Hey, long time between entries here, sorry bout that gang. Got busy: with the holidays, my LP workload, finalizing our 2003 taxes (yes, that's 03. i know, i know), landing some freelance gigs. Been writing for the SF Bay Guardian, and will start teaching the SF based Travel Writing Boot Camp for Media Bistro in January, excited for that. Check the schedule at www.mediabistro.com.

Lots new at LP: Best of NYC and Best of New Orleans in the can, pub dates Feb 05; USA & Canada on a Shoestring on their heels, April 05. That one I'm stoked for, a first edition on content dear to my heart. Ah to be seeing the states with first-timers eyes again...nothing to compare with that visual realization. Also been busy with first edition Cape Cod, Nantucket & Martha's Vineyard, new New England, and new Florida and Miami titles too. On the 05 horizon I see city guides to Chicago, Boston & New Orleans, three cities I love but root against in sports.

Happy to to be involved with Don George with LP syndication at LP, highly exciting new opportunties for authors to get their bylines out in publications far and wide. I'm doing a piece on Homer, Alaska for the Portland Oregonian this week, will be working with colleagues to vet many additional pieces.

As for colleagues, want to give some nods here: To Thomas Kohnstamm, great Latin American history and culture expert; Becca Blond, ace reporter able to parachute in to any region and nail it; Robert Reid, a guru with a big beard and bigger imagination that often leads him to the more exotic spots, like Bulgaria, Burma and South Dakota; Liz Hille, fine fiction writer with a piece coming up in Winter 2005 Glimmer Train. Also props to Beth Greenfield, Chris Baty, John Spelman & Ginger Otis, and Tom Read, Jeff Hill and Jeremy Chipman. Good work all.

Finally, this week marks an end of sorts as I get set to saddle it all up here in the big SF and make that inevitable pilgrimedge, across the bay. Yes, San Francisco time is winding down, eight years in the city but soon to lay my head on an island called Alameda. Shh! Don't tell folks -- there's a certain untapped something going on over there, so close in yet so isolated, no reason to go lest you're going there. So don't go! Or do, but keep it a secret. Sheit, we all know we gotta leave SF after some time, tends to quicken with a littlin' around; to have found such a jewel so close in, and so reasonable, feels like going back to a time when the Bay Area wasn't all off-the-hook and unaffordable.

Yes, we rode out the dot.com, and got past 9/11, never got the Ellis act boot and now leave of our volition to a place we can spread and build, and save hundreds each month to boot. No, I won't be able to take the 24 bus to the Fillmore anymore. But WTF? It's just for now. If baby boomers have taught us anything, its that the Fillmore's are eternal - sometimes you get to the shows, others you don't. And they'll be back. Heck, If 60 is the new 40, that must make 40 newly 30, 31 tops. And what's an age? As unimportant as geography.

So this Monday, bleeding to Tuesday, sees me with six days to go on this chapter. Looking forward to the next one, starting Sunday morning with a U-haul.

94114 over and out
94501 and beyond

Always a pleasure to bite into the apple, starting to build up the appetite for our trip there next week. We'd taken to visiting in early Septembers, for the weather and remembrances surrounding the 9/11 anniversary, but this year the LP load was too bulky and I couldn't get away. No worries though, as Oct brings with it a whole 'nother dynamic, this one diamond shaped, as those boys in the Bronx rev it up for that Red Sox clash.

Oughta be epic, sure getting billed as such, but regardless how bball turns out we'll have a memorable trip. For one thing, young Sophie will be getting her first face time with the family -- grams & gramps, assorted aunts, uncles, & cousins, should be nuts-- with her all of 7 months, 14 pounds, five teeth and countless noises. new ones everyday. That'll occupy the latter half of the journey, the Jersey end, which is full for the boardwalks, the diners and newspapers, the lovely drivers. But the first half will be purely city, with an agenda of pursuring the new.

Funny how the tendancy is to blow off the tourist sites in one's backyard, as I did growing up in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, Twin Towers. Never hit the former, came close to ascending it on that fateful Sunday when last we went there, Sunday the 9th of Sept, year 2001, me, Mai & good pals Eric & Gary; one look at the steep cost of admission - $16 - scuttled plans to hit the WTC observation deck, we settled on Krispy Kremes in Tower 2 instead. In those days to come that week, I often thought of those shadowed faces I remembered, the doughnut bakers dutifully flipping, a lone large security guard hanging loose by the ticket booth.

For this trip, we'll be focusing on a number of things we either haven't done yet, or have cropped up among all the numerous new offerings NYC's sporting in the early days of its 21st Century. Of the former, Ellis Island is jumping out, for the chance to show Sophie the spot where her great-great-great granddad came into this country, fleeing the potato plight, and to dig around for more details on the murkier lineage of the family's other side. If the day is clear, the Empire State might get summitted; I've done it but Mai hasn't and we're both down with Art Deco regardless. In the interest of exposing Soph to the masterworks, art museums also beckon; we're too early for the new MoMa but perhaps the Whitney, the Frick, or, weather permitting, the Cloisters. As we're staying in Chelsea, a new experience for me, we might just bop in & out of galleries, checking out the latest.

But as with all itineraries, this one's subject to change; safe to say if a pair of bleacher seats blow our way, surely Soph can check out the views of Jersey the next time

Just heard from an old colleague based in Hong Kong, Timothy O'Rourke, and he's got a new site up highlighting his deep range of work. Not only does Tim shoot travel -- and he gets out there, to China, Tibet, Egypt, Kenya, Cambodia etc -- but he shoots models, interiors and other projects. He's a standup cat I only got to meet briefly in SF a few years back, but we'll email once or twice annually and his most recent was prompted by seeing my SF piece in Business Traveller (Asia ed), in his dentist's office in Hong Kong.

Check out Tim's work at http://www.tophotography.com/

Quite happy to say New York City 4 has wrapped and been sent off to the printer, with a Nov 04 pub date eagerly anticipated by its writers, staff and me. Kudos to its two primary authors: Beth Greenfield, a Time Out NY editor who handled the bulk of the book and wrote spot-on City Life & Neighborhood chapters and simply kick-ass Eating & Sleeping reviews, and Robert Reid, who turned his eye for the unheralded to the boroughs (Red Hook, anyone), and pounded the streets in dead of winter crafting Walking Tours and chasing up Shopping leads. Four specialists contributed History, Architecture, Music & Fashion coverage, and the whole team worked collective asses off to deliver the most thorough, up-to-date city guide to the NYC of the 21st Century. Only thing better than seeing that sucker on the shelves come November will be learning in October we're out of date on the number of Series banners the Yanks will have flying in the Bronx night.

After a month thick with LP work, including first editions for Cape Cod & US & Canada on a Shoestring (gonna be great), two new best of city guides (NO & NYC), and preproduction work on Miami & New England, time to catch back up with the self, and the travel plans

Looking out towards the fall calendar, many getaway options to sift through. First up, October's looking like the time for heading back to New York City, in news now for the 9/11 anniversary. We were there a year ago today to support the city and reconnect with New Yorkers, friends and strangers, and trip out on the event that brushed us so closely, as we were there when it happened, and actually in the WTC on Sept the 9th. Had Newark-SF plane tickets for the morning of Sept 12, those cancelled, we found ourselves tranversing the country with other refugees on the Greyhound bus. But that's another entry, one we'll always sift through as these sad September days roll back again.

Thanks in part to my Aussie bosses and their 5 weeks vacation policy, I get to split a lot, and usually look to cash in some days around the end of the calendar year. So Thanksgiving's a gimme, one we can stretch into a week and a half, and this season J Tree's calling me - time to take Sophie to the desert. Mai, her mom & my wife, kind of hates the desert, a byproduct at least partially from spending too many summers in put in Austin, but me? I love the landscape that's about as polar from Jersey as it comes. Figure we'll let the little one break that tie. Plus its cheap enough to camp there (could be cold but we've got gear), and we've gotten good leads on the Harmony Motel in 29 Palms, the pad where U2 stayed during the Joshua Tree recordings. Somewhere down the road, Gram Parsons bid his adeau, but I figure best to spread the rock n roll death sites out a bit, so we'll wait.

We've got a mini SW loop to build up off that trip, to possibly include Sequoia & King's Canyon, Vegas, Flagstaff & the north rim. I could be high thinking that winter won't be impacting us in these places, but that's just Bay Area living for your, whack weather always messing with my sense of seasons.

One surity is Montana will be cold, and come Christmastime, that might be our port of call. Sophie's godmom and Mai's old pal Patricia, she and hers have a ranch up there round Nye/Fishtail way (b/t Bozeman and Yellowstone), and have put out the kindly invite for us all to c'mon up. If It happens, we'll be jazzed, and we'll be on a comfy airplane, that's assured. Ain't looking forward to four days on the road round that time then.

As it goes, freelance gigs a going to. Got a piece in the SF Bay Guardian on the Metro Art in LA comin soon, heard from a random old travel media connect who's in Hong Kong he saw my SF piece in Business Traveler (Far East ed). Time to pitch, time to pitch, time to pitch. That's what a gap in the schedule affords me, that and all that lovely vacation time to skip out a day or two. Trouble is, its so damn nice here now its all I can do but lope around smiling.

After a month thick with LP work, including first editions for Cape Cod & US & Canada on a Shoestring (gonna be great), two new best of city guides (NO & NYC), and preproduction work on Miami & New England, time to catch back up with the self, and the travel plans

Looking out towards the fall calendar, many getaway options to sift through. First up, October's looking like the time for heading back to New York City, in news now for the 9/11 anniversary. We were there a year ago today to support the city and reconnect with New Yorkers, friends and strangers, and trip out on the event that brushed us so closely, as we were there when it happened, and actually in the WTC on Sept the 9th. Had Newark-SF plane tickets for the morning of Sept 12, those cancelled, we found ourselves tranversing the country with other refugees on the Greyhound bus. But that's another entry, one we'll always sift through as these sad September days roll back again.

Thanks in part to my Aussie bosses and their 5 weeks vacation policy, I get to split a lot, and usually look to cash in some days around the end of the calendar year. So Thanksgiving's a gimme, one we can stretch into a week and a half, and this season J Tree's calling me - time to take Sophie to the desert. Mai, her mom & my wife, kind of hates the desert, a byproduct at least partially from spending too many summers in put in Austin, but me? I love the landscape that's about as polar from Jersey as it comes. Figure we'll let the little one break that tie. Plus its cheap enough to camp there (could be cold but we've got gear), and we've gotten good leads on the Harmony Motel in 29 Palms, the pad where U2 stayed during the Joshua Tree recordings. Somewhere down the road, Gram Parsons bid his adeau, but I figure best to spread the rock n roll death sites out a bit, so we'll wait.

We've got a mini SW loop to build up off that trip, to possibly include Sequoia & King's Canyon, Vegas, Flagstaff & the north rim. I could be high thinking that winter won't be impacting us in these places, but that's just Bay Area living for your, whack weather always messing with my sense of seasons.

One surity is Montana will be cold, and come Christmastime, that might be our port of call. Sophie's godmom and Mai's old pal Patricia, she and hers have a ranch up there round Nye/Fishtail way (b/t Bozeman and Yellowstone), and have put out the kindly invite for us all to c'mon up. If It happens, we'll be jazzed, and we'll be on a comfy airplane, that's assured. Ain't looking forward to four days on the road round that time then.

As it goes, freelance gigs a going to. Got a piece in the SF Bay Guardian on the Metro Art in LA comin soon, heard from a random old travel media connect who's in Hong Kong he saw my SF piece in Business Traveler (Far East ed). Time to pitch, time to pitch, time to pitch. That's what a gap in the schedule affords me, that and all that lovely vacation time to skip out a day or two. Trouble is, its so damn nice here now its all I can do but lope around smiling.

Back from Los Angeles, where the weather was hot, the burgers cheap and greasy and Sophie overcome by a giggling fit on her first visit to the beach. We'd left the BA on Thursday around 8 pm, just before baby's bedtime, her cries of denial softening into light snores on the Oakland Bay Bridge. Four somnabolant hours later down I-5 we holed up in a Super 8 outside Bakersfield, for the highly reasonable fee of $39.99, tax included. Friday AM we woke for the final push into Tinseltown, down 405 to Wilshire Blvd and a trip west to Santa Monica. The Third Street Promenade was crowded with summerers, and Sophie got bored on the pier so we packed back up and pointed northeast to our hotel in the Hollywood Hills. The Highland Gardens, formally the Larchmont, featured huge 2-bedroom suites, central swimming pool, lush bourganvillia and palm trees overgrowing the faded prewar architecture, and a healthy dose of lore: Janis Joplin spent her last days here, before going poke one over the line in 1970 in room 105. We had room 224, with a balcony, blaring AC, full kitchen setup and room for six more. Next time. Tomorrow would be earlyish, with a tour of the MetroArt meeting at Hollywood / Highland at 10 am. We clicked on the news, heard the glove got shipped out to Boston, and promptly fell asleep in the king-sized bed for 11 hours til Sophie woke us the next day..

8/5/04: Headed down to Los Angeles for three days of work and play. On assignment for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, to update my piece on the public art in LA's subway system, this time by joining one of the docent-led tours that further explain the heritage and the art. Also on a mission to show young Sophie Thai Town and some West Side fun, eg the Santa Monica pier, Palisades Park, and Venice Beach. Good ol tourist stuff, another benefit of a newborn. You get to see it all through their eyes again. We'll be staying this time a night in the Highland Gardens, infamous as where Janis Joplin OD'd on heroin back in 1970. Trip to coincide with the X Games, and though we'll probably be nowhere near the Staples Center, chances are we'll see some skaters and surfers, doing the summer SoCal thing.

Hey Now, thanks for stopping by the JC blogspot on BootsnAll. Props to Chris, et al for setting it up. Really quick, here's my thinking for what this blogs all about:

I'm a full-time staffer at Lonely Planet Publications in good old Oakland, CA, and a freelance travel writer, photographer & web publisher; I've got a fun little family featuring wife Mai, youngin Sophie and fuzzy cat Chelsea. In other words, a bit more settled down now than in my days of traveling abandon in the go-go 1990s but still very much in the flow of all things travel. 'Cept rather than bail out for fours months backpacking here, a year teaching there, I base myself in San Francisco and dig on the Bay Area & beyond.

With help from my generous vacation allotment from LP (gotta love Aussie bosses), and accompanied by my intrepid little clan (well, not the cat), I still shoot out for 1-2-3 week jaunts, or long weekends round Cali, or random samplings of my adopted city on seven hills, giddily introducing it to Sophie, who's a native San Franciscan, five months strong. I also travel as needed for my freelance jobs, with an August 2004 Business Traveler spread on SF's sixties legacy ('The Beat Goes On') and upcoming pieces on public art in the LA subways and the San Andreas Fault for the San Francisco Bay-Guardian among recent clips.

So what I'd like to do here is talk about my gig at LP, where I'm the US East Commissioning Editor managing titles including New York City, Miami & New Orleans, talk about life w/ the fam in SF, talk about trips I'm taking, for business or for pleasure, network a bit, get to know traveling folks, publishing folks, or just any old chaps n chappettes who like to knock back a coffee or three and get all revved up about travel.

I've also got a travel site I built and wrote everything for; it's in need of a little updating but a bunch of my clips are there: www.cooketravel.com. Check it out, check back sometimes, lemme know what you think, I'd be much obliged.

Lastly, just for fun here's a stream of some places in my mind, on my horizon, or history, or wish list: Paris, Italy, Panama, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Miami, New Orleans, Santa Monica, Austin, Morocco, New Zealand, New York, Bonnaroo. Gotta aim for next year on that last one though.

Allright, cheers y'all. Catch ya later -- JC

A travel writer, editor and photographer, Jay Cooke caught the bug early growing up outside Manhattan and soon hit the road to wander parts east, west and south. He's taught English in Prague & Korea, slopped fish in Alaska, driven a cab in Austin and bungee-jumped out of a Swiss gondola for a Fuji-TV adventure show.

Since the late 1990s he's based himself in San Francisco, where he hangs with his lovely wife Mai and daughter Sophie, and hops BART over to Oakland and his Commissioning Editor job at Lonely Planet Publications.