It’s called the Turkey Bowl. It’s played on the morning of the 4th Thursday in November. It’s pretty much an annual tradition in many parts of the US.
It certainly an annual tradition in our neighborhood. It occured yesterday morning. Something else happened yesterday morning as well; it snowed. In fact, we had a winter storm warning starting at 3:00AM Thanksgiving morning and continuing to Saturday at 10:00am.
The snow really started getting serious at 8:00am when we met for the game at a nearby park.
Being a church group we started with a prayer.
Just like in elementary school, they picked sides.
The ground was covered, but they used endzone markers.
The snow was coming sideways.
One of the participants creates the line markers.
Okay, they weren’t straight, but it wasn’t that kind of game.
And they kicked off in the snow.
Tom Brady was less than his NFL stats would have indicated.
Flag football
Utah fans were well represented. (Although he’s a BYU student.)
Plenty of high school Varsity and JV players including the starting QB for the local high school.
At the end of the day there were handshakes and smiles all around.
Thanks for playing in the snow.
The local Missionaries also came by. The Elder form Australia got his first taste of American football. . .and snow.
Snow on the footballs.
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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In a word, Yes.
We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We had turkey, two in fact. We had potatoes, four kinds; potato salad, mashed potatoes, potatoes ah gratin and potatoes baked in the same pan as the turkey. There was salad, olives, deviled eggs, pickled okra, cranberry sauce and jello.
There was also pie. We had 15 people and 19 pies. My daughter and her family of five brought five pies.
We have too many pies.
There’s no such thing as too many pies. There should always be more pies than people.
Well, I guess it’s a good thing we brought five.
After we had eaten the dinner, and the pie, and watched some football, we went around the room and each named five things we were thankful for.
As the dad, I went last.
I’m grateful for my job. I’ve had to work everyday this week, despite saying I was on vacation. I even had to take a call this morning. But, I remember not having a job. Having a job is way better than not having a job.
I’m grateful for my lovely wife. She is the one who makes sure we have these dinners. Even though we might be working in the kitchen. She’s the one making it happen.
I’m grateful for the Gospel and all that entails including Jesus Christ as our savior.
I’m grateful that I can fix stuff. Whether it’s cars or woodworking projects, or home repairs, I appreciate the fact that I have the skills and that I enjoy it. Many people don’t.
And finally, this time of year. . . I’m grateful for pie.
Hope your Thanksgiving was safe, memorable and spent with those you love.
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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Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous.
– President Snow “Hunger Games”
Are you overworked at your job? Could you use some additional help? Couldn’t we all. The nature of the economy is such that people are scarce. Everyone is being asked to do more with less.
We could all use more help.
My job started about six years ago with a single site and fifty agents. Today we have five sites and over 2500 agents. Six years ago I was responsible for outages, projects, new sites, escalations, and pretty much any other IT operation that wasn’t assigned elsewhere. Today, I’m responsible for outages, projects, new sites, escalations, and pretty much any other IT operation that isn’t assigned elsewhere.
I started to feel the weight about four years ago. By then, I understood my role and had learned what resources I had available to me. I settled into the harness easily. In fact, I thrived. I loved, I still love the job.
As the years went by, I settled into a groove. Most people didn’t understand my devotion to a job that required being on call 24×7, working mostly with people in other states, being responsible for a myriad of systems that I had no control over.
But, I enjoyed the team, I enjoyed the client, I enjoyed the work we accomplished.
But, it started to get busy. Really busy. Each site added complexity. More users meant more escalations, more outages. Outages occasionally took over my life. They invaded my camping trips. They invaded my kids’ concerts. They became a part of my life.
Changes also. Any time a change was scheduled for my sites, I had to be there. “There” most often meant on the phone. Changes happen during “off” hours. We’re a 24×7 shop, but middle of the night is our slow period. So, I’d sometimes be up all night with a CCT and up the next night with an outage and all day in meetings and projects.
It’s not really so bad. . .if you love what you are doing. And I loved it.
But, I also wanted some help. I needed some help. But, I knew there was very little help coming. I had backup. . .soft of. Our Account Management team would answer the phone if I was completely unavailable, like on a plane, or camping out of cell phone range. But, they were backup in name only. They were not IT people. They could answer the phone, but they didn’t know anything about IP addresses or routes, or pings, or traces.
In fact, if there was an outage while I was unavailable, I had to do a bunch of work after I got back to get my records in line. Again, I knew what I was getting, and I was okay with it.
Back in August a funny thing happened. We made some management changes and I started reporting to a different manager. It was okay, I was told. Because the new structure, the new organization mean I would finally, after years of asking, finally have some help.
It’s been a long year. I travelled a lot. Enough, in fact to reach the second tier of Delta’s rewards program. We opened a new center. We had lots of work. I was also no longer working with the boy scouts, so I ended up taking few vacation days. I decided I’d take the week of Thanksgiving off and then the last two weeks of December.
My family wasn’t disappointed at all. Thanksgiving is a kind of big deal at our house. We start cooking the day before. We make more pies than we have people. (So far we have 19 pies and about 15 people.) We make three kinds of potatoes; mashed, potato salad and potatoes baked in with the turkey. We put out cranberry sauce every year and every year everyone ignores it.
So, today, being Wednesday, was the day to prepare for tomorrow. And I had it scheduled off. But, I woke up to a phone call and a three hour phone call. Something broken. And then, around 1:00pm, the phone rang again. And I spent another few hours on the phone. That triggered a mandatory 4:00 status call. And then about 5:00 another call and another hours long call.
Today was not a vacation. Not only that, but I found myself very irritable. Worse than normal. In fact, I rarely get irritable. Never, in fact.
So, what was different today? Today, was a day I wasn’t supposed to work. Not just, not supposed to, but not supposed to. Because I had been promised that help was coming. When I scheduled this week off, I counted on being able to disconnect, to leave my phone turned off. Turns out that wasn’t the case, but the hoping made me resentful.
Without the hope, I would have approached this week like any other “vacation” week that I had to be on call. I would go in expecting that I might have to take a call, or three.
I wish I didn’t have the hope, false hope, as it turned out. As President Snow said, a little hope is effective, but if you have too much it can become dangerous.
Happy Thanksgiving. Nobody call me tomorrow!
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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We finished putting up our Christmas lights today. We is two of my 17 year old sons and me. Our Christmas display is kind of involved. We have LED lights around four of the windows facing the street. We also have blue and white icicle lights on the eves and a large lighted arch over the door. Finally, we have the railing from the house down to the street wrapped in sixteen 50′ strands. It’s all controlled by four controller boxes that my neighbor programs.
Wrapping the railing always takes the most time. And it has to be done in a particular way. Otherwise, the lights will be out of sequence when the program runs.
I had one of my sons doing a bunch of the wrapping this year. I explained how the lights needed to be arranged. I even did several of the sections. And when he got done, I needed to go back and rework some of the sections.
In fairness, he did better this year than he did last year. He’s willing to help, but doesn’t always know how. Anyone who’s raised kids knows that at times it’s easier to just do it yourself than to have kids, especially little kids help.
We let them “help” anyway, of course. It’s the only way they will learn how to actually help.
That works fine in families, but it’s harder to implement in business. There are certainly aspects of it. For example, I love working with interns and new college grads. They are new to business and often teachable. I enjoy teaching and helping to train new employees is a great opportunity to teach.
It’s harder when it’s management who is “helping.” As a program manager, my job is to take requests from clients and turn them into deliverables. I sometimes describe it as “pigs flying.” The client says, “I want flying pigs.” The program manager then goes to the development team and says, “the client needs animated gifs that look like porcine.”
As a program manager, or a team manager, the worst thing you can do is assume you know what the client, or your team needs. If you have a team member who said, “I need help on X,” don’t assume that you know what they mean or what they need.
In fact, the best option is simply to ask them. Talk to them. If you are going to build a solution, if you are going to respond to their request for help, don’t assume you already know what they need. You may end up building a solution without a problem.
Managers and teams need to have a partnership. Managers should never assume they understand their team’s challenges better than the team member.
Because what ends up happening is that rather than actually helping you end up making your team members’ jobs harder. Just as I had to go back and redo some of the work my son did on our railing, you end up causing your team member to do more work not less.
They are libel to prefer you’d rather not help at all.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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The smell of sawdust still hangs on my clothes and in my nostrils. I could use a mask, but I’m only working with plywood, not treated lumber, so I’m not really worried.
Christmas is coming in a few weeks. Oh, I know you aren’t really supposed to discuss Christmas before Thanksgiving, but I really can’t wait that long.
Fall is my favorite time of year. I love the change in the seasons. Our first serious snowstrom of the year is hitting today. I like the Christmas lights. My neighbor and I have a synchronized Christmas light display. It goes live on Sunday. His side of the street is ready. I still need some work. Hope the snow storm passes.
I love sports this time of year. Baseball just ended. And football depends on the level. Pro football is halfway through the season. BYU just qualified for a bowl game last week. The high school football championship was also last weekend. My son’s cross town rival lost to Corner Canyon, the alma mater of BYU’s current starting quarterback.
I’m not a huge fan of Christmas. It’s not that I don’t like it. But, I’m not really one that gets into it. My neighbor is excited about the Christmas light display. I do my part to make him happy. And people definitely enjoy the show. My contribution was to add “Dualing Banjos” to the Christmas light show.
But, Dualing Banjos isn’t a Christmas song.
It can be. If you want my help, it becomes part of the show.
Okay.
What I do like is woodworking. I have a garage full of tools. During the summer I mostly work on cars, but when the weather turns cold, I close the garage door and focus on cutting big boards into little boards.
And that’s where the Christmas tie-in comes in. This year I have a little time off over the holidays. I’ve decided that I’m making things for Christmas. Big things, little things.
In our family, we draw names for Christmas. We put everyone’s name in a bowl and each draw someone’s name. That’s the person we buy, or in my case make, a Christmas gift for. There’s no rule against getting gifts for others. . .especially if you’re the dad.
So, I’ve decided I’m making gifts for several people. More than several. My project list is ambitious. I started small. In fact, you might say I started with something really elementary.
My first project is literally about the ABCs. But only some.
A – A – A – A – A – A – A – A -B – C – E – E – E – E – E – G – H – I – K – L – L – L – M – N – N – N – N – O – P – R – R – S – T – V – Y
It’s a good thing that my grandkids don’t know their ABCs.
After the ABC project I get to start turning this pile of wood into another project for another group of relatives.
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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Hiking in Utah falls into two categories. At a high level they fall into the “If you leave the path you will die,” and “If you leave the path you might die.
Many of the hikes we do here in the Rocky Mountains are canyon hikes. The great thing about hiking a canyon is that it’s typically very difficult to get lost. I’m not just thinking of adults, but I often went hiking with Boys Scouts, or my own children. When you are hiking a canyon, or more especially a slot canyon, you there is one way in and one way out.
If you are hiking a many of our other canyons you are walking along a path with a mountain to one side and an often really long drop to the other. These are the path that you will die if you leave the path. You tread very carefully when a step to the right will result in a drop of hundreds of feet.
We hike canyons so often that it’s sometimes tempting to forget that not everything has such a “in/out” approach. We also go hiking in more open areas. One of the most dangerous is the High Unitas in Northeastern Utah. It’s deceptively open. And yet, every year people step off the path for just a moment to take a picture and realize they cannot find their way back. Sometimes we find them, sometimes we find their remains.
That sounds crazy, right? I mean how could you miss the trail that you were just standing on? Gandalf warned Frodo and the dwarves to not leave the path in Mirkwood or they would not find their way back. He was right.
Last fall I took a couple of my adult children hiking in the Wasatch Mountains behind our house. It was a fairly short, but aggressive hike. It ended in a place called “The Meadow.”
Being late in the Fall, the grass was high. The trail was clearly visible and we had no trouble seeing our way forward. No trouble, that is until we stepped off the path.
And just like that, the trail vanished. Fortunately, we were expecting it and had a good view of the landmarks that would guide us back to the trail back to the canyon.
Life is a lot like that trail. My teenagers are so sure that they know exactly what they are doing and will have no trouble staying on the path toward their goals. And then, they take a step or two off the path. They lose sight of their ultimate destination and suddenly they are lost.
But, if someone else will stand on the path and guide them, they can easily find their way back.
I’m sure there’s some religious parables hidden in that long grass too.
I heard that Jewish carpenter guy was quite a hiker.
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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One more Manila post before I focus my attention back on this side of the world.
This is the Hotel I stayed in. The Shangri-La Makati.
I didn’t choose the hotel. The client picked it and wanted us to be in the same hotel. Hardly necessary since I only saw the client at the hotel twice in the week.
Security was so pervasive in Manila as to be un-noteworthy. The hotel had private security. All cars entering the hotel were checked for bombs by guys with mirrors on poles and really big guns. There were metal detectors and x-ray machines at the hotel doors. Every store had an armed guard. There were on every corner, at every mall entrance. All very polite. And very, very well armed.
Entering the hotel was. . .an experience. The lobby was dominated by a glass chandelier. I really couldn’t do it justice in a single picture.
The lobby was miles and miles of polished marble and sweeping staircases.
The lobby was expansive and also very delicate. for example, in the above picture you can see directly in the middle of the picture, a small plant under the suspended staircase. Below is a better picture of the plant.
I don’t know the name of this flower. In the past I’ve just always called it FAKE, or A Silk Flower. Except this one wasn’t fake and wasn’t made of silk. It was one of the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen.
My room was on the 27th floor. The view was impressive.
Overall, I cannot remember when I’ve enjoyed a visit more. I worked a lot of hours, especially trying to sleep during the day and work through the night. But, if I had to put in 12-14 hour days, I can think of worse places to work.
Soon enough it was back to the airport to start the long 19 hour travel home.
Until next time.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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I went to the Phillipines a couple of weeks ago. And while most of the trip was work related I did get to see a little of Manila.
Even though I was there the first week of November, the city was nearly fully decked out for the holidays. Never having been to Manila before, I have no idea if what I saw was just the beginning. Maybe it gets even more festive as the calendar counts down to the end of the year.
The stores were decorated inside and out. In daylight it was slightly less impressive. This was a store outside my hotel.
Even our office building was in the spirit. This full sized Santa greeted us as we arrived each evening around 9:00PM local time to match our schedules with the offices in North America.
Mall entrances were especially festive.
There are many, many malls in Manila. I don’t even know the name of the one next to my hotel. I gave up trying to find my way around. I simply wandered from floor to floor and hallway to hallway.
My sister is a talented violin player. I was excited to see a store named for the famous violin maker. However, knowing that Stradivarius violins sell for millions, I was curious what they would sell in a Stradivarius store.
Nope, not at all what I thought it was.
Speaking of things I misunderstood. The below image was the only indicator on a door to the restroom. You tell me, the Men’s Room or the Ladies Room?
Fortunately, I guessed correctly. (It helped that the other door had someone in a skirt.)
The Philippines is more than 86% Catholic. The people running the shops at the mall understand their audience. Not sure if his Holiness signed a marketing deal or if he was just an innocent bystander.
Something that was totally unexpected (as opposed to a cardboard cutout of the leader of the Catholic Church) was this sign.
I saw several of them in many stores. It’s an sign I would love to see more of here in America.
McDonalds, of course has a big presence in Manila. And it was not surprising to see it decked out for Christmas.
What was surprising was how different the menu was from McDonalds in the USA. In addition to McSpaghetti, they also served fried chicken.
By the time I left the mall and headed back to my hotel it was dark. And the store fronts were much more impressive.
Manila was a beautiful city. I just wish I had time to do a photo essay of it.
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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Three rules
First, no hanging.
Second, no disconnecting the chain.
Third, you are only allowed to use your hands and feet. No clubs or bats or metal pipes allowed.
We try to have family activities and meetings every week. A few weeks ago we held a meeting where we each shared a goal that we wanted the family to help us accomplish. Some goals were simple. For example, I suggested the family could help me exercise and lose ten pounds.
I think another child picked preparing for a mission. Another wanted help practicing football skills.
My youngest son said, “I want to be a boxer.”
I’d never heard him say that before. At first I was tempted to dismiss it as a joke. He has also talked about wanting to be a stand up comedian. It turned out he was serious. Well, as serious as a 17 year old can be who’s never boxed.
So, for his birthday, we bought him boxing gloves and a punching bag. Simple, right?
I mean, how hard is it to string up a punching bag in the garage? (Actually, harder than you might think.)
First, you have to find a secure location. The bag weighs about 70 lbs. The manufacture recommends that your support be able to withstand 200 lbs. The Youtube videos suggest a beam. You drill a hole through it and put in an eyebolt.
I don’t know about your garage, but mine is very short on open beams. In fact, my entire house is pretty much free from open beams. Ceiling rafters are what keep your roof shingles from falling in on you. They are two feet apart.
I thought of spacing the bag across two rafters, but thought the twisting of the bag might skew the supports and potentially damage the rafters. I decided to use three to support the bag. That puts about 70 lbs on each rafter. My new 52″ long support board is attached with two 5″ lag bolts to each rafter. Thirty-five lbs per bolt. That seems reasonable.
Attaching a board like that isn’t like hanging a picture. You have to drill holes all the way through your board that your bolts will go through. You don’t actually want the screws to grip the board. You only want them to grip the supporting rafters. And even then, with 3/8″ lag bolts going into a 1 1/2″ wide rafter, you need to drill pilot holes to avoid splitting the rafter. And that is after you figure out where on your white ceiling the rafters are hiding.
Getting the holes drilled and the placement right while balancing a 52″ long 2×6 over your head standing on a ladder, is not a task without it’s share of challenges.
Once the board is attached, you then attach the bag with chains. Lots of chains.
You have to position the bag at the right height. What’s the “right” height? You position it so that the top of the bag is about where you would hit someone in the head. (That’s the actual criteria for how high to position it.)
The last step in hanging a bag is to attach it to the floor. You attach it to the floor so that it won’t swing too much and you can practice on your own. I had to drill a hole in the floor and attach a metal support. To drill a hole in a concrete floor you use a masonary bit and a really big drill.
So, there it is. I’m not sure how long my son will be interested in boxing. Who knows, maybe in a couple months I’ll be taking down the bag and grinding down the floor mount.
But, until then I guess I’ll just keep fighting with my kids.
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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This post is not for the squeamish. Seriously, if you have a weak stomach you might want to move on to a post about kittens, or puppies, or maybe terminal diseases.
Understand that I don’t think it’s that bad. But, this isn’t really about me. (Okay, maybe it kind of is.)
I took a trip to the Phillipines a couple weeks ago. It was a work trip and it went very well. Manila is a beautiful city. There are nearly as many people in the city of Manila (1.8M) as there are in the entire state of Utah.
While in the Phillipines, I tried some of the local cuisine. In fact, the team I was with offered to share traditional Phillipino dishes with me. They refused to let me buy anything.
I don’t remember the names of the dishes. They were exotic, and different, and delicious. I do remember the name of one dish. It was one I was both looking forward to and dreading. I’d been warned over and over about it.
Rodney, you’re headed to Manila next week?
Yeah.
My team is going to make you eat balut.
Balut is a duck egg. . .sort of. It’s a duck egg that has been fertilized and allowed to incubate for 14-21 days and then boiled.
Balut looks like any other hard boiled egg. It’s a duck egg so it’s bigger than a standard chicken egg.
But, that’s where the similarity to a typical hard boiled egg ends.
You eat Balut by knocking a hole in the top of the egg. My friend’s didn’t tell me this. I instead broke the egg in the middle like I would a hard boiled egg.
The reason you knock a hole in the top is so that you can drink the juice before you peel the entire shell away.
So, what does it taste like?
Ah. . .sort of tastes like. . .duck.
Now comes the part most people have an issue with. You finish peeling the shell off and then dip the. . .thing(?) in either salt or viniger.
You then eat it. Well, first you pull one little “hard” part out. And then you eat it.
It was unique. It was tasty. (Tasted like duck, not surprisingly.) It reminded me alot of head cheese. Had a similar texture. I have no trouble eating head cheese.
I didn’t have trouble eating Balut. Should I have? Some people consider it unnecessarily cruel to the duck. And yet, all meat comes from an animal that died. We boil lobsters and (one of my favorite) crawfish. Is Balut that much different? Is it really that much different than a hard boiled chicken egg?
I made my peace with being a carnivore a long time ago. I’ve eaten clams, oysters, crawfish, aligator, frog legs, snails, and most cuts of beef, lamb and pork.
And now I’ve eaten Balut. (It was delicious. Tastes like duck.)
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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