New Sand Boa Help Please :)

[Shadowsaurus]

Hello everyone! I am new to this forum but I have used it many a time to help with my bearded dragons and other herps, you are all so knowledgeable and awesome! However I recently purchased a baby Kenyan Sand Boa from a reptile expo and I'm a bit worried about him not eating and his terrarium conditions. This would be my first snake, and though I have done tons of research on sand boas, I am worried to do something wrong. could you help a first time snake owner out?

My small 5-7 inch baby sand boa, Pumpkin, was bought this last saturday at the expo and I have him in a 7 gallon low tank with a heat lamp on the right side(I tried the under tank heating pad but holy cow it got too hot no matter what I did! Cardboard and towels over it to absorb some of the heat seemed to just make it worse, so my Pac Man frog got it instead) One wood hiding log, and a tank corner water dish on the opposite side which I clean and refill everyday. His warm-side temperature is 78-87 degrees F and the cool side gets no lower than 68 F. The humidity is that of my room which appears to be from 10 to 15%. His substrate was aspen bedding but he did not seem to like it and refused to dig in it, until I got crushed walnut shell bedding which he took off in and never comes out but to poke his head out now and again(I'm assuming that means he likes it.). As for the feeding I live in a town were it is hard enough to find frozen pinkies, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to find LIVE pinkies until the next expo at the end of every month. So I have been trying him on frozen but he does not seem interested in them at all. I tried the box method, of putting him in a small box with the pinkie inside and leaving him for a few hours, but he didn't do anything with it other than shove it to a corner of the box. I plan on trying the lid method, putting it on a jar lid or something in the cage overnight to see what he does but I'm worried he won't eat the pinkies at all no matter how well I thaw them out, wash my hands for no scent transfer or how much lizard skin I rub on them. And I REALLY don't want to go with the 'squish the brains out' method :C. If he doesn't eat them, does anyone know of a place I could buy cheap pinkies near Crown Point/Hobart/Merrillville/Valparasio? Or even another method that might help him eat frozen? And if you all could give me any tips, tricks, and advice for him in the future for handling, care, etc? Like I said I have never had a snake before, just a beardies, froggies, and a tarantula. I appreciate the help ahead of time, you guys all rock!!!