The kids didn’t like it as much as my lovely wife and I did. Maybe because the music was before their time. But, honestly, the music is before my time as well. I was born in the mid-60’s. But, the greatest band in history was already on their way to being a world changing phenomenon.
And my daughter liked Bohemian Rhapsody better. And Freddy Mercury and Queen were not that far removed from John, Paul, George and Ringo and The Beatles.
But, it wasn’t just the movie “Yesterday” that we saw today. We actually traveled back to yesterday to see it.
With the decreased travel, and Russia’s recently concluded price war with Saudi Arabian oil, the price of gas is lower than it’s been in years. The demand for gas is at a 52 year low. It was $1.94 at our local gas station. Even lower elsewhere in the country.
Another sign that we are living in an older age.
But, it was the setting where we saw “Yesterday that really gave me a feeling of being a kid again. We saw it at a drive-in theater.
But, this isn’t your parents’ (or grandparents’) drive in.
Our local theater, Water Gardens, has transformed itself from a traditional movie theater to a drive-in.
For one thing. We were confined to our cars. We were only allowed out for “emergency bathroom trips.” I’m not sure I wanted to know what constituted an emergency. We told the kids to go before we left home.
If you had to go to the bathroom, you needed to use an online app to schedule it and then stand in line at stanchions which were six feet apart and wait your turn. The bathrooms were sanatized between each use.
We bought our tickets online too. And concessions were ordered online as well.
And we didn’t have those clumsy speakers hanging in our windows. Instead we tuned our radio to 88.9. At least those of us in Lot 1 did. There were multiple screens set up around the complex. Each one had its own frequency.
Fortunately, my kids decided to take a separate car. That left my lovely wife and I to share our big roomy Suburban all alone.
I’ve seen the movie before. My lovely wife had not, but picked it based on my recommendation. If you are familiar with the movie, the main character, Jack, is one of the only people in the world who remember the songs of The Beatles. He spends much of the movie trying to figure out what his new reality looks like.
That struck a chord. We also are plunged into a new reality. Unlike the people around Jack, we all understand what’s happening to us. Well, maybe we don’t understand it, but we at least know our world is changed.
So, we sat there watching a screen, listening to the radio, eating popcorn and peanut M&Ms. It’s a new world. Today is part futureworld, and part yesterday.
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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I was young once.
I had a professor in college who looked out at the collection of kids on the edge of adulthood.
You will never again have as much disposable income as you have right now.
The class was at Brigham Young University. The university is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most of us would get married. And by the standards of most people, we would marry young. I was 23 and my lovely wife was 19 when we got married.
And marrying young, we would also start families young. And once you have kids you are no longer young. Regardless of how old you are.
As it says in my signature block, I have thirteen children. Through adoption, I ended up with kids much closer together in age than would occur naturally. Now that they’ve almost all grown up, they are also leaving the house quickly.
My lovely wife explained that we have two main focuses when it comes to families.
1. Take care of your family
2. Raise your children
If you think about it, those are both the same goal. As parents, we focus on our children. We teach them. We clothe them. We feed them. We worry over them. And ultimately we hope they will make their own way in the world.
Some of my children have. My oldest have married. Some have children. They have careers. They truly are a joy to me as a father.
Some are still too young to make their way. The youngest three are still in high school. Still a couple of years to go.
And we were well on our way to helping our other kids transition out of the house. We were looking forward to a time when we would be less focused on our children, and have time to focus on our deferred goals. The things we wanted to do when we were young.
My dear mother, after she retired, devoted herself to travel. She’s been all over the world on cruises and excursions. Doing the things she couldn’t do when she had kids at home. When she was old. All of my brothers and my sister have been gone from home for many years.
But, today’s world is unlike the world when I left home years ago. I have my high school age son at home, but I also have his older brothers, and older sisters. Some are back from college, but some never left.
As we look at the world we have today, I can’t help but wonder what the coming years hold for us. Will the world allow our children to strike out on their own like my siblings and I did. Like my lovely wife did. Like my older children did. Or, will parental duties be ongoing? Will the “new normal” change what it means to be adults?
Most importantly, will we ever young again?
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 took a long time for me to identify as a writer. Even after I’d cowritten two books, numerous magazine (pre-blog days) articles and stories. I just wasn’t comfortable taking on that label.
Obviously I got comfortable with it. Although, I should say more comfortable. Because there’s still a part of me that just laughs at myself when I say I’m a “writer.”
If you’ve been following my scribblings here for any length of time, you (hopefully) are slightly confused when I talk about a discomfort with writing. I’ve been posting daily for the past several years. (I think it’s 7, but it depends on how you count.)
I have a chance to do some ghostwriting for a popular social media personality. He has 13,000 people on his email list. He’s literally begging me for content. We have been friends for years. He’s a great writer himself, but is currently incredibly busy.
He called me today,
Are you still interested in writing something for my newsletter?
I am. It’s just that it’s triggering my anxiety. I know that’s kind of weird. . .
No, no, not at all. I know EXACTLY how you feel. I had the same situation when I was writing with Tim. Trust me, I know that feeling well.
My relationship with my friend is not going to hinge on whether or not I supply him with some content. I even have the topics all listed on my whiteboard from the last time we talked. And while I’ve been busy, I haven’t been that busy.
What do you do with a writer who is afraid to write? Fortunately, my friend gave me some good adive from his own experience.
Why don’t you try what worked for me. Just send me a couple of topics, and I’ll write them. In fact, I’ll steal your idea and completely own it.
Okay. . .
And at that point, the pressure is off. Just seeing your idea get created will kick in that creative muse that says, “That was my idea. I did that.” After that, it will be easier to write your own ideas.
We often look at others who are doing the things that we aren’t, be it writing or sports, or relationships, or just playing with a kitten, and think they have always been that way. That it must be easy for them because it’s hard for you.
Trust me, it was hard for them once too. Just trust yourself and don’t compare.
And, yes, I’m talking to myself again.
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)
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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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Merry: It’s been going on for hours.
Pippin: They must have decided something by now.
Treebeard: Decided? No, we have just finished saying “Good Morning”.
Merry: But it’s night time already! You can’t take forever!
Treebeard: Now, don’t be hasty, master Meriadoc.
The Ents were some of my favorite characters in the Lord of The Rings stories.
You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.
I killed a tree today, three years ago. Or, three years ago I killed a tree today. I’m not sure how the tenses work. But, it happened today and it happened three years ago and they were both the same event. (Maybe the Ents have a word for it.)
There’s a theory that trees can actually communicate with one another. Researchers have found that trees establish networks that allow them to share water and nutrients. They can even send distress signals warning of drought or disease through these networks. In fact, they’ve even found that trees seem to have a sense of humor. They will occasionally send distress signals when there is no distress. These networks are called mycorrhizal networks. You can find out more about them here.
Growing up in Western Washington, I was surrounded by trees. In fact, you couldn’t escape them. We had friends come from Eastern Washington. They wanted to go to dinner. We directed them to a restaurant on the other side of town. We drove through so many trees they assumed we were completely outside of town.
And yet I didn’t take them for granted. I spent too many summers in Central Washington during my growing up years. Not a lot of trees in the Inland Empire.
It was one of the hardest things about moving to Utah, the lack of trees. If you go into the mountains, the back country, there are plenty of trees. But, here in the valley, we have to plant the trees we want. The only native growing trees are the giant cottonwoods. They grow next to rivers and creeks. In the spring they release their seeds, tiny considering how big the trees are. And each tiny cottonwood seed is wrapped safely in a gathering of cotton.
Not real cotton, of course. Although, I’ve often wondered if a talented spinner, like Rumpelstiltskin, might be able to actually spin cottonwood seeds into thread.
But, other than cottonwoods, and the invasive Russian Olive trees (which don’t actually produce olives) trees need to be planted, and then cared for.
My lovely wife grew up about 35 miles from my parents’ house in Western Washington. Her father was a logger and her family lived in the middle of a 40 acre forest. Lots of Douglas Fir, Hemlock, Cedar, Vine Maple. We both love trees.
About eight years ago we moved to our present house in Pleasant Grove, Utah. It’s a wonderful double corner lot with a nice view of the lake and mountains on the far side. And not a single tree. Five years ago we decided we’d try our hand at planting. We ordered ten bare root Maples. Our neighbor, a wonderful gardener, gave us some advice on how to start bare root trees.
You’ll probably lose about half of them.
We planted for beauty, but also for shade. The summer sun can be brutal on a South and West facing stucco home. We planted some trees close together counting on the law of averages that at least one would survive to give us the shade we hoped for. Well, my neighbor was smarter than he knew. All ten trees lived. Including the ones planted a mere eight feet apart.
Not all survived. As the first year’s growth budded out, it became clear that we had an imposter. Rather than the big leafy Maple leaves, it shot forth long narrow leaves. It was an Elm. If a Maple is one of the prettiest trees God created, surely the Elm was one of the ugliest. Not just ugly, but kind of trashy.
The Elm didn’t make it. I still feel a little bad about killing it.
However, it was the death of the ninth tree that really bothered me. It started dying three years ago, when it was only a couple of years old. And it was my fault.
My Maples grew exceptionally fast. Now, five years after planting them, the tallest are nearly 40 feet tall.
Three years ago, my tree was pretty spindly. Like a gangly teenager who hasn’t filled out his body yet, my tree was all height and no breadth. One branch especially came out of the trunk at a pretty oblique angle. And it was long. I thought about trimming it.
I didn’t.
I should have.
And then one day in a wind storm, the tree died. It didn’t die right away. In fact, I didn’t even know it was dead. The long limb split.
Most of the tree looked good still. It was tall. I bound up the broken branch. I tied it up tight with the hope it would knit back together.
It didn’t. So, a year later, I cut off the broken limb. It was a large part of the trunk and it left a gaping gash. But, I thought the tree would eventually grow around the gash. I just had to be patient.
The next wind storm that took a toll on my poor tree snapped it right at the weak point. Except it wasn’t a clean break. The bark on each side was still connected. The bark is a tree’s veins and arteries. If the bark is intact, there’s still life.
So, I rigged up some ropes. I put the tree upright and staked it in place. My neighbors laughed at me. In a good natured way. However, they were all impressed when last year my weakened, staked up tree budded out. New growth.
The next wind storm pushed the tree back the opposite way of the original break. Was the bark broken? It happened in the late fall. It was too soon to tell if it would survive again. This time, I got eight foot lengths of rebar, placed them inside of PVC pipe and strapped four of them around the trunk of the tree from the solid base to the threatened top. And I staked it in all directions.
And I waited.
Spring 2020 has sprung here in Utah. The dandelions are out. The gardens are in and the trees are budding out. And I had to admit that my tree had finally completed the dying process. The branches above the break were dead and brittle. And yet, even in death, there was still a hope. The bottom foot of the tree, below the break, was still alive. Only the top was dead.
I considered training up one of the suckers from the base and letting it grow. But, I realized that even if it grew, it would be mishapen and more importantly succeptible to wind and snow.
So, my daughter and I dug out the stump. It was surpringly small for how tall the tree had been.
And I realized that while we pulled it out of the ground today, the tree actually died three years ago. I just didn’t know it at the time. But, like a slow motion car wreck, once set in motion the series of events really had only one conclusion.
I’ll miss that tree. Sure, it’s just a tree, but I spent a long time helping that tree grow. And I spent even longer helping it die.
I wonder how long it would take the Ents to say goodbye? No doubt it would take a long time. After all, they never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Strange wedding.
Yes. Very strange. Come along.
– King and Queen: Princess Bride
She was literally the girl next door. So was he. They were both my next door neighbors. But, I didn’t marry either one, of course. But, they were also next door neighbors to each other.
Our houses share an intersection. My house is on one corner. Hers is on another corner. And his is on the other corner. (No, there’s no fourth corner, but that doesn’t matter to the story.)
I’ve known them both since they were kids. We’ve lived in our current house for about eight years. Both their families were here when we moved in. They were teenagers when we moved in. My lovely wife and I are friends with both sets of parents. My kids were friends with her brothers. They weren’t friends as much with his siblings, although probably because in a unique “Mormon” trick of geography, we attended church with her family, but not his. (The street was the separation between to two congregations. )
Mormon, or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint congregations are defined by geography. Everyone in a particular neighborhood attends church at the same time. The congregations are called wards. We attend the 5th Ward. His family attends the 2nd Ward. What it really means is that we attend the same church building but at different times.
Of course, no one is attending church now. It was one of the first things that got shut down. Anyway, living as close as do it became obvious when they started dating. Both had served missions for the Church of Jesus Christ. (The Mormons don’t really like being called Mormons anymore. It’s kind of a Mormon thing.)
We watched their romance grow. It’s actually kind of sweet to see a young man stop at the house across the street open the door, help her out and walk her to the door. Then, we see him get back in his car pull across the street into his own driveway.
They’ve been dating for a while. None of us not part of the families knows how long, but it’s been months. They got engaged several months ago. They even had a date set, but they eventually backed off the date.
Something you should know about Mormon weddings. First, they typically aren’t called weddings. They are referred to as sealings. The concept is that when performed with the proper authority in a temple, a man and a woman can be sealed together forever, even after death.
But, the sealing needs to take place inside a Temple. You’ve probably seen Mormon temples. At least pictures. There are about 150 of them around the world. They are beautiful buildings, but they aren’t like normal chapels. In fact, temples are closed on Sundays. Except now they are closed the other days of week as well.
Salt Lake City, Utah Temple
Getting sealed in the temple is really important to active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Being married outside of the temple is pretty much frowned on.
And that brings us to two neighbors who are in love and want to get married. They had their wedding planned. They had picked out the temple. They had long guest lists drawn up. They had the reception all planned.
So, now what? None of that is possible. Not the temple sealing, not the guest list, not the big reception.
But, even in the middle of a world wide pandemic, life goes on. Babies are born. A friend in our neighborhood just had a baby boy. People die, of course. Too many. And people continue to get married.
That boy and girl next door got married on Friday. The religious leader of a Ward holds the title of Bishop. (Kind of the same role as a Catholic priest, or a Baptist Pastor.) The young couple did what young couples have always done. They made the best decision they could. Honestly, the only decision they could. They chose to get married.
The Bishop performed the ceremony. Our state has a “no more than 10 people” gathering rule. The parents of the bride and groom were there. The couple themselves, of course. The bishop and I would imagine a couple of witnesses.
The plan is that once the quarantine is lifted and the temples reopen, they will get sealed. They are planning a big reception with lots of family and friends.
Just one more strange event that has become our new normal.
Congratulations to the happy couple.
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)
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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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Popcorn was a big part of my family growing up. My dad loved it. The man who rarely gave compliments bribed my little brother into making it with flattery. (Lies My Father Told Me)
This was the days before microwave popcorn. In fact, I think one of the main reasons my father bought our first microwave was the hope of making popcorn even quicker.
Back before we all became pseudo-experts on microwave technology, we had a disasterous episode with popcorn and a plastic bowl. It was the last time we ever used that bowl.
Did you know that a popcorn has about 30 calories per cup? And it’s high in fiber. Of course, if you add salt and butter, or what passes for “buttery topping” at movie theaters, you boost the calorie count significantly.
I don’t like the butter or salt. My favorite is popcorn as plain as possible.
I typically make microwave popcorn. Why do microwaves have a popcorn button? Does anyone ever use that button? Did you burn your popcorn?
My bags take about 2:30. But, sometimes they only take 2:15. Sometimes they take the full 2:30. But, I have to listen to the bag popping. When there is about 5 seconds between pops, it’s time to the take it out. Leave it in too long and the popcorn will actually burn.
However, no matter how long you leave it in, even if it starts to burn a little in the middle, you can never get all the kernals to pop.
I buy a high-end brand of microwave popcorn. If popcorn brands can be described as high-end. The cheaper brands have more unpopped kernals. My brand has fewer, but there’s always some.
I used to pop popcorn in a frying pan. You add a little oil, don’t let it get too hot, or the oil will smoke. Add your popcorn and then shake. Shake for a long time.
But, here’s a strange thing, the pan is the same temperature all the way around. The kernals all enter the pan at the same time. And yet, they pop at different times. And some never pop at all.
I think I only know one song about popcorn.
I looked out the window and what did I see?
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.
Spring has brought me such a nice surprise.
Blossoms popping right before my eyes.
I could take an armful and make a treat,
A popcorn ball that would smell so sweet.
It wasn’t really so, but it seemed to be
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.
– Popcorn Popping, words and music by Georgia W. Bello
It’s a children’s song. There are actions that go along with it; hands “exploding” out as bursts of popcorn.
There are two lessons I think we can draw from a bowl of popcorn. Well, maybe you wouldn’t draw them, but they make sense to me.
First: Not everyone develops at the same speed. Sometimes that late bloomer just needs a few minutes longer in the pan.
Second: Some people never bloom. And you end up throwing. . .Umm. . .Okay, maybe it really was only one good lesson.
One good lesson and a kid’s song.
(You can hear someone singing the Popcorn Song here)
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) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I’ve spent more time in courtrooms than I can honestly remember. In fact, a judge once said, “Your parents have been in my courtroom I don’t know how many times.” She didn’t mean it as a condemnation of us, my lovely wife and me.
Courtrooms are just like you see in the movies. It’s often very formal. I try to wear a suit every time I go. I will typically wear a shirt that is not white. I wear a white shirt every Sunday to go to church. I rarely get the opportunity to dress up in a colored shirt and tie.
I have a set of silk suspenders. When I walked through the metal detector, the brass fittings on my suspenders would set off the alarm. Eventually, I was simply asked to lift up my pant legs to show I had nothing strapped to my ankles. Or maybe the baliffs simply wanted to see if my socks matched. They didn’t say.
We don’t go to church anymore, of course. I haven’t put on the suit in over a month. Strange how court was still linked to church, even if in a negative connotation. I don’t wear the suit to court either.
I had court yesterday. Both my lovely wife and I attended. And as you may have noticed in my opening paragraph, I was there for the sake of one of my children. It was a scheduled meeting. We’ve had one each week for the past four weeks. The first was via a phone call. The second was supposed to be via video, but they couldn’t get the video to work. The third, I went in person. Today’s was via video; WebEx.
WebEx, like most video conferencing software allows you to show multiple people on screen. In the upper left was the “host.” It was an empty courtroom. No one was visible, but we were assured that somewhere off camera was a court reporter. The judge appeared to be broadcasting from her living room. A light behind her kept making her image artifically bright or dark as she moved closer and farther from the camera. She was dressed in normal clothes. No black robe.
My child appeared with staff in another window. The prosecuting attorney was in a suit and tie. He had chosen an unfortunate camera angle. His head was in the lower quarter of the screen. The upper 3/4 was a blank wall. But, he was definitely the best dressed.
I was wearing an pressed shirt but no tie. It wasn’t a white shirt. My lovely wife wore a knit top. We both wored jeans. It didn’t matter. No one was going to see them anyway.
I don’t know what kind of pants the defense attorney was wearing. Perhaps it was Bermuda board shorts. It would have matched the t-shirt he was wearing. For all I know he might not have been wearing any at all, although I think that might have been too much even for him.
None of us stood when the judge entered the room. She wasn’t announced. She was simply there like most people who pop into a video conference.
We all spoke deferentially, of course. My child was very respectful. We were all respectful. But, we were also all very unsettled. It’s hard enough being in a normal courtroom, with its formal setting: wood panelling, high ceilings, the judge seated literally above the rest of the courtroom. The setting is both intimidating and formal on purpose.
But, today that wasn’t the case. We might have been members of a work group gathering for a project meeting. The judge read the charges and spoke in the formal language of the court. It was incongruatous given the decidedly informal setting.
And yet, there we were. The proceedings completed and we scheduled the next project meeting. I flipped to a new window on my PC and brought up my work calendar to find my availabilty and schedule the next meeting 45 days out.
It is definitely a brave new world.
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)
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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 work on broken systems. It’s not all I do, of course. In fact, I do a lot less of it, especially as we have been focused on moving our agents to work from home.
We have a process for handling cases where we have systems that fail. It’s not a complicated system. The simpler the process, the easier it is to follow.
One of the key steps happens right at the beginning. Once an outage has been identified, we need to get the number of people impacted in each line of business. We handle multiple LOBs for our client; helpline, Certificates of Deposit, Investment, Accounting.
We need to know how many Lexington CD agents were impacted by the outage? How many Cleveland Investment agents were impacted?
These numbers are really important. In fact, the numbers are vital. We plan our staffing levels very carefully using historical data and projections. If one line of business has agents at a particular center cannot take calls, we can ask agents at another center to help take up the slack.
And then after the outage is over we create reports based on which agents were impacted. If the outage was our fault, there may. be penalties involved. Our penalties are assessed on lines of business.
It’s kind of an important number.
We sent 1200 agents from across our six sites to work from home this week. It’s never been done by this client before. We didn’t even know if it was possible two weeks ago. We are still working out how to support them.
Today we had an outage. It wasn’t a huge outage, but it was across multiple sites. Our client called me to report the outage.
Rodney, we noticed some dropped calls at three of your centers. Could you reach out and find out who was impacted?
Ah. . .
See, here’s the thing. When I built our outage process, I knew that we had to have a quick an deasy way to find that initial impact count. Our method? Go out on the call floor and ask the supervisors and agents on teh floor if they were impacted.
My problem? My call floor now stretches across multiple states, hundreds of towns and over a thousand work-at-home homes.
Like many businesses, we didn’t have time to prepare for our work-at-home strategy. We had a couple of days to design. A few days to test it. And then we had to roll it out as quickly as possible.
(We’re IT. we love those kind of crazy schedules.)
The problem was that we didn’t have time to also update our operating and outage processes. We figured we’d address it when the need came up.
Well, it came up today.
How many? What lines of business? Who knows?
Email them? Nope. They don’t have corporate email. We have their cell phone numbers. We needed that to enable our multi-factor authentication. But, ever try to text 1200 people? And how do you filter their responses?
You don’t.
Anyway, we’ll figure it out. We’ll develop processes that acknowledge our new reality. In the meantime, I got to give an answer that I don’t normally give.
How many agents were impacted on each line-of-business?
I have no idea
What else did you expect?
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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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’m tired, boss. Tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I’m tired of never having a buddy to be with, to tell me where we’s goin to, coming from or why. Mostly, I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world every day. There’s too much of it. It’s like pieces of glass in my head, all the time…Can you understand?
– John Coffey, “The Green Mile”
Are you tired? I think I’m tired. I’m not bored. I know some of you are bored. I’m not scared. I feel terrible that many of you are scared, unsure what you’re going to do next week or next month. How do you find a new job when the world is locked down? How do you work when it feels like no one is working?
And then there’s the elephant in the room. Except we don’t know if he’s in the room do we? He’s like this hulking, imposing, invisible elephant. . .who may decide to kill you in your sleep. Or maybe kill someone you love. It may kill those closest to us and the most vulnerable.
I’m a great crisis manager. My entire family is. In fact, when there’s a disaster, we are at our best. I never really understood it was something one could get good at. And, I never really knew I was good at it. I just knew that when things went bad, I found a way through.
Isn’t there always a way through? I had to believe there was. And all I had to do was find it. And looking for that way through helped me focus. And focus kept me on task.
We’re in a crisis now. The biggest one of my lifetime. The biggest of nearly everyone’s lifetime. People have described this as a war. Maybe, it is. But, we lack something that a true war provides. We have an enemy, of course. We have death lists. We have casualty reports. We even have battlelines as the virus, like some invading army started at the coasts, New York City, California, Washington, and relentlessly pushed it’s way toward the heartland and the Rocky Mountains.
The invader won. At least temporarily.
After 9/11 we were all encouraged to attempt to go back to a normal life. We were told,
If you don’t go shopping, the terrorists win.
Well, this invader won without firing a shot. The 9/11 terrorists couldn’t shut down our schools, our malls, our cinemas. No other invader has been able to lock us in our homes, afraid to greet our neighbors. Unable to attend weddings, or funerals.
Not even World War II was able to stop baseball. But, baseball died along with every other sport, concert, play and piano bar.
What this war lacks is someone to fight. There are no Germans, or Japanese, or Al Quida, or Vietnamese. Not that xenophobia is something to aspire to. And our former enemies are now are now some of our staunchest allies. But, we mobilized against our enemy.
But, not this time. This time, the enemy is unseen, but deadly. We are confident we will beat him. . .her. . it(?) We are Americans. And we will win.
Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. The very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.
You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would be killed in a major battle. Every man is scared. . .If he says he’s not, he’s a liar. But the real hero is the man who fights even though he’s scared. . . The real man never lets his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.
– General George C Patton, to the men of the Third Army preparing for the D-Day invastion June 1944
But, we can’t see what we are fighting. It’s in the air. It’s on that gas pump handle. It’s on the grocery store cart. It lived for 17 days on a cruise ship after the passengers were gone. It’s everywhere and nowhere.
So, our only weapon is to wait it out. The entire world is waiting. Waiting for a friend’s quarantine to end. Waiting for the test results. Waiting for the stay-at-home order to be lifted. Waiting for the medical miracle workers to find a bullet small enough to kill it.
I’m a crisis manager and while this is crisis, it’s not the kind where my skills help me. There’s nothing to do except wait. And that’s a lack of doing. So, we wait. And waiting is tiring.
I’m just tired.
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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Which would you rather have?
1. A million dollars
2. The amount of money earned in a month by getting a penny the first day, 2 pennies the second, 4 the third and so on
There’s something called the wheat and the chessboard problem. You place a single grain of wheat (or rice) on the first square, two on the second, four on the third and so on. How many grains of rice will be on the final square? Will it be more than the board can hold? More than you can count?
The chessboard problem illustrates the concept of exponential growth. Linear growth is what most of us are familiar with. Our height and weight follow a linear path. You gain a little at a time. More or less in a straight line. Hence the name “linear.”
Exponential growth is different. It starts low and goes up very, very, VERY fast.
Epidemics experience exponential growth as opposed to linear growth. I saw someone say that “Only 1000 people have died in the United States from the virus.” They questioned the draconian measures that governments are taking to stop the spread of the virus.
Of course there are more than 1000 dead now. In fact, it’s been less than a week since the USA passed 1000 deaths. Today? There are 3,167 deaths. In 5 days, the number of death has increased 200%. And it’s going to continue going up.
I don’t know if the United States will end up with 100,000 dead, which is the low end estimate, or 1,200,000 which is the high end. And if the numbers follow their graph, we’ll see all those deaths in the next month. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen in America since the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 when 675,000 died in the United States and 50 million worldwide.
Don’t let the low numbers fool you. Math works. And the math, the horrible, relentless, deadly math is following an exponential curve.
Oh, the answer to the two riddles?
You would absolutely want the the doubling pennies rather than the million dollars. After a month (call it February with it’s 28 days) you have:
2^27 + 1 penny for the first day = 134,217,729 pennies, or over $13,000,000
and that would just be awarded on the last day. The totals for the other days added together would be close to another $13 million.
And the wheat and the chessboard? That is even more outrageous.
2^63 + 2^62 + 2^61. . . + 2^3 + 2^2 + 2 +1 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615
That’s 18 quintillion and change. Just to give you some perspective. If you wanted to travel 18 quintillion miles you could rack that up by travelling the 93 million miles from the earth to the sun. You’d have to make multiple trips, of course. 200 million of them, or 100 million round trips.
The virus won’t reach that many, of course. And not just because we have less than 8 million people on earth. Governments are attempting to “flatten the curve.” To prevent the virus from spreading as rapidly as it might have.
But, if anyone tries to convince you that it’s “only 1000” or “only 3,167” deaths, ask them for some pennies and a calendar, or wheat and a chessboard.
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