Update: shifted villas...to the east about a dozen yards

We've settled on Noble House on the Beach, a villa on the north coast of Jamaica between Montego Bay and Round Hill.

New paint for my 1970 Chevy truck

Click the photo, then click Slideshow

Villas in Jamaica

Planning to head to Jamaica for a vacation in June, along with 2 sets of inlaws as well as my 2 year old son, so...started thinking about renting a villa instead of a traditional hotel. For about the same price as 3 rooms at a traditional resort, we'll get our OWN private pool, plus all the common space...grounds....our own section of beach. Plus, most villas in Jamaica come with full staff--not just maid and groundskeeper, but also a cook and a butler!

If, like us, you're traveling as more than just a couple, this is definitely an option to consider (I'm using The Villa Portfolio, a partner of TheBigDay, as my source for luxury villa rentals in Jamaica).

On my short list so far:

• Lime Acre Villa


• Tranquility on the Beach (pictured)


• Serenity on the Beach


• Sea Haven on Discovery Bay

My new bike - 2009 Suzuki GSX-R750

My new bike!

Villas in Tuscany

If you've ever thought about renting a villa in Italy, have a look at the latest newsletter from The Villa Portfolio. This month, they're talking about their favorite villas in Tuscany.

Higher Education?

I got the following error message when replying to an email from a friend of mine who works at Clackamas Community College:

GroupWise Gateway for Exchange Could Not Deliver Message because the adress does not exit in GroupWise AddessBook

THREE (3) spelling mistakes in the one and only sentence in the message. That's gotta be a record. Perhaps Clackamas Community College's IT staff should....uh....GO TO CLASS?????

On top of the obvious problem...since I replied to his email, certainly his Adress DOES exit in the AddessBook! :-)

Spectacular deals in Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora

The economy is really hurting tourism in Tahiti right now--see this article. As a result, hotels are offering up screaming deals, and many specials are out there at about half of what they would have cost a year ago.



Here's one of my favorite Tahiti specials from the company I work for (Happy Vacations), combining 5 nights on Moorea and 5 nights on Manihi in the Tuamotu Atolls, for $1995 per person. It includes inter-island airfare only; right now there are specials from Air Tahiti Nui for about $850 per person roundtrip from LAX.

Kiyonari apparently can ride in the wet OK

Must have learned to ride in Oregon!

Melinda's Celebration of Life Service

Melinda, I'll love you forever

Click the photo, then click Slideshow

Luxury Villa Rentals

TheBigDay has partnered up with a very cool new company, The Villa Portfolio, which offers luxury villa rentals for honeymooners, destination weddings, and general vacation travelers looking for something a bit different, a little more personal. I've been working with Robert Eastman, the founder, on this for a bit and am very impressed with what he's got in his collection of fabulous villas around the world.

See the press release.

SEZOENSRALLY (rally, onboard camera)

I miss World Rally Championship on SPEED TV!!!

Rotary Road Rally 2008

Rotary Road Rally 2008

EFR 2008

EFR 2008

Rendezvous: a leisurely tour of Paris by Ferrari

It's a 9-minute tour of Paris by film director Claude Lelouch. The soundtrack is a Ferrari 275 GTB engine (Lelouch's own car), but apparently the car used to film it was actually a Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9. I guess I can accept it's better that he drilled holes in a M-B bumper to mount the camera rather than violating the Ferrari's skin.

If you listen carefully, you'll notice a little overzealous mixing of extra tire squeal in places :-( Lots of arguments about the speeds attained in the film...some experts saying no more than 85mph, while Lelouch claimed something over 200kph (about 120mph).

Apparently there was only 1 "lookout" person put in place for safety--near the Louvre.

More about this film here.

Wedding Registry Etiquette

See my article on Google's Knol regarding wedding registry etiquette.

It pays to play hockey on Air Canada

Seth Godin's blog brought this to my attention (I'm quoting him here):

"Air Canada, which my readers generally concur is the single worst major airline in North America, has a fascinating policy. No oversized duffel bags, regardless of weight, unless they contain hockey gear. No shin guards, you pay $80 a bag."

Actually, for reservations made after May 15th of this year, it's now $100 a bag.

Turns out their policy is a bit more balanced than that...it's not just hockey gear that gets the fee waived, it's also snowboards and skis :-). Full details are here.

Reminds me of a contest ran a long time ago to come up with the Canadian equivalent of the phrase "as American as apple pie". The winner was "as Canadian as possible, under the circumstances."

Facebook doesn't like my attitude. HAL?

Occasionally I try to wade through the sea of irrelevant crap that Facebook puts on my page to figure out what my friends are doing etc....and today I got really frustrated with the glacial speed at which Facebook was loading my pages (and jerking elements out from under my mouse).

So I went up to the box where it says "what are you doing right now", and typed in "wondering why Facebook is so annoyingly slow!"

Well, Facebook didn't like that very much at all.

I got an error message something like "Oops, sorry, we can't do that for you, we're working on xyz..."

Then, I clicked on the "Friends online" button in the lower right (where it said several of my friends WERE online), and that magically went to 0 and said something like "can't find any of your friends".

Does this sound like HAL or what???

Best time of year to go to Tahiti

After my trip to French Polynesia about a year ago, a lot of people have asked me what the best time of year to go to Tahiti is...especially when they find out the price difference between low and high season. There's a few factors involved, and while some tropical destinations have fairly radical weather differences in their seasons, I found that January (low season for Tahiti) was really pretty comfortable and beautiful--especially as virtually all the resorts have air conditioning, so you'll sleep well at night.

My eyes, post-Lasik

From Dr. Greg Schober at Macadam Vision Clinic come these pics of my eyeballs, post-Lasik.











I'm thrilled with both the outcome and the care of both Dr. Schober and Dr. Will at Will Vision...I highly recommend both of these guys!