Climbed Bear Mountain today, out of Sedona. Gorgeous.
Tomorrow Vultee Arch via Sterling Pass. And Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness.
Trip reports will be going up on my hiking blog.
Category: travel
not recommended: Boingo Wi-Finder
This is an update of an old post.
____ original from April 10th, 2011:
I’ve been a Boingo member in the past.
… a private company that provides global Wi-Fi services at more than
125,000325,000 Boingo hotspots worldwide – including hundreds of airports, thousands of hotels, and tens of thousand cafes and coffee shops. …Though signup is seamless, canceling the service requires a call into customer services. …
It works. But there are some deceptive billing practices. At times you THINK you are logging into your Boingo account, but in reality it’s some ‘premium’ partner. … At the end of the month you find you’ve been billed extra. Without warning.
UPDATE:
Baochi from Boingo responded instantly to this post. (They really do have superb customer support.)
Due to complaints like mine, Boingo has improved the notification that you are going to get DINGED for an extra (unknown) amount. It now looks like this:
The premium locations that incur additional charges are available by default. … Perhaps they should be OFF by default, and only turned on by two or three clicks.
Certainly every month Baochi gets complaints from customers charged more than their expected monthly total. Most cannot recall clicking on any premium locations. They were in a rush, and didn’t pay attention to that text.
If you travel, you could get good value. … On the other hand, since Starbucks went free, I’ve not needed a paid subscription. And don’t plan to get one in future. Starbucks has a strong WiFi signal 99% of the time. Many Boingo hotspots cannot stream a YouTube video.
However, Boingo’s now released a brilliant FREE service that I recommend for everyone.
A FREE app that helps you find and locate FREE and Boingo hotspots at thousands of locations worldwide.
Click PLAY or see how it works on YouTube.
Download it here.
Choose Windows, Mac, iPhone / iPad, or Android.
Every time you open up your computer in a new location, the app will tell you if there’s free Wi-Fi available.
Brilliant.
After testing it the past couple of weeks in California and Nevada, I’m getting about 70% false positives. The app says there is free WIFi … but that’s not true. I’ve deleted the app on my laptop.
__________________________
For example, in the case of Starbucks (log-in required) it gets it wrong.
I have to find the Starbucks log-in page. And log-in, as usual.
Laguna / Long Beach, California
At the Junior Olympic Gymnastics Championships, the crew from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho got a chance to hang out in Long Beach and chic Laguna.
car rental insurance
Renting in the USA can be incredibly inexpensive. I have a vehicle right now in California that cost only $115.49 / week, including taxes.
Yet AS ALWAYS I was faced with the dilemma of what additional insurance to buy.
Should I buy none, counting only on my VISA card’s promised collision/loss damage insurance?
Or should I get one of the three different options available from the rent-a-car company:
$10/day
$12/day
$30/day
Reading this article in the Globe and Mail doesn’t answer my question:
Do I really need car rental insurance?
Leave a comment if you’ve any advice for me.
Adventure Will Change Your Life
Here’s another shout out for Alastair Humphreys’ Adventure blog:
The world sounded a scary place until I stepped out into it. Sure, it sounded exciting. Exotic places like Pakistan or Guatemala or Syria: I knew they had fascinating cultures and people that I’d love to get to know. I’d seen beautiful photography of extraordinary places and read exotic stories of crazy, bold adventures.
But I always assumed that countries like that were for real travelers; dusty, crazy guys with more nerve and experience than I would ever have. The world’s wild places were for me to enjoy from the comfort of my own home, nothing more. I enjoyed vacations. But adventures? I didn’t think they were for me.
But all that changed.
I set out one summer morning to seek adventure. I don’t know how I summoned up the nerve to begin, but begin I did. I climbed onto my bicycle, pedaled away from my front door, and didn’t stop riding for four years until I arrived back home. I cycled right the way round the world. I wasn’t rich (the whole trip cost approximately $10,000), I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t very fit. I just did it. I pedaled away from all that I was familiar with in England. …
read more and be inspired – Adventure Will Change Your Life
Is Your Dentist RIPPING You Off?
Your brain surgeon should be very well paid.
But why should a dentist be a millionaire?
by Sarah Lorge Butler for CBS MoneyWatch.com:
Cost of the (2) crowns: $1,395 apiece. Cost of foundation fillings, or “cores” to put the crowns on: $326 apiece. Total bill, if you’re scoring at home: $3,442.
His dentist sold him membership into an office savings plan for $319 for the year. So that saves him 20% on all dental procedures and gives him two free cleanings. Knock off 20% (but add back in the $319) and we’re down to $3072.60 on this bit of drilling.
When I look at this bill, I wonder why I obsess about the weekly price fluctuations of Cheerios or the shrinking size of a can of tuna. All the economical choices a family makes in a year can be wiped out by a trip to the dentist. No wonder people are going to Thailand and Mexico for dental work. …
Is $3000 over-priced for 2 crowns?
What is the cost for the materials?
How much are those working on your crowns paid?
How much does the dentist pocket?
If we knew those numbers, I’m guessing that we’d agree our dentist is ripping us off.
There are over 1000 comments on that post, most feeling ripped off.
A stranger recently contacted me for advice on my dentist, Dr. Lorenia Estrada, in La Paz, Mexico. I enthusiastically recommended her.
If you suspect your dentist is ripping you off, get a quote from Mexico. … The only down side is that you have very little recourse if unhappy with the work there.
Thanks Dana.
Niagara Falls in winter
The weather too lousy to hike, I visited Niagara Falls Ontario, instead, last week.
Sure $14 seems expensive to enter an empty parking lot, but that money (I assume) goes to pay for some of the landscaping. These streamers decorating the bare trees, for example.
Niagara on the Canadian side is like a frozen Reno, … but not quite so classy. I’d think twice before getting married, if contingent on honeymooning here.
… maybe I should return in Summer.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio …
It’s pretty cool. I am impressed.
… The main criticism of the Hall of Fame is that the nomination process is controlled by a few individuals who are not musicians, such as founder Jann Wenner …
Jann always hated my University Archies tribute band. It had something to do with our name: “Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame“.
You won’t find us on the List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees.
Cleveland Rocks
Arrived at the “mistake by the lake” today, my first trip.
To celebrate …
… a rock song by Ian Hunter from his 1979 album You’re Never Alone with a Schizophrenic. The song is seen as a de facto anthem in Cleveland, Ohio.
Click PLAY or watch Ian Hunter on YouTube.
The song was inspired in part by the songwriter’s desire to counteract the poor reputation of a city for which he had some affection. Hunter states on his web site, “the inspiration for ‘Cleveland Rocks’ goes back to the old days when people used to make fun of Cleveland. Cleveland was ‘uncool’ and LA and NYC were ‘cool’. I didn’t see it that way. Lotta heart in Cleveland.” …
Of course it gained a lot of popularity when used as a theme song for the Drew Carey Show.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I’ve been a fan of Ian Hunter dating back to Mott the Hoople Live (1974).
Rick McCharles 