Third Time’s A Charm

My daughter called with a car problem.

So, I looking at the error codes her car was showing. Nothing jumped out at me. But, Google said that it could be the ECT (Engine Control Temperature) sensor. The coolant inside your engine is what keeps the engine cool. And, of course, if that coolant gets too hot, it’s a bad thing.

Engine Temperature Control Sensor

The sensor is really easy to replace. It costs about $12 and is really easy to replace. As I replaced it I should have been concerned that no coolant leaked out. I didn’t think about that.

But, the car still had an issue. It still stopped. And it still threw error codes.

Strange as it may seem, the next thing that was suggested was replacing the fuel pump. If you have a bad fuel pump it can cause your car to randomly stop. Plus, my neighbor is a car guy. He suggested I replace the fuel pump.

Next up was replacing the fuel pump

The fuel pump is easy to replace. But, unlike the ETC sensor, a new fuel pump is a little more expensive. Actually, it’s a lot more. This one, even with a discount was about $300. It went in pretty easily.

Unfortunately, that still didn’t resolve the issue. I talked to my daughter again.

Turns out she was confusing the temperature gauge with the tachometer. The temperature gauge? Yeah, it was pegged at the top. The engine was overheating. And fortunately, the car was shutting down before the engine blew up.

Once I had the problem properly diagnosed, figuring out the solution was easy. Her radiator was cracked. All the coolant leaked out. That was why the Engine Coolant Temperature sensor was going haywire. It was supposed to be submerged in coolant. After the coolant evaporated the ECT sensor was exposed to air.

Replacing a radiator is not complicated. Okay, it’s slightly more complicated than the fuel pump, which unfortunately I couldn’t return. (It was buried in the fuel tank.) But, it’s still something I can do.

A new radiator for my daughter’s car

A radiator is slightly cheaper than a fuel pump. A new radiator was about $220. The new one is so shiny.

The old one looked pretty trashed

The old one was pretty trashed. Once I knew where to look, it was clear what the problem was.

You need to remove several hoses to replace the radiator

The new radiator goes to the left of this picture. It’s hard to see but, this is what the engine compartment looks like with the radiator out.

A couple hours later and the car was finally all put back together, filled with antifreeze and most importantly it was no longer overheating.

Lesson? Spend more time diagnosing and maybe you don’t end up unnecessarily replacing parts. And you save some money for your daughter.

Stay safe

August 26, 2022

I Have Another Book Coming Out. . .Sort Of

Miscellany Vol III

New anthology, Miscellany III

Do you enjoy reading things written by Rodney M Bliss?

Well, I would hope so, you’re on this site. Here is my latest story. It will be included in the collection, “Miscellany III, A Collection Of Holiday Short Stories.”

My story is called “You Can Call Me Dan.” It’s not about a guy named Dan. And it’s a holiday story. Sure, it is because that’s what my editor asked for. It wasn’t EXACTLY what I delivered in my rough draft. I wrote a Science Fiction love story. My editor’s exact comments were, “Your protagonist is too creepy.” Okay, that’s why we have editors. And I like working with editors despite their reputation.

So, I rewrote the story and made the protaganist, you know half of the romantic couple, less creepy.

“Okay, this is better. But, he’s still coming across like the villain in a horror story.”

Okie dokie, then. Third time was a charm.

I know some writers who disagree with the idea of an editor changing the entire tone of a story. I don’t. The story that is published is really different than the story I originally wrote. I don’t even know if it’s better, but I strongly suggest it is. No, the most important thing is that the editor is trying to put a book together. My story needs to “fit” with the anthology.

Did I like my original story?

Yes. I still do. But, after going through multiple rewrites I realized what my editor was trying to accomplish. And honestly, the story he helped craft is much stronger in many ways.

So, preorders for “Miscellany III” will be available in the coming weeks. If you check back here, I promise you won’t be able to miss it. It’s a fun story that I’m very proud of.

Stay tuned.

Stay safe

August 25, 2022

Always Pick The Right Side Of The Bus. . .Meaning The Left

When is the left side the right side?

I used to commute from my home in Pleasant Grove to my office in Salt Lake City. Utah Transit Authority had special commuter buses. They were not regular city buses. Instead they were more like Greyhound buses. Nice plush seats. They even had wifi. And after making a few stops in Utah county, including a stop in Pleasant Grove, the buses then got on the freeway and headed north. They exited in Salt Lake City and made a few stops around down town.

In the afternoon the pattern was repeated just in reverse. The last bus left Salt Lake at 4:30 which meant that I almost never was request to stay late. Several of us in my office took public transportation. Since Utah also employs carpool lanes it was not uncommon to have someone walk through the office around 4:15 looking for “a carpool buddy.”

The first time I took the bus, I admit I was a little nervous. I got in and quickly took a seat next to the window. But, I didn’t realize I did it wrong. I chose the right side of the bus, which is to say I chose the wrong side.

What makes the right side of the bus the wrong side? It had to do with with time and location.

I was reminded of my commuter days recently when I had to drive home from my office in South Jordan to my home in Pleasant Grove. I realized I was on the wrong side of the car, just as I had previously been on the wrong side of the bus.

I 15 headed south is a different commute than headed north

I had to head home in the morning and dealt with the sun in my eyes

See, Salt Lake City is north of Pleasant Grove. When I commute in the morning, the sun is rising in the east. That’s the right side of my car, and the right side of the bus.

Utah's summer sun coming up over the Wasatch

Both seats are not created equal when one of them is subject to the sun

When I’m headed to work, the left hand side of the car and the car (or the bus) is in the shade. Just as in the afternoon, when the hot Utah sun is headed toward the west, and I’m commuting south, the left hand side of the car (or the bus) is again in the shade.

When I got on the bus that first day the seats on the right hand side of the bus were available. I didn’t consider it at the time. But, my fellow commuters were more experienced than I was. They knew that the sunny side would not only be hot, but uncomfortably hot.

It didn’t take me long to realize my mistake. Sometimes a simple choice seems inconsequential, but has consequences we never considered.

What’s your “right side of the bus” story?

Stay safe

August 24, 2022

Getting The Fall Cold

Remember how many people used to get sick the first few weeks of school? (I mean grade school not college.) It took me a while as a parent to figure out that it wasn’t the Fall air. Instead it was the fact that our children would go into disease factories called classrooms.

I had mostly forgotten about those annual sniffles and coughs.

This week my grandchildren came to visit for a few hours. My grandchildren who are in daycare and preschool.

Guess what I have?

Two days later and I have a sore throat and a runny nose.

Of course, when I was a kid we didn’t have to worry that every sneeze or cough was COVID. (We tested the grandkids and they tested negative.)

Nope, this is the average, everyday “kids went to school and brought it home” Autumn sniffles.

I can’t say I appreciate it, but it’s nice to be reminded of those many years of sending kids off to a new school year each Fall.

Stay safe

August 23, 2022

Always Own Your Name

Who owns your name?

That might seem like a silly question. You do. . .don’t you? When it comes to online, the answer is that you might not. And if you aren’t careful, someone else will own it.

My brother’s name is Richard Bliss. He’s a social media consultant. His company provides training and coaching for everyone from sales teams to c-level executives on how to manage their online persona. He’s brilliant.

He doesn’t own his name.

Nearly 20 years ago he owned richardbliss.com. And like most of us, he rarely considered renewing it until the month it came due. Well, one thing led to another and he kept putting off renewing it. He had the money, of course. It’s ten bucks or so. And, besides, who else would want it?

It turned out that he actually let the domain become available online. And someone else wanted it. They wanted it A LOT. It was immediately snatched up. But, if you try to navigate to richardbliss.com there’s no website there. There’s no email addresses @richardbliss.com. He domain got snatched up by a squatter. The squatter offered to sell the domain back for thousands of dollars.

That happened in 2003. The squatter still owns the website.

Richard’s company website is blisspointconsult.com. And that’s a perfectly fine name. But, it’s not HIS name.

These scribbles appear online at the location of rodneymbliss.com. That’s certainly my name. But, I wish I had the domain name without my middle initial “M like Mary. . .but that’s not it!” That domain belonged to another Rodney Bliss who was a real estate broker back east somewhere. Eventually, he let it become available. I could have registered it for a couple hundred dollars. I decided to wait until the price dropped to what most new domains cost, $15 or so.

I’m still waiting. It’s been two years. I doubt I’m ever going to get it. It’s owned by a squatter.

There are literally millions of possible domain names. And if you are starting a company, or a blog, or an ecommerce site, you can be creative. But, if you want your name on the web. But it as soon as it is available and then continue to renew it.

Always own your own name.

Stay safe

August 22, 2022

You Wouldn’t Do This If It Was A Water Main

I work for a software company. We have a product that is a SaaS or Software as a Service. Even when we are in the office, we log into our software across the internet. It’s not that unusual. Most software companies work the same way. In fact, I’m not sure there’s even a single application I use on a daily basis that doesn’t live on the net.

So, on Friday when our Internet went out, we were pretty much dead in the water. It wasn’t a complete surprise. Crews have been working on installing fiber in the neighborhood behind our office. Apparently they cut a fiber line. It happens. They cut it while I was at lunch. By the time I came back everyone was gone except the office manager and the guy who does marketing.

The marketing guy is also in charge our services. He was working to find out why the internet was out. (We hadn’t found out about the cut line yet.) So, I headed home. Thirty minutes later and I was back online and working. I didn’t even miss any meetings.

The nice thing about all of our apps online is that I can log in just as easily from home as from the office. It was a very productive day on Friday.

So, Monday morning I headed into the office. And the Internet was. . .still out. The only people there were. . .the office manager and the marketing guy.

What?

How can services be down for 60 hours?

Well, it turns out that they fiber company figured out that they cut the cable. And they certainly could fix it. After all, they were a fiber company.

But, it turns out that to dig in our city you have to have a permit. And, of course, the city permitting offices aren’t open on the weekend. So, the fiber companies couldn’t even START repairing the circuit until Monday morning. Well, Monday morning they could ask for the permit to allow them to start repairing.

I thought about critical services.

Suppose instead of a fiber line, the fiber company had cut a water line? Or a power line? Or . . .eww. . .a sewer line?

Would the city require the company to wait three days to even START repairing it? Of course not. Not with water or sewage running down the street. And not with an entire neighborhood without power.

And yet, for a company like ours, and possibly yours too, internet connections are every bit as vital as water or power. We couldn’t do anything, nothing. We were completely helpless.

I’m sure we have SLAs, service level agreements, that control recourse if they can’t provide services. But, it’s about more than just money. It’s about critical services to run a business.

When I was working a previous company I helped design data centers. Everything was redundant. Not only did we have two service providers, there was a requirement that the lines enter on opposite sides of the data center. That way, a single errant backhoe couldn’t cut both feeds at once.

I suppose our company could attempt to get two service providers. And our servers weren’t offline over the weekend, of course. They are safely hosted in the cloud and more than likely distributed over multiple servers and multiple data centers.

I spent the day working from home. It was a very productive day. The internet was supposed to be fixed this afternoon. I don’t think they would have waited this long for water, sewer, power, or any other utility.

Stay safe

August 17, 2022

Image

Ten Years Or More

I’ve been in my house for about ten years. Lots of things change in ten years. My children all grew up. My granddaughter was born. And then another and grandsons. I changed jobs a couple of times. My hair got a little greyer. And many of my children moved out to go on church missions or head off to college.

But, through it all we’ve been int he same house. But, it’s not really the same house. That became clear to me the a few days ago when I happened to look at Google Streetviews.

We’ve made a lot of changes over the years.

Here’s a picture of our house from ten years ago courtesy of Google’s Streetview.

It was all we could do to get the grass to grow when we moved in

We made changes each year. A little at a time. And this is the house after ten years of home improvements.

We still work on the grass, but now we have more to keep growing. The rainbow happened to be an added bonus

We planted trees. We planted flowers. We added a new mailbox. You can’t see it, but there’s a fairy garden under the trees.

As much as the front changed, the side changed even more. Here’s a picture of the side yard ten years ago.

I hated mowing that hill.

The dandelions were terrible in the spring. The previous owner mowed down the weeds and put sod over it. The weeds were an issue for years.

Here’s a picture of the side yard today.

Moving the rocks was a lot of work but I reminded myself how much I hated mowing that hill

We built the rock walls, of course. The lower bricks are from Home Depot, but the other rocks are from local building lots.

We built steps

And planted the trees, of course.

We also dug out the area around the fire hydrant.

We also fenced the backyard and added a playset for the grandkids. And, we added the garden boxes and other garden areas.

The changes were so gradual that I hardly noticed them year to year. It’s kind of like watching your kids grow up. They are 12 and then all of a sudden they are 21 and getting married.

There’s still work to do. But, it’s nice to be reminded of the progress we’ve made.

Stay safe

August 15, 2022

Asking A Lawyer A Question I Didn’t Already Know The Answer To

Brad lives in a town next to mine. We’ve commented on city council facebook articles. We typically are on the same side of issues. I need to get my end-of-life stuff in order. You know, Last Will and Testament, Living Will, instruction in the event of my death, the combination to the safe. Those type of things. I’m not in any danger of dying soon. At least I don’t think I am. But, the kids are all grown now. It’s time to update those “death” documents.

I knew Brad was a lawyer, but not what kind.

That was definitely NOT the response I was expecting. Brad is not going to help me write my will. But, I realized I had a question for Brad that I didn’t even know I needed the answer to.

If you had the chance to learn how and when you were going to die, would you choose to know? Sometimes the uncertainty is the worst part. I’m not sure I would want to know when I will die, but it helps to know the possible outcome for my family member.

Of course, it would be better to NOT know. And to not know because the person wasn’t facing multiple felony charges. This experience has given me a chance to think about choices we all make, and how we judge those who make mistakes.

Where’s the line between enabling bad behavior and helping out someone in need? I wish I knew.

Regardless, I’ll support my family member. Not by condoning the commission of crimes, of course. But, to let the person know they are loved. That make bad choices doesn’t mean they are not family.

And I’ll be careful the next time I ask an attorney a question I don’t already know the answer to.

Stay safe

August 12, 2022

Dog Days. . .And Boys of Summer

I’m a huge baseball fan. Like, more than is healthy. August is hot. Just about everywhere. August is called the dog days of summer. I’m not sure why. I’m not sure that dogs like hot weather. And obviously, if you have a dog, you have the dog all year long. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the dog days of summer are July 3 through August 11. It has to do with the ancient Greeks and Sirius rising. Or something like that.

Baseball players are called “the boys of summer.” And although the dog days of summer and the boys of summer are both phrases that use summer, they typically are not interchangeable.

The baseball season is about 3/4 fo the way done. I’m a Mariners fan. The Seattle Mariners have been around for 45 years. I’ve been a fan for slightly less time. In their nearly half century, the Mariners have won their division pennant three times, 1995, 1997 and 2001. That last year they set the record for the most wins in a season. They won 116 games out of a total of 162. But, despite that record, the Mariners have not been a very good team. Out of the 30 teams int eh Major Leagues, the Seattle Mariners are the only team to never play in the World Series.

And for the past 21 years, nearly half the life of the franchise, the Seattle Mariners have failed to get to the post season. Their 21 years of futility are the longest streak in the Major Leagues. So, we are 75% of the way through the series and this year the Mariners are in the hunt for the post season. They are leading the race for one of the three wildcard spots.

So, we’ll slog through the dog days of August. The Mariners will either break their playoff drought, or they will again collapse and miss the playoffs.

Welcome to the dog days.

Stay safe

August 11, 2022

Family Is Who You Make It

Technically, she’s not my niece. (But, we aren’t worried about technicalities.) I assumed it was just going to be her and her daughter. She showed up with her daughter, her boyfriend, her son and a puppy.

My niece unexpectedly came to visit. She had a family emergency and ended up in Park City.

I haven’t seen my niece, my sister’s daughter, since she was about eight years old. And now she has her own eight year old. And, I’d never met her boyfriend. And the puppy was new to all of us. But, they are all four now sleeping in my spare room. (It’s a big room, a queen and twin bed plus a baby’s bed. Except the puppy, of course. He’s in the garage, whining.

Why is my long lost niece, her two kids and boyfriend in my spare bedroom?

Because she’s family. In my family, you get to choose your relatives. I’ve had relatives, siblings even, that I didn’t claim. And I have other relatives that are shirttail, at best.

But, part of being family is who you decide to make room in your heart for. Room in your heart and room in your house.

Fortunately, we have a big house. It used to be full of kids. Now, not so much. But, even if we were in a little two bedroom apartment, there’s always room for family.

Tomorrow my niece and her family will head back to California. I hope it’s not 20 years before I see her again. But, regardless of how long it is, I can guarantee they’ll be room for them to stay with us. (Except maybe not the dog next time.)

Stay safe

Rodney M Bliss

Third Time’s A Charm

Like this:

I Have Another Book Coming Out. . .Sort Of

Miscellany Vol III

Like this:

Always Pick The Right Side Of The Bus. . .Meaning The Left

When is the left side the right side?

Like this:

Getting The Fall Cold

Like this:

Always Own Your Name

Like this:

You Wouldn’t Do This If It Was A Water Main

Like this:

Ten Years Or More

Like this:

Asking A Lawyer A Question I Didn’t Already Know The Answer To

Like this:

Dog Days. . .And Boys of Summer

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Family Is Who You Make It

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