Wireless Hobo

One more thing…

After staying at a another hotel where it wants to overcharge for less than 12 hours of Internet usage, I want to tell any Baldwin County resident east of Fish river to be grateful for Gulftel’s liberal usage policies. When you drive down 59 and see all of the hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, and municipalities providing wireless for free. Feel damned spoiled.

After spending two months on the phone with a large cable company fourteen hours north of here almost every other day because they could not provide a stable connection to an office I work for…well, when you get your bill for a connection up to 6 Mbps, be thankful for the speed and support you get here.

Finally. Please. And this is for every single Internet provider you have now or will every have. If you do have problems, call their technical support. Follow the chain of support. Give them a fair chance to fix your issue. All this “geek” stuff isn’t simple and the solution can be elusive at times.

For my local provider at almost all of the places I hobo at regularly, thanks to the owners that provide the service and thanks Gulftel.

The Atlanta Roadtrip

Michelle, Dylan, and I culminated the Mardi Gras week off that schools here observe with a roadtrip to Atlanta. We stayed at the Crown Plaza near the Perimeter Mall and I was stunned to find that not only does this Wayport serviced hotel charge $9.95 per day, but it terminates your connection daily at 12:00 p.m. I have long felt that wireless should be free, but to not give you a full 24 hour connection is just shy of robbery. Grr. Cingular to the rescue until I had a minor issue with a server requiring a bit more speed.

After visiting the Georgia Aquarium, we hit the Perimeter Mall’s Goldfish restaurant with great sushi and Charleston Shrimp and Grits — seemed appropriate after visting an aquarium, no? Get this… moderately expensive restaurant offers free wireless Internet. I hope to get to use it on our next Atlanta Roadtrip… there was this interesting kid’s museum that I think Dylan would love.

A Legislative Hobo

My friend, Kevin, sent me this link to a North Carolina representative in the state legislature that for all intents and purposes is a hobo when in session.  I hope he applies the same frugality to his legislation.

True Hobo

Wow. In a lot of ways, this guy is my hero. I have always enjoyed living light, not carrying a lot possessions and able to pack up and go on a whim. Since getting married and having a son, that lifestyle has gone to the wayside. I’m not complaining in the least, but if you had asked me if I would live in the house I live in with the stuff that I have six years ago, I would have told you that you had lost it. Still. . . I get the itch to travel.

My spouse told me about a gentlemen at work that sold all of his stuff, got on a sailboat, and off his family went for a couple years. At first, I thought Mosquito Coast and Harrison Ford’s character. As it sank in, I realized that his family is about to embark upon an adventure that challenges them all to their very cores. Some might think it is selfish to drag your kids on a trip like that, but he sounded prepared, obtained the necessary training, home schooled his kids, etc. My point is that his kids aren’t only learning from books, but suddenly put in a position where they must learn self-reliance, family, and skills to handle pressures that many kids, much less families, get to deal with in a prepared manner. Typically, it comes in sink or swim fashion.

How many of you train the family to handle hurricanes? Snow storms? Are we going to be able to teach our kids to unplug? How about simple, mundane, two year sailing trips?

Gaming for Kids?

Ok. So, I really want to focus on being a portable, get up and go kind of hobo, but I must espouse the virtues of the Nintendo Wii. My family is a gaming kind of family. The wife and son have a Nintendo DS each. I have a Sony PSP and a Microsoft XBox 360. Of course we have computer games too. None of these system really encourage getting off your duff an moving around a bit. I have been interested in the Wii since reading about the controller — if you haven’t seen it on TV, go watch the kiosk at Target for the Wii.

Then I read this article about the Wii Sports Experiment about how this guy loses nine pounds playing the Wii Sports game thirty minutes a day for six weeks. Suddenly, I felt a bit guilty for inflicting my son with my severe case of CPS (couch potato syndrome) — nasty disease that you should avoid at all costs. I began stalking Wal-Mart and Target for Wii shipments and scored one.

My son got it for his sixth birthday today. We got the thing hooked up with no problems. Popped in the Wii Sports game — imagine that, Nintendo included a game. Both of us played for the next hour or two: Golf, Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, and most importantly, Boxing. We tried them all, but after boxing for a while, we both worked up an actual sweat. If you got kids, or even if you just want something fun to look silly at while burning a few calories, look very hard at the Nintendo Wii.

The New Portable Office

Brief update tonight. I have often found that when it comes to ‘things’ that I spend a tremendous amount of time with, going cheap always costs me more. I think I bought my Targus bag pictured in the previous post for about $25. It didn’t last much more than nine months.

Kevin pointed out that REI was having a sale on the Timbuk2 Underground Pack for $55. Everything I have read about this bag says it is a quality bag. So, I am in Best Buy yesterday when I run upon several Swiss, as in the knife, laptop bags. I was looking for a smaller bag with more structure and even more padding for my Macbook. One bag lying on the shelf under another bag, looked about the right size. Opening it up, I quickly realized that I might have found my bag. I was surprised that the cost was only $19 and almost put it back thinking it was too cheap, but I bought it anyways.

Right now, I am impressed with the bag. If a $19 bag stands up to my abuse over the next year, it will turn into quite the find. Best Buy does not seem to have the bag on their website, so I will assume that I got it at closeout. Check my favorite online vendor, Newegg.com; it has the bag at $35.