Alpharetta Day 2.2

So it's after dinner, and I got to talk to the Queen and the Princesses. I was very happy to hear their voices. I miss them quite a bit. Thursday night won't come soon enough. I'm getting ready at this point to run downstairs to the fitness center to run for 45 minutes or so to work off the rather awesome dinner I had. Oh yeah, I found something on the menu other than a hamburger.

I had a 10 oz. Top Sirloin with garlic mashed potatoes. I skipped the salad, though. The steak was well done and very, very good, even without the steak sauce, which I added once I had a few bites. The garlic mashed potatoes were made in house and had just the right amount of garlic so you could taste it, but it wasn't overwhelming.

Now, for dessert, when the guy asked the first time, everyone was saying, "no thank you," and being all good about taking it easy on the intake. Then one person ordered a New York style cheesecake with raspberry topping followed by the guy next to her ordering a mini sundae "so she wouldn't be all alone." Well, that led to someone else ordering a key lime pie, followed by another sundae or two, and then some more pie anad cheesecake. Finally, I decided "what the heck, I never get dessert," so I ordered St. Barth's Chocolate Torte. This was a French style chocolate cake served hot with chocolate fudge drizzled on it with a side of vanilla ice cream, also with the fudge. The guy on the other side of me (the one who didn't get the mini sundae) stared at this sweet monstrosity and made comments like, "look at the size of that!" and "there must be over a thousand calories in that thing!" Heh, that's what she said.

Anyway, it was really, really good, and I don't regret a bite. I've got a high metabolism and I'm going to run anyway, so none of it is going to stick with me. I told the Queen about it, and she hated me...but in a good way.

Tomorrow, after the meetings, there is no dinner planned, and the way people were talking, it sounds like an "on your own" kind of evening, so I'll probably walk around here and see what the Walgreen's has in store for me.

Oh, and the unanswered question from yesterday... It turns out the connection here is room based. I called it up tonight and it hit the hotel screen commanding me to agree to their terms. I tried my Linux VM and it did the same thing, so I confirmed it through the Linux system, and all is well. Well, mostly. There's an irritant going on at the moment. I have the computer plugged in (since it's wired in the rooms), and even though I'm plugged in, the connection keeps dropping. They claim it's 50 times faster than dial up, but I beg to differ. First, my download last night was about a sixth of the speed at home, and second, when it won't stay connected, the speed is 0.

It just autosaved again...finally. I guess I don't suspect the network cable itself, but the overall connectivity. After all, I'm in the time frame at the moment when I'm sure everyone in the building is on, and they probably don't have the bandwidth for the full tilt usage, which would explain the slow download yesterday despit the fact that it's a cable internet connection, which is faster than DSL. I'd probably better post before I lose the connection again.