♫Elmira, Elmira, My heart's on fire, Elmira♫

And a Giddy Up Oom Poppa Omm Poppa Mow Mow to you, too:)

I have a two-hour layover here at the Chemung County International Netport while waiting for the Tuesday morning client to get here from out of town. We'd planned to meet earlier this afternoon, but the opposing lawyer threw a curve ball at us last week, which I couldn't find out the umpire's call on until 9:00 this morning (and didn't, actually, learn what it was until more like 11). Long story short, my 2:00 pre-trial hearing today got called off as a separate event, but tomorrow morning's more involved 9:30 hearing is still on.  Client, at last report, was somewhere in southern Pennsylvania, so I've just set up shop here at the downtown library, muted phone and wi-fi'd puter at the ready. It's as if I'm in my own office cranking away except for, you know, the fact that this library has COVERED UP EVERY A.C. OUTLET IN THE PLACE EXCEPT ONE WITH A GORRAM PLATE GUARD and the one, of course, is taken up by one of the guys who Ogre saw from the fraternity roof and started crying out

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Still, if that's my biggest complaint, I really shouldn't even bother. I've been graced in the past hour, which otherwise would've been spent in that pre-hearing today, with two perfectly lovely bits of news. One: another hearing I've got scheduled for Wednesday? Which I agonized over all weekend because the client's opponent was being unreasonable? They got reasonable, and I'm one confirming email away from having that resolved in advance of the hearing.

Even closer to home? Emily called just now. I'd also been a bit verklempt over the weekend because I couldn't find the actual bill for her NYSSSA tuition. The only thing I had was a Not A Bill Do Not Pay statement showing the amount and a May 15th date.

The reason I couldn't find it is that they hadn't sent it. It came today. Along with word that the Allentown Village Society (sponsors of B-lo's signature start-of-summer arts festival) had awarded her a merit scholarship for almost half the amount I'd already written- but not, thankfully, sent- the check for. With my own clients feeling the recession and Eleanor feeling her own amount of financial pain of late, this is very. Welcome. NEWS.

More notes from in and around the liberry

I found a new table with an outlet. Other than the tripwire I have concocted, it seems I'm in for the duration.

It's actually a cool place as these layover spots go. No fancyass cafe selling bookbags and venti lattes, but in the center of the reading room is a perfectly cool setup fit for a good game of Wizard Chess:



When I got here, cruising the compound for an outlet, some guys were actually playing:)  And just now, Serious Biker Looking Dude, complete with regulation sunglasses, beard and chain-link keyring, walked over and returned the Wall Street Journal to the periodical stick rack.

Forget the shit about giving the schools get all the money they need and the Air Force holding a bake sale to buy a bomber. Just get everybody in al-Qaeda a library card.

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I don't do nearly as much long-distance driving as I did in my ten years plus of the triweekly Rochester shlep, but on days like this when I covered a lot of new territory (downtown B-lo to West Seneca/OP and then to 20A by a very long and scenic route), I got to see a lot more of the backroad adverts than usual. One striking thing is how few of them there are these days. Lots of the old standbys for theme parks and restaurants have been turned over to public-service plugs and medical/hospital advertising. There is, however, one standout among the traditional advertisers: Pepsi, which has gone to a really ethereal campaign of one-word slogans, all with an O or two in them with the O replaced by the stylized Pepsi logo. I've seen POP, and HOWDY, even the sorta-bilingual YO, but this one made me just about drive into a bridge abutment:



I'd never been a fan of the radio show that used that word in its own, um, unique context, but in all those years of driving 30,000 miles per annum, I saw many bumper stickers and WASH ME-style finger-writings using that message, mainly on the back of scary looking semi's.  If you don't recognize the reference, the second item on this list should clear things up. And for the Met fans coming over from the other blog, you can imagine how this combination now gives new meaning to the term "Pepsi Porch."