Al Gore is a Man You Can Tell Your Kids About

Richard Cohen writes a syndicated column for the Washington Post, and he wrote today about a true American hero: Al Gore. Like a billion others, I watched Al up there on the Oscar stage, and I agree with Cohen--Gore's a winner, regardless of what happened back in 2000.

"Now it is George W. Bush that the nation does not trust or believe--and this has and will cost us plenty. What if Bush is right about Iran? What if the Iranians are really helping to kill Americans in Iraq? Whatever you think of the Iraq war, is it permissible for anyone to kill Americans--out of the question! And yet it may be happening and may continue because the president is widely disbelieved. Gore could not have gotten us into this.

"The woman I love tells me that life is a series of little lives, and no one has proved the truth of this better than Gore. With an Oscar in his fist and triumph on his face, Al Gore is a man you tell your kid about. That, maybe, is even better than being president."

Podcasting from New Zealand

Plans are being laid for our upcoming trip: this includes recording podcasts and interviews, daily blogging on the Newzealand.com website, and picking and choosing which doodads and gizmos to bring on the trip.

So far one little item, a flashlight called a Flaresafe, with a built-in smoke detector, has made the cut. This nifty orange and black LED light was sent to us and to many other travel websites, and I read Jim Klee's review of this product today on RoadJunky.com. Turns out it costs $100, (because of the built in smoke detector?), I guess this torch would come in handy in a dodgy hostel.

I went back to Radio Shack and found a tiny digital recorder, I will use this and a small mike to record sounds and interviews on the trip. I am planning a crash course this week on how to record podcasts so that I can post some audio snips on the blog and in my article up on my return.

I have always thought that travel sounds would make a good addition to GoNOMAD, but I never knew how exactly we could implement this. I think now that short little clips of animals, people, and machinery that we come across during the trip will add a third dimension, like video does to give readers a little more than just my words. Hopefully the learning curve won't be too steep!

Eric and Bill Await in LA

Today was a fantastic day in the cafe, waves of people came in to admire the new space. I am working this afternoon but I still had time to make plans for our New Zealand adventure that begins on Friday. Cindy and I fly to LA and will meet up with Eric Hiss, a lanky, funny adventurer who I met when I traveled to Cyprus early last year. Eric is a talented video shooter and photographer who is in the midst of planning a new video travel site. He described it to me on the phone from LA, as sort of a cross between luxury and adventure. I look forward to learning more when we go out to dinner with him on Friday night.

Then I called my other LA connection, GoNOMAD Blogger Bill Karz. I met Bill in Malaysia and he's written some stories for us as well as keeping up the LA Nomad blog. He is a young guy and has the energy and exuberance that makes this business fun. And his day job working for the LA tourism board gives him insights into what is hot out on the left coast. He said he was working at the Chinese parade in Hollywood, and invited us to join him.

So on Saturday, we'll take the light rail across the city to Hollywood and watch a big parade celebrating the year of the Pig. Then at 9 pm that night, we fly Air New Zealand, in the upper deck of a 747 all the way to Auckland. Follow my blog as we document the journey, the people we meet and the stories they tell us.

Equity Firm Buyout Signals Climate Change Shift

Today's NY Times and Business Wire included an inspiring story about the largest leveraged buyout ever--and one that will benefit the environment, since it involves one of the biggest utility companies in the US.

TXU corporation has agreed to be purchased by a team of private equity firms and abandon plans to build 8 of 11 coal plants. The company will also set a goal to return carbon-dioxide emissions to 1990 levels.

This is a great example of how the fight against climate change is being taken so much more seriously by business and the public than by our government.

The equity firms approached the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense, and asked them what they would like to see done differently by TXU, a company they have battled for years.

“This turnaround marks the beginning of a new, competitive focus on clean, efficient, renewable energy strategies to deliver the power we need while cutting global warming emissions,” said NRDC President Frances Beinecke. “It is a big step forward for the State of Texas and for the American energy economy as a whole.”

The prospective owners would also throw their support behind a mandatory nationwide limit on global warming emissions paired with a market-based emissions trading system. They also say they will endorse the positions of the recently-announced U.S. Climate Action Partnership, and will seek to formally join the group of companies and environmental organizations already involved.

The new company would aim to limit its total CO2 emissions from its generating operations and reduce them over time, and pledge not to propose any additional traditional pulverized coal plants outside Texas.

“What we’re witnessing is the beginning of the end of investments in old-fashioned coal plants,” said David G. Hawkins, a former top EPA official “These are very big investors coming to the energy table with very big ideas about where the competitive market is heading. Strategies to fight global warming and save energy are crucial for anyone hoping to succeed in today’s electricity industry.

The company will also expand its investment in energy generated from renewable sources including wind and solar, and take steps to increase its own energy efficiency."

They Used To Grind the Coffee in Starbucks

Howard Schultz wrote a long memo last week that was described in a Wall Street Journal article about customer disenchantment with Starbucks.

Schultz is the company's chairman, and he warned fellow executives that all of the efficiencies brought on by their rapid growth has diluted the experience, and that they have lost the charm and appeal that once brought customers into their stores.

Blunt talk, but he has a point: Starbucks stores no longer grind coffee, they've become "more like a fast food chain, with drive through windows, hot food, and promotions for movies on its lattes."

Schultz lamented the real cost of flavor locked packaging, which eliminated the aroma and what he calls "perhaps the most powerful non-verbal signal we had in our stores."
The new automatic machines the company installed 'blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista,' he wrote.

"We desperately need to look in the mirror and realize it's time to get back to the core...our success is not an entitlement and now it's proving to be a reality."

Talk about Bad Karma!

The AP included a story today about a salesman has a pattern: he tells his bosses that his son has cancer or has died, and then goofs off for months. He's done it three times, and this last episode landed him in court, he has to repay $50K.

"Lancope Inc. said in a lawsuit that Michael Ruffalo launched a tale of hardship right after he took a sales job in November 2005 as a regional account manager. He was given paid leave and unmasked as a liar four months later when the firm tried to send flowers after being told the boy had died, the lawsuit said.

Ruffalo must return $52,517 in wages, benefits and interest because he failed to answer Lancope's complaints over the last nine months, state Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Fisher ruled in a default judgment this week.

"It's incredibly hard to understand why somebody would do something like this," David Cocchiara, Lancope's chief financial officer, said Thursday. "Using your child as a method of getting money out of companies while not doing any work is not good karma."

Six other technology firms that employed Ruffalo at various times dating back to 2002 had similar stories of him doing little or no work by claiming his son was seriously ill, Cocchiara said.

Looking Out from the Cafe

The Daily Hampshire Gazette interviewed me about the newly renovated cafe. But they didn't send a photog and reporter Cris Carl told me she was only writing a short little piece, and didn't shoot any photos. So here is what would be in the paper if they included a photo.

View of the New Cafe

Stokin' the Star Makin Machinery at the Cafe

Jacylyn Stevenson is one of our favorite writers who is writing a feature about blogging for Business West Magazine. I was happy to speak with her again, she wrote a detailed story about the GoNOMAD travel website when we moved into our first office in town in 2004.

I told her what I've learned about blogging. That the two most important things are brevity, and consistency. That and not making spelling errors. I bust my fellow bloggers for the tiniest infraction. We want like hell to spell it right. And the ease with which you can make edits trumps any complaints about time.

Blogging has been beneficial to the travel site because each blog is a new page. And pages get readers and more pages get more, and added to how long you've been on the web, (2000 in our case) this all leads to PageRank, Google's formula for what comes up on that first page of search results.

Our high quality blogs are desirable places to get links from. So we run CPM, or cost-per-thousand ads, and the blog views are part of the overall monthly impressions count.

Look for the story in the next issue of Business West.

Then Cris Karl of the Daily Hampshire Gazette called, she wants to write about our expanded cafe. See you in the paper tomorrow!

Breathe....Plenty of Room to Breathe in the Cafe

The cafe expansion is expanding people's minds as our physical space has grown. It feels like now you can come inside and stretch your hands out by your sides and not still not feel crowded. Space, it seems, is good.

I visited with my friends, brothers Darren and Sean Pierce, who run their coffee roasting company up in Greenfield. Our company is helping them position themselves better on search engines by getting quality links and tweaking their website. It's a fun project, reviewing other coffee sites, contacting owners about links, and thinking of hundreds of new pages of content. It's all about getting them seen and heard. The two brothers took careful notes, and they gave me one of their retro funky black shirts with gold "FOGBUSTER" on the back.

Then I went over to Radio Shack for some wire strippers and walked out with the cutest little computer you've ever seen. Tiny one-foot screen, cute little keys, and wow zap, it took me two minutes and I was on the 'net with the wireless. It weighs four and a half pounds, so it will be a breeze to tote on our blogging excursion to New Zealand's North Island in early March.

The Wows Have it in the Expanded Cafe

Even though I didn't hit the pillow until about 2 am, it was up, up, up even before little early riser Nathan (but after his dad Francisco who plowed out of the driveway at 5:24 am)to return to the cafe. I was groggy but excited. I was excited the way you would be if you just bought a house and your family is coming over to see it. They ooh and ahh all over the place and it just makes you feel great.

To a person, every customer who came in today said 'WOW!' They danced around in the wide space in front of the new bakery case, they were amazed there was so much room in this once crowded space. Even the new floor wowed them, (and who could miss that puke green dirty carpet we once had to walk on here?)

This is a homerun. I can feel that this move will pay us back in spades, we will see our daily gross grow and grow, as people come to see that this is a place where not only can they get the best coffee in town, they can actually relax, read the paper and sit at a table with it. Now if I can only get my credit card machine to work again, all will be right with the world!

My God, it's ALMOST time for Coffee Again

Here I sit, it's 12:51 am, and we're FINALLY finished (almost) renovating the cafe. Jim Taylor, my project manager, has gone home with Barry, his able-bodied assistant, Joe trundled off to bed after a long battle finally won reconnecting the internet...Liz finished her mopping and putting away around 12:15, and then there was La Patrone. One last mop, one last thing to find a home for.

Sometimes I think, what was I getting myself into? I had a very cushy gig, running a website that required nothing but fun work. But as the months passed, I guess I wanted a little more pizazz, more excitement. So this cafe was born. I got a phone call that sums up why I am here now, at this ungodly hour, blogging and mopping. A customer called to order a bagel. I told them we were closed but would re-open in the morning. "Oh, that's ok, we love you guys," he said.

When my regulars come in tomorrow for their eye-opening strong GoNOMAD coffee, they will all be amazed with what we've done. And as each one of them thanks us for being here, and for creating this wonderful community of travelers and coffee drinkers, I'll again know why we did this--because it feels good creating a place that people around me love.

I Bet This Guy Wishes He Spoke French

The Nigerian Times had a story about the value of speaking more than one language tonight.

"A fast-thinking pilot, with the help of passengers, fooled a gunman who had hijacked a jetliner flying from Africa to the Canary Islands, braking hard upon landing then quickly accelerating to knock the man down so travellers could pounce on him, Spanish officials said Friday.

A lone gunman brandishing two pistols hijacked the Air Mauritania Boeing 737, carrying 71 passengers and a crew of eight, Thursday evening shortly after it took off from the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott for Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, with a planned stopover in Nouadhibou in northern Mauritania.

Speaking to the gunman during the hijacking, the pilot realized the man did not speak French. So he used the plane’s public address system to warn the passengers in French of the ploy he was going to try: brake hard upon landing, then speed up abruptly. The idea was to catch the hijacker off balance, and have crew members and men sitting in the front rows of the plane jump on him, the Spanish official said.

The pilot also warned women and children to move to the back of the plane in preparation for the subterfuge, the official said.

It worked. The man was standing in the middle aisle when the pilot carried out his maneuver, and he fell to the floor, dropping one of his two 7mm pistols. Flight attendants then threw boiling water from a coffee machine in his face and at his chest, and some 10 people jumped on the man and beat him, the Spanish official said.

"I Got People" is an Excellent Ad Campaign

Joe O'Rourke and I used to enjoy reading Bob Garfield's ad reviews in Advertising Age when we both worked in ad sales at the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Here is Garfield's review of a new ad campaign.

"Millions of Americans are intimidated or overwhelmed by this annual [tax prep] chore, and H&R Block is right there for them. The genius of the campaign is how well it understands the "them." The ads are populated with the financially unsophisticated. They are young or working-class, living in modest urban apartments or rural trailers.

"I got people," says the copy-shop guy.

"I got people," says the mailman.

"I got people," says the young hubby in his garden apartment.

"I got people," says the elderly waiter.

A financial entourage.

But it's not just "Don't worry, it's taken care of." To a person, these characters and those around them are impressed with the idea of having access -- just like rich folks -- to someone who can swoop in and do the taking-care-of. To this audience, H&R Block isn't an overpriced form-filler-outer. It's a financial entourage. Thus has Campbell-Mithun, Minneapolis, succeeded in turning a down-market purchase into a point of pride. Like those Members Only jackets from the '80s, only not excruciatingly pitiful.

You could argue this is condescending or exploitative, but we think not. The value of a good or service is exactly that which the purchaser places on it. If the consumer believes H&R Block confers prestige, then, by God, it does.

This is, of course, not a dark, hilarious joke. Nor did it reanimate any dead Midwesterners, nor will it get anyone gold -- or laid -- in Cannes. It's just the best selling idea we've seen in at least five years.

You Can Do a Lot with 12-foot Ceilings

Progress, progress, the cafe is moving ahead and we can't wait to show it all off on Tuesday. Last night I joined about 70 of my neighbors at a fundraiser on Crestview Drive. This is a wide street with underground utility wires (the mark of a high rent district) located behind my house. Each of these demi-mansions sits on a huge lot and most have at least four or five baths and tremendously large garages.

But the house where the party was was even more special...it was a converted tobacco processing plant, a huge wooden structure that Vern Harrington has turned into a cozy and spacious home. Entering the space, it is almost like a big ship, the living room is just huge, and the ceilings are 12 feet high. Vern used all of the wood from the old factory to make beautiful ceilings and gorgeous cabinets. In the kitchen one cabinet turns out to be a hidden doorway into the bath. Each of the kid's rooms has a loft bed, you can do this with 12-foot high ceilings.

It was a rare outing in South Deerfield--and many of my cafe customers and other neighbors were there to chat up. I enjoyed catching up with Laura, who runs a daycare on Sugarloaf St., and two postmasters who live together in Montague. The benefit was for some local kids who are going to Guatemala to build houses for Habitat. Nice kids too, they even wore ties and got in front of the mike to thank all of us oldsters for coming out.

Building a College in Kabul

Johannes Brongers wants to help. So he's going to Afghanistan to do his job in a far less tranquil environment. In June, he leaves with his wife Janet to live in Kabul and help run the American University in Afghanistan. There are only 58 students now, they hope to expand to 2000. He was interviewed by Kristin Palpini in the Amherst Bulletin this week.

"The good thing is they already have a wall around the place," said Brongers. "the first thing you do when building in Kabul is construct a wall." It's dangerous indeed--this year armed attacks are up to 4,542 and more than 1,677 IED explosions have gone off since 2005. But Brongers is going anyway.

I admire this man for giving up the comfy confines of Hampshire College to venture across the world to a tough place like this. 'It's exciting and a big challenge," he said, This is a thrilling opportunity, really thrilling, to build something from scratch.

"Life will be hard there," he said. "But they need the help.

Snake River Canyon, Idaho

I was pleased to read a draft of new GoNOMAD blogger Paul Shoul's story about his trip to Boise. I was even more pleased when I saw his collection of photos, which, as usual, are stunning and fit right in with his text. Shoul understands the tone and tenor of how a GoNOMAD article should sound, and he mixes in many of his interactions with locals and this gives the stories his own unique flavor. Here is one of his outstanding shots. You'll see the article on GoNOMAD in about a week.

Sore Feet are Proof of a Hard Day's Work

Tonight as I sit here in my big chair my feet ache. I've been working very hard at the cafe all day, and we've got encouraging results to show for our labors.

This morning, as the wind whipped the snow around, I hired a young man from the neighborhood named Josh to help me move three big desks out of our cafe office into our new digs next door. It was hard to get them out the door, and since these are solidly built units, not the el-cheapo ones from Staples, they weigh a ton. We hauled the desks across the parking lot into our clean and more spacious new office. Wow! This place is gonna be great!

We've got three windows, a shiny newly refinished hardwood floor, room for four desks and heat that cranks. The office is right across the parking lot from the back door of the cafe, so we can easily pop over to the cafe for meetings.

Meanwhile, since we've moved all of the desks out, now we have begun our cafe renovation in earnest. Jim Taylor removed the wall tonight, and the new bakery case was delivered. So....now we just have to relocate the counter, put in a new tile floor and a hundred other things and, gasp, by Tuesday, we will again be ready for business. I'll sleep well tonight, but tomorrow I'm back at it!

Porn Pop-Ups Explode a Conn. Classroom

Julie Amero has lived a computer pop-up nightmare. Now she's been convicted of unwittingly exposing her students to pornography after a storm of sexual images flooded the screen in a classroom computer. You can imagine how it must have felt, not being able to stop the awful pictures one, another, another, from despoiling the innocent air in the seventh grade class.
Amero's story is so familiar--who hasn't wrestled to stuff those sweaty bosoms and butts back inside the machine. They keep coming, pounding your senses with uninvited lust and you can imagine what this must have been like as a substitute teacher with 30 seventh graders staring over your shoulder.

The prosecution was blasted by Amero's lawyers, who questioned why nobody searched the class computer for the spyware, explaining that "when a pop-up occurs it will get shown as a visited website and no 'physical click' is necessary. The teacher turned down a plea deal, insists she is innocent, and plans to appeal.

Hard for GE to Look Green as They Fight Smog Rules

John Fialka and Kathryn Kranhold write in today's WSJ about GE's credibility gap. The company is fighing stricter standards on smog, while they push their image as a 'green company.' One ad shows a GE locomotive pulling a train through a rainforest and smokefree eden. They say the EPA's push to get smog limits of 1.3 grams per horsepower per hour's operation is too much, that they can't meet the target. They say 1.9 is the best they can do for the , 'ecomagination' locomotives. GE bases its estimates on the 1997 standard, not the more ambitious goal for 2007.

Yet the president of the Engine Manufacturers Assn called the 1.3 standard a 'stretch goal." It is meetable, and unlike GE, he's not fighting it. Electro-Motive Diesel of LaGrange IL said they'll definitely meet the goal with their engines.

GE has orders for $20 billion of their so-called green locomotives. The marketing of 'Ecomagination' was brilliant, and defly portrayed GE as the greenest, coolest and best-run company. My guess is that they will quietly comply and move beyond this.

Bagging Bartiromo--and Paying Dearly For It

Michael Lewis writes on Bloomberg.com about the rise and fall of Todd Thomson, who was once the wunderkind of Citigroup's Global Wealth Division.

Thomson was fired last month after reports surfaced that he commandeered a company jet to fly CNBC anchorbabe Maria Bartiromo to a conference, and used his marketing budget to sponsor her TV show, among other charges.

Lewis compares the quick firing now to what might have happened back in the day, when the rainmakers like Thomson ruled the roost.

"There is a new deal for the alpha male on Wall Street. He can make his millions, and he can still strut and preen and feel important. What he can't do is sexualize his financial clout. In the late 1980s it was fairly routine for men on Wall Street trading floors to order up strippers; when a prominent bond salesman was fellated in a conference room just off the trading floor his colleagues were more amused than shocked. Not long ago a pair of Morgan Stanley employees was fired for merely attending a strip club in their off hours. As one of my former classmates put it, ``the decorum in the marketplace has changed.''

Todd Thomson's mistake was that deep down he believed he hadn't made one. He's the rooster whose head has been removed but is still flapping around the barnyard, thinking he's still alive."

An Impressive Roster of GoNOMAD Blogs

I have enjoyed blogging immensely since I first began more than 1414 posts ago in November 2004. Kent quickly followed suit, after reading mine and seeing how much fun I was having, in January 2005, Be Our Guest joined the GoNOMAD blog team. Then about six months later, my associate editor and cousin, Stephen Hartshorne, jumped in. "I'm ready to blog," he told me. And Armchair Travel was hatched, a stew of literature, history and dusty tomes from flea markets.

Later that year we awarded a $500 cash prize to Kelly Westhoff, who would travel around the world, stopping in Cabo Polonia in Uruguay to write about a desolate beach town for GoNOMAD. Her husband Quang joined her and they posted "Global Roam" from outposts all over the world, and continue now from Minneapolis.

We had been publishing articles about hiking in the Himalayas by Professor Mridula Dwivedi, from India,and she too was blogging, so we recruited her to our team. Her blog, Travel Tales from India, has the distinction of getting the most comments of all. It seems that Indian bloggers are voracious commenters, they comment then comment back, then pass the link and comment some more--we love it!

Our UMass interns always need interesting work to do, so we set up Travel Reader and this blog has been handled by five women over the years during their internships. Two of these TR alumni now blog for us from Japan, Emily and Sarah keep track of their daily lives teaching English by posting the Japan Nomads blog. Today Melissa and Marina are posting for TR.

I met Bill Karz in Malaysia and we talked about an LA blog. Now that he works for the tourism department, the blog has become a good way to post new events and attractions from the left coast. It's called LA Nomad.

Finally, we have our newest blogger, Paul Shoul. Paul is our intrepid shooter, he travels everywhere with an enormous camera bag on a shoulder and always, always has his trusty Canon ready to capture a moment. His blog Round World Photo, debuted yesterday. To see all of the newest posts for our blogs, bookmark the GoNOMAD Blogs page.

My God It Might Snow!

Snowstorm headed for Bay State, people rejoice in New England's streets! Chris Choate took this photo in Scriba, NY.

Anita Davis and Michael Givins wrote in today's Boston Herald about the good news we've all been eagerly waiting for: IT'S GONNA FREAKIN' SNOW!

While plow drivers have been cursing the lack of snow this winter at the top of their lungs all season, they’re holding their breath this week.

"Be prepared for a big storm Wednesday, whether it be snow or snow turning into rain,” said Hayden Frank, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

A nor’easter may bring heavy snow, strong winds and coastal flooding, Frank said. He said some parts of the Northeast could get up to 6 inches of snow - a blessing for plowers who have usually capitalized on the average 20 inches of snowfall by this time.

"It’s horrible!” said Walter Tipert, owner of Danvers Snow Plowing in Danvers. “What business? We haven’t plowed at all. There’s been no snow." Tipert, who has been plowing for more than 45 years, said he usually has between eight and 16 jobs a season, and this year he’s had none. He said that’s money that he doesn’t have in his pocket.

First-time plower Bob Granara, owner of Granara’s Earthmoving Services LLC in Reading, has a brand new $15,000 Bobcat that “doesn’t even have a scratch on it and hasn’t left the driveway.”

“I expected about 10 plowable events for the year, from what I’ve been told, and this year there’s been none and it’s been tough,” Granara said. “I was hoping to make $10,000, and that’s on the high side”

A Tree Grows in Niger--Hope for the Future

It is nice waking up in the cold winter morning and reading some good news about Africa in the NY Times. "Recent studies of vegetation patterns, based on detailed satellite images and on-the-ground inventories of trees, have found that Niger, a place of persistent hunger and deprivation, has recently added millions of new trees and is now far greener than it was 30 years ago."

For decades, environmentalists have been lamenting about the encroaching desert over the Sahel in the center of Africa. Decades of drought compounded the problem. Lydia Polgreen writes about how part of the problem in Niger was a government law that considered trees the property of the state, no one could own them. The result was people denuding the trees for firewood and to build houses, and about 20 years ago, there weren't many trees left.

"So Mr. Danjimo and other farmers in Guidan Bakoye took a small but radical step. No longer would they clear the saplings from their fields before planting, as they had for generations. Instead they would protect and nurture them, carefully plowing around them when sowing millet, sorghum, peanuts and beans.

Today, the success in growing new trees suggests that the harm to much of the Sahel may not have been permanent, but a temporary loss of fertility. The evidence, scientists say, demonstrates how relatively small changes in human behavior can transform the regional ecology, restoring its biodiversity and productivity.

Over time, farmers began to regard the trees in their fields as their property, and in recent years the government has recognized the benefits of that outlook by allowing individuals to own trees. Farmers make money from the trees by selling branches, pods, fruit and bark. Because those sales are more lucrative over time than simply chopping down the tree for firewood, the farmers preserve them."

Say Hello to the Smartest Dog in the World

Born January 1st 1994, in Echo Bay, Canada, Chanda was a Champagne Toy Poodle who caught the attention of the Local, National and International Press. Afghan hounds may be the dummest dogs in the world, but experts say Poodles come in at number two.
Meet Chanda-Leah, the smartest canine who ever lived.

"A Guinness record holder, at the age of five, for 'MOST TRICKS PERFORMED BY A DOG', Chanda was the only dog, past or present, to be responding to well over 1000 hand and verbal commands. At seven and a half weeks of age Chanda went to live in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where she resided until her death in June 2006. She could do 1000 different tricks, responding to commands.

Like any new baby, Chanda learned to crawl, to stand, to walk, and yes, was even potty trained. From those simple commands as a puppy, to her final day, it was an on-going learning experience for dog and master. It was this experience that shaped the destiny of the little dog that had come to be known as The World's Smartest Dog.

Chanda entertained in schools, churches, nursing homes and hospitals, brightening up the lives of the people she touched, with her big smile, her 'attitude' and a high energy level that kept audiences amused for over an hour. This was and is the type of entertainment that excites and delights every generation.

Staying focused and responding to so many commands was truly incredible, but her uncanny ability to make people laugh was a unique ministry that was nothing short of phenomenal. Chanda appeared on television and radio shows around the world...had been written about in newspapers, books and magazines.

Sixty Days to Porn on King

The Daily Hampshire Gazette came through with a great one on this frigid day. Watching people walk against the wind, our Open flag is flapping in the breeze. This was the headline, ohmigod it's happening. Porn is coming to King Street. A big ole Porn emporium, in the former car dealership. Many have waged a war against this terrible thing, but they have only dented, not stopped, the effort. They did manage to eliminate the video booths that were once planned here.

Porn on King. I shudder to think about it.

Boldness Makes the Cafe Expansion Happen

Snow fell in tiny flakes when I woke up this morning, gearing up for an early shift at the cafe. We've been busy planning the next phase of the cafe...making the whole place bigger and opening up so we can add more tables. Georgi from the restaurant next door came by and gave us some good advice. "Use the whole space," he said, "you're paying rent, so put in as many tables as you can fit." He encouraged us to re-orient the new bakery case so that the whole cafe will look different and fit more people.

Next week we move our office over next door, and then the big process begins, with new flooring, lots of construction, and piling up debt. That is what sometimes makes me stay awake at night, as I used to remember my sister telling me about her cafe business in NJ. She would regale us with tales of her current debt load and whether she had paid any off...it was always a balancing act with payroll looming and new ideas percolating that are hard to pay for.

I set out next week to Gillette's in North Brookfield, searching for the perfect pastry case and more tables and chairs. I am excited, a little nervous, but hey, be bold as my cousin Steve once told me, that's the only way to achieve greatness!

I Know Isabella Bricker, So I'm Famous Too!

On Tuesday night we huddled around a fire and watched American Idol. Who can resist those god-awful hopefuls who can't sing and make such fools of themselves? But the special treat of the night came at a commercial break.

Suddenly, on the screen was Isabella Bricker, Cindy's beloved god daughter, who recently went down to Orlando to shoot a commercial for the tourism board. WOW! It was her, smiling broadly as she whizzed around in a spinning teacup ride, and then merrily prancing in front of the Magic Castle of Disney World. Talk about taking the fast lane to the top....starring in a commercial, her first big gig, and then having the ad run on the most popular show on TV. Bravo!

I heard that when Isabella came to school the next day, she was mobbed by classmates who had seen the ad on Idol. It was bedlam in Pelham and everybody was excited for her.

I predict we will see this little girl's face in many more ads...and some day we will all say "remember way back when Isabella was doing commercials," when she lands her first movie role.

To a Blogger in Cairo, that $25 Google Check Rocks!

The Christian Science Monitor ran a story recently about how Google's hidden payroll called Adsense helps out both middle class Americans and especially, the poor around the world.

"But it is Web entrepreneurs in the developing world who are reaping the greatest benefit from the program.

Because Adsense earnings can vary widely depending on a site's traffic or subject matter, many Web publishers in the developed world don't bother participating. Whereas a $25 monthly payout may not be worth the trouble to a blogger in Manhattan, it can mean the world to a blogger in Manila.

Andrew de la Serna runs a small search engine in Davao City, Philippines, and derives about 40 percent of his monthly income from Adsense. "It's great to do what you love to do and earn money from it at the same time," he says.

His earnings have allowed him to purchase a cellphone, develop new websites, and build up his savings account.

Dr. Rodolfo Rafael, who owns a small medical clinic in San Fabian, Philippines, says the Adsense earnings from his medical website allow him to "dream big" and reinvest in his medical practice.

Their experiences are shared across the developing world. In Cairo, Mohamed Sallam was grounded for health reasons from his job as an airline steward, and he now spends time maintaining a Web forum devoted to discussions of Islam. He earns most of his income, about $500 a month, from Adsense.

Deepesh Agarwal, who runs a small cybercafe in Rajasthan state, India, draws about 90 percent of his income, or $1,500 a month, from his Adsense earnings. It is a princely sum in a state where the average income is just $300 a year.

"Adsense has changed my life," Mr. Agarwal says. "I can afford things that I was not able to before. I am planning to buy a new car. I can save for my future."

Jane and Karl Found Their Way to the Inn

Today's bitter cold made it a good day to sit in the cafe windows and read the Gazette. There I found a story about one of our customers, Jane Sabo, who with her husband Karl has run the nearby Deerfield Inn for 20 years. The story reflected on their decision to move to this rural burg from New York City. Karl was working at the posh 21 Club and Jane had come over from London to work in independent film distribution. They bought the inn partly as a way to spend more time with eachother.`

They told reporter Cris Carl about one guest who had made a lot of long distance calls during his stay at the inn. They were worried at how he would react when the presented him with the large phone bill.

"The chap just took one look at the bill, opened a brief case full of packets of hundred dollar bills, and handed us one, saying to give the change to the staff," said Jane Sabo, "My draw just dropped."

Meraki Brings the Net the Final Ten Yards

This morning I decided to open the cafe to just Cindy and me. Despite a regular customer who popped by wanting a coffee, "Sorry, we're closed," we have the cozy cafe all to ourselves, and we made omelettes, read the NY Times and enjoyed lattes and good music from the ipod.

The Times did not disappoint--I found an intriguing article about a new and better way to deliver WiFi the last ten yards inside people's homes. Author Randall Stross, a professor at San Jose State, described the earliest days of electricity. There was a time when towns believed that they could use streetlights to light up people's homes. It was a fad in the 1880s, and is an apt metaphor for Wireless. There are just too many shadows and curves to expect a wireless signal, like light from a lamp post, to effectively bring either light or the internet into a home. The many municipal WiFi schemes have come up against this problem, in Google's wireless hometown of Mountain View CA, people need to bring their laptops close to a window to get a good signal.

Enter two Ph.D students from MIT, Sanjit Biswas and John Bicket. They've developed Meraki, which uses $49 boxes placed inside houses to create a shared network among neighborhoods. So far more than 15,000 users have discovered the joys of a cheap and effective way to share a signal, and of course, Google is investing in Meraki too.

In Portland, OR, Michael Burmeister-Brown set up a network in 400 low-income apartments, using just five DSL lines and 100 Meraki boxes. It works out to about $1 a month and for an investment of just $5000 and $13 per house, voila, you're on line.

Maybe the Meraki is the way we will make GoNOMAD CAFE an internet provider, right here in little old Deerfield!

Writing Talent is in the Genes

After the season's first real snowfall, New England woke up with a smile on its face. Hunkered down in Green Lane's basement, I read the Wall St. Journal account of how a new novel will be marketed. I saw the same book featured in the Costco magazine, so this title is definitely going to be pushed.

It's Joe Hill's novel called "Heart-Shaped Box." It's a story of an aging rock star who tangles with a revengeful ghost, and the initial printing is 125,000 copies. When publicist Lisa Gallagher read the manuscript, she liked it so much that she offered the young writer a two-book deal. "I read it in a single sitting," she said. Hill's first book, a collection of short stories called "20th Century Ghosts" got rave reviews when it came out in 2005. Barnes & Noble said they are placing the book in the front of all of their stores.

The most interesting aspect of Joe Hill is how genetics must indeed play a part in why some authors write big selling tomes and others sink. The author's full name is Joseph Hillstrom King. His father is, yes, another King, his first name is Stephen.

Wal-Mart Pushing the Green Tipping Point

Today's Wall St. Journal included more evidence that yes, Wal-Mart is going green. This might be window dressing for the behemoth corporation that faces bad press over wages, but I think this is the beginning of a paradigm shift in how people view the environment.

In a speech in London, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott called on the company's more than 60,000 suppliers to aid its green campaign, requesting that they eliminate non-renewable energy from their processes and products, and even calling on Wal-mart's 1.35 million employees to bike to work, and change to green lightbulbs.

Another aspect of their plan encourages Wal-Mart associates to adopt 'Personal sustainability Projects' on their own. Ideas like in-store recycling, organizing weight loss or smoking cessation groups.

These efforts, combined with their decision to embrace sustainable seafood and buy millions of pounds of organic produce, is pushing middle America to where we all need to go...and that's a good thing!

A Beef about Bardwell Goes Nowhere

Today I'm up a little earlier than usual for a morning shift at the cafe. The light outside is golden, the air is chilled. I picked up the Gazette and found a story about a dog at work. This brings back memories of E-S Sports, where Frank Suher used to bring his lab Daisy into work every day. It made that Holyoke office more like a home.

In the Easthampton, MA town office, there is a boxer named Bardwell who has just gotten a reprieve. It seems that a union president named Trent Chapdelaine complained about the hound, who like his master Patricia Cotton, comes to work in town hall every day. The town officials dutifully checked their insurance regs, and found Bardwell was not breaking any laws by sleeping on the office floor.

The prez told the Gazette he filed the beef 'on behalf of the union,' and clammed up when pressed for details. Bardwell also got glowing testimony from Joe Pipczynski, who said just having the dog there lowers his blood pressure. Mayor Mike Tautznik said the board's investigation of the complaint was a waste of time.

The board did vote to put out a sign warning locals that they could encounter dogs inside the town building. Now it seems, everything is safe once again for Bardwell.

Whoa, Look Out, It's a Traffic Camera!

I read about traffic cameras in yesterday's Wall Street Journal in a column by Holman W. Jenkins Jr. He writes that the American Automobile Association has turned against them---it's because these ubiquitous cameras, placed in the beginning to help police against muggings, have turned into money machines for governments.

One tabloid, The Sunday Mail, sent reporters undercover posing as buyers for Eastern European governments. The salesmen were breathless about the devices..."They catch businessmen going to work in the morning and school-run mums in the afternoon...the money will come in in buckets!"

In Washington DC, Mayor Anthony Williams is pleased with the $30 million a year reaped from those drivers who are mailed the traffic tickets. Then the Washington Post found that many accidents were caused by people suddenly slowing down when they saw the cameras, and then were rear-ended. Oops!

In Britain, most of the cameras have been given plate-reading capability. "As a result, Britons are increasingly being surprised by tickets in the mail for making illegal U-turns or dropping passengers in no-loading zones, even in lonely hours when no one is around to notice or care. Ka-ching!"

The AAA has accused Washington DC of targeting Maryland commuters by strategically placing cameras on New York Avenue and other roads used by mostly by out-of-towners. The Republican governor of Maryland recently vetoed a plan for more traffic cameras, saying there's no data that cameras will slow speeders, and worried about "how citizens defend themselves against a digital device."