Wow, it has been a while since I posted as I have been very busy the last two weeks. The week of July 21 – 28 I was on vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC with my girlfriend and her family and last week I was on a business trip all week, so I was unable to publish any new posts for that period.
In SC, we stayed at a hotel that was no more than 50 yards away from the beach. Every morning at 8AM we were putting our chairs on the beach to claim our spot. We would then actually go out to the beach around 9 and just lay around. We would stay on the beach until about 2 or 3 PM every day. During that time, we swam in the ocean, the pool at the hotel, and just sit on the beach.
The first night we were there, we ate at a seafood buffet where I had my first crab legs. They were very tasty and I would definitely have some more. On Tuesday we went to NASCAR raceway and raced around on go karts. That was an absolute blast, as I ::cough:: won all the races ::cough::. Wednesday I went with my girlfriend to Broadway at the Beach and we got our picture taken a lot. Thursday was deep sea fishing where I got seasick and puked over the side of the boat. Friday was another day at Broadway at the Beach, and Saturday we came home.
Thursday night we lit off fireworks on the beach, and something really funny happened. So here we were, lighting fireworks and this guy keeps pacing back and forth around us. After about 10 minutes, he finally approaches us, and the conversation went something like this:
Man: Hey, you guys speak English?
My Friend: Yea.
Man: You got a good lighter?
My Friend: Yea, why?
Man: ‘Cause I got a good firecracker.
The man then proceeded to pull out of his pocket a quarter stick of dynamite. This thing was huge. It was probably 2 inches or more in length, and the diameter had to be the same as a U.S. Quarter. The fuse it had was only a half inch in length, so lighting it was a little nervous. We got close to the water and shoved it into the sand, lit the fuse, and walked away. This thing went off, and it sounded like a land mine had just exploded. It echoed off the hotel buildings, and everyone that was watching us light the fireworks gave us a big round of applause. We ran right up to our room in fear of local law enforcement. We didn’t look at the crater this thing had to have left and in hindsight we probably should have. But what was done was done, and we certainly weren’t going back down to the beach that night. We weren’t the only ones scared off the beach either. Other people were lighting fireworks, and when we set the quarter stick off, they cleared out too. The beach was empty for about an hour before people cautiously returned to the beach and lit a few sparklers. The fireworks were over for the night.
Probably the most interesting thing about the whole thing was the way the room key system worked. They gave you the little credit card type key that you slid into the door when you wanted to unlock your room. Just in case the hotel had used this type of room entry system, I brought my computer and my homemade magnetic stripe reader/writer. Since we each got a card, I was able to use mine for my experiment. I swiped the card through my reader and I was able to extract the data from it. The only data on the card was the following string of numbers:
01140805073007
At first I did not know how it was constructed, but after studying it for about a half an hour, it was actually very simplistic.
01 = Building, in which case is the North Tower (South Tower being 02)
14 = Floor of the building
08 = Room number
05 = Number of occupants in the room
073007 = The date the occupants were set to checkout of the hotel (July 30, 2007)
Now take quick note, the information provided above is different from what I actually saw, to protect myself from prosecution. Moving on, there were four other people in our party that were staying in another room in the building. Letting me borrow their card, I was able to extract this information:
01031204072907
Based off my earlier information, stood for this:
01 = Building (North Tower again)
03 = Floor number
12 = Room number
04 = Number of occupants
072907 = The date the occupants were set to checkout of the hotel (July 29, 2007)
So I changed the code on my key to match the one on theirs. I tried my key, and was granted access to their room.
Wanting to see if I would be able to find out the information I needed from the front desk, I took an elevator ride down to the Lobby floor and approached the counter. I politely told the girl at the counter that I was a friend of the people in room 12 on the third floor and that I needed some information on them to give them a surprise party. Without question, she agreed to the inquisition, and answered all of my questions truthfully giving me all the information I would have needed if I hadn’t already known it. Obviously, she is not the brightest light bulb in the box, and neither is the security team.
