When I was a youth, the newspaper could never get it right.  One basketball article referred to me as “Pingelton.” Ha!  I considered changing my name to “Pringle,” after hearing that one so many times.  Another basketball article — my favorite — reported that “Pingelli” scored 20 points in one game.  My best friend’s dad — himself a newspaper man — used to borrow that one.  When I scored a basket, he would wait until the gym quieted a bit, and yell “Ping-GELL-eeeeeee.”

My friends, and later my fraternity brothers, shortened it to Ping, early on.

In college there was this hot little friend of a friend who actually had the last name Ping.  If for no other reason, I wanted to marry her so that she would one day be Tonya Ping-Pingel.

Anyway … I named this blog PingWi-Fi to incorporate my nickname, my passion for wireless and my mission — to find Wi-Fi as it runs rampant in our culture.  It is almost like a sonar sounding.  I go out and I ping coffee shops to see if they have Wi-Fi.  I ping college bowl games to see if there is Wi-Fi in the pressbox and/or the sidelines.  I have pinged ferryboats, commuter trains and airliners on a regular basis.

It what I do.  For the most part, it is quite positive and usually well received … at least among people who have entered the computer age.

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Make no mistake, I am on record for saying disco was the darkest era of rock ‘n’ roll history. I mean. Let’s be serious — it was people dancing to songs about dancing to songs about dancing …
Disco … that reminds me. Have you ever heard about that DJ in Chicago who staged a burn your disco record rally, and it turned into a riot? I almost slashed my wrists when I missed that beautiful fiasco — j/k.

Disco Demo Night

Ha … while I am on the topic of Disco and burning that mutha down … that promoter later gave me a shout out after one of my guerilla PR stunts — one which also received some ink and some criticism around the country. I was pretty flattered. In my PR stunt, a company offered a bounty for any NBA player who took part in the basketbrawl between the Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers and fans — offering $10K to players who participated, if they would tattoo a company logo on their fist. No takers.

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If you have read my blogs over the years, you know this already. But, if you recently stumbled upon PingWi-Fi.com, I’m just saying, I luvs me sum road trip!

I attribute this to spending hours and hours and hours on a farm tractor as a kid — lots of driving, but no sightseeing. To pass the time I always had a radio blasting rock ‘n’ roll. That accounts for my music thang …

It was in my tractor-driving youth that I won my first radio contest. It was quite silly. Back in the day, there was a nas-tay little novelty song about “The Telephone Man” — who had it going on with all of his customers … There was a suggestive lyric about “tell me where you want it and I’ll put it where I can.” Capitalizing on that “hit,” the biggest radio station in that part of Texas hosted a contest to give away a telephone: “Tell us why the telephone man should give you a new phone and where you would put it …”

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Memphis Soul

What is it with me and hotel rooms? I just blogged about an uninvited guest entering my hotel room in Santa Cruz and waking me from a really good dream. A year earlier, I intruded on a loving couple when I entered MY room. It was too much 411 that I am glad stayed in Vegas.

Yesterday my travel issues continued. The 6 a.m. wake up call seemed all too early, but I rolled over and grabbed the phone anyway. I guess, being halfway asleep, the phone receiver made kind of a bounce landing when I tried to dock it back with the rest of the phone. Oh well. I got up and headed toward the sink to wash my face, when the phone rang again. Oops. Must have not answered the wake up call in time. Picked it up again. Hung it up. Back to the face wash.

Ring, ring.

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Pinging Santa Cruz

I think it may be considered a bad thing when someone approaches you at your hotel, and asks, “Do you work here?,” based on how you are dressed. I am pretty sure a lady assumed that the black uniform pants and pressed collared shirt of my Dirty Gigs work clothes meant that I was the hotel maintenance professional. Ha! I guess it could be worse, I could have been mistaken for the cabana boy out beside the pool.

In a way, I was working. Just taking a moment away from my disaster recover gig to call up www.pingwi-fi.com on the guest computers in the lobby.

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Fins, Santa Cruz

It was a great sign when I saw the surfboards, sharks and Cadillac posters at Fins Coffee shop on Ocean Street in Santa Cruz. Second, it was comforting to see a graying old surfer and his HP on the Internet.

Yes. There is wireless at Fins — if you bring in an AT&T or T-Mobile aircard. What is the old Surf Punks song? — “My beach, my wave, my stick …” Something like that.  I hummed it as I broke out my stick — a 3G adaptor from T-Mobile and Huawei Technologies. LOL.

What? Are you kidding me? I couldn’t believe what my Wi-Fi detector was telling me. Surf was NOT up! There were, however, several Wi-Fi networks available, if you don’t mind stealing from your neighbors. Or, if you are particularly adept and guessing passwords.

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Earth Day 2010

This is my best Earth Day, in like forever — especially since I don’t remember celebrating the previous 39 events. This ED was special … so special that a stranger walked into my hotel room this morning to share it with me. He woke me up after my all-night stint, cleaning soot from a library in Northern California. (Search “Dirty Gigs” on this site …)

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Well, I couldn’t get a note from my doctor, so I shot over to Dallas for the last full day of The Dallas International Film Festival … punchdrunk on allergy meds.

And I won’t lie, my consciousness was touch and go … especially during the Magnolia Theater’s ads that I have seen umpteen times now during the festival. Kudos to Dallas agency Temerlin McLain’s ads — big beautiful shots, taking full advantage of the power of the big screen. They passed the no-doze test.

I digress.

My first choice of the day: “Down Terrace” for a 1:30 p.m. screening. Note to film makers — avoid 1 p.m. screenings … that is nap time, allergies or not. And I must say, I liked “Down Terrace,” and I love Brits … but my goodness the first of the dialogue-laden gangster film moved like year-old Nyquil from the bottle. Maybe a shooting or two at the first would have kept my attention on this day. But, rest assured, before long the film becomes a communion of plastic wrapped bodies, bloody victims and bloody perps.

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A few days before the Dallas International Film Festival began, I met this dude in Starbucks in Fort Worth, over by the hospital district. We talked for a second or two and then I drove over to his car in the parking lot. Somehow, I was able to control my Toyota and stop it long enough for him to lean into the passenger’s side window.

He handed me the goods. The package was a tiny orange prescription meds bottle, with a normal looking “script” affixed to the outside. Man, I am so glad there were no hidden cameras, catching this deal go down on film. With a little imagination, under the right circumstances, this could have looked really, really bad. But luckily, I wasn’t hauled off to jail.

Ha … the tiny bottle of “drugs” contained breath mints, and the label was actually promotional information about a film called “Carried Away.” By mere chance, I had met the director, Tom Huckabee that day in Starbucks. He was doing an interview with another journalist, and I overheard. After they wrapped, I introduced myself and said I too would be covering the film festival.

Small world.

In addition to the controlled substance (just breath mints, I promise), Huckabee also gave me what looked like a very sketchy bootleg copy of the film, on a plain DVD disc — the name of the film, and the director’s phone number handwritten on the disc with a sharpie. We’re talking director’s cut, I guess you could say. (You have to love independent films … when the director is out representin …)

Well … who am I to argue with fate? I watched the film, in the comfort of my own movie cave, high on a sugary placebo from far too many breath mints.

Nice film. (And it has already taken home some impressive awards.)

“Carried Away”

I must confess, my initial expectations were low … since I met the director so casually. (Someone suggested he was actually stalking me and Starbucks was a sure bet, because it is where I mainline caffeine and Wi-Fi … That’s crazy talk.) Then the first roadtrip scenes takes the audience down the highway, within two blocks of the PingWi-Fi world headquarters … you even see the bell tower of my children’s old school. But, hey … long gone are the days when Texas film required apologies.

“Carried Away” is fun and pretty good. I mean who don’t love a whacked out, drug-dependent granny … especially if she is instrumental in the healing of her son and grandson’s strained relationship?

Mark Walters

I love irony as well. And I just gotta say, my private screening was teeming with coincidence. As I said, on the right day during filming, I probably could have hit the production team with a rock from my balcony. Second, I watched the film on the anniversary of the launch of the Titanic. (Who knows how I know this fact …) Stay on board with me … I will reel it in … The grandmother (Juli Erickson) sings a song to her grandson … all about the old, good ship Titanic in the film. I believe the odds of viewing that on Titanic day are 364-to-1.

"Carried Away" cast, Huckabee (right)

The film — despite its humor — also takes issue with prejudice as the elderly woman uses the N-famous racial dialect of her day … albeit without malice. Rest assured her grandson chastises her for that one.

I won’t lie … I could have lived without the dorsal nudity of the elderly woman, but it added to her zaniness.

Bryan Massey, Adam Dietrich

The story works, and the film is well done. The characters are believable, for the most part. Gabriel Horn doesn’t blow.  He does a nice job as the good-intentioned, confused grandson, “Ed Franklin.”

Another upper — the film team does a nice job painting a picture of the cross-country trip, with on-location shots in several states, even beyond this big one.

There is also a cameo by the North Texas band, The Theater Fire, who perform original music on the soundtrack.

The Theater Fire

While I won’t OD on negativity … I will say one member of the cast might have detracted from the sincerity a bit … In a nutshell, I thought his melodramatic portrayal would be more at home in dinner theater.

Anyway … a nice little slice of life — funny at times, sometimes sad .. And a roadtrip to boot! “Carried Away” takes home 5 pings on the 7-pings scale.

Know what I sayin?

I am so over Texas Stadium!