I was asked to attend a meeting most of the week in COS, at the Broadmoor Hotel, which is a place I've always wanted to visit. The trip started off poorly Sunday a.m. when my car service didn't show up. The dispatcher when I called said he had no record of the reservation. My response to him was it had been made four days earlier by me, directly with the same person I was then talking to. Don't they write things down?

A mad dash drive down the 405 to LAX. Since I was going to be gone six days I took a large suitcase, so carry-on wasn't an option. Boy is the United Premier check in line busy Sunday at 7:45am! Twenty minutes later I'm at the gate, just as they begin loading. An hour and a half later, we're still at the gate, with a mystery mechanical delay. Pilot says there is a fault indication in the cockpit, mechanics can't find any problems under the hood. I called United while waiting, to ask for protection on the next flight. Finally after 90 minutes I walk off to the Red Carpet Room. Tell the delay story to the agent who calls the gate, which tells her just that minute the flight has cancelled.

Kudos to the RCC "angel" She calls the baggage people to offload my bag, issues a paper ticket for the next Denver bound flight, upgrades me to "C" (without certs), and gives me a lunch voucher. All with minimal prompting and cajooling on my part. Annual RCC membership cost recouped in that ten minute period, in my opinion.

Flight to DEN is on a 777. No problems, uneventful. Connection to COS is now delayed, as they substitute a CRJ for a larger BAe-146 (to compensate for the cancelled flight earlier to COS, my original through DEN was a one-stop). I haven't been on an Air Wisconsin 146 in two to three years. I suspect the plane I am flying on is the same hull as last time, because clearly no one had cleaned it in 24 to 36 months. It even smelled dirty. Luckily the RCC "angel" got me the bulkhead. Much further back in the plane my poor boss who is eight inches taller than me, was embedded in the last row of this full plane in a non-reclining seat.

Arriving in COS we are shuttled to the renowned Broadmoor Hotel. This is a massive AAA five star facility, that overwhelms the surrounding area. Rooms are very expensive ($365-450). Initial opinion of the room is tarnished as the maid's maintenance from the last guest is spotty. There was trash in the cans, a blue wire hanger in the bathroom, a light out over the sink, and the memo pads were used and waterlogged. However one room amenity stood out. On top of the TV was a wireless keyboard for On Command's "@HotelTV" high speed internet access. Oh wow, how cool!

Unfortunately the On Command TV menu shows nothing about the service. I Call the front desk and am told maybe the next day it would be engaged.

Fast forward 24 hours, I get back to the room from meetings (OK I'm lying, it's really from a golf outing) and check again. TV menu says it's working. Price $9.95 for 24 hours.

Now first thing I must note, is there is no mouse. You must use keyboard arrows to work your way around a screen. The arrows look for frames, but in practice it is hit and miss. Even more troublesome however is the wireless keyboard itself. It looks like it came from Nintendo and reacts very slowly to typing commands. I suspect you can only type at 30 wpm or slower. There is no memory buffer. Size wise, it is about 2/3 the size of a normal notebook computer.

The worst problem, is the screen resolution. My educated guess is the resolution is substantially less than normal 640 x 480 VGA. Also the picture is not overly sharp, on the Zenith 26" TV. Connection speed is hard to judge, but seems about on par with my laptop connected to my MSN service at 24-28.8K. Let's hope the service is not running at optimum speed, otherwise road warriors are going to laugh at On Command.

Next - a visit to "The House Of Miles"

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Note: Elapsed preparation time for this posting was 45 minutes. I want to scream.

P.S. After typing this, I went back and noted a number of typo errors. The thought of editing it using the TV was distasteful. I later dialed up my ISP in the normal manner and cleaned up the posting. $9.95 goes to waste.


[This message has been edited by Craig6z (edited 06-06-2000).]