Category: Vacation 3

I’ve finished up my little bag of travel tricks for some secure internet this summer. All of the electronics are in the bag, configured and ready to go, with the main connections coming out the top.

The bag contains an Alfa R36 repeater and range extender for my Alfa Awus036H long-range Wifi antenna. This unit acts as my primary encrypted router with a non-visible SSID and it’s connected to my netbook via Lan cable and also connected to my TP-Link wireless N150 travel router.

Here’s how it works: I fire up the netbook which talks to the R36 via browser and it presents all of the hotspots that my long-range antenna can find. I then peruse them by signal strength, lack of encryption and name (you know, netgear, linksys ;-). Once I make my choice the bag of tricks hooks up to that connection and presents a sweet little hotspot to me called nano that all of my devices are ready to talk to.

The really nice thing about this setup is the security. I sincerely doubt any punk script-kiddie trying to hack an unsuspecting laptop hooked up to a Starbucks or motel connection could break through two additional levels of passwords and encryption!

Took my travel truck down to Rexburg today and I noticed her pulling slightly to the right. She and I are taking a big drive in a couple of weeks down to the land of sun and bikinis with an old London Bridge and there are a few mechanical things to wrap up before we go, including this new issue.

Found a great auto shop next to Walmart and told them to rotate the tires, do an align and check out my battery, which was getting old. The diagnosis was that the front bearings need repacking before an align and I needed a new battery, so I bought this monster and we’ll do the repack and alignment next Saturday.

A new clutch and main seal should also be going in next week and I’ll soon be owning Spring Break and Summer Vacation once again!