• 12/15/2007 - Keep those wheels rolling, Rawhide
Posted in Unspecified
Punga Grove Motor Lodge, Franz
Joseph New Zealand
With a heavy heart I leave Queenstown.
I could stay another 2 weeks and probably not be satisfied. Back on
the road for a long day of driving. Today, I have a 5h45m dive over
the Southern Alps to the west coast. Did I mention thats its raining?
Raining heavily?!?!?! Well it is. This makes the drive less than
scenic. The views crossing the Alps are supposed to be amazing but I
see nothing. The lack of visibility also detracts from the actual
pleasure of driving empty winding roads. So be it, I know that its
worth the drive because I am going to be hiking on a glacier
tomorrow! Wow I made it, only took 7hrs, pretty good time all things
considered. I pretty much take a hot shower and crash for the night.
The next morning I awake to blue skies and a hot sun, I am ecstatic.
I head over to the tour company and wow is it crowded there.
Apparently, this is the first day in 5 without rain and everyone is
crawling out of the woodwork. Let me tell you about this hike: they
fly you up the glacier by helicopter, drop you off and then you get a
guided hike for 2 hours. I mean it cant get any better than that. I
finally get up to the counter and they tell me that the hike has been
canceled. I am speechless, I mean its beautiful outside, really it
is. How can it be canceled? Well, there is no place to land on the
glacier since the rain wiped out the pad and the guides are up there
now chopping out a new pad. I walk away, head slung low in
disappointment. Suddenly, I turn around and return to the desk and
sign up for the Noon hike, what the hell roll the dice. WE HAVE A
WINNER. They successfully complete the pad and the weather hasn't
turned. Have I mentioned they get 5 METERS of rainfall each year? Did
I note that the rain forest runs right up to the base of the
glacier?!?! Anyway, after persevering through clearly poor gearing
and loading logistics, I arrive on the glacier. Its amazing. Its
beyond description really. We put on our crampons. These are
basically skies that tie onto your mountain boots so you get great
traction. Off we go through the blue, blue ice that is. Why is
glacier ice blue? Nobody could answer my question so you need to go
look it up on the Internet. Tramping around is quite amazing, I
highly recommend it. We are not actually on the glacier either but
the glacial runoff. The glacier is high above us and we are in a
valley which acts as a pressure valve. Remember glaciers are these
ice mountains that are constantly compressing under the weight of new
snow and ice. The glacier actually pushes out an arm of ice to fill
this valley and that what we are climbing on. Still its amazing. As
we return to the landing pad, the rain starts again and its getting
much colder.
The next day I wake to “you guessed
it” more rain. Its another day of driving, this time to Greymouth
for cave rafting. Can you imagine doing a water sport in a cave after
all that rain? I sure cant. I decide to pass on it and drive another
50km to Punakaiki where I am right now. I just payed $30 for 4 hours
of internet access so I can do mail and updates. After today, I head
back down to Greymouth to catch a train back over the Alps (with a
stop in between) to Cristchurch where I will fly out to Sydney on
friday.
This might be my last update from New
Zealand so I hope you have enjoyed the journal so far. I would
appreciate some feedback you can comment on the blog itself or send
me email.
• 12/12/2007 - Masters of the Obvious
Posted in Unspecified
I would like to thanks my buddy Rob back in NYC who mailed me this news report. Im glad to see all that great investment in investigatory reporting yielding such pearls of wisdom!
Subject: Barrons report
Citigroup Doesn't Bank on Its Own Punk Ziegel & Co.
OVER THE PAST DECADES, ONE undying fact about Citigroup has been the gulf between the company's board and its employees. The board simply has no respect for anyone who has come up from the ranks at Citigroup.
More than any other factor, it is the absolute contempt for the internal workforce demonstrated by its leaders which has kept Citigroup in a position of underperformance.
As yet another example of this disdain for the people who work for the company, the board has appointed Vikram Pandit as its new chief executive officer, after a short and what appears to be fevered search, and Win Bischoff as its permanent chairman.
Other top leaders of the company are Robert Rubin, who will retain his position as vice chairman, and Gary Crittenden, who is the recently recruited chief financial officer. Thus, Citigroup has crafted a leadership team from a group of people who have no roots within the company and have no background (other than Crittenden) in the company's primary business of consumer finance.
In a sense, this is almost unbelievable. One could not imagine Goldman Sachs or Lehman Brothers, in the brokerage industry, fashioning a top management core on this basis. Nor would one ever dream that Wells Fargo or Northern Trust, in banking, would do this.
The reason is that these companies care about their employees; craft rigorous training programs; and develop employee skills on the job. There is pride in working for these organizations and managements, and the boards of these companies both respect their employees and are actually proud of them.
It shows in the execution capability of these companies and in the results. These companies intuitively understand the prescriptions for success laid out in two books by Jim Collins, Built to Last and Good to Great.
Citibank/Citicorp/Citigroup has not understood these lessons for decades. It has been a managerial zoo in which employee turnover has been the most dominant characteristic. Employee turnover in which, of late, outsiders always prevail over insiders.
Reaching back into history when George Moore ran this company it was known for developing talent internally. The talent was so good that other banks looked to Citibank to find the people they needed to run their organizations. Under the next CEO, Walter Wriston, this began to change. Mr. Wriston believed in the tenets of Herbert Spencer ("Survival of the Fittest") and set one employee against another in an attempt to get results.
John Reed, who followed Wriston, was legendary for firing every one who demonstrated skills.
Mr. Reed fired every person in top management at the company other than Paul Collins, the tech guy. He turned over the corporate group three times. He fired so many top managers that the company stopped listing its middle-management team in its annual reports.
Mr. Reed completely revamped the board also. The board then turned on Mr. Reed and elevated an outsider, Sandy Weill, to be CEO.
He revamped management one more time and instilled the philosophy of: "Any thing goes as long as it makes money." This cost the company billions.
Mr. Weill was followed by Chuck Prince and another turnover of management. Mr. Prince set out to change the whole corporate culture created by the Wriston-Reed-Weill regimes.
Top ranked companies simply cannot be run in this fashion, and Citigroup is now thought to be unmanageable as a result.
• 12/12/2007 - and now for something completely different . . .
Posted in Unspecified
Merriam-Webster's Word of '07: 'W00t'
By STEPHANIE REITZ " 22 hours ago
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) " Expect cheers among hardcore online game
enthusiasts when they learn Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. Or,
more accurately, expect them to "w00t."
"W00t," a hybrid of
letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or
triumph, topped all other terms in the Springfield-based dictionary
publisher's online poll for the word that best sums up 2007.
Merriam-Webster's president, John Morse, said "w00t" was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology.
"It
shows a really interesting thing that's going on in language. It's a
term that's arrived only because we're now communicating electronically
with each other," Morse said.
Gamers commonly substitute numbers
and symbols for the letters they resemble, Morse says, creating what
they call "l33t speak" " that's "leet" when spoken, short for "elite"
to the rest of the world.
For technophobes, the word also is
familiar from the 1990 movie "Pretty Woman," in which Julia Roberts
startles her date's upper-crust friends with a hearty "Woot, woot,
woot!" at a polo match.
Purists of "l33t speak" often substitute
a "7" for the final "t," expressing a "w007" of victory " an "in your
face" of sorts " when they defeat an online gaming opponent.
"W00t"
was among 20 nominees in a list of the most-searched words in
Merriam-Webster's online dictionary and most frequently submitted terms
from users of its "open dictionary."
The choice did not make Allan Metcalf, executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, say "w00t."
"It's
amusing, but it's limited to a small community and unlikely to spread
and unlikely to last," said Metcalf, an English professor at MacMurray
College in Jacksonville, Ill.
The 2006 pick, "truthiness," also
has its roots in pop culture. It was popularized by Comedy Central
satirical political commentator Stephen Colbert.
Some also-rans
in the 2007 list: the use of "facebook" as a verb to signify using the
Web site by that name; nuanced terms such as "quixotic," "hypocrite"
and "conundrum"; and "blamestorm," a meeting in which mistakes are
aired, fingers are pointed and much discomfort is had by all.
• 12/10/2007 - Doubtful Sound
Posted in Unspecified
Fjordland Navigator, Doubtful
Sound New Zealand.
After taking a launch across a lake, a
bus over a mountain pass, I boarded the mini cruise ship Fjordland
Navigator. The whole area of this peninsula has been carved out by
glaciers leaving many fjords along deep sided mountains. Sadly, its
raining. More on this when I have time.
I will write more when there is time but it rained for 24 hours. Seems that my time on the west coast has missed missed opportunities so far.
• 12/10/2007 - Te Anau
Posted in Unspecified
Dock Bay Lodge, Te Anu New
Zealand
Its a shame that I was so exhausted by
the early start. I definitely feel that I missed out on seeing the
region!!!!!! The lodge had the most amazing view of the lake with the
mountains behind it. Given the opportunity I would go back for a few
days and stay at this lodge. The area has a lot to offer and I want
to sample. Sadly, all I got to do was admire the view and recover
before heading off a bit south to hook up with the Doubtful Sound
overnight cruise. I am actually writing this from the boat. We just
left the dock.
• 12/10/2007 - Dunedin
Posted in Unspecified
Nisbet Cottage, Dunedin New
Zealand
I traveled south from Cristchurch to
the surprising city of Dunedin. If there was a city I would choose to
live in it would be Dunedin. It has lots of attractive features
starting with location. It sits in a protected harbor which just
happens to be the cone of an extinct volcano, go figure! The town
winds up the sides of the cone from the harbor, its very picturesque.
Its hits the size sweet spot at 120k inhabitants giving it the right
size to have most services and a hopping night life. I happened to
turn up during graduation week so it was night life on steroids. The
town center where most of the activities are centered in architect ed
in an octagon of all shapes. At first, I was a bit puzzled by it, my
KEEN sense of direction befuddled but over a few hours I got used to
it. There is a lot to do and see here, I didn't really have as much
time as I would have liked. I did get in two interesting activities.
One full day town tour as I like to do wherever I go and a sunrise
viewing of the nearly extinct yellow eye penguin. Dunedin is the
second largest city on the planet from a landmass perspective. Its
weird that governance of so much empty land is given over to the city
but whatever floats your boat. On my day trip, I got a history lesson
and some city viewing. Dunedin is a city of hills much like a mini
San Francisco. In fact, back in the day, Dunedin got streetcars 1
year after SF installed theirs. They have since been removed as being
too expensive, what a shame! They lay claim to the steepest city
street on the planet and have an annual race up the road called the
“Gut Buster”. New Zealand residents seem to have an unusual
fascination with endurance type events. There is a 640KM bike race
around lake Taupo, takes 18-24 hours. They have these bizarre
orienteering events. I say, why not just hand out cyanide tablets and
be done with it! Anyway, after the city tour, went looking for rare
birds and didn't find any. We did stop at some private property that
the tour company has a deal with but much to everyones surprise the
lady owner was out gardening in her underwear. I guess we were
unexpected and quickly left.
The day I left, I got up at 3AM to go
on the sunrise tour to view the endangered Yellow-Eye penguin.
Basically, we had to descent to a restricted beach in darkness down a
series of switchbacks and sand dunes in the dark. It was quite the
tramping challenge. Not sure how much we descended but it must have
been over 100 meters. Once down we walked across the beach to the
shelter near the nesting area and hid out awaiting the dawn. At dawn
the penguins leave there nests for the sea and feeding. We got to
watch them waddle and hop down the hill and jump into the ocean. Once
in the ocean they took off like rockets! It was amazing to see how
fast they were. Luckily the water was so clear we were able to follow
them as they moved out to sea. There were also some squabbles among
some mated pairs and one pair ran all the way back up the hill to the
nests. Ill post some great pictures when I get some bandwidth.
Needless to say getting up at 3AM
through off my rhythm but off I went 4.5 hour drive to Te Anau. The
new car was quite the pleasure to drive. Tight handling. Better
acceleration. I really had to pay attention to the speed limit.
• 12/8/2007 - Who would have thought that
having car trouble would be so easily resolved?!?!?! This is a big
shout out to Budget Rental Car. They came and swapped out my car while
I was off experiencing the wonders of Dunedin ( DOON AIDAN). Not only
that but it was a semi-upgrade from a blase camry to the 2007 with the
sports package. Much tighter vehicle, perfect for NZ roads.
• 12/5/2007 - Its not all a bunch of cherries
Posted in Unspecified
Today I have been bumming around Cristchurch. The weather is bumming me out!
Mostly Cloudy
- Feels Like:55°
- Barometer:30.30 in
and rising
- Humidity:67%
- Visibility:4.97 mi
- Dewpoint:45°
- Wind:S 17 mph
- Sunrise:5:43 am
- Sunset:8:58 pm
• 12/5/2007 - Bit more pix
Posted in Unspecified
Interesting rock formation. Use your imagination and it will appear to be an Elephant!!! no really )
Here is that dolphin video
[More videos from axw]
• 12/5/2007 - Shout out to fans of 80's tunes
Posted in Unspecified
I DLed from I-Tunes an 80's 1 hit wonders compilation. Wow did that bring back memories. Playing at DJ in college and not being able to play EC's Radio Radio because of curse words. Seeing the Stray Cats at the Ritz. Man I was smiling the whole time. Anyway today was another great day, long though. I will post about it later.
Ciao
• 12/3/2007 - Thar she blows or call me Ishmael
Posted in Unspecified
This is the only good picture
More Whale
The High Tech Boat
