Transiency

Here's my problem. I'm in Charlotte. The conference pays for some of the food. Which is to say I pay the conference which pays the hotel which gives me some food in compensation.

But usually the food is discounted, the kind of 5 dollar a person meal that hotels seem to do when the conference is on a budget. I don't mind that, because it gives me an excuse to look around and find places.

I didn't rent a car as there's really no place to park that I wouldn't get charged for it. As it is, transportation to and from the airport is overly pricey, so this is one way to save money.

One way to waste money, and one I'm reasonably happy to partake, is to eat at local establishments. The problem is getting recommendations and finding someplace close by. I had asked the folks at the Omni, and they provided a sheet with nearby restaurants, which seems to only scratch the surface of nearby places.

I wanted to go to a place called Belle's BBQ because it seemed local and it seemed North Carolina.

I looked for it yesterday and couldn't find it, so I went to a chain, sadly, called Rock Bottom Brewery or somesuch. Still, I got some beer, chicken, ribs, so a rough approximation of what I should have had.

This morning I got up early enough to go search for this Belle's BBQ. And this time I found it. Which is to say, I found a sign that used to have Belle's BBQ, but it's gone. Yeah, some other restaurant called Feast(?) would be opening soon.

Here's the problem.

I went to some other rival hotel, which escapes me now, and they assured me the restaurant existed. But it could have closed down last week, or it could have closed down a month ago. Who would even know? They surely didn't. I asked about a Dilworth Coffee House. That was supposed to be nearby. Webpage was wrong about that too.

This is the problem. Untrustworthy web. It gets stale, out of date, and no one feels much pressure to update it. And it seems the obvious thing is to get people to do this, and people could do it, if they cared. After all, people pass by these shops all the time, and so someone could note if the locations they see are correct, and it could be up-to-date, but it isn't.

So I spent time trying to look for two places, neither of which were where they were supposed to be. I did find the only other place I was looking for which is a place called Fujo, a Japanese place, which was so-so, but at least, not too expensive.

I had breakfast at the hotel, and that was a bit of a ripoff. The buffet was as small as could be consisting of sausage, bacon, grits, eggs, potatoes, and a guy making omelettes. All for 15 bucks. Not including drinks! Ok, there was also French Toast, but usually there's fruits, danish pastries, breads, and a few other items.

Oh well, it was something different, and prices at hotels like this are bound to be excessive. I should have known what I was getting into.

Anyway, now I have to arrange to get back to DC, which means I'll leave the conference early, but at least I should get back at some reasonable hour.