Spending a few days at "The Feast of Lights" in Holyoke, MA. Oodles of interesting people. Only downside is that there's no soy for mocha lattes. An extremely minor bump on the road of life.

Fast forward to the Summer of 2010. Time to return to Live Journal. Busy week this first week of August. At the radio station it's pledge week. A reality of public radio is pledge time. Begging for dollars it used to be called. Maybe, still is. Pledging takes a lot of energy, annoys the staff and listeners, and always takes longer than anyone wants. Still it's a vital part of how we operate. Tomorrow a few of us from the station are braving the tourist crowd, and ferrying over to Martha's Vineyard to serve mojitos at a high-end donor event.

That's all. More later.

My dear friend Francene unexpectedly died yesterday, and I cried. She had a huge impact on my life with her powerful personality, big heart and infectious laugh. You may know people like Francene. Friends you encounter in a short span of time that leave you with a lifetime of memories.

We first met during a broadcast journalism fellowship in Germany during the Fall of 2002. She immediately took control of our 18-person group, and her spontaneity and wit provided endless entertainment. Like when it was Roxana's birthday. Francene insisted we have a champagne party wearing our hotel bathrobes -- fully dressed underneath, of course.


(I took this photo. Francene is in the middle row, far right.)

Francene and I became fast friends. Later, when she needed a date for her radio station's Christmas party in Louisville, KY, she flew me down. (Only AFTER getting approval from my sweetie, E-F.) And when E-F and I were planning our wedding here on Cape Cod it seemed only natural that Francene stand beside me as "best man." She loved it, and of course took charge of everything once she got here.

Last night a mutual friend e-mailed me with the tragic news. I was in shock. Two weeks ago Francene came down with a cough that turned into pneumonia. She suffered a a brain aneurysm, then a heart attack and finally was taken off the respirator yesterday afternoon. She was only 43.

In the movie, the Wizard tells the Tin Man that "a heart is not judged by how much you love but by how much you are loved by others." Francene was loved by people around the world and had the biggest heart of all. I miss her.

Moving up to the big city, at least for a day. Still to come, on Monday, Jan. 18, I'll be filling in for Jordan, my Morning Edition counterpart at WGBH. Our mothership station in Boston. I'm in the big city today and tomorrow learning all the air studio's knobs, bells and whistles. These facilities are very new, and very different from what I use in Woods Hole. It's like moving up from Fireball XL-5 to the newest incarnation of Star Trek. Well, O-K, so I exaggerate. I wouldn't trade my station in Woods Hole for anything. It's hard not to like a place where I can look out the window, read the news, and see the ferry arrive from Martha's Vineyard. But it's nice to learn new tricks and techniques from a pro like Jordan, and seeing colleagues that usually only live in e-mail.

Also makes me appreciate the traffic of Cape Cod. These Boston drivers are crazy.

So plan on tuning in to WGBH Monday morning.

The warm weather stays in Vegas. Let's hope the bus back to Cape Cod is heated. Someone forgot to bring his gloves and hat for the walk home from the bus station...

Writing this entry at the airport, waiting for my red-eye to take me to Boston and to the same time zone as E-F.
Yayy!

A fun and informative spot in Las Vegas is the Atomic Testing Museum. An excellent facility that tells the stories of those who worked at the Nevada Testing Site way back when. It's also a look at the now silly and fool-hardy ways some Americans viewed the atomic bomb. All kinds of stuff in the gift shop, too. You can buy fridge magnets of "Miss Atomic Bomb 1956" or a book entitled "The Radioactive Boy Scout."

The museum was the host of a blogger party last night (Friday). Lots of people. Got to meet my Star Trek actor heroes LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner, both of whom told me they're public radio fans. Yesss!

Didn't want to wait for the shuttle back to the Strip so I walked the mile and a-half distance with a fellow named Jeff, attending the convention from Pennsylvania. He's been coming to the CES for many years and visits the city often. He had a lot of anecdotes about Vegas of years past. He also set me straight about the former computer trade show "Comdex" which I incorrectly thought was what the CES was once called. Apparently, the fellow who "owned" Comdex sold it for two billion dollars several years ago before the market tanked, and used the proceeds to build the now popular Venetian hotel.

Phoned my good friend Frank Shiers, working at KIRO radio in Seattle doing the evening talk show. Had him wish me a happy birthday. It was Frank who years ago gave me a surprise party for my 21st birthday.

Ever considered playing "Amazing Grace" on a grand piano via your iPhone? Well, neither have I. First of all, I don't own an iPhone. For that matter my phone is sooo 2008. And my piano lessons ended at chopsticks when the teacher threw her hands up in a "what's the point" manner.

So this morning a Japanese tech trade group held a press breakfast to promote its upcoming trade show, and hand out awards for innovation. Top prize went to the developer of software that creates a visual piano keyboard on your smartphone and lets you play, via a wireless connection, any piano in the world. Of course the piano must have software connections of its own -- I didn't understand how it was connected -- but this was your typical old fashioned grand piano. You can even program your phone to play a tune. I must admit this is really cool. The player piano roll in the tech age.

Tonight I'm heading to a big blogger party. Not than I'm a regular blogger, but there's free food and an open bar. Besides two of the actors from Star Trek The Next Generation -- Brent Spiner and Levar Burton -- are scheduled to be there. Maybe they're gonna remember me from when I interviewed them briefly for the radio nearly 20 years ago. I am soo old.

Speaking of which, Elvis would have been 75 today. My birthday too! (Elvis and I were so close.) E-F surprised me by having a beautiful flower arrangement sent to the room. They're wonderful! Apparently the folks downstairs at the Sahara front desk were also delighted at the flower arrival.

And to answer your question, yes, I finally saw Lady Gaga. Me and 652 other nerds. It's fun watching celebs encounter the fans.

So you remember Polaroid? One of the first tech companies to provide the consumer with instant gratification? The company originally operated in Massachusetts but crashed and burned spectacularly several years ago leaving pensions and bad feelings in its wake. The company name has since been bought out and Polaroid itself resurrected in Minnesota. Now features digital cameras that print out your little photo for you on the spot. Well, Polaroid had a nice wine and snacks event last night, where company president Scott Hardy announced that who else but Lady Gaga has been signed up as – and I’m not making this up – Chief Creative Officer. Very cool. If nothing, what a coup for Polaroid. I have to wonder what they're paying her. Naomi on the radio this morning was amazed. Lady Gaga herself is supposed to be at the Polaroid booth this morning. I hope to be within shouting distance…

Naomi is the All Things Considered host at WCAI, and when I’m away she fills in for me on Morning Edition. This morning we did five-minutes live about the Consumer Electronics Show.   I talked about last night’s huge keynote presentation by Microsoft touting all its new and upcoming software, applications and the like. There’s a lot of cool stuff on the way – the best I think are these compact tablet-type portable PCs with touch screens that will serve as your web interface, e-book reader and TV all rolled into one. While it was a dynamic presentation – chairman Steve Ballmer is a fine speaker and the graphics were sensational – but sometimes what is left unsaid speaks louder than anything from the stage.

Microsoft has a lot of cool stuff, no doubt about it. But the company forever is accused of trying to make its software behave and look like Apple. Last night, nearly everything Microsoft presented nips at Apple’s heels without getting close to Apple’s innovations. Also, Steve made a big point of promoting its new but sad search engine competition to Google called “bing.” Everyone in the huge theater ballroom last night knew that Google has 80 percent of the search engine market. But Steve said that people in his office love to “Bing, Bing, Bing!” A lot of low-level chuckles from throughout the room.  Steve knows, but kept up his poker face.  After all, this is Las Vegas.

There’s even a new video game system Microsoft stubbornly calls Natal (no, they want you to say nay-TALL). It’s like a souped-up really cool version of the Nintendo Wii. People may love the software but I’ll wait and see about the name.

If you've never been to Las Vegas, it's light-years away from the cute desert village populated by gold miners or 60s Rat Packers. For one, the city itself -- until the recession -- was usually listed as one of the top-five growing cities in the country. Total metro population these days around one-point-eight million along with related congestion problems. The casinos are by far the biggest tourist draw but ironically most of the so-called "strip" hotels and casinos are located just outside the city limits. The "Strip" refers to a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard, the main drag. Virtually all of what were once considered the 'classic' strip hotels are nearly all gone replaced by multi-billion dollar casino-hotel-shopping meccas. All the lights at night are really cool in a tacky-neon sort of way. Just gotta love it. All this money to build casinos and it still oozes tacky. And so far removed from the real life of everyday folks who live here.

Just one of the classic hotels remains -- the Sahara, built in 1952, updated of course many times, but still with a homey atmosphere. Photos of the old days of the Jerry Lewis Telethon at the Sahara -- with Dean, Frank and Jerry -- adorn the walls. It also has the cheapest room rates, a big reason I'm here. Several years ago someone had the foresight to build a monorail connecting several hotels along Las Vegas Boulevard. It’s rather convenient that the Sahara is on the far north end with the convention center a couple of stops away.

Still, interesting to be here.  It's fitting that a place calling itself "Sin City" would have more churches per capita than any other city in the country.