Living in London

I feel like an heroin addict scouring the streets of London for a WiFi connection. I spent £13 yesterday for a 3 hour fix.

Today I slogged my way to an appointment at Lee Hecht Harrison 2 hours early in the hope that I could use their computers, or better yet, a WiFi connection. I was welcomed at LHH despite my early arrival and, to my delight, discovered an open WiFi network. Ahhhh, the relief . . . Unfortunately, they either have extremely tight security on their networks or they have a problem with their DNS. I was able to pull up perhaps one out of five web sites and retrieving my mail was fruitless.

Plan B: LHH has a room full of PCs available to their clients. I can simply access my email via a web client and do a bit of surfing. Not a bad compromise, especially since it wasn't costing me anything. Damn if their desktops didn't suffer from the same network problems. I was unable to open my web-based mail client on their system.

Plan C: Costa Coffee, 105 Cannon Street in London. A beautiful little coffee shop across for the underground station. I had mapped out his place prior to my trip in the event that I would not be able to use the computers at LHH. I ordered a decaf Mocha and must admit that is was the best I have ever had. Now, with a full mocha at my side, I opened my laptop for a fix of connectivity. WiFi is provided by British Telecom at this location. After several failed attempts to purchase service I could only conclude that BT does not accept US credit cards. Strike 3!

Plan D: Abandon half of a fabulous mocha and return to a cursed Starbucks were the inflexible and expensive T-Mobile will gladly accept my credit card for £5 per hour. Ahhhhh . . . the soothing pleasure of another Internet fix.

-HrH