'All Rise for the Judge--In an Executioner's Mask

Today was a day for public service. So I drove 48 minutes to 'nearby Orange' to appear on a district court jury. The day began after assembling in a room where a television played 'Ellen', and then a documentary about a visit to Egypt. And Luxor. Some of us brought books, and nosed down in them. Others watched as Ellen playfully joshed with Jennifer Love Hewitt, while they both wore Halloween costumes. We watched a video that told us of the importance of our service, and how our justice system relied on it.

Then about fifteen minutes later, a court official arrived to tell us that there would be no trial. But that the judge wanted to speak to us in the courtroom. We assembled there, sat down, and then the sergeant at arms spoke. "All Rise for the Honorable Judge blah de blah." And we rose. In walked a black robed judge wearing the green-rimmed executioner's mask, black as death. "Who says judges can't have fun? " he laughed, pulling it off.

Then he said that after two dates, the witnesses can't make it to speak against the accused, so he was dismissing the case. So we were back out and on the road soonafter.

Google Phone Will Make Calls Free

Watch Out! Now even telcos have to fear Google. They're getting into the phone business. A Google phone may just not cost anything--since the company's method involves monetizing the screen on the handset with advertising, just like they do with search results. Free phones!

They've been talking to LG and HTC about making the phones. Somehow I think that they are going to be cooler than iphones. Just simple. Maybe a rotary version as a conversation piece.
I think often about how one's telephone handset is such an appendage, such a part of you. It's because everybody is connected via that sleek piece of telephone equipment in your hand.

I would like to publish GoNOMAD to be viewed on a phone screen. Perhaps you could dial up the story right when you got to your destination, to give you ideas and places to go and see.
Mixing the ability to get the info on the road, plus the format of an easy to read little screen, maybe tied with the navigation by GPS to provide you with perfect directions.

This all might have something to do with a story that I wrote about a year ago--that army of mobile tractor-trailer server farms that they can move into anywhere in the US and set up a command center for the web. A new cellular network is being built to accommodate many many more channels and Google is bidding on obtaining licenses to use this spectrum.

Thanks to Wu, Something's Being Done to Clean the Lake

China has recently astonished me with the levels of pollution found in the air, water and earth. As a regular international traveler, I haven't ever tried that hard to go to China, because of the bad air and other hazards. Of course, I am sure there are places of great beauty there, but that has always held me back.

I read on the 'Net last night that the government is spending $14 billion to clean up the country's third-largest freshwater lake.  Lake Tai was once a bounteous source of shrimp, baitfish and whitefish. But then more than 2800 chemical companies sprang up on its shores, and they dumped toxins in the lake, and threatened the drinking water for the nearby city of Wuxi. At first the officials  denied that the chemical companies had caused the toxic algae bloom, but a determined environmentalist kept after them, blowing the whistle, and eventually, they admitted that nature did not cause the foul-smelling green scum that blanketed the big lake.

Wu Lihong, a well-known environmental campaigner who had regularly collected samples from Lake Tai, was arrested and convicted of blackmailing factory owners. He was imprisoned but the government is finally doing something about the terrible pollution.

I sense that this is a tipping point in China.  By the time the Olympics  take place next summer, more efforts like this will be started. Maybe there is a way out of China's environmental mess, and it begins with men like Wu Lihong.

Great Barrington's a Great Place to Wake Up

It's about time Fall arrived. This morning had the brisk air we're used to in these parts. Cindy and I woke up at the Great Barrington Travel Lodge, after a wonderful dinner with old friends Kent and Lisa at the Castle St. Cafe. When I was making the reservation for this little roadside motel, on busy Rte 7, I had a funny conversation with the Indian-born manager. I kept trying to spell my name and he stumbled, saying in heavily accented English "I have only been in this country a little while," so I had to speak slowly.

This little motel is perfect for our Saturday night getaway. With free WiFi Kent and Lisa have two laptops humming, and in the morning we enjoyed our favorite TV show, Sunday Morning on CBS. There were profiles of songwriter Neil Sedaka, and actor Anthony Hopkins, and then a feature about huge pumpkins.

We walked across the street to a bohemian coffee joint, just the kind of place I always seek out during my travels. The scruffy but friendly barista made me a few steaming lattes and a muffin to bring back to the room. So today we can relax, enjoy the day, and then set out to explore the Berkshires for the rest of the day.

If You Have to Smoke a Last Cigarette, Make it a Chunghwa

Hugo Restall has taken up smoking. Those words are incredulous to me, in 2007, but true...he wrote a piece in today's WSJ that was a deep appreciation for the finer things in life. Like Chinese-made Chunghwa cigarettes.

"If smoking does put you on the road to early death, as some spoilsports say, then Chunghwas make the journey an extremely pleasant one. I would go as far as to say that, if you ever find yourself in the unfortunate position of being offered a last cigarette, make it a Chunghwa. This is a smoke to be savored like vintage wine."

The cigs cost $10 per pack in Bejing, Restall describes the fabulous taste of these butts..."Pandas are made with a dark tobacco and hence, are woody and nutty, with hints of pine shavings and hickory. They are a bit strong, and have a very long filter to compensate. But they leave a spicy aftertaste, which perhaps is why Deng, who was from Sichuan, the land of chilies or peppercorns, loved them so much."

Shoul's Laughter Echoed off the Fjord's Cliffs

Paul Shoul's writing is a delight. That's because he approaches it with the same zeal and enthusiasm that he uses to create wonderful photographs. I am going to be traveling with Shoul again in January, when we take a trip to Melbourne Australia. Here is a snip from his latest story on GoNOMAD about fishing for cod in Greenland.

"The lines have a heavy weight on the end and four or five bright colored lures running up it. For the next two hours we fish. Sometimes there is nothing and then suddenly the cod are coming in fast and everyone is catching them.

They are big fish but classically give up when they are hooked and you just have to haul them in. I don’t want to brag but the rest of my group was getting pretty teed off at me for the number of fish I was catching. I was even catching them on the way down. I caught 13 in total.

When we had caught more than we could possibly eat, Bo started to fillet them at the back of the boat and then started cooking. The meal for the evening would consist of big chunks of flaky white Cod, new potatoes in butter sauce and parsley, white wine and a case of Greenlandic beer, made with the cleanest water in the world. Floating on the ocean, eating the freshest fish, drinking the best beer and wine with a view that just cannot be matched anywhere in the world.

Our laughter echoed off the fjord cliffs."

Kim Jong Il's Personal Railway Station and other Perks

Tonight I got another chance to enjoy the wonderful Boston Red Sox, who in their first game of the 2007 World Series crushed the vaunted, 21-game-streaking Colorado Rockies. Cindy surprised me by inviting two friends over to enjoy dinner and the game.

Then I spent time with my laptop, since the game wasn't much of a contest. There I found a fascinating website after exploring the Wikipedia entry about Kim Jong il. First, I learned that the 'dear leader' was born in Russia, and that he has had three mistresses since his first wife, (an arranged marriage to a party higher-up's daughter) died.

There are fifteen palaces that the Big Man gets to enjoy, and since like his father (The Great Leader) he is terrified to fly, he always travels by armored train. To get to his seaside palace, he takes that personal train and stops at his personal railway station. Yep, he has his own station that is only used once a year. It apparently is the second station built, since the first in his view was too easy to be seen from China. So that first one that his father had built was torn down and another more opulent station was built in another location, more out of view from enemy airplanes or spies.

The same website detailed the life of the party leader and dictator--he has a 10,000 bottle wine cellar, a collection of more than 20,000 videos of films like James Bond, and other action titles, and his taste for cognac costs the state more than $700,000 a year. Oh the things you can find out on a laptop late at night!

Solar Is the Solution--We've Just Got to Get Inspired

On PBS tonight, the Nova episode about solar energy was both inspiring and frustrating. The inspiration is in the ideas, like Germany's .50 price guarantee per kilowatt of electricity paid to anyone who puts up solar panels. That's inspired an entire country of solar fanatics and even farmers who farm huge arrays of solar panels. Connected to inverters, one pig farmer siphons $550,000 worth of electricity back into the German grid, powering 1500 nearby homes. It's frustrating that we can't really get serious tax benefits and price guarantees here in the US.

We met a man from Somerville MA who lives with his small family in a house with solar panels...he's cut his electric bill in half. Another man in New Hampshire had a modern solar house with a gigantic array...and pays on only 7 bucks a month for power. The system cost $45,000 but there are some tax give backs that help out.

The US military is building the world's largest solar array at an air force base in California. Today there is a huge solar farm outside LA that focuses a beam of light from thousands of turned-to-the=sun mirrors. They heat the liquid in a tube that sends electricity to inverters.

Even today's super solar arrays can only capture 15-20% of the sun's potential power. That's because different spectrums of light are sent down from the sun. A woman on the show has been experimenting with a five-array panel. Used on the Mars rover, it was thought to be able to last three months and has lasted three years. It's using all five spectrums of light from the sun...and that's why it costs millions of dollars for one such array.

He Rides That Bad Boy Like a Cart in the Target Parking Lot

Johnny Jet is the most intrepid and continual traveler I think I know. Well maybe he can't beat GoNOMAD stalwart David Rich, who continously wanders the globe. But Johnny is always off somewhere. Here is a passage from his most recent missive about Cologne Germany, when he is walking through the airport to catch his flight from London.

"I was walking along at a pretty good clip when suddenly, a beautiful, well-dressed woman overtook me. She walked by me like I was using a walker or something, with a nasty smirk that implied, "You're in my way, slowpoke!"

Ooh! That ticked me off and triggered something inside me that hurtled me back in time to the road-rage days of my teenage years. With my jaw set firm, I watched her walking in front of me like she was all that, stepping on to the magic carpet without losing stride and picking up more speed.Not wanting to be made a fool, I quickly grabbed an abandoned luggage cart and rode that bad boy like I do the shopping carts in the Target parking lot.

Lucky me, there was a slight decline, so I picked up so much speed that I rode right past her, sticking my tongue out in jest as I rolled by. I'm not really sure where that came from but it was pretty funny, though her cold and stoic face implied that she didn't find it quite so amusing.

Anyhow, I learned that the carts in Europe aren't built like the ones at home. These things move ... I mean MOVE and are almost fast enough for the Autobahn. I was seriously cruising. In fact, I was going way too fast and before I knew it, I was losing control. I just remember being thankful that no other passengers were in front of me because just before I hit the wall (you knew that was coming, didn't you?), I jumped off and raked my ankle along the wheel.

My bags went flying. Ouch! Miraculously, I didn't accompany my bags as they went sliding along the ground. I not only mangled my ankle but made a complete ass of myself in the process. And guess who snickered at me as she stepped over my bags?

I'm Not Yet Fifty, Despite What My Friends Say

Today is my birthday--I am not yet fifty. Most people I know have already hit this milestone, and I laugh because people in the past few days keep asking me how old I am gonna be, then commenting that "I'm not even fifty yet." Well as my sweetheart likes to remind me, I'll be entering my fiftieth year in 2008. Oh well.

How am I celebrating? I am attending a Safe-serv class with four employees of mine at GCC. It's a mandated course that people who own cafes and restaurants have to take, to make sure that we don't poison our customers with germs. So after a few of these classes, we will all take tests and then we'll be officially ready to 'serv safe.'

I noticed something this year, though, a little bit ominous. Every year that I can remember, my birthday has been a time of year when I'd need to put on a jacket. But this year, here we are with the air conditioners blowing full blast in the cafe and I am sweating with a lightweight shirt. It hasn't even frosted yet. No way this is normal. October 22 is always a little chilly.

Exubera Is Just Too Much for Pfizer Any More

I read in the WSJ today about Jeffrey Kindler, the CEO of Pfizer. They've just written off $2.8 billion for a failed spray diabetes drug called Exubera. The reasons behind why it could never make enough money to pay for itself is representative of the way Big Pharma works in these times.

The drug costs .30 to make. That's extraordinarily high, for example blockbuster Lipitor costs just .08 per pill. The story reveals that the insulin is made in Germany, shipped to California to be sprayed and turned into a powder, the it's packaged into foil wrappers in Indiana the inserted into a device made in Arizona. Pfizer paid a small company called Nektar a licensing fee of about $60 million to make and spray on the powder. Combine this with huge costs to send reps out to teach doctors how to have patients learn to administer the drug and the whole thing would never earn back the hundreds of millions in costs.

Kindler's background is in the fast food business, 'where decisions are made in second,' said an analyst. Contrast this with the pharma biz where patients are affected for decades by decisions made about drugs.

The Dual Fuel Car That Solves the Puzzle of Hydrogen

While we were in Barga, we watched three movies, all of which stood out. The last movie was 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' that skewered the power companies and GM for giving up on a little car that hundreds, if not thousands, once loved. But they were all squashed and sold as scrap--not one was ever sold, they were leased. This brought me much disappointment.

Then I came across a mind-bending short article in the WSJ a few weeks ago. It was about Mazda's new breakthrough--a dual fuel car. Think about it. Hydrogen could be a viable power source for autos, BUT there is no hydro station network. So even though it's clean, it's never going to be practical to get to the fueling stations. But a car that has a tiny gas engine could motor its way to the hydrogen pumps, no problem.

Mazda has plans to market the Mazda5 minivan, with an electric motor powered by a generator. The rotary engine can switch between hydrogen and gasoline drives.

The idea is catching on. BMW is also working on a hydrogen-gasoline car.

Speaking at UMass Can Be Fun...or Dreadful

I'm just about ready to leave the office to go to UMass and lecture BJ Roche's 'Writing for the Web' class at 1:25 today. I looked all around for the papers I had prepared, and can't locate them...but the main point I'll make is how to stand out from the crowd.

These classes, taking place in a computer lab after lunch, can be brutal. Brutal in that kids who go to UMass often don't give a damn about what the professor or her special guest has to say. So I sometimes feel like I am talking to four walls. But I usually take the time to go around the room and ask each student what they like to write about. I pray they'll answer 'features' or even better, 'travel,' but usually, most of them want to write about sports. Ugh. Well I do like sports but sportswriting ain't my game and I can't counsel them much about that.

Some times there are bright and inquisitive people who have questions and are interested in my speil. That's what keeps me going. Some times, even, we get a writer who wants to submit a story, or somebody who is interested in how we successfully have built up a web publishing business. I just hope that these kids show up to today's class. ED. NOTE: The class went great, fun, inquisitive bunch all writers looking at things from a different point of view.

A Homeless Man We All Knew--But Didn't

Bob Flaherty of the Daily Hampshire Gazette put a name to a face that many of us knew during his time on this earth. That was Scott Sadoski, a red-haired bearded homeless man who died last month. I used to drive by Scott almost daily, he was known for having blankets around him and barefeet. He lived in the woods near the Mill River Recreation area in Amherst, and befriended many who worked in shelters that he frequented.

The story told about his funeral service, and how much Sadoski loved native Americans. There the pastor Rev Beverly Prestwood-Taylor talked about his empathy for American Indians, or anyone not getting a fair shake. "He loved all creatures," she said. "To know the secret of death is to see it in the heart of life. Scott believed that life and death are one."

His stepfather remained baffled by his son's choices during his life. "I've worried about him for 28 years," he told the reporter. The homeless man volunteered at Amherst's Survival Center. He was a gentle soul, with a smile that was always there," recalled Cheryl Zoll the center's director. The story followed Sadoski's path, first a high school musician with promise, then to college in Colorado, at Naropa, and then he got a job in his field, environmental science. But something happened, wrote Flaherty. 'He came back to the area of his birth.'

The pastor put in eloquently in her sermon's close. "He was a stranger in a strange land," she said, "The spirit has lifted Scott from this uncomfortable place and let him fly free. May it be so."

Schulz, or Schroeder, Was Oblivious to Lucy's Love

Charles M. Schulz was perhaps the most famous artist in the world. "Sparky," as he was known throughout his life, was somebody many people thought they knew because they faithfully read his cartoons. A new book called "Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography," by David Michaelis was reviewed by the Wall St. Journal's Bill Watterson on Saturday, and I circled some salient points about Lucy and the character Schulz always saw as himself.

"Schroeder's commitment to Beethoven makes her love irrelevant to his life. Schroeder is oblivious not only to her attention but also to the fact that his musical genius is performed on a child's toy (not unlike a serious artist drawing a comic strip). Schroeder's fanaticism is ludicrous, and Lucy's love is wasted. Schulz illustrates the conflict in his life, not in a self-justifying or vengeful manner but with a larger, human understanding that implicates himself in the sad comedy."

In the book, we learn that the cartoonist was a lifelong straight arrow...like Jesus, he neither smoked, drank nor swore. He was also prone to bouts of bitter depression, and his miseries fueled his work. He realized this, and he resisted help or change says Michaelis, in order to continue to produce great cartoons.

He died at age 77 on the very last day the strip was published in 2000.

Band Day in Amherst with Thousands on the March

Today was band day, and a glorious fall day it was in Amherst. There more than 3500 kids dressed up in 67 different band uniforms performed together at halftime of the UMass football game. Sixty-seven units and the resounding boom of those hundreds of drums must have carried over to Hadley. I thought about the various different schools that sent their busses full of band members to the game. Some wore the full regalia, the military look with braided epaulettes, high cap with feather on top, and rayon slacks with stripes. These, I thought, must come from school districts where high taxes allow for the luxury of sumptuous band budgets for uniforms. Other bands wore matching red golf shirts. A tier lower were the bands who could only do printed tee shirts.

But on the astroturf, first, was the 'pride and class of New England:' George Park's famous UMass Marching Band. There are more than 400 of these elite cardinal-clad musicians, and they danced with their sousaphones and swung their trumpets. The warmed up the crowd....but the massing 3100 other younger high school musicians were eager to play. The whole group took up the entire 100 yards of the field, with five conductors on stepladders leading the tune.

After the bands, the game got interesting. Villanova and the Minutemen played four quarters to a tie. Then they went on to play four overtimes with UMass finally coming out on top by a touchdown.

"How Dare They Bore Us!"

In the National Journal, William Powers writes today about the worst thing you can do to somebody in America--bore them. The candidates are doing that already.

"The [Fred] Thompson critique isn't just about Thompson. It's emblematic of how central entertainment is to the campaign, and how closely journalists monitor the candidates as pure performers, punishing those who don't make the grade. In Thompson's case, the retribution was especially severe because he waited so long to declare, thereby building expectations that he would be a smash on the trail. There is nothing the media hate more than a widely hyped performer -- in this case a genuine actor -- who turns out to be a dud. How dare he bore us!

And it's not just the Republicans who are expected to keep things lively. Last week Peggy Noonan, writing on The Wall Street Journal's website, questioned the conventional wisdom about Hillary's inevitability, in a piece headlined "Bush ... Clinton ... Bush ... Clinton ... Getting very sleepy." Of course, Noonan made her name working for Ronald Reagan, the first genuine entertainer-as-president and the apotheosis of Riesman's notion.

If you follow the media very closely, you'll notice a quiet, spreading panic. Could the '08 campaign turn out to be a box-office bomb? The highest rated debate so far, the Republicans on September 5, drew about 3 million viewers, not bad when you consider how many debates have been held. Still, Dancing With the Stars can pull in more than 20 million.

Time magazine recently asked George Clooney: "Would you consider running for president one day?" The query was submitted by a reader from California, but I believe that she was echoing a deep-seated, if largely unconscious, media fantasy. You wake up one morning and George Clooney has suddenly jumped into the campaign. Oh yeah. Just imagine the Nielsens on that guy.

Arthur's Travel Show is No Bologna

I talked about Bologna with Arthur Von Wiesenberger today, on his Around the World Travel radio show. He's a water expert. It was funny hearing him comment earlier on his food radio show on the public water in Santa Barbara, where he lives. When you ask somebody who has hosted kings and prime ministers to water tastings around the world, that's not a simple answer. Water and travel are two of Arthur's passions.

We talked about Italy, and how to avoid the overrun cities there. I told him I thought Ravenna was one of the nicest and uncrowded places I've been. I also recommended a man we met named Georgio Muzzarelli, the oxologist (balsamic vinegar expert) who has a restaurant outside of Maranello, home of Ferrari. Bologna's porticos and youthful spirit makes it one of my favorite big Italian cities. Listen to the radio show here

The cafe bustles with the crackle of fall in New England. We're a get-it-done place, where strong coffee fuels creative and energetic people coming and going, and catching up a spell while at the cafe. It's the Center, the middle of the South Deerfield universe. Our little pond.

Work Through Lunch, You Pathetic Slave

"Work Through Lunch," the pink billboard exhorts me, as I drive south on I-91. Then just below is a photo of a tiny pizza the company sells for 'lunch.' I glare at the sign and set to thinking.

No Way! Lunch is a relaxing bit of the day. Lunch is for meeting a friend, sitting for a while, enjoying a good meal and taking your mind off work. I saw this pink billboard and I thought, that's JUST EXACTLY what we are not about.

Nobody works through lunch at the cafe. I hope to keep it that way.

The Algerians Prove that Less is More in the Desert

I return again to Robert D. Kaplan's superb book that I've almost finished reading. As discussed previously, his aim here is to shed light on the lives and thoughts of the grunts, the men and women who are the heart of America's military. He goes to Algeria with the Green Berets and he sets the stage with some of the history of this rarely-seen North African country. Rarely because most Americans can't get a visa to travel there, because the army runs the country and there have been serious battles between Islamists and authorities.

But the US military goes to Algeria, training forces made up of Green Berets and other specialists help teach the Algerians how to wage war against Al-Quaeda. At one point he relates a story of being inside a tent and the Americans spread out their weapons and equipment to compare them with those of the Algerians.

The arsenal and packs of each Green Beret include M-4 assault rifles with hologram sites that can call in air support, ballistic eyewear for night vision, Kevlar body armor, pistols, Camelbak water systems, fancy radios, shotguns, a vast array of medical equipment...in all it was fifty pounds of weapons and a pack that might weigh 90 pounds.

The Americans were struck by how little their Algerian counterparts needed, and how much more nimble they were in this 110 degree desert. They managed by with an AK-47, some water, and a sack of dates. Without cumbersome body armor, 120 pound Algerians 'could run up and down hills in the middle of the day, turn somersaults with their guns in the sand, jump through burning tires, throw knives expertly, and most importantly, didn't need to drink nearly as much water in the desert as the Americans.'

Kaplan explains that when the Americans took a break to play beach volleyball with their Algerian friends, they deliberately mixed everyone up so that it didn't end up us against them. Likewise, being invited to train here by the North Africans 'represented the ultimate triumph of America's liberal vision over the totalitarianism of the former Soviet Union and its allies in the developing world."

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The Lives of the Grunts of the Blue Water Navy

It's a soggy Sunday morning but the best part is that tomorrow is a holiday! It's like Saturday all over again. I stayed up late last night devouring a book by my favorite author. Robert D. Kaplan doesn't let me down, in his new book called 'Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts' he details the mindset and the lives of ordinary Marines, sailors and soldiers in today's low intensity military.

Kaplan spends weeks embedded, getting to know the people who really make the military work. We meet people he describes, always mentioning where they are from and how they got into the military. Among them are the nnon-military men who are merchant seamen who run the huge ships like the WestPac Express.

In today's military, Kaplan explains, these ferry-like ships can transport an entire battalion inside their massive hulls. Hundreds of tanks, humvees, weapons, ammo and helicopters are all stored below decks, everything the army needs to wage war. The civilians are key--he points out that the twenty-year veterans like these merchant marines who can load the whole ship with just fifteen men would never have stayed in the navy. But because they are citizens, not sailors, they run the ship and hundreds of other operations. There are civilians all over the world running American military bases and making them work with the local populations.

Kaplan talks about sleeping in a bunk on a destroyer and when he turned on his side 'there were inches above me.' He had it better than the sailors, though, they slept 40 to a room. Imagine hearing that many snoring people, while you tried to sleep. He describes life on the ship, claustrophobically tight quarters, with conversations taking place inches from the other person. Below decks is hermetically sealed, in case of gas attack, so when you emerge on the decks, a suction sound can be heard, a whoosh. The decks are where the men and women go when the crowdedness gets to them. No booze. No sex. Sometimes sailors get caught trying to get it on.

Aircraft carriers and submarines, he says, are called boats. Destroyers, cruisers and frigates, these they call ships. The details of the lives of these men and women are what Kaplan makes so interesting. Can't wait to read more.

Kim Meets Roh: Doesn't Say Much But Loves the DVDs

In am embarrassment of riches, I now am getting two copies of my beloved WSJ delivered, so more chances to read fascinating stuff. Evan Ramstad and SungHa Park reported today about a rare meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea.

There were some tidbits worthy of note: Mr Roh presented Kim with a DVD Collection of South Korean movies and TV shows. Possession of these items by ordinary North Koreans is a crime.

The two leaders during their time in Pyongyang traveled around in different types of cars: Kim in vintage Mercedes, and Roh in large, new Ford SUVs.

At one point Kim suggested that Roh delay his return to Seoul by a day so they could talk more. When Roh told Kim he had to run it by his aides, Kim replied, "The president can't make a decision?"

The South Koreans brought all their own food, computers, office equipment and even vehicle fuel for their trip up north, taking care of their 300-person delegation. Roh said he felt 'an uneasy wall' while talking to Kim. He spent just four hours of the 2-day summit with the elusive dear leader, and said he didn't expect to accomplish much during the meetings.

The New Center of South Deerfield is the GoNOMAD Cafe

Been hobbling around with terrible shin splints after an awkward session on the treadmill. So I am still the one who's asked to run to Georgios to fetch whatever ingredient they are out of at the cafe. Funny, one time that is. Today we messed up an order for a cafe customer. We gave them the wrong bag. So I jumped into the GoNOMAD Truck and sped off, down to Whately five miles away to bring them the right bag. They saw the black truck and said 'wow, thanks so much for coming,' and I thought. This is the way level of service I want in my restaurant. But we'd rather not make the mistake in the first place!

Breaking records at the cafe, with just about everyone recognizing a need to have some of our coffee, or a sandwich, or just a bagel to go. But it was the right decision to open the cafe and bring this community together. Here in the real center of South Deerfield. The Cafe.

I got a call from CNN en Espanol. They wanted to interview me about Latin American travel. Yah, I'm game. But the catch...it has to be in Spanish. I want to bring out my Spanish speaking travel staffer, but alas, we do not have such a person. I hope that we can work something out, until I learn the Spanish that I've vowed to pester my daughter into teaching me.

Talk Radio: It's Much Harder Than It Looks

William Lobdell of LA tried a stint as a talk radio host. Apparently, it's harder than it looks.

"As soon as the show's opening music boomed into my headphones, my mind began to shut down. You wouldn't think being a talk radio show host would be all that tough -- just read a few newspapers, magazine and Web articles others have slaved to produce and then riff about them.
But here's the hard part. It's just you, your voice and the microphone. You are giving a monologue in an empty studio. You can't see your audience or sense their engagement. It felt like being locked in a sensory-deprivation chamber. Time seemed to slow, the awful way it does during a car accident.

I spoke too fast and stumbled on my words, which caused me to get more nervous. This made me speak even faster and stumble on more words. Can you sense the pattern?
The technical aspects of hosting a radio show flummoxed me as well. My producer kept barking instructions in my ear, messing up what little rhythm I had going. I had to put callers on the air, a seemingly simple task that resulted in several hang-ups and accompanying dial tones that made the airwaves.

And I had to be constantly aware of the time, making sure the show broke away smoothly for commercial breaks and news (another failure). Though I was clearly a dead host talking, the callers and e-mailers -- smelling blood -- went after me with a disturbing glee. A rabid bunch, they didn't take kindly to having a member of the mainstream media take over for their beloved conservative host.

It didn't matter that I spouted no liberal views. They hated me anyway, calling my questions "stupid," critiquing my voice as "too high," and accusing me of calling Gen. David H. Petraeus a liar when I suggested that his report to Congress, like any other, should be looked at critically before accepting it as gospel.

Over the years, I've been interviewed by many talk-radio personalities and am a regular on Larry Mantle's show on NPR's KPCC (89.3 FM). Answering questions from a professional host is as easy as having a conversation with a friend.

But on the other side of the microphone, it's just you and an unseen audience that wants to be entertained and informed immediately -- or they change the dial. It's a very lonely place. Like the pitching mound at Yankee Stadium.

I'm Focusin' with PhoCusWright in Orlando!

I'm feelin' focused....yeah PhoCusWright! I am thrilled to report that I'm officially on board for the highest level Internet Travel event held in the US--PhoCusWright 2008! I applied for media credentials and they've approved me. So I'm booked to fly to Orlando from Nov 12-15 to hob knob with Google's head of advertising and the CEOs of Orbitz, Cheapflights, Viator, Priceline, Kayak, Silverjet, Trip Advisor, Expedia, Travelocity, and scads of other travel bigwigs.

It's the kind of event that everyone who's big in the travel business either goes to or tries to go to. Last year my friends at Booking Wiz told me about the connections they made there. As head of strategic planning for this great website, I've got to keep my eyes on the big picture. And PhoCusWright is where legendary deals are made and contacts are created.

I will join my associates from Airport Parking Reservations and Booking Wiz during the show. It will be fun to spend time with these smart guys as well as meet the hundreds of other travel heavyweights who will converge at Center Stage in Orlando. Life is good!

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