Bike Lanes, Public Bikes, It’s All Coming Together
Glad to be back in Deerfield after a wonderful and busy weekend in the Big Apple. Got a chance to read Neal Peirce’s column in the Daily Hampshire Gazette over lunch. As he has written previously, Peirce is a bicycling evangelist. He takes any opportunity to write about developments in […]
Frommer, Steves, Wright–They All Love GoNOMAD!
Day three at the big show. Last night we returned to our favorite Italian Osteria called Gelsi, we discovered this temple of the cuisine of Puglia in 2005, and hadn’t been for a year. The chef came out to chat with us, (but mostly with Cindy in Italian) and we […]
The View from the Aisle
Just back from watching a ridiculously thin woman with an NBC microphone doing a stand-up in front of a bunch of Greek dancers. There also was the new Tourism Minister from South Africa, who we confirmed we’ll get a chance to meet. Now it’s time to wait for the crowds, […]
Meeting and Greeting So Many Ideas at the Show
Awoke in the hotel early, thinking about the show. Got an early call from my manager Lizzy, talking of six inches of fresh snow, and more on the way. Time to close the cafe. oh well. Better than losing bucks all day, and when we heard the other guy, Jerry’s […]
Settled in at the Javits with Wi-Fi and Ready to Rock
Well, here we are….we’ve set up the booth at the Javits, we’ve even got our Wi-Fi working in the booth, and everything’s set for the big show. Last night we walked the frigid and windy streets, it’s always so great to be back in Manhattan, I thought, and we did […]
Tossing, Turning, Shivering–But Ready to Rock
Last night I alternated between tossing, turning, shivering and wondering what I should not forget when leave the next morning for New York. It was a difficult night, unsettling, and it reminded me of back when I first opened the cafe and had so many things on my mind. I […]
Advice to My Friend Jim: It Wants To Be Free
Yesterday in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, I read a column by editor Jim Foudy about the newly revamped Gazettenet, the paper’s website. Since the beginning of time Steve and I have told the folks over there that they are crazy to keep charging people to view the site, since they […]
Goodbye Gino, We Will Miss You!
Gino Piccin has passed away. I got an email yesterday from his daughter Nancy, she had seen my 2005 blog post about him. When I wrote it, I thought it was the final end of a long battle. Though he was very sick back then, he rallied, and came back […]
Eric Suher: The Arts are Fragile, Support Them!
Today we went up to Northampton for the Really Big Show, a 17-year tradition that involves dozens of acts, from circus aerialists to jugglers and a Don Ho impersonation. After the intermission, the Northampton Center for the arts gave an award for community activism and dynamic leadership to my old […]
No Longer Bowling Alone, But Golf is Sinking Fast
I never knew this until I read it in today’s New York Times, but golf is losing popularity. The story said there has been a serious decline since 2000, and that people who used to play frequently are playing less and less. Golf courses are trying new schemes to battle […]
The Johnson Who Keeps Talking About the Money
Today’s a quiet day at the cafe, and I got some time to read the WSJ, and find out about a heir who has made nearly everyone he knows very mad. That would be Jamie Johnson, great grandson of the founder of J&J, who as we like to say in […]
Speaking in Boston with No Worries or Fear
I’m still up on the podium, after all of the people left the room. I breathed a sigh of relief this morning at about 11:30 am, after my successful presentation at the Boston Globe Travel Show. I was nervous, yet prepared. It all went well and it was a thrill […]
Random Musings that Amaze Me
Sometimes I am amazed at how much cool stuff I learn one day’s newspaper. Below are random musings from a night flipping my eyes between Simon Cowell and Idol and the Wall St. Journal. In NYC’s Cooper Union college a new nine-story building is being built–with elevators that only stop […]
Finally, Something Useful to Do with Heat Seeking Missiles
America’s military brass are surely on cloud nine tonight, as they gear up to use a $69 million toy to do something useful: blow up a spy satellite the size of a city bus. CBS news had a story on their website. The eye in the sky is named US […]
It’s Either Í Know Nothing’ or ‘Let Me Tell Y ou How It Is’
I’m nervous. I’m nervous because on Friday I am going to stand up in front of dozens of people in the travel business and make a speech. It won’t be a real speech, not like a politician speech, it will be a presentation. It will be about search engines and […]
The Secret of Roman Punch
Eric Felton writes about drinking, cocktails and ritual in the WSJ on the weekends. Today he taught me about Roman Punch. The tale is long, and goes way back to Dolly Hayes, the famous teet0talling first lady, who would serve no booze in the White House. “The water flowed like […]
For a Fleeting Moment, Dead Birds Hold the Kids’ Interest
I read a story in today’s Gazette about a massacre of cedar waxwings. It was a sad day at a local school when a flock of dozens of the songbirds crashed into large windows after being pursued by a hawk. Bill Danielson, who writes a column called “Speaking of Nature” […]
He Makes His Living Secretly Tailing Cigarette Thiefs
People continue to fascinate me, as I meet them on my travels and while going about our town spreading the word about the new Deerfield Attractions website. I met a man the other day over a beer who told me was in the security business. “What kind of security,” I […]