ElectricTeaParty.net being social

So I'm a remote worker. I work from home, via a VPN into the office, and theoretically I could work from anywhere there's an internet connection. I've worked from my parents' place in Calgary before (I live in Edmonton, in case you're not paying attention), and from various friends' houses when I've been paged while on-call. Oh, on-call, you are a cruel mistress.

I have this vague I idea in the back of my mind that, theoretically, I could take a road trip and work while out there. Oh, it's just a theory. But I can work from wherever I have net access, my phone has an obscenely huge data plan, and as an iPhone owner I have unlimited access to Rogers' hotspots. Even if I can't get the VPN to work with my laptop tethered to the iPhone (I've gotten web browsing working on my Mac in the past, but not much else), I should at the very least be able to use wifi hotspots.

Well, I'm on call. Despite this, I thought I might take a chance and try to get my hair cut. Just pulling into the mall parking lot, I got a page. While rushing home, sans cut hair, I contacted a couple of my co-workers to address the page until I could get back to the comfort of my own wifi. As it happened, the page was dealt with altogether before I got home. But it got me thinking, "I shouldn't have to do this. There's wifi everywhere - practically every Starbucks or Second Cup has a Rogers hotspot, and basically every Safeway has free wifi." So after stopping off briefly at home, I headed out for some self-satisfactory proof-of-concept tests.