During this past weekend, my wife and I made a quick trip to the Tampa Bay area to visit my in-laws. Below, I’ve embedded a couple of photo sets from the trip. The first is four shots of a sunset on the inner coastal waterway, taken in the small residential community of Belleair Bluffs, Florida, in the Clearwater-Largo area of Pinnelas County.

The second is from the Yellow Banks Groves packing and shipping facility on Indian Rocks Beach, adjacent to Largo. As I note on the set description, at one point before World War II, Largo was the world’s largest citrus shipping center. The advent of concentrated orange juice during that period would, however, change the economics of the citrus industry and do away with much of the shipping of florida oranges and grapefruit, as it was then carried out. (Why? Well, that’s a longer post for another day.)

It’s a bit cold in Nashville this morning, so I thought I’d post both sets here to help remind me why lots of people go to Florida in the winter:

At some point, I’ll finish a somewhat lengthy post related to last week’s Wikimania in Haifa, Israel, an event I attended (the post will include an explanation of why I attended). Until I get around to that, here are some photos:

Long-time readers of this blog know that I’m a fan of airports that provide free wifi to travelers. I think wifi should be like air conditioning or rest rooms — part of the convenience infrastructure, not a profit center. Airports can profit from the service in a number of ways: Letting travelers know about the airport shops and restaurants within a few hundred yards of them, for example. Secondly, free wifi allows passengers to go online to self-manage travel changes should bad weather or other factors arise.

Well, I’m getting my wish: At least between today and January 15.

And, as with lots of free stuff I get from the internet, this one comes from Google. As part of a holiday promotion, Google is showering free wifi onto travelers at 45 U.S. airports for the next two months. (Including Nashville.)

Sidenote: The SmallBusiness.com list of airports with free wifi now includes a list of the airports participating in the Google promotion.

Sidenote 2: I’m wondering how long it will take for someone to start complaining that Google is providing free wifi — maybe, Rupert Murdoch. Or that it only covers certain airports. Or that it stops on January 15. When the complaints start, I’ll be reminded of the Louis CK interview on Conan O’Brien’s show.

CN Tower

Over the weekend and today, I’ve been at a large convention in Toronto: the annual meeting of ASAE* and the Center for Association Leadership. While I’m not blogging about it here, you can find a lot of blog posts, photos and tweets from me and others at Hammock‘s special event media site, Hammock.com/ASAEO9.

Hammock’s online community ace and photo-enthusiast (to put it mildly) Summer Huggins (@SummerH) and I are also taking lots of photos that you can find on Flickr.com/Hammock, as well.

Or follow @hammockinc, @r, @SummerH or @dssullivan (our rookie Twitter-user) for Hammock updates from the convention.

If you happen to be in Toronto, Hammock Inc. is in booth 1217. Drop by and see me during the expo hours.

*American Society of Association Executives

ABC News executives told to avoid
deluxe travel and newspapers.

Perhaps you saw where ABC News has instituted new “guidelines” to “reduce administrative costs” during the slow economy. It includes instructions to cancel subscriptions to print media and to travel more down-scale.

After looking at the guidelines, I’ve decided to jump on board:

I will cancel all of my newspaper subscriptions (oh, wait, I did that years ago).

I will make sure my business travel is “one grade below” anything that ABC news executives have ever experienced. (Note: I am, however, an “A-List” passenger on Southwest — so I paid for that free spot at the front of the line by standing in at least 32 previous lines.)

I will continue to stay at “B” hotels — although I think Hampton Inns are a solid A- for providing me with free wifi.

I will cancel subscriptions to general news magazines — or to those not already cancelled.

I will cancel subscriptions to magazines that are poorly designed and written.

I will cancel subscriptions to magazines that contain NO information or insight critical (or even mildly interesting) to my work or life.

I will cancel subscriptions to magazines that do not feed the passions I believe give my life meaning.

However, for those magazines that do: they are a bargain at any price.

Other things I will do to be more productive during the slow economy: Rather than watch any ABC News programming or visit any website related to ABC News, I will do something that is informative and valuable.

Next Wednesday, I’m speaking at the Folio Show in Chicago. I’m part of the Executive Track and my topic is “TrendWatch: Digital Growth and Revenue Opportunities.” It’s a topic about which I know nothing, but I’ll be staying at a Holiday Inn Express the night before so I’m sure I’ll do fine.

Actually, I’m not sure where I’ll be staying the night before, but I’ll be arriving at the conference on Tuesday around mid-day. If there’s a meetup opportunity, I’m game.

[Update: See note at the end of this story.] Following, is an excerpt from the book, Tales from the Titans Sideline, by Jim Wyatt. It’s from a story on page 107 of the book called, “It’s a bird, It’s a plane, It’s a McNair fan”:

“Quaterback Steve McNair hasn’t needed to look high and low for fans in recent years. But when some questioned him early on in the 1999 season, all he had to do was look to the friendly skies one day at pracice. Just a few days after he was booed in the season opener against the Bengals, a small plane flew over the practice field with a message to McNair. The plane was pulling a banner that read: “Fly High Steve — Your Fans.” The flight was sponsored by Hammock Publishing, a company based in Nashville. Several employees chipped in on the $300 cost and Rex Hammock matched the contributions to cover the full cost. “We were somewhat disappointed by the boos and we wanted to show our support of Steve McNair,” said Hammock. The plane circled the field as the Titans were preparing to play Cleveland….The gesture lifted McNair’s spirits but also raised a question from inquisitive teammates. “It showed a lot of class,” Coach Jeff Fisher said. “The team responded very well to that. They were asking Steve how much it cost him.”

Here’s the best part: the story had a very happy ending. Steve McNair went on to lead that 1999 team — the one that started off with him being booed — to an AFC Championship and to within a half-yard of a Superbowl win (or at least a tie to go into overtime).

And no one ever, ever booed him again.

The end.

Or, at least, I wish it were.

Fast forward ten years.

Vince Young, another young Titans quarterback with incredible skills and unlimited potential got booed by some fans during the first game of the season this past Sunday (ironically, a game the Titans won). But unfortunately, I couldn’t find a plane to fly around a banner. And even worse than that, Vince Young’s friends and family and coaches couldn’t find him at all.

And so, the booing by a minority of the fans grew into a big brouhaha that finally led to Vince Young’s mother telling Tennessean sports writer Jim Wyatt (the one who wrote the book) that her son needs the love and support of Titans fans.

Okay, let’s get this straight. NFL fans pay lots of money for tickets and NFL players make millions, so fans have the right to boo whenever they want. But personally, I think it’s crazy for fans to boo their young quarterback. Like Vince’s mom, I think quarterbacks should be loved and supported.

Why? Because as a fan, I want to win. For that reason, I don’t want fans — even though they have the right to do so — to do something to a young quarterback that opposing teams in junior high, high school and college have never been able to do: get into his head and make him start questioning his abilities.

So here’s my advice to sports fans everywhere: Boo the referees. Boo the other team. But love and support the quarterback…at least until the team doesn’t make it into the playoffs.

(Note: For another post — sometime in February, I hope — I’ll share my theory regarding the dangers of drafting quarterbacks who’ve never played on a losing team in junior high, high school or college.)

[Update: A few days after this post, police reports indicated that the time during which Young was missing was more serious than early indications. Indeed, Young was displaying some classic symptoms of clinical depression. Several people who have had personal experience with depression have emailed or contacted me via Twitter to indicate their empathy for Young. "His success, wealth and fame," one person told me, "provides no protection from depression."]

View as a flickr slideshow.

I’ve posted a set of photos on Flickr that follow my seven-day adventure of making a loopback Windsor chair at the John Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. Never have I worked so hard while on vacation, nor found it so relaxing and fulfilling. Spending 60 or so hours shaping into an 18th-century styled chair something that starts out looking like white oak firewood and a beautiful piece of butternut is — to me, at least — an intensive therapeutic (even meditative) experience. (To each his own, I guess). Pleasant mountain weather, delicious food and an annual gathering of dance-oriented folk musicians at the school during the week we were there also made for a unique experience that my wife and I will remember forever.

It’s Friday morning and I’m in the office all day today. Sometime after work, I’m flying to Austin for three days of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. I say sometime because it’s supposed to be at 7:30 p.m., but the weather predictions here in Nashville are calling for a “Winter Storm Warning” starting around 6 p.m. Having lived in Nashville most of my life, I ignore such warnings until I can confirm them with my own eyes, so I’m still planning on leaving at that time.

I won’t be blogging about SXSW on this blog, although later today, I’ll point to a URL where, however I will be blogging at Hammock.com/SXSW2008 along with other people from Hammock who will be there. We’re going to be aggregating all our posts and Twitter “tweets” and photos and videos at one spot this year.

My friend Taylor McKnight has created a really cool scheduling tool so I can point to a page that shows the panels I may attend, although I always tend to change my mind.

I haven’t packed yet, so maybe I’ll find Tantek Çelik’s SXSW packing tips helpful.

Stickers: If you see me (or anyone from Hammock), ask for a sticker — it’s what one does at SXSW.

More to come…

For the past 30 years, I have been traveling in and out of Tampa regularly (I married into the area). Almost every good practice or design I’ve seen in any U.S. airport, I’ve seen at Tampa’s first. Other than a glitchy car rental system (okay, I’m spoiled by the way Hertz Gold works and Tampa is the only place where you have to stand in line), Tampa’s airport seems to be designed by people who actually think as passengers. It has a great “user-interface” with signage at the right spots, saying the right thing. It has public spaces that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. And it is the first airport I know that has redesigned its security check-in area in a way that expedites flow in a space that seems intended to comfort the checking-in passenger with reassuring grandeur.

I often see Tampa’s influence in other airports — some of the most striking examples are in other Florida cities, especially Orlando — but for the most part, airport planners seem more focused on the logistics of moving people around, rather than on the experience people have in the airport space.

Oh, and one last thing. Tampa’s airport was one of the first I encountered that offered FREE wifi to passengers. They don’t (like Nashville’s BNA, for example) try to hijack passengers into paying several dollars for a few minutes of checking e-mail or altering travel plans, they understand that free wifi should be an infrastructure convenience like air-conditioning that can be used as a competitive advantage.

Also, if your airport has free wifi, I’ll almost always give it a shout-out love post if I’m sitting in it waiting for a plane (like now). Oh, yeah. And someone will likely add a love-link to your airport at the SmallBusiness.com directory of airports with free wifi.

[Note: For the record, I now travel with a USB device (Sierra Wireless is the brand) that allows me (or others in my office who travel and who can use it, as it's not tied to one computer) to tap into AT&T's 3G network.]

Later: Speaking of free wifi, JetBlue, Yahoo! and RIM have announced an in-air means to access IM and email during flights. Doesn’t sound like full-fledged web-access, but it sounds like it’s worth the price.