Jenny anticipated that she would spend a great deal of time on the beach when she accompanied her husband Phillip to Florida for an, as he put it, essential business convention. He didn’t like to go on business trips as a general rule, primarily because he wasn’t comfortable sleeping in hotels, the reason for which Jenny never knew or attempted to understand. And when he was asked to take part in the convention in Southern Florida he thought his wife might be willing to go along. He convinced her that she could spend her days lounging in the sun and sand while he attended to business and he would take her out for a nice dinner every evening. Jenny didn’t have near the problem with travel that Phillip did but she acted like it was an enormous favor just in case she needed the leverage at some point.

Her husband was true to his word except for one thing, Jenny wasn’t able to spend her days lazily enjoying the sun and sand. It wasn’t that there was a complication, obstacle or problem it was that there was simply too much else to do. From the moment they checked into their room in one of the cozy hotels along the Florida beach she was filled with excitement about shopping and sight seeing opportunities. She loved the Old Town area felt she could easily lose herself on the historic streets. She also spent an entire afternoon at the Key West Museum of Art and History.

On Phillip’s final day of convention he ended up getting finished early. He called Jenny who had to be dragged from the Key West Botanical Forest and Garden. When she met up with Phillip she begged him to take her to Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, which he was happy to do, still being in a state of gratitude. They had such a great time that night and spent much of it exploring some of the local dance clubs. Phillip was so tired when they returned to their room he completely forgot that he wasn’t able to sleep in hotels and immediately closed his eyes and drifted off to dreamland.

When I was a young girl, my mother had framed reproductions of Norman Rockwell paintings all throughout the house.  She had the old issues of the Saturday Evening Post, just the ones in which he had painted the covers, covered in plastic.  We could only look through them if our hands were clean.  He has been named one of the most popular illustrators and American artists of the Twentieth Century and his work will be on display in an exhibit at the Museum of Art/Fort Lauderdale for just a few more weeks, closing on February 7th. 

There are many fun things to do in Fort Lauderdale, most of the activities taking place on and around the beaches.  However, this is one show that you may want to brush the sand from your feet and head indoors to see before it is gone.  The show is titled, “American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell”, as Rockwell himself seemed to chronicle the lives, the hopes and the inspirations of an entire country.  As all great illustrators, Rockwell was a tremendous story teller in a medium which uses images and not language or printed text. 

During the seventy years Rockwell painted, he found the nuances and small details of people of everyday and ordinary life, making them personal yet widely noticed, in that everyone picking up the Saturday Evening Post could see a bit of themselves in his work.  During Rockwell’s lifetime, the United States was going through many transformations, and one of those was the movement from a time that was a simple time, to the more modern and complex society.  Rockwell captured the innocent times, the psyche of a nation and the internal feelings of the people.  Many of his paintings have become cultural icons, as recognizable as the Coca Cola trademark. 

The show includes an in depth commentary on his life and his work, and is set up chronologically.  Many artists and illustrators will be traveling to Fort Lauderdale in the next couple of weeks.  One of my friends told me he found a great rate on a wonderful hotel at http://www.luxuryhotelsfortlauderdale.com and he now plans to stay for an entire week to attend the show and study the works of this American master of the human spirit, Norman Rockwell.

Phyllis finally made the decision, she had been struggling with for over four years. Well, in actuality, she had made the decision four years ago, she just hadn’t made any additional decisions to follow up with it. She finished college and her dream prior to that had been to move to San Francisco to begin her career. For her graduation present her parents paid for a weeklong trip the Bay city, which included extremely nice accommodations at one of San Francisco’s finest hotels. They paid for the trip not only for Phyllis but also her best friend Sarah, which they thought would not only make it more exciting and fun for their daughter but also a bit safer, as she had never before been to the city.

Phyllis had such and amazing time on that trip that she decided to make her dream a reality and move there. However, that same summer her great aunt became sick and Phyllis decided to wait until after she was recovered to make her move. In the meantime she got a job in the local public library that she really liked and also thought it would be great for her resume, as she wanted to pursue a career in library sciences. She also enjoyed the job a great deal so she decided to go ahead and make a one year commitment to it, which seemed like a good idea all the way around.

The following year her younger sister was getting ready to get married and Phyllis was going to be her maid of honor so for obvious reasons it was not a great time to move. Then it seemed like one thing after another prevented, or at least postponed her intentions. And here it was four years later and she was finally sitting in the front room of her very first apartment in San Francisco. Her friend Sarah was with her and helped with the move and the two of them had just finished a walk up and down Market Street to check out the local markets, deli’s and restaurants. They decided they wanted pizza and were getting ready to have their first meal with Phyllis as a San Francisco resident. They showered and headed out again for some great food at Pizzeria Delfina. It would become one of Phyllis’ favorite places.

Any family trip to Williamsburg, Virginia, would not be complete if you didn’t stop in at Busch Gardens.  While there’s plenty to do outside of the European-themed park, such as plantation and ghost tours and Colonial Williamsburg; however, when people book their hotels in Williamsburg, they often have Busch Gardens as the primary destination in mind, the same way that on the West Coast people come to Anaheim strictly for Disneyland and California Adventure or Knotts Berry Farm.  The locals in California have devised numerous schemes for handling these famous, popular parks — from where to park, what to pay for admission, and in what order to see the attractions.  Similarly, people have also come up with the best insider tips on navigating Busch Gardens.  Here’s a few of those suggestions:

Arrive early.  In some ways, this is counterintuitive, because you may encounter long lines at the park entrance, but it’ll be worth it once you’re inside the park.  To avoid two lines, purchase tickets in advance.  If you must buy at the park, just know that you will be in a pretty long line.

Once inside the park, the crowd seems to head for Italy first.  Instead, head in the opposite direction and find your way to Ireland, or even head for the roller coaster, the Loch Ness Monster.  In Ireland, you can see the show, Emerald Beat, a kind of Lord of the Dance, Riverdance, sort of experience.   If your family likes that type of dancing, you’ll love this.  There’s just one word of caution here, and that’s line up early, about a half hour or so.  The doors open at that time, too, so you may be able to go right in.  If you have time beforehand, or immediately afterwards, do Corkscrew Hill, a 4-D simulation ride about Ireland.  There sometimes is a wait, but the ride is air-conditioned; so if you’ve gone when it’s hot, that’s definitely a place to get away from the heat.  Afterwards, your best bet is France, where there’s some pretty good restaurants.  I’d recommend the Smokehouse, which has chicken and BBQ ribs.  The only drawback there is that you have to eat outside.

Tickets at these theme parks can be pretty pricey.  If you’re able to come back more than once a year, say three or four times, then the year’s pass, even thought it’s over a hundred dollars, seems like a better deal; anyone with kids in the California area always seems to have a few of these kinds of passes for Disneyland and that works out pretty well.

If you’ve never been to Chicago, you might get most of your impressions of the Windy City from one of three sources: old gangster movies from the 30s, the Matthew Broderick movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, or the original sitcom, The Bob Newhart Show.  In retrospect, it’s not much to base an impression of a city that’s been around since 1833 and whose famous University of Chicgao began in 1892.  No, in order to really know this city, you have to live in it a while, check into one of Chicago’s luxurious hotels, eat in its restaurants and diners, check out its theater and clubs, and perhaps attend one of the weirdest tours of the Toddlin’ Town, Weird Chicago.
 
The Weird Chicago tour is a ghost tour of the city like no others, taking you to places that are presumed haunted, to crime spots and strange locations.  The tours have appeared on a number of cable television networks, such as the Discovery Channel, A & E, The Biography Channel, TLC, and the History Channel.  The three hour tours may explore everything from the Great Chicago Fire to the crimes of the 19th Century to Al Capone. 
 
The tours depart from the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Chicago and follow a number of hardened cases.  There’s the Devil and the White City Tour, in which you explore the history of American serial killer H.H. Holmes at the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair, and explores the “Murder Castle,” an infamous site in Chicago history.  There’s the Blood, Guns & Valentines Al Capone Tour, taking a look at where Al Capone lived.  There’s even a Red Light District Sex Tour, that focuses on the history of sex in Chicago, examining the original red light district as well as the world’s first Playboy Club, and more.  This particular tour is limited to those eighteen and above, with proof of age required.  In fact, Weird Chicago seems to have a tour for every bizarre taste, including pub crawls and public enemies tours, as well as the Bloody Chicago Crime tours. 
 
One of the more interesting tours explores Archer Avenue and the haunted highway, the source of the ghost story, Resurrection Mary.  It’s one of Chicago’s best known ghost stories, and perhaps the origin of all those stories about a woman who appears on a lonely highway and taken into a motorist’s car, only to have the woman disappear and the driver learn the woman was a ghost.  Hearing such stories and traveling to such sites will certainly make you put aside at least some of your sitcom friendly Bob Newhart and Ferris Bueller notions of Chicago.

After you have spent the day traveling and then gotten a good nights rest at one of the luxurious hotels located in Grand Rapids Michigan you may be ready to get out for a walk. There are many places to visit in the city that will be quite interesting and entertaining. There is always the Gerald R Ford Museum which is the final resting place of the former President as well as an interesting view of his presidency. Then there are some Native American burial mounds left by the Hopewll tribe that was preserved by the modern people of the city. Then there is the Van Andel Museum Center which is one of the oldest history museums in the U.S..

If you want a bit of fresh air you may want to spend a day walking around the John Ball Zoological Garden. This land was donated to the city by the estate of John Ball in 1884, who helped develop the city when he settle here in 1837. He was a lawyer, teacher and eventual Governor of areas of Michigan. He was always over seeing the best interest of Grand Rapids. When he died his will left 40 acres to the city for this park. The city took the gift and added another 100 acres and then turned it into a destination fun park. There were ponds, a band stand, playgrounds and ballfields. They put in a theater, trails and then the zoo. The city continued to add to the park until the the Great Depression when the zoo fell to hard times. But the zoo was revived in 1949 by Katherine Whinery’s efforts to talk the mayor into creating a Zoo Society. The zoo today is a magnificent place to spend the day. It is filled with so many animals and displays.

If you are looking to stay in luxurious surroundings, you’ll find it scattered throughout the Valley of the Sun, from Scottsdale to Phoenix to Mesa to Tempe, hotels which beg you to stay in them, even if you’re local to Arizona.  As a former resident of these desert cities, I can attest to the fact that you’ll be able to visit in style resort and spa hotels at any point in the year; however, locals will often wait to the summer months to take advantage, because in the off-season you’ll find great deals.  Tourist season for Phoenix are the winter months (right now, in fact), where you’ll find an extremely comfortable desert world, the temperature usually settling in around the 70s and even 80s; even as I write these words, Phoenix is hovering in the high sixties and early seventies, in the middle of January.  It’s no wonder that so many people visit now.  Of course, the summer months are a different story, where the temperature is capable of rising to 117 degrees or higher.  For that reason alone, some people make a weekend of it, renting a luxurious hotel room and spending their time in air conditioned comfort.

Like most people, though, if you’re from out of town, you’ve arrived in winter to escape colder climates elsewhere (Phoenix is a great place from which to call relatives and friends and ask how cold it is in the Mid or Northwest).  While temperatures plunge below zero in other realms, Phoenix seems to exist outside the real world.  In the summer months, people are pretty much forced to live in their homes, quickly moving to the air-conditioned cars, and then to their air-conditioned jobs and coffee shops and malls, and so on.  Not a lot happens outdoors until much later in the evening; and even then, the nights can remain in 90 degree temperatures.

In the winter months, however, there’s a great deal more for a visitor to do.  In the winter, it’s a pleasure to take a trip to one of the many golf courses or a visit to the Heard Museum, specializing in Native Peoples, or to the Phoenix Zoo in Papago Park, or even a stroll through the campus at Arizona State University in Tempe.  No matter what part of town you find your hotel in, you’ll find a great escape from the rest of the nation’s winter.

The Ministry of Justice in United Kingdom published a draft of a bill on March 25, 2009.  This is the Bribery Bill.  The purpose was to consolidate and to update the legislation surrounding anti-corruption policies in the United Kingdom.  This created more defined terminology regarding what actually constitutes an act of bribery as well as other offenses which are considered to be acts of corruption.  Although it could take several months for the bill to pass in Parliament, many officials are in full support of the bill, and are already putting into action some of the policies.

The bill outlines the definitions of the four many offenses surrounding bribery, which involving the making and the taking of bribes, the bribing of foreign officials,  and the responsibility of each public company and section of the government to do everything in their power to ensure that acts of bribery do not take place.  This is true for the corporations in the United States as well.  When companies fail to do all that they can, or if they fail to have the ability to show that they have done all that they can, such as in proper book keeping practices and documentation, or “due diligence”, the companies and their employees are held just as legally responsible as those who are committing the crimes.

These laws go for all, for more than just those in government, to those in public offices, and private business.  Not only are those making the bribes liable for investigation and prosecution, but so too are those that are made by third parties or through agents.  The taking of bribes is as equally as punishable as the making of them.  This pertains to not only monetary bribery, but in the forms of gifts, favors and preferential treatment.  Business leaders, and government leaders around the world are taking steps to rid the world of corruption and of bribery, and many of them have come together in this fight, working as one to make the world not only a safer place, but a more just and ethical place as well.

I made a promise to never set foot in New Orleans again.  Maybe it wasn’t so much a promise as a court order, but a few years had passed, and there’s always a new generation of young people who make the streets of this town what it is.  And things do change pretty rapidly, so that there are very few who might remember some of the things that happened here a few years ago.  That was my hope, anyway, so when I got to thinking about luxury hotels, New Orleans came to mind, but it was actually already in my mind, well-planted.  I’ve had some nice times here.

I don’t remember the year exactly, I would have thought it was 1983, but it seems as though I’m wrong, judging from the way things have played out, but I remember the events.  I had become a little enamored with a perfume dealer in town, a certain Madame Duvalier and her assistant V’lu Jackson, and it may have been with a slightly romantic bent, but it was more about smell.  They both had exquisite taste and scent in all things, and I recall there were some things coming from their shop that caused me to remember all of my dreams.  Not only the dreams of the night before, but all of them since forever and ever, and I don’t know what else.  I know one of the ingredients was jasmine.

There was some confusion, and some things happened that made it impossible to continue working with them, but in the meantime, I had the opportunity to work with some of the former residents on other projects.  Art is a lot like life, or vice versa, or maybe I mean love, but there is a certain moment when the mercury meets the salt and things start to make more sense than they had previously.  There are also interesting traveling companions that can certainly help to make sense of things, and make the voyage so much sweeter.  I might decide to make perfume of my own, or I might decide to keep the rest secret, but if you run into me, you’ll certainly recognize my, and I do hope you’ve guessed my name.  I like to hear my name.

There is some interesting history to Kansas. There aren’t any mountains of splendor or oceans of wonder but Kansas has some peaceful rolling hills that allow one to see for miles. Like the rest of the early continent of America the Native Americans were here first. Then as with many areas of the west, the Spanish explorers made their way to the area. Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was the first to make his way here in 1541. Then many year later the area was secured by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The last major battle to be done on this land would be about slavery.

As the south eastern states were fighting for their right to keep slavery legal and the north east trying to end slavery, Kansas became a ground for the mission of both sides. The first settlers to work there way into the area were from Missouri and Arkansas and were trying to get the voters to embrace slavery as a right. Then the abolisionists came from mainly Massachusetts to rally for slaves to be free. The abolitionists won and Kansas entered in as a free state in early 1861. It was the 34th state to be entered into the union.

Kansas has had some famous people and places. Dodge City was a wild cowboy town that has made its way into many books and stories. Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp were lawmen of Dodge City. Wild Bill Hickok was a lawman at Fort Riley as well as Hays and Abilene. Some other notables who came from Kansas are Amelia Earhart a pilot, Politicians President Dwight D Eisenhower, V.P. Charles Curtis, Bob Dole and Alf Landon. Walter Chrysler, auto maker, lived in Kansas. And the list goes on of quite a few actors, musicians, an prominent business men who lived in Kansas. So find a great room at one of the hotel Kansas has available and see what you can find out about the state.