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.

Oreo went to daycare today.  It is a good thing.  Who knows how crazy he would be if he didn’t get to go in and burn off some of his extra energy.  He has been couped up far too much this week.  He needs some time playing with his doggy friends.

My walk into the Wall Street office today was really awful.  Walking through Newark wasn’t bad at all.  Hot, but it was fine.  I did decide to play it safe and to walk through the Gateway Center, though, which is air conditioned so most of my walk was “inside”.  Normally I just walk outside along Raymond Boulevard.

Once I was into Manhattan the real heat hit.  In Manhattan everything is warmer because of all the people, buildings, vehicles, etc. plus there is seldom any air flow.  The difference in effective temperatures from Newark to Manhattan is staggering.  I was quite uncomfortable by the time I got down to the end of Wall Street.  I did grab an ice cream cone from Mr. Softee to cool me off a little.

If you are a Starbucks Coffee Fanatic (for the record, I am definitely not) then you have probably been waiting on pins and needles to know if your Starbucks is one of the six hundred that are being closed this summer as Starbucks shuts down five percent of its operations.  Well, I found the list and now you know: The Starbucks Doomed 600.  If you are from my hometown, and too lazy to look through the list yourself, Geneseo Starbucks is on the doomed list as are many in Upstate New York – where people have never even begun associated good coffee with the Starbucks brand like they do downstate.  The Starbucks in Geneseo opened right as Dominica and I moved there in 2003 and we said to ourselves that that was a crazy location that couldn’t possibly make money.  I went in there once and there was no one there.  Just a few weeks ago we said “It can’t possibly still be open, can it?  The place is always empty.”  We were right.  Now it is closing.  So now Geneseo will have yet another vacant building.  Although the old “Del Taco” building, now Starbucks, has been an empty building for such a large percentage of its life span that it just seems natural to have that spot be an empty – strangely architected building.

Starbucks in Geneseo was really hurt by the fact that it is on the “wrong” side of the road.  It is in a spot that has so long been ignored that you don’t even realize that there is a business there now that there is one.  Then, just after they went in, Tim Horton’s (with better coffee and more food options) came in in a far more visible location, had a brand new building and was open twenty-four by seven.  So Starbucks just completely lost any mindshare that it might have had.  In Upstate NY, people just don’t “think” about Starbucks.  It doesn’t occur to most people that it is even a coffee option.  Heck, I lived within an easy walk of it for several years and I bet I never went there even once.  Now that I live in Newark I am literally next door to a Starbucks and have only been there two or three times at most.  Being an upstater, it just isn’t something that you do.  Back in Rochester, Eric and I used to make coffee runs to Bruegers, right next door to the Starbucks, and never once even though about going to Starbucks instead.

Now that I have mentioned it… I am seriously missing living right next to the all night Tim Hortons.  Argh.

For those who don’t speak fluent Spanish, “Del Taco” is Spanish for “of the taco”.  Clearly it was intended to be “Mexican food for middle-America where multiculturalism is a foreign concept.”  Ha ha.

While doing a search for something unrelated, I came across a great image of Fall Brook Waterfall in Geneseo on Flickr.  I’ve been to the waterfall a time or two but it has been a really long time.  Never saw it when the foliage was so lush.

By four thirty the humidity had dropped enough that even though it was even warmer than this morning it was actually quite nice outside.  At least it was pretty nice just sitting outside.  Hard walking, like I have to do to get to the World Trade Center to catch the train, is still way too hot.

My day was not overly busy but this lulled me into a false sense of “going home security.”  I thought that I was going to be done really close to five.  All of my work was scheduled to complete right at five.  I was fooled.  The call for the release at four forty-five ended up lasting until almost six thirty!  Argh.

Dominica is feeling very under the weather.  She has a headcold or something similar that is affecting her sinuses.  It might just be allergies.  So her plan is to get home and to get to bed right away in the hopes of getting enough sleep to start getting better.  So I am tasked with getting dinner on my way home which will be from Metro Cafe if I make it in time and from McDonalds if I don’t.

I am exhausted and don’t have the energy to write more tonight and don’t want to leave y’all (to practice my Texan) without an update so I am posting before leaving the office.  I will probably just watch some Third Rock from the Sun with Dominica and Oreo and get to bed early.  I have some unscheduled work to do tomorrow morning whenever I wake up and then, in the early afternoon, we are driving to Frankfort for Garrett’s batism on Sunday.