April 15 is known to most people in the United States as Tax Day. Your income taxes are due to the IRS on this day.
But, for me, and most baseball fans, April 15 has a more important meaning. It’s Jackie Robinson Day. Today, every player and manager on every team in every game wears the exact same uniform number, 42, the number that was Jackie Robinson’s number.
It’s significant because during the other 161 games of a major league baseball season, no one is allowed to wear number 42. Jackie’s number has been retired across every team.
But, on this day, April 15, all of baseball pauses to remember a remarkable man who 72 years ago, in 1947, Jackie took the field in Dodger blue to become the first black man in the modern era to play Major League Baseball.
He wass an amazing man and an amazing athlete. I look forward to April 15 every year to see a reminder of him at every position. He really was that impactful.
But, my excitement today was tempered by the horrible events in Paris. April 15 will also be known as the day that the majestic thousand year old cathedral of Notre Dame burned.
It’s a Paris landmark, and uniquely French, but it’s also more. It’s an international treasure. The cathedral was old when America was new. It’s a Catholic cathedral, but we all felt a connection, regardless of our religion, or even if we weren’t associated with any religion.
The coming days will reveal how extensive the damage is. And, fortunately, no lives were lost. So many times in the past few years our tragedies have involved the inhumanity of man against ourselves.
It doesn’t change the heartwrenching sorrow at seeing one of the world’s most beautiful buildings engulfed in flames.
Already the French president has pledged to rebuild it.
Our prayers for with the French today.
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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(No disrespect intended to the men who truly endured the longest day on June 6, 1944.)
My son is a runner. That means I’ve become a “track parent.” I have another son who plays football. You’re probably familiar with a high school football game.
You show up. You sit in the “old people” section on your portable stadium seats and warm blankets. One team kicks the ball off. The clock counts down to zero four times, whoever is ahead when the last countdown reaches zero wins. And then everyone goes home. The whole thing takes about 3 hours.
Attending a track meet is nothing like that. Nothing. My son had a track meet today. He runs the 400M sprint. That is almost a full turn around the track. A great high school runner can do it in about 50 seconds. An average runner at about 60 seconds.
The track meet started at 3:00pm. The kids got out of school early and took a bus down to Spanish Fork Utah. The 400M is about half way through meet.
I had to work until 4:30pm. My lovely wife texted me.
He thinks he’ll be running about 5:00.
It’s almost exactly 30 minutes from my house to Spanish Fork. I should be able to just make it in time for his race.
I got to the stadium a few minutes after 5:00. That’s okay. There are typically multiple heats. I probably didn’t miss him.
As I entred the stadium, the first thing I noticed was that there were a lot of schools here. They each had a portable pavilion set up. A football game is your kid’s team against someone else’s kids team. There’s no concept of 3, 4 or 9 other teams that you’re competing against.
I found a schedule of the events for today’s meet.
Okay, great. I just need to figure out what event is currently running. It was hurdles. Uh oh. I might have been too late. Except that there were not enough hurdles set up. They were only along one side of the track. Just about 100 meters worth. And the girls were running.
Each track event has boys races and girls races. The girls run first. I didn’t miss it. I was early. Way early. And that’s another difference. If you show up to a football game about an hour after it starts, you know there’s probably an hour or two left.
I settled into the bleachers with my portable stadium seat. I’d brought a book. (I never take a book to a football game.) After a while I noticed my son walking across the field. I yelled down to him.
Hey! Bliss!
Oh, hey Dad.
What heat are you in?
Eighth.
Okay. I looked up at the partly cloudy sky and the brightly sunlit mountains. I wondered if he would be running under the lights.
Like I said, I had a book.
The meet slowly crawled through the schedule. This was a qualifying meet. Times counted for state qualifying. That explained why there were so many schools. And with that many schools, there were plenty of runnings. Each event had at least a half dozen seats. Some, like the popular 100 meter dash had at least ten.
And the organizers had issues with the finish line camera. That delayed us. They many heats that would start with the crack of the starting gun only to be quickly followed by a second shot indicating a false start, and they’d have to set up everything all over again.
The sun slipped behind the mountains to west and painted the mountains to the east with splashes of gold over the snow covered slopes.
As it did, the temperature, which had been holding in the low 50’s started to drop. A slight wind and splashes of scattered rain pushed the temperature lower. The folks I sat next to were from California and Florida. I, at least, was prepared.
My son finally ran at 7:45pm.
He ran strong in the first 300 meters and started to fade in the last 100 meters. He collected his gear and we chased the shadows back to the car. Behind us the stadium lights were on in full force.
I’d arrived at 5:00pm and left at 8:00. that was 180 minutes, for 60 seconds of race. My son at left school at 2:00pm. He had spent six hours, or 360 minutes so that he could race for 60 seconds.
And the meet wasn’t over.
I love baseball. One of the attractive things about baseball is that there is no clock. The game could go on forever. I used to think it was the only sport like that. I’ve changed my mind. Track fits into that category too.
And at the end of a football game, or a baseball game, as you file out of the stadium a glance at the scoreboard will tell you who won and who lost.
So, how did you do?
I don’t know. I think I took fourth in my heat.
Who was ahead in the meet?
We never know that until a couple of days later.
I’m really looking forward to the start of football season.
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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Everything old is new again
– All that Jazz
You know how some things are so old they are cool, like vintage? My stuff isn’t like that. My stuff is just old. Mostly cars and phones.
I recently bought a new car. My old car was a 1996 Lexus. My new car is much better. It’s a 2004 Yukon. My son recently got rid of his car as he prepares for a mission. It was a Chrysler New Yorker 5th Avenue. A nice car. Or it probably was back in 1992 when it was new.
We sold my daughter one of our cars. It’s a 2001 Honda Civic. We sold another son a car, 1996 Pontiac Grand Prix.
I own a truck. It has a few issues with the Transfer Case, but that’s probably expected. it’s a 1996.
I’ve never been impressed by cars. Sure, I love to look at nice cars, but I’m not really too worried about what I drive. That attitude extends to other areas in my life as well.
My phone, for instance. I have an android phone. I had an iPhone once. My mother was upgrading her phone and gave me the old one. I already had a perfectly good android phone and really wasn’t interested in learning a new OS. I gave it to my neighbor for helping me fix cars.
It might have been the same phone that I have now. Honestly, I really don’t think about it. We’re considering switching the entire family to iPhones. It’s not a status thing. But, with teenagers, we think the iPhones will give us better control over their online access.
It will have to be newer iPhones. We’ll get over it, I guess.
What’s strange about my cars is that most of them qualify for a vintage license plate. A car that is older than 20 years is an “antique. An antique car can get a special Utah license plate. It even has an antique car on it.
It’s a nice looking antique car. It’s a classic. It’s nothing like any of my cars. Other than IRONMN they were mostly run of the mill family style cars. Hundreds of thousands of miles, lots of after-market parts. Not the kind that comes from Mopar. The kinds that come form pic-a-part.
We do have one newer car. It’s a 2012 Chevy Express 15 passenger van. It was very valuable when we had 13 kids at home.
We’re planning to sell 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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No you weren’t rude. But you should’ve been.
Why? What is EVER accomplished by being rude?
It’s negative reinforcement.
How so?
Receiving negative behavior for giving negative behavior results in associating the received negative behavior as a result of giving negative behavior.
I was having a discussion with someone in a political group online. The group is mostly made up of like-minded participants. It’s not a full-on echo chamber, but dissenting votes are not universally appreciated.
My opponent’s point was grounded in animal training. . .bad animal training. The “intuitive” idea that if someone does something “negative” and they get negative reinforcement, they won’t do it again. Like a child that touches a hot stove. The negative reinforcement keeps the child from touching the stove again.
Does it makes sense? Sure, on a basic level. Is it effective for anything above teaching toddlers to not touch a stove? Not really. It’s certainly not effective in interactions between people.
What negative behavior did you observe in the discussion in question that you would attempt to change with negative reinforcement?
Ignorance and manipulation.
You consider ignorance a negative behavior? How are ignorant people going to become educated if their ignorance is taken as a license for rudeness?
People will only know they are ignorant when told so. You have to negqtive reinforce the behavior. If being rude isn’t challenged then how ill they know their ignorance and rudeness is wrong?
What’s intersting about this exchange is that the person I was talking to pretty much agreed with me politically. Or, I with him. However, we absolutely disagreed on how to hold a political discussion with people from the opposite political persuasion.
It’s been my experience that being positive in response to their negativity does not breed more negativity.
Let me ask you a question. Can you prove that negative reinforcement doesn’t work?
Can I prove that negative reinforcement doesn’t work?
Depends on what level of “proof” you want. It’s been shown that torture, for example, is highly ineffective as an interrogation technique, to the point it’s virtually worthless.
Training horses, positive reinforcement (a la The horse whisperer) is much more effective than negative reinforcement.
Raising kids, positive reinforcement is much more effective than negative.
Agencies like “Delancey House” and “The Other Side Academy” have shown that positive reinforcement is much more effective at reducing ex-con recidivism rates than only negative reinforcement.
Dale Carnegie’s seminal book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” makes a very strong case for positive reinforcement being more effective than negative reinforcement in the exchange the idea.
“Crucial Conversations” and “Crucial Accountability” two book from VitalSmarts are brilliant texts on the power of positive reinforcements in disagreements over negative ones.
“Anatomy of Peace” and (to a lesser extent) “Leadership and Self Deception” from the Arbinger institute also focus on positive reinforcement as a means for having successful interactions with people.
And Dalton, Patrick Swayze’s character in Roadhouse made it clear that the key to being a successful bouncer was “BE NICE.”
Needless to say, I didn’t convince the person I was holding the discussion with. He remained convinced that being polite in response to rudeness, or even political disagreement was positive reinforcement and would simply make them do more of the same.
I asked him to provide an examples he had for using negative reinforcement as a discussion or even a training method.
It’s common sense!
Sure, but given the countless counter examples that are based in research, studies and experience, that’s hardly a compelling argument.
This is how road rage happens:
He cut me off. If I don’t provide negative reinforcement, he’ll feel justified in his actions.
That guy just flashed his brights at me! If I don’t respond with negative reinforcement, he’ll feel justified in his actions.
That guy brake checked me! If I don’t retaliate, he’ll feel justified!
That guy is tailgating me!
That guy flipped me off!
That guy ran me off the road!
That guy pulled out a tire iron!
That guy pulled out a gun!
There are literally dozens of books that explain how to turn enemies to friends. How to, as Dale Carnegie said more than 75 years ago, how to win friends and influence people.
It costs nothing to be nice.
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 a world-wide meeting last Saturday night. It was broadcast from Salt Lake City. I was attending with three of my five sons in Pleasant Grove, but there were literally millions of people attending in buildings all around the globe. Oh, and it was only men and boys in the meetings.
The meeting was the Priesthood session of the 189th semi-annual conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints.
This post isn’t really about the meeting. But, it’s always amazing to me to realize I’m sharing an experience with millions of other people at the exact same time. Half way through the meeting we all sang a song together. It’s mostly to wake people up after sitting for an hour.
Anyway, we got to the meeting early so we got to sit on the soft pews in the chapel. Arrive too late and you have to sit on the folding chairs in the overflow, the gymnasium portion. Regardless all the seats have a great view of the large video screens.
As we settled into our comfy bench, the benches around us also started to fill up. My two youngest boys don’t have phones and they were peering over their older brother’s shoulder at his phone. I’m not even sure what they were watching. Suddenly my older son asked,
Dad, when you were. amissionary did they have an app that let you keep track of which people you had already contacted?
No. I didn’t have an app. I didn’t have a cell phone or a computer.
The gentleman in the pew behind me leaned forward,
Did he just ask if you had an app on your mission?
Yeah. They have no idea.
Nope.
The guy behind me was about my age. Turns out he’d served a mission in Toronto. I went to Chicago. I was there in 1985. . .The year the Bears won the Super Bowl.
We had a POTS landline. A Plain Old Telephone System phone connected to the wall. As missionaries got transferred, we had to keep switching the name on the account to new missionaries. As a sign language missionary, we weren’t your typical “knock on doors” types.
We had a massive map of Chicago on our wall along with pins marking the location of all deaf people we had been able to locate. There were about 30,000 in Chicago. We had about 200 identified in our card file.
An app? No, we had a 3×5 card file.
My friend in the pew behind me had been an English speaking missionary. He didn’t even have a 3 x 5 card file. He had a map and as they contacted people on a street they would take a yellow highlighter and mark it off.
Missionaries today do have an app. They have email. They have tablets and cell phones.
To my kids, my experience 35 years ago was might as have been the same as the early Mormon pioneers who crossed the plains using handcarts.
It makes me wonder what technological wonders my grandchildren will use as missionaries.
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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How ya doin?
How YOU doin?
That’s the best I can do at a Joey Tribbiani impression in print.
Typically, the expected response is “I’m fine.”
Even if you’re not fine. Especially if you’re not fine.
My kids want to have a job they enjoy. Unfortunately, they don’t really understand what that means. They are super excited when they get their first job. (Or their second, or third, since the pattern repeats.) And for the first week or two, it’s great. And then, the reality starts to sink in.
Maybe it’s missing a game. Work takes a lot of time.
Maybe it’s having to go to work when they’re tired. Work takes effort.
Maybe it’s just no longer being excited. Work gets boring.
I’ve been married for over thirty years. My lovely wife is the most exciting woman I’ve ever met.
My lovely wife shortly after I met her around 1983
But, love isn’t being excited all the time. Marriage takes work. Excitement fades. Love is showing up every day. Love is having the good days and the bad days. The excitement and the dull day-to-day.
It’s the same with everything. Half the time, success is just showing up. I have boys who joined sports teams. One never misses a practice. He will say it’s because, “If you miss practice, you don’t play.” But, that doesn’t explain why he attends the voluntary practices. Or why he chooses to spend extra time in the weight room. He’s probably going to be starting cornerback on the Varsity for his high school next year. It’s a 6A team that was runner-up in the state tournament the last two years.
My other son shows up to track practice occasionally. He’s a talented runner. All through elementary and junior high he, along with his brother, was the fastest kid in school. He ran a couple Varsity races, but is mostly a JV runner.
It’s about showing up, even when you’re tired, or it’s boring, or it’s raining, or your friends are going out.
I like my job. At times I love my job. At times I don’t always like my job.
I like my life. At times I love my life. At times I don’t always like my life.
But, like sports, or business, even in life, half of success is just showing up. Somedays that’s the best you can do.
Just show up.
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 don’t play “Two Truths And A Lie” anymore. My brothers don’t either. We won too much and it caused too many questions.
Your mother was married how many times?
You have how many kids?
What do you mean your brother’s sister isn’t your sister?
But, I do enjoy “What’s something no one knows about you?” People are interesting. Not just some people. All people are interesting. Everyone has a favorite book, a favorite movie, a favorite vacation. Not everyone is a good storyteller. But, if you ask the right questions and have patience, people will tell you fascinating things. And the most fascinating are often about themselves.
It’s fun to learn new things and sometimes it’s fun to surprise people.
The thing tha tno one, or at least most people don’t know about me, is that I’m fluent in American Sign Language (ASL.)
It’s a skill that is occasionally useful and often surprising. For two years I served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, first in Chicago and then in Anaheim. I became pretty good at it. Actually, I became an expert.
As a missionary, most of the time I was using ASL every day. Missionaries used ASL as much as possible, even if we were both hearing. It led to times when people didn’t realize I could hear.
One time my companion, Elder Randles and I were riding on a bus in Chicago. A group of boys got on the bus and made their way to the back. When they noticed us signing, they assumed we were both deaf. I interrepted their comments for Elder Randles without letting them know I understood them.
It was typical young gang member stuff. They were harmless really. But, some of the derogatory comments they made about deaf people really started to annoy Elder Randles.
You have to say something to them!
Okay, when they leave.
As the boys made their way off the bus, they had to pass between us. As the leader came even with me, I looked up and said,
You should really watch your language on the bus.
The look on his face, and the faces of his friends was priceless. They silently filed out. As they exited the bus, their courage returned and they slapped at the windows and sides of the bus as it pulled away. Elder Randles and I just laughed.
While I’m fluent, my lovely wife is merely proficient. As I mentioned yesterday, an Expert makes a lousy teacher. I never taught my kids sign language. Not even as babies.
Now, whenever we have something to discuss as parents in front of our kids, we simply discuss it freely. . .using our hands.
Like I said, it’s occasionally useful.
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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Which direction is South?
Five of my kids and I were standing on the observation point in Kolob Canyon. It’s part of Zion National Park, but it’s unique because it is only accessible from an entrance off of I-15. However, even though you couldn’t get to the rest of the park from Kolob Canyon, you could certainly see the park. It was spread out in a majestic panorama.
My youngest son pointed and said,
It’s that way.
How do you know?
Because of the snow.
Explain.
Well, the snow is only on one side of the ridges. That means the side of the ridge with no snow is South.
Yeah, I taught him that. The sun, especially in the winter is in the Southern portion of the sky. Even weak winter sun is enough to melt snow. If you look at a ridge and one side has snow and the other side doesn’t, the side without snow is facing South.
What other ways can you find South?
Looking at the sun?
Yeah, it’s not as effective, but this time of year, the sun is going to be more in the South. What about with a watch?
With a watch
You point the hour hand at the sun and half way between the hour hand and the 12 is South.
Or, with a compass
Or you could use a compass. Which shows that, yep, you were right. That is South.
Not all experts are bad teachers. Some experts can be quite good teachers. But, if they haven’t been trained, an expert makes a terrible teacher.
My favorite job during my time at Microsoft was as a trainer. Technically I was an instructional designer. And ID writes courseware. He (or she, we had some excellent women designers) also must be an excellent trainer.
Designing courseware can be a complicated process. It involves first identifying the objective domain. That is the objectives you are trying to meet by creating a course. Maybe you want to introduce the new features of a product. Maybe you want to teach how to read network traces. Maybe you want to teach how to resolve a software problem.
The point is, a course needs a purpose. Once you’ve identified the objective domain, you then have to actually create the course. There is text to write, typically a PowerPoint to display to the class, labs to create. Maybe an assessment. All of that takes time. It’s called the dev ratio, or development ratio.
A low dev ratio is 20:1. That would be acceptable for a simple course explaining a non-technical topic. A high dev ratio would be 60:1. That would typically be a programming course, with a lot of labs.
What that means is that a one day lecture course on the differences between eggshell-white and off-white would take a month to create. While a one day course on how to create a Java program that says, “Hello World” would take three months to create.
I’ve probably just lost a couple of you. Yes, THREE MONTHS to create a one-day programming course. And a month to create a one-day lecture.
That’s seems kind of high, don’t you think? So did our internal client at Microsoft. It’s eventually why my training org lost its contract with Microsoft support teams. They decided we were too expensive.
Why does it take you so long to create a simple course?
It’s called a dev ratio. It means. . .
Look, we have agents like Bob who, with a half day off the phones, could produce just the same course and it would even been more technical than yours are.
Bob is an expert then?
Absolutely.
That’s the problem.
The power of an instructional designer is his ability to create content for a subject of which he is not an expert. She will be an expert by the time the course is created. But, in the beginning he’s not an expert.
Bob, from support could teach a course. He might even be good at it. But, it will be Bob’s course. It will be a course that he alone can teach. When an instructional designer creates a course, anyone can teach it. Not only an expert.
Over the years I’ve taught my sons, and daughters, but mostly my sons, things about the outdoors. The most important lesson is that in the desert, water is life. I’ve taught them that clean socks are the difference between a comfortable night’s sleep and a miserable one.
I’ve also taught them about finding directions. Like, how the snow melts on the South face first. But, much of what I’ve taught them, I don’t even think about. When we stood on the precipice overlooking the expanse that is Zion’s National Park, I wasn’t thinking that I needed to be prepared to teach my kids about directions. It’s just what I take with me whenever I travel in the wilderness, even for a short mile hike along a well travelled path.
I carry a pocketwatch with me always. Not just in case I need to find directions from the sun. I carry a very sharp pocket knife. I use it at least a dozen times per day. When I’m in the wilderness I wear a bracelet, pictured above. It has a compass, whistle, flint and steel, and 50 feet of paracord. I carry two liters of water in a shoulder harness. I also carry a walking stick that has an emergency whistle, compass and small magnifying glass.
While I consider myself a good teacher, I also consider myself an expert in the outdoors. And cautious. After all, I didn’t have a single compass. I had two.
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 hurts to walk. It hurts to sit. I woke up twice last night because it hurt.
I injured my back a few weeks ago. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I was lifting a sheet of metal. It was about 3’x3′ and a half inch thick. I know how to lift. I used my legs, bent my knees. All the “right” things.
I think the sheet of metal was about 175lbs. I didn’t move it very far. And my back was sore when I got done. And it was sore the next day, and the next. Soon, it started affecting how I walked. I found I was “holding” one side. That put pressure on my knees and I started getting shooting pains down the back of my left leg.
Old? Of course, I’m not old! Okay, maybe I’m old.
Anyway, it got so bad I went to the doctor. I was getting ready to take my kids on vacation. I hiking and camping vacation.
Muscle relaxers seem to be the magic bullet. The doctor perscribed some and I can (mostly) sleep through the night.
When I was a junior in high school, I had a really bad English teacher. Not Ms. Thomas, she was awesome, of course. (For any old high school buddies reading this.) This teacher has some unorthodox teaching methods. One of them was to have the students keep a journal for a month. That wasn’t the weird part. She had us turn it in. That was kind of weird. She then graded our journal entries. That was a little freaky.
I was taking this girl named Lori Snyder to the prom. I always fell in love with my prom dates. Lori was no different. I took her in my dad’s big Buick. We had a nice time and that was the end of our relationship. But, I was still infatuated with her a little.
Of course, I wrote about in my journal. And at one point I wrote,
I will be over Lori within the next two weeks.
It typically took a couple of weeks to get over the infatuation, I figured Lori would be no different. Next to the entry about getting over Lori, my English teacher wrote,
Why?
Like I said, it was sort of creepy to have a middle aged English teacher not only reading, but commenting on the thoughts of 17 year old students.
I don’t think I ever responded to her, but I thought about that question over the years. Why do we refuse to show pain, or at least attempt to not show pain?
If a dog injures its leg, the dog will limp. If a man injures his leg he is more likely to work hard to avoid a limp. Even if it means more pain.
With my messed up back, I was trying to walk straight and making the injury worse. Even knowing the danger of becoming too tense, I still find myself attempting to “walk normal.”
I wonder if it goes back to somewhere in our ancestory when we were both the hunters and the hunted. Wolves attacking a herd of elk will look for the weak, the sick, the slow. They will attempt to seperate that one from the herd.
Do we avoid showing weakness due to some primoreal urge to not be the weak member of the herd? Perhaps. Perhaps it’s a need to appear strong, or at least not weak.
We hiked all over St George today. If a pack of wolves had stalked my kids and me, I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it.
Muscle relaxers, Motrin and Tylenol.
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 woods because I wanted to live deliberately.
-Thoreau
David Thoreau never stayed at the KOA campground in Hurricane Utah. (BTW, you pronounced it wrong. It’s HERR-i-kin. Welcome to Utah.)
What kind of vacations do you take? Do you plan your outing to the last minute? Schedule to ensure you get the most value for your vacation dollar/time?
Or do you have a general destination in mind and then see what the day brings?
The problem with the second version is what if the day brings nothing? What if the day brings a lot of sitting in your room staring at the walls?
But, sometimes it doesn’t happen that way.
About 20 years ago, I had a chance to go to Athens on business. I scheduled an extra day in the city because. . .it’s Athens! I didn’t have anything specific in mind. Sure, I wanted to visit the Acropolis. And friends had told me I had to experience the Placa, the large market at the base of the Acropolis. But, other than that, I didn’t have a plan.
When it came time for dinner, I wandered around the area of the city I was in. As I walked down a set of stairs I realized two things. First, these stairs were actually part of a street. And two, the “street” bisected a restaurant. Some tables were on one side of the street and more were on the opposite side of the street. I had no idea what the name of the restaurant was.
I was shown to a quiet seat in a corner. I think it was obvious I was an American, despite my best efforts to not stick out. My waiter looked exactly like you would expect him to look. Very Greek. Very friendly.
What can I get you, sir?
I’ve never been to Athens before. I wonder if you could recommend some uniquely Greek menu items.
I know just the things. Leave it to me.
I am in your hands.
I don’t remember what I ate. But, it was delicious. And the fact it was served by a charming Greek man in a endearing Greek restaurant that span a set of stairs that were actually a street, made it a memory that hasn’t dimmed after 20 years.
I couldn’t have planned it better. I didn’t plan it at all.
My kids and I are on vacation. (Not Getting Away. Not Letting Go.) We are in the St George area. Last year my lovely wife brought them and I couldn’t make it. This year, she wasn’t able to come. But, my oldest son is getting ready to leave on a two year mission. My daughter is a senior and planning to head down the road to BYU next fall. Her older sister is saving her money to prepare for a mission.
I won’t have this group home again. So, off we came. We’re in a KOA Kampground. KOA is camping. . .with amenities. Showers, pool, wifi, electricity. All six of us (two younger sons as well) are crammed into a pop up tent trailer. So far it hasn’t been too bad trying to get everyone to settle down quietly. The freeway noise from a quarter mile away, not so much.
Today we headed over the St George Temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. After that, our schedule was open.
We tried to find the “Harrisberg ghost town.” It must actually be a ghost, because Harrisberg isn’t that big and we couldn’t find it. We tried to find the Silver Reef museum. There were signs all over for it. We couldn’t find it. (I think it was actually pointing at a strip mall.).
My son wanted to find a field and play football. . with his two brothers. My daughter wanted to go to the mall. So, we found out park and my boys threw a football around. And then we went into St George and went to the mall. On the way out of town, my older daughter saw an outlet for the store she works at in Utah county.
Daddy, can we stop at DI?
Sure.
Was it on the schedule? Nope. Did anyone care? Nope. Did we drive four hours to go to the mall and toss a football around? Yep.
Was it worth it?
Oh yeah.
And, of course, work called.
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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