I finally arose around 10. I discovered I turned the laptop off when I turned off the lamp. The battery was dead.
I spent some time messing with WiFi in an attempt to determine the weather for the day. The Weather Channel on the TV was quite useless, as per usual. Since early this morning the woman who cleans the rooms has been knocking on doors and cleaning things up. I guess this takes all morning, every day. I’ll have to leave her a tip or something when I leave next weekend. I declined cleaning today, since everything’s fine.
Now, I am on the prowl for local pizza places. My first pass at finding interesting places to go locally via the Web was useless. I think I’m going to head down to N Main Street on Blacksburg and checkout Anthony’s Pizza. There’s a Domino’s around too. But first I must wander around on the large hill outside.
Hours later, I certainly did wander around. I trekked around the perimeter of AmeriSuites, which included multiple fenced areas which cute woodland creatures had made holes in for me. I spent the better part of an hour wander up small hills and trekking through muck from mixed snow and mud. I took a bunch of photos of the surrounding area, including something you never seen in Florida. Some actual granite rock. Only a few pieces, though. Little was exposed.
Later, I went to lunch at Anthony’s Pizza, which is apparently a popular chain up north. The pizza was absolutely amazing, and I intend to return sometime this week if I can. I spoke with John, the present owner for a while. Once the local Anthony’s was located downtown, but landlord silliness resulted in the owner losing his lease. The prime real estate downtown is now padlocked due to land owner incompetence and zoning violations. Apparently the land owner had wanted a bar or some such. Rather sad, since the pizza is excellent.
I spoke with John at length about the local area, what there was to do, and so forth. He’s been here for nearly a decade and explained there is really little to do of interest in Blacksburg.
On the drive back, I stopped at the Ice Cream Crank and had two scoops of Cookies ‘n Creak, my favorite. I asked the woman at the counter who served me my ice cream if she knew of much of interest in the local area. The woman, Kate, short for Katheryn with a ‘y’, the daughter of one of the vice presidents of Virginia Tech, confirmed what John had explained. Apparently, there just isn’t much to do in Blacksburg.
The historic downtown sounds interesting, with a few shops and a single movie a week theater. Far more interesting than Gainesville’s rather nonexistent historic downtown. I learned that many of the local places, including Blockbuster until last month, allowed you to pay by cheque. That’s pretty unheard of, at least in central Florida. Most of the larger things, though, are in Roanoke, including a strip mall with a craft store and a super Wal*Mart. There’s also a regular multiplex with $7 adult tickets, similar to Gainesville prices. I thanked Kate and headed to Kroger.
I don’t believe I have ever been to a Kroger before. They have Food Lions here, too. Food Lion long since left Florida. I haven’t seen one in nearly a decade. I picked up some milk, soda, and yogurt. At the checkout counter, I over heard the conversation the woman in front of me was having with the woman bagging groceries. Apparently, she’s spent the past two years working on her RN. She has another two left. With such a large number of Americans getting so old, all at once, the medical field is only going to grow in the near future. I never really considered pursuing an RN, though. I’m too squeamish around blood.
Around 7 I decided I ought to go register. I met up with four other SANS conferencers in the hallway and I rode with them to the campus. We, along with at least four other people, went straight to Torgersen Hall. We all wandered around the halls, unable to find registration or even many people. Of course, no registration was to be found there. The correct location was hidden on the registration page: Donaldson Brown Hotel Conference Center. I wandered off with the second group of four I met and we arrived at Donaldson. I acquired my massive, 1,500 page binder, pass and parking pass. I met back up with the four staying at AmeriSuites and we drove back.
Upon arrived I discovered my Sprint PCS cell phone, despite a Sprint tower being on top of AmeriSuites, failed to work. Typical. My WiFi connection, with the help of my script from Day 0, works, however.
Flipping through the SANS materials, it appears a busy schedule is shaping. The first day will witness a discussion of using tcpdump as a gateway to refreshing knowledge of TCP/IP.