Category Archives: personal

5pm Update – Kati and kids in hospital in “good” condition. James still missing. 24 hour search for James continues.

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[Update Dec 6.   James Kim was found dead in the Windy Creek Drainage of the Rogue River Wilderness.   Updates here]

Kim Family Site

Merlin, Oregon 5:15pm Monday December 4:

News conference notes:

Kati and kids in hospital in “good condition” (he also said they are in “great condition” James is still missing.

Carson Helicopter found them. Edge Wireless guy’s computer model helped concentrate the search in the correct area.

Units now tracking Mr. Kim’s footprints into the Windy Creek Drainage area.

2 USFS officers will track footprints throughout the night.
“They’ll be out there all night and will work 24/7 until we bring him home”.

Windy Creek Drainage area is James’ probable location. National Guard Helicopter on the way. More searchers headed to area. Dog teams will arrive in the morning as will river searchers.

James is wearing jeans, tennis shoes, sweater and jacket and may have a couple of lighters and possibly a camera strobe.

Family found today in “very good shape”. They had minor provisions, ran car at night to stay warm. Started to burn tires to stay warm. Don’t know if they ran off road. Were not on main road. James left 7:45 Saturday Morning, up the road they came down. At some point he went over into Big Windy Creek Drainage where they hope to find him soon.

Kati and kids may have to spend the night as a precaution, but according to the officer speaking now they are in “great shape”. Cell phone info was critical to the find. “Searchers did a fantastic job”.

Kim Family update as of 11pm Sunday

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[Kati and Kids are safe, James still missing as of 11pm Monday] Updates here.

Updates Monday Morning:

Kim Family Search continues with about 20 (CNET report says 40) searchers and helicopters covering all possible routes to the Coast from Roseburg.

I’m confused about this but assuming the police have rejected as false the report of a Carene Williams of Bandon that she saw the family Nov 27 at Port Orford Price and Pride at 5:12pm. She posted a detailed note at the family site Jamesandkati.com I found a phone for her as part of a house for sale listing in Bandon, Oregon but it’s disconnected and no reply to my emails to her.

——–

Tonight KOBI Channel Five out of Medford reported several new items in a confusing way. I’ll hope to have better detail tomorrow.

3 choppers out of Merlin, hired by Kim’s (father?) continued to search over at the coast. The pilot referenced a report of the family asking for directions in Port Orford (about 30 miles N. of Gold Beach on Highway 101) but it sounded like this report was not clearly about the Kim family. The reporter went on to say Roseburg was the last sighting.

A cell phone “hit” on a tower near Glendale. Authorities appeared to believe this was not enough reason to have them refocus the search in that area.

This was posted by a guest on the www.jamesandkati.com site:

I saw the Kim family at Price and Pride Market on Monday Evening the 27th Of November at 5.12p.m.. I have reported this to the Hotline No. and man y police station s, there were two other sightings at Langlois and The Shell Gas Station in Port Orford. I am so sad and frustrated because I had contact with them and thought what A Wonderful, gracious family. Please God let them be found safe and sound. Carene Williams. cloudsntrees@msn.com

This note explains the reference on tonight’s news to a Port Orford sighting. If true they made it to the coast and spent nights there before going missing, though this seems odd with no cell phone or credit card use. I’m asking Carene via email for more details.

Update: no reply on the email to Carene. I found a number for her via Google search for a house she was selling in Bandon but phone disconnected.

New SF Chronicle Article

Still no sign of the Kim Family

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As of 5pm Sunday there still appears to be no sign of the missing Kim Family. I’ve been concerned about the treacherous area out of Merlin and was planning to go over tomorrow but I just spoke with a family friend who was just up there, (including a drive of the Wolf Creek I-5 cutoff over to the Merlin Galice road). Based on what he learned when he talked to search and rescue in that area (yesterday I think), it appears the Josephine
County search and rescue have spent a lot of time in the high country and feel it’s unlikely they made it up the Bear Camp Road or to the Agness Area. Helicopters were used as well as Snow Cat and 4WDs.

However, based on that talk I could not be sure that the lower country had been exhaustively searched – basically the area west of Merlin and up to the high country. If they failed to turn over to Agness they could have headed north into the many logging roads up there.

Here are the most recent stories about this: Oregonian (Portlands’ newspaper)
KATU TV News:

Kim Family still missing in Southern Oregon

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Little new to report this Sunday morning on the seach for the Kim Family here in Southern Oregon. They were last seen in Roseburg, which should indicate they took either highway 42 over to Coos Bay on the coast or the Merlin to Galice “Bear Camp” route.

Based on the sketchy reports it appears to me that the most likely area they were lost in is on logging roads in the mountainous areas west of HERE , where you turn off to go to Agness and Gold Beach. I understand Josephine and Douglas county searchers are supposed to be focusing on this area after Curry county called off their search yesterday further to the west but I read that highway 42 appears to be the top area now. I simply don’t understand why the Kim’s would have passed up 38 to take 42, but it makes sense that they would have passed up both to take this Merlin route because it looks so short and easy on the map.

I’m following up today with calls to see if this area between Agness and Merlin has been searched exhaustively. I’m about 90 minutes away from there but don’t have a good vehicle for snowy areas so I think it’s best to leave the search to the professionals.

Update: it looks like some family and friends have come up from SF and are based in Grants Pass and coordinating a search effort. I’m trying to contact them to see about helping.

Wow, the internet could be put to much better use in this case, and that frustrates me. I called the Josephine Sheriff’s office who referred me to the message machine for search and rescue. I left a message saying I could volunteer to search starting tomorrow, but I’m now thinking I should follow my own best hunches about the location rather than waiting for the bureacratic coordination efforts.

I also emailed the site that says it’s for the family. They really should have some sort of forum. O’Reilly talks about harnessing the collective intelligence of the web, and it would seem you could do this with search and rescue. For example Kim Family search data should be flowing to centralized online places so dead ends are not followed twice and local energies are put to better use than “wondering” what’s going on. I’ve been worried about interfering with suggestions, but even in light of the new Roseburg citing I’m not clear the search is exhausting the obvious first choice area which are the mountain logging roads up from Merlin. I’m heading that way tomorrow on my own or as part of the organized search if they contact me.

Are bureaucratic channels inhibiting the best approach here? IMHO this would clearly be to have a master website that tracks all search activity using text entries over online mapping and encourages locals to search roads not yet followed.

I think the possibility of foul play in these cases may limit the way the police give out information. But in a case like this, where no foul play is likely and “lost in mountains” is very likely it would seem you want info about roads searched to flow much more freely than it has been.

Update: It appears the efforts are indeed focusing on 42 rather than Merlin/Agness area. I think this is not a logical route to follow for reasons I’ve detailed in earlier posts. [but perhaps I’m wrong – mapquest shows Roseburg to Powers to Agness to Gold Beach as shortest mileage I can find to TuTuTun Lodge from Roseburg] Bear Camp is not passable over to Gold beach but I’m going to try to reach the Agness cutoff road tomorrow and walk some of the logging spurs up there if the weather holds up.

Update II:  I talked to a friend of Kim family searcher today and it appears they’ve coverd much of the Agness high country, but not clear if they’ve covered the lower areas around Galice.   I may be discounting the Powers route as possible since I’m unfamiliar with it though my gut continues to say north and west of Galice, where they could have easily lost the road and headed up into logging roads.

Little companies get the big talent? Auren says yes, but he’s wrong.

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Auren Hoffman of Rapleaf has a provocative post about how startups are sucking up the smartest people, leaving the Yahoos and Googles to fend for the second class talent. Based on my internet aquaintances and conference experiences I’d have to say he’s wrong about this. Google and Yahoo and other big company folks are among the brightest I meet anywhere. Many seem too young to have developed the wisdom that helps see big pictures, but that applies to the startup people I meet as well.

Google is especially agressive about plucking people from PhD programs before they even have a chance to think about alternative work and it looks to me that events like Yahoo’s Hack Day and liberal “start your own company” policies help keep the talent flowing in the direction of the big companies.

I should add that I think a lot of brilliant folks are doing startups, and this is a great thing.  My point is that company choice is based more on individual preferences (entrepreneurial mind vs stable mind … and yes I mean that literally).

I wrote over at Auren’s:

I’ll be more convinced of this when I go to internet conferences and the startup people are more impressive than the big company folks. I’m still *very* impressed with the depth of talent at Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc, especially in the cutting edge areas. Also, many big companies have liberal rules about starting your own project under the company umbrella, which minimizes personal risk but preserves the chance at home run profits (I think you could build an interesting big company around this single notion).

I’m guessing if you did a study you’d find that the company choice for top candidates is more a function of individual preference than company size (e.g. the entrepreneurial-risk-taker vs the stable-income-and-fat-pension person.

HeadOn alternative remedy – Wal Mart Candles

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ABC’s reporting on how successful Head On has been: Six million tubes of wax at $6-8 per tube. Since the product obviously has no medical value, is this a marketing miracle? You bet it is! There’s a HeadOn sucker born every minute!

Let’s do the math:
Wax sells at about $2 per pound I’m sure HeadOn paid less but that number will do for now. That amounts to 12.5 cents per Ounce of wax.

HeadOn tubes have .2 oz of wax and a few tiny amounts of other effectively worthless ingredients. Thus their cost for the HeadOn itself is no greater than 2.5 cents per tube of HeadOn. Packaging and production costs? Let’s assume it’s 5 times the product cost, or 12.5 cents per tube.

Therefore a tube of HeadOn costs HeadOn approximately 15 cents.

HeadOn tubes sell for about $8, though there are discounts so let’s use $7 as the average sale proceeds per tube.

$7 proceeds from a $0.15 investment in the product and packaging! This is a markup of 46.67 times. A “four thousand six hundred sixty seven percent” markup. Microsoft Xbox 360 eat your heart out.

Their largest cost is likely the advertising campaign, but you can spend a lot for ads when your product is marked up over 46x your cost. I’ll try to find out more about what they spend on advertising later.

ABC Report:

With no science to back it up the ad was changed to stop implying (something?), though it seemed to me HeadOn has always been careful not to claim much of anything.

Cooling sensation may distract people from the pain. A doctor at the headache center suggests.

HeadOn claims to act homeopathically, with the wax containing tiny amounts of some homeopathic extractions . Homeopathy is one of the silliest and most ridiculous approaches to medicine, based on the notion that water imbued with unmeasureable amounts of substances has it’s molecular structure changed into powerfully curative “extractions” (hey, is there one to stop me from gagging on pseudo-science?) Like any quack remedy you’ll get placebo effects which have “real” curative powers.

The debate over quack cures is clouded by this placebo effect. Unlike real medicines which generally have potential side effects and rarely work in all cases, placebos, which only need the gullible participation of the user, can offer real relief, especially from minor symptoms.

I’m confident that HeadOn does nothing medical, but that does not mean it’s worthless.

However, prudent shoppers will choose my alterative “even better than HeadOn” emedy – one of those short stubby 29 cent Wal Mart Candles used for religious offerings. This will save you over $7 AND give you a religious infusion (but only if if you BE-LEEEEEVE!).

Send the $7 you saved vs buying a “real” tube of HeadOn to the charity of your choice, and you’ll not only get the benefit of the placebo effect you’ll actually do some good.

Digg this?

Chico the Wonder Dog

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Chico the Wonder Dog

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck.
Chico the Wonder Dog is our lab mix. This is a photo of Chico when I informed him that there is an ANOTHER Chico the Wonder Dog out there on the web, and he is a male Chihuahua.   That fine Chico has passed away but you can visit his blog here: http://atimeandaplace.blogspot.com/

Well, maybe he’s not an imposter, but I bet that Chicohuahua the Wonder Dog can’t eat an Alpo Birthday Cake in 125 seconds flat.

Kim Family search moves to Bear Camp Road (aka Merlin Galice Road) area

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Most recent news here Kati and kids are safe, James missing but trackers on his trail as of 11pm Monday.

Our 6pm local news just reported that the search for the Kim family is now focusing on the Bear Camp Road (aka Merlin Galice Road). It appears the family hired some choppers to fly the area today but the search is on hold now due to darkness.

I’m glad this area is the new focus for the search because it would seem to be a more likely area than any other route from I-5 to the coast. Family members are heading up from the San Francisco area as well. The logical approach will be to have cars drive each of the many spurs along that route to look for signs of the family car and continue with flights over the area. Some in SF have wondered how you could get “lost” in the modern age but you need to realize this is a huge and remote area. Hundreds of square miles of forest and steep mountains with virtually no traffic and hundreds of miles of logging roads.

Mapquest *right now* gives a “looks easy” set of directions along Bear Camp Road when you search for the shortest time route from Merlin to Gold Beach, but this route is not advisable in winter. Google Maps shows this route as well.

Update: The map they showed on local news indicated they are searching to the west side of the mountains just north of Gold Beach.

Tomorrow (Saturday) they’ll hopefully have good weather to fly over the logging roads that wind all through that area.

James Kim family missing. Could they have taken the infamous Merlin / Galice road ?

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Most recent updates from this blog are HERE 

Update 6 is here and is later info than below

I heard about the missing Kim family [ more recent Kim family missing] over at Techmeme [police information is here], thinking it’s unlikely I could offer any reasonable insight but it appears they were heading from Portland to Gold Beach on the Southern Oregon coast, an area with which I’m very familiar.

Online and printed mapping is sometimes problematic here in Southern Oregon and there’s a road that appears on many maps as a “shortcut” to Gold Beach. But in fact in winter it can be treacherous and often closes with snow. It’s the Merlin to Galice to Gold Beach route. Cell phones don’t work in this mountainous remote area along the Rogue River valley and the coast. A few folks have been lost (many more just scared out of their wits in bad weather) along this tricky route through the Siskiyou National Forest.

The troopers are probably examining this possibility (I’d say likelihood), and hopefully they’ll find the Kim family soon safe and sound.

Update: I called the Galice USFS District Ranger office and it appears the news had not reached there yet. They are advising against that route due to snow drifts that may not be cleared and confirmed that the route is not regularly patrolled. I’m going to follow up more on this angle shortly.

Update II: I just called the Northern Police dispatch number listed below and they did not seem well informed about local road situation, but indicated that the (Southern?) dispatch is following up. I’m going to call the Gold Beach ranger district to make sure they are aware of the situation. TuTuTun lodge, where the Kim’s were staying, is along the route I’m talking about (Via Lobster Creek bridge to North Bank Road) making it even more likely they may have taken the dangerous Bear Camp Road “shortcut” which has many logging road turn offs.

Update III: Gold Beach district said they’d heard of this on the news but I could not reach the road engineer or District Ranger to find out if people had checked extensively up there.

I fear this is a case where spreading the word won’t help much – rather a search of the many logging roads off of the Merlin to Gold Beach route is called for here.

Update 4: Update: As of 9 a.m. PST Friday, investigators said they were narrowing their search to Oregon’s Highway 38 as the family’s most probable route to their destination of Gold Beach. The Kims last spoke to an innkeeper there by phone about five hours before they planned to arrive.

Highway 38 seems less likely to me than Merlin Galice road, but I don’t have enough info to know if the police are using more than just intuition about the route. 38 is not nearly as hazardous as Merlin Galice / Bear Camp route, is travelled regularly, and unless they drove into the river there’d be signs of a crash. Without local info Kim could have correctly concluded that I-5 to Merlin would be faster than going via 101, and could also have (wrongly) concluded that the Merlin Galice route was short and safe.

Update 5: Leslie at CNET tells me that the SF Police are aware of Bear Camp as a possible location and appear to be searching in that area as well, which is good. I’ve contacted a friend in Gold Beach who will help spread the word as well.

Update 6

From the news report:

James Kim is a senior editor at CNET and hosts the web site’s popular Crave blog.

Police said friends and family knew them to usually keep in daily contact.

According to Det. Angela Martin of the San Francisco Police Dept., the family had lunch with a friend in Portland on Saturday between 2-3 p.m., then left to travel to Gold Beach on the southern Oregon Coast.

According to San Francisco Police, the family made two phone calls to a Gold Beath hotel that afternoon, the second call at 5:45 p.m. On that second call, the family reportedly asked the hotel clerk to leave a key outside since they would be arriving late that night.

That phone call was the last reported contact with the family. The Gold Beach hotel did leave keys out for the Kim Family but the keys were still there the next morning.

According to the Kim’s cellular phone provider, the phone was last used after the lunch in Portland. Calls to the Kim’s cell phone later Saturday went straight to voice mail.

The Kims were driving a 2005 silver Saab station wagon with California personalized plates of DOESF.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Oregon State Police Northern Command Center Dispatch at 800-452-7888, or the San Francisco Police Department Missing Persons Unit at (415) 558-5508.

Blogs – why listen to the man when you can listen to the guy sticking it to the man?

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Jeremy, over at one of the very best non-official blogs, is noting the challenges of corporate blogging which has been exploding thanks in no small part to the blog evangelizing efforts of another great non-official blogger Robert Scoble.

This reminded me of a nice talk I had with Google’s Adam at Pubcon where I was telling him that I’d rather read his own personal blog where he often has very thoughtful posts, or read Matt Cutts, than read the Google company line at the corporate blog.

Ideally I’d like to see Adam talk about Google stuff from his own perspective, as Jeremy has done so effectively over the years at Yahoo and Matt sometimes does at his blog. Corporate suits should take note of the amazing reservoir of credibility Jeremy, and a handful of other unofficial folks, have created with their frank, honest and introspective styles.

I’m still pretty much a corporate blog bigot, feeling that a large company blogs generally suffer from the items Jeremy notes PLUS the fact that usually it is very low level folks in charge of the blog and they simply can’t afford to rock the boat.

A notable exception is Bob Parsons over at Godaddy. I suppose his blog might be considered personal more than corporate, but this is my point. He’s wonderfully honest and insightful discussing Godaddy because nobody can kick his ass. He can write about the man without fear because he IS the man. His series about strategizing and running 2005 Superbowl TV ads was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever read about big ticket advertising.

So I’ll take Jeremy and Adam’s advice and check out the corporate blogs again, but I’m guessing I won’t be reading the man when I can read the guy who is at least willing to stick it to the man.