Getting Down to Details about Travel Search
I am in a huge pavilion, a sort of giant tent, and a man up in front of us is speaking about his company called Hitwise. His company provides intelligence to on-line travel agencies about their competitors, they can tell you, for instance, where web surfers went after they left […]
"Blogger’s Summit" at PhoCusWright
I’m in a room full of bloggers. They all have their laptops open and we are constantly popping over to search engines and sites, sharing opinions and information about the world of travel blogs. It’s a heady time, it’s so much fun to be an established blogger who has a […]
TV Trip Shows You the View from Your Hotel Room
Part of the fun of this conference is the chance to have short meetings with new companies who are entering the on-line travel sphere. I sat with two young guys who have started a new company called TV Trip. It’s a cool concept–they provide a video look at thousands of […]
Marty Talks About Tricked Out Word Press Mash-ups
On the bus over to the Omni, I eavesdropped on a man who spoke enthusiastically about blogs, search engine marketing and the work he does creating blog content. His name was Marty, and he wore Ray Bans over his shaved head. He said as he was leaving the bus that […]
Meeting Girls from Google
I made my way over to the towering Omni Hotel at Champion’s Gate, on the flat plain that is Orlando FL. Unbeknownst to me I was not staying in this palace, but at the nearby Radisson. I met up with Jim Zhu who I’ve known for some time, as he […]
Off to Florida to Hear a Thousand Pitches
It’s still exciting, every time I am about to fly. It’s below forty degrees here at Cindy’s but when I deplane in Orlando this afternoon, temps should be much warmer. I am not sure what to expect for the next few days, but my eternal optimism tells me that it […]
Lew French Knows Just Where the Stones Fit
This morning I learned about a man on Martha’s Vineyard named Lew French. He is a perfectionist, a tough taskmaster, and a wealthy artist…but he doesn’t do it for the money. He was profiled by the TV show Sunday Morning’s Steve Hartman. French fits stones together in an otherworldly way. […]
Tony Wheeler Goes to Iran and Loves It
It’s been a whirlwind of a few days, it’s nice to be back for just a brief spell at home base. Manhattan was the usual mix of exciting nightlife, people from the past, and potential trips that we’ll be writing about all next year. We were taken to a wonderful […]
Time to Taste Hungarian Wines in the Big Apple
Kent and I are ensconced at the Holiday Inn in Manhattan, just about to go meet some fellow travel writers and sample Hungarian wines. Tim Leffel, the owner of Perceptive Travel, extended this invite, and put it succinctly–“Kent, why don’t you join us and sip free wine instead of having […]
We Passed The Test–Now It’s Time to Bake!
We all passed the test. It was an important one, required by state law, and after studying all about food borne illnesses, temperatures for cooking chicken, and the different droppings that pests leave around the kitchen, my staff and I took and passed the Serv-Safe test last night. We celebrated […]
Grand Inga: Blessing or Curse for Congo?
I read with interest on the BBC News a sentence at the very end of an article about Zimbabwe, which was in the news today because they printed $200,000 bills, that buy, well, a sack of sugar. The intriguing part was a note about Grand Inga, where the world’s longest […]
The Holocaust Didn’t Exist–Because It Wasn’t In the Textbooks
A grey, windy day—a good day to sit in the window of the GoNOMAD Cafe and read the WSJ. Here I found a piece by Roya Hakakian about Iran and the Holocaust. The author has a visit from two young female medical students, and at dinner they tell her that […]
Promoting Deerfield Is a Snap–On the Web
Today I met with my state legislators. Actually, it was a comfortable working lunch at Chandler’s Tavern with Sen. Stan Rosenberg, Rep. Steve Kulik, and six other business people who shared a common interest–promoting tourism in Deerfield. Frankin County’s chamber of commerce was represented by Anne Hamilton, Yankee Candle, Historic […]
Puns that I Have Loved
The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.You feel stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.He often broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.Every calendar’s days are numbered.A lot of money is tainted – It […]
It’s Halloween–So It’s Time for the Hayride!
I love following traditions that are always the same, year after year. Last night we joined our neighbors in a Deerfield Halloween tradition that’s always fun–a hayride around the town in the back of farm wagons with kids in costume. Nathan was reluctantly dressed as an elephant. But he didn’t […]
‘All Rise for the Judge–In an Executioner’s Mask
Today was a day for public service. So I drove 48 minutes to ‘nearby Orange’ to appear on a district court jury. The day began after assembling in a room where a television played ‘Ellen’, and then a documentary about a visit to Egypt. And Luxor. Some of us brought […]
Google Phone Will Make Calls Free
Watch Out! Now even telcos have to fear Google. They’re getting into the phone business. A Google phone may just not cost anything–since the company’s method involves monetizing the screen on the handset with advertising, just like they do with search results. Free phones! They’ve been talking to LG and […]
Thanks to Wu, Something’s Being Done to Clean the Lake
China has recently astonished me with the levels of pollution found in the air, water and earth. As a regular international traveler, I haven’t ever tried that hard to go to China, because of the bad air and other hazards. Of course, I am sure there are places of great […]