And he will load your bag into the taxi all while telling you there is “no problem.”
He has learned the art of saying no by saying yes.
Experienced sales people know that the quickest way to make a sale is to get the mark. . .I mean customer to start saying “yes.”
Even missionaries know this “technique.”
I’m not interested in your message.
Do you believe Jesus Christ loves you?
Do you want to live with your family for eternity?
Do you believe in the Bible?
Even telemarketers know.
If I could save you $50 a month without any reduction in service would that be of interest to you?
Don’t you want fifty bucks?
Do you like to save money?
You can use the same technique. I had a project that involved my client implementing a completley new network design. At the same time we had a bigger project of upgrading the networks for mutliple clients at one of our datacenters.
Now, my project involved both my primary and my secondary data centers. The second project was only focused on a single data center. The other project manager and I coordinated our agendas to make sure we were making best use of our resources. I didn’t want to be having an engineer pull new cabling at the same time he was having that engineer updating switches.
Management wanted to make sure that we were both running our own projects independently. We were, but possibly not as much management might want.
Rodney, make sure you are runnign your own project.
Of course.
No, make sure you aren’t having the other project manager working on your project.
Not at all. We want to make sure we are coordinating to make best use of resources.
If you agree with people, it’s hard for them to disagree with you. The key is to get them saying yes.
And if you run out of ways to say no while saying yes, you can always go with the Haitian expression.
No problem.
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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When things would get bad, my mother would always say, “Look for the helpers. There are always helpers.”
-Mr Fred Rogers
As we continue this grand, stupid, scary, overwhelming, worldspanning social experiment that is social distancing and “stay home stay safe,” I have decided one of the things I miss most is the helpers. Both the chance to be one and the chance to be the . . .ah. . victim(?) of one.
Okay, that didn’t come out the way I meant, but I think you get the idea. People need people. We need people. As we’ve seen many places, we are all in this together. But, it’s harder for the helpers to do their helping at times.
We had two wonderful helpers make us their victim today. (Okay, still not quite getting the phrasology right.) Our family is on a strict lockdown for the next few days. One of our neighbors insisted on providing dinner.
They made a delicious taco soup and combined it with a bag of corn chips and another bag of cheese. Not only did they think of us, but they made sure our family members with lactose and gluten allergies could enjoy it. They left it on the porch and then called to say it was there.
We also needed a perscription from the pharmacy. But, again, being on quarantine, we couldn’t get it ourselves. Another neighbor went to the pharmacy, waited for it to be filled and delivered it to our porch.
So, look for a chance to either be a helper, or thank a helper. And the biggest helpers of all right now are the frontline health care workers. And the first responders. And the grocery store clerks and stockers. And anyone who doesn’t have the luxary of isolating in their home until this all blows over.
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you
Mr Rogers’ mother was right. There are always helpers.
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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It was hard when Spring Training was cancelled.
It was disappointing when Opening Day was postponed.
But, yesterday was the hardest day so far of despondant baseball fans.
April 15 is a special day in baseball. It’s a day where past meets present, and black meets white in a way that is completely unique in sports.
Baseball is the oldest sports league in the United States. The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the youngest of the “big four.” It was was organized in 1946. Basketball, as a sport had its start with James Naismith and a peach basket that he put up in 1891.
The National Football League (NFL) was founded in 1920. It was the brainchild of a man named Walter Camp, although the first game was played on November 6, 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers.
Hockey, as a sport, has the longest history. It got it’s origins in Nova Scotia in the early 1800s. Although it was most likely played prior to that in England. (In 1796 on the frozen Thames, no less.) The first indoor organized game was March 3, 1875. The person most responsible for modern hockey is James Creighton. If you take the skates away, “hockey” had been played as far back as four thousand years ago in ancient Egypt. The National Hockey League (NHL) was founded in 1917.
Baseball, cannot trace it’s roots back nearly as far back as hockey. Popular myth credits Abner Doubleday with inventing the game in the summer of 1839 at Cooperstown, New York. That’s not true. It’s a story that was made up in 1907 to establish the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. It worked.
Early versions of the game were played as far back as the 1700s. It was based on two English games, rounders and cricket. The first baseball club was formed in New York City in September 1845. A man named Joy Cartwright wrote down the first rule book. Many of his rules still exit in today’s game; a diamond shaped field (that’s actual a square), foul lines, three strikes. Oh, and Cartwright said no more getting a runner out by throwing the ball at him.
Major League Baseball (MLB) was founded in 1903. The league would grow and shrink and later combine with the upstart leagues. And also eventually split on color lines. The Negro Leagues wer formed in 1920. One league disbanded in 1948, the other continued into the 1950’s.
The Negro Leagues folded because they were no longer needed. And the day they started to become irrelevant was Opening Day, April 15, 1946.
Branch Ricky was the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. His team and all other teams were made up of only white players. Ricky set out to change that in 1946. And as important as Ricky’s contribution was, it pales next to the contribution of their first baseman, a man named Jackie Robinson.
Jackie Robinson was a black man. The first black man to play in the major leagues in decades. The leagues weren’t always segregated. In fact, there was never actually an official rule barring black players. It was just “an understanding.”
And that changed April 15, 1946.
Jackie was the first. He was the great experiment. And it was a result of his outstanding play, and his amazing behavior on and off the field, that laid the groundwork for the players who came after him.
My favorite team is the Seattle Mariners. And the most famous Mariners player in the history of the franchise is Ken Griffey Junior. Griffey is a black man. He’s the son of a professional baseball player. (Not surprisingly named Ken Griffey Senior.) He grew up playing in the dugout of major league ballparks.
On April 15, 1997, the 50th anniversary of Jackie’s first game in a Major League uniform, Griffey took the field wearing Robinson’s 42 instead of his own number 24. That was also the day the number was officially retired throughout all of baseball. An unprecedented honor.
Ten years later, Griffey again wanted to honor the man who had paved the way for all black players after him. Because the number was retired, he had to ask for special permission. He asked both Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball and Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow.
Selig liked the idea and encouraged other teams to adopt the tribute. And then, two years later, on April 15, 2009, by order of the commissioner’s office, all players, managers and coaches wore 42. And that’s now one of the coolest traditions in sports. Every year on Jackie Robinson day, April 15, every team and every player in baseball dons number 42.
It’s a tribute that is manifest without words. Every picture of a game, every television broadcast, every news clip shows players and managers wearing the same number. A number so special that no one in baseball gets to ever wear it again. Except for the day when everyone does.
Baseball will eventually restart. We’ll have Opening Day 2020 at some point. But, at least for this year, we will not get to have Jackie Robinson day.
And that is the cruelest cut of all.
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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Why is anyone listening to Bill Gates’ opinion on the Coronavirus? What does a software guy know about vaccines and diseases?
My brother is an expert on social media. Not that he’s famous on social media. You’ve probably never heard of him. But, he’s an expert on using social media. It’s what he does for a living.
He provided me some free advice on becoming an online when I started writing down these scribbles seven years ago.
Presence and persistence
First show up. Then, do it over and over again. It’s been seven years and I’m not sure I would call myself an expert, but I’m still working on it.
My point is that my brother’s advice was valid. Experts become experts in our age of social media, by showing up and staying involved.
No one is an expert on COVID-19. Oh, there are experts on immunology, and diseases, and the social spread of viruses, but no one knows all about the novel coronavirus that is devastating the world right now. We’ll have experts soon enough. They are working on it.
Think about your office. You have processes and procedures. You have ways of doing things. Who knows the most about them?
In my office, we have a specific protocol for when something goes wrong, when we have an outage. There is an entire team devoted to handling these outage calls. We have a team of mission control analysts at each of our six locations. We have agents and supervisors. We have another team devoted to just running the outage itself.
All of these teams have to work together when we have an outage. They have to provide specific documentation at specific times to specific people.
The various teams work off of a playbook that outlines how the entire process is supposed to work. When in doubt they refer back to the expert on the process. The person how has through persistence and presence become the acknowledged expert.
That person is me.
It’s funny, I didn’t set out to become an expert. In fact, in the beginning, I simply made stuff up as I went along and then documented what worked and rejected what didn’t. And over the course of seven years, the process became second nature.
Eventually, it was decided that we should transition my responsibilities to an entire team. I then documented my process and spent three months training them.
Now, I only get informed of outages, I don’t have to actually manage or run them. I occasionally get asked by collegues to help them come up with their own outage processes for their clients.
Why would anyone listen to Rodney’s opinion about outage processes?
Do you know what Bill Gates did after he left Microsoft? He and his wife Melinda started a foundation. It’s called the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation. Do you know what the foundation does?
Well, it does lots of things, but one of the things is that it works with third world countries trying to distribute vaccines and prevent childhood diseases. But, the Gates Foundation isn’t just some money bags that funds projects. It requires that countries and charity organizations partner with it. Both sides put up resources and expertise.
Gates has donated over $50,000,000,000 to his foundation. He’s devoted the past 20 years to running his foundation. At first while he was also running Microsoft and after 2006, fulltime at the foundation.
What makes him an expert on vaccines and infectious diseases?
Persistence and presense.
Twenty years ago, he established a foundation. He showed up. And he put a bunch of money into it. And then, he persisted.
It’s how you become an expert.
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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I don’t actually like writing about the virus. (That’s probably a terrible way to start.) But, it’s like water and we are fish. It’s all around us. It affects everything we do. It clouds every decision. It’s a constant reminder of our frailty, our mortality, our interconnection with each other.
But, like water, it gets boring. So, I really didn’t want to write about it. . .AGAIN.
But, here we are.
Utah now has 19 confirmed Coronavirus deaths. The 19th was announced today. They said he was an older man, but under the age of 60. He had an underlying health condition and died in a hospital. Oh, and his name was Brad. That wasn’t in the news release.
He was my friend’s son. He had just come off a ventilator. They thought he’d turned the corner and was getting better. He died of a brain aneurysm. His mom lives in our neighborhood. She attends our church. Brad attended about six weeks ago.
We have two other people in our neighborhood that also have tested positive for Covid-19. A woman and her 20 year old daughter. They aren’t expected to need hospitalization.
I have a family member who probably had Covid-19. His wife is now showing symptoms.
It has definitely hit close to home. My lovely wife is immuncompromized. If she gets Covid-19, she might die. She probably will die.
And that thought scares me to death.
When it was a disease in China and Italy, I could think about it dispassionately. When it hit New York, I could sympathize. When it hit Washington the place I grew up, it was more personal.
And when it came to Utah, I had to deal with it. But, it wasn’t until it came to my neighborhood that started to scare me.
So, I wear gloves and a mask when I go out. I wash my hands. I am careful what I touch. I don’t let people in my home. I don’t go in other people’s homes. I get nervous when my kids go out. I get especially nervous if my lovely wife goes out.
And like everyone else, I pray for it to be over soon.
It’s hitting a little too close to home.
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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