How to Find the More Perfect Hotel Room

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I have discovered a website that I love called Room 77.  What Room77 does is allow you to see what kind of hotel room you are going to get and the view from that room.  So you type in the city and name of the hotel where you are staying and it will show you the view from that specific room.  Because we all know that not all hotel rooms are created equal.  Who wants to look at a Wall when you could look at a park.  What I have done is write down the rooms I like before arriving.  This way prior to the Front Desk employee giving me the key I can suggest the rooms I would prefer.  Usually they will assume I have been to the hotel before and will provide better service anyways.

I Love This Cognac

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I found Tesseron Cognac a couple of years ago and I am a huge fan.  Unlike many other brands this is still a family run company started in 1885.  The Cognac is made in Châteauneuf-sur-Charente, France.  They have many different variations that they sell. Personally, I like the Lot 76 the best.  It is also one of their least expensive.  The bottle will set you back about $80.  What makes this Cognac distinct is the caramel sweet undertone.

Tesseron Lot N° 76 “X.O Tradition” is an exceptional blend of reserve stocks of Grande Champagne Cognac, matured to perfection in old casks. Lot N° 76 immediately establishes its quality on the nose which exhibits a wealth of caramelised peaches, almond and candied fruit aromas. This carries through magnificently on to the palate, with rich, delicate flavours of nuts and dried fruits. A rare range of tasteful sensations.

A Perfect Pizza: 2 Amy’s in Washington DC

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A picture is worth a thousand words so let me know what you think?  2 Amy’s located at (3715 Macomb Street Northwest  Washington D.C., DC 20016-3868
Tel (202) 885-5700) has the best pizza in Washington DC and maybe in the USA.  They are one of the only Pizza places with D.O.C. (See Below).  This is a fantastic and delicious place.  They also have a great variety of beer.  Simply Delicious!!!!!

What is DOC?  In 1998 the Italian government formally recognized Neapolitan pizza as a traditional food worthy of preservation and granted it D.O.C (Denominazione di Origine Controllata) status, which specifies the legally permitted ingredients and methods of preparation necessary to produce authentic Neapolitan Pizza. Only soft-grain flour, fresh yeast, water, and sea salt may be used for the dough, and only Italian plum tomatoes, mozzarella di bufala, extra-virgin olive oil and fresh basil or dried oregano may be used for the toppings.

Quickly create new Sticky notes on a Mac

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There are 2 ways of making a Sticky Note on your Mac.  The first way of creating a new note as easy as highlighting the text and/or images you want to jot down and pressing a keyboard shortcut. That shortcut? Command-Shift-Y.  Your new note will near-instantly appear on your screen, containing the text you just had selected.

If keyboard shortcuts aren’t your preference, there is a second approach, too. You still start by highlighting whatever it is you’d like to save in Sticky form. In this method, however, you simply drag your selection onto the Stickies icon in your Dock. Once again, your newly-created note will leap to the front of your screen, reflecting the entirety of your selection.

Dominique Ansel: An Outstanding Bakery in Soho

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I recently visited Dominque Ansel, a bakery in Soho.  I love this Bakery.  It is very relaxing and just exudes a great energy.  The kind of place you would love to hang out in.  It is very casual with Coffee served in paper cups.  But the coffee is fantastic and the bakery is amazing.  All the products are baked on-site which is rare these days.  I loved their Croissant, Cannele, and Madeleine.  I definitely love this place and highly recommend it.  They are located at: 189 Spring Street (between Sullivan and Thompson) New York, NY 10012.

Sightglass Coffee in San Francisco

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I have been ordering Coffee from Blue Bottle Coffee for the past 2 years.  They provide an excellent aromatic coffee, freshly roasted within 24 hours of shipping.  However, I recently discovered Sightglass Coffeethat is also located in San Francisco.  They have an excellent customer service team.  I ordered the Ethiopia, Gedeo, YCFCU Single Origin Espresso. The aroma of the fresh coffee was amazing when we received the package.  The coffee was very flavorful and well balanced.  Will definitely be ordering again.

TASTE NOTES

Ethiopia’s Yirga Cheffe region is known for producing coffees with refined fruit-like brightness and delicate floral aromatics. The Gedeo lives up to it’s namesake, offering kaffir lime and jasmine floral aromatics. These floral attributes show in the cup beside flavors of watermelon, bergamot, and crisp cucumber.

DETAILS

This is a washed processed coffee from the Yirga Cheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union. YCFCU farmer members tend to small plots of land at high altitudes ranging from 1700-2200 meters above sea level. These small plots are in Ethiopia’s Yirga Cheffe region, specically the Gedeo zone, an area known for producing coffees with refined fruit-like brightness and delicate floral aromatics. The Gedeo opens with kaffir lime and jasmine aromatics, leading to flavors of watermelon, bergamot, and crisp cucumber.

Mileage Manager

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I have been using Mileage Manager for the past year.  I find it to be a very convenient and inexpensive way to manage my airline, hotel, credit card and car rental miles in 1 place.  It is very simple to use.  You simply add the user name and password for each frequent flyer program you belong to.  It then gives you a summary of all your frequent flyer programs as well as the points needed to get to the next status level.  They also alert you of mileage bonuses.

Crosby Street Hotel in Soho (NY)

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We just came back from spending a few days at the Crosby Street Hotel in Soho.

The hotel is simply fabulous. The Staff could not be more friendly. The Rooms are so nicely decorated.

The location is fantastic–right next Balthazar Bakery.  If you are looking for a hotel with a super friendly staff, well located, well priced for New York, and excellent restaurant I could not recommend this hotel more strongly.

Book Review: Brian Haig’s The President’s Assassin

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I have become addicted to Brian Haig’s books.  They are really enjoyable, fast paced and cleverly written.  I really enjoyed the President’s Assassin.  I thought the book was much better than his last one Man in the Middle.  In this book Sean Drummond is back with his trademark smart-ass character.  But he is a clever military lawyer who is on loan to the CIA in this book.  He gets drawn into a murder investigation by the FBI and that is where the action begins.  There are so many twists and turns it will make your head spin. 

Sean Drummond, the JAG attorney whose crime-solving skills are almost matched by his ability to tick people off, has a new assignment: working for the Office of Special Projects, a CIA offshoot. Not long after his reassignment, Drummond is called to a murder scene where one of the six victims is the White House Chief of Staff and where a note was found in which the assassin threatens the life of the president. In this kind of thriller, the outcome isn’t much of a mystery; it’s how we get to the outcome that counts, and Haig leads us there through a series of plot twists, shortcuts, and dead ends that never fail to keep us on our toes. Haig is still developing as a novelist, and readers familiar with his previous books will note that Haig’s appeal is no longer purely plot driven. Action is still his calling card, but his supporting characters are becoming more fleshed out, his dialogue smoother.

Book Review: David Hagberg’s The Cabal

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Another great book by Hagberg.  The book is a fast paced thriller that has you jumping all over the globe trying to keep up with the main character, Kirk McGarvey.  It is at times sad to see what happens to Kirk’s family but overall this is a great book.

In Washington DC, CIA agent Todd Van Buren meets his college friend Washington Post reporter Josh Givens at a D.C. restaurant. Josh mentions to Todd he’s investigating an apparent top secret government cell the Friday Club. He insists the group consists of political and military insiders who from the shadows run the government.

Not long after they depart, two snipers assassinate Todd, who ran the CIA training “Farm” with his wife Elizabeth, as he drives on the Interstate near Fredericksburg, Maryland. A few hours later, assassins murder Josh, his wife and their son in their townhouse. Former CIA Director Kirk McGarvey has no time to grieve the death of his son-in-law. Fuming, he vows to find the killers, their handlers, and their leaders as more people are murdered; some even closer to him.

The latest ultra fast-paced McGarvey thriller is an exhilarating action-packed tale with several twists that even the hero never anticipated. Fast-paced throughout, McGarvey struggles with psychological trauma like none he faced before even when he dealt with a best friend mole inside the agency and staying alive as he climbs the pyramid of the Friday Club hierarchy.

Book Review: Foreign Influence

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FOREIGN INFLUENCE is a fast paced, thrill ride into the world of covert ops. Former Navy SEAL Scot Harvath is back, and in fine form.  If you like Vince Flynn you will enjoy this book.  I would recommend reading them in the order that they are written.

Book Review

In Thor’s formulaic ninth Scot Harvath thriller (after The Apostle), the ex–navy SEAL has lost his job with the disbanding under a new presidential administration of the Apex Project, a Department of Homeland Security secret antiterrorist program that didn’t worry about obeying any rules. Fortunately, Harvath lands on his feet with the Carlton Group, funded covertly by the Department of Defense, with an identical mission. After a bus full of Americans is blown up in Rome, Harvath travels to Europe to track down a man known as the Troll, who’s been implicated in the bombing. Meanwhile, John Vaughn, a Chicago cop who somehow moonlights as an attorney for private clients, seeks to identify the Middle Eastern–looking man who ran down a woman with his cab. Predictably, Vaughn uncovers a plot against civilian targets in Chicago. Bumbling CIA agents make members of the secret Carlton Group look even more heroic. Fans of TV’s 24 may enjoy the over-the-top setups, but even they might wish for a little more sophistication.

Book Review: Private Sector by Brian Haig

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Here is the 4th book in the Brian Haig series.  I found this book to be gripping.  I could not put it down.  It is a big improvement to the last book I read by Haig (the Kingmaker).  The story really is amazing and for those of us that love a good thriller this is it.

From Publishers Weekly

Haig’s wisecracking J.A.G. attorney Sean Drummond returns for his fourth caper in three years (after January 2003′s The Kingmaker). Unpopular with his military superiors because of his sharp tongue and his tendency to attract trouble, Major Drummond finds himself loaned out to a private law firm. Culper, Hutch, and Westin represents some of the District of Columbia’s most staid, old-line institutions, and Drummond begins ruffling feathers from the moment he arrives, though he does prove surprisingly popular with some clients. Meanwhile, a serial killer is taking out attractive young professional women. The first victim is Lisa Morrow, Drummond’s sidekick in Haig’s debut thriller, Secret Sanction, and also a military lawyer working for Culper, Hutch, and Westin. In fact, Lisa’s on her way to meet Drummond when she’s murdered. Chapters from the obsessive killer’s dark perspective alternate with Drummond’s cheeky first-person narration. Not happy with police progress on the case, Lisa’s sister Janet, also a lawyer and a dark-haired beauty, steps forward to help Drummond investigate, even as victims pile up. Both Janet and Drummond prove to be entertaining thorns in the side of crusty police detective Spinelli, the officer in charge of the murder investigation. Haig introduces related subplots featuring corporate greed and criminality, but they don’t have the visceral chills or the sexiness of the serial killer story line. In the end, it’s all about Drummond; though the novel is overlong, the hero’s sharp and devilish style should keep reader interest high until the surprising conclusion.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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