Some thoughts about turkeys, another great year for BATW, your membership renewal, and best wishes for the holidays.

Welcome to our many new members, including: Active Members: Ben Narasin Bill Friar Nancy Hoyt Belcher Elgy Gillespie Judith Horstman Kathryn Abajian Nikki Goth Itoi Camille Cusumano Associate Members: Carrie Head Provisional Members: Hilary Kaiser Again, welcome to all of you.  We look forward to getting...

EDITOR’S NOTE: I realize these maps “underlap” the Table of Contents on the right side, but that was the only way I could make the maps large enough for you to read them.  The Walt Disney Family Museum is hard to find so I hope these maps (imperfect as they are) will help.  Please...

It drives your website editor crazy that airlines offer “lower” tickets and then add hidden charges like a “checked-bag fee.”  (First they tried to get us to reduce our carry-ons — then they started charging us for checked bags.  I’m getting dizzy.)  Cheap Tickets...

Thanks to Karen Misuraca, who asks, “Are you hip about the acronyms used in texting, IMs, chat rooms, e-mail, Twitter, etc?”  Here is a glossary of online slang and acronyms to help you come across as hot stuff online. “HAGO, GTR” http://www.web-friend.com/help/lingo/chatslang.html P.S.:...

Thanks to Karen Misuraca and Laurie McAndish King for sending this information: Couples celebrate their same-sex marriages in the 2008 Gay Pride Parade (photo © Lee Foster) In the prestigious Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition for 2009, Bill Fink won a Gold award in the Newspaper Article on...

Congratulations to Glen Putman, who reports that for the second year in a row he won top honors in the 32nd Annual Awards Competition of the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club. Glen’s travel columns for Gentry magazine won First Place for Magazine Feature Columns in 2008. He won the same award...

Congratulations to Diane LeBow, who tells us she “won an award in the Writers’ Digest 78th Annual Writing Competition, Honorable Mention for ‘Maya Mysteries Revealed: Visiting Copan, Honduras,’ in the Magazine Feature Article Category.”

Congratulations to Michael Cervin, who recently signed on to author the new Moon travel guidebook, Santa Barbara & the Central Coast.  The book will hit bookstores nationwide in August, 2010. Michael Currently writes about travel for the Santa Barbara News-Press and appears as a regular guest on...

Thanks to Diane LeBow, who tells us: “John Montgomery was invited by BATW member Jay Gordon to teach a photography seminar on the Mendocino Coast for the Willits Camera Club, an active group that runs the gamit from amateurs to semi-professional photographers, all serious about improving their...