Bit of this, bit of that and coffee culture closures

Today's first photo is another one of those sidewalk oddities that tend to catch my eye and camera lens.

This one isn't public art but likely the legacy of a business that either once was or still is but has lost its luster.

Today's another rainy day and I'm not going to complain after my rant about Santa Anas.

Monday's rain had me map out a newish minimal rainy freeway route home and today I refined it a bit.

All told, it took an hour and change to get from RB down to Hillcrest but considering that a non-rainy evening commute can sometimes involve taking 23 minutes to travel 4 miles, I'm pretty happy with yet another way to avoid freeway crazies.

Today also marks the last day that I'll walk downstairs for my afternoon pick me up of espresso plus drip coffee pick me up and a bit of chatter with the lovely barista, Michelle.

I've only really been doing the coffee culture at work thing for a short part of her tenure but we bonded pretty quickly and I'm going to miss her sassy self as well as the coffee.

In a twisted way, a more important loss is the cross department social and professional interchange that came from coffee culture bonding.

Seriously, you're on line waiting for your latte, Americano, espresso, or chai and you get familiar with the faces and you share some chit chat. Then you see the same faces in the elevator, hallway or meeting, and you acknowledge each other and the conversations and connections develop.

These are real connections based on an external connection than creates a web of interest. Michelle was/is a great catalyst for that sort of connectivity. As I told her recently, you know you're really popular when your friends don't have to like each other and it's okay.

Her "boss" is less successful and it will be interesting to see how the new year sans Michelle will be interesting. With a bit of luck, the established connections will continue to grow in the physical absence of the coffee catalyst but I'll probably be joining the take advantage of the return of the free coffee crowd.

Speaking of coffee culture, last year I noticed that there was a new independent coffee shop where the 2nd Starbucks in San Diego had previously operated. When I finally managed to stop in, I found that it was a nice little shop and I really enjoyed having conversations over coffee with one young man who worked there. So I was saddened to note that it appears to gone out of business.

On a completely different note, an email alert from Dell today confirms that they are ahead of their ship by date and that the wide screen and laptop have left Reno and are on their way to San Diego to connect up with already resident mouse and docking station.

In true not quite having it all together mode (yes, I did do a stint as an expeditor so I'm picky that way), the Dell dudes in Reno didn't co-ordinate wide screen and laptop FedEx pickups so the order will likely be two different FedEx bills of lading -- pish. ETA on the monitor is Friday and ETA for the laptop is Monday.