The History of Fire Making Tools

I attended a lecture last week at the Hi-Desert Nature Museum in Yucca Valley called The Quest for Fire, The History of Fire-Making Tools. Speaker Tom O’Key. Pictures have been uploaded to my Flickr page. Here’s what I gleaned from this nearly two hour long lecture:

-Nothing exists without fire.
-Vesta is the goddess of fire. Vestal virgins maintained fires. They might have used a concave mirror or solar lens to spark fires.
-Touchwood was the first material discovered that could transfer embers, thanks to its soft pulp. The magic mushroom (yes, that’s what he said the name was) also has these properties and was used as tinder. Plant down also used for tinder. Starting that ember in the tiny hearth of these items was critical.
-Then tinder boxes and steel were invented. Flint and steel hit together to make fire. Ember stored in tinder box. Tongs were used to transfer the ember. People discovered pyrite has fire-making capabilities.
-Tools remained standard for millennia. The hand bow and drill was the number one method to make fire and consisted of two parts: the bow and the hearth into which the fire was started. Bow drill was the advanced method of fire-making.
-Concave mirrors were used to get fire from the sun.
-At some point fire pistons were invented, but no one knows the history of this device. It’s believed to have come from the aboriginals.
-Iron doesn’t create sparks. You must use steel.
-Sulfur (brimstone) was discovered to have fire-making abilities.
-A lens was used to light tobacco.
-In the 1800s scientists were called philosophers, not scientists.
-Sulfur match making was the job of the poor because of the work and stench involved in the process. Making matches was poisonous in nature, causing a condition called fozee jaw. Matches were carried in a basket and sold on the street.
-The steel was chained to the wagon in pioneer days so it would be readily accessible.
-Tinderboxes were common on all fireplaces and hearths.
-Fusee matches were in England only.
-Diamond Match Company is biggest in the United States and a long-lived business.
-Spills were rolled wood shavings made with a spill planer and were used to transfer fire.
-Historical fire-making tools are rare finds. Most burned up or were reabsorbed by nature.

It was very interesting to see Mr. O’Key’s collection, quite fascinating how fire-making has progressed over the years. I had been hoping for hands-on demonstration, but that wasn’t part of the lecture. I hope I’ve done his lecture proud, i.e., accurately.

When speaking to another attendee, I learned there is a private foundation for the care of meerkats in the neighboring town. This organization was featured on Animal Planet. I never realized it existed.

:) Caitlyn
www.caitlynwillows.com

Spear Throwing

I recently attended a Brown Bag lecture at the Hi-Desert Nature Museum on spear throwing. You'll find the pictures on my Flickr page.

The lecture was presented by Paul Campbell. Paul has a fascination with all things old, particularly those relating to the Native Americans in California. Through research and trial and error, he's rebuilt many artifacts California Native Americans used in their daily lives, including the spears and atlatls (spear throwers) demonstrated during the lecture. The best part? After the lecture those of us who were interested in learning to throw spears got hands-on experience!

My photos show how much fun everyone had. I was surprised with how quickly adults and children learned to throw. And throw far! The photos also show many different types of spears (also called darts), atlatls, quivers (one from straw, the other from a coyote pelt).

Here are some miscellaneous facts I gleaned from the lecture (any mistakes are my own):

- You can throw very far with an atlatl. Range depends on where you hold the atlatl.

- Think of your arm as a catapult when throwing.

- Spear tips are fire-hardened. Stones are used to make the point.

- Few ancient spears and atlatls are found because they were made of wood and wood disintegrates.

- Spears were made of wood or cane.

- A "male" atlatl has a spur protrusion. A "female" atlatl has a groove.

- A cane dart (spear) has more momentum than a .357 Magnum.

- A flexible atlatl creates a whip effect and can make a dart sail.

- This Alaskan spear (reddish brown with string around it) is designed so that the point stays in the target. The string keeps the point with the spear, and the spear floats. This makes it easy to retrieve weapon and prey.



- The most common quivers were made of coyote pelt.











Paul Campbell also has two books out:

The Mating Life of Bugs

Not all bugs, just some bugs.

I recently went to the Hi-Desert Nature Museum in Yucca Valley, California to listen to a lecture on archaeological discoveries. I arrived to learn the speaker had taken ill and that lecture was postponed. The substitute lecture was on the sex life of bugs. It was fascinating!

Here are a few of the tidbits I picked up. I hope I don't get anything wrong.

Aphids:
Female aphids give birth to females as soon as they're born, and those females give birth to females as soon as they are born. Males are born in the fall. Ants are friends of aphids. They treat them as cattle, herding them and caring for them, because the aphids secrete "honey dew" which the ants love. This is also the aphid's urine. Ladybugs (whose real name is lady bird beetle) are the aphid's enemy. The larva of ladybugs love to much on aphids.

Moths:
Males are drawn to a female by the pheromones the female gives out. After the male mates he goes on to mate again. The female mates once and dies.

Cicada:
Wasps are the cicada's enemy. Wasps are carnivores. Bees are vegetarian.

Damsel fly:
Male has what looks like a spiky ball on the end of his penis. He uses this to remove any previous sperm in the female before he mates with her.

Dung beetle:
Both make the dung balls for their young. Very devoted parents, especially the female. She would rather eat her young than leave them.

Praying mantis:
They eat everything smaller than they are, which is why the male must approach the female very cautiously. Once he makes contact the female bites his head off. This must happen in order for the male to ejaculate.

Honey bee:
A good queen lasts about a year. Life span of a worker is six weeks. Drones come from fertilized eggs. Workers come from unfertilized eggs. A normal hive sleeps during winter. The drones are kicked out of the hive at this time. When it's time for a new queen, a female is hatched and swarms with the drones (also hatched since all the others died). How many times she mates with drones will determine her worth as queen. If she doesn't measure up she is killed and a new queen is hatched. Queen's only job is to lay eggs. Swarms aren't aggressive. They are focused on mating with the potential queen.

Flies:
Two flies plus two piles of manure equal 8,000 files. Maggots are used to clean out wounds since they eat decaying flesh.

Blister beetle:
They don't blister when they are eaten. They blister inside the body. Larva jump on bee when one lands nearby.

Las Vegas, Nevada

I’ll get to our trip to Las Vegas in a bit. First I wanted to mention the place we stopped at around the halfway point in our drive—Kelso, California. Kelso was one of the many railroad towns that cropped up during the heyday of the railroad. As freeways took over Kelso fell into decline. Over the years we’ve watched those townspeople who remain slowly renovate the area. Their first task was the depot, which eventually became the home for their museum. Then they added restroom facilities for travelers. (When you’re traveling across the desert you have no idea how welcome these facilities are.) Kelso is also the Mojave National Preserve’s principal information center. Nearby the Kelso sand dunes tower over the desert. Further on you can explore Hole In The Wall, Mitchell Caverns, volcanic cinder cones, and a beautiful forest of Joshua Trees. It’s absolutely beautiful here in springtime when the wildflowers are blooming. We had a nice lunch at The Beanery (hearty sandwiches and great ice tea) and I’d recommend it to anyone passing through and needing a short respite from the long drive to Las Vegas or from a day exploring the area.

Click here for pictures of Kelso Depot.

Click on the names if you’d like more information about Kelso Depot or the Mojave National Preserve.

Now for Las Vegas…

What a difference two years have made. That was the last time we were in Vegas (to the best of our recollection). We always stay at the Golden Nugget on Fremont Street. We prefer Fremont Street to The Strip because for us it always has a “party” type atmosphere at The Fremont Street Experience. You also don’t have to deal with people trying to stuff fliers and “coupons” in your hands. Because of our stays at this hotel, we always get deals in the mail. We couldn’t refuse the most recent deal. We both needed to get away before the fall rush around here and the offer came at the perfect time. We were able to get a Junior Corner Suite in Golden Nugget’s new Rush Tower at a greatly (and I mean greatly) reduced price. The rack rate for the room (according to the price list on the back of the door) is $1000 a night. We got it for $99 a night and I think we are officially spoiled for the Rush Tower now. It was quiet and the registration desk is away from the casino with very easy access to the parking garage. The entire tower is nonsmoking. The room was comfortable and spacious. Upon returning home I received an email from Golden Nugget thanking us for our stay and offering a complimentary room upgrade should we decide to return again this August or December. I saved the email even though it’s doubtful we’ll return again this year.

I took the liberty of taking pictures of the Junior Corner Suite. You’ll also notice several pictures of Fremont Street during the day and at night, as well as other miscellaneous shots of Las Vegas. (The link is at the end.) Vegas truly does come to life at night. It’s the lights that make it feel like magic. We arrived on Thursday and wandered along Fremont Street. Friday night it was packed. More vendors, more tourists, more street performers, more excitement. This year (summer 2010) the Fremont Street Experience is celebrating the 70s and we heard 70s era music in the casinos and on the street. And, of course, you get the big overhead screen putting on a show for you as well—more 70s music. A lot of fun.

What wasn’t fun was discovering how the cost of meals has skyrocketed in the last two years. It used to be that food was the cheapest thing you could get in Vegas. Not anymore. The breakfast buffet at the Golden Nugget now costs $9.99. On weekends it becomes brunch and costs $17.99. Dinner is $20.99. Yes, it’s all you can eat, but it’s quite a change from being $5.99 for breakfast and $9.99 for dinner, and brunch used to be a Sunday only thing.

The other change was—no coin machines. (They are few and far between.) I’d arrived armed with a bag of quarters only to discover there were no machines to take them. Plus the cashiers didn’t have counting machines to exchange coins for paper. I had to go to another casino down the street—the only one with a counting machine. All the slot machines now take paper money in and dispense vouchers to cash out. You take your voucher to the cash redemption machine and get your money. I don’t know how they handle jackpot winners, since I say nary a one while we were there (which is also strange now that I think about it). You’ll also find an explosion of penny machines everywhere. Caution: be careful or you’ll find yourself betting over a dollar on these machines. In case you were wondering, there were no big winners for us this particular weekend, not that there ever is but just for the record.

We also try to get out beyond the casino when we in Vegas. This trip we decided to go to the Atomic Testing Museum. We trekked out, me armed with my camera, only to discover the museum had a no photography rule. The museum was interesting at first, then became repetitive and boring with the same thing over and over again. Plus, numerous audiovisual displays side by side made it very difficult to hear what was being said. I don’t think I recommend this museum. I did, however, have another visitor tell me the Liberace Museum was great and worth the cost of admission. Perhaps next time.

Click this link for all my Vegas photos.

ComicCon 2010 - San Diego, CA

ComicCon 2010

OMG! As prepared as we thought we were to attend our first ComicCon event, we weren’t prepared at all for the sheer magnitude of the conference. The best advice I can give anyone wanting to attend ComicCon is to make sure you plan to go for more than one day. If possible, plan to attend the entire conference. This will also allow you to thoroughly peruse the nearly 200-page Events Guide. Failing that, you need to make sure you check out everything on the conference website the day before you’re scheduled to attend.

Before I go any further, here’s the link on Flickr for the pictures we took.

And for those of you who don’t have a clue what ComicCon is, here’s the link to that site. This is a conference that focuses on the science fiction/fantasy/paranormal genre in the entertainment industry (comic books, movies, TV shows, books, art). To say it is a big conference means little until you actually see it with your own eyes. The conference literally takes over San Diego during its run.

Here are some tips for those tempted to attend:
- Wear comfortable shoes. You will be on your feet nonstop all day.
- Take water (although there are plenty of places within the exhibit area that sell drinks and snacks).
- Make sure you have an extra large tote bag. The huge bags the conference passed out broke within an hour. They weren’t designed to handle more than five pounds, despite the fact these bags were at least four feet deep and two feet wide.
- Plan your attack in advance and make sure everyone in your party is aware of your agenda. If you’re separated, make sure you’ve got a place to meet up.
- Take a tube for posters.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…

We took our time going to all the exhibit booths and not only got freebies, but also managed to have some very interesting conversations with the vendors. There seemed to be a lot of steampunkers there. Several roamed the conference and were ready at the blink of an eye to put on little shows for you.

Many costumes were abundant throughout the conference and it was difficult to tell who were dressed for the heck of it and who was working. I suspect those who shifted into “posing” mode at the sight of camera were the pros, and they did their job very well as you can see from the photos.

We attended on Friday – Star Wars Day – and weren’t disappointed in the multitude of Star Wars items displayed. A diorama of the Hoth Planet occupied my husband for a while. He photographed every inch of it. Ditto with the display of light sabers “through the ages.”

The only celebrity I met was R2D2. There were so many things to pack into one day that I really didn’t want to spend my time waiting in line for autographs or the scheduled events in the meeting rooms (and those lines were long). And remember that tip about comfortable shoes? Well, the ones I thought would work (the ones that have never failed me) gave out on me. And, silly me, I’d forgotten I had a different pair in the van. Oh well…live and learn.

One caution regarding children... Sometimes you can find yourself in questionable content areas. The kids might not even notice since there's so much to see. It's also very crowded (Sat being the busiest day). But Sun is Kids' Day. Still crowded but geared toward the children.

We took all the goodies we got and split them into different bags (we received several different small tote bags). After taking what we’d gotten for ourselves, the remainder was divided to give to our two young grandsons and our oldest son (their dad). There wasn’t one toy in any of it, but when those three got those bags, you would have thought they’d gotten gold. It looked like Christmas in our house with stuff scattered all over the living room.

I’m already planning for next year, if we decide to go again. I’m dissecting this year’s guide so I have my game plan ready. Maybe we’ll even be able to get the whole family there. It’d be fun to watch the excitement on the faces of grandsons and son as they experience it firsthand.

Where We Stayed In San Diego:

Hotels sell out fast in the downtown area near the Convention Center. When I say fast I mean they sell out by February. We were fortunate to find a Holiday Inn Express on the northeast end of Mission Bay that was less than fifteen miles from the Convention Center. Our accommodations were nice and the staff very courteous and helpful. Holiday Inn offers free breakfast as well – coffee, tea, juice, milk, cereal, fruit, pastry, eggs/omelets, and bacon/sausage. They served a French roast coffee I really enjoyed.

Despite the free breakfast (fresh coffee was definitely appreciated) we wanted to make sure we really fueled up for the day. We knew a hearty breakfast would see us through until dinner. We found a really good restaurant on Garnet Street called The Broken Yolk. They serve huge breakfasts at reasonable prices. They are only opened for breakfast and lunch. For dinner we splurged at World Famous on Pacific Beach Blvd. This seafood restaurant was right on the beach. We had a window seat to the Pacific Ocean where we watched dolphins dip through the water right behind a line of surfers. Dinner was a little pricey, but it was sooooo worth it! Valet parking – save yourself the hassle and let them find a place to park your vehicle.

I’ll end with saying that San Diego has always been one of my favorite cities. Having ComicCon there just gives me another reason to visit.

Desert Tortoises

Early in February I attended a lecture at the Hi-Desert Nature Museum on the desert tortoise. Having experienced them firsthand I do know quite a bit about them, but I’m always willing to learn more. Therefore, you can imagine my delight when I actually did discover things I didn’t know before.

You'll find a nice article on the desert tortoise here.

Other interesting facts:
-Males are bigger than females in maturity, they have a gular horn under their chins, longer tails, and a concave under-shell. (I knew all that except the longer tail.)
-You cannot tell the age of a tortoise by counting the rings on its shell.
-They are on the threatened species list.
-Burrow temperature determines the sex of the babies.
-The range for one tortoise is 2.5 acres.
-It’s illegal to even take old tortoise shells you find.
-During a drought they can reabsorb nutrients from their shell.
-Younger tortoises will eat scat for nutrients.
-Brumation in a reptilian term that is similar to hibernation.
-Native Americans invented a tortoise hook they used to pull tortoise from the burrow. Tortoises were used for food and tools. NOTE: This is now illegal.

For information on the lecture series at the Hi-Desert Nature Museum, go here.

Naming Groups Of Animals

The gems you find when cleaning up your office. :)

This list is not all-inclusive. I can't guarantee with 100% accuracy to its correctness, and some of them I might even question, but it's a list I found years ago and stuck away for informational purposes. I thought it would be fun to share.

A PRIDE OF LIONS
A GAGGLE OF GEESE (on the ground)
A SKEIN OF GEESE (in the air)
A MURDER OF CROWS
A SCHOOL OF FISH
A LEAP OF LEOPARDS
A POD OF SEALS
A SLOTH OF BEARS
A GANG OF ELK
A COVEY OF PARTRIDGES (AND QUAIL)
A FALL OF WOODCOCKS
A WEDGE OF SWANS
A PARTY OF JAYS
A COLONY OF PENGUINS
A RAFTER OF TURKEYS
A BUSINESS OF FERRETS
A CRASH OF RHINOCEROSES
A SIEGE OF HERONS
A GAM OF WHALES
A HOVER OF TROUT
A HUSK OF HARES
A LABOR OF MOLES
A BALE OF TURTLES
A DULE OF DOVES
A SHOAL OF BASS
A DRIFT OF HOGS
A TRIP OF GOATS
A CHARM OF FINCHES
A SORT OF MALLARDS
A TIDINGS OF MAGPIES
A CAST OF HAWKS
AN OSTENTATION OF PEACOCKS
A BOUQUET OF PHESANTS
A CONGREGATION OF PLOVERS
A PADDLING OF DUCKS
AN UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS
A BUILDING OF ROOKS
A RICHNESS OF MARTENS
A BEVY OF ROEBUCKS
A HOST OF SPARROWS
A KNOT OF TOADS
A DESCENT OF WOODPECKERS
A MUSTERING OF STORKS
A DRAY OF SQUIRRELS
A SPRING OF TEAL
A ROUTE OF WOLVES
A SHREWDNESS OF APES
A SOUNDER OF SWINE
A MURMURATION OF STARLINGS
A PARLIAMENT OF OWLS
AN EXALTATION OF LARKS

Yard Adventures - Sep 2008

I've had a few yard adventures I thought I'd share. A lot of activity this month. Oddly, with the cooler fall-like weather we've seen an increase in grasshoppers and dragonflies. And also more black widow spiders than I care to have. I decided I needed to clean up the yard a little bit. That lasted two days before I realized leaves were falling in my wake. Thank you, autumn. It’s a never-ending battle. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.

I looked out the kitchen window one day and saw a coyote lounging in the shadow of the oleanders by the pond. I was lucky enough to be able to get a couple of pictures through the window. You can see them at my Flickr account. A couple of days later I found three coyotes drinking from the pond. Every morning you can hear the pack off in the distance howling and yipping at each other. It’s an eerie sound if you’ve never heard it before, frightening even, and the sound carries a long way.

A few days ago we looked out the kitchen window again and found a roadrunner crouched down behind the rocks encircling the pond. He (she?) was catching dragonflies. He stayed low until one dared to fly over him, then he’d jump up and grab it, run a few feet away to eat it, then was back in his hiding place. He was very well camouflaged next to those rocks. No pictures this time. He was too aware of us watching and I didn’t want to scare him off.

I was walking home from my son’s house one day last week at around dusk. The sun had set but the sky was still somewhat bathed in yellow light and I was able to see well enough to walk home without a flashlight. I was halfway to my house when I saw something very large fly away from the mesquite tree out back. My first thought was that I’d startled an owl, since the wing-span was so big. Then about two dozen more of these birds burst into the air from the tree. Because they were silhouetted against the fading day, I couldn’t tell what they were but did determine based on the migratory patterns and time of year that it most probably was turkey vultures. It was an amazing and breath-taking sight.

Caitlyn
www.caitlynwillows.com

How Much To Tip And When

I just read a good article in Travel and Leisure on The Art of Tipping. Has some great info. It also includes information on customs around the world. Here's the link if you'd like to read:

The Art of Tipping

:) Caitlyn
www.caitlynwillows.com

How hotels help themselves to your money

Reposted From CNN.com.

How hotels help themselves to your money

By Christopher Elliott
Tribune Media Services

(Tribune Media Services) -- If you think your hotel is done with you when you check out, think again. It might just be getting started.

Charges can be quietly added to your hotel bill after you've left. And increasingly, they are.

When John Richards was a weekly guest at a W Hotels & Resorts property, the items he found on his credit card bill after checkout were often bogus -- a candy bar he hadn't eaten or a bottle of water he hadn't drunk. Although he successfully fought to have the charges reversed, "it got to the point that before I checked in, I would ask them to remove the goodie-box from my room," he says.

Just a year ago, about one in 200 bills at full-service hotels were revised after checkout, according to Bjorn Hanson, an associate professor at New York University. Today, as hotels struggle with slipping occupancy levels and flat-lining growth, properties are wasting no opportunity to add late charges. As a result, the number of re-billings has doubled.

The late charges are usually correct, say experts. And if they aren't, most hotels are quick to correct the error. But not always. Some properties either resist crediting their customers or refuse.

That's what happened to Charles Garnar when he stayed at the Renaissance Fort Lauderdale Hotel recently. "When we checked out, we were told there were no charges so we had a zero balance," he remembers. But when he returned home after a cruise vacation, he found an unwelcome surprise on his credit card statement: a $57 charge. "It took two days to get through to the accounts payable department," he says. "They said we used the minibar."

The hotel only removed the charges after he proved it couldn't have been him. How? Garnar had turned down the minibar key when he checked in.

This shouldn't be happening, of course. The latest hotel accounting systems let you see your room charges in real time, often from your TV screen. There's no reason the bill that's slipped under the door on the morning of your checkout shouldn't include all of your charges, with the possible exception of your breakfast check. "It should be your final bill," says Robert Mandelbaum, a hotel expert with PKF Consulting.

I contacted several hotel chains to find out about their policy on late charges, including Marriott (which owns the Renaissance) and W Hotels. Only one of the major hotels, InterContinental, bothered to respond. My favorite non-answer came from W, where a spokeswoman told me that, "because of transitions in the company, we don't have an appropriate spokesperson to speak on this topic right now."

Oh, too bad.

Here's what InterContinental, which owns the Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Staybridge Suites brands, had to say about late billing. It's rare, and usually only happens when guests choose the express checkout option -- that's where the bill is slipped under your door on the day of checkout. If you bill something to your room after 3 a.m., chances are you'll get a late charge.

Normally, guests aren't notified about the charges, because they've agreed to them as part of the terms of their express checkout. But when there's a significant additional fee, a hotel typically notifies travelers before billing them. What if they disagree with the bill? Contact the hotel and tell a representative you have a problem with the charge, recommends InterContinental spokesman Brad Minor.

"Our hotels value their guests and we want to make sure guests are satisfied with all aspects of their stay," he says.

I'm pretty confident that the other hotels would have said more or less the same thing. But guests don't necessarily agree with that. After I posted Richards' story on my blog, I received a firestorm of comments accusing the hotels of deliberately charging guests after their stay, in the hopes that they wouldn't notice. InterContinental says that's not how it works.

It doesn't really matter. What matters is that you, the guest, don't get socked with a surprise charge on your credit card days or weeks after your vacation. Here are three excuses hotels use for separating you from your money after you're long gone. You might hear some of these reasons articulated by a hotel employee -- other excuses are probably reserved for the privacy of the break room or the hotel's executive offices.

You sure you didn't take something from the minibar?

A vast majority of late checkout charges -- about 75 percent, according to Hanson -- are from those little refrigerators stocked with vastly overpriced snacks. Hotel minibars have become figurative traps that guests get stuck in. Often, they don't even know about it until it's too late. The newest minibars have sensors that charge your room the moment an item is moved. Here's a chilling first-person account of an unsuspecting guest falling into one of these traps at a Los Angeles hotel, courtesy of HotelChatter.

The solution? Don't accept the key to your minibar. If there's no key, ask to have the minibar (or goody-basket) removed. It's the only way to be sure.

But you checked out before we could charge you!

Unless you're talking about breakfast on the day you check out, this is an empty excuse. Remember, most hotel accounting systems are lightning-fast. The moment you sign your check for an activity or meal, your account is charged. Experts I spoke with say it's possible some charges can get stuck in the system. A good example is a hotel gift shop that for some reason still uses a paper system to handle room charges. But if a major charge shows up on your credit card, it's worth calling the hotel. If it took this long to get billed, can they be sure it's correct?

The solution? Review your bill before checking out to make sure nothing is missing. And check out your credit card bill after your stay to make sure nothing is added.

We didn't think you would notice

I have no proof -- no memos or transcripts of scheming hotel employees saying this -- except for scores of guest experiences that suggest this attitude is pervasive behind the front desk. For example, Eugene Santhin, who was a frequent business traveler from Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, before retiring, says he was often billed for water and minibar items that weren't consumed. "Many properties charged for breakfast when it was included in the room rate," he adds. To their credit, the hotels quickly removed the items when he protested. But it was the speed with which they did so that made him suspicious. Were they adding these extras to his bill, hoping he wouldn't notice? It's difficult to say for certain.

The solution? Pay attention! Your hotel may be trying to pull a fast one, despite its denials. Keep all of your receipts.

Not all late billings hurt hotel guests. Reader Kate Trabue remembers a recent stay at the InterContinental Sydney where she was hit with unexpected room charges after she checked out. "A call to the billing department got the charges reversed without a problem," she remembers. "The interesting part of this transaction was that because of the exchange rate, I was credited more dollars than the original charge."

(Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. This column originally appeared on MSNBC.com. You can read more travel tips on his blog, elliott.org or e-mail him at celliott@ngs.org).

© 2008 CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.