First Flight Since March 7

This weekend my wife and I braved air travel and headed to Ohio to visit our son and his family. It is the first flight I have been on since March 7. I have to say that I felt reluctant to get on the plane due to COVID-19. After taking the journey, the flight was probably the safest part of the trip.

Normally I would have had someone drop us off at the airport but our daughter had to go to work. We could have parked at the airport but instead opted to take the train to the airport. It meant a 1-mile walk to the train station but I don't mind the exercise and so we did that. In hindsight, we should have parked at the airport. We had to change trains and have a 29-minute wait for a different train line in downtown Salt Lake. Neither my wife nor I minded the wait for our next train. What we did mind was the lack of thought for others on the train. I am not a fan of masks but they are required on the train. Not everyone felt obligated to wear one and about half of the passengers didn't bother. Unfortunately the people that didn't wear masks are part of the demographic in Salt Lake at most risk for COVID-19. I couldn't wait to get to the airport and off that train. Once there, I made sure to use a liberal quantity of hand sanitizer. I hope it works.

The security line at the airport moved very quickly and we found ourselves at the Southwest Airline gates. We had an early boarding number and found a row 4 seats back. I put my wife at the window and I took the isle. Southwest is not loading the planes to capacity so they can ensure all middle seats on the flight are empty. I appreciate that. Furthermore you are required to wear a mask on the flight. If you have some medical condition that prevents you from wearing a mask, they won't let you on the plane. The only exception is young children under the age of 2.

The flight went well to Chicago. The 2 and a half hour flight is the longest I have worn a mask since COVID-19 started. I hated it but am not complaining because I want everyone around me to be wearing a mask. We landed in Chicago and had to continue wearing masks until we got a pizza at one of few open restaurants in the airport. Once we finished the meal, the masks went back on. I have to admit that the airport really felt like a scene out of a zombie apocalypse movie.

The flight from Chicago to Cleveland lasted only 45 minutes and went quickly. My son picked us up at the airport and we had a relatively short drive to his home. Once there I could reflect on my flight experience. I feel a lot more comfortable about flying but it is not something I want to do frequently. In other words, I won't be doing it for work any time soon. I don't think I will be using the train any time soon though and would discourage anyone from doing so until COVID-19 has been resolved.

Growing Importance of Video Editing

There are a number of changes that have taken place in the world because of COVID-19 and more changes are coming. One of the changes I have noticed recently is the growing importance of video editing skills. It used to be that specialists would be responsible for such tasks. Now more and more people are having to put together videos as we are restricted from meeting in person because of the pandemic.

I first noticed videos proliferating as a form of communication within my community in Utah. Once a month I am being sent a link to a video. That video is very high-quality and provides updates on the local COVID-19 situation along with a message of encouragement in dealing with all of the various situations we are facing.

Now I am starting to see a number of presentations being done at work with videos instead of PowerPoint. The reasons for this are many. Some people feel more comfortable creating a video instead of speaking live. Others are trying to ensure time constraints are followed. I'm also sure others feel that video allows for a more flashy presentation. Ultimately video has some distinct advantages with more and more people taking advantage of them.

Several years ago I started putting together videos as a self-improvement project. I figured it would be a nice skill to have and have put together 4 videos so far that are available on my YouTube channel. I am in the middle of writing the narration for my next video about when I sailed a 37-foot racing sailboat from Hawaii to Los Angeles many years ago. Hopefully I will have it finished soon.

Here are some of the lessons I have learned creating my videos and hopefully they will help you:

1. Find a video editing tool that works for you and stick with it. Most tools have a number of features and it takes a bit of time to discover the full capabilities of the software you have chosen. I prefer using the Mac over Windows and so I use iMovie as it comes preloaded on all Macs.
2. Try to continually improve on your work. When I went to put together my most recent video, I went back and reviewed my 3 previous videos and made notes on what I could to improve. My 2020 Yurt video is my favorite because I fixed quite a few shortcomings found in the other videos.
3. Have people help review your videos. One of the most difficult things for me is to ask for someone to review my videos. While most comments I get are how well they look, I cringe when people find problems with them. Unfortunately those are the comments that will help you improve. I have one of my coworkers who is great at this and provides very useful feedback. He isn't malicious but sincerely wants to help me improve my work.
   
4. You don't have to use all of the features in your video editing software in every video. When word processing software began widespread use, some users felt obligated to use every font possible in a single-page document. In the end, it detracted from the work. The same can be said of video editing software. You don't need to use all 50 video transitions in a single 2-minute video. Make sure the features you use add to your message and don't detract from it.
5. Keep track of the settings for what you did so you can use what works or make things better for your next video. I feel like every time I go to create the narration for my videos, I have to relearn what settings I used on the last one. Now I keep copious notes during the video creation process so I don't have to relearn the various tools I use. 
   

Hopefully these 5 tips help should you want to start creating your own videos. As I get more experience with my next video, I'm sure I will be able to provide more hints and tricks.

Video Conference Meeting with Lunch

One of the downsides to not attending meetings in the office is not being able to do lunch meetings. My personal belief is that lunch meetings are not very productive, however, they do reward the participants for attending a long meeting. They also have a benefit of allowing meeting attendees to spend a little personal time together and find out more about each other.

Today I had a several-hour long meeting that included lunch at the end. As I am in Utah and most of my coworkers are in the Bay Area, it is tough to eat lunch together during COVID-19. As a reward for sitting through the whole meeting, one of the department admins sent out gift certificates for Doordash. This is the first time I have used Doordash and so I needed to set up an account. Next I went in and added the coupon code from my office and saw that I had a $25 credit. You can kill yourself with $25 in fast food and so I thought I would see what other healthy choices exist.

I have to confess that I spent all free time during the lengthy meeting going through various menus of local restaurants. There are a number close by that I have never visited and so I had fun filling my cart with items and then erasing my order. Ultimately I decided on a local mid-priced restaurant that I know prepares excellent food. 30 minutes before the meeting ended, I clicked the purchase button. I had some of the $25 credit left over and added it to the recommended tip and submitted the order.

A map appeared on my computer and I could see the progress of my order. I saw when the order was completed at the restaurant and when it started driving towards my home. I thought it great to see the order come straight to my house. I guess that is what happens when you include a larger-than-recommended tip. 15 minutes later, the order was at my door and still very warm. My wife answered the door but the website also showed a picture of the order sitting on my front doorstep. I still had 15 minutes to go in my meeting. I didn't care, I just brought my laptop upstairs with my camera turned off.

I have to be very careful with how much and what food I eat. I ordered enough food for two people even though it was a single order for lunch. I split the meal in half and shared it with my wife. She loved sharing lunch with me and I appreciated involving her in my work meeting without anyone else in the meeting knowing she attended. We didn't discuss anything confidential and it was only for a few minutes but has to go down as one of my best lunch meetings ever.

If you are working from home but miss those lunch meetings where food is brought in for everyone, I highly recommend Doordash, Uber Eats, or some other form of delivered food. I will definitely remember this for future meetings. After the meeting finished, I made sure to send the department admin a heart-felt thank you.

Greyhound From the Comfort of my Own Home

One of the downsides of COVID-19 is that most movie theaters are closed. Sure there are plenty of older movies to watch but lately I have been wanting to see a new movie and last night I got the chance. Earlier in the day, I got an e-mail from Sony Pictures telling me I should watch their new film with Tom Hanks called Greyhound. I thought it might be about a bus trip at first and so I watched the trailer. Then I discovered it is about a naval destroyer escorting ships full of supplies across the North Atlantic at the onset of World War II. This fit right in with one of the themes of my recently completed video games.

Earlier in the day my wife told me that she wanted a date. I thought about doing a few things but COVID-19 makes it tough to go out, especially with the number of new cases in Utah getting larger every day. The movie looked like it would be a fun diversion and I knew we would have the house to ourselves. I also have a really great home theater setup complete with 7.1 surround sound and a nice-sized TV. I showed her the movie trailer and asked if she would enjoy the movie. She agreed that it would be a good watch and so we made it a date, literally.

After dinner we pulled out some popcorn, found some movie candy, and each got a cold-beverage. Then we headed down to our home theater room. Usually I stream all of my movies to my PlayStation 4 but Greyhound is only available on Apple TV+. There isn't an app for it on the PlayStation 4. At least I couldn't find one and so I had to go to plan B: run it from my laptop. Fortunately my surround-sound system has an HDMI port I can plug my laptop into and so I did that. Then I signed up for Apple TV+. They are offering a free 7-day trial and so I started with that. I did have to enter my credit-card information but will probably cancel the trial on Monday. Then I switched my sound settings so I didn't have to listen to my tiny laptop speakers and could hear everything through my home theater setup. Finally we started the movie.

Greyhound is only 91 minutes long and maximizes every second. There is the necessary character development at the beginning and then the movie jumps into the task: getting a number of ships across the Atlantic Ocean without the luxury of air cover for protection. You pretty much can tell what the movie is about from the movie trailer and it played exactly to my expectations.

I have to say I really enjoyed watching the movie from the comfort of my own home. I didn't have to worry about anyone kicking the back of my chair or making noise. In the middle of the movie, I paused it momentarily and didn't miss any actions while I made a refreshment break. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and recommend it highly.

My wife and I took a walk around the neighborhood after the movie and stopped briefly to talk with our neighbors who work in the movie industry. They confirmed that the movie was originally intended to be released to theaters but switched to Apple TV+ because of COVID-19. I found it surprising that Sony Pictures would allow Apple to show the movie instead of their own streaming service or one of the other ones. I guess Apple TV+ is looking for content and paid the best price.

Had Greyhound been released in the theaters, my wife and I would definitely have paid the $20 (the price for 2 reserved seats in Utah) to go and see it. Instead I got to see it from the comfort of my own home for free, provided I remember to cancel my subscription. Thanks Apple!

Sometimes You have to Mow Your Own Lawn

Several years ago I paid a landscaping company to mow my lawn every week. It allowed me more free time on Saturday and only cost $20 per week. I don't have a small yard but it isn't that large either. For me the cost seemed pretty small and not only did they mow the grass but they took care of edging it as well. Then one day the landscaper knocked on my door and said I might want to increase the amount of water I was using as I had a few brown spots that needed attention. After he left, I went out and inspected my yard. I didn't have a few brown spots, I had large sections of dead grass that looked horrible. I discovered that one of the side benefits of mowing my own lawn is that I could continually monitor the state of the grass. I could see when I needed to increase the water as well as see where extra care needed to be taken with regards to weeds. Soon after I cut back on my landscaping service and used them just to do monthly fertilizer treatments. I still use them today and have the greenest grass in the neighborhood.

So what does mowing your own lawn have to do with computers? Well it is an analogy. Several months ago I started a new project at work. We use project managers or PMs to help keep track of all of the little details. I relied heavily on my PM to help me stay on top of all the technical details. Then she decided to take a job at another company and I had to take over all of the PM duties until we could find a replacement. Unfortunately I found out that I had been relying on her too much and the project was in a much worse state than I realized. It kind of felt like I started mowing my own lawn again and I didn't have a single green blade in the proverbial grass. I really had to step up and fix quite a few issues.

Several weeks after our PM left, we hired on a replacement and I had to figure out how to shift some of my new responsibilities to the new hire. I started with the simple things that would help her understand the scope of the project and how I could use her help to take care of the important but seemingly small details. I felt that I didn't want to turn too much over to her as I still had a lot of issues to fix. I'm glad I didn't rely too much on the new PM as she decided the job wasn't for her and left 3 weeks after she started.

Now the project is coming to a close and I have learned a lot. A good technical manager will delegate things to project managers but also follow-up on the details. I didn't need to micromanage but I should have been a lot more proactive about making sure stuff was getting done. It wasn't and I paid dearly for it. Some of the things I did to solve problems include daily status meetings. These don't need to be very long and ideally should be done standing up, which is why we call them stand-ups. I also talk more with the team members and ask about specific details for proposed solutions. I don't challenge the details but make sure I understand what is being proposed so that I can explain it to my management. Recently my boss told me that the changes I instituted have greatly improved the project and helped turn it from a failure to a success. All I could reply is, "Sometimes you have to mow your own lawn."

YouTube: It is not Just for Fixing Cars

My family always has a tradition of taking our sailboat out on the Great Salt Lake every 4th of July, anchoring the boat, and swimming/floating for hours. Sometimes we also actually get the sails up and go sailing. The Great Salt Lake is very shallow and is only 35 feet (10 meters) at its deepest. That means you have to walk a long way from the edge of the lake to get to where the water is deep enough to float. Taking a boat is the best way to get to where you can relax and float.

Unfortunately we thought we would have to miss our annual outing as I could not fix the engine on the boat. We really need the engine to get the boat in and out of the marina. Yes, it is a sailboat and we could use the sails to move the boat around but that is very difficult and best done only during emergencies. I have sailed the boat in and out of our slip and the process taught me a whole new list of cuss words I shouldn't use in front of small children.

As the name of the lake indicates, The Great Salt Lake is full of salt. Right now it is about 3 times as salty as the ocean. We often joke that if you drop a wrench into the lake, it will rust to nothing before the wrench lands on the bottom. That salt is not harmful to the sailboat as the hull is made of fiberglass. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the engine. Our little outboard engine slurps up water from the lake to help cool the engine. At the end of a day of sailing, we run fresh water through the engine to clean out all of the salt. After 19 years of sucking in salt, our engine clogged and I needed to take it apart to clean it.

We had the engine off the boat over the winter and had a local marine store service the engine. One of the things we asked them to do is replace the water pump. They did but they didn't replace the thermostat in the engine and I felt it might be the issue. When we put the engine back on the boat, it ran fine for the first 2 sailing trips and then gave us all indications that it wasn't being cooled properly.

Having replaced quite a few automobile thermostats, I knew the job is not that difficult. I got to the boat early one day over the recent break and pulled off the thermostat housing. Sure enough the 19-year old thermostat looked more like rust than any usable part. I pulled out the old one only to discover the new part didn't fit. I actually wanted to test if water was running through the engine and so I left the thermostat out, put the housing back on the engine, and started it up. There is a telltale that sprays a stream of water out of the engine and into the lake when everything is working correctly. Nothing came out. Knowing that you don't want to run an engine very long without a working thermostat, I shut the engine down, rinsed it off, and headed to the marine parts store. I worked with the manager there to use the serial number of the engine, which I had taken a picture of on my smartphone, and found the correct part. The correct part cost $6 less and so they refunded me the difference.

I didn't want to go back to the boat as the Utah sun was blazing away and being outside felt like being on the surface of the sun. Instead I came home and tried to take my mind off the fact I still hadn't fixed my engine. The next morning my wife and I got ready to head back out to the boat and see if we couldn't get it working. Before leaving home, I found a great YouTube video about fixing the cooling system on outboard motors. The guy narrating the video was from Australia and had an engine with a similar problem to mine. He tried a few things that I always try and had similar results. Then he gave me a small piece of information that I suspected but didn't know: not all of the water that cools the engine exits from the telltale. This effectively said that my engine might be cooling correctly and that the clog could be in the Y-valve where some of the water is diverted to the telltale and the rest exits the engine near the prop.

My wife and I headed to the boat armed with new information. I pulled off the thermostat housing and thoroughly rinsed the cooling path. I also followed the telltale hose all the way to the Y-valve and used compressed air to clean that out. I put the new thermostat back in and it fit perfectly. Then I started the engine and everything worked perfectly. An hour later, our children arrived ready for our annual tradition. YouTube is not just for fixing cars.

Video Game Review: Call of Duty: WWII

Normally I wouldn't bother adding anything to my blog on a national holiday but last night I finished playing a very fitting title given that today is Independence Day in the United States. Last month one of the free games on PlayStation Plus happened to be Call of Duty: WWII and I thought I would give it a go. The campaign is not very long and I finished it over the course of the month. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Call of Duty is one of those franchise games from Activision that is one of the most played video games in the world. I have only dabbled in the games playing the beginning of one or two titles but always having something else on my list of games to play. Lately I have been studying a lot of history and am fascinated by World War II. For some reason my history teachers always spent so much time on discovering America that I never got to study anything past the American Civil War.  I don't have a lot of knowledge about what happened in the second great war other than what I see in movies. I figured I might learn something from the game and was not disappointed.

The game begins with the D-Day invasion. One thing I didn't realize is how late D-Day actually was. I know the United States entered the war on December 7, 1941 but D-Day didn't happen until June 6, 1944. What did we do up until that point? Was our only focus the war in the Pacific with Japan? Now I am going to have to do a bit of reading to figure that out.

The game then has 11 missions all based on actual events in the war. Each mission took me about an hour to complete. Your mileage may vary as some will be a lot faster than me and those new to video games may be slower. The story is pretty linear and there are very few side missions, if any. You do have the option of finding collectables and performing heroic actions but I didn't worry about that through most of the game. I did enjoy the story and that kept me playing.

Before COVID-19 I spent a good part of my week in California where I had a lot more time alone and I could spend it playing video games. Now that I have been at home in Utah since March 7th, I have not really played any video games. I'd rather spend that time with my wife and other family members. Call of Duty: WWII is something I started playing because it interested me and I'm glad I took the time to go all the way through the game. In other words, I highly recommend the game.

Call of Duty: WWII has an ESRB rating of M for mature because of violence and strong language. I wouldn't recommend the game for young children or teenagers for that matter.

I got my copy for free on PlayStation Plus and so the only thing I paid to play the game is my time. If I missed adding the game to my digital game library this month and saw it in the $15 bin at a local retailer, I would probably buy the game.