It’s a common raffle. There’s a jar full of stuff. Maybe it’s gumballs. Maybe it’s jellybeans, or guitar pics. Or, as in my case, coins. You have to guess how many. Or, again in my case, how much.
How much are the coins in the jar?
I like using cash. Despite our society’s continued push towards a cashless society, I actually like cash. I prefer to carry bills.
Maybe it’s a sense of nostalgia. After all, despite having a phone (with it’s ubiquitous clock) I also have a smartwatch, and yet I carry a pocket watch. I have for years. My car is a 1996 Toyota that includes manual transmission, manual door locks and manual windows. I write letters. And I write for a local newspaper that exists only in print edition. I work in IT, but my life is definitely not ruled by technology.
I like cash, but, I don’t like carrying coins. I have a jar that I keep coins in. I don’t collect them. Well, I do collect coins, but not every coin. So, I have this jar and every time I have coins I dump them in. Eventually the jar fills up, of course. It doesn’t fill up in a strictly linear manner. Occasionally, a child will need change for a dollar. Or during Chinese New Year when we give the kids money it typically comes out of the coin jar.
But, eventually, it gets too full to hold any more coins. I then take it to the bank and get it changed into cash. Bills this time. Plus, some remaining coins of course.
I try to guess how much money is in the jar. And this time I guessed it just right. Well, almost. But, really, really close.
Do you ever play the lottery? Maybe you’ve hit the numbers. Chances are you haven’t. But, I’ll bet you’ve been really, really close. Like maybe only off by a number or two.
Yeah, we all have. In fact, I was just as close to guessing the amount of money in my coin jar as you were to hitting the lottery. That is to say, very close and incredibly far off.
Yesterday’s powerball numbers were 49, 53, 57, 59, and 62, the Power Ball was 26 and the Power Play was X2. If you had known these numbers yesterday, you’d be $220M richer. (No one matched all the numbers, so you have still have a chance.)
Someone matched five numbers. They won a million dollars. (Oh, so close.)
Have you ever played the powerball lottery? I haven’t. It’s not just that Utah doesn’t participate in the lottery. To quote a disgraced actor from a good movie, “I believe in the power of large numbers.”
Ever wonder why no one picks the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 as their powerball sequence? Stupid question, right? No one would ever pick those numbers. There’s virtually no chance those numbers would come up.
Actually, the odds are 1 in 292,201,338 that those numbers will come up. Do you know what the odds for yesterday’s winning numbers (49, 53, 57, 59, 62, 26) were?
They were 1 in 292,201,338.
Weird, huh? The exact same odds for both numbers. There’s a pattern here. By this time you can guess the odds of any number being the winning number. Yup, it’s 1 in 292,201,338.
It doesn’t make sense to us. We know that 49, 53, 57, 59, 62, 26 is more likely than 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Don’t we?
I remember seeing a computer parlor trick one time. The website claimed it could read your mind using a set of cards. The website showed you a group of five face cards and asked you to mentally pick one. Once you had picked your card, you clicked NEXT. And it worked. Magically, the website managed to make only your card disappear.
I like puzzles. And this one had me stumped. I visited the website multiple times. And it absolutely worked each time. One clue was that the website didn’t allow the back button in the web browser.
I eventually figured out the trick, of course. The website didn’t just make the card you picked go away. It made all of them go away. It simply replaced them with a new set of four cards. The trick, like all good magic tricks was about misdirection. You, or rather I, was so focused on my own card, that I ignored the other cards. Later, when I was presented with a group of four face cards, which replaced a different group of four cards I didn’t notice.
The lottery is like that. We focused on our own numbers. We hardly pay attention to the winning numbers, except to note that our card isn’t there. All the rest of the numbers look the same.
If the computer had showed me a new group made up entirely of the cards Ace, two, three, and four, I would have immediately noticed that they were different. But, since the face cards all have a familiar pattern, I didn’t notice.
When I took my jar of coins to the bank, I guessed there was $65.00 in the jar. I got it right. Or nearly so. There was exactly $67.72. The distribution was
- Pennies: 672 $6.72
- Nickles: 158 $7.90
- Dimes: 171 $17.10
- Quarters: 132 $33.00
- Dollars: 3 $3.00
- Total: 1,136 $67.72
It’s remarkable, don’t you think, that the total value includes the same numbers that are in the pennies total, the numbers 6, 7 and 2?
No?
No, it’s not remarkable. It’s coincidental, but really that’s all it is. And when your powerball numbers seem oh, so close to the winning numbers, it’s not remarkable. It’s a coincidence. Because the odds of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 being the winning numbers are exactly the same as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 or 49, 53, 57, 59, 62, 26.
When I guessed my total value of coins, I knew it was somewhere between $55 and $75. And since the distribution of coins was random, the odds that it was exactly $65 were the same as the odds the total would be $67.72.
I only missed it by that much.
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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Today is January 1, 2020. The new year is often a time for setting goals. For making resolutions. A new year ending in a zero is also the time to argue about when the decade begins and ends.
When a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around, does it make a sound?
That seems like a simple question, right? The first time I heard it I failed to see the issue. I love riddles. But, I didn’t see how this question had anything but a simple, straight-forward answer. Of course it makes a sound.
But, it’s not simple, is it? Is something a sound if the sound waves fail to interact with a listening device?
The question of when the decade starts and ends is the same type of question in my opinion.
Does the decade start on January 1, 2020?
Yes. Absolutely!
Does the decade start on January 1, 2021?
Yes. Absolutely!
Let’s look at the second question first. The argument that the decade doesn’t start until 2021 is based on the origins of our calendar. We use what’s called the Gregorian Calendar. It was implemented by Pope Gregory in October 1582. The Gregorian Calendar was based on the much older Julian Calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. Of course, Caesar didn’t count it as 46 years before the birth of Christ (or 46 BCE, Before the Common Era.) Instead, to him it was year 708 AUC, or 708 years from the founding of the city of Rome.
So why did Pope Gregory feel the need to change the calendar 1600 years later? And what does it have to do with 1/1/2020 vs 2021?
The problem was leap years, and leap centuries. The Julian Calendar was just a little off when it came to calculating when to remove those extra days. But, it was close. So, the mistake didn’t show up for a while. . .like for sixteen centuries.
When Gregory implemented the Gregorian Calendar, it included a “correction.” It removed ten days out of October to correct the extra days that had crept in over the centuries. October 4, 1582 was followed by October 15, 1582. Kind of a bummer for kids who had birthdays the second week of October. Wonder if their parents gave them a make-up party?
Just as an added bit of trivia, only the Catholic world adopted the Gregorian Calendar with its “fixed” dates. The Anglican world (Britain and her colonies) didn’t adopt the Gregorian Calendar until 1752. By that time it was another day out of date, so September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752.
George Washington, America’s first president was born February 11, 1731. The United Kingdom, and the Virginia Colony switched to the Gregorian Calendar when Washington was 31 years old. The “rules” around the calendar switch meant that everyone’s birthday moved “forward” to the new date. So, we now consider Washington’s birthday as February 22, 1732. (They subtracted a year from everyone’s age to make up for shorting them the 11 days.) Anyway, the thing was, Washington didn’t like his new birthday of February 22. He insisted on continuing to celebrate it on February 11.
Okay, let’s come back to our discussion of decades starting and ending. The Julian Calendar (with its Gregorian correction) has been applied to our modern record of years. Instead of 708 AUC, we consider that Julius Caesar proposed his namesake calendar in 46 BC. We can count down the years from 46 BC to 1 BC, the year before the one we use as the accepted year of the birth of Jesus Christ.
The next year is counted as 1 AD (AD stands for Anno Domini, the year of our Lord.) The calendar then counts up from 1 AD to 1582 when Pope Gregory subtracted those 10 days for the Catholic world, to 1752 when the United Kingdom subtracted 11 days and joined the rest of the world, and on through 2020 where we find ourselves today.
Here’s the point: When the Julian Calendar rolled over to 1 AD, it started counting time. Because there was no year 0, the first full year wasn’t complete until AD 1 was complete. When the calendar rolled over to 10 AD, only 9 years had transpired. At the end AD 10, when the calendar rolled over the 11 AD, the world had finally completed its first decade on the plus side of Anno Domini.
Fast forward another decade and a couple of millennia. When we reach the start of 2020 the world has only enjoyed 2,019 years since the start of 1 AD. The next decade won’t start until we’ve completed those 2,020 years. That will happen at the end of 2020, when we roll over into January 1, 2021.
Right? Perfect. Easy peasy lemon sqeezey.
So, why do people not understand this? (Okay, not everyone is a calendar geek like me, but still, there are plenty of people who have written about this.)
The problem is that we aren’t talking about a person. We don’t have to try to reconcile the lack of a year zero and what that means for counting decades, centuries and millennia.
Think about George Washington and the year 1752; the year the United Kingdom adopted the Gregorian Calendar. When was Washington born? Was he born on February 11 or February 22?
Both. It simply depends on your perspective. If you use the Julian Calendar he was born on one day and if you use the Gregorian calendar he was born on a different day. But, the reality is that he was born on a single day. The seeming conflict is in us and our perception of time and dates. Tell me, did 1752 have 365 days or did it have only 354? Yes, and yes.
Does the “tens” decade end on December 31, 2019 or is it a year later? It’s perfectly acceptable to say the “tens” decade starts on January 1, 2010 and ends on December 31, 2019. Those are the only days that have a “ten” in the year. It would be crazy to say the 20’s don’t start until after we’ve had a year writing 2020 on that one check we send to the vendor who doesn’t accept electronic funds payments. It’s equally wrong to say that the “tens” decade continues after we no longer use a “ten” in the dates we write. How can the “tens” decade include the year 2020?
So, if someone wants to argue that the new decade really doesn’t start until next January, don’t argue. They are right. And so are you. There are more important things to argue about. Like that whole falling tree and noise question.
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) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Yesterday, I talked about the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th most popular posts from 2019.
Today, we’ll round out the year by revealing which story was the most popular story on staging.rodneymbliss.com from 2019.
I attended a conference last year. It was a conference here in Salt Lake City. One of the keynote speakers was baseball great, Alex Rodriguez. I’m not a huge fan of Alex Rodriguez. He started his Major League career with the woeful Seattle Mariners. In fact, he was on their team because they were so woeful. The worst teams get to draft the best players each year, and Seattle was one of the worst. Alex was definitely one of the best.
However, when his contract was up rather than resign with the Seattle Mariners, he said, “I want to go play for a team that has a chance to win a championship like my friend Derek Jeter has with the Yankees.”
The problem was that rather than go to the Yankees, or the Dodgers, or any of the best teams, he signed a record breaking $250,000,000 contract with the Texas Rangers. Why was that a problem? First, the Rangers were not a championship caliber team. (That wouldn’t come until years later when they had finally rid themselves of A-Rod’s bloated contract.) The second, and far more serious problem, was that the Texas Rangers played in the same division as the Seattle Mariners. So, A-Rod was going to be bringing his big bat to Safeco Field, to beat up on the Mariners 16 times per season. (Okay, 8 in Seattle and 8 in Dallas, but still.)
A-Rod is pretty much hated in Seattle. For good reason.
And he was the keynote speaker at this tech conference. But, A-Rod was also a baseball player. And I’m nothing if not a huge baseball fan. So, there was no way I was going to miss A-Rod’s presentation.
And that’s what brings us to the most popular post from 2019. It wasn’t A-Rod. In fact, he was not much more than a footnote to the story. It’s what the guy that introduced him said.
Find it here “The Unapologetic Misogynist On Stage.”
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) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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As we wind down the new year, I thought I’d share with you the top stories from this year. Some stories from previous years were especially popular. Every year, for example, “I Survived Bedlam 3,” the story of a Reply-All storm at Microsoft tends to be popular.
But, for 2019, the following were four of the most popular posts for the year.
#5: Mormon* And Masons
The two groups have a shared, contentious history. I have experience with both.
#4: A Terrible Way To Sell A Van
My lovely wife was in a serious auto accident that totaled our van. But, not everything was at it seems.
#3: Reevaluating My Life Decisions
I found myself in a very precarious position: standing on a wobbly table, my hand pinned between a garage door and the door frame, and no help in sight. Not my proudest moment.
#2: The Mayor, The Major And The Flag
Three truly iconic symbols that came together on a special day in July.
Tomorrow, December 31, I’ll reveal what was the most popular post from 2019.
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) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Penultimate: The one before the last one
I didn’t know the meaning of penultimate. Let’s face it, it’s not a common word. You might know it. You might be better read them me. A lot of people are. Maybe it’s that I read comic books.
Well, I don’t actually read comic books, but I read comics. Specifically I read one comic; Schlock Mercenary. It’s written by my friend, Howard Tayler. Howard is definitely better read than me. He uses the word penultimate.
He combines his web comic into books. There have been 18 finished books. He plans to end his storyline with the 20th book. He’s currently working on his 19th book: the penultimate book.
My daughter has a unique sense of humor. She announced that today, December 23 was Christmas Adam. We all know that tomorrow, December 24th is Christmas Eve. I still have a few presents to make in my workshop. (Happens every Christmas Eve, but oh well.)
Anyway, why is today Christmas Adam? Because, Adam came before Eve. So the day before Christmas Eve would be Christmas Adam.
Like me, my daughter doesn’t know the world penultimate. But, it’s a better joke her way.
Happy Christmas Adam.
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) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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My daughter is home from her first semester at college. She was roommates with her best friend from high school. Her first semester went about like you’d expect. Her grades were lower than when she was in high school. (College is hard.) She got on TV a couple times at sporting events. And her relationship with her best friend changed.
Our family once wanted was considering renting our friend’s house. It was only a few blocks away from our current rental. Unfortunately the current rental had an unapproved swimming pool on the bottom floor every time it rained.
Our friends were very concerned with the care of thier house. They’d built it themselves. The wife was getting older and unsteady on her feet. She couldn’t easily navigate the four stories in their home. And it was a beautiful home, immaculately kept. . .as people tend to make their homes after their kids are gone.
One day we were talking with Carrie on the phone. She still wasn’t sure if she was willing to rent.
I just don’t know. You have all those kids. I’m not sure you’d be able to keep it clean.
Well, it’s important to us to keep our house clean.
Can I come over?
Sure. But, why?
If I came over right now, what would your house look like?
She wanted to do a spot inspection. The thing is, she would have found our house looked like it had just been cleaned. Because it had just been cleaned. It was cleaned everyday.
My kids thought it was a punishment. From the time they were old enough to pick up their toys, we made them “help” clean the house. They weren’t very good at it. Not at first. Sometimes we had to spend twice as much time on a task teaching the kids to do it. It would have been quicker to do it ourselves. But, we were more interested in teaching children than in getting the house cleaned quickly.
As the kids got older they took on more and more responsibilities. Eventually they started washing their own clothes. They took turns cooking meals. They learned to vacuum, scrub toilets, dust. And generally they resented it.
My kids asked my daughter what bothered her about her friend. You know what it was? Her roommate wasn’t as concerned with cleaning as she was. I decided I’d found a teaching moment.
Kids, you will have a lot of roommates in your life. It might be college, or missions, or simply sharing a room. You will never have roommates as interested in cleaning as you are. You guys thought it was punishment all those years. You should thank your mother for teaching you how to clean.
I’m not sure they bought it, but they didn’t object.
Our client does inspections of our call centers and data centers on an annual basis. They do scheduled inspections, but this year they added surprise inspections.
Each inspection involves a long list of items that are inspected. Failure on any one of them could result in a failure of the audit, or at least a finding that has to be corrected.
I’ve always appreciated, even welcomed auditors in my career. As a Program Manager, I’ve built the best possible system I could. An auditor is someone who is going to come in and test my system and then tell me where the weak spots are and how to fix them.
I attend, and am mostly responsible for the security audits. We have a dedicated security analyst, but if only one of us can attend, it’s generally me.
However, not everyone has my view of audits. They are generally considered high stress. What makes them easier to take is the same attitude we had when my friend asked us about how clean our house was. We operate our centers as if we are being audited every day. While we prepare for an audit, the preparation is to review the checklist and identify anything that might be an issue.
What we don’t do is we don’t change our standard operating procedures. We don’t start doing the things we should have been doing all along. We don’t clean our house because company is coming. We just keep it clean.
We have issues with our audits, of course. Systems that were operating within acceptable parameters the previous check may have drifted out of alignment. But, we never have to make huge radical changes. We never have to clean like college students trying to get a security deposit back at the end of the semester.
It’s an attitude my daughter can appreciate.
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) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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It’s second nature now. Packing is a 15 minute task. Doesn’t matter if the trip is for a couple days or a week. I have a completely seperate set of toiletries. They just live in my suitcase. I top off the toothpaste and the shampoo occasionally.
But, for 2019 it’s over. I can finally put away my suitcase. Stop worrying about weather conditions to the airport. Today I flew home for the last time in 2019.
It’s been a busy year. I logged over 60,000 miles, 5,000 miles per month on average. It’s not a large number compared to some of my friends who are professional road warriors. But, it was a lot for me.
I’ve been to Kentucky, Virginia, Florida, Louisiana, and then a trip to Manila. I’ve been back and forth across the United States more than I can count. Even when I go to Louisiana, which is in the Central Time Zone I end up flying across the country because DELTA stands for “Dang, everything leaves through Atlanta.”
I driven dozens of rental cars, and slept more than a month in hotels. I’m not sure, but maybe three months worth? I can’t remember and there’s no point in keeping track.
I don’t mind travel. My jobs have always included a fair amount of travel. Microsoft sent me to Dubai, Mexico, Greece. My lovely wife and I have been to India, Haiti and Columbia to adopt. I spent a week in China about 20 years ago adopting my son.
Travel used to be more fun before 9/11. It’s not nearly as convenient. It also used to be common to have the middle seat empty. Now, airlines have mastered the art of having “a completely full plane today. . .we will run out of overhead space.” I don’t worry about that anymore. First because they will check my bag for free at the gate if I want. But, I’m now at a level where I get on the plane first and get to store my bag.
I noticed on this last trip that the airport was upgraded. Not Salt Lake City, but the airport in a small town in Louisiana that I haven’t been to in six months.
I go to the same locations enough, I no longer need directions from the airport. But, then none of us need directions anymore. Our phones know all and see all and if you just keep a charging cord handy, will be all.
I shared the shuttle bus with two other frequent travellers. We all spoke the same language. Understood the same jokes. And were all grateful to be done travelling for the year.
Now, I can rest.
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) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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At the beginning of December, the questions start: “Have you got all your Christmas shopping done?”
This year I can confidently say, “Yes, I have.” But, that doesn’t mean I’m ready for Christmas. In fact, at the time I’m writing this, I’m a long way from being ready. When I say I’ve completed my Christmas shopping, it’s because I was shopping for lumber, and latches, and nails, and a brad nailer, and paint.
This year I decided to make Christmas. My family does the “draw names” method of choosing who to give presents to. It works well. No one knows who has which name. Well, that’s not exactly true. My lovely wife keeps track of the names. We’ve used this method for years and a couple years ago we decided the kids were old enough to keep track of their own names.
That turned out about like you’d expect. Some kids got double presents, some got none. She now keeps track of all the names. Because no one knows whose name I have, I can work on presents out in the open. Even if they know what I’m making or what I buy, they don’t know who it’s for.
This year I’m not only making a gift for the person’s name that I chose. I decided to take some time off work and get a little crazy in the Santa’s workshop department.
I have six beautiful grand-babies. I cut six inch high letters out of plywood that spell out each of their names. It turned out to be 38 letters. Painting them and covering them in “safe” lacquer took longer than cutting them.
The grandkids are getting more than letter blocks. I made some actual blocks as well. Using scrap 2×2, and old pieces of dowels and what’s left over when you use a holesaw, I created about 100 blocks that I’ll divide up amongst the three households where the little ones live. I painted them and then used a Sharpie marker to put the letters and numbers on. I didn’t count on the fact that the lacquer makes the sharpie run. Oh well, the kids won’t care.
I also built four wooden footlockers. I designed the footlocker a few years ago. This year I just pulled out the design and cut four copies of each necessary piece. I used existing wood out of my workshop. I had to get custom colors. The colors for Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks and BYU. I’m still deciding on the fourth one.
I also built a shelf. A shelf with a hidden secret. I don’t often do typical furniture. Most of my woodworking is more functional than fashionable. But, with the shelf, I spent some time. I bought trim and stained and varnished it. And the secret is as well hidden as if it didn’t exist. And, no, I’m not telling what the secret is. It would no longer be a secret if I did.
Not all my projects were gifts. I built a baseball display board for some mini-bats I’ve collected over the years. It holds five mini-bats, four baseballs and three baseball caps. That one’s for me.
Under the Christmas tree will also be gifts for each of my married kids, presents cut out of wood. I was planning to use more of the plywood that I’d built the grandkids’ letters from. My lovely wife offered the following “advice.” “Are you sure you want to use that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I just thought you might want to use solid wood. You’d be disappointed if it doesn’t look as nice as you could make.”
Oh sure, use the excuse that I wanted to make it nice. She was right, of course.
There is one person who knows what I’m making and knows it’s for her. My lovely wife has been asking for a set of shelves to display the 8×10 pictures of our children. She’s been asking for months. Sometimes, just getting a gift is more important than being surprised.
Like many boys in scouting, this year has been busy one for my two boys. One has completed his Eagle Scout requirements and the other is hoping to get it done by the end of the year. One final gift is custom made walking sticks. Each cut from the Maple trees growing in our front yard.
Not every gift is coming out of my workshop. With 13 kids, three sons-in-law, six grandkids, and living parents, there are a lot of birthdays and anniversaries in our family. I built a custom calendar with all the family dates and pictures of each person. This one goes to everyone, kids, parents and grand-baby families.
Now, you might be wondering, if I’m making Christmas presents for my family, why am I telling you all? Won’t that spoil it? I don’t think so. I mean, Y’ll won’t tell anyone, right? Besides, just like my family, you don’t know whose name I drew, so even if you were going to tell, (which I know you won’t,) you’d only be guessing who the presents are for.
I hope your Christmas is magical. I hope you can spend it with those you love. I hope that your gifts whether purchased, or homemade, will bring joy to your family and friends.
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) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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It’s December. Two things are true about December. First, Utah, especially northern Utah is cold in December. Second, if you want to be warm, you head South.
Those were my thoughts this week. I live in Utah. Not the “Southern Dixie” of Saint George or Cedar City. I live right up against the base of Mt Timpanogos. It has snow from November through July. It’s not as cold in the valley, of course, but still it’s Utah in the winter. You expect it to be cold, snowy, sometimes rainy.
I got it.
I had to make a trip this month. I didn’t want to. I wanted to take PTO and stay home and make Christmas presents for my kids and grandkids. But, that wasn’t going to happen. I had to interrupt my end of year vacation for a short trip. The positive out of it? I was going to Louisiana.
I’ve been to Louisiana many times. It’s a beautiful luscious green state. High humidity, especially compared to dry Utah and it’s warm. Snow in Louisiana is a “take pictures and write home about” event. The local Home Depot doesn’t sell snow shovels.
If you have to take an unexpected trip from Utah in the winter, there are worse places to spend a few days than sunny warm Louisiana.
It was 35 degrees when I left Salt Lake City.
It was 40 degrees when I arrived in Louisiana.
It was 70 degrees in Louisiana the day before I arrived.
It’s expected to stay in the 30’s and 40’s through the end of the week.
I’m leaving before the end of the week.
Yes, my friends here blame me for bringing the cold.
Here’s an interesting thing about Utah 35 degrees vs Louisiana 40 degrees: it’s the humidity.
Utah is a desert. Even our snow is dry. Skiers call it powder. When you have low humidity and cold, you get very fine snow that acts like powder. Not good for making snowballs, but great for skiing and more importantly, it doesn’t soak your clothes when they get snowy.
In fact, when it’s cold so long as it’s not windy, the cold doesn’t really penetrate. My boys will typically walk to church in just shirtsleeves on a sunny 30 degree Sunday.
But, Louisiana si a humid climate. Humidity is another word for water. As in, the air makes you feel like you’re slightly damp. And that damp sucks the warmth right out of your body and replaces it with cold.
I wondered whether I should bring my hooded sweatshirt in addition to a leather coat, or if it would be too much. I’m now wondering if maybe it’s not enough.
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) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Ever sprained your ankle? Or twisted it really bad? Sometimes the pain hits right away. But, especially if you are in the middle of something, the pain waits. You think, “That doesn’t feel too bad. Maybe it will be okay.” Except it’s not okay. The pain is just waiting, lurking like a lion hiding in the grass, ready to pounce.
That’s what this felt like. It started simply enough. We landed in Atlanta and I turned my phone on. It started up just fine. It had a password screen protector. (Safety first!) And the onscreen keyboard didn’t come up. No problem, right? I’ll just reboot it. Except that didn’t solve it.
I’m an IT guy. People call me when they have IT problems. Okay, honestly, in my current role I don’t typically have the skills to solve them, but they still call me. And I used to be really technical.
I tried multiple combinations of reboots and trying to nudge the system back to health. I can access my camera while the screen is locked. When the camera came up so did the error “gboard keeps stopping.” As you probably guessed, gboard is a Google keyboard on the Android phone system.
There is literally no way to unlock a phone if you cannot type in the password. That’s kind of the point of a security setting. Fortunately, I had another computer. I fired up my Microsoft Surface and logged into the airport WiFi.
Google searches sent me to a spot in settings to reset the keyboard. A good idea if I could get to the settings. Eventually, I found the result on how to reset a phone to factory settings.
When your phone comes from the factory, it doesn’t have a password, of course. So, after a few more fruitless troubleshooting tests, I reset my phone to factory settings. And Voila! It worked! Success, right?
Ha ha
Your phone also doesn’t come from the factory with any apps installed, like email, or my expense report app. Or the authentication app that lets me log into my corporate network. Or even stuff as simple as a weather app.
My pictures are safe. I back them up regularly. My contacts are good. I recently started linking them to my google account.
But, I’m still finding new stuff that I no longer have access to. Actually, it’s my old stuff. In some ways, I should be grateful, I guess.
My lovely wife recently set my kids to “Spring cleaning.” They pointed out that it’s snowy outside. She pointed out that, “Mom, doesn’t care.” I had to vouch for several of my items that were sitting in storerooms. But, the house now has less clutter. Stuff we haven’t touched in months is gone.
And that now also describes my phone. I just wonder how long it will take to get it all back.
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) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved