Geek Hotels Pass the Nerd Test
: Photo: scottroberts/Flickr Whether your fantasy hotel is a Star Wars -style cave dwelling or a Hobbit hole in New Zealand, specialty accommodations around the world will fulfill your nerdy needs. Other hotels geek out with crazy gear, from Apple- and Microsoft-themed suites to virtual golf courses. And while WiFi has become a common hotel offering, a high-tech hotel in the Middle ...

Online air travel searches down sharply
CHICAGO, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- U.S. consumers have cut back drastically on their online searches for air travel accommodations, an industry research group said.

Holiday Inn eyed for Loma Linda
LOMA LINDA - Visitors won't have to look outside the city to find major hotel accommodations much longer. The city is moving forward with plans for a 111-room Holiday Inn on Redlands Boulevard east of Anderson Street.

Kalamazoo City Commission unanimously approves gay-rights ordinance
KALAMAZOO -- The city of Kalamazoo has stepped beyond existing state and federal laws, making it illegal to use sexual orientation to discriminate in housing, public accommodations and employment.

In and around the parish
OPELOUSAS - A trip to the 2009 Presidential Inauguration will depart from Opelousas on Jan. 17 and return to Opelousas on Jan. 21. The cost is $600 and covers transportation (chartered bus) and hotel accommodations at Westgate Resorts. Deadline is Dec. 20 and 40 people are needed. No refunds.

Hotel Charlotte mixes regional cuisine, history
(Peter G. Gilchrist) Hotel Charlotte 705 S. Sharon Amity Road; (704) 364-8755; Lunch, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday-Friday; dinner, 5:30-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 5:30-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. www.hotelcharlotte restaurant.com No, Hotel Charlotte does not offer overnight accommodations (it is not an actual hotel), but it does provide casual dining to south-central ...

Burger Boat begins work on 140-foot yacht
MANITOWOC Burger Boat Co. has started construction of Hull 508, a 140-foot tri-deck motor yacht. Scheduled for a spring 2010 launch, the luxury yacht features accommodations for 10 in the owners party.

Shlachter, Perotin, Fuquay & Co.: Posh accommodations for pets
While you go home for the holidays, Mansfield-area pets can go to a home away from home for the holidays.

Online air travel searches down sharply
U.S. consumers have cut back drastically on their online searches for air travel accommodations, an industry research group said.Comscore Inc. said searches for airline information in October -- a time when many winter vacations are arranged -- fell 14 percent compared with October 2007, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday.Online traffic declined sharply at Expedia Inc., falling 25 percent in ...

Inauguration hotel frenzy spreads
Hotels in Washington area sold out, and inauguration attendees are turning to Baltimore, Richmond and even Philadelphia for accommodations during the partying surrounding the swearing in of President-elect Barack Obama.

Winter 'flashpackers' prepare to invade hostels
Skier Paul Wampach, a 49-year-old manager from Chicago, Illinois, hardly matches the stereotype of a hostel dweller: an under-30 backpacker from outside the United States who can't afford fancy lodging.

A Microsoft Veteran Embraces Open Source
Keith Curtis has just written a book about the future of software. That in itself isn?t unique. More unusual is that Mr. Curtis, an 11-year veteran of Microsoft, the world?s largest software company, believes deeply that open source is the future of software.

Wayne County news briefs
Brownstown Township's police chief will remain on the job at least until next week. The township board voted Monday night not to take up the issue of Chief Dennis Richardson's job at the meeting. Earlier that day, Wayne County Circuit Judge Michael Sapala granted a temporary restraining order that would prevent the board from firing Richardson.

BIZARRE POSSIBILITY: Beatty, Kilpatrick: Neighbors in jail?
Christine Beatty is to serve 120 days in the Wayne County Jail. But where, exactly, in the Wayne County Jail? There is a women's floor in the main facility downtown, but Beatty's lawyer said Monday he expects she will serve her time, like her former paramour Kwame Kilpatrick, in isolation. That raises an intriguing, if unlikely, possibility.

MIKE BRUDENELL: NASCAR's Rick Hendrick: Don't punish Big 3, assist them
NASCAR team boss and veteran car dealer Rick Hendrick believes domestic automakers are making big strides in building better and more fuel-efficient products and have done so the past seven or eight years.

Travel pinched by global financial crisis
The tourists chatting in multiple languages in the piazzas, bars and shops of Rome belie a more somber mood at the ancient city's hotels. Luigi Rinaldi, concierge of the Hotel de la Minerve next to the Pantheon, said American tourists have disappeared,...

SC anguish on over-stayers
Supreme Court is inching slowly but gradually towards getting government-accommodations vacated from squatters when it warned of even ordering arrest for not vacating or paying rent for unauthorised stay in government-bungalows.

Advocates urge council to pass anti-discrimination law
BINGHAMTON -- Miller Hoffman knows what it's like to be hassled for being a transgender person.

Travel pinched by global financial crisis
The tourists chatting in multiple languages in the piazzas, bars and shops of Rome belie a more somber mood at the ancient city's hotels.

Liikala feeling some good old Ohio River blues
It was not the typical fishing trip. I was not going to some remote wilderness area.  No, we were going to fish off of downtown Cincinnati. On top of that, my accommodations were at the Millennium Hotel in the heart of the city. I have to admit I wasn?t used to the hotel?s plush accommodations.