I feel someone needs to be the Red Forman of the caving world.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/Red_Forman.jpg
He is one of the greatest philosophers in recorded human history.
Also,
I strongly felt that the only way to get all the other attendees to
post THE DETAILS about
how good of a time they had at BOG ( on CaveTex ) was to beat them to
the punch and post something negative about the event. I purposely
chose the childish Facebook
thing, so that it would not sound hostile. I knew when I hit the
send button, that nobody would have
the cojones to criticize BOG or the staff that put it on.
And I succeeded at that, at the cost of my own reputation. Now
others will know "the details" of BOG
and that many attendees felt they got the bang for their buck. I
hope this helps future BOGs.
I hope the next BOG is better, and the future staff will learn
something from previous BOG's.
Also factored in were that,
I see a lot of people enjoy criticizing me about my things like
hosting the East Texas Caver's Cookout, but when I criticize them,
they get their panties in a wad.
Not in any way to toot my own horn, but I have put on the last several
East Texas Caver's Cookouts
all by myself against a huge opposition of critics, and paid for it
all myself. While the BOG was put on by over 50 workers
who had a huge budget to work with, and was supported with a well
established agenda. But even with all that support,
I still had to spend a $ 100 on food for the BOG party, money that I
did not have, and was borrowed one way or another.
My rants about GHG are far more complicated. Obviously, I was
disappointed that a club that I have devoted
22 years to "assisting", would ban me from their listserve. But I
was planning on quiting anyways after BOG so, I didn't
really care. By then, it was the relief you get from the end of something.
The GHG web-site needs lots of improvement, but that is just one of
dozens of issues
that I have with GHG. Others are, I feel they ridicule my suggestions
and have for 22 years. This has led to my frustration with GHG.
It didn't start last week, but has been brewing for 16 years, and just
boiled over a few days before the
BOG, partly because I felt like Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer trying
to "help" the other 8 reindeer pull the sleigh,
and that my only skill was my red-nose, and none of them wanted a
red-nose on the team, especially, Dasher and Dancer.
The rest of the rant was not directed at GHG but with my displeasure
with cavers in general in and around Harris
County and the surrounding adjacent counties, who for the past 20 +
years, do not work together or even make any attempt
to unite behind a common caving cause. And that is why I have spent
great energy and lots of money in Brenham
trying to put an event together. I have never once seen the 3
grottos here even try to have a taco together.
In hindsight,
I had too many problems to attend BOG and knew going into it that I
needed to skip it. But I really wanted to help,
and I really wanted to be there, and I really wanted to see my friends
and make new ones. And somewhere deep down
inside, buried in all this frustration, is someone who wants to see
the NSS succeed. And I was slightly, concerned
that it would taint my fine reputation if I skipped a major caving
event right in my own back-yard, when I am willing to drive
to and from Vermont just for an NSS Howdy Party.
But,
the corn tortillas really sucked beyond words, and that was the final
rock holding the volcano lava from spewing. The
next morning, I was the only local caver still at the party. A BOG
member mentioned that he needed a ride to the
airport. Although, I would have taken him, I was furious beyond
words that someone had dropped the ball on this after all
the headaches I went thru jumping thru hurdles to offer help to GHG,
and my Blackberry was giving me a big headache trying
to let others know that he needed a ride. And then I had to
listen to GHG pat themselves
on the back for all the hard work they had to do, when nearly
everything was outsourced and done by cavers not from southeast Texas
or even
members of their spelunking club.
I do know for a fact that several cavers would not have attended BOG
had I not twisted their arms. That was why there were cavers
there that had come out of the woodwork. While much of my effort,
like making a live pitch at the UT Grotto meeting, was a waste of
time, I had no way of predicting what the end result of all those
efforts were, most of which was tracking down missing GHG'ers and
trying
to get them to come.
I would like to also point out that while the party had a good
attendance, at least a dozen of those attendees wouldn't go in a cave
or
support the NSS, if you paid them to. They were either spouses or
friends of a caver, and many of those cavers were arm-chair
cavers.
Later, when I spoke to non-cavers about the tortillas, they all said
that I need to find a new set of friends.
David Locklear
The Red Forman of southeast Texas caving
[ Disclaimer: I do not have time to proof-read this to make sure it
is politically correct. I have someone standing behind me yelling at
me very loudly right in my ear about something I can't fix even if I
wanted to, and they have been yelling the entire time I wrote this,
and
an hour before. ]
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