bloomin' heck, it is snowing!
Actually it is not the snow, it is the 40 mph gusts of wind on top of the steady 20-25 mph brisk breeze that drove me into a spot with hot cocoa and free WiFi
(this entry brought to you by PANERA - large cups of hot chocolate and unlimited WiFi, at a college town near you)!
So, when I left of this trip, I very carefully took out all the gloves, scarves, hats and other woolly wam things.
'Cause its spring, y'know.
Silly me.
At least I though to take proper boots.
Actually, I've been pondering how reliant on always being "on" I've become.
In Ye Olde Days, making a trip, especially any extended period, long distance trip, involved serious planning - tickets, reservations, maps, packing.
Serious Business travelling was.
I now have a half-full pre-packed bag pretty much on all the time, with generic "will work in most climate clothing" in there. I figure on having e-tickets and being able to figure out en route where to go, at worst I'll spend 10-20 mins printing out some google maps or equivalent that I will look at when i get there.
I rely on essentially all my travel arrangements being online and accessible, instantaneously when I need them. (Although after the first Hotel who thought it was clever to "lose" prepaid online bookings so they could double book rooms, I now make sure my laptop and inbox has e-copies of all reservations).
So, this morning when the weather crapped out the hotel internet connect I was at a loss - I knew I was headed to downtown, but I didn't know the metro stop, or exact location, or if I was meeting people there or we were headed down together.
Hence Panera and their WiFi. That and the snow. And the wind.
So now I know where to go, who and when to meet and that the red line has construction at Belmonte and I may be late.
Wonders of modern technology.
Weatherwise, the midwest cannot be trusted until mid-May.
Snowing in Boston, too — the fat, gloppy kind of flakes which just turn everything soggy instead of making nice powder on the ground. Good weather to stay inside and play with genetic algorithms.
tsk tsk Such language
Yeah, it's snowing and windy outside here in Chicago, but ain't it better than the forecast for PSU: "isolation with a chance of deer"?
Hey! PSU gets april snow too, and it gets quite windy sometimes.
Although I'm not sure if the Panera has free WiFi... I think it does.
I like the snow. I like having hot cocoa on a snowy, windy day.
Ok, I sometimes miss the deer.
A lot of the online travel sites offer the option to send your itinerary to a PDA or cell phone. Orbitz will even call you. I put my travel info into Agendus on my Palm, which allows me with one tap to get to Google Maps for my destination, which I do via Bluetooth to my cell phone... anyway, a simple SMS or email to a mobile device can do most of what you want, and if you have a data plan on your cell, you can always get to the Internet in a pinch.
yeah, unfortunately most of my travel planning has to be done through an institutional designated portal, which is not always bleeding edge when it comes to such things