Fun times at the College Inn!!!!

I need to write a little about this Hotel I am staying in. So, I was told about The College Inn last night by one of the bartenders at The Pump House...a great bar. She said it is very cheap and they are use to people needing long term rooms. She did, however, warn me it was quite ghetto. Stephen and I found the hotel and I checked in for a week (I won't say the price, but so you get an idea...one week here is less than two nights at a "normal" hotel in Fairbanks) Stephen and I took a little tour. Night time security, shared bath and shower room, small kitchenette down the hall, and microscopic living space....it's like UWRF Crabtree Hall all over again!! I figured, I can do this!...oh just wait...

After I brought some of my stuff up to my room, I took the things I actually care about over to Stephen's Hotel...the nice one. (Now I do not want anybody getting mad at Stephen for dumping me into the run-down dirt hotel while he laps up the life of luxury...it's fine with me. I can afford this, and in a few weeks I'll have a beautiful apartment one mile from the school I'll be teaching at...so it's all good!) Anyways...back to last night. I go out to buy an Ethernet cable so I can have internet in my room. I go to plug it in....and nothing happened. I go down to the front desk and it is closed. The security guard tells me I need to pay for the internet. I figured I'd wait 'till morning and see how much it is. I wake up, go down to the office and ask about internet. The lady working tells me, in a very thick accent, that internet is included in the price of weekly hotel rates and all she has to do is turn it on. So she does her thing and I go back up to the room to do mine. I plug my computer into the wall.....and nothing happened. I go back down stairs to see what's up. The lady working says, "go and plug it in again, sometimes the cable is not all the way in." I think to myself "I know how to plug in a freaking cable!" but I placate the woman and go back to the room to check it out. I plug the cable in and take it out several times...and nothing happened. I look at the desk where the phone is connected to the same small box I am plugging my computer in to. I notice the two cables coming out from the box...but only one going in to it; the phone line. So I follow the phone cord along to the closet (actually...it's not as much a closet as it is a large box with a cheap latch on it) and what do I find? A ripped out blue internet cable, wrapped up neatly lying on the floor.

I tell the lady at the front desk and she lets me switch rooms. I move into my new room and I am happy. The internet works, I can see my car from the window, and it does not smell like someone lit a dead cat on fire. Also, the door is kinda tough to open. I figured...I'll take that as added security....well, it kinda worked.

I always keep my door locked; in the room or out. I have been on the internet for most of the day, updating the blog, checking e-mails -you know, the usual stuff one does on the internet. After several hours of "Al Gore's Invention", I needed some fresh air. I shut down the computer, put away my stuff, unlock the door, and turn the handle to leave....and nothing happened. I was locked IN my hotel room. I realize that the added security of a tricky door, was actually a faulty deadbolt keeping me prisoner in a room about the size of a walk in closet! What do you do when you are 3000 miles away from your friends/family and you are locked in a hotel room?...you text the one person in town you know and laugh! I told Stephen about my imprisonment...and he laughed. Don't worry, he was laughing WITH me...not at me. I thought it was hilarious! I figured if I couldn't get the door open, at least I'm on the ground floor and could always climb out a window.

I finally get the door open by using a knife to push the deadbolt back into the door (don't worry, I already checked to see if this could be done from the outside and it can not) I go to tell the lady at the front desk that the deadbolt to my room is not working and in broken English she asked, "can you fix it?" I was blown away! She actually wanted me to take the dead bolt apart, find out what is wrong with it, fix it, and put it back together....so that is exactly what I did. I took the lock off, found out that the reason it was not working was because they chiseled too much wood out of the door so the bolt was moving around. I found something to stick inside the door to hold the bolt into place and I put it back together. I now have a perfectly functioning door....I RULE!

Well, I need to go meet up with Stephen, who was at the movies during my "deadbolt debacle," so I gahts-ta-go! Have a great night everyone. I have more stories and pictures from the road I need to post, so y'all come on back now...ya hear

Rock on
~Bobb (prisoner # 655321)