McDonalds offering FREE Wifi, starting next month

McDonald’s Corp. has announced it will soon offer free wireless Internet access at most of its U.S. fast-food restaurants as it tries to broaden its appeal still further.

This will be a huge boon for travelers. I’m forever looking for a place to post a blog entry over breakfast, lunch or dinner when I’m on the road on my motorcycle and the creation of 11,000 new free Wifi hotspots is fabulous news for me.

“We’re not just about hamburgers,” said Dave Grooms, chief information officer for McDonald’s USA. “We are about convenience and all kinds of value.”

The world’s largest fast-food chain has offered Internet access for about five years.

In mid-January, it will lift the $2.95 fee it has charged for two hours of Internet access at 11,000 of its 14,000 U.S. locations. There will be no time limit after the fee is lifted.

“McDonald’s is about value – value in our food, value in our services,” Grooms said. “It’s a natural fit.”

It’s also a good fit with the company’s growing coffee business that has upped the chain’s competition with Starbucks Corp., which also offers free Wifi. Coffee and the McCafe line of drinks at McDonald’s have helped drive its sales and increase its market share in the U.S.

The company, based in Oak Brook, Ill., has not released sales data for the McCafe line but said recently that its coffee business has grown from 2 percent of the chain’s overall sales to 5 percent in the past few years.

Grooms said McDonald’s – traditionally known as a quick stop – has become more of a destination with new products and a new look and feel at many of its restaurants, with improved lobby designs and finishes.

The 18th happiest state

According to a recent study, I should be significantly happier now that I’ve moved from Indiana to Arkansas.

Arkansas ranked 18th on the “happy scale,” compared with 48th ranked Indiana. It also beat out Colorado (23rd), Oregon (30th), and Nevada (39th), which is where my sons and several friends live.

People in sunny, outdoorsy states - Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida - say they're the happiest Americans, and researchers think they know why. A new study comparing self-described pleasant feelings with objective measures of good living found these folks generally have reason to feel fine.

The places where people are most likely to report happiness also tend to rate high on studies comparing things like climate, crime rates, air quality and schools.

The happiness ratings were based on a survey of 1.3 million people across the country by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It used data collected over four years that included a question asking people how satisfied they are with their lives.

Here’s the lineup:

1. Louisiana

2. Hawaii

3. Florida

4. Tennessee

5. Arizona

6. South Carolina

7. Mississippi

8. Montana

9. Alabama

10. Maine

11. Wyoming

12. Alaska

13. North Carolina

14. South Dakota

15. Texas

16. Idaho

17. Vermont

18. Arkansas

19. Georgia

20. Utah

21. Oklahoma

22. Delaware

23. Colorado

24. New Mexico

25. North Dakota

26. Minnesota

27. Virginia

28. New Hampshire

29. Wisconsin

30. Oregon

31. Iowa

32. Kansas

33. Nebraska

34. West Virginia

35. Kentucky

36. Washington

37. District of Columbia

38. Missouri

39. Nevada

40. Maryland

41. Pennsylvania

42. Rhode Island

43. Ohio

44. Massachusetts

45. Illinois

46. California

47. New Jersey

48. Indiana

49. Michigan

50. Connecticut

51. New York

Ruthie’s famous - sorta

Hey, there’s Ruthie the Wonder Dog at the bottom of the front page of today’s newspaper.

It’s always nice to have a dog handy when you need to illustrate a pet story.

Oh, the humiliation!

It really is true that most dogs feel embarrassed when you put a funny hat on them. Pete is no exception.

FOX News beats The Star on their own turf

FOX News just reported a gun shop burglary in Avon, Ind. in which four young men wearing ski masks drove a stolen SUV through the front door of the store late last night and made off with three 12 gauge shotguns and a muzzleloader.

They had the woman who co-owns the shop with her husband on the  phone. Avon is a western suburb of Indianapolis.

I checked The Indianapolis Star’s web site for more information and was stunned to see they apparently don’t know about the story. At least they haven’t got a story up on the site.

Maybe Gannett has all of the reporters on furlough today.

Cold dog

We awoke yesterday morning to find the newly shorn Ruthie shivering on a pile of dirty clothes in the corner of our bedroom instead of in her usual spot on the carpet at the foot of the bed.

We invited her to jump up onto the bed, wrapped her in the eiderdown comforter and warmed her with a hot water bottle until she stopped shivering and her eyelids drooped.

Clearly, we picked the wrong time of year to shear away her heavy woolly coat.

So we bought her a Woolrich dog coat at Target while we were out shopping yesterday afternoon, but it turned out that she needs an XL instead of an L. I went back to Target to make an exchange, but found there were no XLs in any style. So I went to Petco where I was sure I’d find a dizzying array of dog coats.

But all they had was a bunch of tiny dog fru-fru stuff designed more for decoration than for warmth.

So it was off to Walmart where I found more of the same. On the way home, I stopped at the premiere hunting store in town, figuring duck hunters surely need something to keep their dogs warm in those frosty duck blinds. But all they had was neoprene flotation vests with handles to let you haul your dog out of the water.

Consequently, we made a warm bed for Ruthie last night and she seemed OK with that. The weather is a bit warmer today and Austin is going to work late, so he’s letting her stay inside with occasional trips to the back yard to do her business.

And the search for a good dog coat now moves to the Internet.

My wish list

If you’re feeling insanely generous and want to reward me for my contribution to the tedium of the Internet, feel free to buy me something for Christmas from my Amazon.com Wish List.

To hot, or not to hot? That is the question

I noticed this little note on the post office community bulletin board this morning – another case of to-too-two confusion in extremely low-budget advertising.

Who knew tamales could be a cottage industry here in northeast Arkansas?

Goredämmerung

Al Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.
In his speech, Gore told the conference:

“These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.
“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Invest some time and learn something important

Lord Monckton on Climategate at the 2nd International Climate Conference from CFACT on Vimeo.

A time for courage

Well, I did my part.

I just sent emails to my two Arkansas Senators, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, my Indiana Democratic Senator Evan Bayh (since I still own property in Indiana) and to Sen. Joe Lieberman telling them the coming vote on Obamacare could be the defining moment of their political careers if they have the courage to seize it.

It’s clear that the majority of Arkansans oppose the Democrat health care bill and since Blanche Lincoln is up for reelection next year and is trailing all of her potential opponents in the polls, this is a make-it-or-break-it vote for her. Will she take a stand for the people who sent her to Washington or will she let Harry Reid take her political career over the cliff?

She has to know the odds favor a Republican sweep in 2010, shifting the balance of Congressional power to the GOP, who will dedicate themselves to undoing all of the damage done by the Democrats this year, including the health care disaster, should it pass.

So the issue for Blanche Lincoln comes down to this:

1. Vote against the health care bill, be a heroine and have a chance at re-election, or
2. Vote for legislation that almost surely will be revoked and sacrifice her political career for nothing

Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

The full beauty treatment for Ruthie

I’m back at Hastings, having dropped Ruthie the Wonder Dog off at Petco for the full beauty treatment – dematting, shampoo, cut, nail trim, and tooth brushing.

Ruthie loves going to the groomer, so this will be her Christmas present. She seemed to know where we were going when I opened the tailgate of the Subaru and she hopped in. She rode quietly until we got to Petco, when she got excited. She practically dragged me to the grooming salon entrance and eagerly went with the groomer for her 2-3 hours of pampering.

It’s been more than a year since she had a professional haircut and she’s as woolly as a sheep. We got out the electric shears and gave her a rather inept haircut last spring. It made her cooler for summer, but looked pretty ragged.

As I was dropping her off at Petco, a guy came in with a 9-month-old male border collie who exchanged sniffing greetings with Ruthie. It occurs to me that everyone we visited in Indiana except Maria’s parents had one or more dogs for me to pet: Kim and Kerstan had two, Laurie and Jim had one, Raph and Deb had two, and Skip and Gloria had two. What would we do without dogs?

And three hours and $59 later, here she is!

Some Inconvenient Facts

Bagels

I’m enjoying a genuine Shaprio’s Delicatessen bagel for breakfast.

To be more specific, it’s an Asiago cheese  and peppers bagel with cream cheese and it’s a rare treat here in northeast Arkansas where a good bagel is damned near impossible to find.

Maria bought 2½ dozen bagels when we were at Shapro’s for BMW Club breakfast on Saturday. We gave her parents a half-dozen and brought the rest home with us.

If you mention bagels around here, they think you’re talking about these:

We can learn a lot from the Swiss

Monday stuff

I’m looking for a suitable place in our office to display the thoughtful and nifty plaque my mother-in-law made for me for Christmas. Thanks, Sandra! (I really like it. The grimace comes from trying to hold the camera steady.)

I packed and shipped a total of 14 books this morning. While I was at the post office, I noticed a TV news crew shooting footage at the seedy apartments just down the street. I supposed it was the local station. I’m told the building has electricity, but no heat, forcing the tenants to heat with stoves and space heaters. I’ve seen miserable-looking dogs chained outside the apartments on several occasions. Doesn’t look like any place I’d care to live.

Speaking/writing of which, we noticed surveyors tramping around in the woods behind our house this morning. They said they were laying out the boundaries for the partially wooded and undeveloped lot just south of our house, which suggests to me that it is being purchased and may soon have a house on it.

We rather enjoy it being wooded and vacant, but unless we’re prepared to buy it, there’s nothing we can do to prevent its development. We just hope the house is built to the same standards as ours.

A day on the road

We drove home to Arkansas today, which amounts to a full day’s work – a little more than 7 hours of driving plus time spent refueling, eating, going to the restroom and various other non-driving stuff, like checking the oil.

The top photo was shot this morning somewhere on I-74 between Danville, Ill., and Champaign with me driving, listening to my iPod and Maria snoozing.

I don’t recall what time we left, but we got home a few minutes after 5 p.m. CST. I noticed the Garmin GPS switch over to night mode, signaling sunset, at 4:50 p.m. That’s just too damned early for sunset and it will only get worse until the solstice in a week or so.

We stopped for lunch at Culver’s in Effingham, Ill., where Maria shot this photo of me waiting for our food to show up at the table.

We kept a watchful eye out for cops on I-57 near Cairo, Ill., and weren’t disappointed when we spotted a pair of police cars sitting in the media at Mile Marker 8.

We stopped again at Boomland for a restroom break and to check the oil (it was fine).

As far as the numbers go, we drove a total of 1,416 miles and spent a total of 26 hours 27 minutes in motion with a top speed of 78 mph and an average moving speed of 53.5 mph. It occurred to me somewhere in southern Illinois that you know you’re getting older and more mature when you swap your radar detector for a GPS unit.

The dogs, Pete especially, were overjoyed to see us. Pete makes little pig noises when he’s excited and happy and he was unusually vocal as he rubbed up against me like a cat. I love that Aussie.

Saturday report

We started the day with breakfast with our Indianapolis BMW Club friends at Shaprio’s delicatessen. There was a good turnout and everyone seemed surprised and pleased to see us.

Then it was off to Brownsburg for a visit with Maria’s brother Raph and his boys. Lunch was carryout from Pizza Hut.

We wrapped up the day with dinner at the home of Indianapolis News compadre Skip Hess and his wife Gloria. I had hoped to connect with Skip when I was back here for MotoGP, but our schedules didn’t permit it. Now we have to get Skip and Gloria to come down to Arkansas for a visit in 2010.

Now to check out the weather forecast for tomorrow’s drive home to northeast Arkansas and what we hope will be milder temperatures and a gentler run-up to winter.

With Lauri and Jim

We spent a delightful evening with Lauri and Jim, Jacob and Judd and their new puppy.

Lauri whipped up mountains of delicious chicken wings and we washed them down with three bottles of wine, a spectacular bottle of Madeira and some brandy.

We spread the drinking out over about a six-hour period, so no one got really blasted, although I did, however, appoint Maria as the designated driver.

We hated to leave and won’t rest until we’ve lured them down to Arkansas to live in the glorious temperate climate of the Mid-South.

Lunch with Lauri

We had a delightful lunch at Creekside with our bestest friend Lauri.

We chose the daily special, lasagna with a choice of lobster bisque (they spell it bisk on the menu board) or salad. Lauri took the salad and Maria and I went for the bisque.

Lauri seemed pleased to see us and we, of course, were delighted to see her. We’re spending the evening with her and her husband Jim and their boys tonight.

I’m using the Wifi at the Thorntown Public Library this afternoon, and I’m writing under the same mural that I could gaze at from my desk in the City Room of The Indianapolis News more than 40 years ago.

The mural (in the upper left corner of this photo) is a photomontage of famous Hoosiers up to about 1965 or so. Consequently, it doesn’t include later generations of famous Hoosiers like Larry Bird, John Mellencamp or Michael Jackson or David Letterman. The mural and others of a similar nature went into storage when The News City Room was remodeled in the early 1970s. It made its way to the Indianapolis Press Club for a few years, but when the Press Club folded a few years ago, longtime Newsie Gerry LaFollette bought it and donated it to the newly expanded Thorntown Public Library. Gerry’s parents were from Thorntown.

The original library building was one of the thousands of Carnegie Libraries built throughout the United States. When it was expanded, the addition was designed to carry out the same design elements so that the central section and the new south wing match what remains for the old building. I’m in the main reading room and you can see the afternoon winter sun slanting across the sturdy oak tables and chairs. It reminds me a lot of the Delphi Public Library when I was a kid. It was a Carnegie Library too.