Stourbridge Train Ride

Stepping onto the Stourbridge Line train takes you back into history. The train starts the ten mile ride in Honesdale, Pennsylvania which is the birthplace of the American railroad. On August 8, 1829 — 175 years ago — the Delaware & Hudson Railroad operated the first commercial locomotive on rails in the western hemisphere. The locomotive left from Honesdale and ran three miles to Seelyville and returned.

The ride today was longer — but not much. The excursion traveled along the Lackawaxen River to Hawley, Pennsylvania, just ten miles away. During the trip there was a staged robbery and some authentic looking visitors to the train. See photogallery.

There is a lot of history in the area. Honesdale was originally the site of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company’s boat basin. Millions of tons of anthracite coal were brought to the basin by the D&H’s gravity railroad from Carbondale and the Lackawanna Valley – about 15 miles away. From there the coal was loaded onto barges and then made a 108-mile journey to the Hudson River and on to New York City. The Delaware and Hudson (D & H) Canal was the first canal in this nation built as a private enterprise.

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Little Falls Trail

The Little Falls Trail geocache was #10 for me and without a doubt the best yet. This is one great geocaching expereicne. Well hidden, dry, and protected with beautiful scenery, especially along the East Branch of Wallenpaupack Creek. The trail is just a foot or so from the falls and there are large rocks where you can sit and listen to the water. Some trails were very mushy due to the recent rains. In fact, the bridge over the creek was washed out completely and as a result some fancy footwork was needed to find an alternate path to get back on the trail.

In spite of having the Magellan SporTrak Color and a trail map, we made a wrong turn on the way back. We came to an intersection that was a bit confusing and the trail marker did not agree with the trail map. The GPS always point to the right place, of course, but the trails meander so much, it is not always obvious which way to go — in some cases until you have hiked a long way. In this case a very long way. It was getting dark in the woods and we were really tired after hiking for miles. We came to a campsite with paved roads. It was just a half mile to where the Harley was parked. Unfortunately, it was a half mile across a lake! A car came by and offered us a ride. We must have looked hopeless. The car ride seemed like ten miles long. Had it not been for this kind soul, it would have been a very late evening. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

patrickWeb hiking log

Kipp Island

Geocahce #9 was much shorter than any other but it was unique because it was located on an island. It was a short boat ride to get to Kipp Island. The Magellan SporTrak Color indicated we were just a mile from the cache but as we approached the island it became clear that the cache was on the opposite side of the part of the island that was accessible. After finding a place to beach the boat on the other side of the island, it turned out to be a very nice (albeit short) hike to find the cache. Enjoy the pictures.

patrickWeb hiking log

Delaware River Ride

The day was still young after geocaching at Shohola Creek and the weather was perfect for a motorcycle ride. We headed up Route 507 from Greentown to pick up Route 6 through Hawley and then toward Honesdale where we picked up Route 652 and over the bridge to Narrowsburg, New York where we intercepted Route 97. Route 97 goes south to Port Jervis, New York where we crossed back over the Delaware River to Milford, Pennsylvania and back to the lake. The view along Route 97 is really great. As usual, my poor photographic skills don’t do justice to the scenery, but here are a few pictures.

There were many rafters floating down the river. The Upper Delaware River is part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Over 35 million people live within a 150-mile radius of the Upper Delaware River, which includes 73 miles of the longest and one of the cleanest undammed rivers in the eastern United States. The river’s watershed is a major source of drinking water for more than 10 percent of the United Sates population.

patrickWeb motorcycling page

In The News

The In The News section of patrickWeb has been updated this morning.

From Argentina

Around the time of ibm.com’s tenth anniversary, I spoke with a number of reporters from Latin America. Leo González Pérez was very interested in some of the musical things I have done, hence the picture of me with a baton. I am an amateur to put it mildly. The concert was my first ever conducting experience. The following paragraphs contain the translated and Spanish versions of Leo’s story. (read more)

The Long and Winding Road

The day was made for geocaching and Shohola Creek was made for geocaching. The creek is part of the Shohola Falls Wildlllfe Management Area in the Pocono Mountain area of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It encompasses 11,772 acres of forest which is maraged for the benefit of wlldlife and public recreation. The geocache, labeled "The Long and Winding Road", is near route 6 north of Milford, Pennsylvania. The cache is a virtual cache because "critters tore the original cache apart several times", according to the owner. A virtual cache means that there is really nothing at the destination except the longitude and lattitude. This week it was even more virtual than normal because of all the rain. In fact, we got to within 100 feet of the destination and found it to be under water. Afterward we took a ride to see the beautiful Shohola Falls nearby. Hope you enjoy the pictures. This was geocache #8 for me.

patrickWeb hiking log

Virtualization A La Shyam

Recently I wrote a short story about "virtualization". Feedback was that it made a really complicated subject a bit simpler to understand. One reader, Shyam Verma, a software specialist from South Carolina, offered a reflection about the subject that I thought it was relevant and well expressed. He put virtualization in a very broad context of what is going on in the world of information technology. With Shyam’s permission, I am sharing his thoughts here.

"I try to understand the new world we live in where information integration is crucial to the success of business. We need a unified view of people, processes and technology. There is so much information and so little knowledge. The data that companies keep and use is constantly growing. The data can become useless or a liability if not used properly. It can consume valuable bandwidth and computing resources inadvertently. Universal connectivity, which is a good thing, can also become the ultimate source of discomfort because of security, privacy, identity, authenticity and accidental or malicious threats. Now we have new challenges to deal with. I see a secure virtualized computing environment as the next logical step. Reduce complexity by aggregating all computing resources and then manage them centrally. In essence we are going back in time and recreating a system 390 or an MVS operating system with one exception – it is open and standards based architecture where qualified improvements from any source can be incorporated and new values can be brought to industry, government, healthcare and businesses of all kinds. We can also create new solutions based on the technologies used for big businesses and tailor them to small and medium businesses".

On Demand – Unless Past Noon

The FedEx driver stopped by this morning and dropped off a package. We had a nice chat about the weather, the roads, and motorcycles. The Express envelope that was delivered contained an Express envelope for some materials I had to return to the Washington Speakers Bureau. The driver told me he would be passing back through the area at the end of the day and could pick up the envelope — as long as I called by noon.

I decided to use the web site instead of calling. The site insisted that I could not request a pickup unless I was a registered user, so I went through the registration process, filled out a page of personal information. After submitting it, the site asked for my FedEx account number. I don’t have one. I entered the WSB account number on the envelope and the system then said it must be an error because the address for that account number does not match the address I had entered. I gave up on the web site and called the FedEx 800 number. The customer service agent was very nice but she couldn’t help me because her PC was "frozen". After being on hold for quite a while I called again. This time the customer service agent said she could help but that it was past the pickup cutoff time for today. I explained that the driver had told me that he goes right past my location at the end of every day and that he said he could pick it up. "I am sure he could", she said, "but the system will not allow me to make the request. It is past the cutoff."

Things like this are what prompted me to write "Net Attitude". Is the situation I encountered caused by technical issues? I would argue not. Surely there are technical issues and policy issues but the bigger issue is to meet the rising expectations for On Demand services. If a customer can call and request a pickup without having an account number, why can’t they go to the web site and request a pickup without a customer number? Could the "system" send a message to the driver and ask if he could pick up the envelope? Could the customer service process been to tell the customer that the cutoff has been reached but that a wireless message will be sent to the closest driver and if he is able to pick up the envelope he will, otherwise he will pick it up tomorrow? Could the system send me an email to let me know if it would be picked up today or not?

FedEx is a brilliant and innovative company with huge systems resources. It is amazing what they do everyday, and being in the hotly competitive business they are in, they continue to get better and better. At the same time, as we all experience new and better services via the Internet, our expectations increase. On Demand is a big job for businesses, governments, hospitals, and schools. It means that the customer can get what they want, when they want it, any time, anywhere, using whatever device they choose to connect to the Internet.

IBM Happenings

There were a lot of interesting announcements from IBM this past week. Some of the headlines may be of interest. I was particularly interested personally in the story about what is going on at Mayo Clinic. Here is an index to the latest …