The Hotel

 There were 2 inconveniences at our hotel in Chicago.  When we entered the hotel lobby, we were surrounded by people with their dogs.  I saw nothing on the hotel website that told me the place was pet friendly.  Golden Retrievers, Poodles, Jack Russells. A veritable mardi gras of dogs.  I have a thing about congregating dogs. Congregating canines ramp up my anxiety.  I calmed a bit when I saw that the dogs didn't seem to be colluding, but were mostly interested in their humans.  I later talked with a man in the elevator with a Shih-Poo who said his dog had a great temperament and wanted to play all day long. Many of the dog owners were comparing their dogs' DNA results to share the different breeds that rolled into the making of their pets.  If I did have a dog, I definitely would get the DNA test going ASAP.

The second inconvenience involved a ransomware attack on the hotel that resulted in the keys to the rooms being rendered useless.  So every time we wanted to return to our room, a hotel worker had to accompany us in the elevator and unlock our door for us.  The workers were cheerful about the whole enterprise for the most part, but I did feel sorry for them.  Ransomware (from wikipedia) "is a type of malware from cryptovirology that threatens to publish the victim's personal data or perpetually block access to it unless a ransom is paid."  Ransomware also locks people out of their hotel rooms. The hotel clerk told us that the keys would be working in a few days, too late for our benefit.  Was a ransom paid by the hotel?  So curious about how much they had to shell out to unlock the keys.  These ransomware attacks are a national security issue and I hope ransomwarers knock it off PDQ. President Biden has his work cut out for him with these ridiculous ransomware attacks.