The Naked Men Converse on Worldly Topics at the Y

Saturday afternoon at the office, and once again I'm here. I can't stay away from this place, what with so many things to worry about, get done, and piles of papers to file or throw away. I managed to get a good workout in, early up at the Greenfield Y. There I thought about this funny thing that happens quite often in their locker room.

Two men discuss worldly subjects while walking around nude. They talk about these professorial topics, one older gent dispensing his wisdom and the younger naked dude taking it all in, nodding professorially in agreement. The topics are so big, they talk about stuff that you might discuss in a classroom, but it's all going on while other people are changing and walking in and out of the locker room.

I thought about that wonderful comic called Stan Mack's Real Life funnies (see picture) that used to run in the old Village Voice. There, Mack would put verbatim conversational snips into a comic strip. He'd use the real words and it always cracked me up. These two profs and their high minded conceptual discussions while changing strike the same chord in me.

What About the Coachman? He's SIC, and OK

I've always been fascinated by trucks, buses and railroads. Something about these giant moving things draws me in, and I always read stories about truckers, railroaders and coachmen. I remember once on a trip to Hungary with Kent. I kept asking, 'what about the coachman, where will he eat...what will he do?" The answer, that I got from a tour guide in Malaysia, was and is SIC. "Sit in coach." That's why so many coachmen and guides smoke cigarettes, it's because they have to do so much SIC.

Today an article in the WSJ caught my eye, about a topic I've been blogging about all year. Trucking companies are now swamped with job applicants, after decades of never having enough drivers. I remember when I sold hats and shirts, one of my accounts was Van-Pak, a good company that bought a lot of those things.

I once asked Leon, Van-Pak's manager, why they needed to advertise so hard for drivers and why they couldn't get enough. "There's always more loads," he said, "there are never enough trucks and drivers for all of the loads." Leon is probably saying different things now. Nationwide the story reports that more than 3600 trucking companies went out of business in 2008 alone, and 137,650 fewer trucks are plying the interstates across the US.

Now the recruiters at Prime, JB Hunt and other big companies you'll recognize from driving any interstate are being more picky. They've gone from a 130% turnover rate to just 65% for longhaul drivers. Still, the job is tough and many people try it and hate it. A man in Phoenix lost his job and went to driver training school, and landed a job with Werner Enterprises. Two months later he quit, and now drives a city bus. "I felt like I was part of a carnival," he said. "Some of these truck stops are the filthiest places you've ever seen."

Still, with 25,000 jobs lost, the whole situation has changed, and now the once unappealing job is much easier to fill. "We're enjoying our newfound popularity," said David Berry, VP at Swift Transportation in Phoenix.

Twitter Websites To Sate Your Love for All Things Twitter

I found this info on a website called Linkbuildr.com . Wise guy with good ideas on how to make Twitter go farther. Here is an excerpt he wrote.

"Twitter Search Engines:
There are a number of Twitter search engines out there and they are a great way to find people that are interested in the same topics as you. You can either search for your favorite bloggers, or search for the top keywords around your niche and subscribe to all those people. Keeping this up will encourage them to follow you back.

Search.Twitter.com - the original search provided by Twitter lets you search for people and topics easily. If you click on the advanced search button you’ll get a nice set of search features that rival Google’s advanced search. You not only search by name and topic, but you can also search by location, date, language and if the post includes a url link.

TwitterTroll.com - a real time Twitter search engine that indexes popular people and topics and is all about finding like minded people. As of today their are only 58706 Twitter users indexed in the search engine, and the crawl rate has been set to low a lot lately. I imagine this app is starting to take its toll on the server.

Twellow.com - is not only a Twitter search engine, but it is also a directory for people broken down by category. It is pretty much a web directory for Twitter users and you can find more Twitter directories like this down the post a bit. This site is great for finding like minded people in your niche or industry.

Twidentify.com - this is a search engine for Twitter users that get retweeted the most. This is great for finding like minded people because you can see others discussion topics you’re into, and that includes their opinions.

Twithority.com - is an authority based Twitter search engine for finding the most popular people on the site. The site kind of makes a mini magazine based on the content on Twitter and popular users tweets get displayed on the main page. Twithority also tracks the hottest trends based on searches so you can get an idea of what to blog about, or retweet.

Twitter Alerts:

Twitter alerts are a great way of keeping up on topics being tweeted and give you a chance to find more people in your niche. They act the same way as google alerts which are great for the same reason in the blogosphere. There have been a few sites for this popping up lately so it must be catching on.

Twilert.com - is an easy interface to get alerts for a topic when it hits the tweet street. Just put in your Twitter details and keywords to watch and you’ll get updated via email when someone talks about a topic you’ve requested to watch.

Tweetbeep.com - has been down since the end of December, but it still ranks number 1 on google for Twitter Alerts. I’m not sure when it will be back up, but when it does it’s worth checking out because it worked well. Nice slick interface and the alerting system always worked up until now.

TwitterAlerts.com - this site is a really simple sign up and track your keywords app that has been around almost the lonest. All you need to give them is the email to send the alerts to, your username and password.

We Love To Bash the Papers....But Be Careful of What We Wish For!

Deborah Saunders writes in the SF Chronicle today about a favorite American pasttime--bashing newspapers. But she makes some excellent points, since most blogs and on-line news sources rely on flipping through the newspapers they bash for story ideas.

"I wonder who will be around in five years to cover stories. Or what talk radio will talk about when hosts can't just siphon from carefully researched stories, because they never were written.

Newspapers are the public's referees as to which information is credible. You can go online and read no end of fiction and smear about public figures. But when you read content in a newspaper, you consistently can rely on it."

It's true...you can rely on a story that's published in a newspaper. "The New York Times reported," is validity for the truth behind the story, in most cases. It's harder to convince people of your argument when you say that "As printed on Readuponit."

In the column Saunders relates how during a speaking engagement, the news the the Chronicle is losing money was met with applause from rude audience members. But we should be careful what we wish for, because as she eloquently sums up:

"When a newspaper dies, you don't get a comprehensive periodical to fill the void. You get an informational vacant lot into which passers-by can throw their junk."

The Whirring Bubbling Continuum Sweeps By

Today was a testy day. A day of annoyances, flashes of temper, and weariness from the many tasks that lay before the cafe owner and web publisher. First, taken to task about sloppiness in my kitchen duties. Then, told by a prospective hire, 'hey, I'm worth way more than you're offering..." All the while I'm learning a tough new program, Wordpress and it's tougher than I thought.

The bubbling continuum moves on...twitters, blogs, comments, articles and constant quick conversations. I feel like the day rushes by and I converse on the fly all day. It's a funny combination of these strong elements, plus so much work to do, and never a phone not ringing or someone emailing important news.

But at the end of the day, as I was mopping the floor of the cafe, I was at peace. Glad to have a business that flies as fast as I do. Happy to be in the web business, as opposed to the trucking, or the newspaper business. Feel confident as Obama does that this economy won't beat us.

I have a friend who signs his emails " I am not participating in this recession." Yeah Don, I'm with you, let's all fight it and show the naysayers wrong.

"Wild Rose Small" Means Crackpipe in Stores

On Sunday night I pored over an article about crack. Crack is an epidemic even in Northampton, the story said, and many local convenience stores profit from selling crack pipes, in some cases unknowingly.

I've been affected by crack myself. The jerk who broke into Cindy's house was trying to get money to buy the stuff. His name is Peter Jeffs, and he will be sentenced soon, to a much lesser sentence than he deserves, since he broke into many other houses besides ours. If I talked to him I'm sure he'd blame this insidious drug, that he needed so bad he was willing to violate a stranger's sanctity to take stuff he could sell at a pawn shop.

I read Mike Kirby's story on his blog and there was a photo of a tiny rose inside a four-inch glass tube. Combine this with a little piece of Chore Boy pot scrubber and you've got a portable, cheap crack pipe, the story said. The tubes are sold in gas stations and until just a few months ago, at Garden City Market in South Deerfield. I walked over and asked them to stop selling the little pipes, that cost just 20 cents each. One of the owners Sam, said sure, she'd stop offering them, but until recently you could also get them at Cumberland Farms and in just about any gas station. Check the next time you get gas, you'll see them up on a rack or hidden behind the counter.

Another article in the St. Petersburg Times said that when threatened with losing their liquor licenses, a bunch of Korean store0wners down in Florida stopped selling the roses in tubes. I did a search on the Internet for the two wholesalers who supply convenience stores--one is called Jacobs' Paradise, and they used to carry the item that they called "Wild Rose Small."

But now, a search for this product, and its stock name 99-WR1 comes up empty. Perhaps they are getting heat and decided that this super profitable, yet controversial item, isn't worth it.

A Mile-Long Parked Train that Cuts a Town in Two

There's a problem, you see, a problem in River City...a problem that extends throughout this great big land of ours. It's railcars. I read today in the WSJ that many small towns are battling a new scourge: miles and miles of unused, stored freight train cars that cut many communities in half.

And worse, many of the old tall freight cars are bright yellow and bear profane grafitti on their faded and peeling exteriors! Imagine a school yard where the kids have to look at out cursing blocking cars for months on end!

New Castle, Indiana has it bad. Here a short line that once connected an automobile manufacturer supplier has been abandoned, they shut down the plant. So the Union Pacific is storing a mile-long train of empty cars on this line that goes as close as ten feet from some houses. The locals complained...but were told that the railroad has every right to keep its cars on their tracks, after all that's what the tracks were built for. The man who collects the rent from the railroad for storage answered this way: "The railroad has been there a lot longer than when they bought their houses."

The problem nationally is being felt all over the west. Where once the railroads had 5000-8000 cars resting out of service, now they've got 48,000 idle cars. There's just not enough shipping business to use them, so they sit, making neighbors mad.

Jason Takes a Stand Against Racist Workers

Last night I went out late to a party in Springfield. With my new regimen that no longer includes booze, it's much easier to envision a safe drive back and forth late at night...and there was no way I'd miss Jackie and Mark's annual Oscar Party. I got there and it was crowded and fun, many people jammed into just a few rooms and a table full of dishes prepared with titles from Oscar nominees. The winner was a gorgeous cake that I did not get to taste.

Jason Tsitso and his wife Sarah are two people we've met a few times before. First at this party last year, and then at Mark and Jac's wedding on the Cape. He works building stores for Ikea, so his job takes him all over the country. He told me about the times he's had to work in the South, and has encountered racism among the workers. "They'd look over and say, we don't wanna work with those f*** n***'s, or something. I mean really blatant hateful speech."

"When that happens I speak right up," he said. "I tell them that if they want to treat someone that way, then they're not working for our company. Anything like that and they're gone."

I admired him for not allowing people to talk that way, and for using his position of authority to call them out on crap like that. It's nice to meet people like Jason with principals and the good sense to challenge people. We saw a report on TV last week that showed how many people when confronted by a racist person say or do nothing...just let it pass.

In 2012, Your Charger Will Fit My Phone

Why didn't they think of this 200 million junked chargers ago? At a meeting of the mobile phone industry, a sudden agreement was reached to one of the most vexing and frustrating aspects of owning a cellphone. How do you charge it and how come the chargers are all #$*! different?

The makers of phones have heard your complaints and are feeling guilty that their industry generates more than 50 million tons of waste a year. These are the old chargers we throw way, to the tune of 48-51 million a month, according to the story in last week's WSJ by the AP.

As of 2012, there will be simply one cellphone charger, say 17 different manufacturers of handsets. The new standard chargers will have a USB interface, and with its energy savings features, it will use half as much juice. This will cover AT&T, Motorola, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Vodaphone's units.

Hopefully, the Mac iphones will follow suit in this very logical and "about time" idea.

After Pleasing the Crowd, I was Pleased by a Band

I think a good way to judge how successful a speaking engagement is would be the number of people who want to ask questions, and how many come down to introduce themselves after you're all done. On these two scores, my Search Engine Optimizing presentation at the Boston Globe Travel Show was a big success. It felt great up there and my slides were tweaked just enough so I didn't read them, but instead, used them as a starting point to talk about broader topics.

After the exhilarating session (best was when a few people said it could have been longer to get all of their questions in) I wandered out on to the show floor met some of the exhibitors. I got some literature about Alberta where I will be visiting the Calgary Stampede in July and saw dancers in very revealing outfits touting Puerto Rico and Aruba. Oh la la!

Then I met up with my mates and we went over to the Yellow Sofa Cafe. There I was amazed by a very talented band called Swing Caravan. They play gypsy jazz, inspired by Django Rheinhardt, and the drummer plays a tiny assemblage of a kit...a washboard, an overturned sap bucket, a tiny cymbal and two pots he bangs on with rings on his fingers. He did pick up a set of brushes, but the most dramatic playing is when he taps those items with his deft fingers. Wow!

Up on the Podium, It's a Nervous Yet Most Excellent Feeling

I stayed a bit late at the office last night, my friend Joe helped me put the finishing touches on my power point slides that I'll use today at 2:30 pm at the Boston Globe Travel Show. I will begin the day at the Holyoke Y, then hop in the car and drive to Somerville, so spend a little time with my son Sam.

I always try to see him when I find myself having business in Beantown. Then I'll go to the Seaport Covention Center to walk around the show and meet some of the exhibitors who I know from our regular NY show.

There is an energy you get when you go down and stand at the podium, waiting for people to file in and find their seats. It's one of the reasons actors act on stage, and the feeling singers get when they're just about to walk out to belt out the opening number. It's a nervousness that feels great. I know and breathe my topic, search engine optimizing. I spend day upon day thinking and reading and I've sharpened up the presentation. I'm ready to for the lights to dim and share it with my audience.

Celebrity Tweets Are All the Rage

I visited the market in my hometown of Blawenburg this morning and found a copy of the NY Post. Inside there was a story that grabbed my attention...about celebrities who use the popular Twitter program to share short messages with the world. (People's twitter addresses are www.twitter.com/their name) in case you, like many people I know, refuse to get into this new rage.

But I've become a big fan of this fast-growing phenomenon...I put up at least 4-6 tweets every day, and so far in less than a month have garnered 528 followers. Cool! The Post story was titled "Pick of the Twitter" and here are just a few of the famous folks who twit regularly.

*Demi Moore, (twitter.com/mrskutcher) tweets 4-5 times a day. Husband Ashton can be found at /aplusk and he posts 5-6 times a day. He says his tweets are mostly about non-celebrities.

*Tina Fey tweets just monthly, at /tinafey. She says the person putting up her tweets is pretty funny.

*Lance Armstrong (/lancearmstrong) posts a mighty 10 times a day. A recent tweet was about the bikes that were stolen from the team van in California.

*Karl Rove, (/karlrove) is also a 10-tweet-a-day guy. Like his columns his tweets sometimes make a lot of sense, even if he did used to work for the hated GWB.

*Shaquille O'Neal (/the_real_shaq) posts a tweet once a day, mostly about basketball and his Big Life.

*MC Hammer (/mchammer) I've been following him, he throws in a lot of references to events he attends like the inauguration, and a few days ago he opined, "celebrity is an empty shell, it's what you do with it that's important." I like that.

He Used Harvested Body Fat to Fuel His Car

C. Alan Bittner is not available to do liposculpting in his Beverly Hills clinic at this time. That's because he is currently living in an unidentified South American country "where I can help those most in need." He spoke with Rhonda Rundle of the WSJ by telephone, shortly before the phone line went dead.

In today's paper, a story entitled "What To Know Before Going Under the Lipsuction Knife," Bittner is alleged to have allowed underlings to perform surgeries and even used patient's harvested body fat to fuel his car. He once had a website called 'lipodiesel.org' but it's no longer on the web. The Medical board "went ballistic" when they heard about the body fat fuel, even though he said he had consent forms signed by patients ok'ing the idea.

Bittner was also a master of search, one client who sued him said she kept seeing his clinic's name pop up in Google searches for liposuction. He was known as Dr. Lipo 90210, before shutting his practice down in December and moving south to perform good works.

The California Medical Board executed a search warrant of his Beverly Hills and Irvine California offices, but have filed no charges against the good doc. He said he retired to the unnamed South American country because he wasn't enjoying his work anymore.

Visiting The House Where I Grew Up

How many people can say that at age 50, they spend the weekend in the house where they grew up? Often I think about how lucky I am to have to parents who have been happily married for 56 years and still live in the comfortable old Colonial house they bought in 1960.

This house has been modified and added to, more comfortable over the ages, but it's still the same house looking out at the barn where I lived for a summer as a teenager. Next door the little house is gone, replaced by a parking lot for a new giant four-family monstrosity. Some of the trees I used to climb as a youth have been cut down, others I can still recall. Where they once had a cold screened porch, they now have a comfy long dining room with a long farm table that seats about 10. It's a treat to get to come down here and have my three sisters come and enjoy dinner at this big table. Last night I shot some videos of my funny younger sister telling a long story.

My dad thanked me for coming down and visiting them during the week. I explained that since Christmas has become a time with my children and grandchildren, it made more sense to do a post-holiday visit...and besides, I like being a part of their weekday lives. Dad goes off to read to the blind this morning, Valerie has a doctor's appointment and errands to run. Her regular routine today would be her volunteering at Planned Parenthood. We'll meet up for lunch, a chance to catch up one-on-one. The way fathers and sons need to do once in a while to keep in touch.

Have Faith, He Said to Himself, It will Grow and Grow

Leaving this morning for a trip to visit family in Princeton NJ. I love the chance to see these folks because they're always welcoming and interested in what we are all doing. We will also give them a chance to meet and hang out with little Sophie. Gotta do some homework while on the trip to prepare for my Search Engine Optimizing speech at the Boston Globe Travel show Friday. It's fun being up on that stage talking about stuff I know well and love.

It's President's Day...so the cafe is slow, but not as slow as it was a few years ago when we first opened. I think about the cafe and grow impatient with our progress. I want the cafe to be pulling in bigger sales, and even though the slope has been on the increase it's frustrating to see how much we spend and how little we ultimately keep after payroll, taxes and food.

I take solace in watching a few other cafes, though. The Loose Goose cafe opened about eight years ago in Amherst. Now they have six people working like madmen to make the sandwiches, they are so busy it's nuts. The Black Sheep, almost 25 years old, does at least 500 coffees a day, and they're packed all of the time. These businesses started out as humble as we did, and now they've become institutions....I love our cafe and hope that we too, grow and prosper and benefit from perservering long enough to be busy all the time.

Car on Fire on Interstate 91

On my way to Holyoke last night, I saw a strange big blob of light...then I realized it was a car on fire...and behind it was a nearly mile-long line of headlights. I sent this video to CBS 3 News, I am not sure if it ever made it on the air.

At 80, She Could Skip Across Temple Sites Like a Gazelle

I have been exercising at a different Y this week, the one in Greenfield is where I ended up a few nights. What a joy to discover that they have a Wi-Fi signal there. So I popped out my itouch and listened to my Pandora program while on the Elyptical.

My current gym book remains Andrew Eame's story about his journey following Agatha Christy, titled The 8:55 to Baghdad. He describes a bunch of new passengers who would be joining him from Syria into Iraq. I loved the way he writes about people.

"She was a tall, slightly bent lady with a very gentle voice that tended to witter on and then tail away when she realized nobody in particular was listening, a mannerism that concealed the fact that she was actually a very shrewd academic from Oxford. She had floppy grey-blond hair and gold-rimmed glasses, behind which lurked a pair of pale, quiet eyes. Brigitte was the oldest of all of us at eighty-one, but she wore jeans, monkey boots, had a penchant for vodka and cigarettes and was invariably vigorous and cheerful. Years of smoking had given her a voice like Marlene Dietrich, but hadn't impeded her health a jot and she could skip across ravaged temple sites, all sand and rubble, like a gazelle.

Then there was Charles, a dry-as-a-bone antiques dealer in his late twenties but with attitudes that were already gathering dust. His pallid, Tweedledee physique and cavalry twill wardrobe made him seem much older."

Pizza Delivery Guys Made $20K a Week!

Last night I watched a sobering and fascinating (like watching a car crash in slow motion) television program on CNBC called "House of Cards." In two hours, it told the story of how we got into our current credit crisis. Interviews with Alan Greenspan told of the confusing "collateralized Debt Obligations" or CDOs that even he was confused by. They were slapped with AAA ratings from rating agencies who had recent b-school grads believing that house prices would always rise 6-8 percent per year. Every year.

A woman in Compton CA talked about how wonderful it was in 2004 a fellow church member turned mortgage broker sold her a mortgage she couldn't afford...some that even had reduced interest with the rest of the interest tacked onto the principal. She's long since defaulted on the huge mortgage and moved out. Subject after subject who never should have bought a house in pricey California by the end of the show were answering the door to the sheriff, toting an eviction notice.

"There were guys who used to deliver pizzas making twenty grand a month," said a man who once worked for a company called Quick Funding. Like everyone at the firm, he's unemployed. Quick Funding's owner was briefly famous for owning a Ferrari Enzo that was nearly totalled during a practice run for a movie promo. He said no matter how unqualified you were, he could sell your loan to Wall St., they'd in turn sell it to Asia or Europe with its AAA rating.

Even in Narvik Norway, town officials who bought CDOs from a Citibank offering have lost millions, and they've laid off firemen and other employees. "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is," said a chagrined town official.

One man made more than a billion in profits, a hedge fund operator who bet against CDOs and the housing market. His fund went up 600% in less than a year, he told the show's host. He figured out what was happening when he sat next to a banker who sold CDOs in Spain, and followed the trail, then bet big against the whole thing. He was a rare trader indeed.

A former CDO salesman said he doesn't feel guilty about selling those worthless instruments. Today he runs a consulting business for former mortgage brokers. A former Bear Stearns broker admitted that he felt a little bad, that he was part of a chain that resulted in such a spectacular failure.

Donations Pour In for Greenfield School Computers

Greenfield MA gets a pretty bad rap for its schools. I remember well a friend who worked in the high school and was so miserable he almost gave up teaching. Then he found himself a job at Frontier and has been happier ever since. The school committee makes the news a lot, and there seems to be turmoil and funding arguments quite often. Despite this grim outlook, there was a very hopeful story in today's Recorder about generous donations of computers recently.

First, 50 used Dells with Windows XP (way better than Vista!) were given by an anonymous donor. Then Greenfield Savings Bank threw in 50 hard drives. Now more than 100 keyboards, and assorted mice are coming in from a Boston company, who heard about the group and their website http://www.changegreenfield.com/. I always love the power of the web to influence givers.

Now Beth Lorenz, a local car dealer, has offered up space in her showroom on Federal St. to store even more donated loot. Michael Phillips, the grass-roots group's founder, says he thinks that by now they can replace all of the 7-9 year old computers that are running the terrible Windows 2000 program over to 3-5 year old XP machines.

At the end this means that most classrooms will have their own computer, and kids won't have to schedule time in a computer lab. And that's progress, Greenfield style.

It Makes a Laptop Seem Like a Ball & Chain

Remember that scene by the pool in The Graduate when they whisper that all important word?
"Plastics. " My new word is "Mobile." I just helped set up a new website that will show up beautifully on mobile phone or iphone screens as well as on any computer or laptop.

Again and again I am impressed with how much I like my little tiny screen. The iTouch. That instead of turning on the computer or flipping up the laptop, plugging it in, this and that, it's easier. I wake up pick it up after it wakes me up with an alarm, then just pop out my email.

I think age makes us all like things that add comfort, and ease. So that's why in a month or so you'll be able to read any GoNOMAD story in a phone-sized format. I think we are ahead of the pack on this because once you try out the internet on your phone, you'll want it again.

Visit this site on your mobile phone: Travel Gadget Guru

Travel Writing 201, Tips from Three Pros

I'm still thinking about our Travel writing seminar at the Javits Center on Saturday. It was exciting to have an audience of 180 listening to every idea we had about how to break into the travel writing business. I was impressed because many of the people in the audience were already experienced writers, yet they felt that we could offer them something.

It's always nice to spend time around people who think they've got something to learn. I mean, who knows it all, right? After I got back to the office I published a story that summarizes Julia, Kent and my point of view about this topic, with each of our own tips.

I sent this out in email--D'OH!--with the wrong URL. Boy that's bad internet form. So here is a link to the story, and I hope that if you're an aspiring travel writer this helps you too. Thanks to Shoul for this excellent photo!

A Morning with Sofie, Six Weeks

Valerie Sophie is just six weeks old. New and barely unwrapped. I used my cute little videocamera called a Vado HD by Creative that's about the size of a cellphone to shoot her in high definition, and of course, put her on YouTube. Who can resist those tiny little hands? So cute!

Energy Consumption at Home and Around the World

I've been getting pats on the back for not sipping anything alcoholic since Dec 29. The best part was last night when after being away four days, my daughter and son-in-law remarked that I looked 'way less puffy, smaller, like someone took a pin and deflated you." I never knew I was so bloated but boy that's a nice compliment, and it makes it worth forgoing more booze for much longer.

What I notice is that I stay up much later and no longer fall asleep in my big leather chair. I make it through the whole WSJ, and sometimes manage to stay up late enough to catch monologues. In last night's paper, there was a whole section about energy, focusing on the economics behind efforts to be greener. There were charts that provided some glimpes into consumption around the world, such as a gas price chart showing Venezuela's gas costs .08 per gallon, and in Eritrea it costs $9.38.

Despite France's big lead in nukes, the US produces 807 billion kilowatts vs their 420 kw. Germany leads the world in solar, producing 5,761 yearly megawatts, followed by Spain and Japan. The US is in third place here.

The country with hte lowest per capita energy consumption is Bangladesh--the highest is Qatar. For total energy consumption, hey, nobody comes close to the US, we blow away China, in second place by nearly 2-1.

Dreamers Still Dream About Trips Faraway

Driving home last night on the packed FDR drive in the truck, I tuned into 770 am and heard some startling words from host John Bachelor. He had two experts on from Dow Jones, and they rattled off scary facts that made me shudder. For example, the total dollars held by US banks is a little more than one trillion. And the total debt owed by those banks is three trillion. Yikes! The men were jocular as they savaged the Obama 'porkulus' plan, saying it would not create jobs and that there was way too much government spending.

This dim news contrasted starkly with the gaiety of the NY Times travel show. There, nearly 30,000 people waited in long lines to get in, and to walk the dozens of aisles to learn about where they could go for their next vacation. Every one of them was more than likely still thinking about traveling, thinking about that long planned trip, scheming and dreaming about a place faraway.

Despite the recession, thank God there are still people who dream of their next trip, and live in a partly fantasy world about walking down lanes in sleepy French villages, or finding ripe tomatoes in a Tuscan town market. In the Big Apple, too, there was life and vitality--full restaurants, bustling streets, and that unique excitement that night in the city brings.

Yeah we're heading for some tough times...and we all know people who have gotten laid off, or downsized. Yet if we can all grab that hope, and dream of our next vacation, and go out and spend some dough, hey...maybe there's a way out.

Some of the People Behind GoNOMAD

Here's the gang at the show ready to talk about the website to the crowd. From left, Joe O'Rourke, our seasonal tradeshow vet, Cindy Bigras, Travel Writer, Editor and Paul Shoul, Staff Photographer.

The Tent Where All the Action is at the Javits

We dutifully forked over another thirty bucks to get the Wi-Fi at the booth, so now I can show you all the tent that we're using here at the show. Our staff artist Dave Chouinard created some excellent signage, as he does for the cafe and the website, and his handiwork helps give us great visibility here at the massive Javits. Next door is the Comic-con show, where 70,000 costume-clad weirdos parade around in silly outfits with painted faces.

I heard a funny story about the comic book business from old friend Marie Javins She said that sales fell off a cliff about a decade ago, when most kids decided that $2.99 was too much money for a 10-minute read. She helps produce a comic book sold only in the Arab world, and the owners have lost millions trying to force their product down the throats of uninterested Arab youngsters. Still, Arab pride keeps them from pulling the plug, instead they lose money but keep their pride intact, keeping low sales figures under wraps.

We found a new restaurant for our annual GoNOMAD dinner. Rachel's on 9th Avenue provided us with sumptuous eats, live jazz and the chance to meet some new people. Of course it was the chance to celebrate being here in the biggest city in the world and having a booth at America's largest travel show. We're ready here in the tent for meeting, greeting and asking people that same question: "Have you been to GoNOMAD?

A Party Full of Youngsters, A Tent That Stands Out

We're in the big Apple for the next three days, meeting friends, reader and advertisers who all know us through GoNOMAD. Last night Kent and I took a long, circituitous taxi ride down to the lower East Side to a bar called Lolita. Packed in like sardines, 20-somethings guzzled drinks, and we ran into many of our travel cohorts: Sean Keener from Bootsnall, David Farley of World Hum and Travelers Tales, Reid of Reid guides, Marie Javins, the cartoonist, and a few young women who said they wanted to be travel writers.

It was a boisterous crowd, people moving around and jockeying for position in a mix of interesting conversations about the business we all love. We talked about CPMs and CPCs, and the importance of content, and press trips that are coming up and ones we just enjoyed. I was the only one wearing a jacket, feeling a little old standing there with my fruit juice and ginger ale.

This morning we set up the GoNOMAD tent at the Javits. It sticks up about 14 feet, and atop the blue canvas tent (the kind you use for a farmer's market) there is a four-sided 5' sign that has a different messages about us. In the back there is a 10' x 6' vinyl banner that shows what our home page looks like. I'm already pleased with how it looks and how it dominates the landscape...plus the tent's blue color matches all of the drapes and carpet!

Another Man's Music, Another Man's Porn

I bought a used ipod Touch the other day, and it came on a messy looking taped up box. It has an engraving, that says 'Verlyne megan miller'and 'be humble' beneath. After I charged it up, I opened some of the icons on the touchscreen and was given a window into another person's life.

There was his or her porn...apparently he/she likes big black men and white women. Lurid videos jumped out at me...better erase that bookmark. Then the music....one song was a parody of the famous 'Baby Got Back', but this was called the 'white boy remix.'It sang in jest about little butts of white chicks, and imitated how white people talk. "I like small butts, I cannot lie, you honkey's can't deny..."

On the front of the touch was a portrait of a black family, two women with a teen son and an infant. I knew where they lived because they set the weather for Rochester and Manhattan NY, and I knew that they got a lot of junk mail. Many people had sent in friend requests on Facebook and Myspace too. It appears that they didn't delete emails and there were hundreds of junk mails and that they were on more junk lists than I'd ever want to be.

In fifty years, if somebody opened up this cute little device, they'd know a whole lot about a person and our world in 2009. I know more than I need to know already!

BusinessWest Heralds Our Little Towne

A most excellent article just came out about my favorite little towne. I had a fun time with the writer from BusinessWest, Joe Bednar, with whom I spent part of an afternoon with a few weeks ago trumpeting how great Deerfield is. At one point I took him outside of the cafe and pointed down the street. "This little town has it all," I said,"It's like Mayberry...you can walk to everything!"

I liked how the story came out and I can't wait to show it to my fellow Deerfield Attractions members! Here's the beginning:

More Than Candles

Deerfield Promotes Itself as a Day Trip — and an Ideal Place to Live

“Did you talk to Max?”

BusinessWest heard this question more than once when looking for business owners to talk about what’s happening in Deerfield.

The man in question is Max Hartshorne, owner of the GoNOMAD Café in the bustling, throwback village just off Routes 5 and 10 in South Deerfield, and it’s difficult to imagine someone more enthusiastic about his town and the opportunities it presents for residents, entrepreneurs, and visitors alike.

“I’ve had people come to the café and say, ‘I just moved to Deerfield, and I love it. This is fantastic. I can’t believe how nice it is here,’” Hartshorne related. “We have houses on the market like every town does, but last year, there were only three foreclosures in the whole town.”

People who live in Deerfield generally know about its roster of tourist stops — not just the Yankee Candle flagship store and the museum houses of Historic Deerfield, but the Magic Wings butterfly conservatory, Richardson’s Candy Kitchen, Antiques at Deerfield, and the New England Wild Flower Society’s Nasami Farm, just to name a few.

A Sister Casts a Wary Eye

Nathan smiles for the camera, but sister Sofie is a little wary pictured in her party dress.

Pittsburgh's a City with a Big Heart and Six Rings

Last night we were amazed to see the change in the score. Suddenly, the Cardinals looked like they might squeak it out. We all watched as the Steel Curtain went down. Wow! I have good memories of my visit last June to this small city of just 400,000 with with now, six super bowl titles, and many, many bridges.

We biked along the Ohio River, past the stadium where they play their home games. You can see the river from the stands. Here is a bit of what I wrote after my visit to Pittsburgh.

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.

Entering Pittsburgh from its airport, you drive past rolling hills and countryside, to a gradual descent into the Fort Pitt tunnel, which was bored through Mount Washington, a wall of rock and foliage. You exit the 3,000-foot tunnel to a panorama of the city right in front of you. A dramatic entrance like no other major US city, all of a sudden you see the bridges, buildings and arenas of Pittsburgh.

Free Wi-Fi, No Password? Si, Senor, Si!

Because of the nature of our business, using Wi-Fi and being connected is very important when we're traveling. With the 'Net in the room, I feel up to date, and in touch with back home. One of the nice things about the two places we stayed in Mexico is that both hotels offered free Wi-Fi with no passwords, at a good speed. It was almost good enough for Skype calls. Almost.

In the US, we take that for granted, as anyone who has stayed at a Red Roof or another chain motel can attest. But in Europe, Australia and
New Zealand, whoa...no way. There is always a password, and always a bit of a hassle to get on line. They look at you funny when you check into somewhere in Italy and ask about the Wi-Fi, they scurry to direct you to where you can buy a little card with a password. Then the tourism board won't pay for it, and it appears on your room bill as an incidental.

But in Mexico, no problema, no password, no sign in, just pop up and go. I could tell I was in Internet heaven when I was able to post a Tweet using my iTouch right at the front desk of Ceiba del Mar.

Now we're back and staring at this mountain of white. Last night the heating system here started making ominous noises, falling to a very low temperature, and Cindy tried to shoot a video to show her heating guy. We finally fell back asleep but it was nerve wracking to be down there at 4 in the morning trying to capture the strange noise on tape.