September 9, 2007: Returning to Newark

I actually got some sleep last night. We made Dexter sleep with Dominica’s parents so that we could get some actually sleep down in the living room with Oreo. That worked much better and we both got solid night’s sleeps which we desperately needed before driving back down to Newark today.

Dominica watched the rest of Man of the Year this morning which I thought was incredibly weak and silly. Not bad like you should turn it off if you have already started but I wouldn’t intentionally spend time watching it. The core plot device of the entire movie wasn’t even double checked by a continuity expert and it doesn’t make any sense in the story line unless you are casually watching the movie and not paying any attention. (The movie revolves around a faulty electronic voting system that is shown in the movie to not fail in the way that it is verbally described making the resulting “bad election results” not make sense to someone who is actually watching the movie and not just running it in the background.)

We packed up and showered and got ready to go.  I spent an hour or so standing in the rain talking on the phone to Andy while Dominica watched the MTV movie Aeon Flux which, from the little bit that I saw, didn’t look to be too engrossing.

Around four Dominica and I and her parents went out to the Denny’s in Herkimer to have dinner before we hit the road home.  Like most days when I am driving, it is raining today.  It had been raining most of the night and all day so far.  At least the continuous rain has brought a break to the heat wave that we had been dealing with the last few days.

It was getting close to five thirty when we finally left Herkimer.  On the drive east on i90 the rain got harder and harder until we were creeping along at 25 mph and scores of cars were pulled over just sitting on the side of the highway waiting for the torrent to subside.  We pressed onward but I was very tired and needed some coffee so we called Joe (who lives in Albany) and got directions to the Crossgates Mall where we hit the Borders there around six thirty.  We did some quick shopping and bought a couple of books (“Java Phrasebook” and “Manage It!“) and some Garrison Keillor books on Audio CD to help keep us awake in the car.  We both got Seattle’s Best Maple White Mocha coffees from the Seattle’s Best shop inside of Borders.  We left just as they were closing hitting the road at seven.

Our trip south was both rain free and very smooth.  It took just ninety minutes to go from Crossgates mall (which is one exit to the north of the i90 / i87 interchange) to the NYC Thruway toll booths which is just amazing.  In another half an hour we were starting to look for i280 outside of Newark.  We have never made such good time going home before.  We were home around nine thirty!

We just relaxed for the little bit of time that we had before it was time to go to bed.  Back to work tomorrow.  We were in bed around eleven.

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