Busy busy day today. How incredible is the unlimited ride MetroCard? I have lived in the city for 10 years and it is still one of my all time favorite things. I can't imagine digging up a token every time I used the subway or bus. It's just so effortless to jet (underground) around Manhattan, taking advantage of everything it has.

On my way down to SoHo, I was intrigued that at Canal Street Station, the express Q/W line stop is at an angle perpendicular to the local N/R one. This was a little disorienting, but I followed the signs and safely made it out onto Broadway, headed north.

The men's floor at Bloomingdale's in SoHo gets it just right. What a fantastic job they did. With national chains, every aspect of store atmosphere goes through a litany of calculations and tests to create exactly the right shopping environment. Bloomingdale's SoHo feels more natural and yet so exactly what it aims to be. From the music to the colors and hipper, younger selection compared to its uptown sibling, it's quite a success.

I finally finished A Short History of Nearly Everything. It took forever and I'm glad it's over. Bill Bryson is a great writer, but this was too large a dose, about too many topics that are too obscure. I had to read two other books in the meantime just to take breaks. Anyway, the two new books are Bringing Down the House--even though I've never been to Vegas, it seems like a fun story--and Isaac Newton by James Gleick, one of my all time favorite writers. (Full disclosure: I worked for James Gleick at The Pipeline, although it is fair to say that this happened precisely because he was already one of my all time favorite writers.)

That was mid-afternoon; the rest of the day has been a standard NYSC-Whole Foods-Yankee game sequence, but fun. I love when the city empties out. For variety, I used a NYSC downtown, taking advantage of the sprawling floor, incredible natural lighting through cityscape windows, and general scenery at the one on 23rd and 8th. A quick E-to-A transfer got me to Whole Foods at Time Warner Center in minutes.

It's a great long weekend with low humidity and moderate temperatures. Although I love the heat, this isn't all that bad for one of the most enjoyable weekends generally in NYC.