I have been sitting around a magnifacent villa in Tuscany all week as the guests of Amy and Brad Feld.  I don’t think touring (work) is the same a s vacationing, so I have slept, napped, drank, read, swam, run, played tennis, drove (a little), eaten, blogged and tweeted for 5 days and time has both flown and stood still.  I have been catered too by a fantastic villa owner and staff and had laughs a minute with my friends.  Basically nothing has happened.

I dont think anything ever happens in Tuscany. I don’t mean it in a bad way either.  It’s just that ‘life’ is outside and as far as you can see.  There are no financial markets no highways or Chipotle’s or Starbucks. There are local cheese markets. Good ones.

This is a VACATION.

With the added luxury of tremendous WIFI, all my reading time has been shared through Stocktwits and my blog so I guess it feels to many like I have been working.  No biggie.  It has not been work.  My phone has been off for 8 days and to me, only my phone and travel is work.

This week saw a near implosion of world markets and a later Friday US debt downgrade. I woke up this morning, and snapped more of the same pictures you see above. The Tuscany $VIX remains 10.

In the rest of the world, here is what happened to the $VIX :

Oy Vey VIX – from Josh

This great 5 year chart of the $VIX from @financetrends

Last Friday I mentioned I was light on stocks. This week, I urged people to get off margin on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and on Friday urged people by saying ‘NIBBLE…Time to Invest a little something‘

It felt good to be away from the noise of my office and phone and the US media for a week and be able to capture a few meaty trades in the process.

It reminded me how great a platform Stocktwits has become for me to be able to tap into the pulse of the market in a very personal way, digesting quotes, ideas, charts, trends from my ‘Mac Air’ and Ipad, execute trades and not interfere with any of my friends, in fact have them watch over my shoulder as I executed on my plan.

Now its back to the rest of my vacation.

See you Wednesday back from my desk in San Diego.