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John Hardy: Baubles with a conscience

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Joy Ohara, Susan Lee , me (with Damien's bracelet), and pals form university days Lye Kok (back) and Damien Dernoncourt outside the Maritime Hotel, Chelsea, Manhattan On Saturday I had the pleasure of meeting Damien Dernoncourt, CEO and principal of John Hardy , makers of extremely fine silver jewelry in the Balinese tradition.  Apart from a mutual friendship with Bike Friday customers Lye and Joy, Damien had something in common: a handmade product with a story. In Damien's case, a stunning range of high-end silver jewelry made in Bali, where his company is the tiny country's biggest employer.  In my case, my little Traffic Cone Bag that's made in America (and of course, Bike Fridays , made in Eugene, Oregon).  When you see Damien's jewelry displayed in chic 5th Ave store windows, seemingly untouchable unless you're dressed well enough to hit the buzzer and enter, you'd never imagine the human and inspiring story behind it. First, the Balinese have th

Yoga: Downward dog days in Arizona, March 2010

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As you can see I'm hard at work, and practicing my yoga routine  ... (Photos below from the YogaJournal.com site) This picture was taken during my recent, oh-so-brief 5-day stay in the Bahamas, thanks to Bike Friday customer Hilge Hurford for generously inviting me to her timeshare.   My take on the Bahamas . I got caught up on plenty of reading, including fully digesting the current issue (as opposed to being 3 issues behind) of Yoga Journal, a nice, tight publication with a very long history.  I've been doing regular practice ever since putting my back out in November  at the end of my Japan trip, and it's really paid off. After some emergency chiropractic, then letting the pain subside, I went to a yoga class after 3 weeks and was amazed that 75% of the pain and stiffness had disappeared by the end of the class. Wow! Sacro-iliac joint pain is so utterly common, than when it hits we seriously worry if we've done something drastic. It just needs some rest and

Greets from the Bahamas!

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Avoiding banana lounge butt (except when typing this blog) and stingy things like these ... Story on the Wayback machine here .

2010: The Year of "I Got It"

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I'm still waiting for i-Pearl Inc to say "I got it" and refund my $29.95 for the damaged laptop case. Or at least tell me to go to hell. The year has begun well. My best friend Julie from waaaaaaaaaay back in kindergarten, had the top of her lung removed a couple of days ago and has been given the all-clear. This, despite a very informed friend (head of a pulmonary critical care unit) telling me lung cancer is a tough one. I'd sent her a hamper of goodies but the internet hamper company didn't acknowledge right away for some reason. During that gap I had ample time to start wondering if my money had disappeared off to Nicaragua (a country I love, but you can disappear - voluntarily - pretty easily there). When I finally got an acknowledgement, it still left a lingering mistrust. I asked my friend to tell me what was in the hamper - just to see if the stated goods matched the actual. I thus declare 2010 to be the year of "I Got It". I assert

2010: New Year's Resolution: Comfortable shoes!

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Today I went shoe shopping  (no I didn't buy the above boots, despite turning Japanese )

The Handsomest Man in Cuba: Who's picture is it anyway?

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I got an interesting letter from someone today: Hi, Seeing that the Cubans are so poor and that dear old man has worked so hard everyday did you, will you or have you given him any money for using his picture?I was back to Cuba this past March and gave him a picture I took of HIM!!! I wonder what he would do if he saw himself on your book? I'm thinking there is something wrong with this ... Sandra It's a reasonable question: should I give the man on the cover of my book money? More to the point - just how much? This reader feels I am somehow taking advantage of this man - profiting from by having his face on my book. Here's my reply: Thanks for writing. I appreciate your thinking on this - though you're making a baseline assumption that he is poorer than me. In many ways, he's probably better off. He charges $1 for 2 little photos he processes in that bucket in a prime tourist location. He makes more money in a day than many Cubans do in a month. He'

NY Eve in NYC

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New York never fails to redeem itself. A clinically certified New Yorker keeps quoting "either  E.B. White , ('Here is New York') or Joan Didion ('Goodbye to all that'). Actually, he now claims can't locate that passage anywhere in the above two writings, and I suspect in his rabidity about his domicile of 25 years, he made it up himself. No matter - how this blow in from Downunder spent New Year's Eve upover in 2009, is a testament to it. And I was nowhere near the mirrored ball in Times Square. Instead, I spent most of the day sheltering from the snow, working on a newsletter for Bike Friday. At 4pm I  wrapped myself up in everything Smartwool I own , pulled rubber rainboots, unfolded the Speeding tikit and pedaled uptown. The snow and ice were thick, with mirror-slick patches requiring careful negotiation in the icy bike lane. First, I arrived at Caroline Fu's office to take delivery of more Traffic Cone Bags to fulfil the orders th