Bob's Blog

If you are a Jazz lover, you should be here in Roccella Ionica, Italy. Every odd year, I get to pick the location that fellow Jazz lover, Kevin Bacon, and I travel too. Kevin and I met through his father, Ed Bacon. Ed and I worked closely with on many projects while he was Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Kevin and I were helping to organize the the Ed Bacon Foundation in 2004 and discovered a joint love of Jazz.

Kev and I kept in touch and would share photos and stories from different Jazz festivals. Last year, he invited me to Jazzfest in NOLA, where we had a blast. He even got on stage one night as a buzz flew around the room to who was on stage. After that, we agreed that I would choose the festival in odd years, and he would pick the even years. This year I decided to take him to one of my favorite festivals: The Roccella Jazz festival.

This year, we decided to spend the days touring Italy while recovering from the night before. Kevin does a great job of changing his look just enough to be able to stroll through unnoticed. Having been with him when he doesn’t do this, I really appreciate him trying to go undercover.



As we strolled through Roccella Ionica and nearby Crotone, we kept seeing red and white poles off in the distance. Not sure if these were from aggressive barbers or something more. Finally, Kev and I came across one up close and got quite a chuckle.


It turns out that these red and white poles were actually advertisements for a great italian soda, Chino!

I never grow tired of Silicon Valley. Everywhere you turn, people are trying to dream up the next Google. In most other regions, people are defined by their successes and shamed by their failures. Not here. People brag about the failed start-ups they participated in, or how deep under water their stock options are from the pre-dot bust days. But that wasn’t why I was here.

I was invited to Palo Alto at the request of my friend, the Honorable Anna Eshoo. Anna is one of California’s member of the House of Representatives. We met years ago at a San Mateo County General Hospital fundraiser. We were going back and forth in the live auction for a fantastic painting that a local art collector donated. The bidding got so high that we were each hoping the other would make the final bid! After a few tense moments, we agreed to each pay half of the winning bid and donate it to the Hospital. The painting is still there in the lobby!

Anna asked me out to join her at the press conference for an EPA study that she initiated regarding data centers and energy consumption. It was a real eye opener to me to see how much it takes to operate these data centers. The report highlighted the growing issue and outlined some ideas to reduce the impact. I was able to provide a view from someone who could reinforce the need for these data centers, but a desire to reduce the overall impact.

Afterwards, we went out for dinner and drinks. I have been on a Tapas (Spanish for small plate) kick lately and wanted to find one in Palo Alto. So I turned to my new favorite site, Yelp.com.

Yelp offers a great interface to read user reviews of local restaurants, shops and everything else. This concept may not be new, but Yelp does the best job of categorizing things and regions that I have ever seen. Pick your city and start searching. Then you can filter the list further by region in that city, walkable locations, etc. A live map on the side points out where they are.

With help from Yelp, we ended up at Cascal’s on Castro street and had some great Sangrias with our dinner. Thanks Yelp!

Saturday I enjoyed a great Cubs game with my dear friend Vince Vaughn. Mr. Sunshine, as we call him, invited me out to spend the weekend and catch a game. The Cubs won, which kept Mr. Sunshine happy all weekend. True to his name, he led everyone at the park in a great rendition of “Take Me Out the Ballgame” during the 7th inning stretch. A friend of ours passed on this YouTube video. If you look close, you can see me behind Sunny getting a refill.


After the game we travelled to our favorite Rush Street hot spot, Melvin B’s. The bar is closing to make way for a hotel, so every night is a final good bye of sorts. Vince always gets stopped by people for autographs or to recite quotes from his movie, Swingers. He’s a good sport about it all, especially since people end up buying us drinks as a result.

Vince and I always get into debates about old movies, such as who starred in what movie, or what was an actor’s first movie. Vince is usually much better at this since he moved to Hollywood, but I can hold my own with cell phone access to wikipedia or IMDB.

As I started to reach for my phone, Vince grabbed my arm and told me to instead head to a new site, Fancast.com. This site was pretty impressive. He took my phone and started browsing through his profile. More than just a text listing. This site features clips of movies and videos mixed in with detailed text. It does a great job of breaking up the content into logical parts. And of course it offers plenty of links to buy DVDs and movie tickets.

I truly enjoyed the weekend with Mr. Sunshine, and we both pledged to do it more often. Maybe next time he will let me know when he plans to lead an entire stadium in song so I can prepare!

Greetings from Atlanta.

I was here in Atlanta celebrating the success of my dear friend Alton Brown host of the great cooking show Good Eats. Saturday we had a premiere party of sorts. We all got together to watch the season opener of his successful show ‘Feasting on Asphalt.’ It's a great concept for a cooking/Americana show. He travels throughout the country to sample local fare in towns big and small, often times going to places that are thin on people but rich in food.

Last year I got to help him plan some of his stops and even rode motorcycles with him to some of his stops. He is a great guy and it is wonderful to see him having so much fun.

During the day Saturday I went for my morning run through a beautiful neighborhood. As I ran I started noticing pink parachutes with coffee attached. At first I was just intrigued, but as they kept appearing I got more interested.
Luckily I brought my iPhone and took some shots since I was certain Alton wouldn’t believe me. I also kept looking up to see if more would be raining on me.

It turns out these parachutes were part of a guerilla marketing campaign by Coffees of Hawaii to promote their delivery service. Brilliant!

I grabbed one and brought it back to the hotel room to try. I was impressed and might just have have to sign up for myself.

Alton didn’t believe me and said I made it all up. Being that it was his night in the spotlight, I decided to stay quiet and simply email the pic to his work address so he would get it on Monday and I would be vindicated!

I’ve mentioned before how I love to use my iPod to keep current on podcasts while I travel. Sometimes the best part of being stuck in an airport is being able to ‘check out’ in the airlines club room with a glass of single malt and my iPod. Frequently I am awakened from my iPod trance with a nudge from the hostess telling me that my flight is boarding.

Just before my last flight to Hong Kong, I received an email from a dear friend Dr. Ramesh Johari. Rami is a professor at Stanford’s Department of Management Science and Engineering. Rami and I met while he was working towards his doctorate at MIT. I had the good fortune of being able to sit in on his dissertation which won the hearalded George M. Sprowls Award in '04. He is a really smart mind and a great person.

His email pointed me to a new feature on iTunes, called iTunes U. His class lectures were now going to be carried on iTunes. He was sharing it with me because the class being recorded was one we worked on together entitled ‘The Future of The Internet’. It turns out that many professors at Stanford, MIT, Duke, and others were doing the same.

iTunes U is a great way to hear the best scholars in topics that interest you. You can browse different topics, download PDFs of the course materials and the lectures on topics that interest you. I added Rami’s lectures to my iPod, which made the long flight go in a breeze.

With the amount of time I spend traveling I will end up with an extra phD's worth of knowledge whilst occupying my otherwise unproductive time.