There, I said it. I’ve become a Macstumbler. I lurk around the undisclosed location, opening my laptop outside office buildings, looking furtively for a signal. At the moment, I’m sitting in the lobby of a hotel I’m not registered in. Fortunately, it’s happy hour and if asked, I’ll buy a drink. It’s the least I can do.

Here’s what I’ve found:

Starbucks must turn something off after closing time, because the Starbucks hot spots I’ve found cannot be accessed after business hours, even when you’re standing right outside the window, holding your laptop as though it were a religious object, trying to find a signal.

The coffee shop across the street, being attached to a non-profit artists’ co-op, is much looser. The other day I snuck over around 11 p.m., stole onto the deck where the outdoor seating is, held my laptop close to my chest (that big white apple on the backside must say “steal me” to someone) and … e-mailed. It was a feeling simultaneously furtive and thrilling.

An older man in Harry Caray glasses just approached me and said, “It just amazes me to see this,” in a strong southern accent. “On airplanes, all over the world.” And he didn’t even know I was blogging. I’m sure he’d have had a heart attack.

As it was, I’m just operating a notebook-sized communication device that can post drivel to the internet and do my taxes.

I am doing fine. I am online intermittently. I am learning to talk with my mouth open wider. And even though Jon Carroll is on vacation, I am very glad they ran this Carroll Classic, one of my absolute faves.

See you soon.

Road trip, day two: Milwaukee, “the good land,” as Alice Cooper would say. Regrettably, my trip was brief — just a long lunch/walk stop, and not even in the city — but I tipped my hat to Wisconsin’s beeriest city, and renewed my resolution to once again, one of these days, visit the art museum with the flapping-wing thing.

Instead, I dropped in on Deb, who doesn’t have a blog I can link to, apparently because she considers her life more important that chronicling it on a pointless website. She is a regular commenter here; you can recognize her by her refusal to use capital letters, except in acronyms. it’s just a tic.

(Sorry, no picture. My visit was brief and I just flat forgot, even though Deb still looks cute and is even losing weight.)

We walked from her house to the village center of Greendale, known to your heartlander types as the center of the Reiman Publications empire (Country, Country Woman, Reminisce, etc.) We ate in the former Taste of Home restaurant, now under new management but still featuring some Taste of Home menu items, by popular demand. While there I picked up a waiting-area copy of …Country Destinations? Country Discoveries? Can’t remember. (Pause; crickets) OK, let’s ask Google: It’s Country Discoveries, their travel magazine. Anyway, leafing through the pages, whose face should pop out? Why, Rudy Maxa’s, the Savvy Traveler, although there’s no more Savvy Traveler show, just ST pop-ins on Marketplace.

Anyhoo.

Rudy is our fellow Ohio University alum, and was always a big hit at reunions of our college newspaper, because he was living proof an OU grad could go to work at the Washington Post. He broke the Wayne Hays story, and wrote some stylish Style pieces, and then he went here and went there and became the Savvy Traveler and now here he is in this incredibly unhip Reiman publication (It’s all about North America! There’s not a word on romantic, cool getaways in Cambodia!), and if you’re looking for a point to this observation, well, I fear you’ve hit a dead end, because I don’t think I have one. Just: Hey, Rudy Maxa’s writing for Country Discoveries.

It’s been a lot of driving. My brain is working like a car radio set on “scan.” Speaking of radio, if you’re the Real Audio sort, do not miss this week’s “This American Life,” which I stopped scanning long enough to catch on my way out of town. The topic: Testosterone. It was freakin’ brilliant. The gist: Testosterone is the engine of all human endeavor. (Yes, even for women.) It reminded me of when I was having my period of greatest mental instability, which came after Kate was born and my body was buffeted by great waves of hormone shifts, and I recall thinking, “Who am I? Do I actually have a personality, or is it just a manifestation of a few chemical levels in the brain?” The answer seems to be: the second thing. Which is sort of scary but also cool, because there’s hope for a cure.

I’ve come to rest for a while in an undisclosed location in the central time zone. Blogging to be intermittant but present over the next two weeks. Send me e-mail; there’s an internet cafe across the street, where I’m enjoying a mint latte and some world music. Have a great week, all; I’m hoping to.

You know the thing I love about gay bars? They never change. I mean: Never. I stopped going to them c. 1980 or so, and in the few times I’ve been back since then, it’s like visiting my youth preserved in amber. The patrons have more tattoos now, there’s now something called Apple Pucker schnapps available behind the bar, but otherwise? Timeless.

Last night, the NN.C roadshow stopped in Chicago, to visit one of our most loyal and supportive readers, Alex, seen above at an early stop in the evening, holding a coaster for the house brew. Snicker all you want — I had one, and I’m here to tell you if it weren’t for the name, this ale would be somewhere around the bottom of the sales charts.

Anyway, after dinner and a nap, we went back out, to Big Chick’s, a north-side bar for gentlemen and the understanding ladies who love them. We walk in, and what are they playing? Don’t even guess: Thelma Houston, “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” It’s like they picked the needle up off the record as I walked out the door 20-plus years ago, and dropped the laser back on the CD when I walked back in: “Nance’s here! Put on the oldies mix.”

The rest of the evening: Not a blur, exactly — I can’t act like that anymore. But I stayed out clear past midnight! It had to be memorable!

NN.C is hitting the road for a few days, laptop in tow. Which is to say, posting may be sporadic, but I’ll burp up something every once in a while.

(I’m so glad John the Web Guy disabled the counter, so I can’t see the damage I’ve done to my beloved readership over the last few months. Sigh.)

I confess to a soft spot for the Style Invitational, a weekly puzzle/word game/whatever run by the Washington Post’s fab features section. It’s sort of an upmarket parlor game of widely varying tests of skill, hard to describe, but rarely boring.

Scroll past this week’s bizarre challenge to the results of last week’s: Feed text to Google’s translating engine, then feed the result back into English. I should make you click through to read first place, but it’s too good not to share right here:

Original text: I am the worst president elected ever. (From French) I am the worst president never elected.

You had to know it would be French, didn’t you?

The rest are pretty funny, too. As the judges said, we don’t think real translators have any fear for their jobs just yet.

The WashPost, with predictably good reads, on Red America and Blue America.

Well, it’s official. We’ve been replaced.

This picture doesn’t really do it justice and the squirrels obviously got a few, but you get a sense of “Imagine/Align,” the half-mile-long string of daffodils marching in single file across the Nichols Arboretum. Very Christo. Rather cool.

I suppose anyone who attends a Catholic college should expect a level of ideological discipline on a level with the Politburo, but at the same time, those who seek to bend reality to their point of view have a certain responsibility to do their homework first.

Back in Fort Wayne, local daughter-made-good Dr. Nancy Snyderman was dis-invited to speak at the commencement ceremonies for University of St. Francis, an event years in the planning, days before the event. Her crime? Journalism. Snyderman, an M.D. who also covers medical stories for ABC-TV, displeased her hosts with her reporting:

During the story on “Good Morning America,” Snyderman discussed a woman who had suffered from infertility, but then had become pregnant with septuplets, Snyderman said.

“I report facts. As a medical reporter, I report science,” she said.

The bishop was unhappy: The letter informed Snyderman that the offer to speak had been rescinded.

“The university recently received information from (D’Arcy) containing comments by you on the topic of abortion, and these comments appear to be contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church,” the letter read. “As a Catholic university, we have no choice but to rescind our invitation.”

You’d think, before extending the invitation, they might have made a few phone calls and discovered Snyderman was not Catholic and hence, might hold an opinion or two contrary to the church’s teachings, and as a journalist, has a responsibility to report facts the church is uncomfortable with. On the subject of her personal beliefs, they might also have cracked one of her books and discovered she carried an out-of-wedlock pregnancy to term at a very difficult time in her life, which traditionally earns back-patting from Catholics.

What an interesting story. “No choice,” they say. Ironic, doncha think?

OK, this may be a hard swallow for those of you not in the newspaper business, but for those who are, you must read this Ron Rosenbaum piece on the incursion of evil management consultants into our business:

To me, the pi�ce de r�sistance of the Raines essay�the anecdote that captures the true texture of management-guru culture�is his description of the elite management retreat in which a management-consultant guru painstakingly explains to Times executives the management-guru-approved method for firing people. …At this particular retreat, Mr. Raines tells us, the “coach and facilitator” announced the lesson for the day: “how to fire people.” The poor Times execs were coerced into dividing up into groups to role-play firing scenarios Or, as Mr. Raines puts it, the groups “practiced termination interviews.”

Anyway, Mr. Raines tells us, the “main precepts” communicated by the “termination” guru were “to sit directly facing the employee in a posture that indicated openness, receptivity�legs uncrossed, arms resting loosely on the arms of the chair. After saying to the person in a calm tone that he or she was being dismissed, and giving a brief, neutral explanation of the reason, we were to listen patiently while the employee vented freely. If he or she became angry, we were to say we understood the anger. At every turn we were to express personal sympathy but to offer no concessions. Once the soon-to-be-exiled worker realized the hopelessness of his or her situation, we were to collect the person�s identification card, if that could be accomplished without a wrestling match.” In other words: break them down, treat them like children and kick them out while disguising your contempt for them.