With a short layover in Detroit a week ago, I made myself comfortable between flights by watching the Cardinals-Packers game. The Delta/Northwest terminal at Detroit is the best place to watch football in any airport I know of. Rather than jockeying for a table in a bar with a decent view of a tiny TV, every other gate area has a huge, scoreboard-size screen. When there are games on, those gate areas fill up with football fans. The seats facing away from the screen stay empty. As I like to do in other cities (or simply their airports), while watching…

I had a couple extra hours after the ULI conference in San Francisco in November. So, as I like to do when I’m in that fair city, or when I’m in any great urban place, I took a walk too see the city and grab a bite to eat. From my hotel, the charmingly faded Pickwick Hotel (I have found no better value in that town, and just a block from the convention center!), I headed around the corner to Market Street, followed the trolley line along crowded Powell Street and Union Square, up the hill past the crowds, and…