I’ve been in Rochester part of this week to give a talk and meet some people in the RIT physics department. It’s been a great trip and while there’s much I could write about, I’m going to stick to something rather unusual.

As has always been my way, I found a little coffee shop to do some work in. What struck me was... the smell. It’s not a good odor, but it’s not unpleasant. It’s just something from a combination of coffee, wood, water and rock. What’s so unusual about it, is that this particular smell was something I’ve not experience in many years. In fact, despite it being so distant in my past, I immediately recognized it as how the old coffee shop I used to study at in Albany all those years ago as an undergraduate at RPI : Professor Java’s Coffee Sanctuary.

I suppose the climate is about the same and geographically Rochester isn’t *that* far from Albany. And if my memory is correct, there’s exactly the same floor tiling in both. Of course both are coffee houses.

Long ago I transferred mid-year to RPI as an undergraduate. It was early January and I had just arrived in upstate NY. After being there about a week I was driving around one night, a little lost, and feeling very far from home. It was snowing and cold and I was driving slowly down a road hoping to get back to the highway so I could make my way back to campus. Then through the snow I saw it, glowing like beacon of hope and caffeine: a sign for professor Java’s coffee.

It became my home away from my apartment. I did a very large percentage of my undergraduate study in that little coffee shop. It was the first place I found in NY where I felt really welcome.

So now, here I am, in a different part of upstate NY, but feeling very, very nostalgic.