Funny Names for Big Bottles of Vino

We visited many wineries and wine shops today in Austria, and I came across a huge bottle in one of them. Not sure what to call it, I found out this:

Standard Wine Bottle Sizes:

These are traditional standard bottle sizes for Champagne.

Split
1/4 bottle 18.7 cl

Half
1/2 bottle
37.5 cl

Bottle
1 bottle
750 ml

Magnum
2 bottles
1.5 l

Jeroboam
4 bottles
3 l

Methuselah
8 bottles
6 l

Salmanazar
12 bottles
9 l

Balthazar
16 bottles
12 l

Nabuchadnezzar
20 bottles
15 l

Styrian Fields Are Glorius in September

We drove into the Styrian countryside today, it was a bright clear day, sunny and bright, the kind of day where you want to spend as much time as possible sitting in the sun, like the cows we passed enjoying their corner of a hilly pasture. Our first stop was Welt Piber, where the Lippazaner stallions are raised and retired. These beasts go on to thrill the crowds at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, but here is where they begin...and after 8-10 years, where they retire. Our guide, natty in an officer's cap and matching maroon vest, showed us the fake wooden mare, complete with tail, where the stallions hump to donate their sperm to the cause. They do this in addition to breeding naturally, we were glad to hear.

Then we drove across the mountainous lovely green countryside to the top of a hill where we tasted Styrian wines, including five-day old Schilcher, which tastes like strawberries with a bit of a fizz. Here at the open air restaurant a girl of about five delighted in watching us as we sat chattering in English. She came out wearing a waitresses apron complete with order pad, much to her delight. The young wine has a kick that the large serving glasses don't reveal, all around us Austrians chugged the stuff with abandon. We had more tastings to go, so we took it easy.

Later we boarded a steamtrain for a short ride to a pumpkin seed oil farm. The farmer delighted in telling us the health benefits of this 'black gold' as it's known, and it is damn good on ice cream. He showed us the burly men who operated huge presses that squeeze the seeds into oil, and then he showed us the olden days method, cranking it out by hand. When he said it was good for the prostate I stocked up on a few bottles...plus it has all sorts of anti-oxidents and other stuff that chases away free radicals.

We finally ended up at the Rauch Hof, (pictured here) where they grow their own veggies and raise trout, rabbit and buy only the local beef and dairy products. We went for a walk in their fields and surprised three guests who were naked after swimming in the pool. We tasted their chanterelle mushrooms, the rabbit, and topped it off with their own schnapps, which made Adam, who was sick, feel much better.

"It Is Not a Potato...It's a Bubble"

"It's not a potato...It's a bubble," said Klaus, as we stood outside the Kunsthaus Graz, a futuristic bubblish looking building that sits beside the Mur river. It's an enormous museum filled with art you don't understand...but that's okay, you simply experience it. This building dates back to the 1800s and is made of cast iron. That's one side.

But the bubble side contains the weird art they call contemporary. Where to start? There is a little house in here with a fax machine. Artists fax in sheets describing how to make this house unliveable...suggestions pour in every day, such as 'hire two men to sit in a car outside the house all day' or 'rip out all the water pipes and electric wires' or 'burn down the house.' In another exhibit a man sat inside a counter and offered to make amulets for anything you were afraid of, such as over eating, drunken partygoers, getting sick etc.

It's called the 'friendly alien' and it is indeed a strange new world in here. At night one-foot pixels light up in patterns programmed by artists, so all night long there is a 200 foot artshow that the whole city can see. It's a computer generated blob that was commissioned in 2003 when the city was Europe's cultural capital, and built over a former parking lot and dilapidated old stores. To get up inside a moving staircase, sort of an escalator without steps, wisks you up into the darkness. After that you're on your own to try to understand the high concept art that awaits.

Watching Your Wife in the Shower Is Fun

Today was a classic full press trip day. We began at 7:45 am, when Latti, Adam and I walked to the farmer's market in Graz center city. There were rows and rows of cheerful Styrian farmers, most of whom offered homemade schnapps in addition to the bright flowers, kohlrabi, celeriac and trout from the nearby Mur river. They also had lots of pumpkin oil and other homemade products from Austrian farms. Each time we passed a farmer's stall they would murmur in German what they sold, and one farmer offered us a taste of his elderberry schnapps. It was only 8 am, but hey, we're in Austria--bottoms up!

Then we met up with Ute, the manager of three Graz hotels. The company owns the Hotel Weitzer, (where we are staying), the Grand Hotel Wiesler, five star, next door, and the Daniel, a very cool boutique hotel on the other side of town. We learned why they called the hotel grand, it had an in-room bathroom, a rarity in the early 1900s. Later we learned why they call it a salute: Knights approaching each other could not tell who was who, so they tipped up their visors and voila, the salute was born.

At the Daniel, a lovely young manager showed us around, we crowded into a tiny elevator and she showed us the 59 euro rooms. They were small but had a unique feature: the shower had a glass wall, so you could watch your partner while she lathered up. One elderly man told our hotel tour guide that he'd never seen his wife taking a shower before he stayed in the Daniel...and it was a wonderful experience!

The Graz tram impressed me: it was sleek and didn't creak. In every car there was a flat monitor showing which stop was next, ads for India tourism, new movies that were coming and then chimed in a soft key to gently tell you it was time to get off.

Dinner in the City --Getting to Know The Others

Last night we had a fine dinner at an old restaurant in the city. It was Landhaus-Keller, which means 'government building's cellar' and the food was excellent. It included Austrian specialties like boiled beef, super tender beef raised up in the mountains that comes with a cream sauce. Also, we had pumpkin soup and others had a chanterelle soup, which was light and pungent. We sat in the back in a huge square table, and we got a chance to get to know eachother.

Some times on a press trip, these moments never come, or are awkward and one person becomes a boor or never shuts up. I am pleased that this group is not like that, it's a good mix and interesting people with something to say and interest in listening. There's Adam, editor of Sherman's Travel in NYC; Latti, who was born in Ethiopia, raised in France, and who has a company that makes boutique vodka in LA with her husband; Ginger, an full time freelance writer who is from Florida and who spent years in DC doing radio and publicity and now has great stories to tell, and finally, Kim, from Boston who is managing editor of Boston Spirit magazine. All four have stories to tell and no egos that get in the way of being interesting.

After enjoying dinner and Styrian wines, we went out to have a few more beers. Our guide Teresa took us to a place called M-1, where we took an elevator up to the fifth floor. Emerging from the elevator, it was a candlelit cool bar with loud but good music, and we found some seats at a banquet. There we talked about US politics and agreed that it's a pity that no Democrats have emerged yet to challenge the right.

We agreed to get up early and go check out the farmer's market in town. We also agreed that if somebody didn't make it, we wouldn't hold it against them.

Thousands and Thousands of Rifles

We checked into our hotel in Graz and had lunch, then despite our jet lag, we went for a tour of the city. This is a farmer's city, much of the land in Styria is used for farming, there is a market every day beginning at 4 am.  There are also many courtyards, our guide said one was called the 'Bermuda Triangle' because it was so difficult to find your way out. 

Among the courtyards and cobblestones, we toured a fascinating museum called the Armoury. Here there were four stories with nothing but weapons, armor and other machines of war. Stack upon stack of 15th and 16th century muskets, huge things that were not held like rifles but used on turrets to defend castles. Then row after row of spiked helmets, and thousands of old pistols, all neatly racked. The whole place is made of wood, that's what absorbs the moisture so all of this metal doesn't rust.  All of these thousands of rifles and cannons were for one reason---to defend Austria against the invading Turks over the decades.

We were pooped but we made it to the third floor, there among more shields, swords and bayonets was a full set of horse armor. Even the ears were shielded in steel. 

After more tours of narrow alleyways and ancient buildings, including one courtyard with a realistic-looking marble snowman inside, I asked to be excused to catch a nap here in my hotel.

Today's Good Health is, Well, Priceless

In the NY Times today, columnist David Leonhardt makes valid points about health care. His point is that good health is priceless, and we're all lucky to have it in spite of the fact that it is taking more and more of our paychecks. He compares today with the 1950s. "Modern medicine has little to offer for the prevention or treatment of chronic and degenerative diseases," wrote Rene Dubos, a prominent biologist of the 60s.

It was years later that doctors learned that high blood pressure and high cholesterol caused heart attacks. Today these and other revelations such as breakthroughs in cancer treatment keeps pushing the longevity bar higher, much higher than anyone in those days could have imagined.

But the result of all of these miracles, of course, is that it costs a lot. Leonhardt asked poignantly: Would you prefer to spend an extra $5500 per year and live longer? Or save the money and die ten years younger? It's an obvious choice that gets forgotten as we all complain about the recent increase in our Blue Cross bill.

David Cutler wrote a book called "Your Money or Your Life," he said, "We have enough of the basics in life...what we really want are the time and the quality of life to enjoy them." So Leonhardt's point is, it's worth spending all of this dough on health care, since the return is, well, priceless.

Subway Scenes on the Way to JFK

I found that taking various methods of mass transit to JFK airport made a lot of sense. Tallying up the total, so far I've spent about $60, including a round trip ticket on a Peter Pan bus. It was as Sam would say, inspiring to spend about half of what it would cost to park at the airport and not have to drive anywhere. I also love not thinking about car keys for this whole trip.

On the way to the airport, via the A train NYC subway, I observed the passengers beside me. At one point when I joined another traveler with a big pack obviously also heading to the airport, and asked about how to get there, three straphangers chimed in, letting us know we had to get off and wait for the other train to get to the Airtrain at Howard Beach. I saw a 60ish man doing a crossword puzzle who had an earring. Then I saw a very dark skinned woman wearing a headscarf and very ornate black coverings up and down her arms and legs. Then a grey haired older black man who wore a security guard uniform and shiny brown loafers.

When the subway emerged from the tunnel to the elevated tracks, many of the people on the train took out cellphones and began staring at them. Beside me was a very fat man with a brown tee shirt that said 'chocolate factory R Kelly.' Two strapping young men stood in the doorway, both with tight doo rags, and spoke loudly, making many of the other passengers uncomfortable.

I had become friendly with a young Asian woman who wore a bright sash in her hair and carried an enormous blue backpack. She was flying to Las Vegas, where she would meet a group and the 35 of them would hike for eight days in Utah. It was fun traveling the subway with her, both of us waiting for the train, and then we said our goodbyes and went to our separate terminals.

Google Makes Travel Planning a Cinch

Today I loved Google. Hell, I've always loved them, especially when the direct deposit goes into our bank account for their ads on GoNOMAD, but it's really more than that. I love that I typed in such simple questions to them and out poured such perfect, easy to use, and relevant answers. This is making me love the world today.

I'm off to JFK, and don't want to drive. So I'm taking a bus to NYC and now found, through hopstop.com, the subway directions to Howard Beach. Then I found the $5 fare that takes me by monorail on the Airtrain all the way to Austria Airlines' terminal at JFK.

I gotta get there at 4 pm, so backing up, it looks like I'll leave Holyoke at 10 or so and spend the next 19 hours of so making my way across the ocean to my destination. I'm leaving my beloved cafe and website in competant, concerned hands, who will do the right thing and take care of the details. I'm doing what I'm best at...exploring, writing, and bringing back stories, photos and details.

FLY ON!

Taking A Night Flight to Vienna on Wednesday

We have been sweating it out recently when GoNOMAD went down and we had many upset people who could not get email. We worked with our Texas-based host and we got it back working, and now I can breath a sign of relief. Just in time because tomorrow at 6:05 pm I fly from JFK to Vienna.

I remember the last time I went to Austria, it was with Cindy. We hiked the Alps in Innsbruck, and both enjoyed the wonderful sense of humor of the Austrians. Funny little signs and things they'd say. Our guides told us that the Germans sometimes didn't understand their jokes...but since the number one country that sends tourists there is Germany, they had to keep that secret.

My trip will take me to the city of Graz, a university town in the middle of the country, in Styria. I meet up with five other writers for the first part of the trip, then I take the train next Monday up to Linz. In Linz there is a famous museum of modern computer style art...and I also hope to spend time in Kitzbuhel, in the mountains. I am inquiring at this late hour with a few farms that have agritourism, that seems like a fun place to spend a night. I will be taking a Eurail pass with me, so I can get on and off the trains when I like.

You can be sure you'll read all about it here, stay in touch!

Site of the Future Farmer's Market in S. Deerfield

  

These parking spaces will become a farmers market next May. We've already got four farmers and an entire community interested in participating!

Saturday Night Out at Butternuts

We joined our friends Rick and Susanna and went out to dinner last night. Our first stop was to the Delaney House, we thought we'd give it a try after seeing their ads that said they had 'lightened up' a bit. We were hoping there would be a new, casual ambience in this stuffy place. So we sent the gals up to investigate...they returned to the packed parking lot with a 'no go.'

It was so loud in there nobody would possibly be able to converse. Rick has a theory about why music is so loud in bars frequented by the young: he thinks they like it because it provides an instant intimacy, a legitimate way to get very close physically, in order to hear what's being shouted into your ear.

So we drove down Rte 9 and headed to a new place called Butternuts, in Hadley. This restaurant had come recommended, and the dining room was pleasantly quiet and not too crowded. I ordered a cassoulet, one of my favorite French dishes, and Cindy had a butternut chicken dish. I was disappointed in mine, the navy beans were not done enough and I had hoped for melt in your mouth texture. Cindy's dish was too creamy, just not that great. Our bottle of Zinfandel was weak ass, it didn't have the velvety strong kick you'd expect from this varietal; it was more like a pinot.

We enjoyed the service, though, and I told the waitress politely that I thought the beans were underdone. I hope that wasn't an insult to the chef, hey, I'd want to know what my customers thought if I owned the place.

Snowflakes Make Great Photography Subjects

We receive a lot of great books at the GoNOMAD.com office, simply by asking for them. Among this week's crop was a wonderful little volume called the Field Guide to Snowflakes. It is a close-up look at one of nature's wonders, those geometrically perfect creations that sprinkle down from the heavens. Author Ken Libbrecht gets to the heart of one of the age-old questions--are there really never two snowflakes alike?

He shows a photo of two flakes that fell one after another...they appear to have the same overall six-sided shape. But a closer examination shows tiny variances within the same shapes. He compares snowflakes to fifteen books on a shelf. There would be fifteen ways to arrange the first book, fourteen for the second, thirteen for the third etc. If you multiply it out, you will find there are over a trillion ways to arrange just fifteen books. "With 100 books, the number of possible arrangements is vastly greater than the total number of atoms in the entire universe."

Photographing snowflakes requires the use of a homemade flake catcher, a digital SLR, and this advice: "When a promising subject appears, carefully pick it up using a small artist's paintbrush, and place it on a glass microscope slide. The crystals stick to the brush surprisingly well, without suffering much damage, so the transfer is easier than you might think."

Uruguay Is the Next India

Thomas Friedman is on a roll. He's just plain right about using sugar cane ethanol (and rolling back our prohibitive tax) and now finds something to celebrate about Uruguay.

Four years later, TCS Iberoamerica can’t hire workers fast enough. When I visited its head office, people were working on computers in hallways and stairwells. (Mr. Rozman also oversees 1,300 employees in Brazil and 1,200 in Chile.) It turns out that many multinationals like the idea of spreading out their risks and not having all their outsourcing done from India — especially after one big U.S. bank nearly had to shut down last year when a flood in Mumbai paralyzed its India data center the same day a hurricane paralyzed its Florida operation. And there is no risk of nuclear war with Pakistan here.

“When I first approached this big U.S. bank to outsource some of its services to Montevideo, instead of India,” recalled Mr. Rozman, “the guy I was speaking with said, ‘I don’t even know where Montevideo is.’ So I said to him, ‘That’s the point!’ ”

Another factor, added Mr. Rozman, was that multinationals that were depending on Indian firms alone to run their backrooms 24 hours a day were getting the third team for eight hours, since the best Indian engineers didn’t want to work the late-night shift — the heart of America’s day. By creating an outsourcing center in Montevideo, Tata could offer its clients its best Indian engineers during India’s day (America’s night) and its best Uruguayan engineers during America’s day (India’s night).

Most employees here are Uruguayans, but there are also lots of Indians sent over by Tata. It produces both a culture shock — Montevideo doesn’t even have an Indian restaurant — and a cultural cacophony.

The firm runs on strict Tata principles, as if it were in Mumbai, so to see Uruguayans pretending to be Indians serving Americans is quite a scene. Said Rosina Marmion, 27, an Uruguayan manager, “Our customers expect us to behave like Indians — to react the same way.”

In outsourcing, though, Uruguay has leapt ahead of its neighbors by being the first to understand what could be done — that in today’s world having an Indian company led by a Hungarian-Uruguayan servicing American banks with Montevidean engineers managed by Indian technologists who have learned to eat Uruguayan veggie is just the new normal.

Clinton's Global Initiative Brings 'em Together

In New York, big things are happening at the ex-prez' gathering of luminaries.  Here is an account of a late afternoon session today.

"Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Fernando Cardoso (former president of Brazil) and Hernando de Soto, the visionary economist from Peru. Clinton proudly announces "we are on schedule!" Then Ruth Simmons, president of Brown University, calls the meeting to order, and the conversation quickly becomes remarkable.

Each has a different and profound area of expertise, yet they are all interested in each other's thoughts, listening as well as they are speaking, and there are no canned remarks. In fact, it could be said that they listen most intently to the least well-known of them, Hernando de Soto, who has fought to raise the profile of the world's invisible poor by investigating the simple facts of their existence (their legal status as citizens, as property owners, taxpayers, occupants of addresses, etc.), and proving that governments often do not even register these people.

As Ruth Simmons says, it's a problem that is "hidden in plain sight," and de Soto ranges impressively through world history, citing Hobbes and Jefferson, to shed light on how societies have ignored their poor.

Presidents Clinton and Cardoso (the descriptive "president" becomes a little redundant at CGI - three presidents on this panel alone!) bring their unique experiences as heads of state into the discussion, and Cardoso especially praises the role that NGOs will have to play in the future, abandoning the adversarial role that governments and activists have usually enjoyed.

When Cardoso and de Soto speak, there are hints of mild leftism, including de Soto's argument that free market capitalism excludes as many (or more) people than it includes. But this conversational breeze runs into a counterblast from Bill Gates, who argues forcefully that market innovations will be crucial to solving global poverty. It is really a remarkable back and forth, ably summed up by Presidents Simmons and Clinton - well worth watching more of on the CGI webcast.

These public conversations are happening all the time here, and begin to seem normal - it's important to remember that they are not. Is there a historian on earth who would not have wanted to attend a public conversation held, say, in 1910, between a charismatic former president (Teddy Roosevelt), a business giant (Andrew Carnegie), a thoughtful critic of the system (Upton Sinclair) and the former leader of a huge nation in the hemisphere? (I don't know who Brazil's leader was in 1910, but I'm assuming that not many others will either.)

Later at night, two parties pump up the volume a little more. Well, OK,a lot more. First, a giant gala at MoMA, where the crush of humanity is so great that the only work of art visible is a giant sculpture of a helicopter hovering dangerously over a stairwell.

Then a smaller event for press afterwards, at a nearby restaurant. The MoMA crowd bursts into applause when President Clinton, during his arrival, sees a familiar figure arriving behind him, President Jimmy Carter, now a little stooped, but unmistakably still himself, and goes over to embrace him. Their high-wattage smiles almost compete with the flashbulbs.

Pie in the Sky Hydrogen? Or Plug-in Hybrid Cars

The AP reported today about plug-in hybrid cars, that dramatically improve mileage--and the car companies are not yet interested.

"Toyota and other car companies say they are worried about the cost, convenience and safety of plug-in hybrids ? and note that consumers haven't embraced all-electric cars because of the inconvenience of recharging them like giant cell phones.

Automakers have spent millions of dollars telling motorists that hybrids don't need to be plugged in, and don't want to confuse the message.

"University of California, Davis engineering professor Andy Frank built a plug-in hybrid from the ground up in 1972 and has since built seven others, one of which gets up to 250 mpg. They were converted from non-hybrids, including a Ford Taurus and Chevrolet Suburban.

Frank has spent $150,000 to $250,000 in research costs on each car, but believes automakers could mass-produce them by adding just $6,000 to each vehicle's price tag.

Instead, Frank said, automakers promise hydrogen-powered vehicles hailed by President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, even though hydrogen's backers acknowledge the cars won't be widely available for years and would require a vast infrastructure of new fueling stations.

"They'd rather work on something that won't be in their lifetime, and that's this hydrogen economy stuff," Frank said. "They pick this kind of target to get the public off their back, essentially."

One Day on the Turnpike Changed Everything

Reading Sheryl Hunter's 'Sounds Local' column in the Recorder's Arts and Entertainment magazine and came across a story about a band called The Kennedys.

At one time Pete Kennedy was a member of Nanci Griffith's touring band, and Maura his wife was in a band called the Delta Rays; they lived in Austin. They toured and toured, and with Greenwich Village as their home base, they reached the 500,000 mile mark.

Then last year their van was struck by another vehicle on the NJ Turnpike. They spun around, flipped over, and miraculously, were not injured. But that day marked a turning point--they decided to move to Northampton, where they had friends and knew other musicians.

Today they live here but commute back to the city to record their weekly radio show called "Dharma Cafe" on Sirius. They play a gig at the Iron Horse on Sunday night.

"We've been on the road straight for the past 12 years now--we really don't take time off," said Maura...'wherever there is a gig we'll go there. We love playing for people."

Northampton has been a pleasant surprise, so rich with musical venues, bookstores and musicians. "I've been aware of Northampton and its coolness for a long time." she added.

"Don't be a Smartass, Bernie!"

My meeting with the selectboard in Deerfield went well. All three members expressed enthusiasm for our nascent farmer's market plan. But it took forever to get to my turn, and that gave me a chance to watch the town's finance committee in somulent action. God, how long these committees take to do what they do....it's long, long moments of murmuring, quiet ayes and seconds, and only occasionally minor flare-ups that upset the delicate balance.

There was an older member of the committee who wanted to clarify how much a project was going to cost. The patient Town Administrator, Bernie, tried to politely answer, saying jokingly that he could have made the cost $9999, but instead settled on $10,000. That's when he got the zinger in the headline above.

In other news, it turns out the chief of police bought bulletproof vests for his staff and they turned out to be defective. He used his drug forfeiture account for the expense. So he joined with other towns and they all sued and got back $9,000. But now the money was in the general fund, so the board voted to give Chief Woz his money back to buy more vests. Hopefully this time they will work.

Jokester Does It His Way at the End

Jim Schinneller did not request to run a photo of the back of his head with his death notice in Sunday's paper. Jim, a retired University of Wisconsin art professor, died at home Sept. 9 at age 81. It was an aneurysm. He went fast. The Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee's Jim Stingl wrote about him today.

"It's a family that goes for a little bit of one-upmanship," Jim Jr. said when I called to ask why his artist father had done an about-face for his, as they say in crossword puzzle land, "last writes."

"He said, 'I want you to take a picture of the back of my head. I want to give it to the kids for Christmas.' " They walked outside in front of his Fox Point home. He turned around and she snapped the color photo. Jim ordered 5-by-7 copies for each of his four grown children and one for Gloria's brother, put each one in a frame and wrapped them up as gifts two years ago.

Why would he do this? Because it was funny. Because it was unexpected. Because it took the everyday and turned it on its head, or at least around the other way.

When Jim received the first royalty check in the 1960s for a popular art history textbook he wrote, "Art: Search and Self-Discovery," he brought home the money in 1,000 single dollars. He had the kids stand at the bottom of the stairs while he rained the money down from the landing above.

Jim carried the silliness well into adulthood. Gloria said he would walk into a store and ask if they offered a 20% discount for good-looking customers. Or he'd tell total strangers he had picked up Gloria on Water St. and she just wouldn't stop following him. "He teased all the time. It was never boring," she said.

Farm market pitched in Deerfield

Patrick O'Connor of the Recorder published an article about an exciting plan we are hatching for downtown South Deerfield. The story also ran in the Daily Hampshire Gazette this morning.

SOUTH DEERFIELD - A local businessman wants to bring a farmers market to town.

''I want to celebrate the fact that we're a farming town,'' said Max Hartshorne, owner of GoNomad Cafe. Hartshorne is making a proposal to the Board of Selectmen today.

He complained that the nearest farmers markets are in Amherst, Northampton and Greenfield. ''Deerfield is full of farms,''he said. ''Yet, we have to drive 10 miles to a go to a farmers market.''

According to the town's 2006 Open Space and Recreation Plan, 70 percent of Deerfield is prime and productive farmland, with more than 4,800 acres being farmed. Hartshorne proposes that the town block off Park Street for the market. Park Street is a short road that connects Sugarloaf and North Main streets.

The market would be located across from Hartshorne's Internet cafe, and he said his other motive for having a farmers market is to bring more people into downtown.
''We want to be able to promote downtown and promote businesses in Deerfield,'' he said. ''It's in everybody's best interest.''

Selectman Carolyn Shores Ness said, ''I'm really excited about this. I know the board supports it.'' People have talked about starting a farmers market, but no one stepped forward in the past to organize it, she said.

Her only concern, she said, is that Deerfield's market, which is being proposed for Saturdays, would compete with Greenfield's market. ''If there are enough farmers, I think it's fine,'' Ness said.

Hartshorne said he would propose having 11 vendors, which would equal a vendor for each parking space on Park Street. He has not sought out farmers yet because he wants to get the go-ahead from the town first, he said.

However, he said three local farmers have told him that they would be interested in being vendors.

Farmer David Jackson, a longtime friend of Hartshorne's, said he wants to participate. Jackson, owner of Enterprise Farm in Whately, farms about 96 acres, on which he grows organic vegetables, including asparagus and zucchini.

Between 25 and 30 percent of his business is done in farmers markets in Boston and Northampton, he said.

Although there are many local farm stands, Jackson said farmers markets serve a different purpose. Because markets are open at set times once a week, they become social places, he said.

''It's a wonderful place for community people to get together and for neighbors to rub elbows,'' Jackson said.

In his opinion, Deerfield is ripe for such a place. Years ago, many local people had their own gardens or knew someone with a large garden or farm from whom they could get their produce, he said.

Today, many young families who move into town have none of those connections.
But they still want fresh, locally grown food, he said.

''I think the customer base for organic and local produce is much greater than it used to be, and that's why I'm excited about this,'' Jackson said.

Hartshorne will be making his proposal at the weekly Board of Selectmen meeting today at 7:30 p.m. in the town offices.

Peter Heller's Latest Adventure

Today we're introducing something new on the GoNOMAD home page. I've hired Joshu, a local webmaster, to help me introduce feeds on our front page. So that each of our eight blogs that are linked there will show the titles of most recent posts. That way our front page is automatically updated all the time. This may sound complicated but in a few years, I guarantee you'll get RSS feeds and they will be a part of most people's desktops.

I got a phone call from my old friend Peter Heller, in Denver. Once again, he's bound for another adventure. We reconnected after 25 years last October when we traveled together on a press trip to Chile. His story has just been published in Men's Journal...it's a story about Patagonia, where we went, and about a horse-packing trip he took in Argentina after he traveled with us. Now he's off for a month to Montana, where he's gonna learn how to fly a plane and do a story about fly-in hiking. Pete's also working on a new book about his adventure in Antarctica where he journeyed with anti-whaling activists and almost got his boat rammed by angry whalers.

It's wonderful to be in touch with him again, and we hope to publish some of this story on GoNOMAD very soon.

She Just Didn't Like that Penis

The Guardian had a story about rejection in China.

"The surgical team claims the operation was a success. After 10 days, tests revealed the organ had a rich blood supply and the man was able to urinate normally. He had a transplanted penis.

In 2001, surgeons were forced to amputate the world's first transplanted hand from Clint Hallam, a 50-year-old New Zealander, who said he wanted the "hideous and withered" hand removed because he had become "mentally detached" from it.

Andrew George, a transplant expert at Imperial College, London, said: "Doing a penis transplant should be no more complex than anything else. But it takes time for nerve sensations to kick in and it's not clear whether the patient would ever be able to have sex with it. The question is whether it's right to be doing a transplant for what may be seen as cosmetic reasons."

Doctors have previously succeeded in reuniting men with their sexual organs after traumatic accidents or attacks, but the Guangzhou operation is the first in which a donor penis has successfully been attached to another man.

Although the operation was a surgical success, surgeons said they had to remove the penis two weeks later. "Because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife, the transplanted penis regretfully had to be cut off," Dr Hu said. An examination of the organ showed no signs of it being rejected by the body.

Pipsqueak Radio Tries to Make Castro Look Bad

Carl Hiaasen is not only a novelist, he's a columnist for the Miami Herald. This controversial column about reporters being fired for writing for Radio & TV Marti ran today.

"Over the last five years, while staff reporter Pablo Alfonso wrote columns and covered Cuba for El Nuevo Herald, he was getting paid nearly $175,000 to host programs on Radio and TV Martí. During that same period, staff writer Wilfredo Cancio collected almost $15,000.

The fact that it took so long to catch them tells you how puny the audience is. You've heard of Pirate Radio? This is Pipsqueak Radio.

Both TV and Radio Martí broadcast from a blimp in the Lower Keys until it was popped by a hurricane last year. Then a plane from the Pennsylvania National Guard was procured to transmit to Cuba for a whopping four hours on weekends.

Now the programs are being beamed by a specially equipped private aircraft flying out of Key West. After Fidel Castro underwent surgery, the broadcasts were increased to six times a week, but even that failed to kill off the Cuban leader.

Some parts of the island do pick up transmissions from Radio Martí, though interviews with recent arrivals indicate that its listenership has dipped.

As for TV Martí, it's basically a ghost station that few in Cuba can receive because of the electronic jamming. Since it began ''broadcasting'' in 1990, TV Martí has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125 million. Naturally, Congress keeps shoveling money at it.

Getting paid to say snarky things about Castro would be an easy gig. For years I've done it for free, characterizing El Comandante as a windbag, geezer, liar, despot and all-around phony. I never received a dime from Uncle Sam, even when my columns were properly punctuated.

Party poopers! Do they really believe that a journalist's integrity can be compromised for a lousy $175,000? Where's the trust? Where's the compassion? More important, where's my damn check?

Woman with Itchy Feet Builds a Factory in Ghana

I picked up a copy of the Princeton newspaper called US1, and found a story about a woman who is making a huge impact in her native Ghana by opening a new factory to produce a product for the US. Emelia Etse, known as Nana, grew up in Africa and came to the US in 1989 when her husband took a job at a Princeton company. She had dry skin and wanted a remedy, and the answer was shea butter from Ghana. But the salve is made from nuts and doesn't have the right texture or smell to work well as a skin cream.

Nana got her husband, a chemist, to help her formulate a cream with 50% shea that had the right texture and smell, and she began selling JoeNana cream at craft shows in town. It caught on, and soon, she went back to Ghana to meet with the villagers who took the shea butter seeds and cooked them into a cream. Now she employs eight women to prepare the raw shea butter and sends it to her house in Belle Mead--but she wants more. So she built a factory in Ghana where soon 200 people will earn above the local wage and work for her company. It's a rare success story in a hard bitten place and she hopes that stores like Whole Foods will begin to return her calls and stock her JoeNana products, that now include black soap, and is available on her website.

Random Thoughts from a Trip to Princeton

Cindy, my father Nat and I went into Princeton today. It was a shining, clear September day, and people were out in force. We passed a children's book author's show in front of the library. Under a tent were dozens of writers with their books displayed in front, and crowds waiting for copies to be signed. Some had costumes on, others had props, like a woman in a dress with an enormous black bonnet projecting in front. I thought about JK Rowland, imagine if she were there, she's like Godzilla and these people are tiny blips. Her sales dwarf the total of all of these authors. Yet anyone who convinces a publisher to put their words and pictures into paid print has my admiration.

We walked around to some of the shops and then we went to an outdoor restaurant, called Main Street Bistro. There we ran into a friend of my sisters, Joanne Gere, who I've known for a few years but hadn't seen the last few times we visited. She used to live right near my sister Jenny, who is celebrating her 50th birthday tonight.

Joanne is a bundle of ideas and always has people she's meeting who are gonna change the world. She told us about her investment company, that is funding a solar energy company, a man who makes maps of the human genome, and a micro-lending outfit. Cool stuff, really the kind of things that make wise investments.

Then we went to a card store and there I saw a display for DK guides, a revolving rack with dozens of travel guides on it. The man in the store said these guides really fly off the rack, that they are the best selling books in his store. I started wondering if we could sell travel guides from a rack like this in our cafe. To really bring home that travel cafe motif, can we sell these travel guides?

"Attention Must be Paid" to New Orleans in 2006

Janis Turk writes with eloquence and empathy about her beloved New Orleans in a new story on GoNOMAD.com. As she says, 'attention must be paid," and this piece really says it well.

"It was once said of James Dean that he had an "insufficient hopefulness" -- a phrase that often comes to mind when people ask what it’s like in New Orleans now, more than a year after the levees broke flooding 80 percent of the city.

"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned," writes W.B. Yeats, and even as the rebuilding process begins in New Orleans, a brown water stain, like a nasty "ring around the collar," seems to remain not only on the houses but on the hopes of the people.

As a travel writer with an apartment in the French Quarter for the past 12 years, wherever I go, people ask me about New Orleans. By now you’d think I’d have a ready answer, but somehow it always seems to catch me off guard, fumbling for a response. It’s as though my child has died and a well-meaning stranger at the grocery asks how I’m holding up.

But if you want to know about the underlying feelings of the locals there, besides those of sincere gratitude for all that remains, and you ask me how they’re doing, this is what I’d tell you today: An insufficient hopefulness still hangs like wreckage caught in high branches of trees.

Such tales should come as no surprise, for most of the good, well-meaning people of this nation just don’t "get" New Orleans any more than they "get" poverty, so you can’t fault them for not understanding what has happened here and what needs to happen next.

"How can you people dance in the streets during a funeral procession? How dare you celebrate Mardi Gras and Southern Decadence in the face of this horrific tragedy? Why should the Saints stay in New Orleans? Why should we rebuild a city below sea level?" Those who ask such questions don’t have a clue what it means to miss New Orleans, so it’s foolish to expect them to help bring it back.

That’s OK; Rhett Butler didn’t give Scarlett the money, but she found a way to keep Tara anyway. New Orleans didn’t "put on the drapes" for Mardi Gras just because we needed tourists, although we do, and I doubt even Scarlet put on the green dress just for Rhett. We did it for ourselves."

I Want the Kind of Tapes that Hold Porn

On TV tonight was the story about Sony vs. JVC. It was "Modern Marvels," and this episode was about the technology of the 1980s. They had Steve Wozniak, who put 10 million bucks into the US festival, which was a rock show with a sideshow of geeky stuff to gawk at.

I have fond memories of the days when only one person we knew, named Art, had a betamax machine. He used to hold parties at his cramped Turners Falls apartment where we'd all go watch tapes of Saturday Night live, in 1980, on his big betamax that sat like an exotic beast in his living room. Many of us worked at the Valley Advocate in those days, and we all worked on the weekends, so Tuesday was Saturday night back then.

According to the TV show, One factor in the ultimate victory of the VHS tape format over betamax was that VHS tapes could hold 2 hours, and betamax tapes were larger, with better quality, but thus provided shorter time, only 50 minutes on early models. So you couldn't put a whole movie on the damn thing.

Another factor in beta's demise was porn. In more and more stores, there were fewer movies on beta, and thus, the porn all came on VHS tapes. That tipped the scales and pushed beta into the realm of professionals who still use betamax tapes today.

Erice, Sicily Sounds Like the Place To Be

I spend a lot of time reading travel magazines and found a story in Budget Travel about 25 unknown places in Europe. Andrew Appleyard, international sales manager of Exodus, a U.K.-based tour company writes about Erice in Sicily.

"Waves of conquerors--from Phoenicians to Normans, and everyone in between--have left their marks on Erice, a fortified hilltop town overlooking Sicily's Trapani valley. "In some places, you can see the corner of a Roman wall, and then the modern city on top of it," says Appleyard, "People are reusing Greek pillars as part of their own houses," he says.

On Sicily's northwest tip, just over an hour from Palermo, Erice has spectacular views of the coastline, the Egadi Islands, and, on a clear day, Tunisia. Donkeys wander on medieval streets that wind down to the 14th-century Chiesa Matrice and the Balio Gardens. Vineyards dot the landscape. "You can cycle right up and do tastings," says Appleyard (he was in Erice scouting locations for biking trips).

Enormous mounds of salt, covered by terra-cotta tiles, and Dutch-style windmills, once used to grind salt and pump water out of the salt pans, line the main road about 30 minutes southwest of town. The salt finds its way into local favorites like couscous with fish sauce, available at the cozy Hotel Moderno, which has 40 rooms, a rooftop terrace, and 19th-century touches. Appleyard raves about the food in Erice as "some of the best I've eaten anywhere in the Mediterranean." Hotel Moderno: 011-39/092-386-9300, hotelmodernoerice.it, from $121.

The Shooter Checks in from Boise

Paul Shoul checked in from Boise, Idaho by email, and as usual he was exhuberant. Our favorite shooter tracked down the local celebrity who promised to show him all of Boise's places and secrets within the first two hours of his arrival. I'm sure his story will be a lot of fun as were his stories about Taiwan and Bilbao. Shoul is an intrepid traveler and man about town; he makes the scene at functions with Taiwan tourism (getting dressed up as a Taiwanese aborigine for that one) and dines with tourism and agency honchos in NYC.

He makes his way around the Valley with deserved swagger, he's earned the status of cool by years of good work and now he's writing for GoNOMAD. Today's a day in which I am encouraged and energized by our writers. Cindy Lou Dale has gotten rave reviews, Kent is sending a few new pieces, and we just got something very well done by Janis Turk who writes about how New Orleans is coming back, and the effects of the hurricane on travel there. Oh, and I am just about done with my Malaysia story!

Cannibals Explain What Humans Taste Like

Paul Raffaele is an adventurer's adventurer. He recently went to New Guinea far up river to meet with some of the world's last cannibals, and wrote about it in Smithsonian Magazine.

"Korowai children with beads about their necks come running to point and giggle as I stagger into the village—several straw huts perched on stilts and overlooking the river. I notice there are no old people here. "The Korowai have hardly any medicine to combat the jungle diseases or cure battle wounds, and so the death rate is high," Kembaren explains. "People rarely live to middle age." As van Enk writes, Korowai routinely fall to interclan conflicts; diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis, elephantiasis and anemia, and what he calls "the khakhua complex." The Korowai have no knowledge of the deadly germs that infest their jungles, and so believe that mysterious deaths must be caused by khakhua, or witches who take on the form of men.

After we eat a dinner of river fish and rice, Boas joins me in a hut and sits cross-legged on the thatched floor, his dark eyes reflecting the gleam from my flashlight, our only source of light. Using Kembaren as translator, he explains why the Korowai kill and eat their fellow tribesmen. It's because of the khakhua, which comes disguised as a relative or friend of a person he wants to kill. "The khakhua eats the victim's insides while he sleeps," Boas explains, "replacing them with fireplace ash so the victim does not know he's being eaten. The khakhua finally kills the person by shooting a magical arrow into his heart." When a clan member dies, his or her male relatives and friends seize and kill the khakhua. "Usually, the [dying] victim whispers to his relatives the name of the man he knows is the khakhua," Boas says. "He may be from the same or another treehouse."

I ask Boas whether the Korowai eat people for any other reason or eat the bodies of enemies they've killed in battle. "Of course not," he replies, giving me a funny look. "We don't eat humans, we only eat khakhua."

"Many khakhua are murdered and eaten each year," he says, citing information he says he has gained from talking to Korowai who still live in treehouses.

In cannibal folklore, told in numerous books and articles, human flesh is said to be known as "long pig" because of its similar taste. When I mention this, Bailom shakes his head. "Human flesh tastes like young cassowary," he says, referring to a local ostrich-like bird. At a khakhua meal, he says, both men and women—children do not attend—eat everything but bones, teeth, hair, fingernails and toenails and the penis. "I like the taste of all the body parts," Bailom says, "but the brains are my favorite."

Porn War! Hotels Facing Backlash over Skin Flicks

David Wilkening writes about a backlash in today's TravelMole News. It's the Christian Science Monitor's story about how hotel chains that make big bucks from pay per view porn are facing a terrific backlash from conservative groups, who are out to ban the skin flicks in hotel rooms, favored by so many business men. Hotels are fighting porn wars.

The moral outrage is "on a scale that pornography insiders say amounts to one of the greatest organized assaults on the skin business in recent memory. A group of 13 conservative groups has created CleanHotels.com, a web site providing lists and reservation for US hotels that don't offer any such temptations.

The conservative groups have also run a series of newspaper ads urging authorities to prosecute hoteliers under federal and local obscenity laws. The number of CleanHotels.com is about 14,000, most of them small chains. One larger group is Omni.

Whether or not the site will have any impact still is not clear. But adult pay-for-view overall, including videos in private homes and hotels, is a business worth about $1.6 billion, according to Kagan Research.

That number has doubled since 1996.

Howie: Guv's Race Finally Heats Up

My favorite Boston Herald columnist Howie Carrr on a recent governor's race debate from today's paper.

"Under attack from Mad Dog Reilly, [Chris] Gabrieli pulled the political equivalent of going into the fetal position. He started talking about his family. Deval whined about “getting back to the issues.” And then he started beginning every other sentence with “Frankly,” a sure sign that you’ve got a bone in your throat.

Frankly, I don’t think either Deval or Gabrieli knew what hit them. Frankly, they were rotten. Did last night change the minds of any of Deval’s moonbats? Probably not. He’s still ahead, I suppose. They all love him as much as they hate George Bush. But if I’m Chris Gabrieli, I think I have some bad news for Hilary and the kids this morning.  You know that $100,000 a day I’ve been spending on TV? It’s going up.

But even during the Shaheen snorefest, Reilly kept slugging. Gabrieli was going on and on about Harvard, and finally Reilly, who by this point totally owns him, says:  “It can’t all be about Harvard, OK?”

Deval goes in about how frankly, he gets people together, frankly, and Reilly cuts him a new one: “He sounds like Mitt Romney. We tried that, OK?”

What the heck happened to the bubbling Mr. Magoo of yore? The guy whose investigations always end not with a bang, but a whimper?  Then Reilly was lowering the boom on Deval, mentioning first his own tax problems and then his third mega-payday, at Ameriquest.

Every AG in this country went after Ameriquest,” Reilly said, “the largest, most predatory lending company in the history of this country.” Frankly, Deval looked like he wanted to check out before checking in.

If Reilly had gotten into the crank earlier this year, he might not be on the ropes now. Hell, who knows, he might even own his own house"

The Montague Reporter Has the Scoop

David Detmold came into the cafe the other day to pick up an ad for his newspaper, the Montague Reporter. This sprightly 20-page vehicle for local news is well supported by advertisers, including our GoNOMAD Cafe, and features just the kind of unique and local coverage that the newspaper medium is perfect for.

He only prints news about those four towns...Montague, Gill, Wendell, Millers, Lake Pleasant, nothing from AP, nothing from a syndicate. Just the stuff no one else has. He's not going to have the problems 'the driveby media' are having by being phased out of relevance by the web. I admire his putting our a real paper for the area.

Here's a snip from a recent article about an issue in Turners Falls--Graffiti.

Police Crack Case was the headline. It was a story Detmold wrote about the perps who kept spray painting 'mega' and ASK all over downtown Turners. It took the survelliance of a water dept. employee named Steve Fitzpatrick to uncover the truth. It was a Hallmark Photography student from California. They called his dad. He offered to pay as long as they didn't put his son's name in the paper. The chief Ray Zukowski said that if dad did pay, he could avoid a record. The end of the story was a beaut--

"Tell that to the landlords on 3rd or 4th Street, where a quick walk down the alley found 18 examples of graffiti tagging on fences, dumpsters, and the sides of buildings in just half a block, not counting the monogram on the ice machine at the Exxon across the street. "Think it's easy to scrub the indelible paint off the bricks and chapboards? Don't ASK."

Up Late Pondering the Path to 9/11

Up late at night on Cindy's couch, after watching two TV shows about 9/11. The first was a documentary made by two French brothers about the life of a rookie firefighter, that coincided with the attacks and put them in the lobby of the tower as the fireman frantically tried to save people and themselves after the towers collapsed. It was puncuated by the crashing sound of the falling bodies. 

The second show I caught just at the last part, and this was a dramatization of how 9/11 apparently happened. Many democrats and liberals are very upset that this show is being broadcast, I got my obligatory email from my lefty cousin saying that we should stop them from airing this. Hogwash!  Let the press say what it will, no one has to worry if Clinton and Sandy Berger look bad, hey, who is politics doesn't these days?

I stayed up late and read Instapundit and Michele Malkin and a lot of other bloggers and now I know a little bit more about both the reaction and the shows that caused all of the fuss.

Riding Through the Flats of Holyoke

I bicycled down into the Holyoke flats tonight. I began my bike jaunt up in the Holyoke highlands, these are leafy suburbs with nice old homes and people out front doing yard work. There was a nip in the air, it definitely isn't August any more. I rode down, further toward the heart of this city of 50,000, into the area where the houses turned into apartment buildings, and young men gathered on street corners. Outside an apartment building, I smelled burning reefer and saw men looking on as a fierce-looking pit bull took a crap on the sidewalk. Unlike in other neighborhoods no one bothered to pick it up and put it in a plastic bag. I didn't look their way, kept on riding my upright bike, feeling so out of place down there on Essex street.

I passed a car that was full of young men, the windows were tinted and the tires were thick. They did not look up at me as I pedaled past, nor did I look their way.

A little while on, a young man with a crewcut was pulling a toddler in a little cart, he was about one and he grinned as he wizzed along. Across the street kids were playing tackle football with no pads on. I heard a shriek, an echo that reverberated among boarded up apartment buildings. Kids were riding bikes through rubble strewn streets. One house had a sign for an old deli up on its garage, either they were selling sandwiches there or they just liked the way that sign looked. I kept riding back up, returning to my safe neighborhood in the highlands, where Cindy was cooking dinner. I was glad I didn't live where I just rode my bike.

Theater in So. Deerfield Makes a Fun Night Out

Last night we went out in South Deerfield. That's kind of unusual, as there is not that much going on in our little burgh. But since I had bought an ad in the program, we decided to go and see the Uncommon Player's production of 'Losing Patients.'My daughter Kate and her husband Francisco joined us, after we made a feast of grilled salmon, local veggies, and corn on the cob.

The play was funny; a slapstick comedy set in a nursing home. Characters yelled into phones, tackled eachother onto couches, and dressed up in drag. It was fun to see the actors tumbling around on stage, at one point throwing a videocassette around and the lights going out with funny sound effects...there is really nothing as much fun as live theater, and this was a funny combination of antics and pratfalls.

As we drove home and passed the darkened GoNOMAD Cafe, Kate told me that my grandson Nathan points over there every time she drives by, he knows that's where Grandpa goes and he likes it there.

Beck and the Future of Music

Today I read some more of the new issue of Wired, the cover story is about the changing face of music. As usual, Wired says it bluntly: "Radio sucks, the labels are lame. Now Bands are taking over--and fans are getting what they want." There is an interview with the musician Beck, who talks about the new album he has coming out. But it is no longer really called that...he'll have stickers on each unit that people can arrange in their own unique way to create their own one of a kind album art. He wants to put out an album you can mix and layer directly into itunes.

Once Beck posted tracks to a song and people made their own versions. Using his musical building blocks they created their own unique versions. Another cool aspect of this project (which is what you call his CDs now) is that Beck will put out a version of the record that people will be able to watch on sites like YouTube. He also made a quick video for every song on the disk that which will be put up on the 'Net so people can mash them up.

He talked about a side band that his mates started for fun. At the concert they joked that everyone should check out their MySpace page, that they hadn't even put up yet. Just after the show, they signed up, put up some live recordings of the show and a couple of days later a bunch of people had visited and listened to their music.

Nathan Fiddles with Knobs, Farmer's Market in the Plans

Fall is in the air this morning, it was a bit cloudy as I rode my bike down Sugarloaf Street en route to the cafe. I woke up later than usual, it was nice not to rush out. I got a chance to spend some time with my grandson Nathan, he brought me books to read him and made his way around the living room, switching knobs and fiddling with whatever dials he could find.

The cafe was full of people when I arrived, unfortunately, our WiFi is not working, but that didn't make anyone grumpy. We've got big plans here, as we gaze out at Park Street at the far side of the common. That's where we'd like organize a farmer's market next spring. Dave Jackson, of Enterprise Farm, has said he'd like to set up a stand. And we think many more farmers will also want to be part of it. I emailed Bernie Kubiak, the Deerfield Town Manager, and we're working on a presentation for the selectboard.

Our neighbors across the street at CISA might also play a part in this scheme. We'll keep you posted!

If You Prefer Your Coffee in China

Cappuccino cups and latte bowls are new at the cafe.

A Rail Trail from the Valley to Boston--It's Coming!

Christina Uss writes in the Republican Weekend edition about the 104-mile rail trail, that will someday connect Boston with the Valley. It's a struggle all right, since the hurricane in 1938 that scuttled the rails that put the Mass Central out of business, and left the tracks to rot. Over the years, people moved in, built swimming pools, driveways and houses on the old pathway.

People in Western Mass like Craig Della Penna work hard, day after day, trying to move projects like this big long bike trail along. So far segments join Sterling and Rutland for ten miles, and thirty more miles are being built near Worcester. Della Penna is walking the old railroad path, he's gone from Boston to Sudbury, and reports good progress in tony Weston. They expect to pull out machetes further along the way, where forests have crept steadily back, in the way of the future bicyclists and walkers.

Packing Peanuts that Melt in the Sink

Today we recieved a big box from espresso parts.com, they had sent us some new china cups and some cute little espresso spoons. We are glad that now we can finally offer customers real china cups to sip from. But the part that amazed me was that the box was stuffed with what appeared to be those cursed foam peanuts. I hate these things, they slip and slide everywhere and when you throw them in the trash, they manage to bounce out of the can and end up being very hard to get rid of.

But Britt told me these were different peanuts...these were the kind of peanuts made from some sort of edible fiber...she took the whole box and dumped them into the sink. Slowly, they melted...turning into white powder when the water hit them. Bravo for this product, I am no longer annoyed!

Today we also signed up for a new advertising medium...a magazine called 'Travel Host' that is distributed in all of the hotels and motels in the Valley. We wrote up some copy for the salesman, who was patiently waiting, and next month we'll be featured reading for all of those leaf peepers who might just want to check their email and have a latte en route.

Splogs: Blogging's Evil Twin

Wired magazine's Charles C. Mann writes about Splogs in the September issue. A grim tally: more than half of the 10 million blogs in creation are actually these fake blogs, using snippets of unintelligible text scraped from legitimate blogs and books, just there to reap click through revenues from Google ads. One man is fighting this tough adversary, setting up a program that indentifies and shares the ISP address of the evil fake bloggers.

"He got serious about fighting spam, he says, when his mother started to blog. 'I went through the last hundred or so people who had pinged Word Press with comments and trackbacks, and it was all spam," he says. "Mortgages and Viagra, pills and porn." Embarrassed and revolted, he decided to fight back. When bloggers install his Akismet software, it submits all comments and trackbacks to a web service that tests them for spamminess, quarantines bogus ones and posts the rest.

Almost 300,000 bloggers use the software, their input improves the filter every day. "Essentially what we are doing is working together. All the kids that got hit by bullies in school have discovered there's strength in numbers. I like to believe that anyway."

One suggestion emerges that makes sense: if more people used pay service blogs, none of these robot run splogs would exist. The companies such as Type Pad use a token payment of $4.95 per month to show that legitimate people are behind the blogs, since the bank accounts have to be real. The fake bloggers register thousands of blogs for free, and they'd never pay real money for this dubious privilege.

Lap Dancer Job Listing Causes Furor in Scotland

Tidbits from a day on the web and at the cafe:

The Scotsman reports today about an uproar caused by a job center in Edinburgh that has advertised a job as a lapdancer as a city nightclub.

The job description states that the successful applicant will have to perform duties including 'entertaining customers, pole dancing and private dances," and assures that 'previous experience not essential as full training will be provided."

Oh, and the pay? It's 'competitive.' The lap dancer job listing is a result of a lawsuit that was won by sex toy and lingerie chain owner Ann Summers. The court ruled that jobs in the sex industry were allowed to be advertised at the job center.

Big Ole Bowls of Steaming Coffee at Jack and Luna's

Today we visited another internet cafe in Ulster County NY. This one was light filled and airy, and was called Jack and Luna's cafe. They served a breakfast panini, which feels like a way to charge much more for a grilled version of our egg sandwich that we sell at the cafe. The floor here is made of smooth cement, and the coffee was served in wide white soup bowls. We just bought some of these to use in the cafe since Bill, one of our regulars, wanted to sip latte out of something china not paper.

We had time to read the NY Times today and among the stories was news that MySpace will now be allowing bands to sell their music directly via the website, using technology invented by Sean Fanning, once of Napster fame. This 'snowcap' method will let people download songs or whole CDs, and the band/siteowners can set their own prices. That must be sending a chill through the music industry, another way to avoid dealing with them and putting consumers directly in touch with artists. Cool!

Now That's a Cool Car!

I met my friend Todd Adelson yesterday, he was kind enough to bring me my new order of embroidered shirts for GoNOMAD. He zoomed up to meet me in a white Porsche, (a silver one is seen here), one of the nicest, fastest and coolest cars you can buy. I looked at him with incredulity--"that's YOURS?". "Yeah, it's mine, just got it," he said with a smile.

Todd has a side business selling these expensive vehicles on eBay. Amazingly, people buy many top of the line cars via the 'Net, and Todd is always driving one he's selling. But this one is his....not a loaner from a Longmeadow surgeon. Wow, I thought, it's nice to see a good friend be successful and drive the kind of fantasy car we'd both dream about. Nice to see good things happening to good people. Roar on, Todd!

Friday is a Day People Want Lots of Coffee

A wickedly good Friday at the cafe. Maybe it's that pre-holiday buzz, that feeling of excitement and anticipation of a relaxing labor day weekend. Kristin, one of our regular customers, said she hoped it would rain. "I don't feel well, and the house needs to be cleaned, so I'd love to just listen to the sound of the rain and relax," she said, as she sipped her soy latte.

Outside it's not that sunny, sort of hestitant, as if they skies know that Ernesto is coming and don't want to fully provide sun. I think whatever happens this weekend, rain or not, we'll have a fun time visiting Cottekill. Being with friends you know very well gives you a comfort, laughing at old jokes, catching up on new business. Can't wait to get on the road tomorrow morning.

I'm glad to read Kelly and Quang's blog is back and being updated regularly. We're also adding a new blog to our roster, Bill Karz' 'LA Nomad." Bill has written some stories for us including one about Colombia, a place I want to visit. The blog will be running soon, a view of travel, travel writing, and the fast lane life in LA.