August 27, 2020

I have been in, and thankfully so far, lived through a variety of different natural disasters.   I was staying at the family farm in the early 1960’s when a tornado came through and took out every building except the house where we huddled in the basement.  I was in Salt Lake City in 1983 when nearly four inches of rain fell over a three day span, forcing the city to sandbag Seventh South Street to create a river to move the water from an overflowing stream to the Great Salt Lake.  I missed the ’89 quake that dropped the freeways in the Bay Area, but was still dealing with the rebuild of both the quake and the Berkeley Hills Fire when I arrived two years later.  Back in Kansas, my first year as director of a conference center saw a 500 year flood that isolated Melissa and I on the island that was our house.  Last year I was in Fort Smith when the river crested at a record high of 42.5 feet.  That does not include the number of smaller earthquakes, tornadoes and floods I have experienced.  Melissa suggested I stop moving.

Now living in Arkansas I am experiencing the side effects of the hurricanes that come into the Gulf and peter out somewhere around us.  We do not get the high winds and storm surge experienced on the coast, but we do get plenty or rain.  The biggest difficulty is flash flooding in low areas and people who think they can drive through the water.  We lost five people to the 2019 flood mentioned above.  One was a delivery driver when her truck was washed off the road and into a ditch.  Horrifically, she was on a 911 call while she drowned.

The Gulf just missed having a rare double hurricane event this week.  Marco made landfall Wednesday as a tropical storm that brought us rain all day long.  We already have flood warnings issued for most of the state.  Laura hit land as a near category five hurricane on Thursday.  The 150 mph winds are expected to produce a 15’-20’ storm surge as much as 30 miles inland.   Some described this surge as “unsurvivable.”  Sadly, many decided to ride the storm out.  While the surge was not as bad as expected, wind damage appeared far worse as metal buildings were torn to shreds.  Already over half a million are without power as the storm continues into upper Louisiana and southern Arkansas as a category two hurricane.

THOUGHTS:  Even though it was still a steady rain, last night the sky opened for the beautiful sunset pictured.  It amazes me how even as we torture our environment by dumping heat and pollution into the air and water, it is has yet to abandon us.  Scientists tell us that Mars had enough abuse, and let its atmosphere go.  It seems we are trying to do the same with the Earth.  The shutdown caused by the pandemic proved if we just stop polluting our world, it is still able to heal itself.  We are getting close to the point where that will no longer be possible.  Then we will cause a collapse, mass extinctions, and the next dominant species will step up.  Remember, that is how we got here.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 26, 2020

Our lilies came out over the weekend.  Two had bloomed earlier and then died, and then suddenly we had eight more poking up through the soil.  This flower is called the Belladonna Lily or Naked Ladies (Amaryllis belladonna).  The plant produces a green, leafy growth similar to a floppy tulip that emerges in spring and dies back by midsummer. In late summer, leafless stems produce elegant, pink flowers. Belladonna Lilies are hardy in zones 7 – 11 and are considered annuals in all other zones. That means our plants return every spring and summer.

When I told Melissa they were up I called them Bare Naked Ladies, which I thought was their common name.  I was informed that Barenaked Ladies was a band while the flowers were simply   Naked Ladies.  The Canadian rock band formed in 1988 in Scarborough, Ontario, and developed a cult following in Canada beginning in 1991.  Their self-titled cassette became the first independent release to be certified gold in Canada. They reached mainstream success in Canada in 1992 and United States success in 1996.  In the 2010’s, the band became well-known for creating the theme song for, “The Big Bang Theory.”  The group has sold over 15 million records, including albums and singles, and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in March 2018.

With all the rain and weather we have gotten this summer I have been mowing right around two times a week.  I have also been mowing at a higher blade level.  If I cut it shorter my yard ends up looking like I am getting ready to bale hay.  I usually only do weed eating every second or third time, depending on how energetic I feel.  When I was getting the yard ready on Saturday I got too close to the Naked Ladies and cut two of them down.  While I felt sheepish about my guffaw, I got up my courage and told Melissa what I had done.  She said it was fine, as long as it is not one of her succulents.

THOUGHTS:  This is not the first time I have taken a weed eater to someone’s flowers.  I was helping my brother mow a tenant’s yard years ago and he came running over with his arms waving.  I was weeding through the flowers that had been replanted along the side of the house.  It seems his tenant had planted them unknown to my brother and he had done the same the month before.  Like my Naked Ladies, it is hard enough to keep from making mistakes when you know what to expect.  Like the tenant’s flowers, it is even harder when you do not know what to expect.  This summer we seem to be finding out what has been known, but not always recognized.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 25, 2020

I heard of a great place to catch bream over the weekend.  It was at the mouth of a stream that fed a lake near where I work.  I am always excited about trying a new fishing spot, especially when the fish are biting.  I drove up to work for a meeting and then checked some logistics for the coming Sunday.  I changed into a pair of shorts as I was expecting to be wading, and then headed for the stream.  Even though I did not know the exact location, I knew where the lake was, and I could see the stream on my phone map.  I took a road that looked like it led to the stream, but it stopped well short of any water.  I asked two park workers who were stopped for a break if they knew how to get to the site.  They told me the easiest way was by kayak.  If I wanted to hike, I could follow the trail from here for about ten miles, but they did not know if it went to the stream.  That seemed like a long shot for a “maybe.”  I declined the hike.

Since I was already at the lake, I decided I might as well do some fishing.  I drove to the boat launch to see if there was a way to get along the old dam that had been breached to combine the two lakes into one.  When I stopped, a roadrunner scooted across the parking lot toward a line of trees along the shore.  I stayed in the truck but tried to get a picture for my birding.  The bird kept running in and out of the trees, feasting on the insects it scared up.  Although I took several pictures, I was a little too far and the bird too quick to get a good one.  Then the ranger pulled up and the bird took off.  I decided to let my fuzzy picture count.

By now I was hooked on doing some more birding and seeing if I could find a way near the stream.  Google showed a road went alongside the stream, so I decided to follow it.  While this began as a paved road it quickly became improved dirt.  That threw me and I ground to a stop.  Just off the path was a fawn not more than 20 feet away.  The map indicated the road followed along the stream for several miles and then came back to the main highway, so I continued my trek to find water.  I passed a trail head and decided to follow it downhill on foot.  While it led to the stream, it was basically dry.  There were several dozen small, crested birds with white bellies that darted on the water catching insects.  Once more they were too fast for me to focus my camera and I did not know what they were (they did not count).  At least I got a picture of the fawn.

THOUGHTS:  I read a book several years ago called, Good to Great, by Jim Collins.  His point was too many companies (and people) settle with doing good, and do not put in the extra planning and work it takes to be great.  That is what I did with my roadrunner picture, and why today’s blog is titled Fawn rather than Roadrunner.  This is also the specter that faces our nation during the current unrest and pandemic.  Some are saying we have done a good job addressing the unrest and fighting the pandemic.  The problem is, good is not even close to making a permanent change to our systemic racism or stopping the virus.  To make America great, we need to do the work and follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 24, 2020

While I was watching the Royals the other night (during a 7-2 loss) the commentators mentioned how the first glove you ever owned always stayed with you.  It reminded me of the first glove I ever owned.  This was an old timer.  I do not remember where it came from, but I do remember how it was transformed.  I recall the glove was given to my father.  It was an old glove at the time.  It was literally five padded fingers used to soften the sting when the ball was caught, with no webbing.  I got this glove in the early 1960’s and the webbing that later became the norm came into common use between the thumb and forefinger in 1920.

I remember thinking when I first saw the glove, “How am I going to use this?”   Luckily, our small town had a saddlery shop.  My father took me to the shop, and we asked if he could weave a piece of leather between the fingers to keep them together, and then put some sort of webbing between the thumb and forefinger so I could have something that resembled a modern glove.  He was more than happy to oblige, and my first baseball glove was born.

I might be wrong, but I do not think this is the type of glove either of the announcers were referring to.  They both played professional baseball and probably never saw a pre-1920’s glove without webbing.  Instead, I came from a small town where poverty was the norm.  I never recall feeling poor or impoverished, but as I look back on my life it is obvious that was the case.  I find it interesting how what we experience as the norm is juxtaposed to what everyone else experiences.

THOUGHTS:  One of the reasons for rushing the children back into school is due to the reliance on the breakfast and lunch programs that feed 20% of children in America.  While this is a sad statement on what we call one of the most affluent nations in the world, it is a fact of life.  Yes, we need to feed children.  Yes, we need to educate children so they are prepared to enter good jobs.  I just hope we are not willing to sacrifice the children for the sake of opening the economy.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 22, 2020

It has been cooler this week (in the high 80’s!) so I thought the fish might be more active.  I went to a lake that has always seemed perfect but has never yielded many fish.  I fished for over an hour using both worms and stink bait and never got a single bite.  This is the same place I had fished last year without any luck.  As we were getting ready to leave, we saw a snake swim across our path about ten feet from the bank.  It had a good sized catfish in its mouth.  I thought, “Perfect! Even the snakes are better fishers than me.”

While several private schools have already started back, the public schools in our state are set to open next week.  The Governor also opened the public playgrounds this week after being closed all summer.  The park where I fished has a playground and I saw the tape that had encompassed the gyms and swings had been removed.  There was a family of small children happily climbing the gyms and sliding down the slides.  There were also three young girls playing on the swings.  They had arrived in a car.  It reminded me of when I was in High school and still enjoyed swinging at the playground.  This was something they all lost during the summer of covid-19.

Melissa texted me as I was preparing to leave.  I was in the midst of responding when I got a massive bite, taking my bobber completely under and keeping it there for several seconds.  I fumbled to put my phone away so I could retrieve my fish.  The bobber surfaced and then went under again so I was sure the fish was on.  When I pulled in the line, the fish was gone.  I got no more bites so I changed lakes.  Melissa again sent a text and as I was responding I got a bite on my cat pole which I again missed.  I almost texted Melissa to say to keep texting as it seemed to be acting as a fish call.  Or maybe fisherpeople are just superstitious.

THOUGHTS:  The pandemic has forced many changes on our country this summer.  It began without Proms and graduations and moved into closed parks and playgrounds.  Even while elderly and high-risk persons have stayed behind windows and locked doors, there are others who refuse to distance and wear their masks.  Large groups of unmasked persons have been seen at beaches, pools, bars, and parties.  Now that schools are reopening covid-19 cases are again on the rise.  Other countries heeded the advice of experts, locked down or wore masks, and are now reopening safely.  We decided to ignore the experts and are now reopening despite the rise in numbers.  We are told it will magically go away.  I wonder if we are being superstitious.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 21, 2020

I have mentioned how Melissa and I compete to see who can catch the smallest fish.  Several days ago, I pulled in the lunker pictured today.  The fish that previously held the record was a minnow.  It was slender and about two inches long.  The current record holder is a bluegill.  While it might have weighed more, it was only an inch and a quarter.  I caught both records in the same lake.  This lake also stocks trout during the winter months, although the stocked fish do not seem to stay around long.

When I went out to the one of the state stocking sites, I learned why they are soon depleted.  Most trout do not survive past one week of being stocked.  Soon after stocking they are being caught.  Trout do not seem to move far from their stocking location, but since the lake itself is small, they do migrate around the water.  Another reason is the high numbers of anglers who fish when they hear of a stock.  The longer a fish can survive and adapt to its new surroundings, the more likely they can evade the influx of anglers.  Most do not have enough time to find out.

It is interesting that I caught my two “record” fish in different ways.  The minnow was landed on a #16 elk hair fly.  I had just returned my catch back to the water and tossed my line in preparing to cast.  I stopped for a moment and said something to Melissa, and when I raised the line, there was the minnow.  The bluegill was caught on a #10 hook baited with a worm.  Baited may be an exaggeration.  A bite had stripped all but the tiniest amount of worm and I dropped my line to get another worm to bait.  When I picked up the pole my fish was on.  At least I did not have to fight either fish for long.

THOUGHTS:  One of the largest trout I ever caught was on the Dream Stream in Colorado.  I caught it the same way I caught both of my “tiny” records.  My son Alex had been working a hole he knew held a big fish but finally gave up.  Then I cast my fly and stopped to readjust my line.  That is when the fish struck.  It makes me ponder if I am a better fisherperson when I am not trying to fish?  Sometimes we try so hard to get it “right” that we become immobilized with inaction.  This seems to be what could happen with both our current emergencies.  Rather than waiting to get it right, we need to act to correct the wrong.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 20, 2020

Technological advances have transformed how we watch and how we elect our presidential candidates.  The first Presidential election spanned across two years, from December 15, 1788 to January 10, 1789.  George Washington was unanimously elected, and John Adams became Vice President by securing the next highest total of electoral votes.  The process changed in 1804 with ratification of the 12th Amendment, which allowed the electors to vote for both President and Vice President.

The process changed dramatically with the 1960 presidential election.  This was the first election in which fifty states participated and the last where the District of Columbia did not.  It was the first election where an incumbent was ineligible for a third term because of the term limits established by the 22nd Amendment.  Kennedy defeated Nixon in a 303 to 219 Electoral College victory and is considered to have won the national popular vote by 112,827, a margin of 0.17 percent.  Kennedy’s campaign skills decisively outmatched Nixon’s, who campaigned in all fifty states while Kennedy focused on the populous swing states and relied on Johnson to hold the South.  The campaign featured the first televised debates, and many believe the persona projected on this new medium resulted in the close victory.

I have been intrigued by the presentation for the Democratic National Convention (DNC) this year.   The pandemic forced the DNC to hold a virtual convention.  The DNC bought out a mixture of A-List celebrities, everyday Americans, and party activists, including disgruntled Republicans, saying they were voting for Biden.  One of the most interesting times during these two-hour nightly events was what has been in the past the most boring.  The Roll Call vote on Tuesday featured innovative comments and backdrops by the states electors while submitting votes for the two candidates (if you did not catch it, Biden won).  I read an article from the RNC saying they watched the process intently while plotting their own strategy.  It will be interesting to see what they learned.

THOUGHTS:  Many past conventions by both parties have been long drawn out affairs centering around boring speeches from presidential want-a-bes.  The pre-taped comments by a mixture of people presented the issues in a fresh new way (and kept them in time limits).   Most of the rhetoric centered around the response to the pandemic and Black Lives Matter.  Kamala Harris addressed both with an insightful quip, “There is no vaccine for racism.  You have got to do the work.”  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 19, 2020

I realize I am far from cutting edge when it comes to what is cool (or should I say “tight” or “sick”?) in this day.  When I went to the grocery this week, I came across an entire cold case that was filled with vegetarian substitutes for other forms of food.  Most of this was made from cauliflower processed to take the form of other food.  Of course, they had several kinds of veggie burgers or garden burgers, but they also had veggie cheese, veggie swirl pasta, veggie chicken, and veggie bacon.  I must admit, the one that really took me back was the veggie hash browns and veggie tots.  Funny, I always thought potatoes were a vegetable.

Plant based brands have come a long way since Tofurky launched 25 years ago.  The challenge they face is twofold.  First, as at my grocery they are relegated to their own case and separated from mainstream food.  That means unless you are looking for plant-based substitutes, you will glance and move on.  Second is the confusion about vegan/vegetarian/lacto-vegiterian/ovo-vegitarian/ovo-lacto-vegitarian/pesce-vegitarian, and so on (btw: it means milk, eggs, and fish).  Everyone seems to have their own spin on what to call these substitutes and how to brand them for the public.

Melissa and I have tried several different plant-based substitutes now that we try to eat better.  We have purchased riced cauliflower (rice substitute), broccoli swirls (pasta substitute), and a few others I cannot remember.  I guess that is the problem I have with most of these substitutes, they are forgettable (sorry if they are your forte).  It is not that I do not like the substitute, but it is quite a different texture and taste, no matter what it says on the box.  I will also say this.  The veggie case was the only well stocked case in the store.

THOUGHTS:  When I was in High School my mom thought I was eating too much salt and asked me on several occasions not to use so much.  Although I tried to cut down, it seemed never enough.  Without saying anything to me, she mixed a salt substitute half and half with the salt, hoping to cut down my intake secretly.  The very first meal together I salted my food and took a bite.  I immediately looked up and asked, “What is wrong with the salt.”  Changing diets is like changing habits.  You need to be aware of what you are doing and why.  Unless we make a conscious effort to change and commit to working toward change daily, it will not happen.  Now is the time to commit.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 18, 2020

I decided to try something new for this week’s meeting.  We went into lock down just as I started work.  I believe it was several weeks later I started our weekly Zoom call.  This worked very well with several out of state and others logging on over the noon hour.  I was initially wary when we reopened but had been asked to also hold the meeting in person.  I checked around and while some said the hybrid meetings were difficult, Melissa assured me they did them all the time at her last job, and that was before the pandemic.  I checked the equipment last week and let people know were holding Monday’s meeting in both formats.

On the way home yesterday, we saw a trail of furniture strewn along the Interstate.  First, we came across a chair cushion lying in the median.  About a mile later we came across the chair itself, again in the median.  Then about another mile and we came across an end table laying along the side of the road.  It had not faired as well as the other items and was smashed to pieces.  I noticed all three items were still there today, so the owner had not returned to see if they were salvageable.  I am sure when they arrived at their destination they realized “somewhere” along the route it had fallen off.  That is what I call having a bad day.

Even though all the equipment was working for our meeting, the sound was not.  We tried several different scenarios, and nothing worked.  That meant I ended up repeating what was said to allow both formats to follow the conversation.  When I left today, I got to thinking about why the sound was off.  Then I realized I was using an HDMI cable to connect to a flat screen TV.  This was not a monitor like I used at home.  TV’s have their own sound system and the HDMI cable sent my laptop sound to the TV.  I went back and reset the system, turned it on, and turned up the volume on the TV.  Sure enough, it worked.  I hope it still does next week.

THOUGHTS:  Having a bad day can be relative.  I remember working for a furniture store in college as a delivery boy.  We were taking a King Size mattress a short distance and did not tie it down.  We got about two blocks and the wind hit it.  I watched my rear-view mirror with horror as a $700 mattress swirled into the air and slid down Main Street.  I learned from that bad day, just as I did from today’s meeting mishap.  The “day” we are now living is considerably longer and is having more devastating effect.   We can choose to learn from our bad day, or we can pretend it is not happening.  Follow the science.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 17, 2020

I have found it amazing (and been humbled) that both Melissa and I have been hired to new jobs since the pandemic began.  What has been even more amazing is that both of our jobs seem tailor made for what we are good at and like to do.  To top it off, while both jobs are traditionally office oriented, during this time of turmoil they have become work from home opportunities.  Melissa still goes into the office three times a week and I try to get there at least twice a week.  Even when Melissa goes to the office, the meetings she attends are Zoom calls, even when the participants are seated in a cubicle eight feet away.

Both of us have found there are good and bad sides to this new office environment.  Working from home means there are less of the normal distractions that come with interaction in an office setting.  Starting a new job during the pandemic does make it harder to connect to your co-workers.  While the zoom calls Melissa frequents identify the names of the participants, it does not say what they do or their position in the company.  This has caused her to create flow charts outlining who reports to whom and what their job is.  I only had a couple of visits with my people before the lockdown.  Even though we have reopened, it is with masks and distancing.  That makes it hard to connect a name to a face when the face is generally covered.  It also limits my face time which has been an important way I used to connect in the past.

Another change has come in the way we use technology to accomplish what we do.  I had used extended screens before but never really found them useful.  Now that I commandeered Melissa’s home office, I have the luxury of a 30” monitor sitting next to my laptop.  This initially provided a cool way to play my game but has since become an essential way for me to write.  I pull up different documents or websites and cut and paste between the screens and rewrite.  It is now hard for me to sit down with just my laptop.  Melissa has it harder.  At work she uses three monitors to transfer thoughts and images about her various databases.  Once you get used to enhanced access, it is hard to go back.

THOUGHTS:  Melissa was bemoaning how she only had two screens when she worked at home.  I mentioned we had an additional flat screen monitor in the bedroom that was not being used.  This was an older version that had a VGA connection, but it was larger and available.  We went to the store and bought the right converter and she was set.  Her work on Friday was back to the new normal.  This new normal is forcing us to reevaluate not only what is essential work, but how the work we do is being done.  More work is being done from home and may never go back to the office.  Robots are being employed to accomplish repetitious jobs faster and with greater accuracy.  Just as the information age phased out old jobs and created new ones, so has the pandemic.  What has remained is the human element of a desire to connect with others.  Connecting while distancing sounds like the next wave of self-help books.  Change is coming and it starts with you.