This. Isn't. Good.

Finally got around earlier today to checking out the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art at 45th and Warwick Boulevard, which has long been listed as a local free hotspot, something I found intriguing, to say the least. An art gallery wouldn't necessarily come to mind-well, at least not to my mind-as a place you'd expect to find free Wi-Fi. Which is why not finding it there when I booted up (Memo to self: Plug that stinking finder in and charge it the night before next time so you don't have to boot up to do the initial signal search, dummy!) wasn't altogether surprising. After all, we've been led astray by the local listings before.

However, the nice young lady in the information booth assured me the place really was lit up-or at least was supposed to be. She was even able to tell me what the SSID should have been. So, on the outside chance that someone playing with the access point had inadvertently turned off broadcasting the network name, I fired up again and played around with every permutation of the identifier I could think of. Still no joy, and no signal. (And no hidden SSID, either, as verified by my finder once it was charged enough to make a check.)

Well, the only place I saw that would have been suitable for sit-down surfing, had things been working, was a small bench outside the entrance to Cafe Sebastienne across from the main entrance. I can only guess, but I got the impression that the bench is really there for cafe patrons arriving early for their reservations, so its availability for other purposes may be limited at times. Power outlets? Get outta here. There might have been some in the cafe, but I didn't look. And the aforementioned nice young lady advised that there may be more seating in the galleries, but she didn't know either if there are outlets nearby or if plugging into them is even allowed-and I didn't venture into any of the galleries to check.

You know, it's bad enough when a place like a laundromat advertises free wireless and can't deliver the goods. When people expected to know what they're doing fall down on the job, it's unconscionable. My suspicion is that this network is an important resource for students at the adjacent Kansas City Art Institute, and probably gets some traffic from Rockhurst, UMKC and the community colleges as well, so here's hoping it gets the TLC it needs-fast.