I am generally a pretty light sleeper, although since I've been a dad I often simply pass out from exhaustion when I'm traveling. When I stay in hotels, I am often frustrated by the poor soundproofing of hotel rooms. I find this particularly aggravating with high-end hotels, where the hotel clearly spend a lot of money to make the room seem elegant/upscale, only to have my experience degraded when I can hear my neighbors' TV or loud conversations. According to this recent NYT Times article, some hotels are now paying more attention to the soundproofing issues. I'm excited to see the results of this competitive endeavor!

A couple of weeks ago, the NYT ran a lengthy article on vegetarian restaurants in San Francisco, spotlighting Greens, Millennium, Herbivore, Cha-Ya and Cafe Gratitude. I've never tried Cha-Ya, so I'll have to check it out. Of the others, Herbivore is my favorite. The food at Millennium is better, but at a premium price. On a cost-benefit basis, Herbivore is a better deal. I wouldn't go back to Greens on my dime (although the view is splendid), and Cafe Gratitude is farcical in its feel-good approach, plus I'm not a huge raw foods fan.

I thought it was amusing that the VegNews editor complained that she's bored of the vegetarian offerings in town. Even if the City lacks good South Indian restaurants like Udupi Palace, San Franciscans are blessed with their options!

Lisa and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary in Mendocino, my favorite tourist destination of all time. Great scenery, great food, lots to do. This time, we stayed at the MacCallum House right in town, which turned out to be a disappointment. See my Epinions review of our stay at the MacCallum House. Read my other reviews about Mendocino:

* Mendocino Overview
* Mendocino Headlands State Park
* Russian Gulch State Park
* Jughandle State Reserve
* Hendy Woods State Park
* Montgomery Woods State Reserve

This trip we tried Cafe Beaujolais for the first time. It doesn't try hard to cater much to vegetarians, so I wouldn't recommend it on that basis. However, the two options we found were both excellent. The bread was terrific too. We went for lunch, and I think that's a much better value than dinner. Two odd facts: (1) the floor noticeably slopes, so it's like eating in a mystery house; (2) at our lunch, we were the youngest couple there by at least a decade--at my age, this doesn't happen very often any more.

We also went back to Mendocino Cafe, one of my all-time favorite restaurants. I like it because it's casual and fun with terrific food. However, I was disappointed to learn that some of the putatively vegetarian dishes have undisclosed fish sauce in them. Ask before you order!

Finally, we were blown away to discover the Living Light Culinary Arts Institute in Fort Bragg, which bills itself as "the premier organic raw vegan school in the world." Who knew that Fort Bragg could support a major raw foods cooking school? They have a cafe as part of the school, so we were thrilled to try it out. I'm usually not a big fan of raw foods restaurants; I find them overpriced and typically not very tasty. This place definitely wasn't cheap, but I thought it served the best raw food dishes I've had. I thoroughly enjoyed everything we tried. I think Fort Bragg gets unfairly overshadowed by Mendocino, but the Living Light Cafe is yet another reason to spend some time there.

Over the years, we have found vegetarian restaurants in some wacky/unexpected places, but Mineral Restaurant ranks up there as one of our most surprising discoveries. Mineral Restaurant is a high end vegetarian restaurant designed to compete with other five-star Northern California vegetarian favorites such as Greens, Millennium and The Ravens. But instead of being located in a major metropolis like San Francisco or an eco-friendly upscale tourist town like Mendocino, Mineral is off the beaten track in downtown Murphys, a lovely but tiny town in the bucolic Gold Country about an hour from Stockton. How in the world can this small community support a vegetarian restaurant, let alone one charging top-of-the-line prices?

Mineral seems to be doing just fine, thank you very much. It celebrated its 1 year anniversary, which is probably 11 months longer than anyone expected, and every seat filled on a Friday night in late October (so make reservations). Then again, the restaurant only seats 20 (including the bar but excluding the outdoor patio). But they run a lean operation, with a staff of two—the owner-server and the owner-chef. So between low labor costs, high prices and filling to capacity on the weekends, perhaps the economics work out OK.

Mineral uses big plates to serve small portions. I suspect many meat eaters laugh when their plates arrive; this visual presentation may psychologically reinforce that they are going to go home hungry. But the three course tasting menu (which is what everyone orders) was plenty of food. At the end, we were too stuffed to contemplate dessert.

Although the restaurant isn’t fully vegan, the restaurant is an excellent choice for a vegan looking for a special meal.

Because Mineral’s menu changes constantly, I’m not going to critique each dish. Instead, to generalize the experience, most dishes had multiple and complex flavors, of which one was typically a little sweet. My wife absolutely loved the food, and she ranks it among the best she’s ever had. I was less enthusiastic. I thought the food was good but overly complicated and expensive--including the wine tasting, we ended up spending about $60/person. I would be just as happy spending $15/person at a much lower-frills but still tasty restaurant like Udupi Palace or Native Foods.

Although I’m not sure about the value proposition, I enthusiastically recommend that you check out Mineral if you’re willing to spend top dollar for a top quality culinary experience. It’s certainly competitive with Millennium as one of the best vegetarian restaurants in Northern California (I think Greens is overrated and isn’t close to either). Better yet, enjoy a weekend as a tourist in Murphys. There is plenty to do, see and eat. As an added bonus, come back to Mineral a second time for lunch. Lisa and I both thought their “X-burger” made for an outstanding and affordable lunch.

UPDATE MAY 2008: Perhaps the economics weren't so great after all. Mineral has rechristened itself as the "Mineral Wine Bar and Kitchen' with a revamped, noticeably cheaper and far less vegan-friendly (but still vegetarian) menu.

I have three main criteria for a great local hiking park: interesting enough to warrant multiple visits, reasonably quick to drive to, and no entry/parking fee. A number of parks along the 280 meet these criteria, but three stand out as my favorites:

* Edgewood Park
* Arastradero Preserve
* Wunderlich Park

Wunderlich Park makes the list for one major reason--only about 10 minutes up Woodside Road (Highway 84) from the 280, it's one of the most convenient ways to access a redwood forest. It's also nice because it offers a few nice panoramas of the Bay and has a number of great loop trails that get the blood flowing without being painfully steep. One other plus: below the Meadows, most of the trails are well-shaded, so this park is a good choice even when it's too warm for more exposed trails. Trails are well-maintained and signed, and there are free maps at the parking lot, so it's very hard to get lost.

My favorite hike is to start on the Alambique Trail and take it to the Alambique Flat, a terrific redwood grove that meanders up a quiet canyon. As second growth redwood forests go, Alambique Flat is as good as it gets. It's a perfect spot for lunch or quiet contemplation. I then continue to the Meadows, which isn't very meadow-like but does offer good mountain views. From the Meadows, I continue down the Bear Gulch Trail through Redwood Flat and back to the parking lot. This is a great 6 mile loop trail offering lots of redwoods, bay views and mountain views, plus some good exercise.

As a variation, at Redwood Flat, turn along the Redwood Trail (which exits the redwoods disappointingly quickly) and go to Salamander Flat, where there's a small and not especially attractive reservoir. I then take the Madrone Trail (which has more redwoods than the Redwood Trail) back to the Bear Gulch Trail. This adds a little extra exercise and variation to the trip.

Another variation is to continue from the Meadows up to Skyline. I must confess that this doesn't do it for me. After the Meadows, the trail follows a relatively boring fire road. It's satisfying to reach Skyline, but the ennui usually isn't worth it.

Instead of going up the Alambique Trail, an alternative is to hike up Bear Gulch Trail to Redwood Flat (3 miles RT). This portion of the Bear Gulch Trail goes through many redwood groves, making this a great redwood experience. At Redwood Flat, you can turn around and retrace your steps, or make a small loop by going to Salamander Flat and taking the Madrone Trail back to Bear Gulch Trail.

A few other things to consider:
* this park is popular with horses, so watch your step. On the plus side, no mountain bikes!
* even though it's well-shaded, always bring plenty of water
* at peak times (i.e., weekend mornings) the parking lot can be full
* Bear Gulch Trail follows Bear Gulch Road, so it will get a little road noise. Alambique Trail follows Woodside Road for the first mile or so; it gets a lot of motorcycle and truck noise. As with most parks on the east side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it also gets a fair amount of airplane noise from planes heading to SFO or the local San Carlos/Palo Alto airports.

The official park website and a map of the park.

A recap of all of my Israel trip-related posts:

* Israel Tourist Destinations

* Israel Trip Reflections

* Israel Hotel reviews

* Frommer's Israel book review

* Haifa University Search Engine Conference Recap

It's a little late, but I made a list of contemporaneous observations during my Israel trip 6 months ago. In no particular order:

* In Israel, places have been built, torn down, and rebuilt, in many cases over the course of centuries (or even millennia). In many cases, interesting sites have been modified to reflect the then-current ruler, which changed multiple times over the eons. So this leads to an interesting philosophical question: if modern day archivists wish to restore ruins, what era should they restore it to? With the evolution of history, there is no single definition of authenticity or accuracy.

* At the same time, the history is still being written, and this era shouldn't be ignored either. It was weird seeing people still living in the "ruins" of the old city of Akko, which was a Crusader castle that was extensively remodeled by the Ottomans. Assuming we wanted to restore Akko to make it more authentic, are the modern residents any less a part of the history? This reminded me a bit of the gorgeous Ottoman walls around the old city of Jerusalem. They were not used for their contemplated defensive purposes over the course of 5 centuries--until the 1967 war, when the Israelis had to dislodge the Jordanian army from the old city (there are even bullet holes near some entrances).

* Excluding the historical stuff, Israeli architecture is generally not very aesthetically pleasing, but Tel Aviv and its suburbs was particularly conspicuous. Many buildings are unadorned concrete cubes with flat roofs. I imagine it's what Soviet architecture looked like.

* The compulsory military service plays a big role in Israeli life. It acts as a type of social glue not unlike a fraternity/sorority. For example, one colleague told me that certain law firms are "tank" firms, i.e., comprised of lawyers who were part of the tank corp and, through that, developed a common identity.

* Advertising in Israel rarely featured celebrities--in stark contrast to the US, where so much of our advertising is celebrity-driven. My initial assumption is that certain religious subgroups would object to celebrity advertising, but no one supported that hypothesis. Perhaps it's because there are relatively fewer homegrown Israeli celebrities? Or perhaps Israeli advertising is just behind the US, and a few years from now it will catch up?

* Israel is a cat country. There were cats everywhere. At the University of Haifa conference, one cat walked into the conference room, found a seat, took a bath and then curled up for a nap for a couple hours. No one seemed fazed by the extra attendee.

* Israelis smoke a lot. Of course, I come from California, which has virtually banned smoking in public places, and I know smoking is more common in the rest of the world. But people smoked everywhere, even where there were "no smoking" signs. On the first night, someone lit up in the restaurant dozens of feet away, but it still made my eyes water. It reminded me why I'm a huge fan of rules against smoking in restaurants!

* The diversity of produce in Israel was amazing. (Of course, we have it pretty good here in California, too). It was disorienting seeing bananas growing in the desert near the Sea of Galilee.

* Speaking of food, I loved being able to get tasty $3 falafels wherever I went. Why can't we have this in the US?

* Particularly in Jerusalem, it was amazing to see people dressed up in all different types of religious garb. I didn't even recognize most of the outfits. I wouldn't say that Jerusalem was an integrated city, but there seemed to be significant tolerance for different outfit choices, much more so than here in the US. At the same time, one's choice of dress was often a major political statement; down to different kepahs signaling which Jewish sect the wearer belonged to. This also contributes to rampant profiling, which was disconcerting to my American sensibilities. Also on dress--most religious sites banned shorts. That was tough on me!

* Israel used to be a near-socialist economy. Perhaps socialism (everyone pitching in together and making sacrifices) was a necessity when the country was literally in a fight for its existence. I'm not saying Israel's existence is now assured, but the country has moved on, both economically and psychologically. From my vantage, there were almost no visible vestiges of socialism.

* I was surprised at how much trash was everywhere. My understanding is that some communities can opt out of paying taxes, but then trash pickup service gets cut. It was amazing how much trash was piled up right next to sacred sites.

* Israelis eat late. Breakfast often starts at 8. Lunch was typically around 2. Dinner was often at 8 or later. I wasn't able to tell if this was due to some effort to harmonize with European hours? Israel was 2+ hours ahead of Europe, so maybe the schedule is pushed back to better sync up with European trading partners? It reminded me a little of the dynamic with NY and the rest of the US. New York is generally a late city; in many business circles, 9:30 or 10 is an acceptable start time for the workday. In the Midwest, which is one hour behind NY, the schedule was generally one hour earlier than NY (all the way down to the prime time TV schedule, which expressly is 1 hour earlier than Eastern time) to better sync up with New York. In Milwaukee, on New Year's Eve, the TV stations even show the Times Square ball dropping live, meaning that Milwaukee celebrates the New Year at 11 pm. And in California, we don't do everything 3 hours earlier than NY, but anyone dealing with NY works an earlier schedule. This is especially brutal for those in the financial industry (many of whom start when the opening bell rings at 6:30 am Pacific); but even I was affected; when I had NY clients, I usually tried to start my work day at 8 am, which was already midday (11 am) for my clients.

* Israel is so rich in antiquities, there was no visible effort to prevent tourists from destroying or picking up artifacts at sacred sites. Many amazing sites had effectively no security, and one tour guide even encouraged us to pick up a millennium-old souvenir from Caesarea. I contrast this with the very tight efforts to restrict such behavior in the US, where our physical cultural resources are so limited that we guard them very, very carefully.

* The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is a truly remarkable place. I need to spend a lot more time there to fully appreciate it. However, I found one aspect especially noteworthy. The building is owned collectively by 6 different Christian churches, but they have divided the building into different property spheres that (as I understand it) are tied to who maintains the building. As a result, any maintenance effort has implications for property ownership, and the result is that maintenance efforts that cross property boundaries have property rights implications--which leads to paralysis. So the building is falling apart and in desperate need of maintenance, but the property allocation structure prevents that. It made me wonder if there would be some way to create tradeable property rights that would facilitate maintenance rather than inhibit it. So not only is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher an important place spiritually, but it may be a laboratory for the problems created by miscalibrated property rights.

* The "streets" in the old city of Jerusalem are too narrow for modern cars/trucks, so goods move into/out of the old city on narrow tractors. They travel around blind curves at a high rate of speed. It reminded me a little of the angry tractor-bull scene from the movie Cars.

* Walking around in Israel, I was routinely bombarded by dozens or even hundreds of personal commercial solicitations an hour--especially in the markets and tourist destinations. Verbal spam, so to speak. I wonder which is worse--the dystopian view of personalized broadcast ads from Minority Report, or the real-life assault of humans soliciting other humans?

* I loved the opportunity to hang out with a very eclectic group of international tourists in Jerusalem. I did some extra traveling with a Pentecostal Afrikaners couple from Namibia and a Church of Christ couple from Brisbane, Australia. (My wife still gives me a hard time that I spent so much time on the Christian historical sites).

* Israel is a country of high transaction-costs of living. Israel spends a lot of its GDP on security and defense--these are necessities, but they are "sunk costs" in terms of improving the quality of living. Plus, Israel simply can't produce as much output as the US due to the extensive Israeli and Jewish holidays. Finally, a fair amount of time is spent bargaining over goods, which I found very tiresome and unproductive. It's amazing Israel has as robust an economy as it does given how many disadvantages it has.

* Most people speak English, but A LOT of signs are only in Hebrew. I found it surprisingly difficult navigating around independently without speaking/reading any Hebrew.

Conclusion

Remarkably, six months later, I'm still sorting through my personal experiences and observations from Israel. It was that rich--and that complicated--a travel experience. For that reason (among others), I commend a trip to Israel for anyone who has the chance to go.

People do so many stupid stunts nowadays (and usually throw the video up on YouTube for everyone to see) that it takes a lot for a stunt to be impressive, but this one floored me. Wim Hof, a Dutch mountaineer, announced that he would climb Mount Everest wearing only shorts. This was not an apparent suicide mission; he'd already proven his chops by climbing Mont Blanc in shorts, by running a half-marathon in Finland (ground temp: -35 degrees) barefoot in shorts, and by holding his breath underwater for almost 6 1/2 minutes under the North Pole ice cap. Now, I'm known for wearing shorts even when the temperature is pretty cold, but clearly this dude is in a different league altogether!

Unfortunately, he didn't make the top. Instead, due to a nagging foot injury, he turned around after getting over 24,000 feet in shorts. Still, an impressive feat; also impressive is that he made it over 20,000 feet wearing sandals as his footwear.

While his summit attempt didn't work this year, he says he will try again in 2008.

My decision to join Epinions was motivated significantly by ideology. Simply put, I was sold that it was better to make decisions predicated on the collective wisdom of multiple trusted contributors than on the guidance of any single product reviewer. Further, very few product reviewers have my unique tastes, so I loved the idea that, through Epinions, I could find a credible author who shared my idiosyncratic interests rather than relying on the generic lowest-common-denominator advice of the typical product reviewer.

Thus, I felt a little odd buying the book Frommer's Israel to help with my Israel trip. Not only was I going to rely on a single author for many important decisions, but I was paying $24 for that privilege. However, international travel can be complicated, and I must confess that I felt pretty overwhelmed by my Israel trip. The free Internet resources just weren't getting it done for me. I needed comprehensive, accurate and current information, and finding that information from the Internet was daunting at best.

It turns out that the book was very helpful. It was packed with good stuff that helped me make smart choices and avoid wasting my time. It was also portable, which was a big help when I was offline. Finally, I'm sure I saved more than the book's cost through its money-saving tips. It turns out that even in this era of a million viewpoints available for free on the Internet, there still can be value to dead-trees guides by a single author.

During my Israel trip, I tried to squeeze in as many tourist destinations as possible. To avoid getting myself into unsafe situations, I didn't travel independently. Instead, I generally took organized tours (such as those organized by Egged/United Travel). I prefer to travel independently, so doing organized tours was a little frustrating--the group moves only at the pace of the slowest member, and we didn't spend enough time at some sites. However, I think it's impossible to fully enjoy many Israeli destinations without a knowledgeable tour guide to explain the significance of the site. A good guide makes a huge difference!

Here's my recap of the destinations I hit during my stay, along with my grades as a tourist destination:

* Church of the Annunciation, Nazareth (where Mary and Joseph lived). Grade: B. It's a relatively modern and undistinguished church (by Israel standards), but the grottoes are interesting.

* Capernaum (home of some of the apostles, and maybe Jesus). Grade: B. There are extensive and interesting ruins, as well as a very old synagogue. The Sea of Galilee setting is very pretty. But the ruins are not as interesting as other ruins, such as Masada.

* Tabgha (Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and the Fishes). Grade: A. Another pretty setting on the Sea of Galilee, and interesting Byzantine mosaics. This is a brief stop, but it's a good one.

* Yardenit (Jordan River baptismal site). Grade: D. Boring. Lots of dead fish floating in the water. Plus, the river is now lined by eucalyptus trees, so it hasn't retained its historical look. It was fascinating, however, to see the infrastructure built to do mass baptisms in the yucky Jordan River water.

* Drive down Jordan River valley. Grade: A. Beautiful scenery of the land of milk and honey.

* Caesarea. Grade: A. Caesarea was a Roman resort town built to overlook the azure Mediterranean Sea, and it's a spectacular display of Roman excess. This deserves at least a half-day of guided touring.

* Old Akko. Grade: A. A well-preserved and pretty Crusader fortress, with dungeons, tunnels, banquet halls, etc. The old city itself is interesting as well, but the Old City of Jerusalem is even nicer.

* Rosh Ha-Nikra. Grade: C. This reminded me some of Big Sur: high bluffs overlooking the coast (with a restaurant on top, just like Nepenthe) and sea caves. But the caves are unremarkable compared to the many sea caves on the California coast, and here they charge for access! Unless you'll never make it to the CA coast, save your money. One big difference from Big Sur: the proximity to the Lebanon border, with military installations all along the hillside and Israeli warships patrolling the waters.

* Masada. Grade: A. Masada is famous as the last-stand stronghold of Jewish rebels, and deservedly so. The physical setting is beautiful--a 1,000 foot high mesa in the desert along the Dead Sea coast. The ruins are also terrific. In particular, the Roman siege fortifications are nearly intact, and the ruins are generally well-preserved throughout. I think Masada warrants a full-day guided tour (including the hike up and investigation of the Roman siege camps).

* Ein Gedi Spa. Grade: B. This was an access point to swim in the Dead Sea, plus take a mud bath and lounge in some hot springs. Bring your bathing suit and towel, but you might buy disposable sandals from them. (You will really want sandals to walk across the "beach," which is rocky, and wade in the Dead Sea, which has a rough salty bottom, but wearing your own sandals into the Dead Sea will permanently skankify them). Personally, I didn't find the Dead Sea swim all that interesting. The buoyancy was a little neat, but there were stern warnings not to get any water into our faces/mouths, so I was constantly worried that a little splash or carelessness would lead to some pain. Ultimately, this stop struck me as more of a checklist stop (i.e., go to lowest place on earth--check. Float in the Dead Sea--check) than a place that was actually fun to visit.

* Drive along the Dead Sea. Grade: A. The Dead Sea is lined by towering desert peaks. It reminded me a lot of Zion Canyon in Zion National Park.

* Yad Va'Shem (Holocaust Memorial). Grade: A. An intensely powerful and moving experience. It tells the story of the Holocaust, and how an entire nation became complicit in committing atrocities against the Jews, better than anything else I've ever seen. Note that this is not a "fun" destination. It literally made me physically sick to my stomach. I couldn't eat the whole day after experiencing this.

* Israel Museum. Grade: B. The big draw is the Dead Sea Scrolls, although they were a little unremarkable to see. I spent a lot of my time looking at the old Judaica and the recreations of synagogues from around the world. It's amazing how many Jewish traditions have remained constant across the centuries and across the entire globe. The museum also had a modestly interesting temporary display of old coins. However, I was very disappointed that the archaeology wing is shut down until 2009-10. I'm most interested in the antiquities, so the wing's closure eliminated one of the main draws. Also, I went at night (on the day I went, the museum was only open 4-9), so I couldn't enjoy the outdoor setting or the sculpture gardens. If you go, go in the day.

* Jerusalem's Old City. Grade: A. The Old City is a fascinating and complicated place. It reminded me a little of the discussion in Shrek about layers. (Shrek: "Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers." To which the Donkey ultimately points out that parfaits have layers too.) The Old City has layers, both physically and meta-physically. I could spend years exploring the Old City and still not appreciate all of its layers. It's a fascinating destination. For me, the experience was enhanced staying in the Old City, which gave me great proximity to everything (but be careful about safety). Some subdestinations within or near the Old City:

- The Western Wall. Grade: A. The wall of Jerusalem stone is physically beautiful, and spiritually it's iconic for Jews. Go on Friday after sundown and see the orthodox Jews come to pray and party. But at any time, you can see devout Jews in various states of rapturous worship around the wall. It's very moving.

- Temple Mount. Grade: A. The Dome of the Rock is a stunning building from the outside (no idea about the inside...). The entire plaza is a serene yet spiritual setting.

- Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the putative site of Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection). Grade: A. In a city filled with boundaries and turf wars, I think no building better illustrates the challenges of harmonization than this one. Collectively owned by six church organizations, the building hardly reflects a cooperative spirit. Instead, because of disputes between the churches about their property rights, repairs and upgrades are regularly stymied, leading to a building that's both impressive and dilapidated. The building is filled with interesting but subtle details; to fully appreciate this building absolutely requires a knowledgeable guide. (I ended up going twice with 2 different guides and got completely different perspectives from them).

- City of David. Grade: B. The site of King David's old Jerusalem (outside of the current Old City's walls), this is undergoing active excavation. The most interesting aspect today is the ability to explore the ancient water system, including the hidden tunnels that helped Jerusalem survive sieges. However, this site is still a work-in-progress and will be more interesting when some of the excavations are complete.

- Tower of David (the Citadel). Grade: B. An impressive and attractive fortress at the Jaffa Gate, the Citadel reflects the layers of Jerusalem--it's an aggregation of Jewish, Herodian, Crusader and Ottoman construction (and a few others as well). There are exhibits that focus on the history of Jerusalem, which makes this a good first stop. (I went as my last stop, so the educational content was a little redundant by that point). Currently, they run English-language tours about Jerusalem's history at 11 am each day. Unfortunately, they do not run a tour that talks about the fortress itself, which seems worthy of a standalone tour. There are great views in every direction from the top of the Citadel.

- Mount of Olives sites (including Pater Noster Church, Dominus Flevit Church and the Garden of Gethsemane). Grade: B. The Mount of Olives has beautiful views of the Old City, some neat churches and lots of cemeteries.

Overall assessment: Israel is an interesting and complicated place. From a tourist standpoint, the religious and historical sites are truly unique. Anyone interested in Jewish/Christian/Muslim history, Roman history or Medieval history will find terrific stuff here. However, I was also struck by the geographic similarity between Israel and California, and how well California fares as a tourist destination with top attractions like the Channel Islands, Santa Barbara, Death Valley, and (my favorite) Mendocino (not to mention more famous stops like Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Los Angeles, the Wine Country, etc.). So while I was glad to go to Israel, it also reminded me that I am blessed to have a world-class tourist destination in my (figurative) backyard.

While planning my trip to Israel, I found TripAdvisor somewhat helpful in assessing possible lodging destinations. So I decided to contribute two reviews of my own on the Cinema Hotel in Tel Aviv and the Christ Church Guest House in the Old City of Jerusalem. More on my Israel trip shortly...

I have many "life goals" I want to achieve before my time is up. Some of these are conceptual and hard to measure, such as--be a great father, husband and family member/friend and make a positive contribution to society. Others are "check the box" in nature, such as my decades-long quest to climb 100 of the tallest peaks in Southern California. (In 15 years, I've climbed 54).

Today, I checked one of those boxes. My wife and I have collected Slinkies for the last 12 years. I explain why here. We now have over 300 Slinky-related items. Naturally, for more than a decade, I've had a burning desire to visit the mother ship, the source of my joy, Slinky nirvana--the Slinky factory.

I finally made my pilgrimage. This weekend, I am at a conference in Pittsburgh, about 90 miles from the factory. So I arranged my schedule with a free morning. Early this morning, I hit the road to Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania.

As I drove into town, I was surprised to discover that Hollidaysburg doesn't do anything to celebrate the Slinky. No "Home of the Slinky" sign. No Slinky-themed burger joint. No stores selling Slinky T-shirts. There were not even any signs pointing the way to the Slinky factory (in fact, it's pretty hard to find--it was mismarked on Google Maps, and the factory is nestled between a forest and a junkyard). It's as if the town doesn't care that it's home to one of the major brands in the world.

There are no direction signs in part because the Slinky factory doesn't cater to visitors. They don't offer tours, have a visitor's center or provide a factory outlet/store (they used to but they closed it down). I drove past the junkyard to a poorly marked and unremarkable building, pulled off the street onto some unmarked asphalt, and walked in the door.

There was a display case of some slinky items in the foyer, but inside the door, there was no receptionist. On the right was a conference room with various Slinky items strewn about. On the left was a large but sparsely populated cube farm. A woman asked if she could help me. When I said that I was looking for the Slinky outlet, she told me that it was closed.

My quest could have ended there, but I took a gamble. A number of years ago, my wife had called the factory looking for an item we saw on eBay called "Slinky art" (or sometimes called "Slinky pooh")--the extrusion of plastic Slinkies at the end of a job to clean the line. She spoke with a woman named Charlene who helped her order this as a special treat for me. I remember my wife mimicking her voice, and I had a hunch I was talking to Charlene. So I asked if she was Charlene, and that provided an ice-breaker that allowed for a little dialogue.

A man walked over and Charlene introduced him as Tom James, the son of Richard and Betty James (the inventor and initial owners of the Slinky) and the manager of the enterprise. We started chatting a little. I asked if they had any more Slinky art, and he invited me back into the factory to rummage through their bin. He issued me some goggles and off we went.

Unfortunately, the factory was relatively quiet. They manufacture Slinkies 4 days a week (20 hours/day), and I came on an off-day. They were manufacturing some third party branded Slinkies-as-schwag, so I got to see the Slinkies being "printed" and then baked. Otherwise, the factory was rather unremarkable, except it had a lot of inventory for the holiday season.

All told, Tom and Charlene generously gave me about a half-hour of their time. I walked out the door a very satisfied Slinky loyalist. I also walked out with a number of goodies: an item of Slinky art (we picked one of the smallest we could find--most of them were a couple of feet tall, too big to carry on the plane); the 14k gold Slinky in a wooden box; a not-yet-shipped colored metal Slinky in a box autographed by Betty James; some Slinky-branded coloring books; and some great memories.

When I was in private practice, I rarely traveled for business. In my eight years as a lawyer, I can recall 5 trips to Dallas (all for the same client), a client trip to San Diego and a few presentations out of the Bay Area (three trips come to mind). I’m sure I’m forgetting a few, but mostly the business trips stand out because of their exceptional nature.

Life is much different as a law professor. I travel constantly. I don’t think I fully appreciated how much travel the job would involve. As a law professor, travel takes me to new audiences; it also allows me to build and reinforce social relationships. So right now I travel a lot—-more than I expected, more than I would like, and way more than my wife and kids would like. In the 18 month period from January 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006, my business travels have taken/will take me to the following destinations:

Berkeley
Boston
Chapel Hill, NC
Chicago (6 times)
Denver
Lansing, MI (2 times)
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Minneapolis (2 times)
New Haven, CT
New York (2 times)
Palo Alto (3 times)
Seattle
San Francisco (2 times)
San Jose
Santa Clara (3 times)
Washington DC (3 times)
Wilmington, DE

My tally: 13 states and 13 different law schools in 18 months. More significantly, this amounts to 34 different business trips in 18 months, or almost two trips a month.

I’ve realized that this level of travel is not sustainable. I lose a lot of productive time on the road, but more importantly, each trip requires me to leave my wife to single-handedly take care of our two young kids, and that’s just not fair to her or them.

As a result, I’ve been looking for ways to cut back on travel. One cut was easy. For the past 4 years, I’ve been actively involved in the American Bar Association. I’ve enjoyed the experience, but the price of admission has been high—-right now, based on my various obligations, I am committed to 6 trips a year for the ABA. By dropping out of the ABA, I can save those 6 trips a year.

I will also probably say no more based on cost-benefit analysis. From Milwaukee, the travel time to participate in East Coast events is comparatively low—-most East Coast and Midwest destinations are a two-hour flight away, and in many cases I can get nonstop flights from Milwaukee. For example, in February I flew nonstop to Washington DC as a day trip. However, starting next academic year, when I’m based in California, trips to the East Coast will require almost 2 full travel days. Thus, going forward, the trip’s benefit will have to outweigh this significant transaction cost. This surely means that I’ll take a pass on trips I would have taken without hesitation from Milwaukee.

(Fortunately, with my new administrative duties, I can bring people to Santa Clara, so I will have a mechanism to continue my social relationships without my having to travel at all.)

I’m sure some of you are thinking that I must have racked up some major frequent flyer miles with all of these trips. Unfortunately, I’ve scattered my miles. I tend to pick flights based on price and schedule first and airline brand second. The result is that I have one free ticket on just about every airline, but most of those are effectively unusable given the stringent redemption requirements imposed by airlines. Despite my low brand loyalty, I did take enough trips on United Airlines last year to make premier status. With my resolve to cut my travel, we’ll see if I can earn the status again this year.

When we flew to California last Monday, the thermometer read 1 degree. I guess one is better than none, but it was cold. [How cold was it, Eric?] It was so cold that our plane froze. As in, the airline couldn't start the plane because the engine was frozen.

This seemed odd, because surely frozen airplanes can be anticipated and avoided. After all, as cold as 1 degree is, it gets colder--much colder--in Milwaukee and other cold-weather airports, and it's not like the cold temperatures were unexpected. Maybe the airline was feeding us a line, but if the plane truly was frozen, I think someone screwed up. Don't they have engine heaters for airplanes?

To Delta's credit, virtually without hesitation they immediately made arrangements to put passengers with connections on other flights. However, these types of scrambles almost always set in motion a series of events that inevitably result in unhappy travelers.

In our case, we switched to a United flight but, unsurprisingly, our bags didn't make it. And after waiting 2 hours in the San Francisco airport for our bags to arrive on the next flight, we were disheartened to find only 3 of 5 made it. However, to United's credit, they did deliver both of the missing bags within 30 hours, and they did (grudgingly) loan us a carseat to allow us to drive home safely.

However, I'm still stuck on how an airplane freezes. Of the many things that can go wrong during Winter travel, this never occurred to me as one of the major risks.

Traveling between the Midwest and New England during December means two unavoidable truths:

1) Weather delays
2) Non-stop piped-in Christmas tunes playing throughout every corner of the airports

It makes for a very unpleasant combination!

I previously blogged about how airlines fail to consider the attention consumption consequences of their repeated communications with passengers. I had a great example of this on a flight this weekend. The flight left at 6:20 am, so all of us were pretty groggy. About 1/2 hour into the flight, when I would estimate 2/3 of the passengers were dozing or asleep, the lead flight attendant got on the loudspeaker and said:

"We're going to begin our beverage service. If you are asleep, we don't want to disturb you. So if you're asleep but want a beverage, just put your tray down."

Gee, thanks for being so considerate of sleeping passengers. However, did it occur that your announcement would wake up many passengers, so most of the people who want to sleep won't need to rely on the tray-trick? Next time, if you really want to help sleeping passengers continue sleeping, maybe the loudspeaker isn't the smartest way to declare that intent.

But the announcement that irritates me the most is the "Sit back, relax and enjoy the flight" mantra that virtually every pilot invokes. Passenger response is virtually Pavlovian. When the pilot sends us that friendly wish, several dozen seats on the airplane immediately recline to the max.

I don't understand why airplane seats are designed to recline at all. Maybe there's some medical reason. Perhaps consumers demand it, although given the Pavlovian response to the pilot's well-wishes, I think a lot of passengers don't really think about it until prompted.

All I know is that passengers get a pretty small volume of space to begin with (maybe 18" x 20" x 5 ft), so allowing another passenger to make a couple inch incursion into that space is pretty material. Accordingly, when a passenger reclines his/her seat, it typically triggers a cascade of reclined seats behind that person as each passenger tries to reclaim a few extra inches of volume from the passenger behind them.

If I'm trying to work on my laptop, even reclining my own seat isn't sufficient. I've had times when I simply can't get the laptop screen open enough to see it. United's Economy Plus solves this problem somewhat, but it's still a problem.

My preference would be to eliminate the ability of airplane seats to recline at all. But if that's too severe, then pilots could and should simply retire the "sit back" mantra/Pavlovian trigger. Or perhaps pilots could modify it to remind people to sit up straight.

Since the late 1980s, I've flown a few hundred of thousands of miles. However, I almost always pick an airline based on price/schedule instead of brand loyalty. As a result, I currently have a free ticket on a half-dozen different airlines, but I've never made it to premier status on any of them.

Until now. On my last trip, I finally crossed the threshold and joined the ranks of United Airlines' premier members for the very first time. I feel like I've entered the inner sanctum. Will this truly be the promised land of economy plus legroom, early ingress and egress, and bonus miles bonanzas?

It brings to mind an episode of Frasier where the brothers joined a snooty and exclusive health club. When they got in, they discovered there was another level of membership behind a fancy door. This started a sequence of social climbing to enter the increasingly more exclusive areas of membership until, ultimately, the fanciest door is the one that leads to the outdoors dumpster.

In my case, I have no desire to reach the 1K club. I spend too much time away from my family as it is. But once I delight in the privileges of premier membership, will I be able to gracefully regress back to common frequent flyer status if I don't continue to fly as frequently?

On almost every flight, I'm reminded of how airlines do not try to avoid unnecessary consumption of passengers' attention. Some of this is the fault of the FAA, which requires various announcements and disclosures. Other consumptions presumably are attributable to "failure to warn" tort doctrines. Yet other announcements are purely discretionary. Whatever the reason, in aggregate, I'm constantly frustrated with how often I am interrupted/disturbed by the flight attendants and pilots.

Consider, for example, the announcements at the beginning and end of a flight where the captain informs the flight attendants to prepare for takeoff and landing. If the communication is between the pilot and the flight attendants only, why is the announcement made to the entire airplane? If the airlines tried to conserve their passenger's attention, they would find a way to allow the pilots to communicate just with the flight attendants and leave the passengers out of it.

Otherwise, many of the announcements are untargeted. A welcome to frequent flyers (don't care). An invitation to join the frequent flyer program (already a member). The announcement about the movie starting/stopping (sometimes I care, other times I don't). And, of course, the safety demonstrations that most of us simply ignore. There's no way for me, as a passenger, to customize the information to my interests. All announcements are one-size-fits-all, and that means many of them are not relevant to me.

As a consequence, I find it very hard to nap on the plane. Now that I'm a parent, I do sometimes collapse out of exhaustion. Even when I do, though, the periodic stream of announcements keep any nap pretty short. But even when I try to work, especially on the computer, I find the announcements disruptive and unwanted.

I mention all of this because, on my last flight from San Jose to Chicago, I saw at least a half-dozen passengers using noise-canceling headphones. I tend to be a late adopter of technology (i.e., I still don't own a cellphone), but I've already queued this up on my wish list. With these headphones, I wouldn't care how many announcements the airline made; I could just tune them out and blissfully sleep/work away. I'm waiting for the price to come down, but I will definitely be getting a set.

Of course, the promulgation of noise-canceling headphones poses a problem for the airlines and the FAA. How will the necessary information be disseminated if everyone has checked out, technologically speaking? Will the airlines/FAA ban the use of noise-canceling headphones during some announcement phase? Will some form of "assumption of risk" develop? (i.e., if you miss the necessary disclosures because you're using noise-canceling headphones, tough bunnies for you). Will the airlines use more invasive forms of disclosure and consent like the current charade of "I need to hear your verbal assent" for passengers in the exit rows?

To date, the FAA and airlines have felt no incentive to consider the attention consumption costs of their announcements and disclosures. They have had no real incentive to manage the consumption of passenger attention, so they have gotten gluttonous. Now, technology is striking back. Will a technological arms race between the FAA/airlines and passengers ensue?

UPDATE: Vic at the Conglomerate discusses his experiences with noise-canceling headphones.

Car camping is down 28% since 1998. Backpacking down 33% in the same period. How to stimulate interest in these activities?

Some campground operators think they have found a solution: offer wireless Internet connections at the campground.

I'm a big fan of Internet connectivity when I travel, and perhaps global wireless Internet coverage is inevitable, but for now, I have mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, Internet connectivity when I camp could be a real plus. It would provide a good way to get real-time weather reports and trail/road conditions, a non-trivial consideration. It would also allow me to get more information about attractions, such as history, trail maps, etc. I definitely have informational needs when I'm camping, and easy access to the Internet could solve many of those.

On the other hand, one of my great joys in camping is being unconnected. I don't own a cellphone and I can't use my laptop when I camp, so I am truly unplugged. In June, I camped 3 nights in Death Valley, 2 of them at a campground at 8,000 feet in the Panamint Mountains. What a great way to decompress and reflect!

If I had an Internet connection, the temptation could very well have proven irresistable. Instead of doing information detox, I would have been perpetuating information overload. There's a value to wild spaces, and wireless Internet coverage perhaps changes the nature of these spaces in modest but significant ways.

In any case, the advent of electricity and wireless Internet connectivity ultimately will portend the end of car camping for me. Currently, if I go to remote enough areas, I can still find car camping that isn't like camping in downtown Manhattan. However, I think those days are progressively ending; it will become harder and harder to find a remote enough area. Eventually, I think I'll have to give up car camping and go backpacking to find truly peaceful areas. The double bonus is that I don't have any intention of lugging my heavy laptop in my backpack!

JD Powers released its survey of hotel satisfaction. A couple of paragraphs caught my eye:

"While many brands push the envelope to introduce new amenities and innovations such as satellite radio or Internet check-in, the study finds that brands that improve on offerings in the tried-and-true comforts of home that make for a convenient in-room experience tend to receive considerable boosts in customer satisfaction scores. Amenities of particular interest to consumers include a complimentary breakfast, in-room refrigerators and coffee makers, pillow top mattresses and high-speed Internet access.

An example of this is Omni Hotels, which improves dramatically to rank highest in the upscale segment. Omni Hotels is the first upscale hotel brand to offer free wireless Internet access in guest rooms. Three top-ranking Hilton brands all offer free high-speed Internet access: Hilton Garden Inn, which ranks highest in the mid-scale full service segment; Hampton Inn & Suites, which ranks highest among mid-scale limited service hotels; and Homewood Suites by Hilton, which ranks highest in the extended stay segment. In addition, Hampton Inn & Suites and Homewood Suites by Hilton also offer complimentary hot breakfasts."

Yes, yes, yes! I hope hoteliers are listening. In my perfect world, every hotel would give me free Internet access and a refrigerator/microwave. The former lets me get the information I need. The latter lets me control my meals. This is especially important because sometimes my vegetarian options are slim, but I can pick up a frozen meal at the grocery store (that I locate through my Internet connection).

A great example of what not to do. I spent two nights this weekend at one of the higher-end hotel chains. $16/day for Internet access! $2 to make a call to an 800 number! No refrigerator or microwave, so I was forced to eat out every meal. I would have been far happier in a Hampton or a Homewood hotel at a significant discount price-wise.

As Christine points out, there's something pretty radical about a Chicago paper lauding Milwaukee, as the Chicago Tribune did today (free registration required).

Milwaukeeans have a love/hate relationship with Chicago. Milwaukeeans tend to have an inferiority complex but also disparage Chicago's traffic/drivers/expense/general bad attitude.

However, this love/hate relationship is not reciprocated by Chicagoans. Instead, the most dominant attitude by Chicagoans towards Milwaukee is complete indifference. I'm constantly amazed at how many Chicago residents have no idea where Milwaukee is or why they might stop there. I'm pretty sure a non-trivial percentage of Chicagoans confuse Milwaukee with Minneapolis, so they think it's hundreds of miles away. In fact, downtown to downtown is about 90 miles, and it's an easy 100 minute train ride or a quick 90-105 minute drive. I do the drive (or take the train) at least once a month either to downtown Chicago or to the nearest Trader Joe's in a northern Chicago suburb--it takes a half-day to do the roundtrip, but it's not a big deal.

Thus, given the indifference, it's a noteworthy development when Chicago's major daily comes out singing Milwaukee's praises.

This is not to say that Milwaukee is the most compelling destination that Chicagoans could imagine. But my sister and brother-in-law, and their two nieces, came from California to spend a week with us in Milwaukee and had a good time. I was petrified about this because the Midwest generally doesn't have a whole lot of "California-grade" tourist attractions.

Nevertheless, we found plenty to occupy a couple days. We spent one morning driving the lakefront, seeing the Beer Baron mansions on Lake Drive, stopping at the hip and college-y Alterra coffeehouse on Lincoln Memorial Drive (in the old pumphouse building), checking out the Art Museum and touring Marquette (including the fascinating Joan of Arc chapel). We had a great vegetarian lunch at Beans & Barley, went to Cosi for a S'mores dessert and then toured the Sprecher brewery. That night, we went to a movie in a state-of-the-art movie house for a couple of bucks less than the California movie houses. Another day, we took them on a walk in the Schlitz Audubon park. The frogs and turtles were mostly hiding, but the wildflowers were everywhere!

We didn't even get to do everything on our list--we were going to take the family to Cedarburg (my wife, in particular, likes the massively-overpriced caramel apples) and the Pabst House and a ballgame at Miller Park. They will just have to come back for more fun!

FWIW, the Miller brewery tour is better than the Sprecher tour. As the Tribune article points out, the video is hilarious, and I liked touring the beer caves. The tasting at the end...well, it's Miller products, and tasting it fresh from the brewery doesn't really improve the experience in any noticeable way. However, they allow you to send as many free postcards as you want to your friends, so bring your address book. And the tour is free! The major plus for the Sprecher tour? All the free soda (of seven varieties) you can drink. (Only problem: both my wife and I thought all of the varieties, other than the root beer, weren't that good).

So my hope is that the Chicago Tribune article starts to lift some of the mystery about Milwaukee. Perhaps that will lead to less indifference and more interaction between us.

On my recent travels, I found that many hotels are now offering Internet access for free--not the high end hotels, where they charge for everything, but the 2-3 star hotels that need some marketing hook to pack the rooms. I booked two rooms through blind bidding (one through Priceline, the other through HotWire) and both had free Internet access. Bonanza! I felt like I hit the jackpot. We haven't quite gotten to the point where I am assured of being able to find free Internet on the road, but it seems to be getting closer.

Listen up, hotel operators. Where I have a choice of hotels and your competition is offering free Internet access and a competitive room rate, you will lose my business every time. I'm too cheap to pay for access (or I may have difficulty getting it reimbursed), but it absolutely makes my travel experience better!

In a similar vein, I note that United Airlines has been given the green light to offer Internet access during flights. I'm sure this will be too pricey for me, at least initially, but the die seems cast--in the future, I will have continuous access to the Internet when flying, when staying at my hotel, when waiting in the airport, hanging out at restaurants or coffee shops. Eventually, the Internet will truly be everywhere.

UPDATE: NYT readers vent about wi-fi charges at hotels.

Every Milwaukeean has their favorite time to escape the crummy weather. For some, it’s January and February when the weather is the coldest and the days are the darkest. For others, it’s March, when other places are experiencing Spring and we’re still suffering through very cold and cloudy days. For a few, it’s summer, when it’s too hot and humid for those Milwaukeeans who have ice in their veins.

For me, it’s May and early June, when the weather has nominally gotten warmer but it is still crummy. The last 2 weeks have consistently been in the 40s and low 50s with rain/dark clouds. That alone wouldn’t bother me, but after having crummy weather since mid-October, I’m really tired of it.

Fortunately for me, I’m escaping Milwaukee and its crummy weather for the next three weeks. I’m traveling to the Bay Area, Seattle, Las Vegas, Death Valley and Los Angeles for a mix of business (presentations/conferences) and pleasure (camping and hiking). Even when I’m not at conferences, I’ll be grading exams and working on papers—but at least I will be able to do those outdoors in the sun in shorts and sandals!

Because I don’t expect to have continuous Internet connectivity during my travels, blogging should be spotty for the next three weeks. I’ll be back in Milwaukee June 13, when blogging should return to normal.