wifi: Casey's Downtown

March 09, 2004 by Eric Richardson

The official opening is April 8, but I just noticed in this downtown news article that the revamped Casey's Irish Bar & Grille will have wifi. It sounds like a very cool place. It's in the 600 block of Grand, so only a few blocks west of where I'm looking to hang my hat starting this summer. Definitely somewhere I'll be checking out.

from the office of...

March 09, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Ping-pong (or "table tennis", if you prefer) was on ESPN when I woke up this morning.

Current conditions? 87 degrees. Humidity, 26 percent. A nice variable 6mph breeze. No disrespect to those of you in other climes -- 'cause that's your choice and all, and I respect that -- but, why? Saturday I was waterskiing and wakeboarding. Yesterday I spent the afternoon getting work done at the beach. Today I'm hanging out in the shade, sportin' the pulled down low baseball cap to keep my gash from scarring, and it's amazing. In the shade you get that magic temperature where you really just sort of forget that there's weather around you. It's not hot, it's not cold, it just is. Then you get a breeze, or a little burst of a/c from an opened door, and it reminds you that you haven't lost all feeling and it really just is that nice outside.

I do have a midterm today. I do have to figure out what classes I'm taking next semester before I have advisement tomorrow. But you know, it's a whole lot easier to not worry about those when it's this nice outside.

ok, so apparently...

March 08, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Apparently the lag is traffic to the webcam. The "streaming" version is actually a reloading jpg straight off the webcam.

hmm... improving even today

March 08, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Still not great, but I noticed things seemed a little faster so I checked it out and now I'm seeing an average around 300ms. That's the type of thing that makes me think these big ping times were just an aberation.

wifi: Hennessey's Tavern at Hermosa Beach

March 08, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I'm hanging out at Hennessey's Tavern in Hermosa Beach, online via free wifi provided by Hermosawave. The location is amazing, right on the end of Pier Ave (where it's just a pedestrian walkway). The ocean is maybe 100 yards of beach away. They have outdoor seating, and also rooftop seating, but to avoid the glare I set up at a bar-type table inside. There's a great breeze wandering in, and they're even playing good music. The staff's great, very friendly. A full battery is pretty essential: I can't really see a power outlet anywhere. I had a full battery, though, and wasn't expecting power, so that didn't faze me.

The connectivity, though, is all over the place. I'm getting some normal ping times, but more often than not I'm getting times in the 3500ms range. The first time I ran a bandwidth test it showed me 450kbps, the second time 50. I'm hoping this is just an aberation. I dropped an email to Hermosawave, so we'll see what they have to say.

If the latency issue resolves itself, this is definitely a place I could see myself frequenting. They've got Guinness, the ocean, and free wifi. What else I'd need, I just don't know.

(Update: see the comments for a little more info on the latency issues.)