Playing the Drums Brings Moments of Ecstacy
There is an exhilaration unlike anything else when you’ve just played music with a band–and done it well. I had a moment of triumph last night at my old friend Joe’s house when I took to the full drum set and played two tunes with a spark and precision I […]
Four eBook Publishers Walk Into a Cafe
This morning I joined three of my fellow ebook publishers for a get together around a big table at my favorite Greenfield Cafe, the Brass Buckle. Working on these projects, we tend to go it alone, so I appreciated Jeff Rutherford taking the time to get us all together to […]
Argentina Says We Won’t Pay, And Leaves the Presidential Plane at Home
Argentina is a defiant rogue in financial circles. That’s because in 2001, the country told hundreds of banks, organizations and individuals to take it or leave it. They defaulted on more than $100 million in debt, offering pennies on the dollar to the people who loaned them all the money […]
Downton Abbey Comes Alive at the Masterpiece Ball
View a photo gallery from the Masterpiece Ball 2014 I think in a laid back place like the Pioneer Valley there remains an intrinsic desire to get dressed up once in a while. Enough of the pajamas on Main Street, and the casual Fridays every day. We gravitate toward any […]
Jamaica is a Delightful Place for a Winter Getaway
Tomorrow at the bright hour of 7 am, I’ll be on the phone with my pals at WHYN-AM 560, the talk radio powerhouse out of Springfield where I often share stories of recent travels. Brad and Bo are a lot of fun, always lots of laughs and I always manage […]
My Goals for 2013
It’s time for new year’s resolutions….and I hope that next year I can cross many of these off my list. 1. Push harder to bring back the golden revenues of days gone by. Make more sales calls and keep at it harder to bring more companies into the mix and […]
The Last Blog of the Year–Time for the Best Stories of 2012!
I have a few year end challenges that I hope I can manage to finish today. It’s still what feels like holiday time, despite it being Monday morning, so we’ve gotten a slow start. Outside is about as cold as it gets around here, 16 degrees, and inside it’s taking […]
The Best Books I Read This Year
It’s that funny week between the holidays when nothing gets done except more eating, drinking and lazing around. It’s also a time that I often get wracked with guilt, as if I should be working harder and beat myself up for not really trying. But social engagements trump any obligations, […]
The Christmases of Years Past Are Measured Against Eachother
It’s Christmas night, and the guests have all gone. We took a hike up the slippery mountain, cooked a big meal, sat around and enjoyed our Christmas presents by the fire, and played a card game. Now the house is empty and the cat is back where she belongs, right […]
Downton Abbey is the Theme for a Masterpiece Ball on January 5
Last week a friend and I shared our enthusiasm for the upcoming Masterpiece Ball we’re going to at the Log Cabin. It’s a theme ball, we explained to another friend, about Downton Abbey. A blank stare followed. “Downton Abbey, the great show on PBS. You must have seen it. It’s […]
Like Root Canals, Getting a New Roof is Pretty Much Inevitable
“You’re overdue,” said my friend over lunch. “Everyone has to get a new roof at least once in their lives!” And so it was, I finally bit the bullet and yesterday, the house that I’ve owned for twenty years got its own new roof. I had been staring up […]
An Intern’s Lament Pushes Me Further Down
Is there a malaise going around? Do things just seem not as good as they used to be? I hate to admit that but I am truly feeling that type of a feeling as I proceed in my 54th year of life. I have always been such an optimist, always […]
Is Everything Else Trivial in the Aftermath of this Tragedy?
Some times when a tragedy strikes and when everything on the news relates to terrible details of heinous crimes, it feels like a violation to be writing about other topics…as if anything else at this moment is trivial and off point. When I was in Jamaica over the past five […]
Jamaica’s Leader Asks for Investments to Upgrade Roads and Keep Growing
Yesterday we met Jamaica’s prime minister, the very elegant and stately Hon. Portia Simpson Miller, who officially opened the island’s first airport departure lounge in Montego Bay. It would seem this isn’t a big deal, another airport perk for the high and mighty business class traveler, but it’s a milestone […]
Visiting the Rum factory, enjoying the scenery of St Elizabeth
We drove past vast fields lined with hand made wooden fences, carved branches from the vast forests of Jamaica, used for the fences to keep in the good looking brown cows that are raised here on the South Coast. This part of Jamaica is wide open, spacious, and utterly perfectly […]
Jason Henzell Wants to Create the Martha’s Vineyard of Jamaica
Jason Henzell has the accent and the pedigree to do quite well in Jamaica. His father Perry Henzell produced and directed the defining film about Jamaica heard ’round the world, The Harder They Come, starring Jimmy Cliff. A movie poster decorates Henzell and his family’s inn, Jake’s Hotel, on Treasure […]
Drive With Me from Montego Bay to the Treasure Coast
Ride with me from Montego Bay to Treasure Bay, across the vast mountainous hump of this large-feeling island, in a comfortable large eleven passenger Ford van. We zigzagged out way up around and across the heights until finally we were on our way home. The big van lurches around corners, […]
Milk Sales Hit the Skids, and the Dairy Industry Fights Back
Do you know about the milk crisis? Yep. Since the 1970s, consumption of milk in the US has plunged by 30 percent, according to a story in today’s WSJ. That’s a true bummer on top of the lowest prices in decades, which are creating a situation where the end result […]