Tagging Takes a Bit But Helps Fellow Bloggers

Tagging. I love the concept. The idea is to identify who tagged you on his or her blog (that would be my associate editor Stephen Hartshorne). Then say eight things about yourself.  Here goes

* I once used to work from 11 pm until 7 am in a toothbrush factory.

* I am one of the few people I know under fifty who have a grandchild. Mine is the light of my life--Nathan!

* One of my favorite things in the world is removing the lint that is stuck in the dryer before I use it.

* I love certain words;  like voyage, marine, aircraft, vessel & auxiliary

* I love riding my bike at night down a deserted street in the summer.

* The people I trust the most read books and use computers.

*There is  nothing I like more than the feeling of waiting in an airport for an evening flight across the ocean.

* I have sold shirts to Carly Simon on Martha's Vineyard and had my picture taken with Bill Clinton there too.  Edgartown was once my favorite place on earth.

Now I'll tag:

Kelly from the midwest who writes
"the zoo that is my mind."

Cory Doctorow one of the minds behind behemoth blog boingboing.net

 

Mridula who got us all going on this tagging, who writes
Travel Tales from India

Andrew Varnon, Cafe customer and official blogger for the Valley Advocate
This side of Mt Tom"

 

Sean Keener, the CEO of Bootsnall, an eight year old website that does a great job growing and helping people travel
Seankeener.org

Stephen Hartshorne, who writes headlines like "Universal Disregard of the Spittoon"
Armchair Travel

 

Kent St. John, our peripatetic Senior Travel Editor who is always planning his next trip.
Be Our Guest

Jacylyn Stevenson, who writes about writing on writerjac on Myspace.

If you're on this list then you should tag too!

Cloudware is the New New in Computing

George Gilder is a big thinker, he wrote a very long piece in the recent issue of Wired about Cloudware, or the use of remote datacenters, instead of desktops, on which to store data and where software is net-based instead of on hard drives.

We get a glimpse of massive data centers that Google , Yahoo, Ask.com and Microsoft are building on the west coast. These  outsized facilities,  an arrangement of hundreds of thousands of servers, stacked in row upon row, suck "ceaseless cycles" of power and generate more heat than anyone can imagine.  Google's facility is located on the site of a former aluminum smelting plant, near a huge hydro electric dam, which produces power for a fifth the cost of the San Francisco area.
It's a plan that Google has been hatching since before they went public, to have a worldwide network of these behemoth server centers to store all of the data that comes through their sites. 

There have been rumors that Google is involved with the CIA. After all, they are the largest repository of accessible data anyone has ever seen.  There are so many things the spooks could do with the data.

Gilder interviews the head of Ask. com's datacenters, who estimates that the five leading search engines use about 5 gigawats of power among them in 2006.  That's about as much juice as is used by the entire city of Las Vegas on the hottest day of the year.

He said the Verizon center, located outside NYC in the Jersey suburbs, will be obsolete soon because of their power needs. They will be moving west to one of the places closer to the cheapest power available.

MySpace Filters Music to Purge Copyright Stealers

Music is an incredibly integral part of the MySpace experience, and a high percentage of profile pages feature popular songs.  Digital Music News reported today about the site's new effort in getting rid of copyright problems.

"Most of those tracks are copyrighted, and streamed without permission. Tackling the thorny issue, MySpace has now tapped audio identification experts Gracenote to filter unauthorized content. Moving forward, MySpace will proactively identify and block copyrighted songs, and remove the accounts of repeat violators. "MySpace is staunchly committed to protecting artists' rights – whether those artists are on major labels or are independent acts," said Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder of the social networking giant. "This is another important step we're taking to ensure artists control the content they create."

The move was probably inevitable, especially following a string of lawsuits and tough statements from Universal Music Group. Earlier, UMG chairman Doug Morris pointed to major copyright violations at both YouTube and MySpace. "We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars," Morris said during a Merrill Lynch conference in September. "How we deal with these companies will be revealed shortly."

That may have stirred deep-pocketed MySpace owner News Corp., which has been sensitive about disrupting the carefully-created MySpace ecosystem. Now, with the latest move, users may be confronted with an abrupt surprise. Profile pages are an identity statement, and a streaming audio or video track is a huge part of that expression. Legal concerns aside, the Gracenote initiative will alter the landscape for MySpacers, and potentially create a big brother perception. MySpace did not offer a specific timetable for the filtering rollout."

What WILL You Be?

Today is Halloween. There was a time in my life when that was terrifically important, it was such a big deal with the kids and our friends who would trick or treat with us, and all of the hoopla and mystery over the question: What Will You Be?

I remember going to a Unitarian church service back in the early '90s and the preacher, who carefully avoided saying 'God' or 'Jesus' made that the crux of her sermon--'What Will You Be?' It was a scary thought back then, a conundrum, something you had to figure out before that day dawned.

Nowadays I am pretty darn glad that the day is no longer of importance to me. I have, as they say, moved past it. But with one-year-old Nathan in my life, it again has reared its candy-colored head and I have to again think about Halloween and candy, and which route to go out to Trick or treat. Tonight the town of Deerfield has a big hayride for the kids, that will take some of the time away from our obligatory front door candy donations. Anyway, it's always worth the effort if a little one can be thrilled so we'll bring the lad on the hayride and help him celebrate this pagan ritual again this year.

Talk Radio in Northampton today at 9:30 am

Up early today for a busy day.  I called editor Tom Vannah of the Valley Advocate yesterday.  While I was focused on getting him the photos he needed for a feature story about Eastern Turkey, his mind was on the radio.

He's hosting Bill Dwight's show on WHMP-AM, weekday mornings, and wanted me to come on as a guest.  "Be here at 9:20 tomorrow," he said.  I told him I thought he was a natural talkshow host, and told him I had sung his praises during my brief tour of the studios last Friday night, with my tourguide Joe O'Rourke.

Please listen in today on 1400 am between 9:30 and 10 am, hear how Tom and I sound together.

Empty Wal-Mart Hulks Attract Vagrants and Vandals

Al Norman is a rabblerouser who Wal-Mart hates. He cataloged some interesting information about the world's largest retailer on his "Sprawl-busters" blog.

"As of February 1, 2002, Wal-Mart had 3,190 stores in the United States, including discount stores, supercenters, warehouse clubs, and neighborhood markets.

But that's not the whole inventory. They also are carrying 396 empty stores, which means that 11% of their total store inventory are empty. This so-called "empty box syndrome": has started to catch the attention of the media.

As noted in the Philadelphia Inquirer, in the 9 county Philadelphia region, there is now 4.5 million square feet of empty big box stores. "These one-time tax generators have become boarded-up shells," the Inquirer wrote, "eyesores that attract vagrants and vandals...Empty big boxes signify lost tax base, lost jobs, and valuable land sitting dormant."

According to Sprawl-Busters research, Wal-Mart alone is literally sitting on an astounding 32.5 million square feet of empty buildings. Of the 396 empty hulks now on the market, 82 of them (21%) came on the market within the past six months, 159 (40%) have been on the market between 6 months and 3 years, and 154 empty Wal-Mart stores (39%) have been on the list for 3 years or longer.

This proliferation of empty stores has gotten worse since our last survey three years ago. In February of 1999, Wal-Mart had 333 empty buildings in 31 states, for a total of 21.3 million square feet. Today, Wal-Mart has dead stores in 35 states, and the total number of units vacated has risen by 19%.

These "eyesores" are on display from Maine to California, and they're coming soon to a Wal-Mart near you. The company blames you and me--the consumer--for wanting "wider aisles". But what we get, instead, is a remarkable waste of land and superfluous new buildings. Wal-Mart has called them "once-occupied stores", but to the rest of us, it's just retail blight.

A Men's Weekend

This was a Men's Weekend, and my Monday Morning Recap looks back fondly. I began on Friday night with my pal Joe, we took a tour of his new radio station offices and then skipped over to Sierra Grille, on Pearl St. in Northampton.

The proprietor, O'Brien, has a menu full of little surprises, row upon row of $3, $5 and even $2 items. For a grazer like me, this is the perfect way to eat. We choose about six things and had a salad and some great Brooklyn Pilsner. The atmosphere was relaxing and the place felt cool on that Friday night. Then we went to the Brewery and met up with Joe's charming ladyfriend, Stephanie and her pal Kitty who were relaxing over a beer. After some conversation we left and went to listen to jazz at the basement. At one point a woman got up to sing and did a great job with 'S'wonderful,' and I told her so. She blushed and laughed.

Then on Saturday night we invited Bill and Joe over to dinner. We sat in the dining room, a rarity it seems, and unwound with a bottle of red. Then we went downstairs and we watched two woman boxers duking it out....these girls were just going at eachother furiously. After this bout we began watching old classic boxing matches on Youtube. We found Hagler/Hearns from 1976, and Tyson/Spinks from '81. Francisco, Bill Joe and I all cheering and watching classic fights on the computer. Love it!

To round out the trifecta of the Men's Weekend, I invited Stephen, Ed, Don and Joe over to play poker at the cafe. We gathered at 4 pm, I made us some chicken and pasta and we played cards for five hours. It was fun being here in the cafe on a day off, and I won some dough. Good times.

Air Greenland's Proud Steed

It's true...there really is an Air Greenland, and they're taking us to the world's biggest island next Thursday. I got this photo in the mail, I think this might be their only plane. But a noble A330 it is, and I can't wait to join my pal Shoul in this frozen and desolate place where almost nobody goes.

The Rail Trail in the News: Beaver Bummer

As the rain pours down I am sitting in the cafe window seat, enjoying the tunes of James Hunter and reading Nick Grabbe's story in the Daily Hampshire Gazette about the Norwottuck rail trail and beavers. These furry rodents are destroying the path, their dams are causing water to flood the pavement. This is an old story; back in 2005 the critters caused erosion along a section and today the problem is worse.

Some interesting facts about the trail: Congressman John Olver has secured funds to repave the length of the 8.5 mile path: It is pitted and almost unrideable in places because tree roots sprout up and cause annoying bumps. The most popular time on the trail is Saturdays from 3-4 pm.

An effort is underway to straighten out the path, at the point where it goes underneath busy Route 9. Cyclists have to carefully approach a tunnel and take a sharp turn; planners hope to straighten out the tunnel to avoid this blind spot.

It's the Last Month that Costs the Most

So many interesting and intelligent people are regulars at the cafe. It is a pleasure to know them and to provide them with their sustaining coffee and bagels. Today one of our regular customers, Greg, stopped by and we began to chat about his life. He said he used to be a physician's assistant for the federal government, then he left the job and spent a few years building his own house.

But he's decided to get back into the field, and was looking for a job that would let him work part time. The conversation led to the subject of healthcare, that is always tied into the subject of jobs and how many of us need to have jobs to get the health insurance. He told me that 90% of the health care expenses in the US go to cover our oldest citizens in the last month or two of their lives. And that in Canada, even though the government spends almost a trillion less per year, their people live two years longer than us. And in Cuba, it's a tiny fraction of our budget yet Cubaneros live even longer than Canadians. It's the high tech machinery that keeps old sick people living much longer that really adds up to the biggest bucks, he said.

I am now pricing out health insurance for our company and was glad to find Fallon Health, a new entry into the local health insurance market. They offer many of the same doctors, but their premiums are hundreds less than Blue Cross. It is nice to be able to pass along companies that compete and are trying to offer lower cost remedies to this universal problem.

A Sales Seminar on the Street

We had another visit from our friend Helen, who sells High Lawn Farms milk. I've become quite a fan of this gentle and friendly woman, and I have passed along many leads to her, other businesses whom I think might want to sell her milk. I love helping her because I really like her, and her milk.

"I'm not much of a salesperson," she told me as we stood in the sun outside the the cafe. I was pointing out Sienna, a high-end restaurant that I thought would be a good prospect. "I don't know how to do this, I'm still learning," she said, adding that sometimes she gets frustrated and is afraid of being a pest.

I gave her some sales wisdom I learned long ago: It's NEVER A NO til you actually hear the prospect say they're not interested. "They just haven't said yes yet--but that doesn't mean no," I told her. "Be persistent--most salespeople give up after one or maybe two calls. Make four calls, send a nice email, keep asking people for their business or a chance to talk to them. Be a friendly emissary, just passing through, ask if you can give them a taste," I continued. People love it when you don't give up on them!

Salespeople who are persistently upbeat, believe in their products, and never give up are the most successful. I got teary thinking of how I used to sell, how hard it was, and ultimately, how satisfying when persistence pays off. "If you just keep on every few weeks, a friendly call, or an email, over time they will respect you and want to buy from you."

I suggested she ask the prospect she's visiting to call a peer--like if she's in one prep school, ask them to phone their counterpart at the other school. "People love working with people who their peers are working with," I said. Referrals from customers are the warmest ways to gain new business."

The Piano Player is Ten in Costco

I shot down to Costco this afternoon to get some supplies for the cafe. Inside the store, there was a display model electric grand piano, and on its bench sat a young man in a navy blue sweater. He cocked his head to one side, and then began to play. His notes were light, and the song was Rachmaninov, and the music was sweet, as a small crowd began to gather around him.

"He's been there all day," said a woman wearing a hairnet, who was passing out samples of chicken tacos at a nearby stand. The people chatted softly as the 10-year-old maestro played on. The notes were melodious, sweet and true, classical music echoing off of the high steel rafters of the West Springfield warehouse store.

The young man's eyes were closed as he played, he bobbed his head in time to his notes, his fingers cascading over the keys, softly, perfectly. It was gentle and it was beautiful.

Marina HAS to be Our Intern

We've got another new intern as a result of the fair we attended yesterday at the UMass Fine Arts Center. There were many companies represented, though most of them were small software or other computer-related businesses without the appeal of travel, writing and the web. In that way we stood out, and the man at the door told me that he had more students asking about us than any other business.

Marina came by and told me she really, truly had to do an internship with us. She had studied in Spain, and said that GoNOMAD called to her, she had to write, she had to find a way to express her passion about travel. So she'll come by later this week and we will give her some work to do.

Waking up early, it's still dark, and soon with daylight savings, it will be even darker. I always think of Britt, opening up the cafe, hoping that everything is going well, and that she won't need me at that early hour. She's competant, and cheerful, and she is big part of why we're breaking records every day at South Deerfield's newest and coolest cafe.

Interns at GoNOMAD Leave with Good Feelings

I am getting ready to man a booth at an internship fair at UMass on Tuesday night, organized by the folks at Hidden Tech. This is a great group of people who mostly work at home, "hidden" in their home offices, and this fair at the University is a way to find interns who want to learn about these businesses.

In advance of this event, I got copies of the evaluations written by six of our previous interns so I could see what they thought about working with us. Wow, what a wonderful read! All but one of the six circled "excellent" when reviewing the overall experience. Some of the comments made me smile.

"Max pushes you to succeed, but only as far as you're willing to be pushed."

"Max is great to work with, motivated, and pushes you to do better."

"For those interested in travel writing, it's the perfect way to start that career through GoNOMAD.com, a very well managed travel site...plus sometimes you're sent to a place on assignment to write your own story."

Prop. 87 Will Show Us the Way Out

Once again I read in the NY Times information that I already knew about from reading Wired Magazine. It was Thomas Friedman's column about California's Proposition 87, which taxes oil companies on oil produced in the state and that would generate some $4 billion with which to finance research into alternative fuels and renewable energy.

Friedman argues that Governor Arnold should embrace this and campaign for it; the Wired story was written by a venture capitalist who believes that we are very close to producing energy using not only ethanol from corn, but using the stalks and other cellulose to make fuel. There is of course much more of this byproduct than there is corn, so this is a nearly unlimited source of energy. The numbers add up, and the science is moving far faster than our government. Big shock!

I read the story on the bus down to NYC in July, and was charged up since people in the big money business usually have strong reasons to believe in their causes. To me it's more honest, this guy is out to make a buck investing in these new ethanol technologies, and like Friedman, he thinks this new citizen referendum will make a big difference. And it would complement the great things the Governor is already promoting with carbon dioxide emissions reduction.

Let's hope the gov hears the science and goes out to campaign for this. As Exxon Mobil paid its outgoing chairman Lee Raymond $400,000,000, it's time for us to tax these companies so that they help finance us OUT of this stupid dependence on their products. This could be a giant and exciting beginning of the way out!

How To Write in the Brave New World

Jason Lee Miller writes on Web Pro News about how to write for the web. It's a new way of looking at the words...

"When writing so people can find you better on search engines, keep it simple. Use short words, not complicated ones. Precise words are even better. But most importantly, use words people know. That's news to me, too. I like long, artfully crafted sentences (not that I can write them). I like well-placed 25-cent words.

I even like serif fonts. But serifs, big words and long sentences are for fuddy-duddies and books. This is the Web. Fuddy-duddies should take note.

What's the first word that comes to your mind? Use that one. How would tell a long story to an old friend who showed up next to you at the stop light? You know, before the light turns green. Tell it that way first on your webpage. Tell them more if they want to know, but give the basics first.

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen says "speak the user's language." He says the Web-writer's first duty is to write to be found. He also said:

Old words rule because people know them intimately. Familiar words spring to mind unbidden. Thus, users are likely to employ old words when they boil down their problem to a search query, which is typically only 2-3 words long.

People really like bullets, too.

• Don't make up words. Nobody likes corporate speak.

• Don't exaggerate.

• Don't be salesy.

• One idea per paragraph. Readers skim.

• If a writing professor would give you an 'A' on your work, shoot for a 'C' by cutting it in half.

• Link to more complete information.

• Steer clear of brand names if just starting out. People won't know to search for it anyway.

• To the average searcher, blind people are blind, not visually challenged.

• High ranking is just half the battle. Getting clicks depends on users understanding headlines and summaries. They skip past the ones they don't understand.

Random Musings: Interns and Greenland

Random musings: I've been working too hard to find time to post, however shocking that may be to some readers. But here are some of the new things that have been getting attention here:

We've got a new intern named Daryl Popper who is taking over the Travelreader Blog. Daryl goes to UMass and she is already posting away! I was happy to hear that there have been very positive reports from previous interns about us, and what it is like to work here. She told me that is what won her over to join us this semester.

Next week I will go visit my friend BJ Roche's journalism class at UMass, to talk about writing, good queries, and job prospects for journalists in 2007. I enjoy my classroom visits; the kids are usually bright and ask good questions, and it is fun to share the website with them.

I just picked up the new National Geographic Adventure, where they ran a big story about Greenland. The article mentions how many sled dogs are being abandoned because their owners don't want to have to feed them and don't use them as they once did. Due to warming ocean temps, the halibut harvest has never been better, ships arrive twice as often as in the past.

My interest in this faraway place is piqued because I am going there on November 2, with a group of 60 journalists and travel agents. Air Greenland has just opened up an new air route, via Baltimore. So Paul Shoul and I shall cover this and expect to read many blogs about this the largest island on earth in the days ahead.

Google is the Next Roman Empire: Shudder

Joe Lewis writes on Web Pro News about the coming of the new Roman, er, Google, era.

"You can't read a blog or visit a technology news site without seeing the company's name referenced at least once, if not several times, throughout an article. Just last week, media coverage of the Google acquisition of YouTube reached feverish proportions.

People just can't seem to get Google off of their minds.

In fact, the terms "Google" and "World Domination" are becoming more commonly associated together these days among bloggers and tech journalists alike.

The reality of the situation is that Google is becoming a mythical, almost omnipresent force in the online realm. The sheer scope of the company's influence inspires comparisons to the birth of a new empire.

The staple of a prominent dynasty is the ability to control access to and distribution of vital resources to the masses. The Roman Empire constructed a detailed infrastructure for travel between territories while also developing aqueduct systems within the framework of their cities.

Ultimately, this allowed Roman leaders to exert significant power by controlling access to both water and transportation.

How does this translate into the digital age? People want information; it's an invaluable resource. Whoever controls access to that information will inevitably wield tremendous power in the age to come.

Google acts as the road to information in today's realm, and collects the tolls in the form of paid search advertising.

In Panama, Cough Syrup is the Kiss of Death

After a long day working in the cafe, it is nice to be sitting here in front of a fire, ablaze as I write this blog. I read a story in the NY Times about an outbreak in Panama that is causing consternation. It seems that a government bottled cough syrup has killed 22 people, because diethylene glycol, instead of propelyn glycol, was used to make the formula.

This isn't the first time this has happened. It took sleuthing and flying samples out of Panama back to Atlanta on the Centers for Disease Control jet. Then they saw these bottles of cough syrup on many of the victim's night tables. They matched up the chemical makeup of the cough syrup and the poison and voila, the answer. Now the big question is was it an accident, or did somebody deliberatly substitute the agent used in antifreeze in the cough syrup? Now people are timid to go buy drugs in the government pharmacies.

I thought about Panama after I read this because Sony is going down there with her camera this weekend to shoot more footage than she did during her trip there in July. She's keen on pitching this to a big cable network, and we look forward to publishing her story on Panama soon.

Climbing Boulders to the Top of Mt Monadnock

Yesterday we joined friends Ed and Li and eight others for a hike up Mount Monadnock in Jaffrey NH. The day was bright and a fall chill was in the air, and when we reached the state park at the base, we had hundreds of fellow hikers to join us in the ascent. Here's a photo posted by Dave on the 'Net.

Monodnock is a rocky mountain, and the climb really was that--clamboring over boulders, over long faces of granite, we were scrambling between large and small rocks where the trail is just a white dot showing which rock to scale next. Unlike other mountains, where a trail takes you winding up and around to the top, Monadnock just points you up and says 'climb over those rocks.' But when we all got to the top, joined by dozens of others, it was exhilharating, looking out 360 over the surrounding countryside.

It's the biggest mountain for fifty miles around, so there is nothing but view, and the way down was even steeper, jumping from rock to rock. Some chile and a few beers back at Ed and Li's house made those sore legs feel a little better.

Peter Heller Goes Horseback in Patagonia

Peter Heller has a new story on GoNOMAD, and I love it. He's got a peculiar talent, nobody I know has his description power and soul searching ways of writing. He makes his points eloquently, and gently, and this is the first story of his we've had the privilege of publishing.

I saw him off last October in Santiago, as I headed back to the states, my plane heading for JFK, his for Argentina, where he embarked on this horse packing trip. He is now taking flight lessons in Montana, learning how to be a bush pilot. Hope to read about this soon in one of his articles for National Geographic Adventure, Men's Journal, or Outside magazine. Here's a snip of the new story.

Men Belong on Horseback

Men, people, belong on horseback. There is something deep inside that sings as soon you are in the saddle. The vantage from that height; the shifting and moving of the living animal beneath; the dance of wills. Every man on horseback takes on a certain nobility that he may or may not deserve. Sometimes I think that’s why people love SUV’s: they set the driver at horse height and jingle something in the DNA.

Chile has had a strong horse culture for more than three hundred years, born when Pisarro landed on the continent’s breast, with men and horses and subdued an Inca nation of over a million battle hardened warriors. I was curious about the working tack used by the huasos. Instead of a leather saddle with attached cinch, they used a spare frame of wood saddle bars which they covered with three folded blankets and two pads of sheepskin.

The cinch went around the whole outfit and the horse and snugged tight, and you sat on it. The advantage was a very lightweight rig that was comfortable as a good chair. Instead of stirrups, I slid my feet into tapaderos — enclosed wood clogs that kept sticks and brush from getting caught. I noticed that Ciro and the boys wore black rubber boots and spurs. I guess that in Patagonia, one of the rainiest countries on earth, that made sense."

Divorcing the Daily Paper

Mariane Matera writes for the HooK, here is her latest.

After 37 years of subscribing to the daily newspaper, I wrote "cancel" on the last bill and sent it back.

One reason I let my subscription lapse is the fee, which seems out of proportion these days to how much of the paper I actually look at. To compensate for the rising cost of everything, I had to make a budget cut somewhere. I didn't want to give up cable. I need to keep HBO until The Sopranos ends. I didn't want to give up XM radio because I fall asleep to Alan Colmes on Fox Talk, amazed and comforted that there is actually a smart, funny, liberal talk radio host still alive in America. So the thing I spent the least time with, the newspaper, had to go.

I have no time to read in the morning anyway. I have to get to work. I have to load the dishwasher, feed the cats, get the bills together to mail. The Today Show can chatter away in the background while I'm running around and let me know if there's a terrorist attack before I get on the interstate.

For the majority of my years as a subscriber, I received the now-defunct afternoon paper, which at least had some news in it that had happened that day. I had all evening to read it during commercials (remember the old days when you couldn't fast-forward through the commercials?)

TV tells me everything has changed, and if I need more details, I can log on to CNN or Google News Search.

The free weeklies are usually nothing but local news, and they're free. They do a better job of targeting a niche audience. Dailies have to cater to too many demographics and end up giving too little to any of them. Those of us who think American Idol is front page news are never going to live in harmony with those who think diplomatic relations and political upheavals need to be covered in daily detail.

What my daily did do to keep abreast was go to the Internet, where they can update their stories between editions, and even run blogs of breaking news as it happens. That's good, but I'm still not going to renew the subscription. The non-newspaper local bloggers are still ahead of the curve, offering the quirkier details and investigative depth. The newspaper-employed bloggers are hamstrung by advertising executives, marketing departments, and stodgy editors.

Now that has changed. Anyone can get a blog, and just about every freelance writer in town who used to compete with me for jobs is now self-publishing. Some have become award-winning investigative journalists all on their own, with no advertising departments or timid executive editors to tie their hands. And I can read their work for free.

My long romance with newspapers is creaking to a 21st-century conclusion. It's just more recycling to me these days. Even the Sunday paper is too much information for a day when, despite it being Sunday, I don't have time. We've worked 50-hour weeks, and the weekend is the only time to catch up on housecleaning, laundry, and all the shows we taped on the DVR or the latest Netflix movie delivered right to our door. Tabloids and magazines are easier to deal with in the bathroom or to carry in my purse at lunchtime.

Newspapers were my passion for so long, that like the lovers in Brokeback Mountain, I didn't know how to quit them. But the romance is over now. It's time for a divorce.

A Long Way Down.....

I can always count on Eric Jayne to send me wild and fantastic photos.

The Giant Foam Head Thanks to High Lawn Farm

We just had a visit from Helen Christensen, the sales representative for High Lawn Farm in Lee, MA. Helen is a charming lady of a certain age who is enthusiastic and polite, and just loves the business she is in. She also complimented us on our cafe, she looked around with a smile and told us it was lovely. She asked me how we got into this business, and I explained the cafe's travel website roots.

We're bringing High Lawn's Jersey milk to the cafe starting next week. I sampled the products at Whole Foods, and she told me that she supplies milk to Northampton Coffee and Amherst Coffee, two upscale high class coffee houses which have a reputation for top quality. I thought, "if it's good enough for them..." and decided to make the switch. Sure it will cost a little more, but the product is creamier, lighter, and just makes better lattes. Plus they sell these wonderful little chocoate milks that I know are gonna be big sellers in the soda case.

The proof is in the foam....in Austria, I had many cappuccinos and lattes with incredible heads of foam...so much you could cut it with a fork--a giant tower of luscious, creamy foam. Now I make the same drinks here using this new milk, and voila. Bring on the Giant Foam Head!

Shoul Returns from Spain with Tales to Tell

Paul Shoul always has a story to tell. Not just your average story, run of the mill, no he seems to always come up with doozies. Last night I met him at the Brewery in Northampton, and over beers he regaled me with his latest tale. He was flying back from his trip to Spain and Portugal, writing and shooting for GoNOMAD, and he barely made it on to the plane in Spain. Winded, he took his seat, and there was only one empty seat left, right next to him.

As he got settled in, he saw a priest coming down the aisle, also winded, rushing. He was coming right for that seat next to Paul. Paul is never one to keep quiet during a transatlantic flight, so of course he got to talking to the father, who had shed his collar and was trying to cool down. He said he had been traveling for 37 years, two weeks in each place, he is a traveling missionary, and he turned out to be the ultimate nomad.

Paul's flight that began the trip put him next to a man who had walked hundreds of miles, up and down Europe and South America, and ironically, one of the stops on Paul's press trip was Santiago de Compostella, the famous pilgrimage town. We'll no doubt contact him about writing for us, in the meantime, we can't wait to read Paul's story coming out soon on GoNOMAD.com

Columbus Day, Thinking of Pumpkins

Despite heavy rains that stunted pumpkin growth, a Rhode Island farmer has set what could be a new record for the largest pumpkin in the world.  The AP had the story datelined Warren RI.

"Ron Wallace's pumpkin weighed 1,502 pounds at Saturday's weigh-off competition, heavier than the current Guinness World Record-holding 1,469-pound pumpkin grown last year by Larry Checkon of Pennsylvania.

Wallace said at the 13th annual Rhode Island Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Growers Championship that the key to growing a giant pumpkin is the ability to commit to the task from April to October.

"Pumpkin growing is a lot of work and you just have to stick with it," he said.  It is also weather-dependent.
Agriculture officials say the heavy rains this season have damaged or stunted the crop of many competitive growers of giant pumpkins. Central and southeastern Massachusetts were the hardest hit.

Officials say heavy rain delayed planting, impeded pollination and contributed to rot on blossoms and fruit. Another ailment, "damping-off," constricted pumpkin stems and contributed to the early death of many plants.

Cuban: HS Talent Shows Make Good Content

"Every high school talent show and every high school theatrical performance should be reviewed and put up on your Web site," added Mark Cuban, who said news sites could better serve their communities by incorporating user-generated content for such niche audiences. The content would be free, easy to access, and would give small community groups a forum which would build a site's brand, he said. 

Wearing blue jeans and an untucked shirt in front of a crowd of 500 at the Online News Associationconference, Dallas Mavericks owner and HDnet founder Mark Cuban said Friday that he couldn't understand why newspapers weren't more expensive.  Editor and Publisher had the story today.

"The value proposition is much better than what you're having to pay for," he said, speculating that newspaper owners "just don't have the guts" to raise prices.

Asked what he would do if he owned a newspaper Web site, Cuban said he would try to understand his core products and develop and emphasize those things that differentiated his business from everyone else.

"What is it that you have access to that distinguishes you? What assets do you have?" he asked rhetorically. "How do you make people know that what you have is different?"

One way of being different, he said, was doing original investigative journalism that scooped the competition. But he said he doesn't see the value of the kind of "scoops" where news organizations race to be the first to print information that everyone will have a millisecond later.

Speaking about YouTube, Cuban expounded on his recent remarks that a company would have to be "crazy" to acquire the online video sharing site, saying the foundation for much of their traffic was copyrighted material, and that, once content producers began enforcing those copyrights, the site would be "toast."

"When you look at YouTube, the laws are the laws," he said, speculating that the site would eventually be called on to somehow police the content posted by users for copyright infringements, much in the way they do for pornography. "But once it's monitored, it's not user-generated anymore."

Alligators and Rats Make Big Easy Comeback

A story by Newhouse News Service told of the horror of vermin that are all over New Orleans. Alligators, too, have been seen in more backyards then ever.

"When he arrived, he found a man in a van trying to nudge a 12-foot alligator off the road. "The alligator just ripped the bumper off the van with his teeth and thew it in the middle of the road," the officer said.

The officer jumped out of his car and shooed the alligator back into the swamp next to the road.  "Then the guy gets out and  pointing to the bumper, asks me, "Can I get a police report for that?" the officer said. 'I said no, and that if he didn't get the bumper out of the street, I was gonna write him up for littering." 

The Last Cellphone Holdout Gives it Up

Raymond A. Vachon now wishes he had bought a cellphone. Recently, he survived four-day calamity when he overturned his car and was trapped in brush where nobody could find him.

The story was told in today's Republican.  Vachon drank dew off of the windshield and nibbled on wheat thins, while as a diabetic, he was dependent on insulin.  He was stuck in the brush off Rte 52 in Monson, and nobody knew he was there.

When he went missing, his wife was afraid that one of the dozens of shoplifters he's apprehended in his job as a Stop and Shop security guard might have gone after him.  "He had two tortured days of hearing laughter from groups of young people walking to the nearby Mug and Muffin, to no avail. 'Oh my God, I love that guy, Vachon said of Roger Pikul, the local resident who found him and rescued him after his ordeal, wrote Stephanie Barry in the article.

"Raymond Vachon said when he is released from the hospital today, he has one destination in mind. "The first place I will go is the cell phone store. We've been holdouts. But we've held out long enough."

GoNOMAD Earns Global Props

Saturday morning in New England...and I am so glad tobe home. I can't remember the last time I've felt so on top of the world...things are just going right.  I have got to make a note of this so that the next time I am in a funk I can pull this out again to make me feel better!

Traveling with the other journalists, I felt  the respect and acknowlegement that GoNOMAD has earned over the past six years.  Instead of  'What is that' they all knew about us and had read the stories on our site.  I felt the same way when Kitzbuhel tourism replied within minutes  of my email, sending me a complete press trip itinerary when they heard I was in the country.

In this business, it's all about respect and reputation. We work hard for years and years, publish stories and continally try to make the site better. We have writers in France (Kent), Spain (Paul), Switzerland (Larry) and Austria (Max) so when we say we cover the world, we ain't kidding.

National Geographic Maps contacted us about using some images of Panama from our site. They know us, and that makes me feel great, same as when the Hartford Courant's magazines contact us  for content reprints, and a publication in India calls about using our guides to India. 

Respect, baby--you gotta earn it.

Lola Teaches Charlie How to Sell Boots

On the plane I was given a choice of dozens of movies on my seatback screen, and I stumbled onto one in progress that I just loved. It was called "Kinky Boots," and told the story of a beleaguered shoe factory in Northampton,  England facing job cuts due to sagging sales of its main product--stodgy men's dress shoes. 

Charlie Price is the namesake son of the founder of Price Shoes, and one after one, he has to make his employees 'redundant' as they say in the UK.  After twenty or so tearful, gut-wrenching meetings giving out pink slips, one young woman throws out a brilliant idea in desperation--'why don't you change your product line to make shoes or boots people will actually buy?"  Charlie is no business wizard, but he knows enough to listen to a good idea. So the movie he branches out and takes a stand...he decides to make boots for transvestites. This idea comes to him when he sees Lola in performance. Lola, aka Simon, is a tall black amazon who sings in drag, and Charlie gets to thinking that maybe all of that weight on those precarious heels might be dangerous. So he joins forces with newly minted boot designer Simon and his engineers to come up with a line of outrageous boots for men who dress like women.

The movie is poignant when we see Lola/Simon deliberatly lose an arm wrestling bout to let a big chap from the factory save face, and the triumphant show they put on at the Milan Shoe Show. It brought tears to my eyes as I cheered for them all, and with the wonderful music it was a bloody good way to cross over the pond.

The Long Journey Home Begins

It was hard to sleep because I kept thinking about my six am wake-up call, to begin a very long day of travel all the way back home.  I've made it and now spend my last minutes at my hotel, the Hotel Weitzer, in Graz, where I've slept for six out of the past nine nights in Austria.

I was inspired while I was on this trip, for while I was hiking, biking and writing about Austria, our GoNOMAD enterprise  was humming along and I am pleased to find some serious business that's arrived over the transom in my email. It is still surprising to me that so often our advertising and linking business comes in while I am traveling, not as much when I am in the office slogging away on the phone.

So I'm now showereed, prepared and ready for two flights and hopefully, a smooth transfer via monorail, subway and finally, Peter Pan bus tonight to get me back into Cindy's warm embrace. Bon Voyage!

What I Saw as We Glided by

I sat by the train's big picture windows and watched Austria pass by.  In one field, a little pony kicked up its hind legs at a bigger horse when he tried to bite him.  Next to the fields were huge bales of hay, all wrapped up in pale white or aqua blue plastic. Neat piles of logs were stacked up, and then a magnificent villa just sitting there in the open, and on top of a hill was  a church with a dark blue  onion dome, just above a red-tiled roof.

Next to one house, two grey donkeys with big ears, peering up to gaze at the train.  In the middle of hay fields, the little sheds of dark wood that are used to store hay.  So many of these dotting each field. The seamy backside of dozens of businesses; the palettes stacked with bricks, the lumber and the dumpsters. The split firewood that Austrians love to stack so tightly right next to their sheds, each piece less than one foot long, sometimes with designs in the middle of the stacks made by pushing some logs in more than the rest.

A lonely goat on a hillside, with no other animal companions in the  pen. Different breeds of cows, these almost grey, Ayrshire I think,  A rushing river flowing full with water from yesterday's rains. Up in the hills, grass as green and trimmed as a fairway, as if it was mowed yesterday.  I was told that last year there were three cuttings for hay here.

Far off mountain peaks with snow covering most of them, distant glaciers. Flimsy fences that if not for their electric current, would not stop a sheep, let alone a cow or horse.  On the platform in Kitzbuhel, a group of teenagers, the girls all smoking cigarettes, a boy popping his gum in a girl's ear, she chasing and kicking at him;  one other boy on the cell phone the whole time, watching, laughing but never hanging up.

A factory with  piles of logs and slabs of wood with 'Bioenergie' on the smokestack: An energy plant?A huge rock wall of a mountain obscured by clouds, they just moved out of the way to reveal the entire face.  In the Seltzthal station, a train next to us carrying entire tractor trailer rigs, complete with the cabs, saving them miles on the roads. One with markings from Moscow and Istanbul, just a few countries to the east.

Way, way up a hillside, cows grazing on a 45 degree angle,  solar panels shining in the sun. The train reverses direction, haven't we been this way before?  I ask the man in the cafe car, no he says, showing me a map of our loop back down towards Graz.   An old  billy goat stooping to drink from an algae-covered farm  pond next to a dark wooden barn. 

Swathes of clear cut trees, denuded hillsides. I asked our guide on our hike and he said that a few years ago a big storm knocked down thousands of trees here; loggers in Austria have to replant two seedlings for any tree they cut.  Suddenly bright sunlight fills the hillsides with late afternoon light, the cows form shadows that reflect downhill. 

I confuse the lady coming to take the trash with the conductor and hand her my Eurail pass, she tosses it into the trash and we laugh as I retreive it, red-faced.  On a hill a man is walking wearing a traditional Austrian cap with a feather, boiled wool jacket knickers and high socks

The train is going very fast now, much faster than before, we are in the flat part of the country without the hills and dales that slow us down. I think that the engineer must like this part better, letting the electric motor really fly.

Bike Trails Abound Because People Want Them

The rain let up today and I finally got out on the mountain bike, for my last day in Kitzbuhel.  Kurt arrived at 8:30 with two bikes and we set out from the hotel to Schwarzsee, the small lake nearby.  As we rode along the lakeside, ducks too flight, skidding with fantails into the mist-shrouded water.  I felt energized and ready to pedal hard, the trail was fine gravel and so far there were no big hills to climb.

We rode by the lake and into the woods, a sylvan trail with moss on the banks and sudden darkness from all of the trees.  Every quarter mile or so there was a bench and  a little pole-mounted trash can, and nary a piece of litter could be found anywhere. We rode out of the woods into the sun, up a hill and past cows grazing, and neat little farms with a few dozen animals, and people walking on the paths with dogs.

I thought about how well laid out these trails were, passing by private property, looping in and around farms and fields and using driveways as entry points and assuming that riders and walkers will carefully open and closed the gates to keep the cows in.  

Austria is simply more civilized than the U.S.   They've done a better job figuring out what the common good is and they've established places like these fine bike trails because the people want them.   It makes me feel good about this place, and wish that I could ride gorgeous trails like this in South Deerfield some day.

Rent-a-Bling: It's the Experience that Counts

The train ride from Kitzbuhel to Graz takes about four and a half hours, so I had plenty fo time to relax.  I really looked forward to this time, to write some of my stories, stretch out, and enjoy a nice lunch.  I first entered the train too far down, and in the second class there were compartments filled with smokers and people sleeping all across the seats. I walked back towing my suitcase to the first class section, that's where I could have my own little world without smokers or crowds, and it's right next to the restaurant car.

In a copy of Newsweek that I brought along, I read a story by Jessica Ramirez about a scheme modeled after Netflix. The idea is that you can rent jewelry and expensive handbags instead of buying them.  People like Nicole Cross, of Evansville, IN, who wants to look sharp in $600 14 kt gold earrings can instead pay $20 a week and wear them. This 'Netflix' approach is also being used for expensive sports cars: $30,000 a year and you can borrow a Ferrari 360 Spider and nine other exotic cars for 56 days a year.

There's also a company called "Bag Borrow or Steal," which offers Coach and Gucci handbags you an rent and then send back for a different model. "It used to be that how many toys you could own was a measure of your success. These days it's about collecting experiences," said Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, a market research firm.

Lagniappes Make the World a Little Better

One of the nicest words I've ever heard was shared with  me by Kim Foley Mackinnon, with whom I traveled on my first part of this trip to Graz. I told her about how a woman at the cafe who comes in in the afternoons once told me that she felt so refreshed after she'd treated herself to a coffee and a cake and a chance to catch up on the newspaper in the afternoon at the cafe.  Kim said that was a lagniappe, or little gift, a word derived from New Orleans Cajun. "It means something unexpected, a little bonus, or treat, that makes your life a little nicer," she told me.

I've experience lagniappe more than once on my trip to Kitzbuhel. Today as I sat with Lisi on the top of the Hahnenkamm and ate spinach dumplings and vegetable soup, she surprised me at the end when she said that lunch was on her.  I had interviewed her for my article, and I guess she felt some gratitude, but it was a nice treat for me.

Tonight I went to a contemporary restaurant downtown called Lois*Stern and when I went to pay, Maria the hostess and co-owner told me she my delicious sorbet was on the house.  Another lagniappe, which made my dinner even more delicious.

Watching a Chef Close Up in Kitzbuhel

Tonight I followed the advice of a local, and dined in supreme style at Lois*Stern, a 12-year-old restaurant just outside of the center of Kitzbuhel. It was recommended by Kurt Exenberger when I asked him for his favorite place in town.  It's a cozy little place, serving Asian inspired fish and curries and has a top notch wine list. I sat at the bar, just three feet away from Lois himself, a serious chef who is meticulous as he prepares each dinner with care.   He murmurs to the waitress if he needs something but is reserved in manner and quite serious as he cooks.

His wife Maria is the opposite, the cheerful ying to Lois' yang. She greets the customers with laughter and hugs, and brings warmth to the room.  I watched Lois in action wielding a pair of foot-long tweezers, taking the bits of scallop, and threads of noodles, cutting them with scissors, and searing the tuna, carefully turning it over so that each of the four sides gets browned. As he divied up the wok-fried vegetables onto two clean plates he used every morsel. (I remember watching a chef at Nantucket's Black Eyed Susan's throw way about a quarter of each skillet once as he plated the dishes, this drove me crazy).

The men here all wore the same uniform: a dark jacket, shiny dress shoes, and blue jeans. The women all wore slacks and jewelry.  Since the menu was in German, Maria read it for me, and I simply asked her to bring me the specials--curry seafood, a red snapper with baby bok choi and jasmin rice, and for dessert a selection of berry sorbets.  

On the cash register were two children's photos, and I asked Maria where these little ones were tonight. She pointed to a baby monitor and laughed, 'they're upstairs asleep," she said.

Lisi Makes 'em Laugh up on Hahnenkamm

 Today my plan was to join Kurt Exenberger of the Bike Academy for a mountain bike ride. But rain poured down, so we put this off until tomorrow. That was ok, it gave me  a chance to get to the Hahnenkamm, the steep mountain that gave Kitzbuhel its famous name in ski racing. The 'mouse trap' up here is how you start this wickedly steep downhill plunge, and more than 70,000 spectators view the Super G race when it happens every January. I saw a chart of all of the race times going back to 1937--when they first began, the winning time was 3:53,  last year it was shaved to 1:51.  Better skis or just better skiiers, not sure which.

Up on the top of the mountain, I hiked in a sporadic snowfall, and worked up an appetite that was sated when I reached a little restaurant owned by Lisi Schiflinger and her family. She's worked up here for 28 years, and said she loves making people who are down feel good. She prods and jokes and carries on, and simply makes them play along until they too, have a smile on their face.

She told me that Germans and Swiss often don't know how to react to her, they are used to their waitresses being silently servile.  She told me that in a recent meeting of ski lift operators, hotel owners and restauranteurs from the region, the conclusion was that they had to prepare for more over-fifty guests, and more families. "We have to have more events, do more for people." She said visitors from Scandinavia aren't as frequent as they were in the '90s--and that's too bad because they drink a lot.

When I first came in and Lisi saw me scribbling in my notebook, she came up and grabbed me, and another patron said "George Bush."  He meant that he thought I was a spy for the president. I assured them that no, he wasn't my man, but that I did like our Governor Arnold, who grew up near Graz.

Taking a Sip of Wurtzelgeist--Wow!

This man's grimace comes from the strong drink he's been passed, Baumann's Wurtzelgeist, with Alpine herbs. It does down like fire, but the aftertaste is pleasantly herbal.  We had just come down from our long hike on the mountain and this is how the hikers like to celebrate another good hike. They also like to have these little hiking passports stamped and signed by their guides, showing where they went and when they went there, complete with little photos and the stamp from the lodge up on the mountain they visited.

Train Reading Across Austria

On the train to Kitzbuhel, I parked myself on the wide leather seats of the first class car, thanks for Rail Europe, who hooked me up with a Eurail pass days before I left. As I settled in and turned on the iPod, the conductor approached with a stack of Austrian newspapers. I declined, thanking him but unable to read them in German. He came back with a NY Times section in English from Der Standard. As we passed lazy cows and chalets with full flower boxes, I read about a discovery in Stonewall Mississippi--a huge swimming pool that was filled in with red dirt at the onset of integration back in the '70s.

It seems that the locals were fearful of such a level of integration, of black and white kids literally mixing in the pool, so they filled the 30 meter by 9 meter pool in with Mississippi dirt. Recently a developer poking around in the ground found the fancy blue tile of the forgotten oasis, and he's spent $25,000 to dig it up and restore it. So next summer black and whites can mix in the steamy setting of Stonewall.

Then it was on to another feature about actress Ellen Barkin. She recently got a $20 million divorce from billionaire Revlon chair Ronald Perelman, and was left with about $15 million in jewels he had bestowed on her during their marraige. One piece in fact, he gave her two months before he surprised her by sending his lawyers with the news that he wanted a divorce, and security guards escorted her unceremoniously from the marital townhouse. So she's getting even by selling them at Christy's. You'd think that she'd donate them to charity, or do something more noble than keep all that cash, on top of the 20 mill. But hey, who knows, maybe she will.

The Baron Who Shot the Chocolate Loving Deer

At breakfast at the Hotel Kitzhof, I read the Independent newspaper, and found a story by Tony Paterson about a Baron. It seems that Eberhard von Gemmingen-Hornberg, a German aristocrat, was hoodwinked into believing he had shot a trophy stag, which turned out to be a tame deer that loved to eat chocolate.

The noble hunter set out to Bulgaria to try and bag a big stag. He had heard about one with 37 tree-like antlers on its huge head. It's name was Burlei, and the rich man paid 65,000 pounds for the chance to shoot it. After he shot the beast, the baron was regaled in hunting magazines worldwide with his trophy....he was quoted gushing, "I never remotely dreamed I would have a chance of bagging such a stag."

But his triumph was short lived. It was determined that Burlei had been fed calcium in his animal park home to grow those huge antlers, and was sold to the hunting estate just so that the rich man could shoot it, he was actually a dame red deer. No wonder he just stood there when the baron trained his gun on the beast.

Today the antlers have been moved to the cellar of his country home and he's been stripped of his world hunting record. And the press in Germany who were so impressed with the size of his prize have red-faced retractions.

Hiking the Alps in Jochsberg

Faithful readers, I must take it all back. I know I was railing about Kitzbuhel being a tourist trap yesterday, but as I suspected, a day here doing something really fun has changed my tune. We met up with Englebert at the tourist office and we followed him to a city bus. After a few stops, we ended in Jochsberg, the next down from Kitzbuhel, and met a pair of Brits and three Germans and were off. It didn't take long for us to climb up and up until all we could see were the lush green areas between the trees on the mountains. Englebert, a professional guide, doesn't do anything except hike. Every day, five days a week, he takes people like us up into these green Alpine trails and shows us what is up there.

On the way up the mountain, we ran into a herd of cattle being taken down the same thin little trails that we were ascending. The others carried walking sticks, those ski pole like devices without the baskets that aid the way up and especially the way down. Theirs had little shock absorbers. Cool! We made our way up and up and past hay sheds and old implements until after a few hours we got to a hut. In the back were cow stalls and a milking machine, and in the front a little living area and kitchen. The proprietor showed us a basic menu that included beer with lemonade, wein, and a lovely drink of elderberry and water. These mountain folks live here all through the summer as their cows dine on grass and finally come down when the snow flies. We hiked further to view a tremendous waterfall, and then returned to the hut for soup and little torn up crepes with jelly.

The views were invigorating, as was the long hike, and I came to realize that a tourist town only means that the tourists are in town. Out on the mountain trails, there were only devoted hikers like us, and I realized I like it here.

Is Kitzbuhel More than Tourists from Germany?

After a long and productive (wrote my story) train ride from Graz, finally reached Kitzbuhel about 3:30 pm. Taxiied to my hotel a guesthouse up in the hills, where the owners raise dairy cows and chickens. My first question of my innkeeper, of course was 'do you have wireless?' and my crestfallen reply said it all. No, of course not. So I don't know how many nights I'll be bunking with the moo cows up there.

So far Kitzbuhel looks like a place I would go out of my way to avoid. Tourists, droves, driving black Porsches with little D's on the back. Slickly dressed couples hand in hand, strolling shops full of expensive and unneccessary things. My first reaction is that it is a bit like Stowe, full of people who don't live here. But I am gonna give it a better look, tomorrow we hike and bike and get to know some of the farmers.

It's terrible to prejudge, so despite my spending three hours walking the streets looking for the 'there there' I will keep my mind open and hopefully the alpine beauty and a strenuous hike will dissipate any misgivings about this place. I've gotta hand it to the tourism board, they worked really hard to get on GoNOMAD's radar, inviting us to a big luncheon in Boston and keeping in touch. They deserve some coverage so my job, and I've accepted it, is to go find the Kitzbuhel behind the tourists. I'm off to meet my guide Stefan, and ask him some questions.

Time to Read Wired in the Graz Train Station

Sitting in an internet cafe at the Graz railway station. Now I know what is it like for our internet cafe customers who have to hurry and finish their email and their blogs. This is a little different because here the instructions are coming at me in German, as are the blogger titles, so I am a bit flumuxed.

I was up early after a terrible night sleep. The window was open and the sound of the rushing Mur outside sounded like the traffic on I-91, but it was strangely not as relaxing as you would think. Then when I made it here to the station to catch my 9:30 am train, it turns out it was actually an 8:30 train. That would not happen to Kent, I kept thinking...oh well. They do let you phone for free here so I left a message with my Kitzbuhel hosts that I would arrive two hours late.

Ahead is this classic ski town, too bad I am visiting when there is no snow. This town is famous as the bad ass skiing place, where the real daredevils ply the slopes. Teresa our guide told me about a race where the skiiers are just about vertical on the hill, schussing down in a blur.

For now, I am glad I have my new copy of Wired to read more about a closed loop ethanol plant in Nebraska where they use the methane from the cows to power the stills that make ethanol from corn. It is the first closed loop process and a very bright future for this alterative to gasoline.

The Tram is Close, but Nothing to Fear

I had a sandwich at this cafe in Graz, while the tram glided by, close but nothing to fear. I am so impressed with the extensive network of these electric trams, with flat screens that show the next stop and all sorts of other information, and easy to use, automated tickets. It is such a pleasure as compared to always using the car...it makes me think the US is so backward in many ways, including moving people around cities.

A Manmade Island on the Mur

Today is a wonderful day and I can't remember when I felt so good. I woke up refreshed, sleeping a little late in this hotel bed, with the sun streaming in and the river Mur rushing by next to me. I went down to the Tribeka Cafe and Rosterei, a small chain of three cafes in Graz where they have a menu similar to what we have at the GoNOMAD Cafe. I had a latte with the thickest, creamiest most wonderful foam I've ever had, as I sat in the sun and watched a beautiful Austrian couple and enjoy their drinks. I asked the manager what made their latte so, well better, and he pointed to the machine, a huge white monster. That and the Austrian milk from the mountains.

After the latte and a bagel with buffalo mozz, tomatoes, greens and pesto, I took off for a long walk along the river. The bike and walking path was paved, then became gravel, and I went a long way, passing families with strollers, bikers, and people sitting by the river reading newspapers.

In the middle of the river Mur here is a manmade island, created for the 2003 Cultural Capital of Europe year, but never taken away, since the city fell in love with their island in the river. It is used as a bridge to cross and also there is a nightclub and restaurant inside, it is pictured here.

I thought as I walked in the shady trail and listened to music on my Ipod that Austria is full of funny surprises and feels like a place that is well run, well planned out, and prosperous. There is a statue of a gold plated Madonna in the city, for the 2003 year the city built a glass-enclosed elevator so tourists can take a ride and get eye to eye--just for one minute--with the statue. That's so Austrian, so typical of this place, I love it.

Sony's Ode to her Favorite Steed

crossthatbridge