Brewski and WiFi

Brewski and WiFi -- The Lancaster Brewing Company has more than good suds to offer.

Late last week, I accompanied my wife to a social worker/psychology therapist seminar (put on by JK Seminars and highly recommended by her for a source of continuing education in that field). It was held in the center of Pennsylvania Amish country in Lancaster. The hotel did not have any sort of broadband internet access (yes -- I admit that I have become spoiled), so I looked upon the trip as an opportunity to explore the world of free wifi access hot spots.

Lancaster was listed as having two open access hot spots -- a residence and that was affiliated with Lancaster Brewing. I grabbed a copy of iStumbler for my old Titanium PowerBook, and went driving one morning. I found the brewery, pulled into their early morning empty parking lot, opened the PowerBook, turned on iStumbler, found their network -- even with the famously poor reception in the TiPB -- logged on, and proceded to download 150 emails (63% spam) and my NetNewsWire RSS feeds. Not quite "WarDriving", but I can now count myself in the wifi world -- that is, the wifi world beyond my basement.

While I was sitting there, someone else pulls into the parking lot -- an owner, manager, or employee of the brewery. I take a deep breath, roll down my window, and tell him "Thanks!" He say's "For what?" I say "The wireless access." He says "You could get on? Cool." Nice folks. I later paid them back by sampling their wares -- their Four-Grain Ale is highly recommended if you're ever in the area, and they've got something called a Milk Stout that, if it wasn't summer, would have grabbed my attention as well.