[meteorite-list] Closing Remarks From Blaine

From: almitt <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:28:31 2004
Message-ID: <3F8F3FA8.D67ADF32_at_kconline.com>

Hi All,

I know everyone is tired of these threads so feel free to read or delete as you see
fit. I think it is worth reading. Here are some closing remarks from Blaine. Again he
requested me to post these for him.

--AL

>From Blaine Reed:

He said this, but they said that. Bruised egos, demands to take sides. Gee! I think
I’ve discovered the fountain of youth. Boy, I sure feel like I’m back in grade
school. Folks, it has been requested (more like demanded) that I clarify, in public
, statements made in this little fight between Kevin and Mike. I apologize that you
even have to hear of this issue once more (and I am quite certain that it is not
really over yet). So, here it is as requested. Like a school-yard fight, everybody
will be losers, and I will likely be attacked because I did not fully take sides.
Because? Like most such battles, both parties have certain degrees of truth and
untruths to their arguments. From school aged battles I should have remembered that
anything you say (and just as often, didn’t say) can and will be used against you
(altered and out of context if necessary) in the court of public opinion. Many of
you will find my comments harsh and uncalled for. So be it. But remember, the involved
parties forced this. Those of you that know me know that I don’t easily get upset,
but right now I am really pissed-off and resentful that I’ve been forcefully drug into
this mud pit. I will most certainly lose the friendship of two (at times, very
difficult) people and this is the true disappointment of all of this. Also, I have
been warned in the past when facing similar situations that I likely will be
disparaged and discredited . Unfortunately, most of you will be the ones that will
have to view these results. I will not. It is idiocy like this that has been a big
part of me making a point out of not having e-mail. Damaged egos are a dangerous thing
(particularly for the e-mail in box) and , frankly, I don’t have the time or desire
(nor interest in “as the stomach churns” type soap-operas) to deal with it. So, I
don’t want to hear any more about this. Period.

 So, here are the “facts” That I have been requested to give. The truth is, I have
talked to Farmer a couple times about my trips to Bolivia. In fact, I suggested we go
sometime. He didn’t say no, but seemed far more interested in a trip to Panama (a
place I would indeed like visit again) and Colombia as these had better scenery,
beautiful women more things to do, though very little in the way of meteorite recovery
prospects. But then, enjoying a beautiful beach and a cold drink under the shade of a
palm tree sounds pretty good to me to. As for Kevin “chasing women” in Bolivia; Not
So. We are both straight guys and certainly both enjoyed the views in parts of Bolivia
(they seem to have a national policy for hiding their really pretty women in remote
small towns). There were a few times various “better service” offers were made. I must
confess, being in a town full of beautiful women , after two grueling weeks in the
desert (with the sexiest thing spotted the whole time was perhaps a llama with long
eye-lashes) such offers make a man of even the strongest constitution sit back and
ponder the possibilities for a moment. End result – all such offers were turned down.
This is not say that there may not have been desires to chase beautiful women, but we
are both grown men in strong relationships with good women so we were easily able to
overcome this.

 As for who led the “expeditions”. My personal response is; does it really matter?
But the full truth is Kevin led both. He did all of the planning (nearly down to what
shrub we would relieve ourselves behind) and even arranged the air tickets from
Denver. If he did not do all of this, it is very likely that I would have never seen
Bolivia. On the first trip I could not wait to get near mountains that would finally
allow me to climb higher than 14,400 feet (and , eventually some 7,000 feet higher);
almost to the point of overriding the meteorite thing. The second trip was again all
Kevin’s. In fact, I was the one who had no interest in going. I’m not going to
discuss the reasons why or the reasons I decided to go after all here, I’m just glad I
did. The only planning left to me was to pick the areas where we should stop to look
for meteorites.

 Finding the meteorite. We were all walking the same general area I had first picked
to stop. Kevin gave us one hour to search. We would then have lunch and get on the
road , as our stop point for the night was a long way off. After 20 or 30 minutes he
expressed that he wasn’t finding much (obviously no meteorites, but not many artifact
pieces either , which act as a pretty good indicator for a search area) and that
perhaps its best we get moving early. I on the other hand, was having good luck so I
said no ,“you gave me an hour and I’m going to take it”. As Murphy’s law requires, I
soon found the rock after this (and spent the rest of the trip trying to decide if it
really was a meteorite; it looked more like a piece of magnetite weathered out of
granite, complete with adhering mica).
 I’m not entirely sure where Mike came up with the idea that Kevin was not around
during the find ( he was wandering a small blowout probably a hundred yards away at
the time). Perhaps it was from something misconstrued from discussions we had later on
the following issues. After I got home and cut the specimen I rapidly had it analyzed
and the researcher and I prepared a report for the Meteoritical Bulletin. It was
submitted and accepted , claiming me as the finder (the others, in all fairness, were
mentioned as part of the search team). I believe it was Mike who contacted me asking
who found it (after seeing the pre-publishing bulletin on the net). I thought that
this was kind of a dumb question as, from the report, it should have been obvious that
it was me. I soon found that somehow the official report had been changed. Through
many desperate phone calls and e-mails by both me and the researcher it became clear
that Kevin had taken upon himself (for “fairness to the team”) to contact the
nomenclature committee and insist it be changed to “found by the team of - - - - -“,
when he saw the original version posted. More phone calls and e-mails were made. To no
avail. Nothing could be done. The official bulletin was already in press and no
further changes could be made. Not to expose my own ego problems, but I was absolutely
livid about this. I’ve been collecting for over 25 years and have reported many new
meteorites and found a few pieces of already known stuff, but this was my first find
of a completely new , never before known , meteorite and it meant a lot to me. I
called Kevin about it. No apology, just “well technically we all had a hand in finding
it (true enough) and besides, any good researcher knows that the first listed name is
the person who found it”. It took a fair bit of time to tame my ego and get over this,
and realize that in the overall scheme of things this really didn’t matter. Bolivia
has their first stone meteorite, possibly the first positively from their country
(though others do indeed have a strong claim), and I know I found it.

 Now I’d like to make a few personal comments primarily directed at the combatants,
but others may find something useful here as well.

 Mike, you really need to hold back on the off the cuff insults. In person it is
fairly obvious that they
really (at least they don’t seem to be) meant to do harm. On a computer screen though
they lose their context and can be really upsetting. On India. There is no denying
that your actions were illegal and less than ethical. However, I cannot fully claim
that I would not have done something similar to avoid going home completely empty
handed after spending thousands of dollars on a difficult trip. One definite
difference though; I would not brag to the list about these actions. I know it was an
ego boost to publish your successful conquest, but prudence would dictate leaving
out the actions of questionable morals.

 Kevin. You need to lighten up a little. You are a pit-bull ready to attack anything
that appears to be encroaching upon your territory and fully ready to fight to the
death (figuratively) to win at all costs. I believe many of these incursions could be
ignored. I know it is difficult to let things slide when you have been personally
attacked. But it is possible (and likely the best move in this particular case) to
simply say “I won’t even bother dignifying that ridiculous accusation with a comment”
when some idiotic fertilizer hits the ventilator (think synonyms here folks). You
both need to understand that there are no winners in these battles. Neither of you are
winning any points with the public at large for any particular battle salvo or
perceived win. To the rest of us, we just see a couple people wrestling in the mud.

 I’ve done enough damage for one day around here. I’ve lost friends, will likely lose
thousands of dollars in uncompleted deals with various people who are strongly
opinionated on both sides of this issue, had to get dirty in the wrestling pit and
feel I’ve shed a little of my dignity in all of this. I thought that I had graduated
from the nightmare of the 8th grade some 25 years ago. I have not enjoyed this trip
down memory lane and do not care to extend or repeat it. It’s a nice day here,
probably one of only a few left before the winds pick up and the snow flies. So I’m
going to wash this mud off, pull my airplane out of the garage and put all of this
horse manure behind and (literally) beneath me. In the meantime you two; PLAY NICE!
Received on Thu 16 Oct 2003 09:02:32 PM PDT