Welcome to Miami. Pardon our driving, we're reloading.

After a bit of work in the week, I headed to Miami for Angie's birthday. I got a bit of a late start and got to Miami just as traffic and the rain started to pick up. As is typical, the torrential downpour literally only seemed to have lasted the time it took me to get out of the truck, find the right building, and get inside. After meeting up with Angie and being introduced to a dozen or so workmates, we headed towards South Beach for happy hour. At first we were supposed to meet some folks at a place called 'Duos' but saw that there were literally only two customers in the whole place. I took a look at the GPS to find something else nearby and saw that there was a brewery/restaurant less than a half mile away, the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant. I always prefer micro-brews to the generic domestics, so we headed there. After a meal we headed back to the UofM campus residences where her suitemates had another small surprise party waiting. We watched Beerfest before playing some board game for a while. I was a bit tired after driving much of the day and decided to turn in relatively early.

If you bang two diamonds together in rhythm, do you get hard rock music?

Perusing Digg today, I saw a link to an article about diamonds used for engagements. Ah, this traditional (though not even 80 years old) method of showing devotion, sacrifice, and eternal love (though most marriages end in divorce). If it honestly means that much to you on a personal level, then more power to you, but to me things like this often seem to just be to show off, usually to people that just don't care. Prior to the De Beers marketing campaign, engagement rings had no one particular stone associated with them. When I see a huge ring on someone, I'm not impressed by the level of commitment on the part of the man, I think "what a waste of financial resources". That amount of money put into a ring could have been used for the home, vacation/honeymoon, child's education, or hell, even a new plasma television. I would bet anything that the couple would spend more time staring at the plasma TV in the first week of ownership than they would at the ring their entire lives.

People don't consider the economic opportunity cost that diamond sucks up. It isn't an investment, no jeweler above the level of the corner store pawn shop will purchase a diamond at any where near the 'worth' because they want to perpetuate selling them at such a high price and keeping the cost artificially high. A $3000 diamond (assuming you can pay it all off at once and not finance it at high interest rates) over 20 years at just 5% would be worth over $8,000 if interest is just compounded annually. That ring certainly wouldn't be worth that much then, and I don't even think you could sell it for even what you paid when purchased. I just dislike how everyone seems to think that it is expected behavior and anything less somehow signifies that the guy is somehow lacking or unworthy. I must give credit to one of the longest lasting and most effective marketing campaigns ever, for that is all that it is; marketing.

An ounce of sense would seem to dictate that unless money is already falling out of the pockets that one actually just invest the money spent on a lavish ring and wedding by purchasing a home or even use it on some future vacations that would inevitably be a lot more worth it throughout the years as a means to get away and enjoy each other. How many people say they cannot afford to travel, however do not even realize that the trinket worn on the finger could have funded a couple of grand trips if planned well enough? Withing a marriage, women often enough seem to hope for equitably divided responsibilities such as housework, child-rearing, and income through career, however the engagement ring ironic falls well outside this consideration.

http://www.slate.com/id/2167870/pagenum/all/#page_start

"What a strange pattern the shuttle of life can weave." - Frances Marion

Finally after one aborted attempt a year ago, I got to experience my first shuttle launch. I arrived a few hours early and was able to pick up a NPS Passport Stamp for the Canaveral National Seashore at the park headquarters in Titusville. Unfortunately the rest of the park is closed several days prior to shuttle operations, so I couldn't collect any others.

I found a decent area on US 1 just north of Hwy 50 that was a small city or county park with a dock. I figured this would be a good spot (with a view of the pad) to also be able to hear and feel the liftoff. My friend Sophie and one of her associates had spent the day at the Kennedy Space Center and after finishing there came to join me in a space I had reserved.

I think a shuttle launch is something all kids should get a chance to experience as it really can help open the wonders of science. I was surprised as to how long it took for the sound to travel the 12 miles after ignition. I used my Canon XT with 300mm zoom lens to get most shots and was fairly pleased with the performance. Next time I'll definitely have to borrow another extra camera so I can try to get some time lapse shots. I will try to make future launches so I can get more shots and also really get a chance to watch the while sequence instead of focusing on the camera, but had no regrets about it.

While we were waiting for traffic to die down a bit (massive number of people all trying to leave at once is insane), we watched as some really near smoke/steam trail formations formed overhead. It is a shame that undoubtedly most people missed this aspect that I would suspect to be fairly unique, and actually quite stunningly beautiful. While I'll have to work with schedules to see if I can make future day launches, I will undoubtedly make every attempt to go to the next night launch, whenever that may be as the pictures I have seen would make any attempt at viewing this spectacle worthwhile. Here is a link to a NAVY study concerning the noctilucent cloud contrail or 'shuttle clouds'. More infor can be found also at http://www.spaceweather.com/with a nice Flickr set that showed off some of the colors at http://www.flickr.com/photos/35423990@N00/sets/72157600329483616/

Does anyone know how to string together a series of pictures into a movie files (or even one of those animated GIFs)? It is something I've always wanted to try. Pictures can be found here: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=vnlbugz.a5amn37r&x=0&y=b13uzd

Update: I found a neat little service call Glickr that will take a series of up to 10 photos and put them into an animated GIF, but I am still looking for a way to take more of them and build it into something larger. Here is a sample of what it produced by that site;



After looking around a bit more, it seems that Microsoft Movie Maker does what I've been wanting, at least in making some of my pictures into movie. I love technology! Here is an example of the movie [~1MB] I created with the pictures I took of the launch.

http://mblitch.googlepages.com/shuttlelaunch2.wmv

I'm going to try to embed it into this blog post as well.

Customer to sales clerk: "You're overhead, I'm profit"

I recently ordered a laptop for the office and because the ship date was longer than expected and since I needed a unit, I had to call to cancel. Wouldn't you know it, but the morning I am going to contact them, I get a shipping notification from Dell. I still decided to try for a return since I already had other arrangements made. I called Dell and was able to, surprisingly, cancel the order with very little hassle. Because of the excellent experience, I decided to send an email through their website praising the customer service rep. Here is a copy of what I sent;

"I just wanted to comment on the customer care I received this morning for a call. I had called to cancel an order and was prepared for a drawn out conversation of miscommunication and script reading, however I was quite pleasantly surprised at the experience. The customer rep was quite knowledgeable, easy to understand (very important to me) and extremely courteous. She assisted me through every step and shared several options that I had not considered. Over the years I have become increasing frustrated with customer service phone calls as they are outsourced to other countries where all the person can do is typically read from a script and they have little ability to get things done on their own.

The person with whom I had contact was kirsten_baumann@dell.com It is experience like this that will make me much more likely to confine my orders to Dell in the future with the understanding should the need arise, I will be able to get the same level of care."


This evening I received the following response;

"Dear Mr. Blitch:

Thank you for contacting Dell. I'm sorry to hear that you previous interaction with us was not to your satisfaction. Please be assured that your satisfaction is of utmost importance to us and I will work with you till everything is resolved.

As per Dell records Isee that you had requested to setup a return request for the Inspiron Laptop for the order number 68716###. I will provide you with the required information.

Mr. Blitch, we realize the key to our success lies in providing outstanding customer satisfaction. It is input from our customers that help us to evaluate our performance. We hope you will give us the opportunity to serve you again in the way you deserve. Again, we are sorry that you experienced these difficulties, and we hope that we can restore your faith in Dell.

Thank you for choosing Dell."

Right now I am amazed as to how quickly Dell was able to turn a great experience concerning customer service to one that is now quite negative. Their message was the antithesis of what I was attempting to convey. The person with whom I spoke actually gave me personalized response, understood what I was saying, and could communicate. Whomever answered what was supposed to be a positive message in support of Dell has NONE of those qualities and could not seemingly comprehend anything I was trying to say. All they did was provide scripted responses by cutting and pasting or choosing from some pull down menu responses. Even my praise is being shipped overseas and outsourced.


Update: (6/9/07)

I sent a response to the message above that I received from Dell outlining my dismay.

"Did you even comprehend the message I sent in the least? You personally just turned a great experience into a bad one. Your message was the antithesis of what I was saying. The person with whom I spoke actually gave me personalized response, understood what I was saying, and could communicate. Whomever answered what was supposed to be a message in support of Dell has NONE of those qualities. All you did was provide scripted responses by cutting and pasting. It would have been so much better if you just accepted the compliment and let it be, however someone even my praise is being shipped overseas."

In response, I received the following.

"I am the case manager at customer care.

I sincerely apologize that my agent could not comprehend your email in the last interaction you had. I will certainly provide you the required information.

Mr. Blitch. I will certainly forward your valuable feedback to the agent who has resolved your concern. At the same time I will also ensure required feedback to my agent who could not comprehend your email. Your feedback has and will continue to be considered in our ongoing endeavors to improve services. I truly believe that anything less is completely unacceptable. We take this information very seriously and will move to take immediate corrective action.

Once again, I apologize and truly regret any inconvenience or frustration this matter may have caused. If you need any additional information, or have any other questions, please feel free to reply to my email. I will ensure that all of your questions are answered.

Thank you for choosing Dell.

Sadanand_K"

The response was nearly the same as before, broken English that is difficult to understand and seemingly additional canned responses. Who actually ever says "I will certainly provide you the required information"?, especially when sent by two different people. Even my complaint of their handling my praise is getting either scripted responses, I am dealing with the same person pretending to be other people, or they are wholly unimaginative.

I understand the need to save money and reducing labor costs, but I feel this behavior is driving away the American consumer. I do not need this kind of aggravation when I am trying to give someone my business.

Geotagging. Stalk yourself.

A couple of folks have asked how the geotagging is done. Instead of reinventing the wheel (or taking the type to type out the entire process) I'll simply refer you to this excellent post that another person had made that outlines each step. Once used to it, the process is relatively quick

http://hikesandbikes.blogspot.com/2006/10/life-of-geolocated-blog-post.html

For pictures of parties and such it really wouldn't be too useful, but for hiking, kayaking, and other outdoor stuff, it can be a great tool. Ever take a picture outside and well down the road could not remember where you were? This will help eliminate that as well reduce the questions of; where were you, what did you do, etc. from family and friends. Now you can be informative and anti-social at the same time (or could just get rid of the friends who are probably just using you for your cool stories and pictures anyway).

1000 Places to See Before you Die. Bleh

For a few months I had seen promos (excellent lead in commercials for it BTW on a marketing standpoint) for a Travel Channel / Discovery Channel series '1000 Places to See Before You Die' that borrowed from the premise of the book by the same name. I was especially interested since it was being broadcast on Discovery HD so that I would really get to see some quality pictures. The concept was great, however the execution has been quite disappointing.

Apparently some newlywed couple, 'The Ulles', was chosen for this 14 week trip and I do not think they could have found any any less energetic or vapid set of people. The host female is one of the most lackluster people I have seen on TV. She seems the only-go-to-college-to-find-a-husband kind of person as conveyed in the movie 'Mona Lisa Smiles' and has absolutely no ambition. The only thing typically out of her mouth in every episode is 'wow' or 'I cannot believe that ...' and it seems they had done absolutely no research regarding any site they visited. Maybe the producers wanted them to first learn of things as they are experiencing it, but it makes them seem more ignorant than anything else. It feels like watching a pair of sorority and fraternity rejets. Clothing is a typical style of 'fashion' expected from a rich background and worn without thought as to local custom (such as shorts in middle India). Neither are up to attempting anything outside of their norm. Even the comments they have on the website 'photos' is extremely dumbed down and even idiotic.

I had hoped it would involve more information about the interesting sights around each region, not just the big hotels and contact plugs. The Paris show spent a good bit of the time involving their learning how to ride a Segway while Venice had them playing with pigeons in the park, ignoring the Louvre, museums, or other such sites. I hope the Discovery Channel really places more thought on the kind of person they get to host futures shows. I am sure it was a great opportunity for this couple, however they just seemed to have squandered it with a lack of consideration, knowledge, and personality. They honestly seem to be more interested in showing off and looking good than in having any real sense of adventure.

I had looked forward to the show as a means of reviews sites that I might someday like to visit, but it is just too uncomfortable to watch. I really do not hope that there really are that many people out there like these two.

Again, cool concept, horrible execution. Yeah, I'm a bit moody this week. A lot happening on several fronts. at least I'm looking forward to the potential opportunity of seeing the shuttle lauch from Cape Canaveral on Friday if I can get everything I need completed.

Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut. --Ernest Hemingway

The rest of memorial weekend since showing up has been an absolute blast. The trail Saturday was long and mean. We never saw a shred of pavement or civilization as we made our way through literally miles of forest, swamps, and creek crossings. There were many times we were thigh deep in mud and water, and it was great. I do not recommend, however that one do it in a kilt, as I thought might be easier in the heat. Yes, things remain cooler, however the leg shredding one gets in return is not quite so fun. Saturday night were the annual skits where everyone pulled up chairs to the stage and preformed some self written piece of comedy or drama. If you have never been to such event, I cannot really easily describe it herein, just to say most stuff was damn funny, if not entertaining. Thanks for the Mammaries won the evening with her 'Fly the Friendly Thighs Airlines' in-flight service.

Sunday was a day of rest recover and games. For a while a group of us played camp chair bocce ball throughout the camp. No matter where the jack was thrown, we had to play it wither it be through tents, in-play volleyball games, or various gatherings of people. Later in the afternoon there were games of izzy-dizzy (which I am too much of a wimp to play but will gladly watch), frisbee keg, etc. Overall it was a very relaxing weekend made better by friends just wanting to hang out and chill for a while.

A link of some of the pictures I took can be found here, though a lot had to be edited to protect the guilty, but it give you an overall idea of the fun you missed.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=vnlbugz.bjngzj7r&x=0&y=iqc2ey

Before I left my friend Kristin had her friends bring her to Hedon so she could catch a ride home. Since flights were pretty booked and expensive, she flew up to be with her friends for the weekend and asked to ride back with me. I'm not sure if she counted on the long drive, a couple of stops, and listening to my audio books, but that is the way things go sometime. When I was first heading north, I tried to stop by one of the NPS parks in Macon, however I arrived just after 5 o'clock, so I made sure to leave Hedon early enough so I could make it. the last stamp collection for this trip was the Ocmulgee National Monument. This was the site of several old Indian mounds. The visitor center looked to be pretty old, but there were of course exhibits that shared a bit of the history of the area. We had about an hour or so to walk around and covered just about a mile and a half of the park.

I've attached an overlay of the walking track along with some pictures that I would like to have tested, so let me know if it works. http://mblitch.googlepages.com/ocmulgeeoverlay.kmz

Florida natives think the Artic Circle begins somewhere near Atlanta.

I got up relatively early this morning and headed to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield that is the site of a Civil War battlefield. Besides collecting another stamp for the passport I have a general interest in the Civil War, though not quite as much as WWII however. In the visitor center there was a nice museum of the area along with some exhibits, including one that had been set up to display old uniforms and memorabilia of locals that had been involved in various wars. There some nice hiking trails around, however I elected to take a leisurely drive to the parking area since I didn't want to do another mile hike up the mountain since I need my energy for the upcoming weekend. There were several cannon replicas through the top trail as well as interperative signs along the trails with some nice views of the distant Atlanta skyline.

Here is a second attempt at a Google Earth overlay of my hike along with pictures at various points, so again let me know how it looks. http://mblitch.googlepages.com/Kennsawhike.kmz

After finishing up the battlefield site, I decided to head over to the last of my available NPS (National Park Service) passport sites, the Martin Luther King. Jr National Historic Site. This was near the heart of Atlanta at a location near where the civil rights leader was born, grew up, and is now buried. The visitor center is a nice area that held a lot of exhibits concerning the timeline of the civil rights movement both in the south as well as abroad. Besides the stamp in the visitor center, there was also one to be found across the street a a NPS run restored firehouse. Although a tour was starting, I didn't have time to hang around and took for for the main event of the trip, the Hedon Memorial Weekend Campout.

I got in just as Jason was giving me a call, the impatient lout, so the timing seemed to have worked out fairly well. I spent the next few hours trying to organize things and assist others in getting their tents and such set up. People were filtering in throughout the afternoon and it was nice to see some old faces and even make new acquaintances. Quickly it seemed that the place was building up from a quiet private residence to party central. Everyone had their places pretty pimped out out and customized with screened enclosures, kiddie pools, signed, hanging lanterns, and various other objects getting tossed around.

Over 150 people had signed up for the weekend and with good weather predicted, it certainly looked to be a good weekend.

Birthdays. They're not just for spankings anymore.

Well, it seems somehow I haven't been crushed by a meteorite again this year, so I make it to my 31st birthday. Most of the morning and afternoon was spent heading down towards Atlanta. I did a couple of stops along the way to check out Black Rock State Park as well as a few caches. I didn't hit any caches at Black Rock, but was still able to enjoy the views as well as a hike doen to Ada-Hi falls. I kind of like driving the old country back roads and seeing the old homes and fields nestled in the valleys. The really old homes that appear as if they were hand built in the 40's or even earlier hold an allure for me as well. It can be neat to imagine growing up in the old places where one had to provide nearly everything on their own.

I also quickly stopped by the Tallulah Gorge interperative center in hope of capturing a nearby cache. The hike itself was a little over a mile and it ended at a gorgeous overlook of the area in which I was hiking last year. Although the cache remained elusive, I still enjoyed getting a chance to check out this site. One of the last caches I hit was especially nice. It was named 'Secret Falls' and it took quite a bit of turning through residential roads along a golf course, however the final site was especially nice. There was parking right at the base of the falls and after a little poking around, the cache was located. The rest of the trip down was pretty uneventful. I headed over the the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area to collect another park stamp. I had a lovely talk with the ranger there concerning geocaching, stamps, and the general area and probably kept him 10-15 minutes past normal closing time. I sat out by the camper for a while to relax for a bit and had several people come by to take a look at it. I was fortunate that the person with whom I was couchsurfing actually lived just a couple of miles down the road. Shari used to live in Tampa a couple of years ago and we still kept in touch. She was gracious enough to take me out for a sushi dinner downtown. Somehow without my knowing she informed the staff of my birthday status. After we finished the entrees they came out with a fried ice cream scoop and sang some songs, forcing me to stand on a chair as everyone in the place just watched and laughed. Fortunately they didn't make me do any saki-bombs as I had enough saki during the dinner itself. I was pretty tired from the day, and so after Shari and her sister set up the couch for me, went to sleep as soon as I could get the call that I was expecting fairly late.

Not a bad way to spend the day I think.

Hikers do it naturally.

While the temperature got a little cool in the early morning, i was able to stay warm with the layers and sleeping bag. However around 7 o'clock I woke up colder and usual and realize my back was sold since somehow during the night I must have rolled the pad from under me. the problem this presents is that I also rolled the hammock. Unfortunately the mosquito netting is not designed to hold wait and I found it had ripped along the seam along one side. Not the best way to start a morning by exiting a hammock rolling out through a tear. Oh well, after packing and a quick breakfast I was back on the trail. Yesterday was easy in that it involved a lot of downhill walking, however today was mostly uphill for the first 7 miles for an elevation gain of 2600 feet. I originally planned to stay at campsite #52 for the evening, but I got there early enough in that I figured I would just continue through to the end for a total of 11.6 miles. There were some features that I found interesting along the way such as a cave/rock formation waterfall that I found only after following the sound up a steep hill, etc. It was nice to be able to end up right where I left the truck in the end and not have to worry about getting back. Amanda had told me, while driving me to the top for the hike start, of an the old Lufty Baptist Church right where I had parked that I wasn't even thinking of checking out. Once I learned of the history I took a short walk to check it out and was glad to have been able to visit the rustic looking site.

I headed back into Cherokee so that I could run by the Cherokee Indian Museum so I could collect on of the passport stamps that designated a portion of the 'Trail of Tears'. Since I still figured I had time, I headed to the Blue Ridge Parkway to an information center that was supposed to have a stamp as well, however even though I got there before 5pm, the place looked pretty boarded up. I did take the time to do a nice hike on Waterrock Knob that was a bit tough but offered a great view. I went back to the National Park so I could visit the old mill that has remained intact. I wish the inside had been open as it would have been neat to check out the workings of the system, but still quite enjoyed the view outside and walking along the water trough.

Over the past few days I have been experimenting with geotagging and uploading of a GPS track in order to combine them into a file viewable in Google Earth. This should show you a good bit of what the area around Waterrock Knob looks like, the path I took for the hike, and pictures I took along the way. If you can please download the file and take a look at it (assuming you have the free Google Earth program) and let me know what you think. If this works well enough, I plan to upload daily tracks when on my July trip whenever possible.

Here is the file for the Great Smoky Mountains NP hike:
http://mblitch.googlepages.com/MaySmokiesHike2007.kmz

Here is the file for the Waterrock Knob short hike:
http://mblitch.googlepages.com/waterrockknob.kmz



After the hike I headed into town in order to get some food, a bit cleaned up, and use the internet. I was able to find an open wireless connection to check email and make finally get a chance to call back home. I headed south a while until I found a roadside campground where I could grab a quick shower and then continued on my way until I got too tired to drive and pulled into a shopping area parking lot for a rest.