Monthly Archives: August 2010

I just finished Chapter 7 in The Consulting Bible, it’s 8 am, and there’s a strong breeze coming at me across the bay. The U.S. and marine flags, on the pole of the private property adjoining the inn, look like billboards, stiff in the breeze.

There isn’t a cloud in sight, the sky is baby blue with a crisp horizon against the cerulean sea. All I hear is the creaking of the bobbing boats down by the water, and the wind riffling through the vegetation—not a motor, not a voice.

On the way to dinner last night at Sfoglia, which was wonderful, rich Italian with, of course, a Bulgarian waiter out of central casting who’s going to Barcelona after the season, we impulsively ducked down a side road out near the inn. The two-lane asphalt turned into two-lane dirt, and then a single lane where the vegetation brushed the car, which was simply following two tire tracks. (This had to be the only Bentley ever to take the route.)

We were rewarded at the cul-de-sac with a beach that jutted like Jay Leno’s chin into the bay, where a single brown labrador romped in the water with a couple lounging in chairs watching him. On the other side, five fisherman were trying their luck from the beach. In 15 years we had never found this spot. (I remember once taking our SL down a dirt track in Martha’s Vineyard, to find 40 parking spots—39 SUVs and us—at the finest beach on that island.)

No seals yesterday, but small shore birds, larger than sandpipers but smaller than gulls, dove vertically 20 yards off shore, for all the world like Stukas, apparently after large schools of fish. They hit the water so hard I was sured they’d be stunned, but they only thing they were was fed.

Off to breakfast and the beach. This is our last full day here. It’s wonderful to visit places where your dreams are faithfully reproduced.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

Great evening at The Club Car in town, eel followed by sweetbreads, with a nice Puligny Montrechet. When I asked the host for a different table, not so close to the lively bar, he kindly provided a four-top at the other side of our restaurant. And who appears there as our waiter, but our former car service driver from years ago, who has since been to Bangkok and now works the summers on Nantucket! If we had taken the first table we probably wouldn’t have even seen him in the busy restaurant.

Some photos should be appearing here later today. The weather has turned much more favorable and this looks like a second, consecutive beach day. The beach was “crowded” yesterday, with about 8 people! We saw seals zooming like submarines past us toward the point. Seagulls were providing air cover, probably looking for fish remains the seals didn’t devour.

I turned the car’s lights off for a few seconds as we stopped on the serpentine stretch leading out here after dinner. I haven’t been enveloped in such total darkness (we couldn’t see the front of the car) since I was lost in the Norwegian woods when I was 17. (Yes, that’s a true story.)

I’m going to be heading for rehab once we return, since I’ve become addicted to turkey hash at breakfast.

It’s 8 am, I’m waiting for Maria to awake, writing from the terrace, morning dew requiring that I clean the computer screen. Meanwhile, I’ve finished another chapter in The Consulting Bible, posted my morning advice on Twitter, answered all my email (including a potential $20,000 referral for a keynote), and checked the latest postings on AlansForums.com. And her I am, finishing this.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

We dined at The Galley last night, usually a sunset over the beach, but far too overcast. Outstanding Wahoo followed by lobster. Great “people watching” place. Traffic seems far lighter than prior years, the drive back to the inn now almost vacant of cars.

Much nicer morning as I write this from the terrace at 8:30, Wall Street Journal and New York Times already delivered! (When there’s no fog, the planes get here earlier.) I’d like to try for the beach today.

Last night I smoked the largest cigar I’ve ever tried, with the champagne the inn so kindly provided for our August anniversary. It was a Tatuaje accompanied by a Vueve Clicquot. Call me Gatsby. Is that a green light……?

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.

We’ve been dining at the Pearl in Nantucket since it opened 11 years ago, Asian fusion in an upscale atmosphere. (It’s much easer to park these days on the cobblestones, because the crowds are smaller and the Ferraris had only 4 inches of clearance!) I had a wonderful, rare big-eye tuna with Japanese cold noodles. The drive back on winding roads with the top down, pretty much deserted, is always a treat, but the canopy of stars didn’t develop because of the overcast hovering over the island.

I’m sitting out on our terrace this morning, looking at the bay, just finished the next segment of my newest book, The Consulting Bible,due out early next year from Wiley. McGraw-Hill tells me that Million Dollar Speakingshould be out in September since I beat the submission deadline by so much.

Went all the way down to the edge of the dock this morning, strong winds, white caps, boats bobbing, had to hold my hat in my hand. Invigorating. Life is grand.

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.