The rain is pouring madly outside. The green umbrella wavers in the wind, it's rope flapping wildly. Terracotta stones seem slippery, dangerous. the wifi access is free. The ice tea refills: free. The window seat: free.
Free.
The most powerful word in advertising. And I've done a lot of advertising. Sometimes even for free.
I'm sitting in Panera Bread. A bread, pastry and sandwich cafe here in Newport Beach. And I'm amazed and please that they are offering free wifi access. Stabucks and T-Mobile eat your heart out. Penera is growing, too.
The sandwich, a Turkey Fresco, was good. Can't say it was great. But it's better than the sealed in Saran Wrap sandwiches found at some of the Starbucks. And the staff is attentive, friendly and very organized.
Two students sitting at the table next me passing back and forth the book
by James Porter Moreland and Kai Nielsen, Does God Exist?: The Debate Between Theists & Atheists. 
They are deep in discussion while eating a broken cookie on the table in front of them. Freshman philosophy class students from University of California Irvine, I'm guessing. Two twenty something smartly dressed career women sitting behind me rambling about the company log and gossiping about the girl in HR. I thought for a minute they said company blog. Wishful eavesdropping I guess. But that's not far off.
I'm not going anywhere till the rain stops. So you get the pleasure or pain of my rambling hump day post.
But check the Panera site. See if there's a cafe near you with wifi. I urge you to check it out.
Photos: Outside and inside Panera on Bison Avenue in Newport Beach 2PM on Wednesday February 18, 2004. Taken with a Sony Ericsson P900 phone transferred to my PowerBook via Bluetooth and posted to the weblog. Kind of the long way to moblogging.
