Stealing Her Blind, Employee Acts Like a Friend

On Saturday night, we had apple pie with a charming woman who said she doesn't have many dates. It was surprising, because she was so much fun, and attractive, and she had what most men would want in a woman.

As our pie plates were cleaned, the conversation topic turned to her side business, a service business that she owned. She told us about a friend, who became an employee, who over many years managed to steal between 40 and 80 thousand dollars from the till.

We were shocked, and kept asking her questions about how it could have happened. "I kept seeing these no shows in the appointment book," she told us. Finally the brazen embezzeller got nervy and just pocketed the customer's cash payments.

She raised the prices and still the business didn't show much of a profit. Then she began wondering just what was going on. The embezzler was a friend, and when she installed cameras she protested. Still it came down to a sad ending when she just decided to threaten instead of pressing charges, and the stealer just left.

It made me think about how vulnerable any business owner is to having people who you bring in close to you steal from you. Sadly, this story has been told a million times, and is so common it's sick.

Yet it still made for a fascinating retelling that was almost as good as Kitty Mae's apple pie.

The Lonely Milkmen Wait, With Nothing to Do

It's frustratingly cold, snow is on the lawn, and we're heading to VT for a surprise 50th birthday. But I still had time this morning to read a few nuggets in my favorite newspaper, the WSJ.

In India, there are milkmen who punch in to work every morning at the government dairy with absolutely nothing to do. Some play sudoko games from the newspaper, others doze or play rummy. There is no milk to deliver, because there are no more milk trucks, they were sold off years ago. The government dairies are a victim of the private sector, which has pushed them out to pasture by providing better quality milk delivered right to the door. The government milkmen only go as far as the local milk stands, where the dingy look doesn't compare with what Indians can get in gleaming supermarkets.

Yet the milkmen soldier on, continuing to come to work and do nothing eight hours a day. They on what the government calls the 'surplus list,' which is a roster of more than 25,000 workers who are technically available for work in other departments but face a chronic shortage of things to actually do. They make about $150 a month, not enough to do much, but enough to be worth hanging on until retirement. One bored milkman told the Journal's Eric Bellman how much he wanted to work, and how he misses the friends he used to meet on his rounds.

Apple Breaks the Rules of Niceness--and Wins

I quickly finished reading the April issue of Wired last night. The cover story was about how Apple does well by going against all of the cooperative, sharing, and caring principals that have made other Silicon Valley businesses successful. They hide from the press and play hardball with anyone who peeps, and motivate their best programmers by making them fear being fired.

The story made a point that Apple has cloaked itself in secrecy while embracing closed source systems. There is also an telling anecdote about the famous chairman, Steve Jobs in the story by Leander Kahney.

"Like most things in Silicon Valley, Apple's parking lots are egalitarian, there are no reserved spots for managers or higher-ups. Even if you're a Porsche-driving senior executive, if you arrive after 10 am, you should be prepared to circle the lot endlessly, hunting for a space.

But there's one Mercedes that doesn't need to search for very long, and it belongs to Steve Jobs. If there's no easy to find spot and he's in a hurry, Jobs has been known to pull up to Apple's front entrance and park in a handicapped space. Some times he takes up two spaces. It's a running gag at the company, employees have stuck note under his windshield wiper 'Park Different.'

Black Funeral Directors Do Battle Every Day

Outside I am watching two ducks attempt to mate, splashing around on a half-frozen pond. Ahh, spring! Even little bunny hop has made an appearance, so, despite the threat of a snowstorm tomorrow, spring is coming along. We have brought back ice coffee and coffee ice cubes at the cafe, plus our famous hard-boiled eggs.

I read in the WSJ last night about how black-0wned funeral parlors are being hammered by violence, forcing many of the older proprietors to try and get out of the business. The number of blacks who die by murder is just about the same as for whites...even though there are only 13% as many blacks as whites in the US. Funeral directors today are seeing fights break out and the home has to be locked down when attendees bring their guns.

At one time the funeral parlor was considered a safe zone--doors weren't locked and it was a sanctuary, even for relatives of a victim of a homicide. But now, says one funeral home owner, "Nobody respects life and the young folks nowadays don't mind dying." So most homes now have video cameras and owners are carrying firearms. The extra security required at many funerals adds $500 to the bill, that averages about $4500.

One sad story about the funeral of a drug dealer ended in fisticuffs. "One dude punched me in front of the casket. The dead man's son was there and he got punched and his father was punched. My professionalism went out the window. This wasn't in the job description and it doesn't come with the job," said a funeral director from Cincinnati.

Just Then Another Lady in a Bikini Popped Out

Scott Huler wrote a book about the trail of Odysseus, called Öne Man's Odyssey, and we published an excerpt on GoNOMAD. Here is a nugget I enjoyed.

A Single Word

Heading towards a beach camping area that I thought might provide at least some shade and perhaps a public toilet, I passed a wooden post outside a little tiki-hut shop that rented scooters and bicycles.

On it I saw the little white “i” on a blue field that is the international symbol for information, and the words “English! Deutsch! Francais!,” all with happy little exclamation points. It was, literally, a sign.

Sweating, miserable, and at wit’s end, I followed Odysseus’s model. I walked in, dropped my pack in front of the table that served as a counter, and spoke a single word: “Help.”A small woman with long dark hair, a deep tan, and a bikini top broke into a wide smile. “Help!” she sang, “I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody… Help!”

When you ask for help and they begin singing Beatles songs to you in your own language, this is a good thing. Then she stopped singing but kept smiling. “I’m not really looking for a scooter,” I said. “Just a room for the night.”

She brightened. “Oh! Like a bed and breakfast!” she said. “Would that be okay?”

Before I could so much as nod she pulled from behind some bushes another lovely woman in a bikini, whose name turned out to be Rosie. Bikini number one smiled. “She runs a bed and breakfast,” she said.

Did Rosie have a room available? She did. Was it expensive? It was not. Would I follow her? I did, humping along with my pack as she rode a block ahead on her scooter, then waited until I caught up, then rode another block.

And so on to the Casa Schmidt, at the end of a long narrow road it would never have crossed my mind to wander, where she put me in a clean room with screenless windows (I was not to mind the geckos, which Rosie charmingly pronounced “jeckoes”) and access to a tiled private breezeway where I later enjoyed, in the cool of the evening, one of life’s greatest pleasures: an outdoor shower.

This asking for help is powerful stuff.

Bamboo, the Wiley, Impervious and Destructive Weed

Matthew Rose wrote a piece about fighting bamboo in today's WSJ. Had me laughing outloud as I sat on a stool at the cafe watching cars drive by in the cold. The story follows the many ways people try to foil the bamboo plant.

Specifically, the running bamboo that is almost impervious to being destroyed. One guy tried putting in plastic sheeting to block the bamboo from moving. First 40 mil plastic, BAM, it grows right through, then he tries 60, and finally 80 mil plastic, 1/12th of an inch thick, is the only one that can keep it from piercing it like a spear.

"The only thing that works is cut it down, cut it down, cut it down," said a Maryland man who planted it in his yard. There was another guy in the story who said he dug a 50' trench and put in metal flashing, like you'd use on a roof. Still the bamboo snaked its way down and underneath.

A suggestion made was to hire a pack of pandas to eat it. A guy tried to put bamboo into a chipper he'd rented. the nearly indestructable plant wrapped itself around the coils, he had to rent a trailer to haul the debris to the dump instead.

This Is How You Keep Your Shoes Organized

Cindy once told me the reason she wanted to buy a digital camera. You see before you the reason, it's in her very organized closet.

An enviably organized woman who has no equal in her quest to keep everything in order. I love it!

(And her!)

A Depression? In 2008? Not So Fast

It is the first day of spring but it's still not even forty degrees. Last night we had dinner with friends in Holyoke and one of them told us that she heard a TV report that 2008 would be the year of another great depression. That's with a d, not an r.

This caused both Cindy and I to run to our computers this morning and find out more. What we found didn't corroborate this horrific report. The news about the 'd' word came from a Goldman-Sachs higher up who was quoted on some unknown website news source.

On CBS Sunday Morning, we heard Ben Stein speak of this same issue. He addressed the fears and the whole mess that the banking and real estate businesses are in but was clear in how much different 2008's situation was than 1929. Back then the feds didn't do anything to help ease the crunch, in 2008, the feds lowered the prime rate, and are helping bail out other large financial institutions as well. What they set up with Bear Stearns might open a floodgate, but for now they are trying to do something about this domino effect of intertwined investment instruments gone bad.

I remember when the guy who drives the truck for one of our cafe food purveyors told me that his truck is now usually only half full, and that it used to always be full. This and the news that Fed-X and UPS are shipping far fewer packages makes me think that we might be in for an R, even if we dodge the dreaded D, for Depression.

A Wry and Realistic View of Dating at Sixty

Today I had a delicious lunch in the cafe, our havarti and ham melt special. Then I had a chance to read an essay by Andree Aelion Brooks, who proved herself a witty, saucy and clever woman when it comes to men.

Her point? That at her age, it's best to take risks, play the field, and keep men close yet far. One other tip she passes on is how hungry old men are for computer instruction and help. It's become in her words, 'the golden ticket.'

"In a world of senior dating, I found it [computer smarts] to be the golden ticket. Fostering intimacy over dinner may well include the various ways to use a flash drive, operate an in-dash nav system, download photos from a camera or print out a spreadsheet with the gridlines showing. If one of my admirers invites me back to his home, it's likely that what he really wants is help with his computer issues. I kid you not. For me it became a way to give as well as get."

She observes another conundrum facing those who date in the 60s: people die. She thinks about her good friend Betty, who made the mistake of falling in love, rekindling great passion...and then having the guy diagnosed with fatal cancer and vanishing in a few months. "Keeping a distance, she says, 'became a form of insurance. Because, men have a limited shelf life.'

April Will be Packed with Air Miles and New Travel Adventures

Outside a giant woodpecker is chomping suet at Cindy's feeder. He is so big he can barely fit on the feeder, as he gulps down big bites of fat. It is still frustratingly cold, hovering at 35 degrees, and we are about to go out and do our Saturday chores.

Mine today involves picking up a bed from a guy in Springfield who listed it on Craig's list. My old friend Joe is out of the hospital and living at my cousin Steve's house. He lost most of the few items he did own when he had to vacate the apartment he was living in. So my good deed of the day is to take the cafe truck and haul this bed up to Sunderland for Joe.

I am thinking about April, it will be a fun and travel-filled month. On the 3rd I fly to Los Angeles where I will be picked up by the Huntington Beach tourism folks, then a stay at a funky little motel right on the Pacific Coast highway. It's right near the city's claim to fame, the surfing beach. I will take a surfing lesson there and get a tour of the city with Wendy Haase, who runs the CVB. I've followed Wendy throughout her various positions, first traveling to Milwaukee, then to Sonoma, and now to her current post in Surf City.

Then on April 4 I fly to Melbourne Australia for a week in this city on the bottom of the island continent. I've got lots of people lined up to meet me, and will take in the sights, post lots of blogs, and learn the best things to know about this city that has been compared to Boston, in look and in size.

I am back for a few weeks then on April 21 will fly to Veracruz on Mexico's Pacific coast. This will be an adventure trip, with activities like river rafting, zip-lining and hiking in the rugged mountains overlooking the Pacific. This will be my first-ever trip to Mexico, and the reading I've been doing has prepared me to love it there. I hope so anyway.

To Build, Or Not to Build--Or Let's Keep Looking

Yesterday my friend Jack took me to see four houses that are on the market here in our neighborhood. It was instructional, and it came after I told Jack and his wife Laura about my grandiose scheme to build a huge addition onto our little house on Mountain Road in order to give yours truly his own space. As I showed them the plans we had created with the help of a designer friend, they politely looked them over and had a few good ideas and tweaks.

But Jack kept on hammering home his main point--that buying a new house made much more sense than trying to cobble a large addition onto this little house that may take many months, and inevitably will cost more than I think. Our plans called for three new bathrooms, egads, and lots of expensive things like radiant heat etc. I am beginning to feel that it will slip away from me, and become the Big Dig of Deerfield. Oh, I hate my indecision and my quick turns from one idea to the next...sometimes it's a blessing, as it gives me inspiration to do things like, well, open a cafe, on a lark. But other times this quickness is a flaw, and I need to think more clearly.

So yesterday Jack rode me around in his Lincoln to see first a large ranch with two levels over on Hillside Road. Wow! This place is huge, with nearly a full set of rooms on the bottom floor and then a bountiful amount of rooms and open space on the main floor. The pricetag a little steep, but wow, this is much better than what I can build.

Then we saw another, more basic big house that was set at the end of a dead-end road, backing up to lots of open space. Wow! Another place that might work. So here I was, I've paid quite a lot for real plans and begun talking with builders and now I'm looking at real estate and might not build anything at all.

Oh, what do to? I guess the answer is to see more houses, cut my losses with the designs, and try to get a sign from somewhere....above?

Persepolis Shows The Power of Shapely Eyes

Funny how when some people come to visit, I finally get out and do some of the things I really enjoy. Like go see a movie in a theater. Sam is visiting, so we went to an evening show of Persepolis, an animated movie in French about an Iranian girl.
The movie was dramatic in the use of eyes. These saucer-shaped eyes, able to so precisely indicate the mood, the tone, such careful drawing, most of the film was in black white, then there are a a few minutes in color.
You see a head-one attack on the regime in Iran, the mullahs who took over in 1980, and imprisoned far more people than the wicked Shah did. Reading it with subtitles over the French dialogue gave each of the politically charged words extra meaning. The point was that people suffer in revolutions, and chafe under the hard pressure of the religious police.

It was a rolling up and down back tracing of a girl's life. She was named Marjane Satrapi, and her life is a fascinating one that sheds light on Iranian culture and how it feels to be Iranian if one is living in Europe.

Chez Albert Is What a Restaurant Should Be

What makes a restaurant really special? Is it the way it feels when you walk in? Is it the lighting, the music, or is it the guy who greets you in French? Last night I discovered it's all of these things as we celebrated Cindy's birthday at Chez Albert in Amherst.

The proprietor here--Albert--greets us at the door, actually I got there early and chatted him up. He serves as waiter and maitre'd, and said he can't cook. He leaves that to Paul Hathaway, who earned serious chops with Todd English and running big restaurants in Boston. The place has just 24 seats, I had made a reservation (as usual, under the name 'King') so I took my seat at a copper topped table. He brought forth crusty bread with a spread made of white beans, lemon and garlic. A wine bottle stood at the table, full of water, so no need to keep asking for more since I am a water person.

When Cindy arrived, people were just getting settled, it was a mix of pairs: two fifty-something women out on a date, a professorial type and his wife and son, another couple to our left and a woman dining solo. The specials were written in a typically French scrawl on a blackboard, among them our choice, a salad of goat cheese, arugala, toasted walnuts and bib, with a sublime light lemon dressing. Then it was coq au vin, the classic dish once made with roosters now just a full plate with tiny onions, a few brussel sprouts and below the tender sauced chicken a bed of creamy mashed potatoes. Cindy's veal cordon bleu was a delicious rich combination of tender veal, collards and roasted potatoes.

Even the wine was special tonight--a white burgundy with a deep yellow color and distinct taste. What makes a restaurant is the combination of intimacy, food that's hearty and not prissy, and a server like this guy who just makes us feel welcome and relaxed. No 'I'll be your server tonight,' crap, just a few laughs with one of guys who owns the joint. Lovely!

"We All Thought We Were Going to Die"

Tonight as I dined on salad with roast chicken with my son in law Francisco, he told me about a terrible moment on Saturday night as he flew from Miami to Hartford on a Southwest Airlines flight.

"I've never said that to myself before," he said excitedly. "I actually thought I was going to die." At the start of the flight, he heard one flight attendant warn another about turbulence coming up in thirty minutes or so. Then the attendant who was handing out drinks began hurrying up, nervously trying to make it down the aisle after the whispered warning.

This was the same night that tornadoes struck downtown Atlanta, and they would be flying in nearby airspace. Then just about 3o minutes after they had taken off--whooosh!

The plane suddenly dropped, and all around him people screamed. He clutched the sides of the seat, watching his feet tapping nervously. The plane had dropped so suddenly, it was as if it had been dropped like a rock. "Oh my god," they cried, everybody screamed at the same time, terrified, and for five seconds it felt like nobody took a breath. Francisco leaned over and asked the man next to him what time it was. Nine-thirty. More than an hour of flying left.

No announcement ever came from up front explaining the terrifying drop that had made the whole plane feel like they might die together in a plane crash.

I asked him what he thought about during that terrifying moment, that time that stood still, thinking that he might be headed down, down, 30,000 feet. "I kept thinking that I wanted to tell Kate, and I couldn't, that I couldn't tell them that I was going to die, it was my last chance to talk to them...but there was no way to say it."

When the plane's wheels hit the tarmac at Bradley, a hearty cheer rose up from the relieved crowd. I too am glad that I'm hearing this story from the man himself, alive and well.

Junco Welcomes a Seed giveaway on Green Lane

Dolphin Leads Whales Back to Safety in NZ

Today from Reuters came a tale of animal wisdom from one of my favorite places in the world.

"Moko the dolphin, a regular visitor to the coast of Mahia on the east Coast of New Zealand's North Island, became an instant hero after leading two pygmy whales that had repeatedly stranded into deep water on Monday.

Moko, who had been visiting the beach at Mahia on and off over the summer, arrived at the beach in the nick of time, Smith said. The disoriented mother and calf had resisted attempts to herd them out to sea, and kept restranding on the beach, to the point where Smith said the pair would likely have to be killed.

Then Moko appeared, and came right up to the whales before leading them out to sea.
"Quite clearly the attitude of the whales changed when the dolphin arrived on the scene. They responded virtually straight away," Smith said.

"The dolphin managed in a couple of minutes what we had failed to do in an hour and a half."

The Prodigy Who's Taking Formula One by Storm

I was traveling once with a fun guy named Kevin McCarthy, who with his wife Sue does a weekly travel radio show. I asked him what his favorite sport was, and he replied 'open wheel racing.' It took me a second to realize what he was talking about was F1, Formula One racing, which is one of the most popular sports in Europe and other parts of the world. Today I learned more about F1 and the man who many say is the Tiger Woods of the sport.

His name is Lewis Hamilton, and he's just 23 years old. In a profile by the WSJ's Darren Everson, the parallel between the two is examined, as he compares his and Woods' rookie year records. Tiger placed 60th in his first pro tournament, while Hamilton finished in the top three in his first F1 race.

Unlike the Nascar races that so many Americans love, F1 cars go faster and do more than just turn left. The F1 cars go from zero to 60 in two seconds and on sharp curves throw out five g's. It's the passing that is the hardest part, since at the great speeds "the turbulent air left in the wake of his car prevents you from overtaking. One must have the skill and the nerve to pass by braking--waiting longer than the other driver to hit the brake before entering a turn."

Young Hamilton trains for hours and hours a day on a simulator, a giant machine like pilots use to learn how to fly. The method scientists use to train top F1 drivers is by instilling a sense of calm, so that they make better judgments about when to brake and accelerate. There's room at the top now that Michael Schumacher retired in 2006...and commentators say Hamilton is the next big thing in what is known as open wheel racing in 2008.

He Thought They'd Send Him Back--But Was He Ever Wrong!

To Charles Robert Jenkins, five decades of his life were all a mistake. That's because when at age 20 as a sergeant serving in Korea, he thought if he could just jump over to the North Korean side, they would pick him up and send him back home to North Carolina. But instead, Jenkins has emerged as the world's longest-held captive, and finally tells his bittersweet story in a new book written with Jim Frederick.

Titled "The Reluctant Communist" the book, that was reviewed in yesterday's WSJ by Gabriel Schoenfeld, is the story of a man who just didn't know what he was getting into when he crossed that mine-laden border. "A giant, demented prison," is how he describes North Korea, where "once someone goes there, they almost never get out."

The communists thought that they'd make life better for Jenkins and two other Americans by forcing young kidnapped Japanese girls to watch over them and give them comfort by offering sexual favors. Though the woman were thought of as a way to boost the prisoner's morale, Jenkins treated his forced Japanese companion with kindness and respect. They fell in love and had three children who grew up Korean.

At 80, He Was All A-flutter Over Victoria

In Today's Daily Mail, I read a long story about the legendary editor and journalist Bill Deedes, who left a trail of stories, a bitter family, and an aura of mystery when he died at 94. His legacy was of an indifferent grandparent, lousy husband, devoted friend and brilliant writer. But the most interesting aspect of his long life was his decades-long infatuation with a young reporter.

Victoria Combe, a 27-year-old reporter who got to know Bill when he was 80 was the young woman he showered with gifts, traveled around the UK writing articles with, and whom his family resented terribly. "He was Lord Deebes but everyone knew him as 'Bill.' When he died, he was still working for the Daily Telegraph and traveled often with the young reporter Victoria.

"Intriguingly, almost in the manner of a love-struck adolescent, Deedes kept every intimate note he made about their times together, every scrap of paper involved, even airline ticket stubs, in a box marked "Victoria file" found after his death.

On one trip to Southern Africa, which Deedes was making alone on behalf of the charity CARE, Victoria went with him, treating it as a holiday.

The trip gave him days of spare time and they swam together in the Cape waters, Victoria contriving, as Deedes noted, "to look her most fetching in a black bathing dress...V enjoys dazzling men, and I suspect she always will."

When Victoria expressed alarm at how much her holiday was costing, Deedes insisted - according to his notes - on paying for both her Cape Town hotel bill and her flight from London, warning her: "Please do not talk about it because people are uncharitable, and those who know I have paid some of your bills will conclude the worst."

Deebes wife Hilary and his grown children were never comfortable with his love for Victoria, and though no one ever claimed there was a sexual relationship, his son Jeremy spoke for the whole family.

"There is no denying," writes Robinson, "that Victoria awoke in Bill a powerful sexual yearning that he had never before acknowledged, if indeed had ever experienced." Deedes's son, Jeremy, former Chief Executive of the Telegraph, takes a crushing view of the relationship.

"This girl was just a sort of temptation, really, lurking round an old man's infatuation and making him all a-flutter and furthering her career," he said yesterday.

Battling Snow Rage, Where the Drifts Are Too High

Snow rage...it's a new term that I found on Reuters today. I well remember walking into the wind, snow blowing so hard when I visited Quebec City in February. From the dispatch...

'Last Sunday, a man in an upscale Quebec City neighborhood became so upset a woman from a snow removal service was putting snow on his yard that he shouted at her and then took a shovel and hit the window of the vehicle she was driving.

The woman apologized and returned to work ... a bit later the man opened his garage door and emerged with a shotgun, pointed it at the ground and looked at her in a threatening way," said police spokeswoman Catherine Viel.

Police arrested the man, who will be charged with negligent use of a firearm, and seized a total of 13 weapons from his home. Viel said snow-related fights were unusually common.
"It's happened particularly often this year ... you have to be used to snow if you live in Quebec but it's been a bit extreme this year. People are fed up," she said.

In Montreal, police said a man had produced a toy gun during a heated dispute Sunday between two drivers over a rare parking space. He may face weapons charges.

There may be more trouble to come, since Environment Canada says there is no sign winter is about to end. Snow fell again on Quebec City and Ottawa Wednesday.

There's a Wheat Shortage, Haven't You Heard?

Last night at Costco, we heard that they are rationing 50 pound bags of wheat. "If somebody wants to buy more than a few bags, they check to see how many they usually buy and if it's too high they can't get it," the cashier told us. She didn't know why this was happening, but I've been reading about this in the national press and it has impact on just about everyone. There's a grain shortage and we're just beginning to feel the effects. Watch the price of pizza go up soon.

We also learned that the store no longer will carry our plain soymilk that we buy by the case for the cafe, due to the price being too high. Again, it's the farmers and the cost of this crop, soybeans. She said if she told the higher-ups a customer was begging, they might get it back.

In Australia and the Ukraine, there have been severe droughts that have cut the wheat harvest down to less than half. Today the US grain supplies are at a 30 year low. The massive grain elevators are no longer full. In Nigeria and Egypt, demand for wheat has never been so high, making it even harder to keep up with demand.

For the first time that most of us can recall, food prices are soaring, and for once, farmers are happy and they are making real money. A story in the WSJ quoted a farmer saying that he's being asked, no, begged to plant any kind of grain, and in many cases on land that hasn't been used in years. It's a wheat/corn/soybeans/alfalfa boom and it's a great time to plant crops for our growing world.

You Play Poker Here, You Buy My Pizza--Or Else!

In Hatfield, there used to be a pizza shop called Mama Maria's. The owner was in the Daily Hampshire Gazette yesterday after being charged with holding a poker game and wielding a knife when some of the players broke his rules.

It was a simple and fair arrangement. They'd play poker in the shop on Tuesdays when the business was slow. The pizza man got no cut of the pot, he'd just get them to buy their food from him during the long games.

But players started breaking that rule and when a few of them decided to go take-out, instead of ordering from Mama's menu, that was the last straw. The enraged pizza man chased them out wielding a knife, and then the cops came and he made the paper.

The cops said they can't remember the last time anybody was charged with holding a poker game. "It was just so obvious, we had to put that charge in," they explained.

Ideo Field Guides: A Stand-out Among Travel Books

I get sent a lot of stuff because people want us to write about them on the website. As these gifts pile up, I notice clearly the ones that I care about and those that I don't. I must say that today's Fedx parcel exceeded my expectations, and both surprised and delighted me. It was from IDEO, a unit of Chronicle Books, and they're called 'Eyes Open Field Guides.'

Here is what's cool about these books, (they have a guide like this to New York and one to London): The shape of the book, laid out horizontally with a hard cover, is easy to flip through, so you don't have to hold the page open. They have a little elastic you can wrap around so you can mark your place. The text is minimal with very arty and cool photographs with each entry.

They aren't trying to be your Uncle's guide to New York, with info on all of the sites. They instead pick out places and things most of us have never heard of, like Metronaps, where you can take a snooze in a pod in suite 2210 of the Empire State Building. And Bamn! in the East Village, a 2008 version of the old Horn and Hardart Automats with lots of great food to buy using sleek vending machines.

The book categorizes travelers into logical groups, as they say 'each one of us is an Observer, a Diner, a Shopper and a Mingler.

Other tips from the shopping section include Calypso Home in Soho, the Chelsea Flea Market, Sahadi Importing in Brooklyn (for fresh cardomom or saffron) and lists parks like Bryant Park (the only public free Wi-Fi I could find last trip), and Grand Opening, where people can play ping-pong in the lower East Side.

A marvelous little tome that I will put to use the next time I visit the city!

Chasing Battery Life, the Holy Grail of Electric Cars

We turned on the new lights at the cafe this morning, beaming a gloriously bright light at the sleepy hour of 6 am when it still feels like 5 am, dark, cloudy. I hope that when people drive by and see those big lights on they will notice the cafe and then decide to stop by. That's the plan, anyway.

Today I read in the WSJ about an unlikely partnership: Exxon Mobil and electric cars. Everyone is crazy about them but the problem that nobody has solved yet is battery life. It's the holy grail of 2008, trying to get decent life out of either nickel metal hydride or lithium-ion batteries. This week's exciting news is that they've developed a film, a plastic separator that improves battery life and lessons the chance that the device will blow up. It's the tears in the membrane that seem to cause the most problems...when the chemical reaction that makes the battery work heats up the battery too much, then, kablooey.

So when somebody finds out how to control this heat, by using more porous materials that reduce the possibility for a temperature malfunction, this will be a billion dollar payday. Exxon is chasing this business big time, as noted by their presentation at an electric vehicle show in Anaheim CA in December. "The irony was certainly not lost on us," says Catherine Scrimgeour, who ran a booth for an electric car manufacturer called Zenn Motor Co.

Budget hotels in Anaheim

In Guinea, Students Scramble for Any Available Light

Here is part of an AP story from a while back about how students have to find sources of light to read to study for exams. "CONAKRY, Guinea - The sun has set in one of the world's poorest nations and as the floodlights come on at G'bessi International Airport, the parking lot begins filling with children.

The long stretch of pavement has the feel of a hushed library, each student sitting quietly, some moving their lips as their eyes traverse their French-language notes.

It's exam season in Guinea, ranked 160th out of 177 countries on the United Nations' development index, and schoolchildren flock to the airport every night because it's among the only places where they'll always find the lights on.

Groups of elementary and high school students begin heading to the airport at dusk, hoping to reserve a coveted spot under the oval light cast by one of a dozen lampposts in the parking lot. Some come from over an hour's walk away.

The lot is teeming with girls and boys by the time Air France Flight 767 rounds the Gulf of Guinea at an hour-and-a-half before midnight. They hardly look up from their notes as the Boeing jet begins its spiraling descent over the dark city, or as the newly arrived passengers come out, shoving luggage carts over the cracked pavement.

"I used to study by candlelight at home but that hurt my eyes. So I prefer to come here. We're used to it," says 18-year-old Mohamed Sharif, who sat under the fluorescent beam memorizing notes on the terrain of Mongolia for the geography portion of his college entrance test.
Only about a fifth of Guinea's 10 million people have access to electricity and even those that do experience frequent power cuts. With few families able to afford generators, students long ago discovered the airport.

Others sit on the curbs outside the homes of affluent families, picking up the crumbs of light falling out of their illuminated living rooms."We have an edge because we live near the airport," says 22-year-old Ismael Diallo, a university student.

It's an edge in preparing for an exam in a country where unemployment is rampant, inflation has pushed the price of a large bag of rice to $30 and a typical government functionary earns around $60 a month.

The Battle of the Sexes

Last night we had a battle of the sexes. We are visiting Kent and Lisa and after Kent prepared a lovely dinner for Dennis and Denise and Cindy and I, we took out their new 2008 edition of Trivial Pursuit. This new game has all new questions and some of them are very tough. The old version was much more logic based, this one seems to throw off the wall, weird questions with no real basis to derive the answers.

Anyway, we set up the game and played men against women. And we commenced pushing our pieces around the board and working hard as two teams of three to find the answers. We used to love this game back in the '80s, it was fun to bring it back to life with all of these new questions.

This is a great game if you want to feel smart and know who invented the wheelchair that goes up stairs (Dean Kamen, of Segue Scooter fame), or which midwestern city has a museum of dentistry (St. Louis), or what food is made from animal collagen (gelatin).

One of my favorite things is a visit with old friends and a fun game with a little competition. My second favorite thing is getting a stack of books from these voracious readers, that I'll enjoy and blog about for months to come!

Can't Shoot, Doesn't Play, Gets $44K USC Scholarship Anyway

Off today to New York to see Isabella perform in a play. But first, I've gotta share the story from the WSJ about the University of Southern California's latest and hottest basketball prospect. He's 5'10", never played a full season of high school ball, and averaged just 8.6 points a game for Beverly Hills High. The school, by the way, finished last in its league.

But Romeo Miller is no ordinary journeyman basketball player with a lousy record. He's also Lil' Romeo, whose just been awarded a $44,400 full sports scholarship to this high class university, and he's the son of a wealthy music mogul. Basketball watchers like Bob Gibbons, of All Star Sports, are shocked. "It's very rare to give a scholarship to someone who may never play."

But there is more, and there is actually a good reason to give Romeo free tuition, fees, books, housing and meal, so he can sit at the training table with all of the other very accomplished basketball players. He's a TV star on Nickelodeon, and a successful hip-hop star who's sold 1.5 million records since 2001. Tim Floyd, USC's coach, explains it simply. "We may have more 11 t0 17-year old girls in the stands than we've had in the past."

Larry Kelley: Nobody Loves Tweaking Amherst More

Poking around on the collection of Western Mass blogs known as Blognewsnet.com/pioneervalley, I found the very passionate and truly funny blog written by Larry Kelley. Larry and I have known each other, mostly through people we both know in advertising and business, for many years. Like me, he takes this blogging job very seriously, rarely missing a chance to put up an updated post, or add a photo to make it even more fun.

Today on his 'Only in the Republic of Amherst' blog his head was a classic: His Lordship's Carriage, a post that included a photo of the political-slogan covered rear view of an Amherst Selectboard member's Toyota Camry. With its dizzying array of political Korrectness, everything from the old saw about 'the military holding a bakesale' to the letters IRAQ with an 'N' falling right where the Q was. It is like so many Pioneer Valley Bumpers, filled with trite, unworkable sayings that just plain annoy me.

Larry agreed, and who else would put up that great headline?

Those Annoying Wool Ads Strike a Chinese Nerve

Today is a gorgeous New England Day, still brisk but the sun pelts down and tries to cheer us up. I was on the phone today with a guy from SF who said he was underneath a lemon tree. With computer problems leaving us one machine short, I headed to the cafe to read the WSJ and read about a TV ad in China that everybody hates.

It's a commentary about the growing sophistication of Chinese consumers, they are rejecting a low budget low quality ad pitch. It's for a wool company that wanted to trumpet their involvement with the Beijing Olympics. The spot has a children's voice sing-songing over and over again the animals of the zodiac, a grating repetition of the Chinese words for "ox, ox, ox, tiger, tiger, tiger, rat, rat rat.

"When they first saw the ad, some people thought their TV sets were broken. Viewers savaged the ads in print media and online, some calling it intolerable, others saying it was the worst ad they'd ever seen. " Finally the company had to hold a press conference to explain they had stopped running the commercial.

One veteran adman, Richard Tan, head of Euro RSCG, says that when he first came to China, everyone used the 'caveman approach,' beating consumers over the head with repetitive, annoying ads with the same message. But now many Chinese agencies work is rivalling the slickness of Western agencies...so the wool company's irritating commercials made them look like they hadn't evolved like the others....but as usual, there is a twist. "The twelve animals ad has become a household topic of conversation across the country." In spite of this, it is unlikely 'consumers will ever be annoyed into brand loyalty," said Tan.

Would You Like Some Piercing Noise with your Entree?

We met our friend Chris at the Apollo Bar and Grill last night in Easthampton, and the place was packed. They've recently added the word bar to their name, but fortunately, that means only one new TV and like last time, it wasn't even turned on. We got a good table and caught up with what Chris is doing these days, and it was a jovial Wednesday evening about 7:30.

As I tucked into my beet and goat cheese salad, a piercing siren shrieked, shaking the whole place. People looked around, and realized it was a fire alarm, blasting all through the entire Eastworks Complex. Loud, alternating between the piercing alarm and silence, with flashing strobes that lit up the hallways and the restaurant. Nobody knew what to do except to continue eating our delicious appetizers, and raising up the conversational volume to keep pace with the siren.

It went on, we sipped wine, we talked louder, until finally we had to get up and get out of the noise. Poor Casey Douglas, in his chef coat, walked out and consulted with the yellow-booted fireman, who walked around saying that they had to check the whole building before they could turn off the alarms that were beginning to deafen even the hardiest of us.

We went outside with many of the other diners, and after about 15 minutes, had to return to our table, but this time we put tissues in our ears to block the sound. After about 25 minutes, the sound of silence returned, thank god. The apple smoked pork and the lovely red cabbage tasted much better without the noise, and all was again well in our favorite local restaurant.

Funding the FARC is Hugo Chavez' Death Wish

We met a driver during our June trip to Medellin Colombia, who told us he used to have a construction company. They built many of the roads we traveled on. But he lost it all when he had to ransom his brother from the hands of FARC guerillas. This week we learned that this evil terrorist group is being funded by a darling of some American liberals--Hugo Chavez.

When FARC second-in-command Raul Reye's laptop was opened, it was revealed that Chavez gave the FARC $300 million recently. That was after the FARC sent $150,000 to the president when he was imprisoned in Venezuela in 1992, just before the coup that put him in charge.

This is a delicious turn of events, because the FARC has been making life miserable for Venezuelan farmers, kidnapping them for ransom the way they've been doing to Colombians for years. Having evidence that Chavez actually funded these monsters has got to turn not only his own, but some of these bone-headed lefties against him.

I've met more than one Venezuelan who said he's crazy, and panders to the poorest of the poor with his beligerent statements and grand visions about redistributing wealth. One man was actually getting very agitated trying to explain how bad the guy is for their country.

Meanwhile, in Caracas there are basic food shortages and a very bad state-run economy. Chavez is trying to rattle his sabre at the Colombians, over the 'outrage' of them going after a mass murderer just one-mile into Ecuador's jungle. If push comes to shove, the Colombians will easily defeat the Venezuelans who have lots of equipment but not much training.

To a person, every Colombian we talked to feels very proud of what their president Uribe has done to fight the terrorist FARC, and I am glad we are allied and supporting the Colombians in their fight. I hope the next score will net Manuel Marulanda, who at 70 is the world's oldest terrorist leader, who no doubt is cowering in the Venezuelan jungle, hoping Chavez will protect him.

Mexico's Problem is Militant Unions, Not NAFTA

Last night I went to bed with the WSJ, astounded by the rich volume of fascinating content from which to draw conclusions and some of which I thought, would make good blogs. One piece by Mary Anastasia O'Grady pointed out what's good about NAFTA, and why Mexico's belligerent unions are a big part of that country's problem.

"Hiring, maintaining and firing a worker is so costly [in Mexico] that employers to to great length to avoid taking on new employees. This produces an excess of workers relative to demand, depressing wages and benefits. Yet it is not only high mandated costs that reduce opportunities. If a worker isn't in the union he can't work, so the union bosses have extraordinary power. Promotions are based on seniority, not merit, so there is no incentive to learn new skills or new technologies. O'Grady suggests that this is why Pemex, the state-owned oil company lost $484 million last year even as the price of oil climbs above $100 a barrel.

This climate of militant unions who launch pre-emptive strikes on hotel resorts under construction pushes Mexicans to the underground economy. One Mexican researcher said that those workers who toil in the 'tradeable sector, those who work for businesses with foreign investments earn 40-50% more than in regular Mexican firms. These are the businesses that NAFTA brought to the country.

While Hillary and Obama make speeches decrying NAFTA, claiming they don't have enough US style labor protections, it's just not true: Mexico has much more militant, and more burdensome labor regulations than anywhere else in North America. Mexico's famous one-party rule was finally broken in the early 90s, and NAFTA was a central reason, bringing greater access to capital and trade.

Bike Lanes, Public Bikes, It's All Coming Together

Glad to be back in Deerfield after a wonderful and busy weekend in the Big Apple. Got a chance to read Neal Peirce's column in the Daily Hampshire Gazette over lunch. As he has written previously, Peirce is a bicycling evangelist. He takes any opportunity to write about developments in this very sustainable and earth friendly means of transportation.

Today's piece focused on 2007--which he considers biking's best year in many decades. It's the trends, like oil at $101 a barrel, serious concerns over global warming, and health concerns about sedentary lifestyles that make his case.

As I have seen in Bologna, Copenhagen and other European cities, the concept of municipally-owned bikes for public use is spreading wildly. Paris is the next beachhead, here the Velib bike program has seen more than two million trips in the first 40 days after it launched in July. Now 20,000 bikes wait for riders to insert their credit cards to sign up, ($1.50 a day or $43 a year). Ok, ok, this is all great for the French, but what about the Americans?

Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago tested a Velib bike this summer, and 'came back a fan,' reports Peirce. In Louisville, health care company Humana has bikes for its workers. In Portland OR, real bike 'boulevards' are being built to allow bikes safe passage besides cars. When these were first introduced they raised the value of adjacent real estate. Now, having this feature means biking is not just for the avid bikers but for families and the everyman. That's progress!

Frommer, Steves, Wright--They All Love GoNOMAD!

Day three at the big show. Last night we returned to our favorite Italian Osteria called Gelsi, we discovered this temple of the cuisine of Puglia in 2005, and hadn't been for a year. The chef came out to chat with us, (but mostly with Cindy in Italian) and we complimented him on the wonderful timballo and my turkey ossobucco. Splendisimo!

Early on Saturday we had a visit from Arthur Frommer, who chatted with us and gladly took our little brochure that 'said everything about you guys.' Later a show visitor told us that he and his daughter Pauline had mentioned GoNOMAD in their talk. Then another Travel superstar, Rick Steves, a tall guy, stopped by and I told him how much our readers enjoy the commentary about travel he wrote on our site. "You can use more of my political stuff, and I'm happy to update anything," he said, while he came and paid us a visit to the booth.

Then the wonderfully scruffy and real Ian Wright--when presented with Kent's business card, he exclaimed, "I love you guys!" So that's why this show is so fun. We have paid our dues, we've climbed up to a high rung, and now we're getting very well known in our industry.

Next up--conquer the rest of the world!

The View from the Aisle

Just back from watching a ridiculously thin woman with an NBC microphone doing a stand-up in front of a bunch of Greek dancers.

There also was the new Tourism Minister from South Africa, who we confirmed we'll get a chance to meet.

Now it's time to wait for the crowds, no doubt they will be thick. Bring 'em on!

Meeting and Greeting So Many Ideas at the Show

Awoke in the hotel early, thinking about the show. Got an early call from my manager Lizzy, talking of six inches of fresh snow, and more on the way. Time to close the cafe. oh well. Better than losing bucks all day, and when we heard the other guy, Jerry's closed, well that made it ok.

Sitting at the Javits in an almost empty hall, workers milling around, few exhibitors here yet. We are meeting with Matthew Link, who is helping out with the Travel writing seminar that Kent and I will run at 5 pm. Should be fun. We will run through the program and make sure we're all on the same page.

Yesterday's trade show day brought a mix....people with interesting ideas for affiliating with us and a few guys chasing that travel video vertical. In our business they call every category a vertical, and boy does video and travel jump out. I met two very different men who both wanted us to run their video shorts on our site, for no money. I am trying to make it a good thing for the users, but big embedded logos pointing at another site turns me off. Still, video is inevitable, so I'm sure that in 2008 most of our stories will have some sort of video accompaniment.

Today is open the public, so there will be many more takers for our airport parking coupons and our little flyers that tell our story. I am hoping to meet the new director of tourism for South Africa, we had a date yesterday but she didn't make it. You never know who we will meet here in the aisles of the NY Times Travel show!