Today, August 31, 2005 is Blog Day 2005 which is the idea of Nir Ofir, an israeli blogger and tech person.
I found out about it by reading David Weinberber's Blog.In case you do not know David, he contributed to the seminal book, the Cluetrain Manifesto.

This Blog entry happens to be sort of a milestone for me : my 100th Blog Post.

To celebrate Blog Day, let me offer 5 Blog Suggestions:

Baristanet, the creation of Debbie Galant, now run besides Debbie by Laura Eveleth and Liz George, is defined by Jeff Jarvis as an Hyperlocal Blog. They cover in a witty spirited way the 3 towns of Montclair, Glen Ridge and Bloomfield in Essex County, New Jersey. They were featured recently on Open Source Radio.

La Fraise, an innovative way to design T-Shirts and sell them, is the creation of Patrice Cassard in St Etienne, France. I discovered them through Loic Le Meur. People can submit Designs, those who get the most votes get printed and the winning designers get 300 euros per selected design. You can purchase through the site as well. Read an interesting interview of Patrice by Shel Israel in June 2005.

Learned on Women, Andrea Learned is based in Vermont. She writes about marketing to women and is the co-author of Don't think Pink, What really makes women buy. I discovered her through Creating Customer Evangelists in Chicago.

Lenndevours, from Long Island (New York), Lenn Thompson shares with us his passion for New York State wines and food.

Url Grey Hot, A self confessed info geek, Michael Angeles (based in Brooklyn, New York) , besides working for Lucent writes on Info Systems, favorite music, cycling and other musings. One thing that appeals to me on his site is the simplicity and elegance of the design.

I hope you enjoy these suggestions and feel free to share yours with me.

Serge
Montclair Concierges
New Jersey Concierges

Just discovered Lenndevours, Lenn Thompson blog dedicated mainly to New York State wines. I have to admit that I know very little about them so it will help me to catch up. His motto is "Drink what you like. Don't listen to critics"

Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate and Zucchini shared some useful tips for a simple yet chic picnic in her most recent column (August 24) on NPR's Kitchen Window. She includes a recipe for herb muffins. So read on and get ready for your 'dejeuner sur l'herbe' to paraphrase the famous painting from Edouard Manet.

Thanks to the column of Marialisa Calta in the travel section of today's New York Times for bringing to my attention Flex Mussels, a Prince Edward Island eatery and the creation of Toronto chef Quain. His no less than 23 offerings range from Mussels Parisienne with Pernod and Wild Turkey Mussels with Bourbon.

I frequently take the Garden State Parkway and sometimes need change as I do not use EZPass. Today was one of these occasions when I did. I could not miss the fact that as on numerous occasions of late the tollbooth attendant does not talk to you, look at you or aknowledge your presence in any way.
I personally feel that they are performing a customer service job and do not act accordingly.

Two New York based women are behind a no-nonse Wine Blog called  The Wine Chicks. Jay and Kristin consider that there are no 'stupid' questions as far as wine is concerned. A healthy attitude when some wine writers make you feel intimidated and ignorant.

Michael Angeles, a fellow New Jerseyan, shares with us his use of Tech Tools in Mapping Bike Rides while preparing for a couple of bike events taking place in the fall.

Following a discussion with a recent client on the needs of single professional women for services such as those offered by our company, Montclair Concierges, we contacted Andrea Learned, co-author of 'Don't think Pink'. She in turn introduced us to the work of Karen Barnes who runs her marketing company 'Woodbine' in Winston-Salem (North Carolina). Karen relates how she bought Ethos water because of the company's promise to give a nickel for each bottle sold to fund clean water projects in  poor countries. Ethos by the way was recently bought by Starbucks.

After having my original cards printed at significant cost by a local printer, I attended a seminar where a HP representative showed us the advantage of in-house printing. So I designed my own business 'postcards' and after using Avery postcard product, I switched to the Staples store brand. I was happy with their product until the last month or so. The problem is not with the print quality, it is with the fact that (there are 4 cards per sheet) the cards do not separate neatly. It takes a few tries and some edges are fuzzy. Yesterday was my second trip at a local Staples store for that reason. As I had problems with the 'standard grade', I exchanged it for the 'premium', the same type of problem (fuzzy edges) persists. It looks like I will have to make another trip to 'Staples' and maybe switch back to Avery.
To add insult to injury, the customer service person asked me for my receipt which i had not brought with me as I was only exchanging a Staples brand product for another one.

Thanks to our all around design bible Coudal for making us aware of the Palette of Colours on the horizon for the Fall as described by Pantone.