Trying out the 50-foot Diet in Orroli, Sardinia

Imagine eating an entire dinner that all came from within 50 feet from your house. In the US, we pat ourselves on the back for the 100-mile diet, and it's hard to do even that. But tonight we met a family that runs a museum, a farm, and a restaurant in central Sardinia where everything they serve comes from their own land and their own hands.

Agostina Vargiu and his 79-year-old mom plus various staff and other family welcomed us with a glass of fruity white wine served from ceramic pitchers as we walked up the cobblestoned driveway in the town of Orroli, near the middle of this large island. It's called OmuAxiu, and it is a memorable place to spend the night or just a few hours over a long dinner.

We had toured the ancient ruins of the Nuraghi, bronze age towers built by the Phoenicians and decapitated by the Romans, who feared that the strategic turrets would serve someone else's defense needs. These are located on windswept plains with miles of views of distant mountains. Carefully constructed without mortar, we shared this dramatic site with a hoard of about 100 teenagers, who were interested in talking to us about their favorite musicians (Genesis).

The town of Orroli has just 2700 residents, and boasts an amazing 35 citizens over the age of 100. So when we met the matriarch of the Vargiu family, who was celebrating her 79th birthday, we knew she was just getting warmed up. After touring their museum with ancient farm implements, including a Bubba brand tractor from 1918, we parked ourselves in their cellar for the meal. Like so many great foods, it was the simplicity that made it so delicious--roasted eggplant and fennel, redolent of sweet apple, crusty breads and a thinner bread spread with bruschetta, and thin homemade pasta and proscuitto and salamis with their own red wine. We stopped by a little store and bought a uniquely Sardinian pasta called Fregula, little balls that look like giant cous-cous but cook up like pasta. These were also in the farm's pasta course.

Then came the carne, veal chunks and pieces of roasted wild boar. We toasted our host and hostesses when they came out to say hello, and sang happy birthday to the smiling matriarch in Italian. During dinner a woman who's originally from Guyana told us the harrowing details she learned about the only thing people think about when they hear this country's name--the Jonestown massacre of 1979.

There is nothing that I enjoy better than fascinating conversation over delicious food, and the company of those with knowledge to share and curiosity about the world they travel in. A fine night indeed!

Nora Treats Us to a Glimpes of The Past

We packed a lot into yesterday, but the highlight was Nora. She is an old gal who lives by the sea, a Phoenician-Roman ruins site that was once a well defended coastal town. Now these ruins show the levels of ancient civilizations, layer over layer, and as you walk by the former forum, or the home of the patrician, you can imagine life inside these tiny rooms that are just shells now.

The pounding sea made a calming background noise as we toured around the former town at the tip of land sticking out just east of the city of Caligiari. After cocktails and dinner with lots of the excellent Sardinian wines, we were regaled by a band that included a giant mandolin and a curious reed instrument with three reeds played at once. The backdrop was a 10 foot screen showing scenes in nature of the wild interior of Sardinia....it was quite a site combined with these five musicians to see the beauty and rough hewn cliffs that border this large island.

Today we get more of a peek into Sardinian ways of life and meet some of the people who make the wine and create the menus we have been enjoying during our stay.

The Little Piggies Roasted at the Monastery for Us

We finally reached the island at about 7 pm, after more than 24 hours of travel and waiting. The group is a nice collection of journalists and tour operators, a large contingent of about 40 or so, all here for the Italy Symposium, where Sardinian tourism potential will be the topic.

We had a few hiccups when we go to the hotel, I immediately plugged in my power strip and the room turned all dark. We got up and moved to another room and boom, it happened again. Maybe I should not use that surge protector after all. But we managed to put on our nice clothes and were taken to a former monastery where an elegant banquet awaited us. A man was cooking little pigs on a rotisserie fire and there were abundant paper cones filled with calamari and fried vegetables.

At dinner we talked about the fate of Alitalia with a man from Eurofly who knew a lot about the inside of the airline business. It was fascinating to hear the point of view about the union largesse, the extravagant spending, and how important this carrier is to tourism in Italy. He said that since most passengers using Alitalia stay in Italy, the carrier is very important to the overall tourism economy, more than with other country's flag carriers.

With Air France, most don't stay in France, but use the airline to go to other countries.

Sardinia Awaits on Monday Morning

I'm about to depart on another transatlantic adventure, this time with Cindy by my side. We fly from JFK to Rome on Sunday night and then over to the island of Sardinia, off Italy's coast. We will join a group of writers from around the US beginning Monday morning and tour the capital Cagliari and the ancient city of Olbia. We will even attend a polo match in Costa Smerelda.

We've both always wanted to see this big island that stands just south of Corsica in the Mediterranean, and it will be warm, sunny and we'll see a lot of the ocean. Cindy and I viewed some webcams of Sardinia and the familiar red roofs and emerald in the distance made us eager to board our Eurofly flight tonight at 11 pm.

While as usual, my demands here make me nervous about leaving, once again my cast of staff will handle all of their duties and I'm sure it will be ok.

Yesterday I was desperate after our sinks were clogged up and we had to get the grease trap cleaned. I had broken all of the stoppers in the sink and so I decided to ask my neighbors at Georgio's about a solution. Voila! Kirkos showed me how the top to an oil jar fits just perfectly into the bottom of the sink and keeps it plugged up better than a stopper. I love the way these guys always know the practical solution to any kitchen problem.

Again, the Parade is the Tiresome Talk of Amherst

Larry Kelley isn't happy. He's the biggest booster of the Fourth of July Parade in Amherst, and he was dealt a severe blow by his nemesis, Gerald Weiss, whom he likes to refer to as 'his lordship.'

Actually it was the town Manager Larry Shaffer and Weiss plus the rest of the selectboard who decided this week that in 2009, the holiday parade be no longer be organized by private citizens. They've decided that the town will take over the job....because Larry and his friends don't want to allow anybody to carry any sign they want as they march in front of fire trucks and uniformed town and state officials. You see, their concept was that the parade was a big thank you to these 'first responders' after 9/11, and we can't have any anti-war, or anti-Bush protesters getting in the way of this solemn piety.

It seems like no big deal to me...I guess it's because I don't really like parades. But Larry has railed against the kinds of people who are likely to carry signs protesting the war in Iraq, or George Bush, and so the group organizing the parade has fought to keep those types of protesters out. But Shaffer said in the newspaper story in the Bulletin that free speech is the most important thing, so after this year, anyone can march and do anything they want.

Larry has threatened to carry an anti-Shaffer sign in 2009's parade. I'd actually drive down to Amherst to see that. The whole thing makes me happy to agree with my friend Ed, (an 20-year Amherst resident), who came to join me at the cafe for lunch today. "I love this little town," he said, as we sat outside the cafe sipping post lunch espressos, watching the busy street. 'It's a great little town, with everything you need."

Compared to Amherst with its political volleys, flag wavers and flag burners, constant bickering and arguing among officials and constituencies, sheesh, I'm glad I moved away from there when I was just 21 years old.

I'm So Sleepy....CRASH!!

The science of sleep was the topic of a 60 Minutes story a few Sunday nights back. When tested, person after person performed best on repetitive tasks if they had had a good night's sleep, not if they studied more. This blows the idea of pulling an all-nighter because if they had just gotten eight hours of sleep they would have done better in any sort of exam or test.

One night of 4-5 hours of sleep kills the next day's productivity. People are impaired and they think they can drink coffee and keep themselves moving. But there is no way around not having enough sleep, you can't fool your body or mind. At nearly age 50, ugh, I notice this pretty regularly!

Virginia Tech wired more than 200 cars and found that people with lapses, or 2-3 second sleep sessions, can cause cars to go off the road.

Leslie Stahl ticked off many of the terrible tragedies like Three Mile Island and the Exxon Valdez oil spill happened at night, and all had ties involving bad judgement or slow reaction from people who hadn't had enough sleep. Apparently it's an epidemic...makes you just want to go home and take a nap.

McCain's Preposterous Tax Cut Math

I read about John McCain's new economic plan and wow, does he give the Dems some great ammunition. The WSJ, conservative and Republican as it is, put it straight. The Senator who voted against George Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy twice is now espousing both these cuts and more. He's proposed paying for $650 billion in tax cuts with just $160 billion in spending cuts. Huh?

Even the spending cuts, says Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition, have a 'nonexistent' chance of passing. "These are very, very deep cuts, that nobody in Washington has the stomach to even consider.

Yet here is the GOP front-runner, now crowing about how he's gonna cut your taxes. HOW?? Perhaps he will continue the path of George Bush, and saddle the next generation with deficits. The McCain campaign even goes further, claiming that a proposal to change the tax treatment of capital expenses will cost the government nothing. "Outside experts put the cost at tens of billions per year," said the story. "To say that there's no cost is so intellectually dishonest, it's outrageous," said Ronald Pearlman, a Georgetown tax professor.

By the way, McCain now says it will only take two terms to eliminate the budget deficit. Earlier he had promised that it would be all caught up in one.

The Rich Are Vanquished Over 'Sconset Beach Plan

Oh, how sad, the rich have been vanquished in Nantucket. A few months ago I wrote about the effort by some of Nantucket's richest citizens to dredge sand from the ocean in order to prop up the cliffs beneath their seaside mansions on a bluff in Siasconset, and how this was being opposed by fishermen and others. The NY Times even had a story about this fight between ultra rich and everyone else.

Today I clicked over to Ack.net and read about a vote--a landslide, actually, that hammered the idea back out to sea. On Tuesday, despite a monumental effort by the well-heeled 'Sconset residents to convince the town of their good intentions, the idea was shot down 2986 to 470.

It's just that there aren't as many of these tony homeowners as those who sympathize with the fisherman. Bob DeCosta, a charter boat operator spearheaded the drive against the plan, saying that dredging is the wrong approach to stopping coastal erosion...and he and other fisherman were worried that losing the cobblestones at the ocean bottom would harm the fish that they chase each summer in their boats. Boats that are filled with equally rich visitors who aren't lucky enough to own houses on the bluffs of 'Sconset.

The effort to pass the non-binding yet key vote by the Siasconset Beach Preservation Fund was big---according to the paper, "residents were bombarded with mailings and postcards touting the benefits of beach nourishment, and they even hired a polling company to canvass the island in a door to door campaign."

Kermit Roosevelt, the president of the SBPF said that the vote was premature, since the regulatory agencies haven't officially weighed in, and that the fisherman and others 'spread distortions and misinformation' about the beach preservation.

But fisherman Pete Kaizer said he hoped that the selectman will react to the strong no vote, and that using town land (the beach) to help prop up the 'Sconset mansions is not a good idea, in fact, he called it environmental destruction. Look for a more creative and less destructive proposal to show up soon, because these folks are determined to save their ocean front homes, one way or another.

Ben Stein Tries to Make Darwin America's Enemy

I saw a provocative ad in the NY Times a week ago, and tonight read a review on MSNBC...it was for a movie made by pundit Ben Stein called 'Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed." At first blush, and even after watching a trailer, I didn't get what the movie was about until I read this inciteful review by a professor at Penn. The movie is an attack on the evils of evolution. Huh?

Arthur Caplan, the director of the Center for Bioethics there, comes down hard on Stein, for his absurd movie and the notion that somehow Darwin was responsible for Nazism.

The movie is a case for Intelligent Design, this has been espoused by Bush and the far right...it's a little step back from creationism but mostly, throws great doubt on evolution because it doesn't allow credit for the hand of God.

Caplan's blistering attack on the movie focuses on Stein's notion that if we keep teaching Darwinism in our schools then somehow the next step will be 'state directed murder of mentally ill, political dissidents and radical 'inferiors.' This premise is laughable and commendably, the prof attacks the 'frighteningly immoral narrative' by citing many countries where belief in Darwin's theories led to no political ideology at all.

I've watched Stein's commentaries on CBS Sunday morning, but now I am going to view them in a much different light, since this movie proves he is a fool.

ABC Debate Hosts Out of Touch and Off Base

Frank Rich wrote in today's NY Times about the awful ABC News debate last week, in which the hosts ignored the important issues and focused, between incessant commercial breaks, on asking trivial and gossipy questions trying to trap the democratic candidates instead of educating the public about their positions.

"The most revealing moment in Wednesday’s debate was a striking example of this media-populace disconnect. In Mr. Gibson’s only passionate query of the night, he tried to strong-arm both Democrats into forgoing any increases in the capital gains tax. The capital gains tax! That’s just the priority Americans are focusing on as they lose their houses and jobs, and as gas prices reach $4 a gallon (a subject that merited only a brief mention, in a lightning round of final questions).

And this in a debate that took place on the same day we learned that the top 50 hedge fund managers made a total of $29 billion in 2007, some of them by betting against the mortgage market.

At least Mr. Gibson is consistent. In the ABC debate in January, he upbraided Mrs. Clinton by suggesting that a typical New Hampshire “family of two professors” with a joint income “in the $200,000 category” would be unjustly penalized by her plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. He seemed oblivious not merely to typical academic salaries but to the fact that his hypothetical household would be among America’s wealthiest (only 3.4 percent earn more)."

Lawyers Chase Chevron for Petroecuador's Spills

In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, the paper railed against a group of men who are being honored by CNN and many of the politically-correct left. I admire them for digging behind the story about Pablo Fajardo and Luis Yanza, who are not the heroes that some make them out to be. The paper is never afraid to take a stand against the lefty, popular view and look a little deeper.

The setting here is the Ecuador jungle, where a long legal battle is being fought between these men, who represent the Amazon Defense Front, against Chevron oil, for despoiling the Amazon hinterland. Sounds like a slam dunk, huh? Bad American oil company. Good native Amazonians.

In the '60s, Texaco (later merged with Chevron) became a minority partner with Petroecuador, the state-run oil company, until the early '90s when the company was nationalized and Chevron forced to leave. At that time an independent group said they had to pay $13 million for clean up, and the oil company ended up spending $40 million. After this, Ecuador's government "absolved, liberated and forever freed the company from any claim or litigation."

Petroecuador admits that it has been responsible for 1000 or more oil spills in the Amazon itself since then. Yet Cristobal Bonifaz filed a new lawsuit in the US, where not only was it tossed out of courts, he was fined $45,000 for his "legal chicanery." Wonder why he is not suing Petroecuador, since they took over the oil business and have admitted to most of the spills?

Despite the above, which to most people would be the end of the line, Bonifaz is now pushing to sue Chevron in Ecuador, including asking for $8.3 billion for 'unjust enrichment' even though the biggest beneficiary of the oil profits is Petroecuador. And he's adding another claim, blaming Texaco for introducing alcohol to the region. Absurd, yet the group is lauded and get 'hero awards' from CNN.

Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, a big US-hating Hugo Chavez ally has his own reasons for trying to cash in on a big Chevron payday. Oil pollution indeed, is a terrible thing, but at some point, the paper reasons, you gotta point the finger at the real guilty party, which is Petroecuador, not Chevron any more.

In "Little Children," Everyone Gets a Second Chance

Last night's film stayed with me for a long time. Todd Field's "Little Children" used a narrator, the sonorous Will Lyman, who set the stage from the opening scene, where a trio of gossiping, sniping suburban housewives in a park sat apart from a fourth young mother, who just didn't know how play the role of perfect mom. They all watched their kids, and all focused on "The Prom King," a stay-at-home dad who paraded in front of them making their tongues wag and wondering what the hell he was doing here.

The film followed the path of the adulterous young mother who couldn't get it right, and Lyman narrated from above, describing the little slice of heaven that she found every day at the pool in the company of the above-mentioned dad, an oasis from her terribly boring life at home with her husband, himself consumed with internet porn and long hours at the office. The pair obsess about each other, both unhappy at home, yet we know that running away is a fantasy more than anything that will really make them happy.

A third couple emerges, a grown son and mother, tragic, sad and dark. He's the town pedophile, a sex offender who is living near the dear little children, and each time he emerges he is shouted down and forced to retreat. At the movie's climax, an ill-fated plan to run away together becomes mired in complexities, and we find the confused mom waiting in a dark playground with the monster, weeping on the swings after the loss of his mother.

The story twists and turns and in the end, all of these sad characters get a second chance to live life as happier and less tortured souls.

Wind Power, Giant Dreams and Cracked Turbines

It's a beautiful warm spring day and as I sat in my favorite seat by the windows in front of the cafe, I read about an ambitious man in India whose stock is plummeting....despite the fact that his company is the fifth largest supplier of wind turbines in the world. How could somebody not be making a killing, with the surging popularity of wind power?

The story in today's WSJ by Tom Wright told of the humble beginnings of a brash Indian entrepreneur named Tulsi Tanti. He got his start in the yarn business, and in those days the biggest problem was getting enough electricity to power the factory. A light bulb moment later happened, when Tanti decided to buy windmills to create his own power. Fast forward twenty years, and add in huge tax breaks negotiated with the local government, and the company Suzlon, would become one of the world's largest makers of large wind power turbines.

But today this energy giant has seen its stock plunge 34% since January, and much of this is due to cracking turbines and angry customers. The firm has been successful selling their 2.5 megawatt wind turbines, with 144-foot blades, to many power utilities around the world, including Edison Mission, of Irvine CA. But the blades have been splitting, and this big quality problem is delaying new wind projects under development. Suzlon blames the unexpectedly violent changes in wind velocity found in the Midwest, but the power companies are threatening to also seek compensation for all of the business they lost while the turbines were down.

Another headache for Tanti's company is that a big German turbine company they bought a controlling stake in is following German law...and refusing to give the Indians the blueprints for their products unless they buy out all of the other shareholders. That will keep them tied up until 2009 and delay crucial manufacturing improvements using the German technology.

But in the story, Tanti dismisses the problems and continues to radiate the confidence that has made him one of the richest people in India. A Suzlon board member puts it this way...."There's a risk with Tanti, it's going to be a huge success--or it's going to blow up."

Buddy Rubbish Leaves a Legacy and a Laugh

Dave Lenson came into the cafe on Monday afternoon with sad news. He said that Buddy Rubbish was near death, having been rushed to the hospital on Friday night with severe chest pains. Yesterday's Gazette had the story of the death of one of the funniest guys in the Valley. He had passed away at age 56.

"He used to have these business cards, " said Dave, a local sax man and old friend. "They said "No Job Too Easy!" That sort of humor reminded me of Rubbish, who I knew only as an old acquaintance. We'd run into each other at parties or clubs, or when he was behind the bar, and he'd remember me from the 80s and early 90s when he used to DJ on Friday nights at WRSI.

Bill Hewitt and I used to take our daughters Kate and Leela through the drive through request alley called Memory Lane. Then Rubbish would lower a mike and they'd make requests...it would always be 'Rockin' Robin' or some other chestnut. What a fun time that used to be, everyone would listen to the show, Friday nights on WRSI. We lived in Greenfield back then, and it was the thing everybody did. Buddy wasn't very reliable, but he was always a lot of fun, say some of the people I know in radio who worked with him.

In the newspaper article by Bob Flaherty, Joe Leda talked about how they used to write for hours coming up with gags for the oldies show. You could tell, too, it wasn't just Buddy's quick wit, it was written and the two of them had a blast doing it. "It was the most fun and creative time of my life," Leda said.

The last time I saw Buddy Rubbish was on a Saturday night a few years ago at Restaurant DePaulo in Turners Falls, where he was bartending. I came in with my dad, and since there were no open tables we ate at the bar. It made for a wonderful evening as he regaled us with tales from the old days and kept us laughing.

It was fine memory to have of this wonderfully funny guy, who sadly, will no longer be pouring beers for anyone on this green earth.

READ LEO T BALDWIN'S WONDERFUL OBIT
FROM THE GAZETTE

Taking My Speech to the Lion's Den

Today is public speaking day. I always enjoy that. Whether it's a wedding day toast, a eulogy, or a talk to a class, give me a script and I'll have fun up on a podium. My first stop is the Holyoke Lions Club, where I'll be a featured speaker today at a luncheon at the Yankee Pedlar. I was invited by my friend Rick Luccesi, and my topic will be "Ten tips to Make Using Your Computer More Fun."

Since even distinguished Lions often admit to computer illiteracy, I should have some interested listeners, and I'll pass out GoNOMAD notebooks so they can take some notes about the websites I'll recommend and tips on defragging one's own computer and clearing out temporary files in the cache. While these are really basic tips, I'd venture to say that most people just don't really get it.

Then I'll share the stage, as it were, with my editor Steve Hartshorne as we speak with a UMass journalism class who are coming out to the cafe. The last time they came I spoke at length and with passion about the articles we publish and the business we run. The students were for the most part indifferent, I guess they were trying to be cool, and it was somewhat frustrating. I told the professor David Perkins that I'd need a little more interest and chided him to just tell the kids that it was somewhat of a bummer to have such a bored audience.

Maybe he will let them know, and we'll have an enthusiastic bunch of listeners for today's talk.

Wang and Wu's Friendship Was the Secret

Like many Costco shoppers I have been eying large flat screen TVs every time I walk past them en route to the dry good section for cafe supplies. I'd just love to see an HDTV on my wall.

One brand that has the most tantalizing price point is Vizio. I read tonight in the WSJ about William Wang, the very smart Taiwanese-born chairman of this upstart company, who is giving both Sony and Samsung fits over his rising market share. He does it by partnering with, instead of squeezing, his supplier.

He began with a company called V. He mortgaged his house in Southern California and borrowed from friends, raising $600,000, for a dream. He had seen the $10,000 Phillips flat screen that was being sold as a luxury item and thought he could make it cheaper. That's because he has a background in computer monitors and a friend named Alpha Wu who eventually built up a big Taiwanese component maker called AmTran. The friendship was the key, since the secret of Vizio's success is that they are 23% owned by Wu's manufacturing company.

While the big guys do their own manufacturing and spend big on R&D, nimble Vizio uses its partnership with the maker to get preferentially consistent supplies, and sometimes free shipping. Wang told the WSJ how different his approach is. "Instead of making money by squeezing the supplier, we work with our vendor."

He got a big break when he met with Costco's buyers in early 2003, and pitched them a $3800 46" plasma TV. It was half the price of competitors and Wang confidently said he wanted to be the next Sony in five years. The Costco people laughed, but five years later sell Vizio's sets in 385 stores.

Last year Vizio had sales of over $2 billion, yet Wang is tempering his aspirations. "Our goal is the be the next Sony in 20 or 30 years," he said.

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Australia

I'm just back from Oz and prepping for an appearance on Brad and Bo's WHYN-AM Morning Show. Listen at 8:05 Tuesday morning, and I'll share some of these tidbits. Here is the complete list, since the segments are usually pretty short.

1. There is no tipping in Australia. So a cab ride is the meter--only. And the price on the restaurant menu includes everything, sales tax and the whole tip. What's the difference between an Australian and a canoe? A canoe sometimes tips. So menus seem expensive but you've gotta subtract about 25% compared to the US. The food is very good and the wine lists are very long.

2. Desirable real estate here faces north. Because the sun is coming from the other side of the world, so that's the warmest direction to face.

3. Home builders and re-modelers here have to provide a 7-year warranty on all repairs and new construction. Or they have to fix it for free for the homeowner (this was told to me by a contractor I sat next to at dinner.)

4. The most popular sport in Melbourne where I visited, is known as 'footy.' That's Australian rules football, played on a circular field, where players attempt to kick a ball through four uprights, and lateral, kick and run with the ball and get tackled without any pads. Women like the shorts the buff players wear. All over Australia, though, cricket is the most popular sport, it's also played on this same circular field. More than 70,000 fans attended the game I saw on a Sunday afternoon in Melbourne last week.

5. Kangaroos are as common as white tailed deer in New Jersey. They munch grass, and there are actually six 'roos for every Australian. The meat is sold for about $18 a kilo and looks like prime steak. They eat grass and don't bother anyone....except when I was there a newspaper headline said that a man was attacked by a roo, who was cornered in a garden shed and scratched him. The pack of 'roos is called a mob.

6. People talk a lot about the many poisonous snakes in Australia. They do have most of the top ten here, but the venom is mostly dangerous to mice, and snakebites are not at all common. A man I took a hike with said he'd seen a few venomous snakes but he was more afraid of the large poisonous spiders that can grow to three inches long. But only 13 people have ever died from the most feared spider the Sydney Funnel-web species.

7. There are just over 20 million people living in Australia, nearly all of them in the eight cities on the coast, and there are very very few people in the interior. The distance from end to end is about same as from New York to California.

8. The Aborigines, the native peoples of Australia first settled there as long as 65,000 years ago. The British first came here in 1825, so it's one of the youngest countries in the world. The government actively encourages skilled people to move here. It's 15 1/2 hours from LA by plane.

9. It's very rare to find free Wi-Fi because there aren't enough people to profitably roll out the kind of wiring needed....and since the telephone company owns the wires already in place it's unlikely that it will ever be free as it is in many hotels and other cities in the US.

10. The average wage in Australia is about $50K a year. Coffee shop workers make about $18-20 an hour. Since wages are so high, dinner entrees (known as "mains") can cost about $25-30, and a glass of wine is often $9-12. People make a lot, so they don't worry much about these costs, And then again there is no tip or tax added to the bill. Since the dollar trades nearly even with the Australian dollar nowadays, there is no currency advantage like there used to be before the dollar sank across the board versus other currencies.

The Godfather Makes My Day

It's great to be back home, despite this morning's 30 degree chill. I love walking into the cafe and saying hello to all of our customers and my friends who frequent the joint. I'd also like to say hello to someone I've never met, but who makes my day every once in a while. His name is Godfather.

I know him because he pops up in my web stats every few months, offering kudos from his perch in Turners Falls. I've never met nor spoken to him, but he reads this blog and sometimes points out posts that he likes to his own audience of readers, on a site called Powertowne Distro. I've tried to find out more about this mysterious man who gives me such pleasure when he remarks on my travels, or about a post, but all I know is that's he's called Godfather. I love this guy!

That's one of the best things about being a regular blogger. People pop up out of nowwhere and comment. Last week I got a note from someone who thanked me for writing a post about the price of things in Sweden. Old acquaintances have reconnected with me, discovering the blog by a Google search.

People in Australia read the blog before I met them, and got to know me. One man I met told me that when he read about the cafe and the website, it made him feel that we were more than just a website, we were a community. I like that--and I hope that the Godfather comes to have coffee with us so I can welcome him into the fold.

Rolling with Johnny Jet in Manhattan Beach

My trip to Melbourne was memorable. I only wish that it wasn't so damn far away! The flight was not bad, no delays and no lost baggage, but when I reached Holyoke at 1 am, I was ready for a long sleep in a familiar bed. It's great to be home!

I enjoyed a break between flights with traveling mate Johnny Jet, who graciously came and picked me up at LAX in his classy silver Benz and showed me his little slice of the world. His bachelor digs are a block from a gorgeous beach, where beach volleyballers play all day and the surfers mingle with dolphins out on the break. He showed me where Tiger Woods used to live, and we sat at an outdoor table for some breakfast burritos.

Comparing notes on past and future trips, I thought about how important it is to keep in touch with friends like Johnny and others who are in the GoNOMAD choir. I am always happy to recommend John for a trip because as anyone in this business knows, he is one of the hardest working travelers you'll ever meet. He does the same for us, and we appreciate it.

The travel web is about win-win deals, where helping others helps you. That's the new way of doing business that makes this whole thing so rewarding for us. We hope to collaborate with JJ on some new projects and I'm sure we will see him at future industry shows, because like us, he knows where to go to develop the contacts that keep him both in and on the air.

Strolling the Queen Vic Market and Watching Yawning Lions at the Zoo

Often I compare these journeys to eating tapas. There's a little bit here, a taste of that there, and you never really settle into a groove because it's time to go when that finally happens. This week in Melbourne has been splendid, and I must say that Oz is as fascinating and fun as I suspected it would be. That's because I've met so many Australians in my travels and they are the reason that this a great place this is to visit. I got a chance to sit down with a travel editor at the Age, and a web marketing guy for Tourism Victoria. Both of them shared their insights and provided me with some details into the working business of travel here in Australia.

I had time after our two-hour stroll to the Queen Victoria Market, (the world's largest) so I took the tram to the Melbourne Zoo. Most of the wild beasts were sleeping, but I did have fun watching the elephants take baths and caught some of the big cats in repose.

For my final night here I was joined again by Josh Oakes who brought along his lovely wife and business partner Sarah. We had dinner in a casual Italian place called Mario's on Brunswick St, one where they go a lot on their own. It didn't have the high priced menu that we've seen so often downtown. Oh, and they didn't take credit cards.

Winding down in my giant hotel room, I did what a local Melbournian would do. I tuned into the footy game on the telly, and watched the Western Bulldogs come back and beat the Essendon Bombers in a live match from the Telstra Dome. Getting ready for a long ride home.

The Tiny Butterfly Club is Where Talent Begins

In Melbourne, the arts are a seriously high priority. Whether it's public art in city squares, or nurturing the art of new clothing designers or performers, the arts are a big part of the experience of visiting here. Even the highways coming into the city are lined with gigantic steel posts, angling sideways, there just to make the city look nicer.

Last night I met two men who have developed the country's most successful incubation center for new cabaret talent, and do it without a penny of government grants or other assistance. In a country where arts dollars flow freely, this is a big change. They prefer to make money with a jumping bar and sell tickets to the lucky few who can snap them up.

The Butterfly Club operates in a cramped Victorian apartment in South Melbourne, where guests stream for 600 shows a year. The one-hour cabaret performances are held in an intimate 50-seat theatre. Neville, the affable silver-haired gent in charge of the front of the house, welcomed me with a glass of wine as I mingled with the pre-show audience just before nine last night.

"We bring these artists in and about two percent of them go on tour with us to the US, London, and other cities. We have discovered some major talents here and after they hit it big in larger venues, they come back and see us. We have an extremely sharp eye for real talent."

Inside the apartment, people stream back to a bar tended by a former ballet dancer and another young man who works as a photographer's assistant. The one-hour shows are fine tuned, each progressive performance is tweaked to be as sharp as possible, and Neville pointed out that there's nothing like working such a small room without a mike. "They have to be perfect, there is no gap between them and the audience, there's no where to hide."

Getting to Know the Pleasure Region with Josh Oakes

Josh Oakes says he is raw. Raw as in new to many aspects of running a full time tour guide business here in Melbourne. We met yesterday and he took me to a beautiful part of the country, the spa-focused region of the Macedon Ranges. Here, he said, the emphasis is on pleasure. There are mineral springs, thermal baths, hot tubs and massage therapists. There are also many restaurants that adhere to the ever more popular concept of 20-mile dining.

We stopped at an elegant inn called the Lake House, where the chef lists every vendor she works with in the back of the menu, with details about the delicious meats, produce, or other local product they offer. We dined on fresh trout with broccoli rabe, and in the garden we fed filet mignon scraps to a kookaberra bird, whose cries sound like a mocking laugh.

Josh told me about his and his wife's expanding business that caters to high-end clients, many of whom come from the US. They take people out and using all locally-raised guides, give them a taste of what's really delicious, impressive, and fun in Melbourne. They also take folks out to the hills to places like Daylesford and to the ocean on the peninsula.

Comparing notes in the van back from the trip, we both had a lot of the same issues in common, and it was clear that business on either end of the globe are fraught with the same pitfalls, glories and hassles.

The Convent is Just the First of Her Many Grand Plans

Tina Banitska paused for a moment, feeling a bit emotional when she took me through her 15-year labor of love called The Convent in Daylesford, Victoria. "Excuse me," she said, sensing that I could tell this made her emotional. She grabbed my arm and continued, 'I get this way sometimes, Max, she said. I could totally relate and fell in love with this amazing woman the moment I met her.

To know Tina is to walk through this sprawling converted 1860s convent, a project of immense proportions that began two decades back when she saw the place from a distance. She knew she had to have it, and it wasn't until years later that she made her dream a reality. Tina is a warm person, who says your name and reaches out and touches you to make her point. The scale of what she's built here is impressive--seven beautifully sunny art galleries, a restored chapel, a large retail store, a cafe, a lounge bar and function rooms that accommodate large weddings. Oh, and gorgeous gardens, restored original nun's quarters, and her dynamic personality that radiates confidence, her belief in the power of the arts, and in the goodness of people to help her make it all work.

She has 45 fulltime employees--gardeners, chefs, clerks, baristas, sales help and assistants, and she gives them all the power and confidence to do their jobs without her meddling. As we sipped chardonnay in the Altar Bar, she told me how glad she was that I came, with a flattering amount of conviction. I was too.

"I didn't know anything about finance," she explained, and when she signed up for a multimillion dollar mortgage at 18 percent interest, most people would have balked. But again, it's that belief, her sincere belief that creating a place where artists can show their work, and in putting such love into the restoration, and the attention to detail, it comes back to that old saying, if you build it they will come. And they sure do!

The stairway bannisters are welded to create a piece of art, as are the details of the crenalations and stained glass windows. The massive structure begins first with Victorian style tower, then the middle section with another tower is Romanesque, and finally the side devoted to the function rooms has a modern tower. Yet they blend together and stand out on the tall hill overlooking Mount Franklin. There are acres of polished light wood floors, and a chapel that's perfectly restored, an excellent location for weddings. She brings in more than 120 of them a year, many from overseas couples who hear about her venue and come all the way to this town outside of Melbourne to tie the knot.

"I've got a secret to tell you," she whispered, sipping her wine and smiling. "I've bought another convent, it's five times as big as this one." This new project will also take millions in loans, and despite the daunting challenge, you just know that Tina will make it all work out. "I want to begin an artist mentoring program, where we teach artists about the business of selling their work, so they can not only create art but make a living at it."

When she saw that this second convent was up for sale, about 35 minutes away in Ballarat, she stayed up all night writing a proposal. The nuns even agreed to finance part of the deal for her. Of course they did, she's Tina Banitska, and she believes it will all work out.

The Wines Were Great But No 'Roos en Route

Today I joined a group of about 20 wine enthusiasts for a trip to the Yarra Valley's wine country. The van drove down winding roads through wooded hills and then onto more wide open areas with rolling hills and mountains in the distance. It was a gorgeous, sunny, fall day and spirits were high as we got to know each other across the aisle of the van.

I asked the mostly Aussie busmates about sports in Australia. I told them about how much fun I had at the AFL game on Sunday. Most of them, being from near Sydney, didn't share the Melbournian love of this game, they said that cricket was the really dominant sport in Oz. "Netball is huge," they added. I had never heard of this game, but they told me that girls play it and it involves a basket and no backboard, and requires a lot of passing and shooting. There are two kinds of rugby here, union and league. The union is the pro game that is on TV, the league is a lower level version. 'Footy' is what everyone in Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and everywhere but Sydney loves.

The hills here were quite green, owing to a few inches of rain that had fallen recently, but it was clear seeing the shrunken ponds that a serious drought was still ravaging the country. More than sixty wineries are spread out through this vast valley, and we got a chance to sample some interesting wines like sparkling red. It's better than it sounds, but we can't buy this variety, from Chandon, in the states. Here too, I learned that screw tops are becoming more and more popular, as winemakers have discovered that the metal tops avoid cork rot that can spoil good wines.

Our host, Nick Johansen is an avid wine lover who made the trip a lot of fun with light-hearted banter and constant jabbing at the residents of other states. "We have few interstate rivalries here, you can tell," he told me with a laugh.

Under his tutelage, we learned that swirling the glass loosens the molecules in the wine and brings out the aromas; that letting wine breathe is basically meaningless, and we perfected our sipping, sucking and swirling techniques. It was a great way to get to know about wines and the only thing missing was a chance to see a kangaroo...the only one we spotted I missed, it was munching grass in a field by the road. Damn!

How Much Do Things Cost in Australia?

I had an chat with a man named Murray who runs Melbourne's Best Bicycle Tours yesterday. We sat by the Yarra river and sipped lattes and talked about how much people get paid here. Then we asked the waitress how much she made, and she wasn't at all shy. "$18 to 20 minimum," she said. That's per hour. I told her that at our cafe we have baristas who make between $8.50 and $11.00 per hour. But the coffee here is $3 minimum for a small, and I've noticed that the drinks in bars are way higher, as our the menu prices. Everything here is racheted up higher, because wages are so much higher.

The whole system, said Murray, comes from the days when Labor ran the country. So wages are set much higher, and in this country there is no tipping. There are giant apartment buildings for the unfortunate, the crippled, and those who have no homes...and there is a safety net of health insurance that isn't like a complete HMO but covers the basics.

People work as waitresses and bartenders and at service jobs for careers, because the average wage is about $50,000 a year. That means they have the money to go out for dinner, and to pay a cover charge of $32 to see a comedy show, or spend $89 for a bike tour. It all works well for Aussies, but not as well for Americans, since we exchange our dollars for basically the same amount of Aussie dollars. But we are used to adding twenty percent on top of everything, so it's closer than we think.

One thing that Murray was not pleased about was when he tried to take his kids to an American football game in the states, and was shocked at the $65 minimum ticket price. "Here we can take the kids to a footie (Aussie football game) and it's a twenty for me and just $3 for them....so the whole family can watch the game for not that much."

"I'm Sorry" Are Two Words That Mean Everything

"I'm sorry."

These words are everything to Australia's Aborigine community, and just a month ago, they were uttered by Australia's new liberal prime minister Kevin Rudd. For more than a decade, the conservatives have ruled, and they were not about to apologize for what the white man has done to those who were already living here. But as I viewed photos of the new PM saying these historic words to Parliament today at the Koorie Heritage Trust in Melbourne, Dean Stewart explained to me how much they meant. He calls it a cultural tsunami, and the facts bear him out.

We walked up a stairway and past a replica of a River Red gum tree. At one time these white barked trees stood tall all over the city. But the English settlers cut them down, and with them came very important parts of the Aborigine's lives. Dean showed me where his ancestors, members of the Wamba Wamba about four hours north, once cut the bark to make a canoe. And the possums that lived in these trees provided the pelts for the possum skin cloaks, that every native man and woman wore to keep warm.

"If you asked those kids over there playing football which tree is a river red gum tree, they'd have no idea. Nor would they know the sound of the Magpie Lark. But these things were engrained in the native people's mind...this tree provided everything, from painkillers to bark for canoes, to oil for their skin, to honey for food.

Dean turned to me and said his grandfather had played for the Australian football team that won the championship. Yet when the census was taken back then, just two generations back, native peoples were not counted as part of the humans who lived here. "It wasn't until 1967 that Aborigines were allowed to vote, and were actually counted." He said this with a tolerant sort of incredulity that made his point eloquently.

He teaches school children about the more than 250 different languages that the original people here once spoke. So many of them were killed, on Tasmania there used to be a bounty for each native that settlers could kill. There was recently fossil evidence that put the age of the first aborigines here at 35,000 years ago. The English came in 1825.

Dean spoke excitedly about how part of the Royal conservatory a few years ago was replanted with indigenous plants, and the English ivy was torn out. Birds and bugs not seen in many years returned, sensing that this might be their new home. As children planted the native plants, two huge predator birds swept over the garden, birds that hadn't been spotted in Melbourne in more than 40 years. They too, he said, must have sensed that the place was being returned to the way it was before the settlers changed everything.

Melbourne's Yarra River

The Twinkling of Glasses Mark's Melbourne's Prosperity

Melbourne has the prosperous feel of a city on the up and up. I got this sense right after we got off the plane and stood in a line waiting for customs. As a cute blond Labrador was walked through the line, sniffing every passenger's feet and luggage, posters up on the wall described the multi-billion dollar upgrade going on at the airport, with new terminals, parking and jetways that will accommodate the biggest plane ever built, Airbus' A380.

Last night I walked home from dinner at Taxi, an upscale Australian/Japanese restaurant where glasses of wine were priced at $12-17 each, with no shortage of takers. Entrees, (that's what they call appetizers here) were priced at about $20-25 and 'Mains' scaled up to about $45 or $55. I picked a wild Barramundi filet, which was crispy and buttery inside. This fish is farmed in Massachusetts, but the wild variety was more flavorful. I sat at the bar and tried to get the waiter to explain the rules of Australian football. But he said that you either know art or football around here, and he fits the first category.

The walk through the busy and bustling streets showed a city full of people with money to spend on those $15 glasses of Chardonnay. That's always a good sign, full bars, people laughing and talking, sitting outside on terraces heated with gas heaters in the chill of fall here down under. There are cranes dotting the skyline, a new convention center being built and even the cabbie sounded proud of the way this city is shaping up and expanding.

Aussie Football Blends the Best of Three Sports

I sat next to two young women on the long flight to Melbourne. One of the things they told me I should see while I was here was Australian Rules Football. So despite the jetlag, I took the tram down to Melbourne Cricket Grounds and soon I was holding a beer, chomping on a meat pie and watching the action.

It's a fun game that to me blends many of the best aspects of other sports. It has football's laterals and punts, soccer's precision passing and nonstop action, and rugby's tackling and shirt grabbing. The action takes place in a large circular field, with four posts on either end. The men jump high to grab at the ball, which is bounced hard off the grass and then they begin lateralling, punting and passing the ball trying to get in position to boot it through the uprights.

The fans are part of the fun. Most of them were dressed in team colors, including the sponsorship logos, and are a raucous bunch, waving flags, singing songs, and drinking big cups of beer cheering everything going on down on the field. With my $20 ticket, I was relegated to the high stands up on the fourth level, where the view of the field is excellent.

Collingwood was victorious on this Sunday game against Richmond, and when the game let out forty thousand rabid fans all made their way to the trams, which were mobbed. But everything sorted out nicely, and I had enjoyed my first game of AFL football here on a crisp fall day in Australia.

Dean Torrance Shares Tales of the Glory Days

Dean Torrance admitted that he did have a few regrets. This came after I asked him if he'd ever met any of the Beatles. Torrance is the Dean in Jan and Dean, the surf music band that had its heyday in the early sixties, when their songs like "Surf City" and "Little Old Lady from Pasadena" were chart toppers. When Dean met Paul McCartney at Brian Wilson's birthday party in the '80s, the Beatle offered him a phone number to attend a Wings concert as his guest. But Dean had a volleyball game, so he declined.

I had lunch with Dean at an outdoor restaurant in Huntington Beach called Sharkeez, where he's a regular. We were joined by Don, who works at his design firm and is an avid collector of the artwork once painted for California fruit crates. We ate lobster tacos and fish burritos and watched a parade of Ferraris and a Lamborghini saunter by on Main St.

We talked about the music business and it was clear that he is pretty much disgusted with how the record companies treated him and how they handled them over the years. "We might be selling our songs on iTunes," he said, "I just don't know. The problem with the business was that it was always geared to making albums, not singles, and very few bands can make an entire album of great songs....We would spend months trying to get a really great single done but then we'd have to rush to finish many more songs to make the album."

He and his songwriting partner Jan, who was in a car crash in 1966 and was unable to continue in the band, were tapped by the label to do a Christmas song. "Frosty the Snowman," was the saccharine, yet durable result.

Nowadays, the 67-year old Torrance is a fixture in Huntington Beach, where he is a volunteer on the Convention and visitor's bureau and very active in the real estate business and also runs a design agency. He created the Beach Boy's logo and continues to hammer his fellow board members on the importance of branding. Design is something central to him, and it comes up again and again.

The city got a trademark on the name Surf City USA in 2004, and now licenses the name on products like a beach cruiser bike and countless apparel items. But Torrance feels very strongly that design and branding is crucial to successful marketing of this tourist mecca, sometimes to the objections of the other board members who often are more concerned with other matters. He makes a good point---one of the most visible landmarks on the beautiful eight-mile long wide beach in the city is a natural gas power plant, that belches huge columns of smoke and looks terrible. There must be a way, suggests Torrance, to make that look a little nicer. Screening, paint, anything to take away the sheer ugliness of the massive structure. It's about design, and branding, he says again and again.

He's lent his time and his name to burnishing the city's Surf City moniker, even enduring the wrath of the people in Santa Cruz, who make the same name claim to their city.

In the small Surfing Museum on a Huntington Beach Side street, Torrance helped collate an exhibit of Beach Boys memorabilia, including one fascinating artifact--a blow up of the hand written words to one of his big hits, written first by Brian Wilson, then edited by Torrance. You can see the changes where Wilson's words were changed and improved by Dean.

He's been in Huntington Beach for eighteen years, raising two daughters now ages 14 and 18, and he describes the city "as good as it gets." Though he's always been known for his surfing songs, he hasn't been on a board for four years. "Hawaii spoiled me," he said, "it's just too cold."

Surfing With Charlos Is Harder Than It Looks

Today I met a surfer named Charlos Bentley, who took me out to the big waves to teach me some techniques. "You'll be taking some water, but don't worry, it will be ok," he counseled.

After a few hours, I got off the board and nearly fell on the beach with exhaustion...surfing, I didn't realize, is damn hard work. He works for a surf shop called "Toes on the Nose," where they rent boards and sell equipment and clothes. He's one of their instructors.

Bentley spends hours a day on a nine-foot board chasing these waves. He is built the way a surfer and twenty-something buff dude should be, with broad shoulders and the ability to paddle out past the big waves to the waiting zone with ease. I felt myself huffing and puffing trying to keep up with this kid, vowing to myself that I will join that gym and work on my biceps.

Surfing is harder than it looks. The waves crash into you and slam you down and for a fleeting second you think you're gonna drown. But Charlos advised me not to panic, and to put my arms and legs out straight when the waves overtake me, and let myself naturally lift back...once I stopped putting so much energy into being afraid, it became easier.

Like golf, one of surfing's benefits is long periods of time where you can talk, sitting out there waiting for the waves. It's amazingly calm, and then these giant waves just appear, in groups of three, or four or five. That's the scary part, since after you crash, you look back and a giant wave is closing down on your just mopped off face.

Charlos was raised in the Dominican Republic, his parents were traveling missionaries and he still loves that place. Cabarete has good waves, he told me. He was just married eight months ago and his wife is also a great surfer. He wants to go to the fire academy and become a firefighter. It's a requirement here to be bi-lingual so he's got a leg up. Plus he's in such great shape. "If you want to get in shape, just buy a board and a wetsuit, no need to go to the gym," he said, paddling deftly out to another wave.

I watched him ride the waves and curl down the edge, as I struggled to keep the nine-foot board up high enough to avoid being swamped.He showed me how this beach has a sandbar that keeps the waves from rising as high in the middle, but they begin their arc way out and that's where you want to be. He showed me how to balance myself on that board and to begin paddling like mad even way before you think the wave will hit you. Boy it will.

Charlos pointed to some little black fins bobbing out there in the waves. "Dolphins," he said, "they like to ride the waves, you see them riding and playing out there all the time."

Waking Up on the Pacific Coast to go Surfing

I'm looking out at the oil drilling rigs and the misty pacific ocean from the Sun 'n Sands Motel in Huntington Beach. This is the place that I got after requesting something with 'character,' and made my host Wendy say in email that 'of course you'd think it was marvelous, that's what I like about working with you.' No four stars for this surfer dude, no, just a place right on the Pacific Coast Highway down a few blocks from the energized corner of Main St. and this famous highway by the ocean.

At nine I take to the waves, and later on today I'll meet Dean Torrence, of Jan and Dean, ("Little Old Lady from Pasadena," "Surf City") who remains a Huntington Beach resident and big booster of the city. I'm also set to meet a new writer who wants to get a crack at writing for GoNOMAD, he's set to stop by today and meet me here at the motel.

It's nice to report that the flight here on AA was uneventful...no lost bags, no delays, no hassles and no problems. The movie, called National Treasure, a big bucks action flick sequel with Nick Cage, Jon Voight and I think that was Helen Mirren was laughably improbable but held me to the final scene, in which the President thanks the treasure hunter for his amazing discovery after forgiving him for kidnapping him.

First Stop, Huntington Beach, aka Surf City

I tossed and turned last night, having dreams that I forgot to blog, or missed a flight, or some other figment of my imagination as I contemplate the nine days of travel ahead of me. Like so many other times, the nervous nellie in me makes packing, planning and actually leaving my businesses fraught with anxiety, but once aloft, it melts away and I focus on where I'm going and what I will be doing.

First stop will be Huntington Beach, known in all its promotional literature as Surf City. I will meet Wendy Haase tonight, and get a chance to settle in to my little motel on the Pacific Coast Highway. This city is where my friend Peter Heller learned to surf in preparation for his eight-month journey to Mexico to write a book.

I have a meeting with an adventure writer who will knock on my door at my hotel at 8 am tomorrow. Then I take a tour of the city with a local guide and later, it's time to go surfing and try to stay on the board.

What's Good for the Goose....Is Great for the Gander

Last night I read a story in the WSJ by Anita Raghavan about men who receive alimony--and don't feel a bit bad about it. The story profiled a group of men whose high-earning wives paid them thousands of dollars a month, and resented the hell out of it. One producer who had to fork over $9 grand a month to her struggling actor ex used to actually spit on the check just before she put it in the mail. The actor, John David Castellanos, said that when he was a star of "The Young and the Restless" and his wife was a lowly production coordinator, he made a lot of dough and they lived high on the hog. He goes as far as to assert that it was his 'invaluable advice' that helped his resentful wife become a producer at a $500,000 per year salary.

Another man got $50,000 a year for four years: Enough to go back to school and earn a math degree. Despite his new credentials, Joe Garnick returned to his original job as a toilet salesman, but now only makes half the money he made before his four-year hiatus when he also took care of the couple's two girls, and did the shopping and cleaning. His former wife's relatives call him a deadbeat, while the ex-wife of the former soap star says she feels 'financially raped.'

But it's not only the men in this story who get sweet financial deals. Brenda Barnes, Sara Lee's chief executive, didn't have to pay alimony to her ex husband, but was receiving child support payments herself until just recently even though she makes $8.7 million a year.

The Joy of Taking It All to the Dump

Ah the joy, the sweet utter joy, of ridding your lawn of the detrius that builds up over the long New England winter. I have been looking at the sticks, pine needles, and leaves that pile up and make my house look like a suburban ghetto. I have seen them as I get in the truck and drive away to Cindy's, only to watch her rake and clean her own lawn while I sit idly by on the laptop, thinking about my own leaves and twigs back home. I promise, I'll help you Cindy, now that I've seen the light and cleared away my own debris.

But today--a good way to start the day--I put on my dirty blue jeans and headed out to the gloom at 8 am to tackle the problem. I loaded up the GoNOMAD Cafe truck with a bulging stack of miscelleanous natural debris and hauled it all off to the dump. I was so happy to see that stuff go that I almost broke into song on that winding road to the dump.

A glorious thing it is, to be heading into the first week of spring with no piles no clumps, no sticks that make me feel like a guilty homeowner. I can head off to LA on Thursday and then on to Melbourne, Australia without a wisp of guilt, for the job has been done.

Today I meet Jim Foudy of the Daily Hampshire Gazette at the cafe. I've been pitching him on a new blog, or a new place to run my travel segments that I write during my journeys. I hope that he likes the idea, and that he also takes me up on my offer to speak at his UMass journalism class.