Lucky Ducky

Here we are on an island in the Caribbean: Turks and Caicos.

Palm trees. Sand. Sea. And Internet?

"Is there a hot spot or a Starbucks or a library of some place where I can connect to the Internet," I asked.

"Yes," Miss Trainee at the Front Desk replied sweetly, "you can go to our Hospitality Center and use our new Wi-Fi connection."

"Sweeeeeeeet!" I replied sweetly.

I planned to check out the connection in the morning. A day or two without accessing the Internet wouldn't kill me, although I was beginning to feel a bit puny.

On the way back from dinner we saw the sign for the Hospitality Center.

"Hey, lookie that, the Hospitality Center is right under our room."

Right under our room? Right under our room! Well, if they have free Wi-Fi and the access point is

Right. Under. Our. Room.

Then all those beautiful Internet rays should be irradiating our room like searchlights at a used car lot.

With trembling hands I fired up the MacBook and waited for it to boot up.

"Do you want to connect to linksys?"

Awwwwww, how cute, they're using the default SSID and broadcasting it without a password.

Four antenna bars later I was surfing Google News from the comfort of my balcony and checking out the scene through the screen.

Someone called to me from the back room, "Hey, we're going down to the beach. Wanna go with us?"

"Hang on," I replied, "I'll Google it..."