Keep your foot hard on the pedal. Son, never mind them brakes.

And we’ll bring it back no matter what it takes.

funny, i’ve had better hospitality from the bums around town than from the hotel, heh. that’s not to say that the hotel staff have NOT been friendly and courteous and doing what they can do!

after having dinner at the varsity, gary and i set out in search of alkeeholic beverages to store up at the hotel room. we parked the car back at the hotel and walked the few blocks to the liquor store we had seen earlier. one man (didn’t seem like a bum, and rode a bicycle) spoke with us as we waited for the “walk” crossing to change – he said that we looked like we could use some suggestions: “that way,” *pointed forwards* “is where you want to go if you want something to eat. that direction over there,” *pointed to the right* “are the strip clubs and they don’t close until 3 am, but you have to be 21 to get in.” i told him how during the civil war people would say they were over certain ages by writing the number on a slip of paper and standing on it in their shoe when they enlisted as a way around the rules, hahaha.

next, a bum walked with us along the way joking with gary how he looked as if people were going to jump out at him from any corner and kill him, and was saying things how everybody down south is very nice etc etc. he asked us why we were in a hurry and we told him that we were on our way to the liquor store before it closed at midnight (we had asked earlier when we walked around some), and he said that he admired us for having a plan in mind, hahah… when we left, though, he thought that his escorting of us ought to be paid in a can of beer, but we gave him some spare change instead. some tour guide!

while we were in the liquor store, some guy (who actually looked kind of like an old coworker of ours named colin) came in wearing a black suit and wanted to get something to drink but the clerk wouldn’t sell to him since he didn’t have his id, so he went outside when the clerk told him he was banned from the store for arguing. when we left the store and our “tour guide” asked us for a can of beer the guy in the suit said something to us about how the bum was really cool and was an ok guy and would take us somewhere “safe where the cameras couldn’t see us” (WHA?? o_o). we declined any offers and left.

as we were walking away, another bum came up to gary and tried to offer a large bag of weed to him, and gary said “no thanks” to him too, lol.

later on another bum saw us and started calling out to us from across the street, and a block later another one even started calling out to us again. even right in front of the hotel one wanted to talk to us, so we crossed the intersection diagonally and scurried into the hotel.

(btw, the hotel is perfect placement for the concert, it’s just about 3 blocks or so down the street to the concert entrance, so it’s not even worth taking the subway to)

as for the hotel staff – like i said, they’ve been very nice and such. when we arrived, though, i told the clerk how i wanted to put down $300 in cash (gary’s half) for the room, and the balance on my credit card – he told me that would be fine and i could do that when i left, but tried to charge the entire balance to my credit card up front. (other hotels i’ve stayed at never had this problem – they simply kept the credit card number on file in case of something happening, but it wasn’t charged until i left the hotel).

the hotel is supposed to have free wireless hi-speed internet access – i was able to occasionally see the network with my laptop, but that was about it. i dialed out to the internet via my bluetooth phone in the meantime, but now i’ve got this kit from the front desk that plugs into the ethernet port and has a wireless access point attached. this access point has an extendable antenna, so that may be what’s letting it connect. not that big of a deal, though.

i reserved a suite: 1 king bed, and 1 sofa bed. they knew that there would be 3 people at most in the room (just the two of us here, though). so why didn’t they have sheets for the sofa bed in the room? i asked at the front desk and they had a blanket but no sheets. *sigh* lack of planning on their part.

they’ve been helpful when there was something they could do, though. the lady who was working the vehicle gate is friendly and funny – she’s waved to us as we passed through when she saw us coming or going without prompting (i guess a mini cooper is a pretty unique car to see on the job? haha). when we came back with our alcohol she saw our brown paper bags and told us that there was a paper bag rule where you had to share whatever it was you had with the attendant on duty, hehehe.

now to finish uploading these pictures and write up a real report for the day at globalglenn.