Ever paid $9.00 per gallon for gas. Just turn in a rental car without refilling the tank. The rental companies will refill it for you at a slight markup.
I recently rented a car. Normally my trips involve nothing more ambitious than a trip from the airport to my hotel. Multiple trips from my hotel to the call center. Maybe an occasional trip to dinner. And then travel back to the airport, after stopping off at a gas station.
My most recent trip was a bit more adventurous. Columbus is about 120 miles or so from Cleveland. Cleveland has a lot of interesting things to see. There’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There’s a Major League Baseball park, Progressive field, home of the Cleveland Indians, and just outside of Cleveland in the town of Kirtland is the first temple ever built by the Mormon church, way back in the 1836.
My flight got in around 4:30pm. I decided to drive to Cleveland for dinner. It’s only about a two hour drive and freeway driving at 70 MPH all the way.
I drove back to Columbus that night and checked into my hotel around midnight. The rest of my visit was pretty boring from an automotive point of view. A trip from the hotel to the center. A trip from the center to the hotel. A trip to Walmart to buy dinner. Back to the hotel. Then a trip from the hotel to the airport.
But, of course, I had to stop off and get gas. The trick with buying gas for your rental car is that you don’t want to refill too far from the airport. Otherwise, it’s not actually full when you return it.
So, you look for a gas station close to the airport. Normally at this stage of a trip, I’m watching the clock to make sure I have time to get back, return my car, print my boarding passes (yeah, I’m old school like that,) go through security (TSA Precheck is the best $85 I ever spent) and then get to the gate in time.
But, not today. Today I was watching the gas gauge. Would I have enough gas to make it to the airport? I could choose a closer one, but there’s the issue of being too far away. I watched the “RANGE” number drop slowly, one by one.
Finally, I found a gas station on the last exit prior to John Glenn Airport. I wasn’t quite running on fumes when I pulled in, but I’m not sure that a couple of good revs of the engine wouldn’t have used the last of what was in the tank.
I probably had enough to make it all teh way to the airport if I’d tried, but just barely.
As I headed to the airport with a full tank, I tried to figure out what it would have cost at $9 per gallon.
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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What’s not surprising: Michelle Obama wrote a book.
What is surprising: It became the best selling memoir in history with over 10 million copies sold.
I bought one of those copies. Actually, I didn’t buy it. My daughter bought it for me. In our family we make “Christmas lists.” Basically, it’s like a letter to Santa, but you post it in the living room instead of sending it to the North Pole. We do a name draw for Christmas, a secret Santa model. The list lets your secret Santa know what things you would like. (I guess it’s a letter to Santa after all.)
Anyway, I listed Michell Obama’s book as one of the things I wanted. I wasn’t a fan of Mr Obama. He did a better job as president than I feared he would. But, overall, I was happy to see his time in the Whitehouse end. However, I found Mrs Obama a fascinating public figure. Her many accomplishments were admirable, but the impression I got most from her was that she really didn’t want to be in the Whitehouse. She was devoted to her husband, but always seemed like she would be equally pleased if he had stayed a community organizer.
I was very interested to read her book. Aside from the fact that she was trained as a lawyer and she was from Chicago, I didn’t really know much about her personal life.
Her memoir is delightful. Like most personal history stories, it pretty much starts at the time she was born and follows a roughly chronological path to the time the book was published.
I believe that everyone has interesting stories to tell. Literally everyone you meet has a favorite movie, a memorable vacation, an engagement story, a love story. There are interesting stories in every person’s life if you simply ask the right questions.
Someone asked Michelle Obama the right questions. She grew up in Chicago not far from where I lived for a couple of years. Her stories of parents and grandparents read like a modern version of the Laura Ingles Wilder “Little House on the Prairie” books. There’s triumph and tragedy, sickness and health, sacrifice and success. But, the theme winding through all of it was an outpouring of love and family.
When Michelle met Barrack was almost an anti-climax. Of course, when she met him, he wasn’t the president of the United States. He wasn’t even Senator Obama. He was a brilliant, but somewhat unfocused college student looking for an internship.
Mrs Obama tells from the inside, the tales we’ve all seen from the outside. Her infamous “proud of America for the first time” quote. Her “Move” campaign. The famous Whitehouse vegetable garden.
I’ve read biographies of politicians in the past. It’s obvious by the memories they choose to focus on what their purpose was in writing the book. Mrs Obama clearly has no intention of ever runnign for office. At nearly every turn she hesitated about her husband running for office. She chafed at the restrictions of living in the Whitehouse. She describes with glee when she and her daughter “escaped” the Whitehouse to join the crowds gathered outside the Whitehouse the night of the gay marriage vote.
What I Liked
Michelle Robinson, who later becomes Michelle Obama seems like a genuinely nice person. She tells delightful stories and invites us into the inner workings of her family. The vulnerability she shares in some of the more personal stories is truly admirable and entertaining.
I enjoyed the chronological format, despite its predictability. The pre-election years were even more entertaining than the years after her husband became a rising star in the Democratic party. Mostly because they were all new stories. There was no foreshadowing. No waiting for the next tie-in to news stories of the day.
I also appreciated the importance that the Obamas put on family. Not only their immediate family with their two daughters, but the role and responsibilty that extended family played.
What I Didn’t
Most of the book avoids policy discussions. It’s clear that Mrs Obama, and the president for that matter, are Democrats and she seems to feel no need to advocate the liberal position. . .with one notable exception. She discusses the tragedy of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting. And then spends the next several pages advocating for gun control, “common sense gun laws” as if to imply that when it comes to guns, Republicans lack any common sense. It’s an unfortunate diversion into partisan politics that unnecessarily detracts from the value of the book.
What It Means To You
Some people will avoid this book simply because they disagreed with President Obama. That would be a mistake. It’s a wonderful book. I’m especially excited for my daughters to read it, especially those daughters who are black. Mrs Obama should be an inspriration to all young women. She came from a very humble background and even without her turn as First Lady, had a remarkable career and family life. It’s a story that all Americans can benefit from.
My rating
Three out of four stars
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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I have two new grandchildren last month.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Why? Why do we offer congratulations to the grandparents?
I wasn’t there when my newest grandchildren were born. The most recent one was last Tuesday. Nevaeh was born in Provo, Utah and I was a couple thousand miles away in Columbus, Ohio. My lovely wife was there to help. Maybe she deserves some credit.
My daughters have been on their own for many years. Like many adult children, they want to be independent. . .until they don’t. We’ve worked hard to help them build their own lives, careers and families.
So, why do I deserve any praise?
The humorous answer is that grandchildren are a reward to parents for not killing their children.
My daughters are adopted. I have no blood bond with my grandchildren. But, the bond of love and family is as strong as it is with any of my children or grandchildren.
These represent my seventh and eighth grandchildren. Four of my grandkids are biological and four are through adoption. It’s not a distinction we dwell on. Kids are kids and grandkids are grandkids.
I’m still not sure why grandparents get praise. But, I’ll take it.
I used to think being a grandparent would make me feel old. Instead I just feel great.
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 had my choice. I was on a trip for business. Like most companies, mine allows a certain amount for meals when its employees travel. I’d been travelling all day, which meant, I hadn’t really had a chance to eat at all.
In other words, I still had the entire daily amount for food available. That gave me options for where to eat. If I chose I could splurge on a nice meal. Maybe a nice steak somewhere. Or an expensive Italian place.
I picked the nice place I could think of. I got a hotdog, fries and a large Sierra Mist. . .it came in a commemorative cup. I had to stand in line to order and carry the food to my seat myself. The seat had no table, but a great view.
I’m in Columbus Ohio for a business meeting. I arrived the day before. Travel from Salt Lake City to Ohio takes most of the day. I left Utah at 8:30 in the morning and arrived in Columbus at 4:41 in the afternoon. And I got out of the airport about 5:30. It’s about 2 drive from Columbus to Cleveland, Ohio where I wanted to have dinner.
Progressive Field is the home of the Cleveland Indians baseball team. I managed to arrive by the third inning. The game started at 7:10 and I arrived in the third inning. Justin Verlander, the ace for the Houston Astros pitched a gem. He allowed two hits over seven innings while striking out 13.
The hometown Indians played well, but Houston is one of the best teams in the league. From my seat high in the upper deck in section 510, I at my hotdog and fries, drank my Sierra Mist in the commemorative cup and then snacked on peanuts before slipping out to beat the traffic in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Given the price of stadium food, my dinner was still less than a really nice steakhouse. But, the view? Well, I’m not sure there’s a steakhouse in the country with a view like that.
Progressive Field is the tenth MLB ballpark I have seen a game in. Twenty to go.
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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I really wanted to like this book. It was recommended to me by a good friend. He raved about it.
I didn’t like it.
I wanted to. I really did. In fact, I continued reading it even long after I’d lost interest. And that’s the irony. It’s an interesting book. Just not something that I’m interested in.
John Medina, the author is brilliant. He explains how our brains make memories. How we learn new things. Why we forget old things. And his writing style is easy flowing and engaging. But, he’s talking about some heavy topics.
He explains 12 rules that affect our brains and how we learn.
- Exercise boosts brain power
- The human brain evolved, too
- Every brain is wired differently
- We don’t pay attention to boring things
- Repeat to remember
- Remember to repeat
- Sleep well, think well
- Stressed brains don’t learn the same way
- Stimulate more of the senses
- Vision trumps all other senses
- Male and female brains are different
- We are powerful and natural explorers
That’s all well and good, but Medina takes us down into the neural pathways and memory banks. (Okay, maybe I’m letting my computer background influence me. It was hard to grasp some of it.) For example, on page 209 in the section on sensory integration, we get this gem:
All explanations about multisensory learning also deal with a counter-intuitive property lurking at its mechanistic core: Extra information given at the moment of learning makes learning better.
Okay-dokey, then.
I can understand why my friend, a top sales manager for a training company would find it interesting. Medina explains why people learn and how they learn. That’s important for a sales guy.
What I Liked
Medina never spends too long in the techno-speak before he pulls back to give practical examples. He seems to understand that his book is being read by non-scientists, and strives to keep the topics relevant.
Also, there were definite gems buried in the rough. I found many bits and pieces that provided interesting insights into my own learning. But, honestly, it was like trying to satisfy your hunger by eating sesame seeds. Not enough substance to make the effort worth it.
What I Didn’t
I was not the target audience for “brain rules.” The author spends many pages detailing the workings of the brains, how neurons work, how memory works. It was very trying to plow through the pages of text.
It was a desire to complete the book and because I told my friend I would read it that kept me going.
What It Means For You
If you are the target audience, “brain rules,” is a wonderful book. It will explain in great detail how you can not only improve your own memory but understand how individuals and groups learn and use memory.
My Rating
Two out of four stars. But, your milage may vary.
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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An old Chinese proverb describes an insanity test. A man is given a bucket and told to use it to drain a small pond.
If the man immediately starts to bail out the pond, he is deemed insane.
If he first diverts the stream feeding the pond, he is deemed to be sane.
I’m pretty sure I’m insane.
Every day is an exercise in draining the pond. I created folders. I reply to many. I delete a few. But, the relentless pace of email continues on.
I was in Alabama last week at one of our sites. It was a very busy week. And it wasn’t just busy in the sense that I had lots of meetings and emails. It was busyin that I had to be on my feet on our call floor for 10-12 hours per day.
But, my job is more than working the call floor. All my normal duties were still going. And that means that my normal supply of email was still going.
At the end of a week, my inbox numbered in the hundreds. Most of Saturday was spent filing, responding and generally trying to get it back down to a managable level.
You might wonder why I didn’t wait until Monday? Sure, I often have to work weekends if something breaks down, but why ask for it?
Because about one in every 50 messages was something important. Like, really important. Such as a message titled
TIME SENSITIVE: VP NEEDS THIS INFORMATION TODAY
It wasn’t still today, but I still had to respond. And I didn’t want to get to Monday and have dozens of these waiting for me. And, I needed to plan a trip to Dayton for the coming week. We had less than a week to schedule it. There would be some important emails around it as well.
As I’m headed into Monday, my inbox sits at 25/39. That’s typically how I count it: UNREAD/TOTAL. At times, as I try to whittle the list down, I’ll build a chart.
UNREAD |
TOTAL |
And then, each column is a separate time period. I’ll set goals: 50 messages down in the next 30 minutes, Below 60 before lunch.
But, no matter how many goals I set, no matter how much I whittled down my inbox, no matter how much water I bailed out of the pond, the next day, the next hour it would fill back up.
I don’t know that there is a way to divert the stream. I suppose I don’t really want to anyway. I like my job. I like my company. I would hate to leave it.
It just makes me insane.
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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A man was concerned that his wife might be losing her hearing. So, she agreed to a test. She stood facing the wall in their living room. He stoood on the opposite side of the room and asked in a normal tone of voice, “Can you hear me?”
She didn’t respond.
So, he moved to the midpoint of the room. “Now, can you hear me?”
Still no response.
Finally, he stood right behind her. “Can you hear me now?”
“For the third time, yes!”
I had a hearing problem when I was a little kid. My mother suspected something might be wrong and did a test similar to the joke above. But, the results were different. She silently walked up behind me and asked,
Rodney, do you want a cookie?
What four-year old wouldn’t want a cookie?
I didn’t. At least I didn’t respond.
I went off to the Washington State University audiology lab. A very old woman, who was probably 20 years old, sent tones through a set of headphones. If I noticed the tones correctly, I got an M&M. If I missed it, she took an M&M back. I quickly learned to eat the M&Ms as soon as she gave them to me. I also learned to recognize the tones.
I never figured out what the problem was with my hearing. I don’t ever remember having my hearing tested like that again. I’ve always had an issue with too much background noise. I like music louder than my lovely wife.
And as I’ve gotten older, I noticed people started to mumble more. Why can’t they just speak up? It’s really annoying. And inconvenient.
Anyway, this week I had a problem. It was a scheduling problem. My family went on a vacation to a location that didn’t have wifi. We didn’t really talk about the fact that it didn’t have wifi when we set it all up. In fact, my lovely wife planned the vacation without really explaining it too me. At least I don’t think she explained it to me.
It’s been a very busy summer so far. I’ve gone on three week long trips. I’m in the middle of several projects. I’m swamped with work and home and I’m trying to juggle everything. Occasionally, some things get missed.
Like the information that a campground miles up into the High Uinta Mountains wouldn’t have wifi and wouldn’t have cell phone access.
Was I not listening or did she not tell me? My guess is that I probably missed it. But, just as being in denial means you don’t actually know you’re in denial, not having heard her, means I don’t know if she actually said it.
But, she probably did.
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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I was part of a presentation today. It was a pretty big presentation. It lasted over two hours. My bit was about 15 minutes of that. There were a half dozen presenters. We needed to give a status update for what had happened withour account over the past three months.
Given the scope and the audience, our team was somewhat stressed about how it would go. We had successes to discuss, but also some challenges. My bit had a little of both.
During our multiple practices, I was told by our vice president to address the challenges head on. Not try to sugarcoat them in the least. Take credit where we did well, but admit our mistakes too.
It’s good advice. You do no one any favors when you try to put lipstick on a pig.
During my brief quarter hour of the meeting I did exactly that. I admitted that one particular part, “Just didn’t go well.” Fortunatley, I was able to build from that low point and show we had steadily improved and did very well by the end of the quarter.
My part was done and we moved on with the presentation.
At the end of the presentation, our team immediately joined another conference bridge to debrief from the meeting. The division president gave us his take. “Just a couple of things. For example, Rodney, we shouldn’t say, ‘It didn’t go well.'”
What?
Wasn’t that the exact opposite of what I’d been told in the rehearsals?
Yes. . .and no.
The president hadn’t been part of our practice sessions. He was concerned I was overstating the negatives of our case. It’s a valid concern.
It would appear impossible to follow both pieces of advice.
You’re right. It is.
But, life isn’t like an assignment in school. There is no one correct answer that if you just work long enough you will arrive at. Life gets messy. You’ll be given competing pieces of advice in life. Often, you should take it. Don’t necessarily try to resolve the conflict.
I received one set of advice before the presentation and one set of feedback after the presentation. Lacking a time machine there is no way I could attempt to follow both pieces of advice.
And here’s the key: I shouldn’t even try.
I could have pointed out to the president that his advice conflicted with the advice I’d received before the presentation. I resisted that urge. Sure, it would be nice to say, “But, I did it right!”
Remember this isn’t some exercise in a logic class where you have to find the one true and correct answer.
Objecting, while it might have made me feel better would have done nothing but foster conflict and potentially brought even more negative attention to me.
Nope, I should (and did) just take the feedback that was offered and move on.
Because, it really was good advice.
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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I’m stuck in the forest.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the forest. And I love camping. And I love my family. So, camping with my family in the forest? What’s not to love?
I really thought this place was going to have wifi. I have an important meeting today that I have to present at. Even though we were on vacation, I figured I could squeeze it in. (Happens a lot.)
But, this forest doesn’t have wifi. In fact, we are about ten miles from even a single bar of cell service, let alone WiFi. On the way out here, I was pretty anxious.
See, we didn’t know if WiFi or cell phones would work when we left. My lovely wife hoped they didn’t. I hoped they did. In fact, I sort of expected it.
Because I expected it, I didn’t make any arrangements for a backup. I’m on call 24×7 and I have no formal backup. If I know I’ll be out of cell range, I arrange for one of our account managers to take any outage calls. He doesn’t actually work them, but at least he’s there to answer the phone and make sure we keep track of lost time.
As we headed higher into the mountains, and the bars on my phone got smaller and smaller, I started to get anxious. “Shoot, I should have planned better.”
“Maybe there’ll be a camp host or something.”
“What if there’s an outage?”
“What can I do to mitigate this?”
“Maybe I’ll have a little bit of service.”
And then, finally, the last bar disappeared. Well there it was. We were still ten miles from the campground, headed up into the canyon and my phone had just become a really expensive camera.
And as the service bars went away, so did my anxiety.
Seriously, I was way more relaxed after my phone died than I was with two. . .or was it three. . .oh no, now it’s one bar. Because, once the option of staying connected via phone was gone, it removed the uncertainty.
I’ve always thought I would face death calmly. I imagine I’d be the guy to say, as did Breaker Morant, “Shoot straight. Don’t mess this up.” I think we all see ourselves as heroes of our own stories. But, there are been times in my life where I no longer had a choice. At that point, I become extremely calm.
As a young Mormon missionary in Chicago, I was riding a southside bus. I was dozing, as was my custom on the bus. Suddenly a very angry Native American man wanted to talk to me. I’m still not sure what he was upset about. I did my best to talk him down.
And then, he pulled a knife and waved it in my face. Well, what could I do. I’m not sure I did the smartest thing. I looked him in the eye and calmly said, “I don’t want to fight you.” Then, I turned away.
He didn’t stab me. He did hit me with his jacket. I just ignored it.
Once the time of decision is past, it’s easier for me to accept my fate. In today’s case, my fate is that I get to spend two days with my family camping in the forst and no cell phone.
Come to think of it, that’s not cause for anxiety at all.
Rodney Bliss is an avid outdoorsman who needs to learn to let go more often and enjoy the beautiful state of Utah
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It was a stupid thought. I don’t say that lightly. I’m typing this on my phone. My bluetooth keyboard lit by the red glow of a hiker’s headlamp. To my left, a gas lantern hisses it’s sweet song of death to the dozens of moths attacking it.
It’s been a busy month. I mean busier than most. I’ve flown across the country twice. I’ve spent countless hours on outage bridges. I’ve watched my email account balloon to over 300 messages.
We decided to squeeze in a quick two day vacation with the kids before they head off to college and high school football camp, and jobs. My lovely wife planned it. She did all the work. She found a lovely spot, Miller something campground in Northern Utah. She planned the menu. She gave the kids packing lists.
My responsibiliity? Pretty simple: show up.
But, did I mention the really busy work schedule? Yeah, I mean, I can still be oncall, right? I do it during campouts. Okay, good. No need to arrange a backup. (One less thing.)
And the quarterly client meeting? It’s just a couple of hours in the middle of the day, right? No problem. I’ll just step away and dial in on my cell phone. I have the slides on my computer already.
And if other stuff comes up, I’ll just handle it while BEING ON VACATION!
That was my (stupid) plan.
I didn’t share the details with my lovely wife because she was already planning the bulk of the vacation. It will be fine. . .it wasn’t fine.
Last time I went on a family vacation, we went to St George, UT for Spring Break. We stayed in a KOA campground. KOA is like the Hilton of campgrounds. It had a pool, It had a store. It had water and electric hookups. And it had WiFi.
So, in my mind “family vacation” and “campgrounds have wifi” go together.
As we drove out here today my first warning was when my lovely wife said, “go to the campgrounds website and take a screenshot of the directions.”
“Why?”
“So you’ll still have them when you are out of cell phone range.”
Oops.
You might wonder how this particular blog post got posted if I’m in the High Uintas without cell or wifi service.
I have a car. I wrote this on my phone and then drove the 15 miles back out of Weber canyon to get a cell signal. It’s the same road I will travel tommorow when I “step away” to dial into my quarterly business meeting.
I don’t know what I was thinking. But, trust me, campgrounds in the High Uintas DO NOT have WiFi.
Rodney Bliss is a writer, father, grandfather and not very smart at times about technology