First, I wanted to say, it is absolutely amazing at the number of hotels with free wi-fi access for their guests. There was only one place we were that didn’t have free access (Yosemite Valley) but even there it was pay. For one of the hotels we checked rate information on their free wi-fi before we checked in.

I bought Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 for our trip driving down the coast. It works okay, but it’s not as flexible as I would have liked. For instance, if you type PDX in google, you get Portland International Airport as one of the links that pops up. If you type that into MS S&T, for whatever reason you don’t.

Every time you turn on GPS tracking, you get a little annoying disclaimer to which you must agree before you can continue. It’s lost the configuration of the included GPS twice, and yesterday as we were driving to the hotel it didn’t have the right address to our hotel in dowtown Portland. And we didn’t discover that until we got there.
And so I swiftly reached for my cell phone used and sent a text message with the hotel name and a zip code to google SMS, and then I got the correct address, which we plugged into the MS software.

Google, once again, saves the day.

And while I was down in the big suck, I was wondering if the transplanted residents of New Orleans – where alcohol, blues, and politics are best consumed liberally — would be happy in their new home of cowboys, conservatives, and christian fundamentalism. And then I realized there’s a profound lesson to be learned in all of this.

I needed to go to Fry’s Electronics after I got back.

If you’ve never experienced Fry’s it’s worth going at least once. And if you become a convert you too will begin making regular pilgrimages to the new electronics Mecca off I-69 2 miles north of the I-465 interchange. It’s kind of a cross between a Comp USA, Radio Shack, and a Best Buy rolled into a Wal-Mart superstore.

Seriously though I spent an afternoon there yesterday. In some cases it’s surprising. They stock 50 dvd players, 20 motherboards, most of the major brands and models of hard drives, 30 different cases, and around 30 different kinds of laptops. I was also surprised at the number of external hard drives and hard drive enclosures they had. I bought a lighted USB cable that blinks when data is transferring across.

But what I was most surprised to see was the Nokia 770 linux handheld in stock. Oh it’s thin. And beautiful. But being able to hold it in my hand, I was able to spot one weakness of it on the spot. The RS-MMC slot is covered by a flimsy little piece of plastic that swings open. It looks like the first thing that will break off. But it’s not enough to persuade me to not get one.

But the real lesson that Fry’s teaches is that geeks will inherit the earth.