On the road...
Quick update from Butte, Montana, via LodgeNet service at
an area Best Western. My tip for the day: if you find
yourself at a hotel which offers LodgeNet service,
save your money, unless the ability to hook up your
laptop/travelling system of choice is available; a crappy IR
keyboard coupled with a stripped-down product offering (no
traffic on ports other than 80 or 443 permitted, no non-HTTP
protocol support such as a basic telnet or ssh client, an
unchangable and huge font for displaying everything, and no
Java support in the browser, meaning on ability to compensate
for the lack of telnet support). Not that I'm surprised that
a more technical user would find the service grating, but I
thought they might make a somewhat better effort, considering
how well-integrated the other services are (Nintendo 64
service, access to your hotel room account, etc).
Car...
Despite a small glitch resulting from the last-minute
modifications I made to the Eclipse just before departing on
this vacation (one hose not tightened properly), the car has
performed admirably on several different terrains (wide-open
roads in North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and Alberta; winding
mountain roads in Alberta, British Columbia, and Montana).
I'm quite pleased with my new toy. :-)
More later, when I'm at a terminal that doesn't make me
retype everything three times before it gets it right...