Julio’s Musings Around Columbia County, New York

As I was raking leaves with my daughter this past autumn Saturday, a group of high school kids in all their glory passed by , jostling , joking and strutting. They seemed so carefree that I felt like dropping the rake and all my responsibilities and just tagging along. Well I didn’t. What I did was ask my 10th Grade daughter if she knew the kids? She said with a clear smirk she did and they were freshman. She went on to lambast them and say no one liked the freshmen , that they were wimps of some sort (it was getting cool outside and related to the cold). We got into it a little more and I asked her if she and her friends fraternized with them and she said “no way”. When I asked what she and her friends did when they came and sat on the same table in the cafeteria she said “we ignore them!”

Anyway, I just loved it. Though I am was not a girl it did bring some memories back from my own high school years. Mind you , I would and never did have the kind of attitude my daughter expressed as I would think it better to have a lively cafeteria table then a group of siloed cliques. Nevertheless there was just something raw about the whole thing and was wondering if I could bring the same approach to the work place. Well I am only kidding or day dreaming of course but that attitude if I don’t like you I am not going to deal with you even if you are in my face was something I had not thought about in a long time.

It has a certain power and finding something so trivial to differentiate as being in 9th or 10th grades
has a certain wonder to me as I contemplate the mind of a high schooler.

Over in Greenport , a Town adjacent to the city of Hudson in the boonies of New York, the next revision of Wal-Mart just recently opened replacing the long standing box store in the same town. The new Wal-Mart is the Super-Center variety and is already the toast of the town! You need a compass to navigate the store and all its aisles and it even has it’s own Dunkin Donuts store within alleviating the previous tradition of a separate stop for my favorite coffee brew.

I can’t say what it doesn’t carry at the moment as I have not been able to navigate it in it’s entirety yet
Given it’s complete variety of meats and produce it will definitely put pressure on the nearby Shop-Rite and who knows what assortment of mom and pop shops it hasn’t driven out of business yet.

It will also become a beacon for a larger part of the surrounding area which is basically rural and not adverse to going 50 miles to shop at the temple of retail (even if they can’t afford the gas guzzled by their SUV’s).

Though I make no apologies for shopping there, the latest store further sharpens the dysfunctional and destructive car oriented mentality of American Culture. It attracts people way out in the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere with the only possible mode of transport being the car.
It has no esthetic soul as even the previous one about 1/2 mile down the road had fitting in somewhat better with a slightly suburban community surrounded by an agricultural rural community. As is the bent in the architecture of the USA mass market, it looks like it can be anywhere and nowhere.

Photos to follow soon….

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares, Wal-Mart, Columbia County

I don’t usually repeat topics on my blog but will break the practice this time.

The simple thing in Life are the best , Happy Clown

When Easter came and went early spring 2009 and the anticipation of the spring opening of Happy Clown came and went with nary an opening soon, alarm ran through Columbia County or at least the Miyares Farm household. Alarm turned to distress and depression as the “For Sale” sign appeared by the smiling clown.
The spring came and went and then the summer (though this summer has felt like spring) and still nothing more then a lonely “For Sale” sign.
All hope seemed lost. The kids were gloomy (well actually not them but me) thinking a staple of Columbia County living was lost.
Then in late July as I was zooming on the 2 lane country road 82 throwing a quick glance to catch the sad looking Clown mascot, I saw the “Open” side and the Flag!
It had been saved, how I don’t know. A new owner?, the old geezers that own it deciding a recession was not the right time to sell? A public referendum to re-open post haste? I don’t care wish as I finish off my Butterscotch Vanilla sundae on a hazy lazy Saturday afternoon in the dog days of summer 2009.

Man, if I had a bonus this year, I may have bought it. Maybe next time it is up for sale.

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares, Happy Clown, Columbia County New York

Well, an unfortunate event befell Rasputin this past week. He was run over by a bus on Benton Road while inexplicably chasing the bus. This was your typical school bus that passed by every school day around 3:30pm. It seems he had a habit of chasing cars that I was not aware of until his demise. Sadly this is a high probability event for our furry pets , squirrels and deer in this neck of the woods north of New York City. There is just no respect for those other animals made of metal and averaging two or more tons in weight.
The driver of the bus was considerate enough to stop and honk the horn to wake the owner from her stupor.
Rasputin was buried with full honors at the Miyares Farm. Not sure what happens to their souls or if they even have one. Maybe they come back as a Level 5 leader. Why would I associate a dog with that type of leader? Don’t know , but wouldn’t associate a cat , that is for sure.
What is a level 5 leader? Follow the link and review the book Good to Great.

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares, Dogs, Columbia County

If memory serves me, I generally make a habit of posting something either Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. This year will be no different , once again if my memory is correct.
Trip up north from New York City to Hartford Connecticut was a horror on Christmas Eve. News Radio 88 was saying all highways were clear in Westchester and Connecticut except they were patently wrong. I-95 North was clogged a good portion of the ride from the CT border through to New Haven.
I was so peeved I was searching for their “report a tie-up” phone number to give them a “piece of my mind” for getting it so wrong. Made me realize the point of the regular traffic reports from the likes of News Radio 88 or WINS in New York City is going the route of many other services. While I was stuck in traffic eating my heart out, I reverted to checking google maps on my iPhone to see if there was an alternative to the snail’s pace of my current route.
Though I did not find an alternative worth the detour , it was startling to see the normal route which I was on indicated as heavy in traffic. If I had bothered to check google maps earlier in my travels instead of depending on the dated , advertising laden NewsRadio 88 traffic news reports, I would have had the opportunity to take the Merritt Parkway north to just Southeast of Hartford probably bypassing the clogged I-95 horror. From now on , I will do what I should have done a while ago. I will depend on google Maps and NewsRadio 88 like many of the big media outlets will lose another part of their demographic for advertising purposes.

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares, Christmas, News Radio 88

Been spending a good chunk of time in warehouses these past few days. Booming business and it will only get better with time well into the years 2030 through 2050. Beyond that hard to predict. Nevertheless, in these economic times, good to see a business that has little chance of cratering. As in most warehouses, the need to store inventory for some eventual disposal is what drives the innate value in the actual warehouse. The inventory in the fastest growing segment is quite old , usually around 70 years old and above. The disposal is certain but opposed to some raw material going to some eventual consumer product, the point of this inventory is to allow the wasting away of the original value, allowing entropy to perform its magic.

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares

Thanksgiving ala Cubana circa Thanksgiving 2008. Another Thanksgiving came and went and now getting ready for the work sprint through to the end of the year. Always a hectic time especially when you are in the world of Technology Development.

Ala Cubana means Cuban Style or at least I intend it to. Cuban Stuffing which is a family secret, Yucca (Not Sweet potato), Plantains , white rice and black beans. Actually all quite healthy and relatively non-fattening. Spent most of the day (approximately 8 hours) cooking the meal in a small, cramped and airless New York City apartment kitchen which can be seen in the photo.

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares, Thanksgiving

Late Wednesday October 1st, 2008 ,after a long day of packing and working, working and packing and turning over the Reston condo , I pointed the car north and headed back to the Big Apple. Of course, owing to tradition, I first had to pick up a Grande Starbucks, listen to the idle chatter of the barrister one last time about the weather or something inane, have my Starbucks card swiped and take the walk back out to the car.

An experiment of 4 and a half years living and working in Northern Virginia was closing. The experiment was a success as I survived to make it back home to New York City. Actually Northern Virginia is quite a civilized place and I had the privilege of working at one of the top internet companies on the globe and now will do the same but out of the newly situated headquarters in Gotham.
The trip down to Northern Virginia way back in 2004 during a 4th of July holiday was done during the wee hours of the morning but with the holiday hordes creating traffic jams at midnight on the New Jersey turnpike. The return was similarly during the wee hours but during a recession, $4 gas and mostly trucks and myself with a few deer sprinkled in the Catskills area.

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares, New York City

A beautiful early fall weekend in Northern Virgina , Reston to be exact. A stroll along the perimeter of Lake Anne over to the Old Towne Center for a dinner of Tappas , then Macaroni Grill and a little Big Bowl with the Parents who were visiting for a wedding in Washington, DC over the weekend.
Reston Town Center, both New and Old are about all that makes Northern Virginia enticing to me.
Guess I am too much of a New Yorker. Well, at the same time as I was taking the parents around I was also boxing up the accumulations of 4 years in Northern Virginia as I ready for a move north back to the Big Apple. The pendulum has swung decidedly to New York City for the company I work for and I become another one that takes I-95 North approximately 265 miles to the Empire State Building without looking back.
Back to the land of subways and taxis and restaurants that just start hopping at 9pm instead of making last call from the kitchen. Back to a place where the car behind you honks before the light turns green just to make sure you are awake and ready to bolt the moment it does. Back to the land where asking for a coffee doesn’t result in a conversation about life (except at Starbucks that are all the same regardless except in China since I couldn’t speak Chinese).

Looking forward to watch the skyscrapers at the original World Trade Center start rising including 1 World Trade Center which just recently got above street level on its trek to 1,776 feet high.

It’s going to be good to be back.

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares

Well, Key Biscayne Florida came and went, the suspense around Obama’s Vice Presidential selection is over and the last of the big 3 Summer long weekends is just around the corner and the first year of crop harvest at the Miyares Farm is coming to an end as we now move headlong into the long dark cold days of winter. Winter is long in Columbia County, New York
Overall life is good and moves along.

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares