Georgi Baby!

Here is my favorite neighbor, Georgi, the owner of Georgio's Restaurant, located next to the cafe. Every day, Georgi bellows out to me from his stove (shown here) as I run downstairs to retrieve food from the walk-in.

"Moxxxy my friend...how are YOU?...what's GOIN' on?"

He has helped us out in many ways, figuring out how to stop my leaky refrigerator, assembling our shelving, and giving me some of the best advice of all, to make the cafe as big as we possibly could.

Georgi drives up every day from his home in Connecticut, and takes just one day off. He's the classic Greek chef, and we love him.

In a Scottish Oil Field, Wind Power Cranks it Up

I have been blogging regularly about what I consider a turning point in society's view of green energy. Again and again I read about initiatives moving forward despite the government's recalcitrance; it is the market that is pushing hard and the profit motive that keeps them innovating.

Last night's WSJ included a story about the Beatrice wind energy project--one of the world's largest array of wind turbines, being built 12 miles off the very windy coast of Scotland. The beauty is that this North Sea location is already known for energy production--amidst declining reserves of oil. So this means that cities like Aberdeen have 10o's of thousands of people already working in the energy business. "We're looking at renewables as a way to keep people employed," said Paul O'Brien, head of Renewable Energy Development at Scottish Development Int'l.

The Beatrice field is located in 150 feet of water, much deeper than other large wind energy systems, and located 12 miles at sea. This inspires the opponents of Cape Wind, who claim that the project's builders should take a hint from the Scots and move that set of turbines far out of view of passing sailboats and the tony houses of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Cape Wind is proposed for much closer, so the large structures will be visible.

The Scottish project has had a much easier time moving forward because the owners could use their oil and gas operating licenses to get it approved. They will be used at first to power oil platforms. But by 2020, the British Wind Energy Association hopes to be churning out 20,000 megawatts of power, which will take the places of dozens of coal and oil-fired power plants.

The Simple Acts That Give Meaning to Life

Today I derived joy from a simple act. I bought a metro shelving unit and organized my very unorganized walk-in refrigerator and everything is now easy to reach, safely put away, and there's even room for more!

I thought for a minute about how great it was after Georgio helped me assemble the tricky system of metal rods and shelving. Then placing all of the items back, I considered that somebody who was not working could never enjoy such a treat. If I were retired, or didn't have any of these responsibilities, I'd never feel this way about a well-ordered larder. It's one of those little things that adds up and makes my life fun.

Then it got even better after I got off the phone with Jeremy, who works with the New York Times Travel Show. I am going to be leading a travel writing presentation at the show, where two years ago more than 175 people attended such a class. I will present about the travel writing market, tips and techniques to get published, and bring in some of my travel writing friends to help people learn.

I'm also going to Boston in February to speak to travel officials at the Boston Globe Travel Show about search engine optimizing and how to make more money on the web.

YAHOO!

What the Cafe Does to Help Make the Earth Green

Yesterday I had a chance to speak with a group of high school students in an environmental awareness class at Frontier, in South Deerfield. Their teacher, Delfina, brought the group in and doled out dollar bills outside the cafe so they could buy something while I spoke to them. I thought that was a nice touch.

After they had ordered smoothies, chocolate milks, and pastries, we gathered by the window and I talked about the ways the cafe is trying to be environmentally aware. I cited some of the things we do, such as paying extra for a dumpster that recycles newspapers and loose papers; that we collect all of plastic and metal containers and tote them to the dump, and that we provide free WiFi--which allows many of our neighbors to work from the cafe, instead of driving long distances to their offices.

Steve suggested more ways we help the earth--such as promoting sustainable, environmentally neutral travel opportunities, and generating interest in eco-tourism that brings money to countries who need it. That by promoting tourism, the world's biggest industry, we helped countries make money in a sustainble way. Our website, I told the students (who looked as if they really couldn't have cared less), is another example of what we do--we don't cut down trees, we don't have to truck the finished product, it's all pixels in space, and it's as robust a publishing platform as I've ever seen.

I told them about my experiences with a printed travel magazine--how Barnes and Noble only sells less than half the copies, that the rest are chucked and trucked, and how the New York Times still prints its thousands of pages using mostly virgin timber from Canadian woods.

Finally, I told them about how we use local purveyors and products--from Nora's Deerfield eggs, to Richardson's chocolate pretzels, to the Black Sheep's biscotti and milk from High Lawn Farm in Lee. It was a good feeling to take this sort of inventory of what we do, and it made me realize we're on the right track.

When Dad Cheers Your Failures, You're Going Places

Sara Blakely is the women who invented Spanx, a pair of cut off panty hose that shapes tummies and thighs and is now a $150 million company. She was interviewed by BusinessWeek's Stacy Perman and the last two questions were the best.

You've said that failure was a huge part of your success—how so?

Because I failed the LSAT. Basically, if I had not failed, I'd have been a lawyer and there would be no Spanx. I think failure is nothing more than life's way of nudging you that you are off course.

My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome, but in not trying. It is liberating. Most people attach failure to something not working out or how people perceive you. This way, it is about answering to yourself

What's the best piece of business advice you ever received?

It probably came down to my father. When I was growing up, he encouraged us to fail. We'd come home from school and at dinner he'd say: 'What did you fail at today?' And if there was nothing, he'd be disappointed. It was a really interesting kind of reverse psychology. I would come home and say that I tried out for something and I was just horrible and he high-fived me.

If you had it to do over again, what, if anything, would you do differently?

Nothing. I believed in and I trusted my gut and honored it through the whole process. Our gut is a real guide and when we regret something it is usually when we are not acting in accordance with our gut feelings.

How did you maintain your confidence when doors were closed in your face, when people didn't get it and said "no" frequently?

I was my own focus group. I had already tried the product and I saw what it did for me. I knew if they said "no," I just said they didn't get it. I never second-guessed the product. Before it was actually made I did hear "no" a lot. It was very discouraging. At times I stopped out of discouragement, but I never lost confidence in the fact that it was a good idea.

Thousands of Cobras Enjoy Life Among the Villagers

I read a shiver-inducing feature today in the WSJ, it was about cobras who live in large numbers in the hot Bengali plains southwest of Calcutta. The snakes are revered by the Hindu faith, and no one except priests are allowed to touch them or harm them. One man said that nearly every day, as he lies down in his bed, cobras slither over his prone body.

Yaroslav Trofimov detailed a situation that would be very tough for the squeamish--of rice fields full of the vipers, and of 50,000 villagers who die of the bites every year. And the problem is worsened by the fact that most of the people believe that only priests can administer the remedy for the villagers who are bitten--by applying mud and by performing incantations.

It's difficult for authorities to get samples of the venom or take one of the snakes to the city to analyze it becaus they are so revered and prized. These are monacled cobras, with a circular mark on their hoods. In recent years, some of the villagers have begun to question the wisdom of relying only on priests and have gone to the hospital to get antivenom shots.

One schoolmaster was quoted in the article as saying that about 3,000 cobras live in his tiny village, slithering between the legs of children and emerging from ponds where women do washing. "We sleep with the snakes, we eat with the snakes, we live with the snakes," said a 14-year-old boy proudly. "We are not scared."

I sure would be!

Amusement is a Cocktail's Real Line of Work

Oh what a trove of riches I was provided with this chilly morning in the WSJ. As Cindy and I watched the chickadees and cardinals feast on the feeder's seeds, I read a wonderful piece by Eric Felten. His topic was 'The Art of Drinking Well,' and he describes the job a well-made cocktail plays in a civilized land.

First he laments our time-strapped society, that no longer sets aside that beloved period that was known by FDR as 'the children's hour,' and by Bernard DeVoto as simply, 'The Hour.' No, we're rushing around too busy for 'a proper pre-prandial cocktail to get in the mood for dinner.' While this sadly, is true, Felten suggests that 'it's possible to be serious about drinking without being a serious drinker' and that amusement is the cocktail's real line of work, and a noble one at that.

"And if it can add to our pleasure by having a good story to tell, all the better. Great drinks are like tunes from the Great American Songbook--they can withstand the endless variations that come from individual interpretation. And enjoying these drinks makes one part of a living tradition--a lineage of civilized drinkers."

He closes with a bit of poetry by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, (not the judge, his father the poet), who wrote an ode to an old punchbowl.

"This ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times/Of joyous days, and jolly nights, and merry Christmas chimes/They were a free and jovial race, but honest brave and true,/That dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new...[his] eyes grow moist and dim/To think of all the vanished joys that danced around its brim."

The Sheik Finds a Way to Move Scrap to Market

It's a brisk November morning and predictably, the cafe is quiet. Not dead, just quiet enough to give me a chance to sit in my favorite window seat, gaze out on the bright sun and deserted streets, and read the WSJ. I read a piece first about Iraq's surfeit of scrap--the discarded and bombed out trucks and re-bar that litters nearly every city of this embattled country.

Iraqis want to truck the scrap to their neighbors, and cash in on its high value. But the country's leaders slapped a ban on exporting Iraqi scrap because they want to keep it in the country to melt down into new re-bar to rebuild their buildings. The idea is that Iraqis can save by making their own steel reinforcement bars, instead of relying on expensive imports.

While it remains illegal to export Iraqi scrap, on American bases there are yards and yards of it, discarded planes, blown up trucks, and mounds of scrap 30 feet high. An influential sheik of a large Shiite Arab tribe named Sabah al Khafaji has struck a deal to buy scrap for $14 a ton from our military and sell it at the global rates of up to $220. But it's up to the sheik to get the ok from his government to move the tons of metal over the border. "There's so much money in scrap," he said.

The Market in Dijon

Arabs Have Not Done So and Thus Are To Blame

Jeff Robbins is a Boston lawyer who was a delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission during the Clinton Administration. He wrote a piece in the WSJ that was highlighted by the words, 'but they did not do so' and it made a strong case against the Arab world that likes to blame so many things on the US, instead of on the real culprit, themselves. He cites these examples:

In 1947, the Arab bloc rejected the UN's partition of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jew. Instead, they invaded the new Jewish state, and started what would be the next 60 years of misery for both sides.

Then Clinton watched in 2000 as Arafat rejected an independent Palestinian state in all of Gaza and virtually all of the West Bank. Instead the Arabs choose to launch four years of bombing against Jewish civilians known as the Intifada.

Then Israel decided to leave Gaza in 2005--another chance for the Arab world to create a state or invest and create a viable economy. Instead, the Hamas-lead Palestinian leadership started launching missiles at Israel.

Today, Saudi and other Arab countries could be investing in Gaza to create economic opportunities for Palestinians and 'dilute the toxin-filled atmosphere there.' But they have not done so.

Europe and Russia who are rich from Iranian petroleum revenues and contracts, could pressure Iran to stop funding Hezbollah, and Hamas, but they have not done so.

So stop blaming the US, Arab world, and start doing something about the Palestinian problem that you profess to care so much about.

The Heads of Dell and HP Know that Energy Savings Mean Real Money

It never takes long to find something compelling in the WSJ. I read George Ander's column and it hit a point I've been making for years: That the environment is becoming more of an economic than a social issue--and that is how we are going to truly solve this big problem. I have said that the market is the most important factor in getting people to adopt green policies and work harder to put effort into things like recycling and energy efficiency. The words came from two luminaries in the computer world, Michael Dell and Mark Hurd of HP.

The point Anders makes is that the amount of energy a computer uses has become a salable point, and the amount of power huge racks of servers suck down is an important expense to be trimmed. But it's all coming about in the traditional way industrial innovations evolve...slow, inevitable progress, not giant blockbuster break-throughs. "Instead of championing radical responses to high energy prices, their companies rely on constant tinkering with existing technology, knowing that prosaic efficiency gains add up.

"Major computer customers began banging the table in 2005, demanding that manufacturers focus more on power consumption...it's among their top three concerns now, it used to be seventh of eighth."

While these chairman are happy to talk about their progress, such as the fact that new Dells use $23 instead of $1oo per year to operate, when the real progress comes, Anders speculates these sly foxes will clam up. That's because they won't want to share their secrets with the competition.

Driving In the Snow Is Fun in a 4x4 Truck

I got an early start today, joining Brad and Bo on their WHYN-am morning show offering my travel tips to their audience. I felt like I gave them some good advice...such as my old canard about bringing a surge suppressor to charge up electronic devices in foreign places. I pitched CBS TV 3 news and they said that next time they have a travel segment, they would come up to interview me for their news show.

Today is a snowy day in South Deerfield, and I had fun driving my GoNOMAD Cafe truck on the snowy streets using my four-wheel-drive. By God, it really does work, though my cousin Steve pointed out that the drive system doesn't make stopping any easier in slippery snow.

I cruised over to the landfill and there I learned a little bit about our town. Al, the jolly dumpmaster, told me that he's never set foot inside our cafe, despite driving by a whole bunch of times. But he said that the street where we are located used to have covered sidewalks, just like in the old west. The whole street had these porticos and where the squat building that houses our liquor store is, across the street, was once a huge three-story hotel.

"I was only about five, but I remember those covered sidewalks...they were wooden, it was like a boardwalk right where your cafe is now."

Saying Goodbye to My Earliest Friend, Randy Miller

I'm sitting in the Orlando Airport Southwest terminal and thinking about Randy Miller. Randy passed away in June, and the last thing on this trip I had to do was to join his family and some of his friends at the lovely Veteran's Memorial near the bridge over the Intercoastal waterway in Vero Beach. It was a perfect soft night, and the service began with a minister's words about Jesus and then there were time for remarks. I always get a little nervous when this part of a funeral service comes because people are often scared to speak up, or didn't know the man well enough to say anything. I had no reason to fear because the man's friends would speak up for him well tonight.

I was flanked by four men who did have something to say about their dear friend Randy, and the words and the tears flowed. Brodie, Reed, Lars and Michael all had different memories but the same fondness for Randy, who was one of the livest wires I've ever known.

We spoke about his exhuberance, and zest for life, the mountains he climbed, the rivers he paddled, and the non-stop traveling and moving that made up his life. Randy lived in dozens of different places, he was a wandering jewelry salesman, and the day he died at 49 he was just about to pack up and move again, this time to take his hot tub business to Asheville NC.

I wrote some thoughts and shared the memories of my earliest days of playing with dogs, listening to corny music, and of how Randy joined me at my first job pumping gas in Blawenburg. Like many of the gathered friends, I hadn't see him in a decade, and it made me sad to have missed a long part of his short life.

The Miller family was clearly moved by our words and grateful that we had come. I said that Randy was now in that big hot tub in the sky, and on his last and final journey. I bid my oldest friend bon voyage, and teared up thinking that I'd never see him again.

Osprey Eye View on the Indian River

We met this Osprey as we kayaked today on the Indian River. My guide was Kristen Beck, an expert paddler and naturalist who told me about the 400 species of birds that live here and that this is one of the world's most diverse estuaries.

Paddling was refreshing, there were a few waves but we kept our boats easily in control. Her company is called Kayaks Etc, and she knows her stuff.

God I Wish I looked Like This Guy!

I met a man I wish I looked like. A silver haired, well-toned, tall, hotelier and restaurateur named Tom Collins owns a sprawling hospitality empire in Sebastian Florida, about eight miles up Rte 1. It's called Captain Hiram's and it's right on the river, with a marina, hotel, sand bar, large restaurant and banquet hall. They serve 2000 people a day here, that's a lot of dishes and food.

He was at the bar when we came in, wearing a pale blue Columbia fishing shirt, and we walked into his Sand Bar to chat. Wind howled out on the Indian River, where the moored boats were bobbing in foamy river water. The view was magnificent, with the famed fishing spot the Sebastian Inlet in view between a man-made desolate island, a remnant from the building of the intercoastal waterway in the '40s.

Tom came here in '72, growing up in Maryland, and in 1985 he bought this piece of river front property with a 22-seat restaurant, and began building it up. He speaks in the special twang of the Maryland natives, and owns part of a 61' yacht that he sails in the Bahamas. Later I talked to his sales manager, Brinda, who said that when the hurricane of 2004 hit, Tom was right in the trenches, removing the muck and helping to get them back in business. The hurricane is a consistent theme here, since just about every building on the island was trashed in some degree or another and the good news is that they all rebuilt according to Dade County code. This is hurricane proof with common sense extra rebar, super strong tiles, and other fortifications against the fury of the wind and water.

Lunch was served and I plunged into Mahi Mahi, a sweet potato and green beans. We watched boaters moor their boats in the bubbly water. Later in the meal a man sitting next to us summoned the waiter. "Hey Big Guy!" he called out. "Come over here. We got a plane to catch."

I felt bad for the server having to have people call you like that. And he wasn't even a big guy.

We toured around and took a peek at the 'captain's quarters,' located right near the stage where musical acts rock the house every night. "It's not good if you're trying to sleep, Brenda advised, "but some people love staying there. " The view of the river didn't hurt, it was a cute little suite connected to the other rooms.

Later that afternoon we went to the Centennial Trail, a wooden walkway that takes you all the way out into a marsh to look at Pelican Island. We saw dolphins cavorting out in the ocean in front of the island. Here the great big manatee can be found, but none were there when we visited.

The Ocean Grill is the Place To Be in Vero

I had an excellent night's sleep in the comfy big bed here at the Caribbean court. Overhead a fan gently revolved, and an HDTV provided striking images as I fell asleep.

Lori Burns, the Tourism board director, took me to a landmark restaurant known by everyone in Vero, the Ocean Grill. She said she remembers a few years ago, the whole town would show up here to fill sandbags during a No'reaster. The venerable restaurant is set on piers and the uneven floors inside belie the long history of water flooding in rom the nearby ocean.

I met Charlie Repogle, the owner, whose family came here in 1965, after running a successful steak house in Milwaukee. He has a son in culinary school, so there might be another generation that will take over some day.

Charlie owns polo horses and played recently with Tommy Lee Jones. Polo is played on a 300 yard long field, and there is a development under way about 10 miles west that will feature 3000 acres of equestrian living for polo and people who want to live with their horses.

"It's a recession-proof area," he said, citing the gated communities of John's Island and Windsor where high income seniors keep his tables full during most of the year. A 300-yard artificial reef was set out just where the waves break several years ago, building up the beach and bringing sea turtles to the area. Because of this, the restaurant turns off its lights on the ocean during their mating season since it confuses the turtles coming in from the sea.

I got a chance to try their hard to crack stone crabs and a piece of Pompano, locally caught and served with an apricot glaze. The soft lighting, large wooden tables and clubby ambience made for a wonderful meal.

'Zero Beach' No More on Florida's East Coast

Boris Gonzalez was born in Cuba, raised in Spain, schooled in New England and now runs a hotel and many other businesses in Vero Beach Florida. He's the son of winemakers in Spain, but after younger days of partying, eighteen years ago he gave up the drink, and now rents out large houses here to people in need of recovery. "We turn away thousands," he said. "Quitting drinking was the best thing I ever did."

Gonzalez is the proprietor of the Caribbean Court, a boutique hotel with 18 rooms on "The Beach." It's actually a barrier island known as Orchid Island, but everybody calls it the beach. This city of 21,000 was once known as "Zero Beach," since it was a bit dull here. But nobody calls it that anymore, said Gonzalez' attractive partner, Elizabeth Kennedy. She's a successful local caterer, running 10 weddings a night for parties from eight to 800. We talked about Vero Beach's evolution from Zero Beach to 'Miami's Hamptons' over Cuban coffee in the upstairs bar of the restaurant at the hotel called Havana Nights. When we met, joined by Chamber head Lori Burns, they were about to fly off to Virginia, where Boris has a property in need of work. "When we first met, I spent most of the time following him around Home Depot," joked Elizabeth.

I asked them what Vero was like. "It's not a cookie cutter town," Boris replied. He told me about the Indian River, winding its way back into the lush countryside, and showed me a photo of his house, surrounded by wildness on all sides, facing the water. "Last January we had a thousand birds, pelicans, cormorants, others, all gathered there right in front, it was magical!"

He said that Vero had become popular spot for snowbirds, and that the population swells to 60,000 during the big months January till May. But it's the opposite of South Florida, especially this part of Vero the barrier island where the beach is so easy to get to. It's just across the street from this hotel, a wide, luxuriously uncrowded flat long space, and when I took a walk there I found a young surfer, a family tossing a football, a man looking for crabs and some joggers.

I'll find out tomorrow more about what there is to do here and what the food is like. I look forward to trying a Mojito at the upstairs bar and hearing the piano player on the baby grand.

Eos Airlines: It's Not What You Add, But What You Take Away

Yesterday I stuffed my notebook full of interesting jottings from speakers on the center stage. With gigantic screens and state of the art audio, we heard from the heads of travel companies who talked about their brands and how they helped create them.

Jack Williams, the CEO of Eos Airlines, spoke about authenticity, and the 'guest experience' on his all business class airline, that flies just 48 people in luxury from New York to London 55 times per week. He really doesn't care what other airlines do--he concentrates like a laser on his own customer's experience and listens hardest to their feedback. As CEO he answers any complaint personally, and surveys every single passenger to tweak any of their services on a day to day basis.

"It's not what you add," he said. "Any airline can have better food, or more legroom, or finer wines. What Eos offers is less. Less crowds. No waiting. Never having to stand in a line." So his rate of 'Net Promoters' people who after they leave the airport evangelize about the experience, is about 86%, and is helping to drive the brand and filling up those pricey transatlantic seats.

Google's Tim Armstrong Cites the Wisdom of Crowds

It's another exciting day surrounded by more than 1100 of the world's travel business leaders. Tim Armstrong, Google's head of advertising joked that if something disastrous happened in this room, "it would take out 10 percent of the world's economy." It's true--I am gathered here with the leaders of the world's largest business, tourism, and as we listened to the head of advertising for the world's most successful company, it dawned on me that this is a stellar place to be.

Armstrong explained in his talk about how Google approaches their business looking at the wisdom of crowds. Their secret is letting individuals and the crowd shape their business. You're missing a major piece if you don't have this, he said. If you allow consumer preferences to dominate your decision making, you'll capture this wisdom of crowds, and ultimately this works the best. Instead of thinking about revenue, think about reaction, think about how it will affect people. This is forward thinking.

Armstong talked about how consumers get information....first the morning newspaper, then drive time radio, then they check on line weather, send text messages, look at photos, read destination reviews, watch prime time TV. You have got to be everywhere, he said.

In his personal household, people are on line for an hour before work. He thinks that drive time is going to change. Mobile devices are really important for travel. People will be migrating to mobile platforms more than just the computer. How do you connect to these consumers?

Good creative is half, connecting with consumers is the second part. He cited a huge Google success story: New Zealand tourism. They have done a good job using YouTube to get people to view videos and they have seen 40 million impressions and 600,000 people have visited their website. They have integrated their message throughout hundreds of websites and other media, and by offering the videos on YouTube have captured a huge piece of new tourism revenue.

Armstrong contrasted sight based vs instrument based navigation. Sometimes people navigate their advertising by what they can see. That's what you're comfortable with. But there are hundreds of other sites and mediums you can't see, and to be really successful you've gotta be there as wel as where just where you're comfortable and familiar.

Over Cocktails:It's Where the Real Conversations Take Place

The best parts of a conference, inevitably, are the times when you gather by the pool for the cocktails. Then you loosen up, laugh a bit, and get the nerve up to corner that guy you saw earlier and noticed his badge, and wondered what his funny sounding company did. Tonight we met a whole bunch of people as waitresses circled with coconut shrimp and sausage mushroom caps.

Jennifer Eisenberg, with bright eyes and lovely teeth, said she had recently been hired by Budget Travel.com as Senior Manager of Audience Development. I told her some things about search engine marketing, and hope that I see her again at the NY Times Travel show in February. She said she had lived in Israel for two years, and there worked for several website companies before she joined BT.

Then a man came up and said that he used to own a big car rental company, but sold it and now he works once in a while on a few websites he developed in the 90s. Websites are like annuities; they can run for years with just a few tweaks, if you get a good formula.

Getting Down to Details about Travel Search

I am in a huge pavilion, a sort of giant tent, and a man up in front of us is speaking about his company called Hitwise. His company provides intelligence to on-line travel agencies about their competitors, they can tell you, for instance, where web surfers went after they left your site. The company compiles all sorts of data, including how many words the queries are that people use to find travel sites. For travel, for example, 30% of the searches are three or four words, that means people are getting more savvy in how they search, and narrowing the searches down to exactly what they are looking for.

It's all part of the famed "long tail of travel" that this conference is titled for. The travel 'vertical' is getting longer and longer, and there is money to be made far, far down, not only for travel to places like Vegas or Orlando, but more esoteric places, the kind you can read about on GoNOMAD.

Then a man from Cheapflights came up to the podium. They are ancient giants on the 'net, formed in 1996, before Google was born. He noted that his company has been funded 'entirely by profits' a clear knock at the many VC-funded companies out there today. Will American travelers use a UK company to find flights? He showed a chart showing that Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia and Hotwire have gone down. While at the bottom of the chart, the squiggle for travel search engines like his are slowly climbing up. He might just be right.

"Blogger's Summit" at PhoCusWright

I'm in a room full of bloggers. They all have their laptops open and we are constantly popping over to search engines and sites, sharing opinions and information about the world of travel blogs.

It's a heady time, it's so much fun to be an established blogger who has a network of ten top notch blogs and to hear what others have to say.

One man here helped write a book called "Tips from the T-list," that provides good information on how to get your blog noticed, indexed and linked to.

Here in this photo to the left is a man from the Travel Channel, and on the right, Marty who blogs for his SEO company in Duluth. Blog on!

TV Trip Shows You the View from Your Hotel Room

Part of the fun of this conference is the chance to have short meetings with new companies who are entering the on-line travel sphere. I sat with two young guys who have started a new company called TV Trip. It's a cool concept--they provide a video look at thousands of hotel rooms around the world. The site offers a look at the lobby, the views out the windows of the rooms, the beds the bathrooms and the gym. The kind of stuff you'd want to look at before you commit to booking the room.

"This stuff is boring to most people, you know, looking at hotel rooms, but if you're planning on staying there it is fascinating," said Marc Ruff, the CEO. He's a Frenchman who lives in Munich. The editing is done in London. The other partner Steve Stollerman, lives in Paris. They've shot more than 1000 hotels so far, and plan to add hundreds more in the months ahead. The site is only one month old, so there is a lot of growing to do. They give the hotel a DVD of the videos they shoot, and don't charge them for adding them to their site.

I asked them the obvious question: where does the money come from? They said that sites like Expedia and the major hotel chains pay them a commission when people book after seeing the videos. Their information and videos are available in five languages, so nearly anyone can take advantage.

I just wish I had been able to go onto this site before I booked a room at LA's Adventure Hotel, which my dear Cindy soundly rejected after we saw it in person.

Marty Talks About Tricked Out Word Press Mash-ups

On the bus over to the Omni, I eavesdropped on a man who spoke enthusiastically about blogs, search engine marketing and the work he does creating blog content. His name was Marty, and he wore Ray Bans over his shaved head. He said as he was leaving the bus that he had had cancer, 'so there is no time to waste,' I immediately took a liking to him.

"We revive tired web 1.0 websites with tricked out Word Press mash-ups," he told a man in an olive green suit. "It's all about remarkable content. I'm almost a 50-year-old guy and I love doing this." Clearly this guy was having a blast and the whole world he lives in is about search marketing, writing blogs, and getting links to high-ranking blogs and websites. It's a living!

Later I joined him at breakfast, outside in the Florida warmth. He said he was from Duluth, and told me more about the blogs his company helps corporations write, and the power of getting your blog selected on StumbleUpon.com, a site that has readers choose their favorite posts and links and sends great amounts of traffic to these lucky chosen sites. I love hearing the intricate nuances of these hard to grasp but very relevant topics, that so few people really understand. Marty does--and here at PhoCusWright, he's in his glory.

Meeting Girls from Google

I made my way over to the towering Omni Hotel at Champion's Gate, on the flat plain that is Orlando FL. Unbeknownst to me I was not staying in this palace, but at the nearby Radisson. I met up with Jim Zhu who I've known for some time, as he runs the infohub.com website and we use his database for tours on GoNOMAD.

We visited the poolside opening cocktail party, where there was barely enough light to see anyone's nametag. And that's a problem since you gotta know who you're trying to talk to. Eventually a couple of young women from Google walked by and we chatted them up. I asked one if it was possible to actually call Google and ask them questions. "Oh yes," said the taller one, and rattled off an 800 number that I can't remember.

"We just work," she said, laughing. "I don't bring my dog to work and I've never gotten a massage...we just go to work every day."

Off to Florida to Hear a Thousand Pitches

It's still exciting, every time I am about to fly. It's below forty degrees here at Cindy's but when I deplane in Orlando this afternoon, temps should be much warmer. I am not sure what to expect for the next few days, but my eternal optimism tells me that it will be good. I'm heading for my first PhoCusWright conference, where the heads of on-line travel companies go to rub elbows and talk about trends. This year's title is 'The Long Tail of Travel' a reference to Wired Editor Chris Anderson's book that describes the phenomenon of making money from the very long and diverse interests that spread way way out, after the more popular offerings like Vegas and Florida.

I've been pitched to death by 'B2B Travel Solutions' and 'social networking travel site start-ups' who see me, a media member, as a way to get the word out. I'll be buttonholed and pitched by all of them...so far the one that has caught my eye is a site that provides videos of inside hotel rooms for people to choose from. I like that approach. You'll read all about what I see, hear and do over the next few days. There will be more frequent posts as I try to capture the spirit and essence of these travel marketers.

Then I will switch gears on Thursday and report from Vero Beach. The tourism board is setting up excursions to go kayaking, touring the city, and introducing me to interesting locals who can best tell the story of why Vero is a great place to visit.

Lew French Knows Just Where the Stones Fit

This morning I learned about a man on Martha's Vineyard named Lew French. He is a perfectionist, a tough taskmaster, and a wealthy artist...but he doesn't do it for the money. He was profiled by the TV show Sunday Morning's Steve Hartman.

French fits stones together in an otherworldly way. He finds stones three miles away from eachother that fit like gloves next to one another. He makes elaborate fireplaces, interior stone walls, and fantastically cool pool sheds all made of stones that fit together without mortar or any cement.

One job he did during the show was a three-story interior wall inside an expensive home. Every stone fit perfectly, there was no more than a few milimeters of gaps between them. The job took a solid year to complete, and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I guess he's living on the right island. The Vineyard and nearby Nantucket are full of folks who think nothing of that kind of expense. French's son works for him, and told Hartman that it's hard working for such a perfectionist...that usually the stones he places his dad promptly moves. But when the hearths are done, and those stones that fit so exquisitely together are displayed...wow, that must be an incredible feeling. And a good paycheck too!

Tony Wheeler Goes to Iran and Loves It

It's been a whirlwind of a few days, it's nice to be back for just a brief spell at home base. Manhattan was the usual mix of exciting nightlife, people from the past, and potential trips that we'll be writing about all next year. We were taken to a wonderful small Dominican Restaurant called Clinton in Soho with Bruce Northam, who regaled us with tales from his trips to the Philippines and Vietnam, as we dined on fajitas and drank Presidente beer.

Then Thursday after a great show visiting European tourism people, we drove up through the virtually traffic free West Side highway, then even later I followed my TomTom GPS home to Deerfield. I was scheduled to work in the cafe, so Friday was a long day in the cafe, finally capped off with a pizza and a collapse in the chair.

But I did manage to read quite a bit of a wonderful new book by one of travels' major deans: Tony Wheeler's Bad Lands. In the book he travels to places that are considered 'bad' or off limits, or somehow off the path of most writers.

We follow him through Albania (marveling all of the time at the little bunkers that dot each and every hillside and beach) and Cuba (where he is bothered by the unfairness of the split between tourists and party officials who get convertible pesos and regular folks who only can spend pesos that buy nothing) to Iran, where he has the most fun.

Wheeler's love for Iran is evident, everywhere he goes people want to speak English. He goes to a party where beer flows and headscarves are removed. He finds people who are so gracious and charming, and so unlike what we read in the news about 'death to America'. He makes me want to go to Iran and meet these people who seem to eager to embrace ordinary Americans, despite the crap that is spewed by ultra religious leaders. They call the mullahs lizards, quietly.

Time to Taste Hungarian Wines in the Big Apple

Kent and I are ensconced at the Holiday Inn in Manhattan, just about to go meet some fellow travel writers and sample Hungarian wines. Tim Leffel, the owner of Perceptive Travel, extended this invite, and put it succinctly--"Kent, why don't you join us and sip free wine instead of having to buy it?"

So with that we're out the door and we'll find a good restaurant nearby to enjoy a New York City meal later on. Tomorrow we will meet 35 tourism officials, speed-dating style--with fifteen minute appointments designed to match up story ideas with the attractions of their cities and countries.

It's always fun to catch up with GoNOMAD writers like Ginger Warder, Tim Leffel, and others who we've met during our trips over the past year. I made up a notebook that Kent and I will show the tourism folks showing the stories that we've published as a result of last year's meetings and samples of our stories.

Time to go sample some vino--it's great being back in the Big Apple again.

We Passed The Test--Now It's Time to Bake!

We all passed the test. It was an important one, required by state law, and after studying all about food borne illnesses, temperatures for cooking chicken, and the different droppings that pests leave around the kitchen, my staff and I took and passed the Serv-Safe test last night.

We celebrated with a late dinner at the 99, a chain restaurant that has sprung up on the former site of the awful Brickers near the rotary in Greenfield. We are all enjoying the success of the cafe and how it has blossomed into such a vital part of our little town. It feels great to have such a team as ours, with no dead spots and no slackers.

Amy has now been made our official baker. I confirmed this by hiring Richard who will be helping out in the back during the week. So Amy will devote her time to making all of the breads, muffins, scones, cookies and a lot of new things to sell in our case.

We had a little ceremony dubbing Amy as our baker--I bought a shiny new Kitchenaid mixer and Liz placed a bow on its round little head and Amy gasped with joy upon opening her eyes.

As I head out tomorrow to New York, and all next week to Florida, and at the end of the month to Palm Springs, it is reassuring to know that the cafe is in such good hands and that the case will always be full of delicious baked goods.

Grand Inga: Blessing or Curse for Congo?

I read with interest on the BBC News a sentence at the very end of an article about Zimbabwe, which was in the news today because they printed $200,000 bills, that buy, well, a sack of sugar. The intriguing part was a note about Grand Inga, where the world's longest power cables are being installed.

Grand Inga is a big plan. A plan so big that already people are lining up to shoot it down, and others are fighing to bring it. It's the world's biggest dam. A hydroelectric generating station so big it would supply the entire continent of Africa with power. Wow, that's big.

It's mostly a line helping out mining companies who have pledged big mines but need the juice to do it. Only a staggering six percent of Congolese have electricity at home.

The article linked me to a piece by the International Rivers Network, where they complained that since nobody is wired, the $50 billion price tag should pay to alleviate poverty, and put wires into the houses. This is one of those grand schemes that in a few years will be common knowledge, but you heard it first on Readuponit.

The Holocaust Didn't Exist--Because It Wasn't In the Textbooks

A grey, windy day---a good day to sit in the window of the GoNOMAD Cafe and read the WSJ. Here I found a piece by Roya Hakakian about Iran and the Holocaust. The author has a visit from two young female medical students, and at dinner they tell her that they had never heard the word "holocaust' and thought that Hitler was just a dictator in Germany.

The reason was revealed--since the 1980 revolution, textbooks in Iran simply don't mention either topic. Nobody who reads in Persian would know anything about what happened from 1939-44 because it is never taught.

One irony here is that Iran is the home to thousands of Jews. They live with a minimal amount of hassle surrounded by strident moslems. Everyday Iranians though, says the story, are suspicious of government anti-Israel propaganda, and unwilling to hate Israel as Ahmadinejad would like them to.

During the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, young Iranians were reportedly not interested in supporting the terrorist group, and were vehemently against their government's investment in it. This despite what we read in quotes from Ahmadinejad, who seems to get all the press.

Promoting Deerfield Is a Snap--On the Web

Today I met with my state legislators. Actually, it was a comfortable working lunch at Chandler's Tavern with Sen. Stan Rosenberg, Rep. Steve Kulik, and six other business people who shared a common interest--promoting tourism in Deerfield.

Frankin County's chamber of commerce was represented by Anne Hamilton, Yankee Candle, Historic Deerfield, Deerfield Museums, Richardson's Candy Kitchen, assistants to Stan and Steve, and the Butterfly museum were all at the table. We talked about getting better signs, and how to get funding for a website project or bigger cooperative advertising.

As I thought about the meeting afterwards, it hit me. The web is how to solve this marketing challenge. The web, and tweaking it so that people really see it, is how to promote our town. I am going to be able to help this group immensely. This is right up my alley. It's a level playing field because everyone sees the web.

So I created a new page for our cafe website and sent it out to everyone who was at the lunch, asking them to do the same on their sites. Just the beginning...just the beginning.

Puns that I Have Loved

The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.
He often broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
Every calendar's days are numbered.
A lot of money is tainted - It taint yours and it taint mine.
A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
He had a photographic memory that was never developed.
A plateau is a high form of flattery.
A midget fortune-teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at large.
Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall.
Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.
Acupuncture is a jab well done.

From Liquidsoap, published by Mark Borkowski.

It's Halloween--So It's Time for the Hayride!

I love following traditions that are always the same, year after year. Last night we joined our neighbors in a Deerfield Halloween tradition that's always fun--a hayride around the town in the back of farm wagons with kids in costume. Nathan was reluctantly dressed as an elephant. But he didn't want to put on the hat, so while his feet looked like elephant feet, his head popped out just normal.


We climbed into the straw-filled wagons and they

took off with a jolt, following a screaming siren-calling phalanx of police cars and fire engines. The procession wound its way around the town, delirously and joyfully loud, honking, sirening, whooping, past people who came out from their houses to wave. Some houses were decorated with the orange and blacks of the holiday, and some had trick-or-treaters standing in costume. One house on Graves St. had a row of about 10 lit pumpkins lining their front yard.

As I waved to my fellow Deerfielders, and they tossed candy over the rail to the scrambling kids, I felt a warm kinship--we celebrate this pagan holiday together, we wave because we're happy it's a warm fall night, we wave because--well, we're happy to be riding in the back of this wagon and that's what you do.