JillFlorio

I always travel with my own pillow. I am very pillow-oriented and can’t sleep properly with a substandard pillow. Hotels often offer these mile-high uncomfortable ones…or too-thin nonexistant limp things that you can only pile up into the semblance of a pillow if they give you enough of them.

My own travel pillow is a small, portable, but perfectly proportioned affair. I have two different kinds, actually, depending on how much extra room I have in my luggage. One is an actual real standard-sized pillow with my luxurious, silky Pima Cotton pillowcase that I bought at Goodwill. It goes on road trips, bus/train trips, when staying at a friend’s house overnight and whenever I am not traveling light.

The other thing I use is a little neck pillow that has several comfortable positions for various uses - one for propping up my head to read, or for sleeping lying down, or for trying to sleep on planes. I found this at Goodwill too (I am an unashamed scavenger).

Since all pillows attributes are a personal choice, you will just need to try different travel pillows to find the right one for you. You don’t even have to feel embarrassed at your pickiness, since as this blog shares, you are not alone in your pillow woes.

I like to travel with a lavendar linen spray too. I use it at home and have a small size for traveling. Dan even likes the spray and will obligingly sit up to let me scent his pillow before lights-out. It does help us sleep better and through the night, no matter the condition of the available pillow.

Quick reviews of the RCA Lyra and SanDisk Sansa MP3 players, with a fervent wish I’d picked up the iPod instead.

A good MP3 Player is a must for the serious Business Traveler. I have an RCA Lyra that serves me well enough, but I’d rather I had an iPod. I use iTunes and that would’ve made the interface darned easy.

My Lyra uses a Media Player interface, which I do have, but its just another step to move my music there from its storage in iTunes.

Plus, I like the options iPod is coming out with, like the music dock for the home, office and car. I am not normally an Apple fan, but I have to admit iPod is a superior product.

But, hey! Oh well. For now I have my convenient, portable and even rather attractive (it’s red and ergonomic-looking) Lyra. Fine for today; that’s my new motto.

I’ll have to get my hands on a few more MP3 players to review. Terri L Griffin, BellaOnline editor for West Coast Travel, reviews the SanDisk Sansa MP3 Player. BellaOnline has honest reviews, so I feel safe sending you to a review there. I will try to add more, myself, from my own point of view, when I get my mitts on more MP3 players.

This short book is a very clear and easy read; just about right for blogging novices seeking a quick introduction to the basics. The pages are written in “sound bites” for the busy non-tech professional, in lucid language, with no padding. You get just the facts needed to get your business blog set up, from idea to reality, in a reading that should not take more than one afternoon.

My major beef with the book: the author’s single-minded focus on Typepad as a blogging platform. What about Blogger and Word Press? Exactly *half* of this book reads like a how-to manual for TypePad.

Although I understand this is the author’s choice and probably the blogging platform he is most comfortable with, nowhere on the jacket blurb is TypePad mentioned. I would like to have known this if I was buying the book! What if I already had the start of a WordPress blog and wanted to know how to develop it? Half this book, short enough already, would be wasted cash for me. I find this a bit disingenuous on the part of the publisher.

I would recommend this book only if the blogger-to-be wanted a step-by-step description of starting a blog from *scratch* on Typepad.

For people already owning a blog, the book is just a bit too remedial. For the price, there are other books for the beginning blogger that should prove more useful and take one beyond the baby steps offered here.

Blogwild!: A Guide for Small Business Blogging

Too often I’ve seen this happen - a cutting-edge social media book becomes out of date a year after the publishing date. This 2007 book is no exception.

MySpace is given a lot of pages, while Facebook is barely mentioned in passing. Texting as a social phenomenon is ignored, while Twitter is not named at all. LinkedIn, Wickipedia, uTube and Flickr get their due discussion, however, as does the possible future of podcasting.

The short chapters are set up as compare/contrast essays, for example, discussing the merits of the Wickipedia vs the Brittanica, whether blogging hurts or helps journalism and whether or not social networks are doomed to failure.

While these are all fascinating topics, the writing here is pedantic and scholarly. I had forgotten how much I dislike the academic voice. Reading this took me back to the days of college sociology assignments.

It’s not that the information is useless - there are good points made in each chapter. And it’s a quick read - I was able to start and finish this in one afternoon. I just feel that if someone is seeking of-the-moment information on social media, then a “just published” book might be more appropriate. Or better yet, seek current websites blogging about social media on the Internet!

User-Generated Content (At Issue Series)

This is a pretty unusual resource and a very exciting guide to growing your own potpourri garden.

The book highlights which herbs, bulbs, annuals, perennials, shrubs and - of course - roses, to grow for your potpourri making enjoyment. There are also chapters detailing how to plant, grow, harvest, dry, store and prepare those plants for potpourri use.

Specific kinds of potpourri recipes are provided, along with everything you need for stocking your workshop. Recipes are divided by seasonal mood - Spring mixes are different than Winter mixes. Pictures show how to decorate with the different potpourris as well.

If you’ve ever wanted to set aside some of your garden as a potpourri harvesting smörgåsbord, then this is the right book for getting started.

The Potpourri Gardener

DAN WRITES: I am so cool with my huge widescreen monitor. But it’s a bit big for those little cafe bistro tables…

I love working in coffeeshops, drinking vanilla lattes and looking cool. My Dell Inspiron 17-inch widescreen monitor always attracts attention. Yeah, I enjoy the notoriety, and I get to tell people I’m being paid for my time, too.

It’s a super cool laptop, but it’s also a table hog. Those little bistro tables are totally dwarfed and my wife can’t see me from behind the screen. She says it’s like playing “You Sunk my Battleship!” with me, but far less social.

In spite of this point, I do get a lot of work done. I try to follow my own Dan’s Rules of CoffeeShop Laptop Etiquette, and to not to take over the free-spirited coffeeshop ambience with my technological terror of a work machine.

DAN WRITES: You can easily eat healthy hotel morning meals that won’t encrust your arteries, with a bit of care. Yoga and exercise while traveling certainly won’t hurt either!

After writing about hotels and the low carb diet, I have been asked to discuss low fat eating tips for business traveling. You can easily eat healthy hotel morning meals that won’t encrust your arteries, with a bit of care. This article describes common low fat hotel food options.

I also wanted to add that it doesn’t take much exercise to keep your heart tuned up - 20 minutes of even mild walking is helpful. I like to take a walk after a meal, if I can take the time. I do try to get out there, whether at home or on the road.

Yoga and simple stretching is another tip to keep your heart happy and healthy. Business travelers can become pretty Type A after a while. Travel is actually stressful! Yogic breathing and gentle stretching movements keep me both mentally and physically limber.

Online mail services available from your laptop at the coffee shop or hotel business center.

Finding a post office while traveling is a hassle. So is waiting in line to send a package. It’s so much easier to just text a message, shoot an email, or send a fax from your hotel concierge. Even Federal Express is more user-friendly to the business traveler. Who needs regular old snail mail mail these days?

This are probably among the reasons the United States Postal Service (USPS) started waving their banner about their newer, faster and - best of all - mostly free online services. According to a recently mailed USPS postcard you can now: “ship a package from your kitchen…put a hold on your mail from the airport, (and) change your address while sitting in a coffee shop.” And buy stamps from your hotel room, personalized with your pet’s face - not a free service, but definitely a fun one if you’re feeling homesick.

Go to the the USPS website and poke around before your travels - register away and learn the rules at leisure in your home office. Then get ready to use what your tax dollars are paying for. Want a quick primer on easy (and mostly free) USPS options you can use from your laptop? Check out Postal Service Tips for Travelers.

Ooh, I was practically smelling the nutmeg already when I got my hands on this book. I love spiced winter beers and hot buttered rum, pumpkin pies and cinnamon sticks, potpourri and new pine branch wreaths. What these all have in common are their evocative scents, traditionally associated with the Christmas season.

*Raffia Wreath *Buy From Art.com

Adding scents to Christmas crafting seems a natural idea. This book is a marvelous fount of aromatic wisdom for decking the halls or holiday hosting. I appreciated the plethora of gift ideas that will smell good through the gift-wrapped box.

The ideas in The Scented Christmas offer the chance to express deeply buried holiday fantasies: making rosemary Yule logs, decking the halls, dipping bayberry candles and making rich, spicy Christmas pudding.

There are hundreds of crafty ideas - scented place names, cards and garlands. Spice ribbons, scented pine cones and citrus pomanders. Advent potpourri. Scented teddy bears and angel dolls.

Then there are the classier projects - scented finger bowls (use herb infusions or scented oils in warm water, topped with a sprig of herbs in a small pretty bowl at each place setting); Christmas incense (with scents of frankincense, sandalwood, rosemary, clove and lavender); potpourri of the Three Kings (you guessed it - gold, frankincense and myrrh); spiced bath oils, skin-softening body vinegars, spicy colognes and rose petal toilet waters. Scented talcum powder gifts! I feel like a kid in a candy store.

Most of these projects would be super to work on with children. Since the olfactory areas of the brain are intimately tied in with memory, you will be actively tracing your children’s future holiday scent paths home to you.

A Scented Christmas