Hen Wallow Falls

Saturday:

The Cosby campground & picnic area is around 60 miles from Maryville, TN. A 1.5 hour drive, which is well removed from the first time here, in the Summer of 1973.

Those many years ago, we were camping in the Smokies, with my parents and my brother Mark. Based on this trail, I assume we stayed in Cosby, for those many years ago, Dad took the two of us boys for a hike in the woods.

To this day, an austere 3"x5" photograph of Mark & I, sitting on a large rock at the base of the falls is still a part of my parents' "on display" collection of household photos. And to this day, I recall the sights of that walk, mostly being the huge logs and standing deadwood of the American Chestnut, which had been wiped out decades earlier by a blight.

Thirty six years later, I'm the same age as my father was when he took us on this hike. And along the trail, there's still some slowly composting logs - not quite as huge as I remember them, but still 3-4ft diameter and arrow-straight for 50 to 75 feet (or perhaps even more). T

A unique recollection, since what I've enjoyed in the hikes in the Smokey Mountains have been sights such as the waterfalls themselves, and here's a long discussion of times past and of the "boring" fauna of a quiet walk in the woods that lack a spectacular view of mountains or water or wildlife.

As the trail undulated for its 2+ miles back, a sight again seen was more scat from black bear. Fresh. Approaching the falls itself, a convergence of groups resulted in easily a score of human visitors to the base of the falls, and the predictable chatter and bustle that often accompanies groups of youths (a soccer team, we understand). A reminder of the population who visits this National Park and a strong contrast to the day that the three of us were here, all by ourselves. Of course, this day happened to be a Saturday, which clearly can be an influence on attendance.

After a break, we returned, and reflected on our visit, including my prior visit so many years earlier. There wasn't any huge standing deadwood with the Chestnut's distinctive spiral in its grain like I recall so vividly, but I did see a fallen icon that looked incrementally less ancient than the others that seemed to be in the appropriate region and size.


-hh

A busy fall...

The last few months have been quite busy, with a bit of globe-hopping. Within the past three months, I think there were 3 weeks in Europe, 2 weeks in the Caribbean, 2 weeks in Africa and a quick trip from the East to the West Coast to present a paper and vamoose back home.

Thus, there's the latest batch of travel photographs organized and sorted while getting ready for winter to hit us locally. In taking a break from that project (1000 down, 2000 to go), the subject of travel while exploring found an interesting website utility, namely the ability to make up personal "Been There" travel maps from Phillips 66.

Domestically:



Internationally:



If you're looking for changes since 2007, well, there's just Denmark.
In the meantime, there's still plenty of things on the "1000 Places before you Die" list that remain to be worked on.

And since it is that time of year for one's annual holiday contribution to Capitalism, it is quite obviously way behind schedule as a result of not really being at home for half of the time over the past few months. Plus there's more important things. Just last night, we spent a solid hour on an expensive long distance phone call to a friend who survived having half of their house fall on top of them from a Category 4 Hurricane a few weeks ago. The gift wasn't really our offers to send Care packages, but simply the opportunity for a listening ear for them to be able to give that big emotional 'dump'. Nevertheless, we'll be putting together a package for them over the next week or so with some surprises, since they have months of clean-up and recovery to do.


-hh

It done burned down

(backdated)

Dateline: Tanzania

Some of our time this month was spent on Safari in southern & western Tanzania.

While at Ruaha National Park, we spent some time chatting with the camp manager, who had previously been working at Mikumi.

We found that a controlled fire ... done poorly ... last season had burned out of control and up over the hilltop where a camp that we had previously stayed at, destroying all of the facilities.

Thus, this Banda - it done burned down:


Great views, great memories ...

Fortunately, word is that the Foxes do intend to rebuild the camp; it will just take some time.


-hh

Customer Service in the Internet Age

The above links to an MSNBC article of the title:
"Complaining Couple Banned from Cruise Line".


Briefly, the article discusses how a cruise line (Royal Caribbean) chose to permanently decline the business from a particular customer (that sounds nicer than "ban"). Apparently, they had found reason to complain ... and apparently ask for meaningful financial compensation ... over 80% of the time (5 out of 6 cruises).


There's a few interesting points in this topic.

First, there are most definitely consumers (such as the Morans) who will frequently exploit any excuse to forcibly leverage a cost concession. In this regards, Royal Caribbean is better off without them and does have the right to decline their business.

However, there is the issue with 'freedom of opinion' on discussion groups. It is safe to say that literally no discussion group has been free of pressure from special interests to delete or amend existing comments, which frequently leads to censorship issues.

There is an old saying that the Internet interprets censorship as network damage and routes around it

In general, this potential problem rapidly becomes a slippery slope when the Message Board is being hosted by the company...a case of where Marketing trumps ethics and fear of "Brand Damage" is more important than hearing real consumer feedback (in order to improve the Brand): it is a manifestation where the corporation reveals a lack of confidence in the strength of their Brand.

A few years ago, I was a reader of just such a group that was hosted to benefit Divi Resorts (a Timeshare company) and there rapidly became a zero tolerance ... enforced through censorship ... for any and all possible criticism from their customers. As such, the group was a sham: nothing more than a marketing mouthpiece, not a source of honest, balanced information, or for frank consumer/supplier dialog... something that would be more expected when one has spent $10K+ for a timeshare. And what was the fate of property that Divi had rejected years worth of customer 'feedback' about? Its death spiral continued until it was shut down in 2006. Glad I'm not a big investor in Divi Resorts, as any company who clearly chooses to ignore repeated warnings about their product's shortcomings is not going to be particularly successful in the long run.

Thus, the general conclusion that I have come to is that the only discussion groups that can be functionally trusted are those upon which censorship is impossible, which is USENET, or a Message Board whose official published policy is that all discord will be discussed fully in the open for the public to witness firsthand (good luck finding one of these).

But there is good news for this for consumers in that the Internet - - despite its shortcomings - - has been a resource that has restored some power back to the consumer, for previously isolated individuals can now communicate, and it is common to compare the company's response. It used to be that a company could merely tell 50 customers, "Gosh, you're the first one that this has ever happened to!" to try to smooth things over and to minimize financial recompense, but today, that claim is far more likely to get caught and thus revealed as a lie.

Since its only a fairly small percentages of consumer who have caught on to this information sharing, and that information is still dispersed across the 'Net, a businesses' tactics to use 20th Century spin-doctoring will still work 80% of the time. However, the downside risk is that when it doesn't fly, that business gets hit hard because their claims get destroyed by these collaborative power of 21st Century communications, and then they get nailed a second time ...even harder... for having flat-out lied to multiple customers.

This is not the case here with Royal Caribbean, but the amazing part is that a surprising number of companies still "Don't Get It". Here, RC was in a pattern of responding to individual complaints - - they didn't see the pattern until it was pointed out to them by other consumers.

And for the Morans? The Internet revealed their pattern of behavior, which in this case is now helping a business to avoid future complaints from them. Yes, its a two-way street: they made their bed, so now they have to lie in it.


-hh

Fresh Rock

Got a few photos from the Goddess Pele, during a chopper flight that was fortunate enough to coincide with the "Thanksgiving Eve" breakout (2007).

Here's the US Geological Survey's map of the new terrain, as well as one of their professional photos, taken ridiculously close.

For mere tourists, this is about the best we can do:

There's no scale to provide perspective, but as per the USGS's website, the perch channel pond in the top corner (dark) has a 6m ledge (20ft) and is around 50m wide (165ft), so the lively red one that's in the center of this image is probably well over 100 feet wide, and probably closer to 125ft.

Another view, of the lava's leading edge, can be found here.


We later did some hiking in Volcanos National Park over old (safer) lava beds and while geological aspects of it were interesting, even though "desolation" was expected, our normal expectations are nevertheless that if Mother Nature did it and we made it into a National Park, it should probably be pretty too. Sorry, but I do have to admit that the footing was a lot like walking over an old broken up macadam parking lot in an old US city, like Philadelphia or Newark. A few hours of walking with lousy footing over ridges and piles of black rocks, only to see...more black rocks! ... isn't a particularly appealing hike.


-hh

Hilton Waikoloa Village - Hawaii

Been away; spent some time of last month exploring Hawaii...

The low spot was the Thanksgiving Buffet at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. Food wasn't anything superior to a normal steam tray buffet, but what was most disconcerting was that the Service was ... non-existent! Yes, beyond Poor Service. The Dining Staff never followed-up to see if we wanted to buy additional cocktails, let alone even refill our water glasses, remove empty plates, etc. Considering that they didn't have to serve because it was buffet makes these shortcomings even more unacceptable.

Finally, after watching literally 20 minutes pass on my stopwatch for anyone to arrive, someone finally realized that two people with empty glasses, a half dozen empty dishes, napkins on the table top, etc, was a hint. We could finally ask for our check, and they got a mild earful about the utter lack of service. What was a further disappointment was the staff's failure to recover from this 'Customer Service' feedback, where they were literally hopeless to suggest anything to compensate, other than 'Coffee?'

(no thank you - its also too late for that, because I finished my dessert ten minutes ago. Just the check please).

Based on my positive business travels using the Hilton Family products, I would have expected that they would have Compensated us at least our drinks. Nope. Nothing.


So from two weeks of vacation in Hawaii, we can firmly say that in meals ranging from simple hot dog stands and shrimp trucks all the way up to the Hilton Waikoloa Village, the absolute worst service we received anywhere was at the Hilton Waikoloa Village on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Its prompting me to rethink what hotel chain I'm using for my ~10 weeks of business trips per year.


-hh

Downtime

Each one of us has our own ways in which we take a respite from our daily routine, such as surfing the web as a distraction. Hopefully, we also have more concrete places to escape to when its time for a proper Holiday. We've been enjoying such a respite, and have had the good fortune to catch up with old friends and recent ones from various parts of the States while enjoying some time in the quiet seclusion of Cayman Brac. Most visitors here don't know that the small "Bay" ... if one can really call a body of water that's less than 100m wide a Bay, but here they do, for it is a rare protected anchorage ... actually has a name. It is Dick Sessenger Bay and what was memorialized in the book "The Firm" is a long ways from reality. I couldn't imagine twenty boats in here, let alone a hundred.




However, enjoyment of such respites always assumes, of course, that afterwards, we can return home safely and find all at our home still in order. After downloading today's new digital photos and picking a few to talk about, I'm thinking of K & P from San Diego, who were watching the news on Monday and making phone calls home to find if they're part of the quarter million households whose homes are being endangered by out of control wildfires. They started their journey home on Tuesday; hope that they find that they have a home to return to, safe and undamaged, as well as their family members too.


-hh