Thinking Locally, I Met A Bunch of Like-Minded Business Owners

I'm just back from an important meeting, that brought dozens of local business owners together in Northampton to talk local. It was a membership meeting for Pioneer Valley Local First, an organization of volunteers that seeks to promote buying locally, and getting the public to think about where the money goes. It's one of 60 networks across North America aimed at this goal.

It began with a social time, and as often happens when I am out and about I ran into many old friends from various businesses I've worked for. Dave Sokol, my boss in the '80s when I worked in paste-up for the Valley Advocate, a gaggle of Gazette advertising folks, and Dave Caputo, with whom I work now on website projects and who is a regular at our HT get togethers.

After the pleasantries, it was time for business. A man introduced another man who works on a national level for BALLE, or Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, who will be helping organize our local chapter in the valley. This lead to more speakers, who all had the same point--we've gotta preserve and support our local businesses if we want to compete against the monoliths and big boxes who take local money and send it out of state.

People spoke up about their concerns, I posed the question to the panel, 'What's in this for us?' I realized that it always comes down to this in any membership group and their answers were good. They said that if we wanted to continue to have farms and fields, we had to purchase and support local agriculture. If we wanted to continue to have the option to shop in a locally-owned bookstore, we'd have to support it. And if we wanted to attract local people into our shops and businesses, the best thing to do is to band together with our neighbors and market us all together. SOLD!

But first an incredibly talented juggler gave a quasi business jargon jam fest, popping the balls up in various trained routines, spouting business chestnuts over and over and juggling madly.

I'm joining the group, putting down my $100 and supporting them as best I can. I look forward to being included in the guide to buying local that they are printing, and most of all, I am proud to be living in an area like the Pioneer Valley where things like this really do matter.

"A Prairie Home Companion" Sets Down in Lenox

Last night Garrison Keillor sang in the rain. In his white shirt and red tie, fifteen minutes before the live Saturday night broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion" at the Koussevitsky Music Shed in Lenox, he serenaded joyful fans seated on the lawn with a version of the Gene Kelley song, walking in the light rain and singing gently. The crowd walking to their seats in the shed craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the minstrel as he passed by, smiling and singing. Later he would comment on the copious amounts of food and drink being enjoyed. "They've got sangria out there! And picnics!"

I thought about the folks who followed him on the lawn as he walked, he was taller than most of them, and amidst his fans, and I thought about how much they love him. What a soft and gentle man he is, and how much the gathered faithful all love the memories of this radio show that has been broadcast since 1974.

This was our fourth year taking in this grand affair, with requisite picnics, and carpooling, it was planned way back in the cold month of February. Cindy and I were joined by Joe and Susan, Marc and Betsy, Joe's cousin and aunt, and Bill. It was a dire forecast but we set up our picnic under a big tree and while a few drops fell, there was never a deluge as feared.

Keillor and the band played a few numbers just before six, then he stopped, and we heard that familar chime that opens the show every Saturday night. When he sang that opening song, with those familiar words, I turned to Cindy and whispered that hearing that always reminds me of her.

Musical guest Del McCoury played a lively mixture of bluegrass and gospel, and at one point all four musicians sang in four perfectly distinct harmonies, leaning into the mikes playing their own tones. After the eight o'clock finish to the radio broadcast the band stayed on stage for another 45 minutes, playing more and more, and a young blond singer named Inga Swearingen sang songs like 'Blackbird' that the audience joined in singing. Keillor even began singing bawdy songs about Arkansas and joked "I can stay up here longer than you can."

Google's New Phone Will Do Much, Much More

Andy Rubin had a meeting with Google's Larry Page that turned out much better than he expected it to. Rubin, the inventor of the Sidekick phone, wanted Page to give his endorsement to his new telephone software called Android. An article by Daniel Roth in this month's Wired gives the blow by blow. The story relates how after a short visit, Page turned to Rubin and offered to buy the program for $50 million.

The Google phone will be like nothing ever imagined. That's because they've broken the tradition of telephony software being kept a secret and are asking developers all over the world to write new, open programs to run on Android, which will power this new generation of phones. Verizon and AT&T remain hold-outs, refusing to allow Android on their handsets or networks. Yet T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel are joining the search giant to not only allow these phones on their networks, but collaborate on another project called Clearwire which will be ten times better than Wi-Fi, and allow web browsing in unheard of places.

Google sent Dan Morrill out to meet with what they thought would be a hand full of phone software programmers, and at each stop around the globe, the rooms were mobbed.Everyone wants to write this new code, and the ideas include:

*A GPS enhanced social network that lets you track your friends in real time and plan impromptu meet-ups.

*A channel that plays cooking videos and provides ingredient lists, as well as providing directions to the nearest grocery stores to buy them.

*You hold the phone over a product bar code and are taken to reviews and price comparisons of the product, or for music, online samples of the tunes.

There is little to lose and lots to gain for Google, who of course will find a way to run text or voice ads that go along with all of these free or sort of free cool features. Just like the laptop is replacing the desktop, soon the little handheld phone will be the way we connect to the 'Net.

North Koreans Leave Simply to Eat and Be Free

There is a new movie about North Korea that I'm eager to see. Apparently it's tough to watch, because it is about defectors who have made the crossing over the Tumen River into China in search of food and a better life. Melanie Kirkpatrick wrote about a new film called "The Crossing" in yesterday's WSJ. She described scenes of child beggars in the local marketplace, who stand at a distance from the peddlars and shoppers, proferring open plastic bags that they hope someone will toss a bread crust or the poured remains of a bowl of noodles.

These are the scenes that the Dear Leader, Kim Sung Il, desperately wants nobody to see. That's why every story about North Korea includes tales of guides who emphatically prohibit any photographs of people on the streets, keeping the few tourist's cameras trained on the monuments to the Great Leader instead.

"Food is so scarce that his wife scavenges wild vegetables and the beloved family dog is eventually eaten to provide protein. Neighbors disappear one night when police discover bibles hidden in their ceiling." The film's scenes are culled from the chilling tales of a hundred former North Koreans now living in the south. When female river crossers get over to China, they are often sold as 'brides to Chinese-Korean men or made to work in brothels. Men usually hide in the forests or work in logging camps, hoping to make it to South Korea overland.

China refuses to let the UN help these refugees, since that would mean admitting that there is a big problem on their North Korea border. The worst fate of all for the refugees is to be repatriated back home--since this means hard labor in a prison camp or execution.

Reaching Full Mobility and Listening To Larry

Today I am more mobile than I've been in years. I dragged my old 1997 Avalon to the third mechanic I could find, this one in Amherst, figuring that this was the final straw before I gave it to the American Lung Association. But --- I drove away with an inspection sticker, and a still-beaming check engine light. Then I got my scooter, a very unreliable Taiwanese model, to run as well. Nice to have my fleet again at full strength.

I heard Larry Kelley on WHMP this morning, talking with Bill Dwight about many topics, among them the silly Fourth of July parade brouhaha, and then about the selectperson he helped convince to resign from office. While I agree that Anne Awad should have been more forthcoming about where she actually lives (she bought a house in South Hadley but maintains she still lives in Amherst), I still think Larry lost much of his dignity when he drove over to her new house and shot a photo of her walking on her lawn.

He says that he was on a public road, well, yes, but I think that any citizen, selectboard member or otherwise, would feel kind of violated having a blog writer shoot her photo and post it that same day. I mean, I get the point, Larry, but using the words 'locked and loaded' in Amherst is considered violent hate speech. I just think that he goes too far, and since these jobs pay $300 a year, and require a lot of time from each citizen who decides to run, it scares people from wanting to perform the job in the future.

The results he gets can't be worth all of the bad press. As one of the editors at the Gazette told me, when you go after someone's family, as he did against the Town Manager's wife, you have probably gone too far.

I Can See! I Can See! Better than Ever

Yesterday I left the office early for an important appointment. I had been waiting months for this day, and at 3 pm, I was seated in a dark office popping two Valium with Cindy by my side. It was time to slice open my eyes with a laser and shave off just enough of my beautiful blue corneas to correct my vision--and Dr Frangie was dressed in purple scrubs down to his shoes ready to go. It was time for LASIK in West Springfield.

The procedure is costly but the results are hard to describe---for the first time this morning I awoke with a clear view of the world, and when I glanced down at a printed email, I read it with ease. It's been decades of waking up to a fuzzy world, then pushing those plastic lenses into my eyes, and there was a time when I'd have to fumble around for those stupid reading glasses. No more.

I've elected to go for mono-vision, which gives the responsibilty of distance viewing to my left eye, and all reading is done by my right eye. I used to have separate contacts for each, now the laser has corrected the way the eyes are curved so they are now as perfectly shaped as when I was born.

My sense when I was lying under that big machine was that I was in the movie "The Matrix." It was a caleidescope of confusing bright dots, a mash of red, a tiny orb of green, and I heard the four people around me telling me that it was going well, that we were almost done, but I was drugged, and so, barely able to register but aware of their words.

For the next few weeks I've got to avoid water in the shower and any urge to scratch or touch my eyes. It's an easy price to pay, since I've thrown away bottles of saline and so many of those little plastic lens cases. And these scratched up old glasses, they're gone for good too.

We Just Ran Out of Excuses for Incandescent Bulbs

I read an angry diatribe in the Boston Globe a few months back about the tyranny of forcing consumers to switch to compact flourescent lights. The story railed about how unfair it was to make Americans use more efficient lightbulbs that burn a fraction of the energy. How it was a real pain and unfair to those who wanted to continue to burn the hotter bulbs of yesterday.

The kicker was that it was an environmental threat--that disposing of the new longer lasting bulbs was like throwing away toxic mercury, and that it would poison our landfills...and again it was not fair to force us all to no longer buy the old kinds of bulbs.

Today Home Depot announced that they will recycle the new compact CFL bulbs at all 1,173 of their big box stores across the US. This broadens the scope of available options for recycling, which were once limited to Ikea and True Value hardware stores. Or people had to wait until Wal-mart had a special day to take in the bulbs. 75% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Home Depot store, said the story in today's NY Times.

On "The Beach," Life Is Idyllic Until....

Last night's movie called "The Beach" made me dream about writing blogs. Leonardo DiCaprio is Richard, a hard-partying traveler who meets a crazy Scot named Daffy in a Bangkok fleabag motel, and then finds him dead after he's killed himself. But before he dies, he gives Richard a map to a Shangri-la where high test weed grows everywhere and a gorgeous beach awaits. He enlists a French couple to join him on a journey, mostly because he is hopelessly in love with Francois, the woman.

After a long journey by rail, boat and jungle trail, and a final bold plunge over a waterfall into a crystal clear pool, they reach the Beach. There is a secret community here, like-minded souls who make do by growing pot and taking twice yearly trips back to civilization for rice and AAA batteries. While life here is indeed idyllic, with volleyball on the pristine beach, plenty of grilled fish, and a charismatic female leader, you know trouble is just around the corner.

It comes when three tribe members are gored by a shark, and emerge bloody from the aquamarine water. With terrible injuries, two die, the the other pleads with the clan to take him to a hospital. No dice, declares charismatic leader, otherwise people will find out about us. So he's left to rot and moans so much that eventually the tribe bundles him up and leaves him out of earshot in the jungle.

The movie's narration by Richard shows an increasingly mad, obsessed jungle denizen, and he stalks four newcomers who use a copy of the secret map to try and join the people in the beach. The Thai pot farmers patrol their fields with AK-47s, and after another scene of carnage, a final rendezvous takes place in the main gathering area. "My family eats from these fields," says the farmer, "and you all must leave the island." While some stubbornly remain, most meekly paddle back to Bangkok, where they reconnect over email with their long-lost families.

This Is Progress! Right On Cape Wind

It was mighty encouraging to read that opponents of Cape Wind, who have thrown up all manner of legal obstacles to building offshore wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, have been pushed aside.

We have to begin building our green infrastructure and wind, solar and even nuclear power have to be on the table. I hope to read that Cape Wind starts drilling the first posts for the giant turbines very soon!

Solar and Wind Tax Credits Should Be Extended!

Thomas Friedman once again calls it right...in a blistering column today he points at President Bush and scolds him for not being any sort of leader on energy. Great stuff, I just wish Bush and the Repblicans would read it.

"The Senate Republicans — sorry to say, with the help of John McCain — have now managed to defeat the renewal of these alternative energy tax credits six different times.

Of course, we’re going to need oil for years to come. That being the case, I’d prefer — for geopolitical reasons — that we get as much as possible from domestic wells. But our future is not in oil, and a real president wouldn’t be hectoring Congress about offshore drilling today. He’d be telling the country a much larger truth:

“Oil is poisoning our climate and our geopolitics, and here is how we’re going to break our addiction: We’re going to set a floor price of $4.50 a gallon for gasoline and $100 a barrel for oil. And that floor price is going to trigger massive investments in renewable energy — particularly wind, solar panels and solar thermal. And we’re also going to go on a crash program to dramatically increase energy efficiency, to drive conservation to a whole new level and to build more nuclear power. And I want every Democrat and every Republican to join me in this endeavor.”

That’s what a real president would do. He’d give us a big strategic plan to end our addiction to oil and build a bipartisan coalition to deliver it. He certainly wouldn’t be using his last days in office to threaten Congressional Democrats that if they don’t approve offshore drilling by the Fourth of July recess, they will be blamed for $4-a-gallon gas. That is so lame. That is an energy policy so unworthy of our Independence Day."

The Mini-vacation on the Cape--Good for the Soul

We have been enjoying our Cape Cod vacation and last night met a wonderful young couple who sat with us at the wedding reception. Bride and Groom Jackie and Mark included many personal touches that made the wedding more fun.

At the table, the placecards were all little snippets of some of the couple's favorite photos, one showed a woman on a horse that was wearing a tuxedo. My card showed a bit of Notre Dame Cathedral. The tables were all adorned with funky little pitchers that people could take home. At the wedding's start ushers passed out a 'Nuptials News" a sheet that told us some fun facts about the couple, such as that he proposed in a swamp, and that he owns a Porsche 911, and that they will be honeymooning in Bermuda.

It's always fun at a wedding to learn about the lives of people you've been thrown together with for the festive occasion. Chris and Melissa are young homeowners, having only very recently traded in a condo for a house in rural Russell MA. He bore the callouses he got from fixing his own roof, and she was now in the market for a new car since hers had been totalled just a few days before when a semi crunched her Honda into an unrepairable hulk.

At the table, another man told us about his work, doing the project engineering for huge new Ikea stores all over the US. We talked about the chain and how much of a tradition it has become to outfit one's first apartment by taking a trip to Ikea. Nobody, we agreed, can make it out of the huge maze of a store without spending at least $50. His wife told us about her long hours working for Habitat for Humanity, where so many meetings between house builders and fund raisers make the job tiring but satisfying.

Today we had time to putter around the Cape, and we made our way to tony Chatham. After a walk on the Cape Cod bicycle path we made it into the center, down a long bulbous neck of land stretching out into the bay. These times that we get to just wander into stores, enjoy leisurely long lunches, and then have a treat like a long nap in our motel room are some of the best times Cindy and I have together. Despite an overreliance on the GPS that lead us down more than a few dead-ends, we've had a wonderful mini-vacation here in lovely Dennis.

Blackberry Time on the High Seas

Even with the Pittsburgh skyline and the fascinating company aboard the Gateway Clipper, the lure of the Blackberry is a tempation that's hard to put down.

Here uber traveler Johnny Jet checks email while we cruised the Allegheny river on Thursday night. We caught up with many interesting writers and representatives from tourism boards all over the US and the world.

We hope to visit many new destinations, ones we might never haver thought about, after we hear from our new friends in these faraway places.

Maintenant, Nous Sommes en Vacance

It's been a long time coming, we're finally on our long-awaited Cape Cod mini-vacation to attend the wedding of Jackie Stevenson and Mark Archer. This young couple invited us way, way back when the snow was on the ground and the day has finally come for our two-night stay at the Kingfisher Lodging in scenic Dennis MA.

The guy who runs this place was cool...no, he didn't want a credit card to hold the room, he trusted us. He emailed a friendly reminder last week, confirming the amazing price of $65 a night (yeah baby!), and we've got the GPS and the Fastpass ready to transfer to Cindy's Corolla. Last minute blogs notwithstanding, we should be on the road very soon. I even packed my beautiful light-colored suit that I bought at Arturo Calle in Medellin and haven't worn yet.

Yesterday we tried out our new digital menu display at the cafe, another project that I've been thinking about for months. It's a screen that rests just below the cafe's clock, and shows off close-up shots of our delectable sandwiches, baked goods and salads, plus other information about the cafe. Last night we got it up and running after Scott and Eric from Sonix installed a new computer and long cables to connect it to our network, and it worked great. Then we switched off a light and 'boom!' a flicker and it was gone. I guess they still have a little tweaking to do before we get to tantalize our patrons with visions of the food they might want to buy before they leave the cafe.

Pittsburgh Looks Even Better from the River

Last night we got a chance to see Pittsburgh from the Allegheny River aboard the Gateway Clipper. This huge party boat has four levels and is plenty big for hundreds of PR pros and tourism board people to mix with a handful of journalists while chugging up the river.

I heard more than a few people comment on this city. "The surprising thing for me is how nice it is here," said a woman from California. "I just never knew Pittsburgh was so pretty and had so much. " Indeed, this meeting was a coup for the one-time steel city, where nobody has heated steel for more than 20 years. Still, it's hard to shake that reputation of dirty, noisy, old city.

The river was indeed pretty as the sunlight glinted off the water, and we passed the Duquesne Incline, a famous attraction, that I would call a funicular. It rises up from the river level high up into a hillside neighborhood. People have ridden this for decades, and everyone here loves it.

After the cruise, we all fanned out throughout the city for a 'dine around' and I ended up at Elevens, an high-end place that was recommended by about five locals. It was the first place anybody mentioned when I asked about fine dining. The chicken was excellent, and our waiter had a very strong French accent, which was fun.

I sat at a long table with about 13 others and across from me, a tall beautiful woman from Arizona said that she once dated a billionaire when she was in college. She said he was a scruffy young scion of a steel magnate, and drove a beat up pick-up truck. It only lasted a few months---they broke up when he kept wanting her to blow off her exams, telling her that she would never have to work if she married him. So she said so long.

Charles Veley Has Seen It All--and Wants to Go Back

I met a man tonight who's been everywhere. He's Charles Veley, the "most traveled person in America." This moniker is quite a feat, since so many of the people I hang around with have serious stamps in their passports. But Veley is the real deal, and his travels put him in a different league.

No, he doesn't go on press trips. I asked him how he does all of this world traveling, and he said he was once in the software business and made enough to support himself for a long while. Most of his long stretches, checking off country after country, came between 2000 and 2006, when he was virtually on the road non-stop. These days, he says, he has three little kids and only goes to places like Hawaii with them for vacation. He has traveled over 1,250,000 miles during the 6 years of this project.

I asked him the two questions that inevitably, he must get asked everywhere. "What was the worst?" He didn't hesitate. "Lagos, Nigeria. That was the very worst. Piles of garbage taller than a man, people living jammed in under bridges, a city built for about half a million with a staggering fifteen million inhabitants." I asked him about Conakry, the capital of Guinea, which I had read was also pretty bad. He said that indeed, it was pretty grim, especially when you get off the plane after such a long flight, and the locals descend on you, all vying to carry your bags. Fighting over the right to carry your bags for a tiny tip.

The best place? Lord Howe Island, a the small group of islands off the east coast of Australia he said were his favorites. They are a territory of Australia and a World Heritage site, and so wild and so beautiful he loved them more than anywhere else. He said even though he's been to hundreds of countries, he wants to go back and see most of them again. He only got a taste, but places do change, he said.

"How hard is it to get a visa to North Korea or Algeria?" I asked. "I had no problems." he said. "The only place that I think you can't get a visa to now are Saudi Arabia and Angola. Something about a government official whose son was denied a US Visa. And Saudi? Well for business you can go...but not as a tourist."

A Stuffed Dodo and the Legend of Iroquois Ironworkers

I am at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, which is attached to an art museum. Here there are four computers and they invite museum goers to blog about the museum and an exhibition called Life On Mars. Like many modern art exhibits, this one confuses me, the gist of the show is to have forty artists all ponder whether there is indeed life on Mars. I thought I'd mention some of the other cool things I've seen at the history museum.

One was a long hallway where thousands of stuffed birds are mounted in cases. There is one case that shows extinct birds, such as the passenger pigeon, the Dodo, and the tiny dusky sparrow, that perished as recently as 1934. Each of these vanished birds was presented stuffed, though the Dodo was explained to be a replica, made up based on bones, since it expired in the 1800s. It was a big bird, almost two feet tall, and couldn't fly, hence it was an easy target for hungry men.
In this same hallway, that my guide told me was once a collection for hobbyists, was a seabird called a snipe. I photographed the bird for my friend Joe who used to have a family tradition--the snipe hunt. It was made up but little kids thought that they would really bag one.

Another exhibit that caught my eye was in the American Indian room. It was about Indian ironworkers, Mohawks and Iroquois who have for many decades gravitated to this line of work. They built most of New York's skyscrapers, fearlessly running across 8 inches or less of iron rail, and many of them died when they fell off. But one Mohawk was quoted as saying they never wanted to use the safety harnesses, since it impedes their movement up there fifty stories up on a windy rail.

Advice for the Solo Traveler: Take a Seat at the Bar

I have some advice for solo travelers. Visit a restaurant with a long bar and sit near a corner. Last night I took this advice and walked many blocks of the center city to find The Sonoma Grille, a large, airy place on Penn Avenue. As is my custom, I found a seat at the bar and then after a while left to wash my hands. This place is owned by a chef named Yves who was born in Lyon. Sounds good.

When I returned, sitting right next to me was a young lady studying a menu. Like me, it was dinner for one. I began reading the local free newsweekly, The City Paper, as she looked over the long wine list.

Here's the tricky part. You've gotta think of something relevant, yet not creepy, to throw out to start a dialogue. I pointed to the long list of condiments and advised her that I asked them to bring me all five. That began an interesting evening of conversation. She was in 'burgh to teach software to her banking colleagues, she had come from Kansas City.

She loves to travel and last year found a wonderful experience traveling to Western Canada with Footloose, a group that puts single travelers together. She explained that it was hard to find somebody to go with you, but at the end of this 15-day journey, they were all fast friends.

I asked her what it was like in Kansas, and she explained that KC MO is bigger and more prosperous than KC KC. And that there are some places in KC Kc that nobody would want to go, and that her bank office just moved to Overland Park, home of the struggling phone giant Sprint. She said that in the Sprint office complex there are people who can't get any reception on their Sprint phones.

We talked about our house projects, and traveling, and I told her that I was here in Pittsburgh to write an article about the city. I was doing research, I said. She said she could only have one glass of wine because she had to return to her hotel room to finish the coursework.

The stories people tell are what fascinate me. I am glad I ventured out to the Sonoma Grille and learned her story, plus the tuna and chicken combo was really good with all of those sauces.

Pittsburgh, You've Got Spunk. I Love Spunk

I knew I'd like this city, from the moment I stepped into the Town car that whisked me the 22 minutes from the airport to the Marriot downtown. "I wouldn't live anywhere else!" said my driver Patrick McArdle. He runs his own art salon in the city, and used to be an ironworker. "It's big enough, with everything, but it's friendly."

He ticked off some of the topics that are on people's minds here. One is the 28-year old kid named Luke who's become the mayor, after the other mayor died in office. "He's made some mistakes," Patrick said, "like going up in a private jet owned by Ron Burkle, President Clinton's favorite billionaire pal. Burkle is one of the owners of the local NHL team, who are building a new city-funded stadium. He also has taken some trips to sports events with dubious city benefit, on the taxpayer's dime.

We took a ride by the big, swift-flowing Allegheny river, a line of us on clownish cruiser bikes with just three gears and pedal brakes. The ride leader told us about an island called Washington's Landing, where posh condos have been built. "When they were building the tennis courts, they kept finding that they couldn't keep them level. Then they dug them all up and found a mysterious black goo. It turned out that decades ago, this island was a burial ground for zoo animals. So it was old rhinocerous, elephant and zebra bones that were causing all of the bumps."

But as I said, I knew I'd like this city because its got spunk. I don't hate spunk, I love it, and more than a few people have told me today that they'd live no where else. I'll make my way by taxi tonight to the Sonoma Grill, a place recommended to me by Christine, they have a good bar where I can chat up the 'tender and ask more questions about this hardworking city.

Biking By the Three Rivers in Pittsburgh Today

Last night I had trouble sleeping, since I kept thinking about the plane. What time it was actually departing I hadn't noted down, so I wasn't sure when I had to leave for the airport. I fly to Pittsburgh this morning on 11 am flight and at 3:30 pm I will be on a bike touring the city with three rivers.

I will seek out some people who call this city home and find out why they love it. Among the people I will see are Christine O'Toole, who is a fine writer who writes for the Pittsburgh daily plus the Washington Post. And she has a few stories on GoNOMAD too.

I'll get a chance on Thursday to meet a lot of people in the PR business when I attend the PRSA show there. Many editors, travel writers and tourism people will be packed in together on a boat. We will board the Gateway Clipper and sail up the river, one big schmooze and no way to escape. It should be fun, and I'll bring along plenty of GoNOMAD pads with our brochure tucked inside so nobody forgets what we're all about.

A Swimmer's Journey Ends in Happiness

Yesterday's New York Times included a story that looked back on the great athletes from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Among the people profiled was a swimmer who said that she always wanted to be in the Olympics ever since she first felt the water in a pool at age 4. She pursued the dream, first a big college scholarship, then on to the Olympics in '68, then she passed over the following games in 1972, when Mark Spitz got eight gold medals. She didn't want to go into the water, she just stayed out of the pool for eight years.

Her story continued....she got a job as a college swim coach, married and had children. She was living a wonderful life in Sacramento until 1984. That year, the story said, her world fell apart. She got divorced from the father of her kids, and got laid off from her job as a college swimming coach. It was the bottom, and the worst year of her life. But she rebounded.

She founded a swimming school and slowly, steadily, built it up, taking in local swimmers and encouraging them. She inspired them by showing off her Olympic metals in a showcase at the school. Fifteen years later she's sold the school for a handsome profit, and is now happily remarried. She coaches swimming part time, for fun, but doesn't do it for a living any more.

She was down, but she fought back, and I love that the story ends on a high note. I guess I am always hoping that stories end like this.

Tim Russert Was a Mensch Who Will Be Missed

It's Sunday morning and Cindy and I sit facing each other on our laptops. We both have thought a lot about the passing of Tim Russert, a man who I met once on Nantucket and found to be charming and fun. We were in the Westender in Madaket, and it was a Tuesday night and they were having a private party that I was easily able to wander into.

Tim and his wife Maureen Orth were there sipping wine, and we spoke about their son, who was about to graduate from high school and was heading to Boston College. Tim was so proud of his son, and proud that he was going to BC. He and his wife spent many summers on Nantucket Island where I used to work, and our brief encounter was a pleasant brush with celebrity. You could tell that with Tim's casual boat shoes and shorts, he was at ease there, on vacation, not wearing his requisite suit and tie as he does on the set.

Today on Sunday morning, father's day, there was a great outpouring of tributes to Russert. So many of his colleagues, as well as President Bush and senators McCain and Obama, all lauded him and mourned his passing. In the tribute, people like James Carville, Gwen Ifil, and Doris Kearns Goodwin said that he had a passion for politics like a boy. He was a political animal, he never stopped loving and talking politics and he prepared for a week ahead of each show.

Bikeways and Railroads Get Well-Deserved Funds

I read two pieces of good news yesterday and today that brighten my spirits. First was a story in the Wall St. Journal that said Amtrak will be given double the funding from previous years, and that Congress has just voted in a lopsided YEA to support spending much more on trains.

They've heard so much from their constituents about adding cars to crowded commuter trains and so many more people are taking the train now that flying is becoming more expensive, they finally have to do something. Granted, Amtrak is saddled with stupid union rules that make their employees the ones in charge, and the Bush adminstration has been fighting to change work rules to loosen up the hierarchy. But in spite of this, Amtrak is all we've got. So doubling th funding for this seems like a good idea to me.

The second piece of good news is that the Franklin county Bikeway is officially open. This connects with other bike routes running from the south and from the north and winds its way from the Greenfield Swimming area across Turners Falls, and onto an old railroad bridge into Deerfield. It's too bad the path ends there and for most of the rest of the way down to South Deerfield, it will be a shared path with cars. I guess taking that much more land is just too much money, it cost $2.8 million to build this 4 mile stretch.

Radio is Much More Fun in Person

It was a nice to get back on the radio today, I got up early to join Advocate editor Tom Vannah on his morning show on WHMP-AM. Usually I do these shows over the phone, but there is something fun about donning the headphones, listening to his cue, following the sports and speaking into a good old fashioned mike instead of a handset.

We talked about some of my recent travels, about Sardinia's Costa Smerelda, and cooking in my little apartment in Tours. It was good to be back in touch since he is a hard fellow to reach via phone or email. His Valley Advocate interns are working hard and producing lots of good stories. We also have a crew of three interns at GoNOMAD, cranking out stories and working on projects like compiling lists and sending out link requests.

Kevin, Jessica and Kylie are all working on different projects, and so far we're pleased with all three. Steve and I work hard to keep them busy, since when you are an intern the last thing you want is to have to think of things to do.

Next week I fly to Pittsburgh where I will take a bicycle tour of this city by the three rivers, and meet a bunch of public relations folks at the Public Relations Society of America Travel conference. I've been tapped to join a three-person panel on 'how to make money on the web.' I don't want to tell them too many of our secrets, but will be happy to join the group and get more trips for our distinguished writers.

Instinct, Written in 1973 by Max Hartshorne

I was clearing out old piles of stuff and found a story that I wrote when I was in ninth grade. I liked it then and I like it now. I'd love to know what you think about it.



Instinct

The tires of his Franklin spun along the hot, shimmering road that stretched out straight and beyond the reach of his wind-whipped eyes. The road was pleasantly monotonous as he cruised lazily along at 40.

He reached over the cracked, smooth seat beside him and felt for the bottle of beer which he brought to his lips, and then left crashing on the faded white line of the road behind him. He took a pack of Camels out of his weathered shirt pocket and then smoked beneath hot sun and wind. While the sun was dying, he thought about everything he had seen, heard and smelled at the World's Fair.

He thought about Chicago and the bars, the buildings and the women and the future as the fair had shown it. He felt as if he was a part of the totally different world of Chicago that he had seen. Perfumed dresses, silk stockings, and spiked heels were etched in his mind as he drove on, remembering the huge crowded bars.

He had been afraid of the monorail but he had not been able to resist it, and he chuckled, imagining Fighting Hawk riding in that great shining snake. The sweet taste of the smoke on sticks, the big green white man's cigars, the lights brighter than the noon sun, the endless rows of shiny autos....

A huge jackrabbit suddenly bounded out into the road and instinctively he swerved at the running prey. He felt a slight thump and pulled over to the side, looking back at the big jack lying in the middle of the road. He climbed out of the old touring car and smiled. It was a beautiful jack. His wife would be happy. It would make two meals.

The weatherbeaten sign along the road told him that he was now back in his own country. When he drove into his rutted driveway, the sun had left the sky. Chicago was 1000 miles behind him.

As A Storm Brews Up Men Bellow at the TV

Last night I beheld a spectacular show in the midst of watching the NBA finals. I was in a room with seven men, cheering raucously, in that wonderful let-it-all-hang-out way that only men in a room with no women can be, every point a raft of raised fists, cheers and hoorahs. No worries about how loudly we were cheering our green team, just the wild yelling and carrying on that makes team sports a communal and visceral affair.

In the midst of this exciting game, all of us jeering Kobe Bryant and cheering Paul Pierce, a storm rose up from the west. Bill's farm is located on a flat plain, one of few areas in the Valley where you can really see a long way in the distance, and the storm clouds and lightning loomed. We all went outside to view the approaching fury. The energy that was being produced almost made your hair turn up, it was a palpable display of raw power in the surge of the coming storm.

At first it was dramatic flashes and nothing but distant murmurs of thunder. Then a piercing crack, a bolt from far up in the sky, all the way down into a far-away field. The lightning danced, spitting down, yet still the thunder just muffled, no rain but an ominous wind. The wind picked up, and finally spatters of rain pelted down, and the thunder finally came to accompany the slices of lightning.

We ran inside, and I stashed my scooter in Bill's shed, as the deluge finally came forth. But by then we were back inside refilling our beers and resuming our yelling and cheering in front of the TV.

The Blackout Tells The Story of the Other Side

Last night in the swelter of the heat wave, it was refreshing to watch another heatwave unfold on the TV. Francisco and I watched "Blackout," a movie about the 2003 power outage and how it unfolded in Brooklyn's Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood. One telltale scene was when the radio broadcast how 'New Yorkers are all coming together, lighting candles, helping their neighbors, and being civil." Not in Bed Stuy.

There, a world away from serene Manhattan, black people cowered inside their dark, hot apartments as thugs looted, burned and trashed the world around them. The story would not have been complete without the honor student. Yes, he dies, stabbed by a hood after sauntering out into the gloom and meeting up with an undesirable who had had words with him the day before.

The story shows what happens when the lights go out for a day and a night, and how relationships either go bust or flourish. One man who left his cute wife for a supposed day at work crept upstairs to have sex and smoke doobies with the hottie in the other apartment. He's tripped up when she asks him how he got home from work and he answers 'the train.' "The Train!? she storms. "We have had a power outage all day, there ain't no trains running!" Oops, he's out.

Then a slumlord returns to his building with the intention of firing his 32-year superintendent, an old black guy named George with a permanent cigar and a penchant for blowing off his duties and slacking on repair work. But as they spend a night in his apartment, trapped because of the blackout, they get to know eachother and find a lot more in common than they knew. George regales the Jewish landlord (what's for dinner? beans and franks--no thanks) with tales of his baseball days in the Negro Leagues with Jackie Robinson.

So when the lights come on, the landlord, Saul, has a reawakening, and threatens to fire his driver who never came to pick him up. Another scene shows a gangbanger who's about to wail on an innocent yet fiesty black barber, but when the lights go on, there is so much celebrating that the threats are forgotten.

Tsunami Wrecks Islands, Then Lower Class Tourists Do The Same

Today's WSJ has a story datelined Fort Blair, Andaman and Nicobar islands. These islands rang a bell because after the Asian tsunami of 2004, we had to go in and make a lot of changes to the feature story we had up about this destination on GoNOMAD. They were wrecked, but have come back to again become tourist outposts.

Part of what brought tourists back was the Indian goverment, that began sending civil service workers there for free vacations, called LTC, or 'leave travel concessions.' These LTCs, that Indians could arrange through travel agents without paying anything personally, brought about 180,000 public sector employees and their families to the islands, and has resulted in a somewhat mixed blessing.

You see, Andaman and Nicobar were once known as escapes for the rich, and for eco-tourists. Mohamed Jadwet, the president of the local chamber of commerce admits he pushed for the government help. But he didn't bank on having the place overrun with lower class civil servants who leave trash on the beach and devour so much food at the all-you-can-eat buffet. "One day a guest ate almost seven pounds of butter chicken, and he was asking for more."

Another complaint are betel nuts, with the telltale stains from spitters that spatter the walls of inns. There are other stories involving plebes who don't know how to use a flush toilet, and thus yanked it off the wall, then removed the lid to sit on it.

It was not always this way, as these islands used to be a place where the average eco-tourist spent $100 per day. Now, the average Indian visitor spends just $7.50. In January, protest letters to the Indian government resulted in a ban on more private free tickets to the islands, and as a result LTC trips have fallen by about 75%.

Now the only problem is that all of the hotels who downsized for the masses have to upgrade again for the 'good quality tourists.'

Cousin Chris Makes Electricity from the Sun

We're just back from a family party where the star attraction was a sleek set of photovoltaic cells perched atop a makeshift llama barn. My cousin Chris celebrated his birthday with a gathering of sisters, cousins, uncles and friends, and in the New Jersey June swelter, we ambled amidst the farm animals and toured his spiffy new electricity production center.

"I got a check for three grand from the electric company last year," Chris told us proudly. He showed us five converters, wall-mounted units that convert the sunlight into direct current then alternating current that feeds right into the local grid. Up top, seventy-seven 4 x 5' blue glass and silicon panels soaked up the warm sunshine, through a thin layer of pollen dust.

The gray units had read-outs that showed he'd produced 11,000 kilowatts of power today, and this would be purchased by the electric company at the going rate. Despite the size of his place, with sprawling barns and an expansive old house, he doesn't pay a dime for his electricity now.
And he's put in a wood-fired furnace and more solar panels to take care of his heating and hot water needs.

It is inspiring to hear the story and see these sleek devices working, showing that there are new ways we can tackle our needs for electricity and heat. He's just a little further along on the road than the rest of us are in 2008.

When You Lose Your Latin Workers, the Burmese Step In

Despite the downturn in the economy, there are still many jobs that go begging. That's why meat packer JBS Swift last year set up a war room with maps showing concentric circles of where people might possibly live who would consider working at the big meat plant. The idea at first, according to a WSJ story on Friday was to target workers within a 60-mile radius. and run an ad blitz using billboards, radio, job fairs to try to get Americans to take the tough jobs packing meat in their Cactus Beef plant.

You see, in 2006, the company was raided and nearly 300 undocumented workers were discovered. "This raid almost brought the company to its knees," said Jack Shandley, head of Human Resources. Plan B was to get Americanos to work at the plant. They even set up free bus service from Amarillo to the plant, more than 60 miles away. But not enough US citizens would take the jobs, they they had to keep reaching out further and further. It just didn't work.

But it seems that a crisis on the other side of the world has turned into a blesssing for Swift. Today hundreds of refugees from Burma are now living in dormitory housing near Cactus. The local school district now has more than 110 Burmese children enrolled. The company has faced many problems, from fears about tuberculosis to some refugees charging huge fees to take their countrymen from Houston to the factory.

But in spite of this, most of the refugees are happy to have a job paying much more than they could make at home. The company is building affordable housing on 50 acres near the plant, and they are also paying for Burmese speaking caseworkers to help with their transition.

The Rat Pack Opened the Doors for Blacks in Vegas

I watch the television news each morning that I wake up in South Deerfield, since I've installed one of those racks that holds the TV way up on the wall like in a hospital room. My ritual is to flip it on and catch some scenes of news or turn it on late at night when I can't sleep.

The other night at 3:45 am, I caught a show on PBS called The American Experience about Las Vegas. People in the early '50s used to take bus excursions sponsored by the casinos and the city out into the desert to watch atomic bombs go off. The government blew up more than 120 atomic and nuclear bombs above the surface of the desert, and Americans watched like eager schoolchildren. They also featured all sorts of atomic menus and thought the whole thing was a gay affair.

The show also had footage of the famous Rat Pack, which was a casino show called The Summit, featuring Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. In 1961, a seat at a table at the Vegas Casino where this show was taking place was worth gold. Everybody wanted to be there, it was always sold out, and they'd bill it as Dean Martin, "Maybe Frank, Maybe Sammy,"so the audience never knew who might pop in for an impromptu performance. Actually the clips on this show were kind of lame, in an early '60s kind of way, one showed Deano picking up Sammy, talking about how this 'his attempt at affirmative action."

But the interracial Rat Pack did break down color barriers, causing the casinos to drop their segregation policies. The show told about how Vegas owes its current status to the links of Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, and how in the beginning, the casinos were charming desert roadhouses. It was not until 1989, when the Mirage opened, that the city began being known for collassal gambling palaces that got so over the top as they are today.

Big Newspaper, Big Internet Flop

I remember a boss once when I sold newsaper ads whose claim to fame was his long association with the Washington Post. His name was Don, and he used to come into work very early, and always wore beautifully pressed dress shirts and shiny leather shoes. He came from that big league, big time environment of the Post to the little old Daily Hampshire Gazette. And the fact is, he didn't really know how to sell. My pal Joe used to say he was like a baseball manager who never played in the big leagues. Knew how to talk, but not the nitty-gritty of how to close and make the sale.

I thought about Don today when I read a story about a spectacular Washington Post flop--The big newspaper has been trying to develop a 'hyper local' news website about the small Virginia county of Loudoun, and they've failed miserably. The story by Russell Adams in today's WSJ attributes the failure of "Loudounextra.com to the fact that the out-of-towners who developed the site never really took the time to get to know the place there were supposed to be hyper-covering.

But some of the problems were just dumb decisions. One of them was that when a big story is published involving Loudoun county, it gets published in the Washington Post and the Post's website, without even a link to the loudounextra.com. So the new site doesn't get any extra traffic or link power from its bigger more link-worthy brother. Ditto for the Post's dedicated Loudoun county page, it doesn't send any traffic to the new site either.

When AOL decided to move out of Loudoun county to New York City, the link was put up for a mere two hours, and it generated the most traffic loudounextra had ever seen. But they took the link down (why??) and things calmed right back down. It just makes sense that you link the new little sites to your big established sites, and if you don't do that, you lose traffic. I can just see some starched shirt editor, sniffing about what a pain it is to have to add all of those pesky links to a website published by his own company.

One of the site developers even admitted that he spent too much time talking to publishers of other similiar newspaper sites instead of speaking with the people in Loudoun, who were more important than his colleagues. The site developer who has jumped ship and is heading to a new venture in Las Vegas admitted he screwed up. "I was the one who was supposed to know we should be talking to the Rotary Club....I dropped the ball, but I won't drop in Vegas, dude."

Why Can't We?

I am back, running on all cylinders, having some fun doing what I do when I am working in my South Deerfield office. The trip to Tours in France energized my writing, making it easier to write and let it flow. That always makes for a better story, that flow.

I sent a commentary to Tom Vannah of the Valley Advocate. If they publish it you can read this in print, it's called Why Can't We? I've copied it below. So in case they don't I shared it with you.

Why Can’t We?

By Max Hartshorne

I'm speeding across the middle of France in a TGV train, the green and yellow fields a blur and low clouds loom all around us. It's morning here on the line between Tours and Paris; I am en route to Charles de Gaulle airport where I will board a flight to Boston in a few hours.

When another TGV passes going in the opposite direction there is a brief flash of blue, that's it, and it's gone. Like perhaps every American who rides a TGV or a Japanese bullet train, I think about our country and wonder why I can’t ride trains like this at home. Sure, there is Amtrak’s Acela, but that only goes really fast for a small part of the long route between Boston and Washington. Service is limited and very expensive. What about the rest of the country?

I know the arguments, that our distances are too far, and that we're a car society, wedded to always traveling in our own little dome, enclosed, preferably one to a car. But times are changing. I can sense a real shift, look at some of the trends:

*The Smartcar, a nine-foot vehicle with room for two passengers and just a few grocery bags, is now the hottest selling vehicle in the US, right after the little four-cylinder Toyota Prius.

*It's become hard to even trade in a large truck or SUV; dealers can't get rid of what they've got on their lots.

*People are buying more bicycles, and using public transportation like never before. There’s even a whole new class of bus travel between major cities offering Wi-Fi, comfortable seats and a new level of hipness.

It's simple. Americans are easily startled and do act when money is involved. Four dollar a gallon gas has lit a fire under us; we've realized that it's real money now; filling up your tank for $65 or $90 is no joke.

I ride this beautiful high-speed train that costs $59 euros to travel about 200 miles. Here, there are trains, trams and buses to take anyone just about anywhere. There are even places in the train to put your bicycle.

In most European cities there are bikes that cities put out for citizens to borrow for a nominal fee. Lots of euros are spent here on signs for tourists, maps to find out where you're going, and for bike paths and bike lanes. The number one industry in France is tourism, so they spend their money wisely, to accommodate those visitors who really do pay the bills.

It seems like people here are being listened to by their government, instead of just taxed. In the US, the number one business is tourism too. We just don’t give it the same amount of attention, we instead are told by our politicians that they will bring back the auto business, or bring big software companies to our towns. Sorry Obama, it’s tourism, it’s the world’s number one industry and should be considered more important by budget writers. We are not going to bring back smokestacks, but if we try a little harder, we can bring in European and Asian tourists.

We pass large windmills turning slowly in a field by the TGV. They dot the landscape of the French countryside. More and more of them are being put up, more and more people are accepting that they might have to look at their energy being created, instead of simply having it generated for them in distant coal plants. Here in France I've passed by several large nuclear plants, silently dispersing clouds of steam, churning out almost 75% of the power the country needs. In the US, nobody’s built a nuke since the 1970s, yet we’re jacking up electricity prices and everyone is worried about global warming. If we want to fight carbon, we can’t do it by burning coal at Mount Tom forever.

Another American whining about why we can't be like Europeans? Yes I guess you can say that. But after you've experienced life in a place where things just seem to make more sense, it's hard not to wonder about why we can't do some of these things in the US.

Go ahead, raise my taxes. Just give me a decent railroad, government paid healthcare and universities, an economy based on tourism, and a society that puts its money into the things that people really care about instead of blowing it all on wars in the Middle East.

Max Hartshorne is a blogger who writes posts daily at www.gonomad.com/readuponit

France's Secret Garden Isn't Just for Cheaters

While we were finishing dinner during one of the stops this week, a French guide told me that her kid's German teacher was sitting over on the other side of the restaurant with his mistress. She knew him because her husband is a doctor, and he's treating the man's parents who are gravely ill. She looked at him with scorn, but not intense scorn, more the sort of 'well that's too bad,' kind of way.

She said that in France affairs are so common there's even a name for it. "It's the secret garden," she said. "There was a study, saying that about 65% of the men and 45% of the women here have affairs. It's just so common that nobody really cares that much. People here like to break the rules, and this is just the way it is."

I thought about the teacher's chuzpah, to just take his mistress out to dinner in a little town like we were in where people know eachother...and talk. But it's not all people running around on their spouses here in this romantic part of the world.

I looked down into the garden this morning from my apartment window, as the sun was just starting to return. The photo shows my little kitchen and the window I looked down out of.

The B&B owner and her husband were out there, and I saw him reach around and squeeze her ass. Just then she looked up at me, coyly, and I waved hello. Yes there is still love among the married here, like everywhere in the world.

Another Market, Where You Find Les bons Vivants

I'm back from a different market, this one located just east of the train station, a quick walk from Madame Barnard's apartment. She had a family joining us last night, and at breakfast they sat in the sunny porch and had their coffee while their two young sons chattered in French.

Again at a market, I was shopping for one....a tiny handful of haricot verts, one slender zucchini, a taste of rillettes, Tours' most famous product (masticated pork spread) and white aspargus. Oh, and the smallest little wheel of chevre I could find. I was packing for a picnic to bring with me while I bike ride along the new trail that's been built by the Loire, and thinking about tonight's dinner. It's now about 100 km but there are plans to make it much, much longer, and eventually to connect to Budapest on a network of trails.

This market was full of foreign traders: a man selling headscarves and long flowing robes for women, a man making spring rolls and selling his pre-made packages of vegetables and rice, African and Arab vendors selling halal meats and trinkets, and a little amusement park area.

The locals come to the market towing their special market wagons, sort of like two-wheeler suitcases but suitable for placing vegetables and meats wrapped to go. Others just tote durable bags, but people were streaming in from all sides of the city.

I saw round zucchinis, chives with little buttons crusty with dirt, white asparagus of massive size, (and found that the bigger the spears, the higher the price) and this sign that said "come to the market, it's good, it's full of life, and it's people who like the good life." I couldn't agree more!

The Makings of Dinner for One

At Les Halles, the indoor and outdoor market in Tours, I asked this friendly produce vendor why her strawberries were so much redder and juicier than the ones across the aisle, which barely looked red, let alone ripe.

"It's because they are, vendres, and we are the growers," she explained. I had gotten advice that it's best to buy my produce outside, and for the meats, fish and cheese, go inside. The variety was fantastique, and I had a hard time deciding on what to buy. But I ended up with some shallots, the strawberries, a huge artichoke (that was a mistake!) and some magret du canard, dark duck meat.

I also picked some of France's famous Echire butter and made a sauce with the shallots and some lemon juice, and steamed the massive 'choke and enjoyed the strawberries one by one as the juice dripped down my chin.

There is only one problem with cooking for yourself in an apartment in France: It would be much more fun to have someone to cook for!

Tours is famous for it's rillons and rillets. Rillets are cooked longer but both come from this cute up-ended animal.

After the market, I got a tour of Tours and discovered a yard with Roman ruins that was being filled in with dirt. They had been excavated, but the government decided that the best way to preserve them for future generations is to cover the whole area with tons of dirt...to be dug up in the distant future by the children of our grandchildren.

The city has many areas in which 10th, 12th and 15th century buildings all meet. At one part in a former Basilica, the ground is eight feet lower by these remains than the current street. It shows how we build up and up, adding to the ground with our pavement, sidewalks and new buildings.