Florida Crew Alumni,

Invitations were sent out last week to the 4th annual Florida Crew Family and Alumni Weekend. Some of you may not receive one because your physical address is not on file. A copy of the invite is attached to this message. It explains how to RSVP and gives a description of the event. The festivities start Saturday, February 20th. The event continues to grow every year and I guarantee it will be worth the trip to Gainesville.

Hope to see you there!
Family and Alumni Weekend Invitation

Regards,

Mark Gallrein
Florida Crew Alumni Coordinator
FloridaCrewAlumni@gmail.com

Take deposits for example. Sign the back of the check, find a damn deposit envelope (always seem to be out when you need one), fill it out, enter the amount into the machine, confirm the total, etc. Pretty much the standard procedure for ATM deposits for the last 10+ years (not having to fill out the envelope is the only change I can remember). But when I went to deposit a check at my local Wachovia branch this morning, I was completely thrown for a loop.

The old machine was gone, replaced by a brand new design. This ATM didn’t have a hard to see, 8″ green CRT monitor running some outdated piece of ATM software from the 80s. The new machine was sleek and modern. A large, brightly lit touchscreen LCD dominated most of the front panel with a user interface that was actually pleasant to use (I didn’t have to fight with the card reader to accept my bank card either). However, the most noticable difference was the lack of a deposit envelope container. As I stepped through the deposit process I realized Wachovia had just made deposit envelopes obsolete. You select the deposit account, feed the check into the slot and the ATM auotmatically scans the check for the amount. All you do if verify the total and finalize the transaction. Apparently it will take up to 30 checks or a stack of cash all at once.

This is really nothing new – desktop/commercial check scanners have been around for years so it’s not like the banking industry just figured out how to scan a check digitally. I just want to give them credit for actually putting that tech to good use in a way that makes this annoying process even easier.

That’s pretty cool.

Atari Arcade

Bonus Link: Muppets return to YouTube!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m not the only person who thinks this “feature” is annoying.

Throw all that into the blender with Madeline, College Football in full swing, and the day-to-day stress of Atlanta and it becomes clear we need more hours in the day to get it all done on time.

I’m hoping to get pics posted by the end of the week and then some of the GPS track highlights afterwards. I think we’ve got some cool shots of some amazing scenery and I can’t wait to get them posted.

It was a blast. We spent the morning on the first day at Lake Ackworth learning the basics of self-recovery. That is, what to do when you roll over and end up upside down in the water. It sounds simple but with the splash skirt and knee braces locking you into the kayak, it doesn’t take much to panic if anything slows you down during the escape maneuver. It was unnerving for some of the class at first but I didn’t have any trouble with it (I’ve been around water all my life). After a full morning of roll-overs we broke for lunch and a break on shore and then jumped right back into the basics of boat control and stroke techniques with the paddle. It’s harder than it looks. Most white water kayaks are designed with flat hulls – no skegs, daggers, rudders or Vs to help you track straight on a power stroke. So until you figure out the nuances of paddle control, you spend a lot of time taking one or two power strokes and then wrestle with preventing a 180/360 spin. Current helps but it’s still really easy to loose your track if you aren’t careful and consistent. Long-time paddlers make it look effortless. It’s not. Balance, edge control and foot pressure also come into play but most of my concentration was on the stroke.

The following day we loaded up the trailer for a 2.5 hour drive north on Interstate 441 to Dillsboro, N.C. There is a really nice section of the Tuckasegee River that has some great class I-II rapids and is perfect for beginners. We put in at a park downtown and spent the next 4.5 hours making our way downstream for 5.5 miles to the take-out spot. All-in-all I had a great time. I even got a chance to practice a self-recovery drill when I flipped after I botched a peel-out attempt (peel-outs are when you want to exit an eddy and continue on downstream).

Taking photos was tough because I spent most of my time making sure I didn’t loose my paddle (or flip) so the ones I did take are half-hearted attempts at documenting the trip during brief moments of rest. There was a professional photographer at one of the rapids and he got some great shots of our class going through one of the rapids. Our set starts at 007-01 and ends at 007-26. I’m 007-02 through 007-06.

Note: I have no idea why the elevation track shows a 200ft gain at the 3 mile marker – we spent the entire day on the river and didn’t port once.

Tuckasegee River

It doesn’t require jailbreaking or a funky SIM/Service hack, it’s 100% reversable and on U.S. carriers, doesn’t seem to affect IMs. You can turn it on/off via a config interface under Settings -> General -> Network -> Internet Tethering.  It supports both USB and BlueTooth connections (after pairing with your laptop, look for a new network adapter).

Of course at some point, I’m sure AT&T will try to squash this hack. We already pay for “unlimited” data service via the iPhone interface so I assume that as long as people keep their tethering usage to a minimum, not much will happen until AT&T figures out how to trap and charge people for the service.

Summary:

The Little River Trail is just one of about 40 or so easy, single day hiking trails located in the northern section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Mel and I were in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. for a friend’s wedding and decided on spending our final afternoon hiking. A quick conversation with a Ranger at the north entrance welcome center and we were off for Elkmont and the Little River Trail. The Little River Trail is well groomed and graded (more like a narrow gravel road) and follows the Little River for several miles. Roughly 2.4 miles up the trail is the Cucumber Gap trail head. This trail takes a more aggressive climb back towards the Elkmont camping area via the back side of Burnt Mountain but makes for a great ~5 mile loop. Perfect hiking weather and great views of the Little River made for a nice day hike with the family.

Little River Trail

I’m getting old.