BAD NEWS - Roy's Fourth Reich - Not actually the name of this club - but it might as well be.  If you're thinking about joining the HCC, you should know what you're getting into. Used to be a good club.  But now it's dominated by this autocrat and his errand boy running the web site.  The current director is a nice guy, but with his Rodney King paradigm of group dynamics, he's in over his head in having to deal with a loose cannon like Roy Hale. He's completely out of control, not responsive to member requests, insists on having all power to himself - in Feb '07 Herr Hale insisted it's his prerogative to design all the rides, disempowering the ride committee - which I was on, and believed it in our purview to design the rides and GPS files.  Then all during 2007, he was complaining about how overworked he is, now that he's creating all the rides, complete with GPS files - which is the added support I pioneered and was doing to help the club, that he insisted on doing himself, or he "will quit".  He had played that card several times, and each time the officers and membership (except me) knuckled under because nobody wants to do the web work, and they don't want the hassle of replacing him. I volunteered to take on some of the job - knowing what a PITA it was going to be to try to work with Hale. Now for 2008, the only ones who volunteered for the ride committee, were the nazi, the Treasurer, and a new guy who didn't know any of this history.  In 2006 the nazi objected to a member being named an officer BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN.  That's the current director's wife.  There's much more...   A couple years ago I pushed for officer roles to be defined in writing - job descriptions - to get a handle on this loose cannon.  All of the job descriptions were created EXCEPT FOR WEBMASTER.  The same ineffective Rodney King "Can't we all just get along" director, said he doesn't have any technical knowledge so he couldn't sign off on a job description so that's why it wasn't created - really the PURPOSE of the exercise - so effectively the Nazi is free to write his own blank check of his orders. It's gotten so bad I had to leave the club - as the most senior member, of 9 years, I introduced the club's founder Eddie Clark to the group before it was organized - took him down what came to be known as "Rebel Road" (Perry Park Rd) to O'Malley's in Palmer Lake - but eating crow so I can hang with these people, it's just not worth it to me.  Apparently it is to the folks who remain. If I stayed I have no doubt Herr Hale was going to be lunching on knuckle sandwiches, served by Yours Truly. Many others have left without saying anything, while in 2006 the previous director (Blaze) had a run-in with this dictator over his exceeding his authority.  Hitler - I mean Herr Hale - had shut down the director's email so he couldn't email the membership, and then was sending email out himself to the membership, FROM THE DIRECTOR'S EMAIL ADDRESS.  I asked what was going on, was there a vote I missed?  He was canceling and scheduling meetings without authority - in fact if you look at their riding rules now, that's ALL from Hitler's mouth, not bought into by any officers or the club.  He EDITS CONTENT of the secretary's minutes when he is just supposed to post it verbatim. He declares which are "official HCC rides" and which aren't, without authority or buy-in from anyone else - then refuses to put rides he declares "unofficial" on the club calendar - even if nearly the entire club is going. For 2008, it's the Tetons ride. He wants to be in charge of the clothing store but he delayed posting it so long that a couple years ago the orders were NEVER placed.  But he won't accept help except from his boyfriend, and that was only because I pushed for the web work to be distributed in '06.  He will only do what you ask him to do, as the club's webmaster, if he likes you - I asked him for around a dozen edits, posts, etc, he never did ONE of them.  My saving his bacon by delivering his smashed sport bike when he was laid up, as a gesture of good will, 4th quarter 2006, was rewarded by an offer of $20 for 50 miles of gas and a morning's time - which I declined, frankly $20 was an insult.  He followed that by blowing me off, when I asked his advice on a web question.  On the friction between Blaze and Hitler - Blaze wasn't there to defend his position so of course the wussies voted to accept Blaze's tentative resignation rather than deal with the source of the problem - dump the nazi and volunteer to do the web work or hire somebody.  Blaze was (is) a nice guy too.  They should HIRE and PAY a professional webmaster who is responsible to the director, who is responsible to the members, and can be fired for cause.  It's not that expensive and would put a stop to such power abuse.  

Lastly - as the Nazi's parting shot - the day the poo hit the impeller - the same day I wrote the letter resigning from the club and saying I can't stay in a club that allows abuse of members by a staff member - THIS site - horseapple.com - was hacked.  As an interstate commerce web site, this is a "protected site" under the Patroit Act.  Hacking it is a felony. Someone broke in and filled the site's storage with garbage files, exceeding the allotted limit, which shut down email as a full mailbox.  The zone file was also deleted, which maps horseapple.com to it's IP address.  Making the site inaccessible to "horseapple.com" and email.  It took me over a week to figure out what happened, and get the host's tech support staff to fix it. Accesses, commands, IP addresses, and much more are all tracked.  This person came in several times as the owner of the site - ME - with owner's permissions and password.  The IP addresses of the perps tracked to several in Europe and one from AOL.  The clincher - I had used the same password for my membership at HCC, as I used as owner of this website - and NOWHERE ELSE.  They didn't need to know the user name - it's set by policy by the site host and unchangeable.  All you need to do is contact the host, ask them about hosting your site and you can find out the user name rule.  I contacted the FBI.  Yeah, per the staff at the web host and my data, apparently a crime was committed, but they don't pursue these crimes for damages under $10,000.  And my provable damage was more like $6,000.  So I stopped pursuing it - but REALLY wanted to throw the SOB's in jail.  FYI this site had NEVER been hacked in the 8 years before, or since I changed the password.  But horseapple.com was hacked, ON THE DAY I left the club, by SOMEONE WHO HAD THE PASSWORD - which was NOT guessable, and ONLY ONE entity besides me and my web host had it - the web staff at the HCC.  Who are internet/web experts, know what's needed to hack a site, had the info to do it, the motivation, the timing of the hacking, appropriate poor ethics as proven by many examples, and the ability to hide their tracks.  There's no doubt in my mind who did it - but they didn't cause enough provable damage before I fixed it, to nail them via the FBI.  I suppose I should have gone after them with a civil suit but that would have only recovered damages which would have mostly gone to lawyers, and not put them in jail.  If the IP address pointed to the Nazi's employer's computers - well there's a responsible party I could pursue in court, for redress.  But he's not that stupid, or I'm not smart enough to crack his address spoofing - all I have is one AOL user address and several European ones.  Congrats, nazi.  You got away with a great hack.   For now.

Sorry for the rant - but Roy Hale and his errand boy deserve every bad vibe they earn and more.  And I'm PO'd I had to leave what was a good club except for this arrogant autocrat, and feeling raped without justice.