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Building A Wall. . .Or Three

I spent a good part of my summer moving rocks. . .lots of rocks. Last month I finally collected all the rocks I was going to need in yard.

That’s six tons of rocks. I didn’t move them all myself, of course. My son and his friend helped once. The goal was to add three walls to my yard. The rocks were going to be the middle and upper walls. The lower wall would be landscaping bricks.

Well, after hours in the sun, and gallons of water (and nearly equal gallons of sweat,) I finished the walls. Not just walls, but a set of stairs and moving a lot of dirt around too.

I ended up using 160 rocks. In addition there are over 100 bricks. And hundreds of pounds of gravel.

I didn’t realize the fire hydrant was one of those full sized ones.

The steps were the hardest part. They look flat, but the backsides are buried deep into the hillside. They are certainly not square.

At the end of the project I thought about how really, other than the landscaping bricks, this project was simply a matter of rearranging objects that already existed. Each of the rocks came from a site about a block away. There was enough dirt in the hillside that by the time I cut out the space for the wall, the dirt was enough to form the terrace.

How often do we find ourselves in a position where we have all the materials we need to improve ourselves. The hard work is simply rearranging the pieces that are already there.

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. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

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(c) 2022 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved

Days That Stay With Us. . .With Me At Least

There are 365 days in a year. Three hundred and sixty-six in a leap year. Of the millions of events that occur during a year, it’s natural that multiple events will happen on the same day.

Yesterday was August 8. The date is 8/8. The same for both Europe and America, with that crazy mm/dd vs dd/mm difference. We have twelve days per year where the month and day are the same. And occasionally we have a year that also matches up. This year we saw 2/2/22 (and 2/22/22.) A little over ten years ago there was 1/1/11 (and, of course, 1/11/11.) Moving further back to the previous millennium we had 9/9/99. And, a little more than a decade before that there was 8/8/88.

I don’t remember any of those days. . .except one. Or eight. August eighth, nineteen eighty-eight. That was the day that WordPerfect Office 2.0 first shipped. It was not a word processor, despite being from WordPerfect. It was also not a productivity suite like Microsoft Office. It was basically an email program. And for the eighties, it was a pretty good email system.

I was working for WordPerfect Corporation back in the eighties. And I went to work in the Office group shortly after Office 2.0 shipped. It was my first real company. And really set the tone for my career. I first became a trainer at WordPerfect. I first started travelling for business. I first became a certified expert. I wrote my first book.

So many things that came later started with 8/8/88. You might wonder why I remembered it so well.

Simple. It was terrible. Not the product. The product was pretty innovative. But, the first version? It was terrible. In fact, it was so bad that in later months, after patches had been released, if a customer called up who was using the 8/8/88 version, the first thing we did was send them an update.

But, even 34 years later, every time the calendar comes up with double eights, I remember the good things that have have come to me over the years. And much of it started on 8/8/88.

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. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

Follow him on
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Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com

(c) 2022 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved

Is This Thing On? Hello? Hello?

You know that feeling when you’ve been happily updating your blog every day for seven years and then you decide that maybe it’s time to move it off of WordPress free site onto a dedicated site and you manage to screw it up badly enough that you are literally offline for nearly three weeks?

No?

Okay, just me then.

So, now what?

I won’t say, “I’m back” since I don’t feel I ever left. But, I think I now have all the technical issues worked out.

A big part of the reason I decided to move to a new hosting service is that I want to start building an actual author website around the blog. So, in the coming months, you should see more “writey” stuff, stories, contests I’ve entered, publishing history.

If you enjoy my writing, or you’ve ever bought one of my books, hopefully this site will make that process easier.

In the meantime, I’m simply happy to be back online.

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. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

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) 2022 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved

Please Don’t Call Me Doctor Bliss

I’m not a doctor. Not a doctor of education, not a PhD in Computer Science and certainly not an OBGYN doctor.

Unfortunately, there apparently IS a Doctor Bliss; Dr Robin Bliss. He (or she) is an OBGYN. And they signed up somewhere at some time and used my email address rbliss at msn dot com. You might think it’s flattering to be mistaken for a doctor. It’s not.

It’s not exactly spam

I unsubscribe from these. And they have gotten fewer. You might wonder how to get off these lists. Should you unsubscribe or just mark it as junk? Does unsubscribing make it worse?

Here’s a tip, you can safely unsubscribe from any email that lets you unsubscribe. Don’t try to unsubscribe from those that won’t let you.

I know sounds crazy. The CANSPAM act says that companies sending legitimate emails must have a link that lets you unsubscribe with a single click. The link is typically at the bottom of the email. Here’s the one from the email above.

Click the Unsubscribe link

As soon as you click that link it will automatically unsubscribe me. At least it will if it’s legit. Here’s what it shows:

Notice how it already has my email? That’s an indication that this is a legitimate email. It’s not typical spam from a list.

If an email takes you to a page that says, “Enter the email you would like to have unsubscribed” then you should NOT continue. Go into your email system’s and make the email as SPAM or JUNK. If you were to enter your email address, you would start to get more email.

So, I’ll continue to unsubscribe from these lists that are intended for Dr Robin Bliss, the OBGYN.

The most surprising thing about these emails is that I thought email for an OBGYN would be less G-rated.

Please stop calling me Dr Bliss.

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. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

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) 2022 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved

Everybody Talks About It, No One Does Anything About It

How was your day? If you are in the United States, there’s a one in three chance, you were hot. And if you were in Europe the odds are even better that you were hot. Really hot. Not sure what the whole Celsius numbers were, but it was really hot.

It’s summer, the northern hemisphere is supposed to be hot. And it’s July. Again, that’s a time that it should be hot. Climate Change is real. The causes? Well, that’s another post.

Utah’s been in a drought for 8 of the last 10 years. AND we’re a desert. So, in our case, we are hot AND dry.

I grew up in Washington state. The western half of the state is famous for its rain. So, air conditioning wasn’t really a thing. And when it got hot. . .you know, in the summer, in July, it was kind of miserable. Fortunately it didn’t last long.

Here in Utah, air conditioning is a thing. We have been topping out in the low 100 degree days. Even at night it only gets down to the 70s.

So, the AC kind of runs most of the time. Our cars have air conditioning too. Even really old ones, like my 94 Corolla. It has manual transmission, manual locks, manual windows. It doesn’t even have cruise control. But, it has air conditioning.

I don’t use it.

Oh, I use the car, but not the AC. I prefer to drive with the window down and the cool breeze keeping me. . .well, cool. But, when it’s 101 outside the breeze isn’t cool.

I don’t care. I like to think I’m pretty perceptive of why I do things.

When it comes to turning off the AC and listening to the freeway traffic while I’m baking in the 100+ degree heat?

I have no idea.

Sometimes you don’t have to have a good reason.

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. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

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) 2022 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved

Taxes. . .No Death, Just Taxes

My little town of Pleasant Grove wants to raise taxes. The only tax they can raise is property taxes. They’ve worded it carefully, of course. “A small increase.”

The results will be about $45 per house on average. I would imagine mine will be higher than that. I got a flyer in teh mail. But, before the flyer, I saw a post on Facebook. The city had prepared a 3 minute video to explain the tax, what it was for, how much it would be.

They want to use the money to hire 2 new police officers, 2 new fire fighters, and spend $250,000 for road maintenance. I’m a reporter for our local paper. I did what reporters do. I asked some questions:

  • How much will the tax add to the city budget?
  • Will the $250,000 for roads be a one time expenditure or will it be an annual increase?
  • What criteria was used to decide we needed additional police and fire fighters?
  • When will the increase take effect?
  • Does this tax need to be voted on or will the city council decide on their own?

Several people LIKED my comment. But, not all the comments were as unemotional as mine. Several people objected to ANY taxes, no matter the ultimate use of the money. Several took the opportunity to accuse the city of corruption. Many just complained.

I never got an answer to my questions. The city removed the post. I’m not sure if it was my questions or the negative comments.

It’s too bad. That video looked like it took some work.

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. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

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) 2022 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved

How I Changed My Mind About Changing Names

Have you ever heard of the Cleveland Guardians? They are a professional baseball team.

How about the Washington Commanders? They are a professional football team.

I don’t blame you if you’ve never heard of them. They used to have different names.

For 86 years the Washington Commanders were known as the Washington Redskins. And then for two years they were the Washington Football Team. And now they are the Commanders.

The Cleveland Guardians had a different name for 101 years. Since 1920 they were the Cleveland Indians. This year they changed their name to the Guardians.

I used to care about teams keeping their names. It was tradition. Tradition should count for something, I thought. And is Indians an offensive name? I mean, it’s a pretty benign name, right? Sure, we’ve changed over mostly to saying Native Americans, or Indigenous People, or even First Peoples. But, Indians is still acceptable.

Okay, Redskins is obviously a derogatory term. But, it’s a name and if you don’t like the name you don’t have to follow the team.

When I was a kid Seattle had a basketball team. We loved watching the team at my house. My dad was not just a fan but would often have a little money on the game. The thing is the team was originally the Seattle Supersonics. They were named after the jets that rolled out of the Boeing factories. Actually, one particular plane that was supposed to go “super sonic.” The plane didn’t work out, but the team did.

And then, somewhere along the way people quit calling them the Supersonics and just changed it to Sonics.

Major League Baseball has a team called the Rays. They used to be the Devil Rays. They changed the name. The Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals. The Boston Red Sox used to be the Red Stockings. Later they moved to Atlanta can became the Braves.

I realized names change all the time. Not all teams that changed their names did so because their name was offensive. If we can change names that are perfectly fine, like Supersonics, Red stockings and Devil Rays (it’s a fish,) why not change names that some groups find offensive?

Deb Haaland is the current Secretary of the Interior. What makes Secretary Haaland unique is that she’s the first Secretary of the Interior who is also Native American. One of the things she has pushed for is renaming sites on federal land that have offensive names.

What she has no control over is lands on state land or private land. There’s a peak not far from my house called Squaw Peak. That’s its official name. Should it be changed?

I used to have an opinion. Tradition and all that.

But, I realized that the way traditions start is because someone at some time made a change. So, I decided that if the current name is offensive to a group, why not change it? It was named by someone at some point.

So, cheer for the Guardians, the Commanders, the Sonics (well, eventually they might come back), the Rays and the Red Stockings. And I’ll forward to the day they rename Squaw Peak to a name that’s not offensive to a group.

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. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

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) 2022 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved

The Sweetest Way To End An Online Disagreement

I love online discussions. I don’t like echo chambers. And I don’t like ad hominem attacks.

But, a well reasoned solid discussion? Yeah, I love that. Especially if it’s with someone who disagrees with me. I have a style of online discussions, as I’m sure most people do. Mine has been described as the Socratic method. I tend to ask questions. Really inconvenient questions. But, they are questions that are valid.

I was in a discussion recently with an online friend. We were discussing religion and how it relates to politics. He posted one of those memes that said the Bible forbade charging interest so the Democrats should propose suspending the interest on student loans.

We were discussing what the Bible had to say about hate. (Jesus was opposed. Much of the Old Testament, not so much.) A new person joined in simply to say that the Bible was fiction and most of it was written after that “supposed Jesus guy.”

Typical troll tactic.

I decided to engage with him.

Huh, that’s weird. I thought most of it was written before the supposed Jesus guy. Clearly you have a better understanding than I do.

Okay, sure it was sarcasm. But, he clearly had no idea what he was talking about. And to my surprise he responded to me. We had a conversation about it. My discussion partner was way out of his element. He had no idea about the Bible, it’s history, its content or any of the various translations.

I ran him around in circles for a few minutes until he got frustrated. He thought to end the conversation by saying,

I don’t care about the Bible or anything in it. Good day, sir.

Well, you cared enough to hijack a thread about it. So, you seem to care a little more than you say you do.

It was at that point that he blocked me. All of his comments in our mutual friend’s thread disappeared from my view. Other than the initial sarcasm, I was nothing but polite. He simply couldn’t abide a reasonable conversation.

Getting blocked was clear evidence that if there was a “winner” in our discussion, it wasn’t him. I don’t typically like getting blocked. But, it’s happened several times over the past few months. And it always follows the same pattern. At some point they run out of discussion points. And it’s not like there’s a way to “win” many of these arguments.

For example, in my above example, I’m fully aware that it’s impossible to prove the existence of God. It literally cannot be done. Neither it is possible to DISprove the existence of God. If I believe that God exists and you believe (as this person did) that he does not, there’s no way either of us can “win” that argument.

But, if you suggest that the Bible was mostly written AFTER the meridian of time, that’s a pretty easy statement to disprove. But, many people who have a set of beliefs simply cannot abide a disagreement. If you do not agree with them, you are not just wrong, but bad.

Some of my most enjoyable discussions have been with people that I completely disagree with. I might not agree with them, but I respect their arguments. And if they respect mine, we can have a very interesting discussion on the merits of both are aguments.

And while neither of us will “win,” it’s obvious when someone loses.

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. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

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) 2022 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved

Sometimes You Get Lucky. . .Twice

When I was 19 years old, I lived in Chicago. I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I worked with deaf people. In fact, there was a group of us missionaries working with deaf people. There were 16 of us in fact. Four sister missionaries and 12 men, or Elders.

We each worked in our own parts of the city with our companion. But, once a week we got together for meeting. Occasionally we’d have refreshments. On one particular Monday, (District Meetings were always on Mondays,) we had our district meeting at the sister missionaries apartment.

They baked cupcakes.

One thing you should know about missionaries, we loved to pull pranks on each other. Some were simple pranks. . .a firecracker under the door of the bathroom. Some were more elaborate. Some required baking.

As the sister missionaries passed around the plate of cupcakes, each elder took a cupcake. I ate mine without another thought. I like cupcakes. Every other elder took one bite and immediately spit out the cupcake. . .and the cotton ball that was baked inside.

Apparently I had lucked out. I got one of the good ones. The sister missionaries laughed. The elders laughed. And then the sisters brought out the plate of good cupcakes. They passed them around. And each elder took one. I ate mine without a second thought. I like cupcakes.

Remember that cupcake I got off the first plate? The one that was supposed to have a cotton ball, but didn’t? It got switched. So, on the second tray of cupcakes, there was a cupcake with a cotton ball.

So, I got lucky, twice.

Poor Elder Slade. He was unlucky. . .twice.

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. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

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) 2022 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved

The Cat With Nine Lives

Okay, honestly, I don’t know if the cat in question had nine lives. I do know it had more than one. . .or two.

We were at my sister-in-law’s farm in Blackfoot Idaho. Tragically we were there because my 16 year old niece had died in a farming accident. The family was devastated, of course.

Their house wasn’t big enough for everyone to stay inside, so many of us stayed in tents on their property. They own a dairy farm. There are lots of animals. Cows, of course. Sheep. Horses. Dogs. And cats. Most of the animals had to work for their keep. And that included the cats. They were typical farm cats. They were half wild and had the run of the outside.

And that’s what got this particular cat in trouble. The cat was a Tom cat: an unneutered Tom. He decided that we were encroaching on his territory. So, like Toms will do, he started marking his territory by spraying the tents. This was very unpleasant for those of us who were staying in the tents.

My sister-in-law was not in a mood to deal with a cat, while grieving her daughter. She addressed her teenage sons;

I want the cat GONE!

Animals were killed when they outlived their usefulness. And in her opinion the cat had definitely reached that point. She left it up to her boys to take care of it. Now, one of her sons had recently returned from serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was allowed to cut his 2 year mission short by a few weeks to attend his sister’s funeral. He got a .22 rifle and we took the cat out to the backyard. Their house was surrounded by alfalfa fields.

As we walked out to the backyard, I suggested,

Don’t you think we should secure the cat? As soon as you fire that rifle the cat’s going to run.

I won’t miss!

He took aim and:

BAM!

BAM!

BAM! BAM! BAM!

He eventually stopped firing because the cat run into the house. He missed.

So, shooting the cat didn’t work. They decided to capture the cat and secure it into a burlap bag.

It clawed its way out of the bag.

Eventually, someone from another farm offered to adopt the cat. It could be still alive as far as I know.

Not sure if it has nine lives, but it has at least three.

Stay safe

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. Order Miscellany II, an anthology including his latest short story, “The Mercy System” here

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) 2022 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved