Washington Post-- Get Rid of 'That Hulking Thing'

Poynter.org has a wonderful selection of articles about the media. Among them was this story from the American Journalism Review about a Washington Post focus group, where they gathered five new residents of DC and asked them if they'd subscribe to the paper.

"In one session after another, I don't think I saw one person who would take it," says a Post staffer who watched the focus groups with colleagues from behind a one-way glass. The participants picked up various sections--Style, Metro--and stared at them like they were "Egyptian hieroglyphics."

They knew about the Post, of course. How could they not? It's the region's dominant daily and one of the nation's best. They even liked the Post. But they read it online at work. Former subscribers complained unread papers piled up at their homes, making them feel guilty because they hadn't read them. The responses were not " 'No, I don't like the Post,'" the staffer says. They were " 'No, I don't want that hulking thing in my house.'"

Up a River in Congo

I ordered some books about Africa from Amazon and am deep into Jeffrey Tayler's new book 'Facing the Congo.' In the book a mild-mannered American who is living in Russia gets the urge to go deep into Africa...he boards a barge and goes up the Congo River to the remote village of Kisangani, then returns downriver in a pirogue, or dug out canoe. All of the Zaireians he meets says he will die, that he is crazy, and most of them demand that he give them food, buy them beers and generally look at him as a rich "mondele" (white) who must share at all times with them. They fear most the soldiers who, drunk at checkpoints, demand bribes at gunpoint.

The boat journey has taken 10 days so far, packed to the gills with vendors, soldiers, and travelers, the equatorial sun is beating down, and nothing moves in the stifling heat. Later that night he returns to his cabin.

"A sting, a spark. Something slimy and stinging swatted my calf. I jumped up, nearly braining myself on the upper bunk. Bopembe opened the door and the deck light fell on a yard-long electric catfish squirming under my bunk. "I bought that nina today," he said, "please be careful not to get electrocuted."

Beaten with a Blackberry? Say it Ain't So!

Today's NY Post, (the best newspaper website around, and it has everything that the paper has) reports on a savage attack by Naomi Campbell on her assistant while traveling in Rio.

"Fiery supermodel Naomi Campbell has allegedly attacked another one of her assistants — beating her with a BlackBerry and slapping her across the face.
An insider tattles to PAGE SIX that Campbell was traveling with a young female assistant in Brazil last week when the catfighting catwalker pounced on her prey during an argument.

"Naomi was slapping her with one hand, and beating her with a BlackBerry with the other," claims our source.

When the sobbing assistant threatened to report the Blackberry beat-down to police, Campbell warned that she would leave her stranded in South America.

"Naomi told her, 'If you go to the police, you're gonna have to pay for your airfare home and I'm gonna whack you with this big hotel bill,' " says our source.

"They were staying at an expensive suite in Rio and the assistant couldn't afford to pay for any of that. She's still traveling with Naomi, but she wants to quit as soon as they come back to New York."

Reading Between Really Simple Lines

Real Simple, despite its grammatically flawed moniker, is a hefty and well crafted magazine. It is one of the biggest success stories in publishing, right up there with O, Oprah's category killer mag. I picked up an old issue while I was the gym and found a guide to "Reading Between the Lines," or, how to decipher commonly misunderstood things.

For example, when reading a wine label, Olivier Flosse, the sommelier at Cafe Boulud, says. "Words like 'reserve' and 'private selection' basically mean nothing, they're just marketing. Same for bin or bottle numbers. The grape, the winemaker and the vintage are the most important things on the label."

Or, a Menu, according to Anthony Bourdain, executive chef at Les Halles in NYC.
"Watch out for a menu that is too big, with too many dishes, or one that mixes in foreign words or phrases...the word 'fresh' is also a warning bell. I'm assuming it's fresh. Why lay it on so thick? Smacks of a guilty conscience."

841 Pounds of Moon Rock

There are almost 842 pounds of moon rock on earth. Most of it was gathered during the Apollo missions, and about 841 of these pounds are under US Government control. The tiny balance, writes Christopher S. Stewart in the April issue of Wired, might be available from "RS" which stands for Russian Space, a Polish national who specializes in space suits, space gloves and other paraphernalia gathered from the Russian Space Agency.

There is quite a market on EBay for items like space suits and even the Buran Space Shuttle can be had, for a price of around $8 million. People love collecting this stuf, says Richard Pearlman, who runs an online dealer called collectspace.com. "it is about tapping into these emotions. People will pay a lot for that."

The Rotary Calls

I was invited to speak at the Springfield, MA Rotary luncheon on Friday. An associate, Paul MacDonald, at a company I work with saw the article in BusinessWest magazine, and decided that I had what it takes to stand up in front of 100 or so businesspeople and talk. So I am now contemplating what to say, when I get my 20 minutes or so, after we've all had lunch, and I am the dessert.

Public speaking is a rush. There is this wonderful feeling you get when you connect with the audience, that's why it is to much fun to be a performer. I am mulling over talking about travel trends or about using the internet and how to make your website better. I think that since my biography is about travel editing, that is where I should focus. I will give away a few GoNOMAD tee shirts to people who get the right answers to my short quiz.

Are you an Owl or a Lark?

Vladimir Putin wakes up each morning at about 11 am. George Bush, a lark, wakes up at 5 am and goes to be no later than ten each night. Today's New York Times styles section includes a story about early risers and what that all really means.

In the story, one professor in California gleefully relates how she wakes up at noon, going to bed no earlier than 2 am. Robert Iger, the new president of The Walt Disney Company, reportedly wakes at 4:30 each morning, goes to the gym, and is at his desk by 6 am. Brian Tracy, famous motivational speaker, maintains that anyone who works an extra two hours a day, in the super productive early morning hours, 'is guaranteed to outstrip everyone else in your field.'

I have wrestled with both, living in two houses as I do. When I am in my house, I stay up really late, and yet always rise right at seven am. When I am at my girlfriend's house, we always go to bed at about 10 and wake up at 6. I am happy with both, and I guess that the merits of larkhood is still in question.

The War Ain't Over and Recruiting is Tough

Today's New York Times included an article about how tough it is to be one of the army recruiters now that the war has put so much death and injury in the news.

"Recruiters said falling short often generates a barrage of angry correspondence, formal reprimands, threats or even demotion.

"The recruiter is stuck in the situation where you're not going to make mission, it just won't happen," the New York recruiter said. "And you're getting chewed out every day for it. It's horrible." He said the assignment was more strenuous than the time he was shot at while deployed in Africa.

At least 37 members of the Army Recruiting Command, which oversees enlistment, have gone AWOL since October 2002, Army figures show. And, in what recruiters consider another sign of stress, the number of improprieties committed - signing up unqualified people to meet quotas or giving bonuses or other enlistment benefits to recruits not eligible for them - has increased, Army documents show."

From Fort Apache to Little House on the Prairie

We went to a big swish party last night, it was the fifthtieth birthday of a neighbor of the friends we were visiting in Westchester County. It was a grand time; there was a raw bar with briny, plump little necks, and delicate crab cakes passed by staff. I met a man there who was a District Attorney in the Bronx. I asked him about what the job was like and how it is going. He said there is so little violent crime, there is not as big a caseload as in the past. What about Fort Apache, South Bronx? I asked. "Now it's 'Little House on the Prairie' he answered.

I knew that crime was down, but I hadn't thought about how much that affects people like this DA. Crime, he said, now is fought at the turnstile-jumper level. They prosecute minor crimes, like public drinking and jaywalking and thus prevent bigger ones. Crack cocaine, the scurge of the '80s and '90s, has dwindled to the province of only the lowest of the low, and there aren't armed gangsters guarding street corners, even in Brooklyn. "Now it is mostly victims who know the perps," he said, "bad people beating up on other bad people."

Kifaya Echoes in Egypt and Lebanon

William Safire writes in the New York Times magazine about words, and he picked up on a new one floating around Egypt.

The country is ruled by a dictator named Hosni Mubarak. He wants his son to replace him, and the Egyptians are finally saying "Enough!" There was a protest last month with more than 500 activists who demonstrated against the regime. They changed the words to the Egyptian national anthem from "My country, my country, my country, you have my loyalty and love, to "kifaya, kifaya, kifaya!, Arabic for "We have reached the end!"

In Beirut, more demonstations were taking place. There protesters were also using this word, but to them it was simply "enough," to Syria's domination of their political system. It is, as Safire writes, "the peaceful battle cry of the fed-up, the one word slogan of the long frustrated. Kifaya, indeed!

Podcasting Goes Mainstream

I have written before about our interest in developing podcasts, short interviews with travel writers to reflect and add depth to stories they have published on GoNOMAD. I envision a wonderfully synchronous new feature, that you could load on your little Ipod and listen to while on the airplane headed to your destination. When would be a better time than that to have the author reading you their story, that one to one connection is golden and would be valuable.

Clear Channel Communications is jumping on the podcast wagon, announcing that it will begin offering clips from its radio shows and hosting exclusive live online concerts to draw more traffic to its radio web sites. Of course the media conglomerate wil "monetize' these podcasts with ads....but then, that would really cut down on the appeal wouldn't it?

I mean I would think a one on one moment such as you get listening to your ear buds with an Ipod would not be as much fun if you have to listen to crappy radio ads.

I feel the same way about the deluge of ads you get at movie theaters...and for this reason I love the renting the DVDs from Blockbuster since they don't fill them with previews or stupid ads. Give me the damn movie!

Waiting for the Easter Mouse

In Australia, farmers and others HATE bunnies. That's because these creatures decimate the farmland and eat everything in sight. Because of this popular hatred, when it comes to Easter icons, the rabbit is out. Now it's time to celebrate the Easter Bilby.

Rabbits, according to today's Wall Street Journal, are blamed for more than $400 million a year in damage; the pests burrow into farmland and chew up cow pastures. But the Bilby, an endangered species, has created a cottage industry of adoration to promote saving this little big-eared mouse.

Newspapers all over Oz have weighed in on the bilby vs. bunny controversy. One songwriter, John Williamson, put it like this:

"Oh we all love the Easter Bilby/point little snout/close your eyes, I'm sure she will be/sneaking all about"

Reporters Call--And We Answer!

Today began with a meeting with our new bookkeeper who is going to organize us and show us how to use the wonder that is Quickbooks. Her name is Bonnie, and she has climbed big mountains with the famous outdoorsman Phil Buck. Buck is known for his voyages, among them a replica of the famous Kontiki trip drifting from South America originally taken by Thor Heyerdahl.

Our attention was called to the email, where Laura Bly, a travel writer from USA Today, queried us about "alternative accommodations," seeing the story we have posted by Ann Waigand. But we haven't been able to reach Ann for years. We've tried googling, calling old contacts, but we found no trace of this once-famous travel writer. So we hope to speak with Laura and give her some story ideas from GoNOMAD.

Because when the Big Media call, we like to give them as much as we can. In other Big Media news, we have not yet made the pages of the Wall Street Journal's "Take offs and Landings," column, but we will be there soon.

Condi: Crack the Whip Cool

Tina Brown in the Washington Post on Condi Rice's evolution to cool...

For sure, it's great to see how Condi has changed now that she's out from under. Like Hillary Clinton's confidence when she escaped from the suffocation of being first lady, Condi's has begun to unfurl like a flag. The corrugated frown has vanished, apparently without the aid of Botox. The modish, martial jackets in born-again white and SoHo black are crack-the-whip cool.

Power remains the great aphrodisiac. British cabinet ministers who had no impure thoughts about Mrs. Thatcher when she was a schoolmarmy minister for education suddenly mused about the "whiff of her Chanel" as she swept into cabinet meetings as PM. I guess that's why it all got so arch last Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" and ABC's "This Week" when Tim and George endlessly parsed their "Are-you-running-in-'08?" questions.

A Museum Quality Pension Plan for Artists

Some times you come across ideas so clever you wish you had thought of them. Moti Scriberg, as described in the most recent issue of Wired, is an artist who has devised a pension plan for artists, using the value of their peer's donated artwork in the future as a way to subsidize hundreds of artist's pensions in the years ahead. He gathered a collection of their works and gradually sells them off to build a cash account. He spread the risk of failure among a large pool of artists, since some would sell well and others poorly. Now the Artist's Pension Trust has offices in NY, LA and London, and recruits 50 artists a year, until they reach 250 in 2009.

One successful artist agreed to donate valuable pieces of art every year, for a total of 20 pieces in two decades. He'll get a regular payout of at least $500,000 after he turns 63, in regular installments. It's like a hedge fund against the fickle art market.

A Sleek Little Jet in Every Driveway

Last night's chill brought a cozy fire and some fun on television. The History Channel's "Modern Marvels" was about pilots who live with their planes. There are now more than 400 communities where residents park their private planes next to their houses, and taxi right out to the runway. A California man has taken old air force bases and turned them into these plane friendly neighborhoods.

The idea of the air taxi was also discussed on the show--a new generation of small 6-passenger jets that cost less than a million each, and can fly into smaller airports. Aeronautical visionary Burt Rutan spoke about the next ten years when we will have thousands more airports, and these little planes will cut our travel time. Hub and spoke, he said, with its delays and parking hassles, will fade away and we'll fly from town to town, using smaller jets that don't need big long runways.
While today's jets must accelerate to 150 mph to take off, thus needing very long runways, the smaller birds can take off at much slower speeds...so the airports that we have now will accommodate them. Soon it will be South Deerfield to South Bend, instead of BDL to ORD.

How Long Does it Take to Read the Newspaper?

The Washington Post ran a story about the volunteers at "Washington Ear" who read every day's newspaper for the benefit of the blind. It takes about 24-25 hours to read every single word, including each panel of each comic, and every television listing.

"There's a bit of skill to reading the paper out loud. "A lot of aspiring radio and TV personalities will come out," Margaret says. "It's wonderful practice for them."

If they pass the audition, that is: a half-hour cold reading of news stories, poetry and a scene from a Thornton Wilder play. Then there's the pronunciation test: mujaheddin, sobriquet, vichyssoise, bivouac, Taipei. . . .

Half of those who apply wash out.

"If the blind person can't understand the person who's reading, then we're not providing a service," says Nancy Knauss, administrative director."

Vixen Hunter

We woke up early Sunday morning and watched this fox chase a bunny around the yard. 

Actually, Sex Doesn't Sell.

Movies about sex are usually box office flops. says CNN.

Last year, five of the top-10-grossing movies were PG. Of the top 25, only four were rated R. "Increasingly, if a movie is rated R," says producer John Goldwyn, "audiences won't go."

Outside of the sophisticated urban art-house milieu, most American moviegoers just don't want much sex in their movies. According to studio marketers, it tends to make them (especially men) uncomfortable. "If you spell sex in marketing materials, it doesn't sell," producer Peter Guber says. "If you spell fun, it sells. Sex inside a comedy candy-coats sex and allows the audience to feel comfortable. Laughter covers up insecurity. Sex sells, but not serious sex.

Films can be sexy, but they can't portray the sexual intimacy most people crave. In the movies, you have to have safe sex palatable to a younger audience. The portrayal has to be violent or funny."

Which is why vulgar, dumb, funny sex plays in such movies as "There's Something About Mary," "American Pie" and "Road Trip." "When they're flinging around in a wet T-shirt contest in 'Old School,' it's fine," DreamWorks marketing chief Terry Press says, "because no emotion is attached to it."

An Interesting Fellow

This morning brought bright sunlight. And when we drove up to the office door, there was a guy waiting for us holding magazines. "Uh, oh, I thought. Here must be the ad sales guy, who, seeing the feature story in Business West, is ready to try to get me on an ad schedule." It turned out to be David D. Frazier, an graphic artist, friendly web guy and video tinkerer. David works for BusinessWest and lives in nearby Leverett. He stopped by to see what we were doing with our travel site. He worked previously for EF, big tour company, and is, like us, a traveler. We are thinking of how we can mesh, and hope to see more of him.

The other news today was from Laos. I was invited to visit an ecolodge there. This is going to be an eye opening trip, late May. Very excited and thinking a lot about this trip.

The Siren Call of Television

Matt from ABCNews 40 called, wanting us to come on and speak about Internet issues. It is always fun to oblige, but by this time I did ask to be on at 5:30 pm and not earlier. The subject is a new website called zoominfo.com and its ramifications for internet privacy.

I called the company and was surprised to actually get their PR chief on the phone. Brian Payea said from their Cambridge Headquarters, that there is nothing sinister about the idea. "We just provide the same info you can find if you did a Google search for yourself, but we do it faster and gather it all in 18 categories for you.

That is for the paying customers, who buy the "Enterprise version" of the software for $12,000 per year and up. He said 20 % of the Fortune 500 have ponied up to avail themselves of the service. They use it to locate new executives or hard to find software engineers. "they can search for somebody who fits their hiring criteria," Payea said, "and also for due diligence if they are trying to buy a company.

Watch for me tonight on the 5:30 news on Channel 40, Springfield.

Sony and the Big D

Sony Stark is a vivacious and energizing woman who I met a few months ago. She radiates a positive energy that is infectious. Tonight I heard she is going to Dallas to write her first story for GoNOMAD.com. We couldn't be happier and we know she will bring back a good story for our site.

Sony is a shooter, and a videographer, who lives with a heavy camera perched on her shoulder. She traipses around the Albany area shooting video for the local CBS affiliate, she shoots the footage you see on the local news. But Sony is also a traveler, and she has a goal of creating a television program that captures the essense of our kind of travel. While we keep trying to make this elusive goal happen, Sony will be traveling and writing for GoNOMAD.

Other writers are also on the road for us: JC Bailey, a professional wordsmith from California, is going to Washington state in April to do a story; Kent St. John is in Indonesia right now, doing a feature on the island of Batam, and I am heading for Milwaukee in mid April to visit the Harley Davidson Factory and do a story about the city. You gotta get out there, I say, and I'm pleased to have all of these stories coming in to make our website deeper and richer. Content is king!

Just Before the Surge--Treasures Revealed!

Today's New York Times told a tale about the treasures revealed so briefly, when the water receded way, way back, just before it rushed forward in a dreadful surge.

"For a few minutes on Dec. 26, after the water had receded far from the shore and before it came raging back as a tsunami, the fishermen stood along the beach and stared at the reality of generations of legends.

Or so they say. Spread across nearly a mile, the site was encrusted with barnacles and covered in mud. But the fishermen insist they saw the remains of ancient temples and hundreds of refrigerator-size blocks, all briefly exposed before the sea swallowed them up again.

Whatever they saw is back under water and out of sight. But a few hundred yards away, something else came to the surface. In this village on the east coast, south of Madras, the tsunami scrubbed away six feet of sand from a section of beach, uncovering a cluster of boulders carved with animals, gods and servant girls. According to a myth, the temples once lined the shore and were said to be so beautiful that the gods destroyed all but one - the so-called Shore Temple, a magnificently carved complex that is now considered a national treasure.

Archaeologists say excavations were already under way before the tsunami struck, and that divers made some promising finds.

Quoted Accurately in Print

Jacylyn Stevenson's article about GoNOMAD just came out in the well respected, newly bi-weekly BusinessWest magazine, that covers all aspects of business in Western Mass. It was nice to visit with her a few weeks ago and to share our enthusiasm for travel. We hope that Jackie herself will soon begin writing for us, when we send her on a trip. Here are her quotes, accurate, I might add, that she published in the story.

"The most important thing people needed to know after 9/11 was that America was still open for business," he said. "The same holds true for South Asia following the tsunami. People are donating millions of dollars to relief efforts, and I gladly donated as well. But the best way we, as Americans, as travelers, can help the countries that were hit by the tsunami is to go there.

"Many people equate those entire countries with the damage caused by the tsunami, but that's not accurate," he continued. "There are some great, inland areas that are just fine, and accepting tourists. Spending our dollars there will help the entire economy."

He added that GoNomad travelers are the ideal group to lead the way.

"These people want to see the whole world, not select parts," he said. "They want to go to South Asia, or to the Middle East. They want to learn about new cultures. That act of people connecting with people is what is needed most."

Hartshorne is hard at work monitoring those connections from his South Deerfield office each day... constantly welcoming new visitors to the rest of the world.

Radio: It's All About the Train Wrecks

Friday's Wall Street Journal had a front page piece on how radio is coping with the twin assault of ipods and satellite radio, causing revenue losses for giants like Viacom and Clear Channel. The secret weapon? Engineering "train wrecks," that mimic the ipod's eclectic mix of totally different songs playing back to back.

"It's all about train wrecks," said Mike O'Reilly, of KCJK-FM in Kansas City. "If you hear MC Hammer go into the Steve Miller Band, I've done my job." They're also playing more songs, to be more like the ipod, where thousands of tunes are stuffed into the cigarette pack-sized device. Once for KCJK it was 300-400 songs, with the same 30 or 40 playing every day. Now, the station is going against the grain, playing more than 1200 songs, so each gets on the air every few days. Progress, indeed. But we still have to listen to the damn commercials!

Nude, Naked, Bare Bottomed--with a Notebook

In interest of journalism, and since a story we posted on GoNOMAD.com about the Top Ten Bare Beaches consistently ranks #1 in our readership, I have decided to further explore the fascinating realm of American nudism. I have arranged a trip to D'Anza Springs Clothing Optional resort, near San Diego, where I will travel in early May.

This trip won't have the usual worries....since I won't have luggage to check, nor more than a smile to bring with me. Sensing protocol, of course I am not bringing my camera and promise to obey the rules of nudist living. I am going to play nude tennis, take a naked hike, skinnydip in the pool and interview the devoted west coast nudists who I will meet at the resort. If this isn't a cheap way to get Google rankings, I don't know what is...but I am excited about finding out what it will be like to just walk out that door, buck naked, and live like a caveman for five days.

Hey Man....You Work WHERE?

The Boston Phoenix ran a profile of an unusual magazine, one that is geared to a very special type of er, reader.

"THERE ARE THREE questions people ask Rick Cusick when they learn he’s an editor at High Times magazine.

"How did you get your job at High Times?"

"Can you get me a job at High Times?"

"Can you get me some weed?"

This is not a casual culture, a smoking circle content with stem-filled dime bags and resin-scraped bowls. Rather, this is the territory of two-foot bongs and herbal vaporizers. "High Times is for the pot smoker," agrees editor Steve Bloom, who’s worked at the publication for 15 years. "They spend money on marijuana; they spend money on paraphernalia. When they travel, they go to destinations that are pot-friendly. They’re stoners. And stoners stick together because stoners are persecuted." Since possessing or selling pot is technically illegal, the regular pipe-packing burner is something of an outlaw — and High Times reflects its readers’ resulting sense of camaraderie.

Making Footprints on the Border

I read today on Drudge that Vincente Fox is against building walls on our southern border. "No country that is proud of itself should build walls ... it doesn't make any sense," Fox told a Mexico City news conference. "We are convinced that walls don't work." He said it was impossible for Mexico to post military or police patrols along the entire border to prevent crossings. "We can't keep them against their will by force," he said.

I found a photo on the web of the wall near San Diego, and comments by a hiker who had made the whole long journey from Canada to Mexico on the Pacific Crest Trail. He wrote:
"Still what strikes me the most about standing at the southern terminus of the Trail, isn't the monument. It's the twelve foot tall wall of corrugated steel standing some two dozen feet south of the monument. Running to the horizons in the East and West, it marks the true border between the US and Mexico.

Separating me and the border is a "No Man's Land". A road that runs parallel to the wall and patrolled by countless Border Patrol officers. They drive along it dragging a raft of tires chained together. A contraption designed to even out the dirt so that foot prints are easier to spot.

Bees in the Estrada Real, Brazil

So many fascinating books are sent to GoNOMAD for review. We don't review, but we do publish excerpts, to give our readers a taste of what's inside. Glenn Alan Cheney is an American, an apiarist (bee keeper) who walked a famous road through the heartland of Brazil. He comes across a fellow apiarist and describes Brazilian beekeeping in his book Journey on the Estrada Real:

"Africanized bees tend to swarm more often than Italian bees. That's both good and bad. It means you can easily lose a swarm, but you can just as easily capture one by poking a hole in a box and leaving it in the woods. These bees rarely kill anyone. But once, someone captured a swarm and was taking it home, and for some reason he left the small hive on the side of the road. He told a local farmer not to mess with it. Along came a highway worker on a tractor, mowing grass. When he hit the hive, the bees exploded. The farmer told the worker to run. He did--faster than the farmer, may he rest in peace."

What Breaks Big Machines

From a new article published on GoNOMAD.com, about logging in the Congo, by Will Sparks.

"The 40-ton machine drove straight through anything less than about 10cm in diameter, and maneuvered around larger trees to reach the target log. Workers attached a steel winch cable to the log and the operator pulled the log out to the road, where a truck would collect it for transport to the sea. Alan told us that these machines cost about a half-million dollars each, and that he expects one to last four years before requiring replacement.

Cat engineers, he said, visit his operation to learn what breaks the machines and how to make them stronger. Throughout our visit Alan seemed eager to show us how difficult it is to extract this wood from the forest. I asked him whether he’d had any problems with environmentalists. “Not yet,” he said. The Chinese on their concessions, he said, clear-cut the land, so he wasn’t too concerned for his operation.

Once they Come, Will They Want to Stay?

Gerry McGovern is a wise web guy who provided good ideas for getting people to come to your website. Here is part of today's column, he explains that people's reaction to what they see is as important as how quickly they can find you:

I was recently thinking of renting a holiday home in Spain, so I searched for: "Spanish holiday homes". I clicked on the first search result, and this is the text I read.

Spain Holiday Rentals Holiday rentals in Spain for holidays in Spain Spain Holiday Rentals directly from the owners. Rent Spanish holiday homes - a holiday villa or perhaps a holiday apartment in Spain. Spain vacation rentals for holidays in Spain are easily located by searching a Spain holiday home on our website. Spain Holiday Rental offer Spanish holiday homes for your next Spain vacation.

This content is excellently written from a search engine optimization perspective. The carewords (Spain, holiday, rentals, etc.) are prominent and repeated often. However, this content doesn't seem credible to me. I don't get a sense of trustworthiness off it. In fact, it reads to me like spam, and that made me quickly hit the Back button.

Remember, getting people to your website is just the first step. Having them complete the task is ultimately what it's all about.

Kate and Francisco and My Grandson

This is my daughter Kate who is expecting a boy in May with fiance Francisco, in Miami. 

A Well Connected Washington Jerk

Vanity Fair consistently wins the award for 'magazine that is actually worth paying $4.50 at the supermarket' for. April's issue included a profile of uber-connected Washington columnist and TV host Robert Novak, by David Margolick.

Below he recounts an encounter with an man who was outraged that Novak outed CIA Operative Valerie Plame in his column:

"You're a traitor!" he shrieked, "You're a traitor!" The man was hushed up, and program resumed and Novak talked more politics. But afterward, as Novak made his way out to the CNN bus, his tormentor follows, taunting him some more and allegedly shoved him from behind. Novak, a short septuagenarian, grabbed the much larger man by the arm and gave him a shove back, sending him sprawling. Then he prepared for more serious skirmishing. "Novak looked like a little caged animal, fist locked and cocked back...like a garden troll gone insane." Before he could take another swing, his Crossfire counterpart Paul Begala dragged him away."

Google Translation Machine Butchery

this is the pathetic google translation of an email from italy. why putting a computer translator on your website is lame:

Good day beloved editor, not there are problems, she will be the welcome. We are still in phase of completion we let us work of restructure (we will realize the swimming pool in spring 2006) but we are already working especially with the German customers. Sure that it would make us it appeal to to increase our river basin of customers especially in the periods from March to june and september to October (to July and August we are always full) _ Sure that would be beautiful to work a Pò also in the winter months...Cordial salutes

Crocodile in the Pool

Found this item on travelmole, a cool site that provides travel tidbits.

The many dangers facing visitors to Australia have been well documented, but tourists would normally feel safe in one of the country’s many swimming pools.

At least, they should until now, after a saltwater crocodile was found in a public swimming pool near the city of Darwin, in the Northern Territory.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the three-foot-long beast, which is thought to have been put into the pool as a joke, could have inflicted a nasty bite on anyone who came within range of its jaws.

A spokesman for the leisure centre is quoted as saying: “I have no idea why anyone would do such a thing. Luckily it was only little.”

The Funniest Joke You've Ever Heard

I heard about this new movie from a column by Frank Rich in today's New York Times. Here is what they wrote about this film, directed by Penn Gillette, in the Sundance Film Blog.

"When the Aristocrats platform moves from obscene to racist the audience is challenged for the second time. If we can laugh about sex, violence, and bodily fluids, why can’t we laugh about race?

This film is the equivilant of spending an entire night at a comedy club, but with every pause cut out: just back-to back-jokes for 90 minutes. Right as you’re about to stop—or in some cases start—laughing, the directors cut to the next scene. It’s cruel, but you’ll love it.

I’m thrilled Sundance chose to accept Aristocrats. Forty years after Lenny Bruce was arrested for obscenity at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco, we’re dealing with the government wanting to control speech again by fining artists directly.

The Aristocrats takes no prisoners and makes no apologies in it’s war against censorship, and to make you laugh."

Tips for a Slow Blog Death

Web Pro News always has the handle on the cutting edge. Here are some salient points about blogs, please remind me if I do this.

How To Destroy Your Blog

By Wayne Hurlbert

There are several ways that you can destroy your own blog. It might be a slow and gradual demise; or perhaps sudden and decisive.
Become boring. Talk about yourself, and nothing else, in the most tedious way possible. Leave no detail unturned.
Post rarely. Let entire glacial epochs pass between those posts about your choice of socks.
Never link to any other blogs. After all, none of them have cool socks like yours, to keep their feet toasty warm, during those chilly ice ages.
Have no comments available on your blog. Why let anyone discuss socks and glaciers when you do it so much better, if somewhat less frequently. Anyway, who's counting?
Don't comment on any other blogs. They will be extinct after the thaw, and will have worn out their socks by then anyway.
Read the Full Article

Oh, the Horror, of Jocko's Nose

Tina Brown writes in the Washington Post on Jocko, and describes Martin Bashir thusly..Why on earth did Jackson and the Princess of Wales both choose to open up their entire lives to this brooding, charm-free figure? He looks about as well-intentioned as the interrogator you meet when you are rendered by the U.S. military -- and seems to wreak the same havoc on his subjects' lives.

In the low, appalled voice one reserves for especially heinous horrors, Bashir asks, "Is it true that your father used to say you had a fat nose?" Jackson theatrically averts his head at the ghastliness of this memory and then says with a half-weeping snicker: "Yeah . . . You want to die. You want to die. . . . God. It's hard."

Balls Flying Over the Edge in Dubai

Andre Agassi and Roger Federer enjoy a game atop the dizzying heights of Dubai's famous seashell-shaped hotel. The watched 211 balls fly over the edge.  

Mistress and Mrs Mix-up

News from Focsany, Romania came in recently about an unfortunate cheater.

Man Loses Wife & Mistress Over Gifts A Romanian man lost his wife and mistress in one night after buying both a personalized gold necklace then mixing up the gifts.

Petru Cioaba, from Focsany, bought identical necklaces for his wife and his mistress and had their initials and a personal message engraved into each one; but he mixed up the necklaces, and after he left his wife the necklace one morning as a surprise present for her and went to work, he got a message from a lawyer saying she was filing for divorce.

Cioaba said he hoped his wife, to whom he has been married 20 years, would not go through with the divorce, local newspaper 7 Plus reported.

Getting Out of the Office

I was a guest speaker at a class at UMass yesterday. Old pal BJ Roche, who I have known for decades, invited me to speak to her feature writing class. The students were mostly interested in writing for magazines, none said they wanted to be travel writers. I showed them examples of well written queries, (one sentence will do to summarize the story you want to pitch, and a second is all you need to describe your experience) and talked about John McPhee. I told them about the fourteen years he spent trying to get published in the New Yorker, and that after so many rejections, he finally found the sweet spot when he wrote about Bill Bradley, Princeton's first great basketball star. They hired him as a staff writer, and now just his name on an issue sells thousands of additional newsstand copies. Perseverance, I said, you get rewarded for that.

I also talked about blogging, and podcasts, and RSS feeds, and how the web is the final peak of all of the other media. I drew a "W" on the blackboard showing how TV, radio, print are all pointing up toward that convergence. They clapped after I was done, and that felt good.

Evita: Decked out in Diamonds and a Plaster Cast

Looking for History is a new book that came to me from old friend and super-reader Kent St. John. It is subtitled "dispatches from Latin America' and written by Alma Guillermoprieto. The first chapter is about Eva Duarte, who became the Evita we have all heard about from the Madonna movie. Her story is tragic and short: She was diagnosed with uterine cancer at age 31, but refused to get treated. "she was too busy rallying recalcitrant politicians to support Peron's reforms," and crossing the nation "tailored, perfumed and decked out in diamonds." Her story is of a young girl who put everything into her Man, and the Man gave little back.

"Her last act of will involved yet another manipulation of her own body: in order to attend Peron's second inaguration, when she was already too weak to stand, she had a plaster support made in which she was encased, upright, during an open car ride, the device covered by a long fur coat. She died soon after at 33.

Poker in the Showroom and Flowers in the John

Television often lives up to its billing, surprising as that is to say. Last night's viewing included several well done reality shows. First up was "boss swap," where two car dealers exchanged sales managers. The first dealership was, improbably, run entirely by women. The second shop specialized in exotic cars, and was run by an all man crew. Woman sales manager's first action after arriving at the male run shop was to clean the place up. The bathrooms, she said, were putrid, and there was a mess in the showroom. And they were trying to sell Porsches and BMWs. She brought flowers into the bathroom and purchased new fancier signs. Then she took aim at the circle of gamblers who every day played poker in the showroom. NOT! Gone was the gambling and the bathrooms smelled like roses.

At the all-woman dealership, there were also serious changes afoot. Instead of allowing the gals to saunter in at 9:15 or 9:30, a time clock was installed, and a white board to keep track of sales. A contest was put in place where every one on the winning team would win $1000 in cash. Video monitors were placed in every office, under the guise of safety, but really, to keep people working hard.

At the end, the hardnose tactics of the men prevailed. The ladies loved the strict new rules and the resulting sales, and the men removed the flowers and resumed their showroom poker games.

Burning Reefer in the Streets of New York City

I was walking down 50th St. and smelled the sweet, unmistakable smell of burning reefer. Then I saw these two gents passing a big doobie back and forth here at their construction site. 

New York City last Friday, where Kent St. John was trying to get a visa for his trip to Brazil for GoNOMAD. He was unsuccessful, stood in line for an hour and was the last to be told he had missed the day's quota. This whole hassle is Brazil's response to how we treat their travelers when they come to the USA. 

Jumping on the Blogging Train

Kent St. John, our Senior Travel Editor at GoNOMAD.com, has jumped on the blogging train full tilt. His new blog will be called Be Our Guest, and provide readers with details, photos and other tidbits about his travels and about the life of a travel editor. His next few months hold some exotic destinations....he is off to Singapore, then to the island of Bataam, then a week later he flies down to Rio. From there after a week of touring, (his second visit to this magnificent city) he will helicopter to an island south of Rio where he will take in the natural cures and do yoga and eat healthy.

More and more destinations are calling Kent, and we are sure that this blog will be a lot of fun for those of us who are NOT roaming the world, but enjoy reading about it.

Fat Actress Makes Good

Kirstie Alley has the last laugh and deserves it. The former Cheers siren, who is famous for National Enquirer photos and her weight, landed a new TV series on Showtime that focuses on the subject of weight. She refuses to run away from herself and has written a new series starring her fat self. But it took a while to get the show sold.

When the executives initially failed to respond with enthusiasm, Ms. Alley and Ms. Hampton bought two dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts and had them delivered to the office of Bob Greenblatt, the network's president. Attached was a note that said: "Maybe you're not fat enough to get it. Have a doughnut."

It worked. The network ordered seven episodes of "Fat Actress," which has its debut on Showtime on March 7. The series includes appearances by John Travolta, Carmen Electra, Kid Rock and Kelly Preston, who plays Ms. Alley's diet adviser and favors bulimia as the ideal weight-loss tool.

Leo the Lioness

We met Jen Leo today at the NY Times Travel show. IT was great to put a person with a name, we've been in touch for a while about the interview we ran with Jen and about her wonderful writtenroad.com blog. Jen is going to be a poker player this summer, doing interviews with many of the players who are competing in the World Series of Poker. cool!

They were selling books at the Traveler's Tales area, bigger than the rest of the booths. Selling books is hard work. These folks produce a great series of books and are passionate about travel.

The show was full of other great connects for GoNOMAD. Good to make the trip.

Friday Night in NYC

We took in the New York Times Travel show today at the Javits Center. A little more subdued than the show where we exhibit, that is sponsored by the NY Post. But we met some interesting people, including a bus/dev lass from igougo.com, a great site that is very deep and has a lot of potential. Also talked about TV shows with a man who runs a TV production company. He frowned that thousands of producers are trying to get any sort of meeting with Discovery, which owns the Travel Channel. So we pause, see what we have that's unique and worth buying and keep on thinking of how we'll do it.

Always great to feel the exhilaration of being in New York City. Lunched at China Grill, with grilled shrimps and crisp cod, tonight it's Ruth's Chris steak, that tiny filet....should be good.

Writers Come to 14A Sugarloaf St.

We had a visit from Jaclyn Stevenson, a Senior Writer for BusinessWest magazine. She had been planning a story about GoNOMAD.com for a while and a recent decision to turn this venerable monthly into a bi-weekly sped up the deadline. She came to the office and sat for an interview yesterday.

It was a pleasure to speak with her because she was knowlegable about travel and interested in what we were doing. Unlike my previous interview with the Recorder, I didn't find myself getting emotional while I recalled the early days, when Joe Obeng and I would toil until 2 or 3 in the morning working on the site. No this time I was just plain happy. Our talk included our plans to introduce podcasting for GoNOMAD authors, our TV show in development, and our new airline ticket and affiliate relationships, and how many interns we want to hire.

It was a pleasure to have Jackie here and she told us "this is the kind of story I love to write," we knew we had the makings of some good publicity. Look for the story in the March 15 2005 issue of BusinessWest.

Friends Who Listen and Care

It is rare to meet a person who really listens. Truly sits down, faces you, and pulls out what it is on your mind. Even when you take a detour and change the subject, they steer the conversation back to you. WOW! that feels as good as the blazing fire we sat in front of while the conversation took place.

Old friends are worth more than new ones. Friends like Joe who understand me, get me, make me a rich man to have such wonderful friends. I needed to talk last night and while we drank his yerba tea, we hashed things out.

The morning was made even brighter when I left the accountant's office and found out I had paid enough taxes. WOW! that feels as good as when you get your teeth cleaned at the dentist and you feel your tongue against your newly cleaned teeth.

Ken, Don't hold back, really.

A guy I used to work with at the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Cosmo Macero, has become a columnist for the Boston Herald. Here that paper's top boss talks about the competition.

from Boston magazine:
Ken Chandler, the Herald's top editor, says: "The Globe isn't the first paper I read. And I can tell you it ain't the second or third, either. I regard reading it as one big chore." Another dig: "You get the feeling that if they cover a local story and they have to go into the neighborhoods, they're holding their noses." A quote he gave to New Yorker mag -- "If I produced a newspaper as boring as the Globe, I'd kill myself" -- is blown up on an 11-by-17 printout and hangs just outside the Herald men's room.

Verizon "lets" Philly Wi-Fi Proceed

Last Minute Good News

The PA governor's office said that Verizon and Philadelphia have reached a deal permitting the citywide project--which is intended to turn 135 square miles of downtown into one huge 802.11b hot spot--to proceed.

Wired had reported that Ed Rendell was in the pocket of the telcoms, but this last minute news means if you've got a laptop in Philly, cancel your home internet service!

Search's Golden Triangle

From the arcane, precise, and utterly fascinating world of SEO, or search engine optimization, comes this bit of wisdom, published on webproworld.com.

At a recent SEO symposium, Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro showed a Google search results page with an "eye tracking map" that looked similar to a thermal imagery chart (with the "hotspots" showing the most eye contact). The study distinctly showed most eyes look at the top left corner of the search results, with a small coverage at the top of the paid search results.

Hotchkiss explained that a users' eye is drawn to a triangle pattern which he named "Search's Golden Triangle", with searchers scanning from the top left to the page's "fold" line and then left (in a triangle pattern). While the triangle did not really extend below the fold, 60% of participants scrolled down below the fold, with only 40% taking a look at the paid search results on the right (above fold).

Delightfully complex...yet at the heart of how to effectively work the web.

The End of Lives

Katherine Tanney once again made the NY Times Sunday magazine with a thoughtful and eloquent essay about the end of her parent's lives. It was bittersweet and all too typical. Her father, who had always been the reliable post,turns into a needy alzheimer patient and the mother just can't cope. While we can easily judge the woman who went from having a husband who orders her food for her to a sadly sick man who wanders the streets and can't control his bladder, it is never that simple.

A life like so many others that ends in this debilitating, painful way teaches us how tricky and merciless the world really is. Here is Tanney's eloquent last paragraph.

"I used to think the final moment of life was the moment of truth, and I worried about it. I attempted bizarre feats of imagination, such as trying to will my own death during a moment of exquisite happiness. "Now," I coaxed the universe, my eyes shut, my breath on hold. "Take me now." Because I knew all too well what tends to follow exquisite happiness, and I desperately wanted the universe to make an exception for me."