L'Shanah Tovah

I'm about to head out to Congregation Ner Tamid for Rosh Hashanah services and just wanted to quickly say Happy New Year to all of you. Jewish or not, there is something about this time of year that does always make people feel like new beginnings are upon us. September and October has always been a time of starts for me, including several jobs, school years and even my relationship with Miles.

If you miss me, catch up on my latest output:

* My piece in the New York Times on 9/11 about the crappy beacon on Fossett's plane is here. I was amused this morning to start reading it in the Las Vegas Sun, which uses NYT wire, before I noticed it was my own piece.
* My piece for Wired News on the 50,000+ people searching for Fossett via Amazon.Com is here.
* Appeared on Jon Ralston's Face To Face on LV1 on 9/11. Video is available in three segments if you scroll down a little bit on this site.
* The Peter Frampton episode of "The Strip" can be heard here, or you can right-click here to download it and listen to it whenever.
* Episode #102 of "The Petcast" is online now, too. It's called "Duck Poop and Reptiles Happen," and our guest is a woman from the Colorado Reptile Humane Society. Hear it here or right-click here to save it.

Cheers!

The Strip is LIVE tonight -- Really This Time!

OK! We're back on our regular schedule and will see you all tonight in the chat at LVRocks.Com for a fantastic show featuring one of the weirdest, coolest interviews ever, this time with Peter Frampton.

Do NOT miss the first three minutes or you'll miss the best laugh you'll have all day. We're holding Wynn another week b/c Frampton plays Vegas this coming weekend.

Join us at 7:05 pm PT. We promise, minimal Fossett. Well, unless they find him.

Departing the Fossett Watch

Whew! I am done! After I post this, I'm going to take some pix of quaint Minden and then head to Reno to fly home. I'm off Fossett duty until there's some definitive development.

I just filed to the NYT website a piece based off my chat with Sir Richard Branson this morning. That material should appear here in the next hour or so in some form or fashion. I may post the audio from that chat later, although I suspect it's kind of rough as Branson and I were both on cell phones and he was in Europe. There's some real news out of this, including some of Fossett's future plans. If it doesn't get posted there, I may post some of what was cut here after I get back to Vegas.

Also, I just filed my piece for tomorrow's newspaper about Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch with insight from some interesting folks who have been there. I imagine it'll post on the Web site in the next several hours, too. Quite a place.

In addition, I had a kick-ass chat with Peter Frampton this morning that was so good, we're playing it on "The Strip" next week and holding the Steve Wynn bit for another week. (Sorry, Wynn-o-philes, but your wait shall be rewarded, I pledge.) And if you don't care about Frampton, you should know I knew very little of him until about 10 p.m. last night and still I assure you you'll love this discussion.

OK. I'm out for now. The Best Western Minden needs my room for some other inbound journo.

Frampton, Fossett, Forbes and Friess

Amid all the rest of what I'm doing here, I am interviewing Peter Frampton this morning for an upcoming episode of "The Strip" podcast. And here's the weirdest thing: In doing my research for this chat last night, I noticed that Frampton and Fossett share a birthday, April 22. Now what the hell are the odds of that? Almost as strange as the experience of leaving messages with a reasonably confused secretary from Steve Friess for Steve Forbes about his pal Steve Fossett, perhaps?

Keep watch on this space. We should be publishing some new Fossett details I learned from Sir Richard Branson this morning on the Times site and I'll alert when that happens. Meanwhile, here's my piece in the Times today.