Today I got up super early and drove from Kansas City, MO to Albany, MO. I demoed for a couple of hours and headed back to Kansas City. The drive there was in near pitch darkness along a highway and the ride back was on back roads that were quickly being covered with a layer of snow. My flight was supposed to be at 7:10pm from Kansas City to Chicago and then I wasn’t going to be able to get to Cincinnati until 11:30pm. Before I left the demo location I checked the airport for departures and saw that there was a flight at 2:!5 and one at 5:45pm. I didn’t figure I would make the 2:15 one but I did and I might even make a connection in Chicago and get to Cincinnati by 6:55pm. Man that would be awesome!
Yeah, I got the 2:15 flight, but not the flight to get me in at 6:55pm. Looks Like if the flight actually goes out I will land around 11:30pm. Great.
I am a bit beat after getting back on the road and flying so much and having a cold. Still kicking myself about the camera thing but making do with the camera phone. Man I cannot wait to get rid of that thing. I have decided that I am not going to get the super duper mega expensive package with Mobile web and VCast and VZ Navigator. It just isn’t worth the extra expense to get a neutered version of the internet. I use the internet to make some additional money, as much as I like being able to take a photo each day and post it I also like the extra income that I make. If I was able to be connected all the time I would be very happy and since it was a business expense I could write it off. But only being able to get to specific sites is not going to do it for me.
I swear that I have given myself ADHD because of all the blogging that I do. I rarely make it through a write up of a post without opening at least 25 additional tabs, dropping 50 entrecards, posting to twitter, utterz, flickr and zooomr. My Firefox always opens with at least 10 tabs that I check right away. I will work on something then skip over to e-mail, then to my feed reader, respond to blog comments on each blog and now drop cards like a fiend on Entrecard sites. I am really enjoying this and even hit top level of my blog’s category. I would really like to have a card for each site but I need an e-mail for each blog and there is no way I am going to slog through 7 e-mail addresses. Yeah I have 7 blogs now.
This one is my main blog and I blog here every single day. My second most active blog is BenSpark 2: Electric Boogaloo because it is my entertainment blog and there is always something to write about. Then there is the new blog Read To Me, Dad, I need to get more active over there and I just started another little pay it forward contest there so check it out and you could win a fun song for your kids. The Wired Kayaker is going to be more active too because I have gotten a new camera (ouch I was just starting to get over not being able to use that camera this week, oh well). Flatwater Tech is a bit on hiatus for a while but I will get back on track there. Then there is Google is Not God, I should probably just sell that domain as I really have little to say there. And I took my mobile blog, The BenSpark’s Mobile Blog through Blogger to post all my utterz as well as info on Entrecard. I’m trying to put together a comprehensive list of 300 entrecard sites so I can quickly and easily drop my 300 daily cards. Right now it takes quite a while but I am really getting some great traffic using it and want to advertise on many of the high credit blogs (heck my blog is a high credit one, go figure). So I keep busy online.
Back to the phone, so we are getting the EnV from LG and getting the unlimited Text, Pix, and Flix as well as IM through the phone. I am excited at being able to use the IM functions as well as unlimited Text, Pix and Flix. It should be fun especially because I am using Utterz so much. I am ever excited because those guys are based in MA. And when I get the new phone I have set up a meeting to go visit their operation. I totally missed their first official meet up and wish I knew sooner or I would have made arrangements to go. Oh well, I’ll make it to the next one. Anyway when I go visit I’m going to bring the videocamera and do some interviews with as many people as I can. But all that will happen after I get the new phone.
This is reply to your title, not necessarily your post.
From August until December I did roughly 10-12 trips for business (sort of lost count). Many of those trips I had delays, long layovers, or frankly, just enough time for me to want to get online, and because I refuse to pay anywhere from $19.99/mo to $7.99/hr for internet access at the airport. With as many people that visit the airport that could potentially be accessing the internet if it were free, I could understand the need to charge for service. BUT, I don’t understand the extreme pricing. If I pass through a single airport once a month with an average of an hour to hour and a half of available surf time, is it worth paying the $7.99/hr, or even the $19.99/month? I enjoy surfing and being able to do things like blog while waiting around, but not that much. I will sacrifice luxury for practicality and just use my blackberry.
So, for the sake of sheer convenience and increasing the potential enjoyment of visiting an airport, I think wi-fi should be free in airports. Obviously considerations for overall bandwidth will have to be considered, but I think that would be a drop in the bucket compared to providing other conveniences in an airport.
The pricing at airports and hotels is just too much. I appreciate your comment and agree that the pricing is just so high. Luckily my company will pay for Internet access each day up to $10.00. For the most part I’ve been able to get connected fairly often but as I go from airport to airport I find that it is so inconsistent in which airports are free and which ones are pay and they all use someone different to provide the service. All in all it is a pain in the neck.