I slept in a little but was up around nine.  At a little after ten we drove over to Geneseo to eat at the Omega Grill for breakfast.  Out third time here in two days.

My aunt Sharon and uncle Leo met us at the Omega so that they could see Liesl some more before we head back home this afternoon.

After breakfast we ran over to M&R and picked up the Mazda Protege 5 which is all set now.  Inspected, new rear brakes and the summer performance tires.  Not cheap but we haven’t had a car payment to make on it in years so can’t really complain and it costs practically nothing on our insurance.

Once we got back to dad’s we spent quite a while loading up the two cars.  Dominica and I went through the garage and picked out the bins that were of the highest priority to us so that we would have stuff back at the house that would be most useful to us.  We also grabbed books, CDs and all of the DVDs that we could cram into the nooks and crannies of the cars easily.  More than enough stuff to keep me very, very busy converting media for a month or more without a doubt.  It takes a long time to work through all of this stuff.

I think that it was around two when we finally got on the road out of Pavilion.  We are both driving on this trip.  Dominica driving Liesl and Oreo in the Mazda and me driving the BMW.  We had to split it up that way as it was the only way that we really all fit.

We stopped at the Pilot gas station in Kanona where they have a Subway.  We stopped in and got subs because we were going to be really hungry later on and would end up snacking while on the road if we didn’t.  We also topped off the tanks so that we would avoid needing to stop again for gas.

We drove on to Waverly and decided to stop and visit with Dominica’s family again for an hour or so before continuing on.  Dominica’s cousin Diane and her kids were down at James and Nikki’s house and we were unable to see them on the way up a few days ago so we decided to stop in and see them now.

It was around seven when we got back on the road towards Peekskill.  The drive went well.  I spent most of the time listening to my iPod.  I am still catching up on my podcasts from IT Conversations that I have been missing over the last few months.  I especially enjoy listing to Stack Overflow.

It was just before eleven when we pulled into Peekskill.  We were quite tired by the time that we got home.  We unloaded only what we needed and left the rest of the stuff in the cars until tomorrow.

The note that we left on the front door for UPS is gone so we are hoping that we will have our wine delivered in a day or two.

We dropped off the car and then went over to the Omega Grill for a long breakfast.  I was on the BlackBerry all morning working from that.  I was able to do almost all of my work through email so it worked out really well.

As we were leaving breakfast we ran into Karin

After breakfast we went across the street to Tim Horton’s where we bought $40 of coffee beans to take back to Peekskill with us.  We do not have any convenient access to Tim Horton’s at all so this is our only way to really get the coffee.  The nearest Tim Horton’s to us is in Elmira, New York which is just over four hours away.

Then it was over to Walmart for some quick shopping for baby supplies.  Were only there for fifteen minutes at most.  I made a quick pass through the store to see if Mary was working but she was nowhere to be found.  As always seems to happen whenever we are in Walmart in Geneseo, we ran into the Ralstons on the way through the checkout.  They are planning on coming over to visit this evening.

We swung through the auto shop to see if the car was done having its tires changed yet but it had not.  By this time, between eating a light breakfast, staying way too long drinking coffee, running errands and needing to wait for the car we decided to just swing back into the Omega and get lunch there as well.

After lunch the car was still not ready so we went back to dad’s house and I worked for the afternoon from there.  They called about the car.  It turns out that we had let our NYS inspection expire on the car without realizing it.  So they were going to take care of that when the found that the real brakes were in bad shape.

So the car has to stay in the shop until tomorrow morning and we have to have $800 of work done on it rather than just getting the tires changed.  Older cars are never cheap.  We only have about 115K miles on the PR5 at this point.  It is a 2002 so it is getting old but isn’t that old.  It still drives quite well.

After work was over, more or less, we ordered pizza from Davis Farm Market in Pavilion.  It just wouldn’t be a trip home without pizza from there.  I took the convertible down to pick up the pizza.  This is the first trip in it this season.

As I was pulling out of Davis’, the Ralsons pulled up behind me at the light on Route 63.  What timing.  I run into them more than anyone else that I know.

The Ralstons hung out until almost eleven.  They are getting ready to move to the Republic of the Congo in the very near future.  Maybe in as little as six weeks!

After the Ralsonts headed back home Dad, Dominica and Liesl all went to bed.  I hit the road to drive over to Geneseo to meet Tony at Tim Horton’s for coffee at eleven.

Tony and I ended up talking about software development until three thirty in the morning when he headed for home to do his homework and I went back to dad’s house.  Once I got back I worked online for almost another hour before turning in for the night.

I got up early this morning – before eight!  I was pretty upset from finding out that HP had mislead me pertty severly and that I had a lot of work that I had to do today before we could leave dad’s house.  So I got right up and got to work.

Once Dominica got up we all drove over to Geneseo to go to the Omega Grill for another breakfast.  As we often do when we are there, we ran into Becky who used to work with me at Pizza Hut in Geneseo circa 1995, right after I had dropped out of GMI and hadn’t started at MCC yet.  She had her baby and little boy with her.  Everyone has kids these days.

After breakfast we drove over to Lakeville to see if the Benjamin Moore store was open.  It was not.  So we went to Walmart and picked up some paint samples and bought some velcro so that we can finally attach our EZPass to the windscreen of the BMW.  I can’t believe how long we have failed to do that.

Then it was back to dad’s house where I spent the entire afternoon working on getting that server to work sans Xen.  We ended up getting pizza from Davis’ for dinner.  I really miss their pizza when I am away for a while.  It is so delicious and a completely different flavour and style than you can get down here in the New York Metro.

I worked for a few more hours after we ate.  It was pretty late when we finally left.  Maybe almost seven in the evening although I am not really sure of the exact time.

We stopped in Kanona, New York for energy drinks and snacks for the ride in the car.  Other than that we zipped right along towards Newark.  There was no real traffic.  It was surprisingly light for a holiday weekend.

It was around one thirty in the morning when we pulled into Newark.  We unloaded the car and I walked Oreo.  Dominica went to bed at two in the morning and was really exhausted.  I could not quite sleep yet, having driven for the past six hours and having drunk an energy drink, so I stayed up till after two thirty and finished reading Garr Reynolds’ “Presentation Zen.”

Dominica, Oreo and I slept in a bit this morning.  Driving all day really wears you out.

We headed up to the Omega Grill for a late breakfast.  Having breakfast at the Omega is like the official declaration of being “home” for the weekend.

We talked to dad about the idea of him coming down to stay in Peekskill for a little while to help with the move and preparations for the baby.  The plan is that he will come down shortly after the closing on the house and have the place, more or less, to himself for the first two weeks while we are still living out of Newark so that Dominica can go to work.  During that time he will oversee the installation of our Internet access, some minor house repairs including having a plumber come in, some painting, etc.

Then, once October 31st comes and we are no longer able to stay in Newark, Dominica and I will move up to Peekskill and dad will “hang out” so that we have someone around to help with the baby logistics.  With me working in Manhattan it will take almost two hours for me to get home once Dominica realizes that she is going into labor.  That is a long time with no one that we know in the entire county.  So dad will be there to help get her to the hospital if it happens while I am at work and then to deal with Oreo while I am at the hospital with Dominica.

After breakfast we returned to dad’s house.  I did some computer work and dad set up for the afternoon’s picnic.  Dominica took a nap for a few hours with Oreo.

The family arrived around two thirty and we hung out in the side yard for a while until around four.  Then we started our labor day weekend picnic.  Dad grilled cedar plank salmon and we had amazing corn on the cob (boy have I missed good New York produce), potatoes, fruit and dip, etc.

After the party wound down, dad and Dominica hung out in the basement as she went through some of the stuff that we have packed at dad’s house.  She managed to eliminate more than a bin of stuff that will now go to the church rummage sale.  That was a pretty good reduction of the “bin stuff” that we had.  My cousin Sara is taking the plastic ficas trees that I used to have in my basement office in Geneseo.  We are also giving away the four “moon chairs” that we bought from Walmart while we were living in Geneseo.  We have no space for them at the Peekskill house.  It is a good size load from the garage that we managed to designate as “going away” rather than moving to Westchester with us.

I spent the evening working on getting Xen really working on the HP DL145 G3 that I bought just for that.  I spent the entire afternoon and evening working on it not finding out that HP did not document that they had crippled the processors to block this very thing until around two in the morning!  I can’t believe that they published a roadmap touting these features even after they had shipped this machine without mentioning that they had stripped those features out!  The capability is right there in the box but they are blocking its use!    I am extremely unhappy.