j e s r u s h . c o m

Our favorite experience on our recent trip to Italy was undoubtedly staying at a little bed & breakfast called Locanda Rosati in the Umbrian countryside. LR is situated a few minutes outside Orvieto, which is located about 1.5 hours north of Rome. LR is a kind of hybrid: Part B&B, part agriturismo (farm house), and part restaurant.

The B&B portion consists of about ten rooms with private bathrooms in a gorgeously restored 19th century villa. The place was passed down from father to son for several generations and remains in the family. It’s been updated with modern amenities, but they somehow managed to maintain that delicate balance where the new complements (rather than conflicts or overwhelms) the old. The rooms are simple, but elegant. There is a common room with library and a chilly natural wine cellar below the house. Of course you won’t be spending much time in the house, because the grounds are amazing.

The publicly accessible area around the villa is a cornecopia of lushy green plants, fruits, lemon trees, flowers, etc. Pretty much everything you can imagine an Italian garden might look like. And there is a fabulous pool set below a small hill which has been carved out with caves. Lots of chairs and places to relax. Paths to walk and things to look at.

Innkeeper Gianpiero told me (in his remarkably good english) that they raise chickens and other small animals as well as various fruits, olives, and nuts. They use these ingredients and other locally bought organic goods to put together a five course meal most every evening. The meal is served family style at a big long table where all of the guests sit together. The food is incredible: Gorgonzola bruschetta, fondue zucchini, homemade penne, rabbit meat, strawberry rhubarb pie. Something different every night. The place is part of the slow food movement. Eating dinner here with the cheery camp of constantly changing international guests was the highlight of our trip. After dinner, we would drink local wine and limoncello and spend hours chatting into the night with the company.

Between the food, the people, and the place, this was Italy at its best. If you stay one place on your next trip, stay at Locanda Rosati.

I hate voicemail, but until I saw the iPhone commercials I could never fully explain why. The commercials nailed it: regular voicemail is irritating because you have no control (”Press 1 to hear the next message”) and no visibility (Where in the seven message queue is the message from john?!?). In addition, many voicemail systems make you press too many buttons to get to that first message (’Scranton Man Faints from Voicemail Fatigue’).

Apple’s solution is to buy an iPhone with its “visual voicemail” fanciness. It’s an elegant one, but I’m not paying $500 for better voicemail. Enter <a href=”http://www.phonetag.com/”>PhoneTag</a>. PhoneTag is a subscription based service where you redirect your voicemail over to their voicemail system. Most cell phones and many office phones can handle this “redirection” by dialing a short code (which PhoneTag provides). Once redirected, any callers who reach your voicemail go into the PhoneTag system where they leave a message and–here’s the kicker–it gets transcribed into an email or txt msg and sent to the recipient(s) of your choice.

I’ve been trying it for a week and I’m completely hooked, and at only $0.35cents/message its not too expensive either. They push a little window mobile application that goes along with it, but as long as you have a phone with email or text messages you don’t even need the application. Recommended!