Meraki Brings the Net the Final Ten Yards
This morning I decided to open the cafe to just Cindy and me. Despite a regular customer who popped by wanting a coffee, “Sorry, we’re closed,” we have the cozy cafe all to ourselves, and we made omelettes, read the NY Times and enjoyed lattes and good music from the […]
Writing Talent is in the Genes
After the season’s first real snowfall, New England woke up with a smile on its face. Hunkered down in Green Lane’s basement, I read the Wall St. Journal account of how a new novel will be marketed. I saw the same book featured in the Costco magazine, so this title […]
Wal-Mart Pushing the Green Tipping Point
Today’s Wall St. Journal included more evidence that yes, Wal-Mart is going green. This might be window dressing for the behemoth corporation that faces bad press over wages, but I think this is the beginning of a paradigm shift in how people view the environment. In a speech in London, […]
A Beef about Bardwell Goes Nowhere
Today I’m up a little earlier than usual for a morning shift at the cafe. The light outside is golden, the air is chilled. I picked up the Gazette and found a story about a dog at work. This brings back memories of E-S Sports, where Frank Suher used to […]
Whoa, Look Out, It’s a Traffic Camera!
I read about traffic cameras in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal in a column by Holman W. Jenkins Jr. He writes that the American Automobile Association has turned against them—it’s because these ubiquitous cameras, placed in the beginning to help police against muggings, have turned into money machines for governments. One […]
Sonic Boom II
These sonic boom photos are by Andreas Zeitler, Flying Wings, and published on airliners.net.
This is What a Sonic Boom Looks Like
You can hear a sonic boom when a jet exceeds the speed of sound. But have you ever seen one? I think these photos, sent to me by Eric Jayne, are indeed the real thing. He’s the type of guy who understands these things.
The Sawfish Grabs the Logs Underwater
I always relish the chance to sit down with the latest issue of Wired Magazine. This month’s issue, with a new redesign that I’m not wild about, did not disappoint–I read about underwater logging in British Columbia. Back in 1954, Ootsa Lake was created to power a hydroelectric dam for […]
How Much is Annoying Your Readers Really Worth?
I wrote a letter to a local newspaper to complain. We get a stack of the local weekly newspaper here at the cafe, and every time someone goes to pick one up, a sheaf of ugly ad inserts falls out. There is no way around it, they always fall down […]
"I’ll Take a Case of Costco" Disease
I am glad to know I’m not the only one who has this experience. I walk into my local Costco store to stock up on cafe supplies and often emerge with some huge extravagance that I had no intention of buying. Today’s NY Times had a story about ‘the Costco […]
Painting Olive Green and the Joy of Drumming
Yesterday I grabbed a paintbrush and changed the color of my bedroom to an olive “GoNOMAD” shade of green. Francisco, my sturdy son-in-law, did most of the work but I helped turn my crappy white walls into a terrific new shade. Today we tackle the harder part of doing the […]
Geothermal Power is David Reynold’s Pursuit
David Reynolds of Wendell is trying to develop and market a system of widescale geothermal power with a 100 mile long tunnel.
Sometimes You Need a Geek, not a Deal Maker
Fred Vogelstein writes in the current issue of Wired about how Yahoo is losing (or lost) the war with Google over search advertising. It’s brutal. “When Terry Semel became co-CEO of Warner Bros. in the early 1980s, he was steeped in the marketing and distribution plumbing of Hollywood. So it’s […]
News from the GoNOMAD Front
So much goes on in this little office, it is like a whirlwind….people coming and going, old friends and acquaintances saying hello, and all sorts of interesting calls and emails coming in from around the world. *We’re working on a plan to provide travel content to a Dubai-based magazine about […]
Kidnapping the Wrong Guy
Last night in the NY Times William Grimes reviewed a book by an improbable hero named Stanley Albert, an assistant federal attorney in New York City. One night, on Albert’s birthday, he was strolling down a street and struck up a conversation with an attractive woman. But behind him lurked […]
Two Very Angry Women Crashing Cars
Google Video presents, "Two Very Angry Women Crashing Cars." The two women wind up crashing their cars into each other and finally go into a head on collision. The expressions on the two women are priceless.
Look What You Can Get for Only 99 Rupees!
Tonight I found an article about the My Dollar Stores, one of India’s most popular American imports. These stores are able to import direct from China to nearby India, and in the big cities they have proven very popular. One lesson the California-based founders of My Dollarstores learned was that […]
Who Wouldn’t Want to Stay at the Beagle B&B?
AOL told us about the Beagle B&B in Cottonwood, Indiana. “You enter the body of the beagle, nicknamed “Sweet Willy’ from a private, spacious second story deck. Inside and up another level in the head of the dog are a loft room for additional sleeping accommodations and a cozy reading […]