This started out to be a very sad day.  It is my dad’s 69th birthday, and he was not feeling well —  significantly weak and down in the dumps until about 2 p.m., when he perked up and suggested we go to Denny’s on Vestal Parkway for some coffee.  It is always a good sign when he wants to go for coffee, so we all left his apartment feeling better.  I called Steven and asked if he could come out and he said he would.  This is another hot day in a string of hot days and hot days make challenging situations worse because you can’t think of anything other than how damned hot it is.  Humid, too.  We came back to our scuzzy hotel room and found ants marching in via a hole in the drywall around the window.  This presented a problem since the window was near the desk and the laptop on said desk.  While I appreciated the free, high-speed, wireless service — the only decent thing about the place — it was rendered useless by the column of ants I needed to brush off my calves every now and again.  We stuck a cotton swab into the hole and complained to management.  This was early evening.  We called back at about 10:00 p.m. for an ETA and were told that “the exterminator left, but was on his way back.”  Odd.  He finally arrived after midnight – check out the photo above for his likeness.  I told management that I did not want ants nor the smell of bug spray in the room.  I suggested they look into an actual exterminator, and perhaps even clean around the sides of the building once in awhile.  By that time we were beat, so we sprayed a tiny bit of chemical into the hole, stuffed the swab back in and hoped for the best.  UPDATE:  Months later, we received a full refund based on the complaint we filed