8 posts tagged “albany”
Reason 672 for leaving Albany: gun violence. This is incredibly tragic. My heart goes out to her family and neighbors.
Saturday was the perfect day for a concert in the park. The crowd was a record breaker. Early reports are saying over 60,000 Upstaters had converged on the 2008 Tulip Festival in Washington Park for fair food, crafts and live entertainment just on Saturday. In prior years it's been hot, muggy and impossible to escape the sun. This year was certainly an exception. Temperatures in the 60's and overcast skies ended up being the perfect combination for a comfortable afternoon.
Mr. Val and I parked on our usual, out-of-the-way side street. We didn't arrive early enough to eat anything deep-fried pre-concert so we wandered around to find a good place to watch the show. We wended our way around, through and over the mob of people and found ourselves standing right next to the stage. Center stage along the gates was already packed, so we were happy to stand at the side. We didn't have a great view of the front of the stage, but we got to watch Mark (bass) and Aaron (drums) really clearly which was just fine with us!
Too many people got up to read thank you's before they brought out the Spin Doctors. A dude from Toyota bragged about planting trees and a nearby woman screamed "trees are good!!". (I think I've just found a new blog title.) The sad thing about a show like this is that the idiot who introduces them has no idea who they are, he's just a guy who probably donated a bunch of money to the festival. He stupidly announces how they're working on a *new* album called Nice Talking to Me. Silly rich man, that record is three years old. We could see the docs hanging out back stage laughing about this. Chris (singer) later announces that one of the songs he's about to sing is off their new record that they just released that morning. Not sure how many in the crowd caught on, but being the snob that I am, I thought it was funny. :-)
The good Doctors were finally brought out on stage at 4:30 so what the hell other song would they open with but What Time is It? I had pen and paper but was having too much fun to write down all the song titles. Later, Mr. Val and I tried to recreate a set list (that man has a killer memory), but we never could agree on the order. They mostly did stuff off of Pocketful of Kryptonite and Nice Talking to Me. I've been listening to Nice Talking to Me a lot lately so was really happy to hear my favorites from that: Sugar (best song on the album), Genuine (Eric's awesome rocker), Can't Kick the Habit (the one I can't get enough of) and Margarita (so damn catchy). Of course they did their big hits, Jimmy Olsen's Blues, Little Miss Can't Be Wrong and Two Princes. They also did Big Fat Funky Booty, How Could You Want Him and Off My Line. The encore started off with Refrigerator Car and ended with Yo Mama's a Pajama (probably in honor of Mother's Day! Haha!). Some
The band was so *on*. They played together with a level of comfort that can only come with maturity. They were incredibly tight and in tune with each other in every sense of the word. It was an electrifying show and just plain fun. Aaron (drums), Mark (bass) and Eric (guitar) were phenomenal, they're really amazing musicians. Chris (vocals) was the master who linked the audience and the band. His pipes sounded terrific and he seemed to love playing with the crowd.
I really hope they are working on a new album, it would be great fun to see them on the road again, supporting new music. They are really great on the stage, I'm so happy I finally had the opportunity to experience it firsthand.
Following the tunes we decided to enjoy fair food. Sadly, many vendors were already shutting down for the day(!) so our choices were becoming limited by the minute. We trudged through the crowd looking for something that wouldn't cause buttpee and after some arguing with Captain Indecision we opted to hit up our favorite pizza place on the way to the car. (JG's on Lark, best pizza in Albany, don't miss it!)
After tons of walking and dancing this girl was a tired bear and went to bed very early on a Saturday night. But lucky for you folks you get the 5 AM review! :-) Happy Sunday people.
You can see more of my pics by clicking here, but here are a few of my favorites:
I've barely been posting lately and today you lucky people get three in a row!
We found out that the Spin Doctors are headlining Tulip Fest this year - hooray! The last time they played the Tulip Fest they were rained out so we're very excited and crossing our fingers for good weather. They're playing with the original line-up, which is awesome. I also noticed this morning that we'll have to head over to the fest on Sunday because Delfeayo Marsalis will be playing. He'll be my first Marsalis live. Woot!!
[Troy McClure voice] You'll remember the Spin Doctors for such hits as Little Miss Can't Be Wrong, Two Princes and Jimmy Olsen's Blues.
We're listening through our Spin Doctors collection (of course we own them all, plus a bootleg tape), and I thought I'd share some of my favorites.
These are from Up For Grabs...Live, their first promo album. The first song is rather long, but stay tuned until the end for some Bugs Bunny love. Yo Mama's a Pajama (which you must pronounce like a downstater in order to make a rhyme!) is just plain fun.
These are from their first studio album, Pocketful of Kryptonite and you probably already know them (not a clue as to why the album art loaded for the first but not the second, ah well). Enjoy!
Sing it with me: "It's not late - naw, naw - it's earlay, earlay earlay...."
We just got our latest tax bill and as of May our mortgage is increasing $500 per month. They re-appraised our house at the height of the inflated housing market and the value of our home increased by over $100,000. Not that we'd ever be able to sell it for that. Of course, my grandmother was dying and I was out of town during the time it needed to be contested. Mr. Val didn't want to spend money up front on an appraiser to contest the city and now we'll be paying about 5 times the cost of an appraisal this year alone (which I tried to explain to him, but he doesn't EVER want to spend money until after a problem has spiraled out of control...this applies to car/home repairs, etc. and drives me up the fucking wall). I nearly had a breakdown this weekend. Here, let me snap my fingers and magically come up with an extra $500 EVERY FUCKING MONTH for the rest of the year.
Eeek! It started raining yesterday and just hasn't stopped. People have been flooded since yesterday. Our basement is wet but there's no standing water. There was quite a stream flowing directly in front of my home this morning. As I drove past the side-streets I could see the water wasn't flowing into the drains. I hope I can get home tonight!
Just up the road from my house is closed.
And oh noes! The road by the Thai food place is closed! I wanted to pick up dinner tonight. :-(
We're in for heavy rain for the rest of the day. I love rainy days like this, but I'd rather be in my warm, dry home snuggled up in some sweats.
For the record, this is nothing, I lived on the Mississippi during the great flood of '93. In fact, our little town was sandwiched between the Miss and the Rock Rivers, luckily we lived at the top of a plateau. Our basement flooded, but we didn't lose our home like many others did.
UPDATE: Here's something I didn't know. From the Wiki entry on the Great Flood of 1993:
An Illinois man, James Scott, 24 at the time, was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in causing some of the flooding, officially convicted for "intentionally causing a catastrophe". Scott removed several sandbags from a levee holding back the water, in an attempt to strand his wife on the other side of the river so he could continue partying. The breach flooded 14,000 acres (57 km²) of farmland, destroyed buildings and closed a bridge.[3][4] While Scott caused one levee to fail, more than 1,000 levees failed in the flooding.
Wow, that's just nuts!
The Albany Times Union recently reported two stories of the local police department's abuse of searches.
The first case is of a man who was picked up at the bus station. Police say they considered him suspicious because he was wearing a back pack...at a bus station..yeah, suspicious. Oh wait! I forgot, he's black! That must be it. Did they charge him for traveling while black? He was forcibly sedated and searched. They never found anything. The hospital later billed him for his trouble. Read the whole thing here.
He was quickly handcuffed and falsely arrested. He was taken to a station to be strip-searched and then to a hospital, where doctors forcibly sedated him with a cocktail of powerful drugs, including one that clouded his memory of the incident.
A camera was inserted in his rectum, he was forced to vomit and his blood and urine were tested for drugs and alcohol. Scans of his digestive system were performed using X-ray machines, according to hospital records obtained by the Times Union.
The search, conducted without a search warrant, came up empty.
Our second story is of a woman who fit a profile - she apparently was a white woman in a rental car. That was enough to pull her over and search her vajayjay on the side of the road. The police officer also took her cell phone and started calling people on it. Read about this gross violation here.
This brings me to the informative portion of our lesson today: know your rights. I highly recommend downloading and reading this informative booklet from the ACLU. UPDATE: HERE IS A LINK TO THE WALLET CARD.The actions of police in the minutes that followed would end in controversy rather than with an arrest. They would also leave Shutter, a 28-year-old single mother from Ravena, shaken and angry after one of the officers allegedly inserted his finger into Shutter's vagina on a public street during an apparent search for drugs.
Sadly, in both cases above knowing one's rights probably would not have mattered at the time as it seems the police officers were going to do whatever the hell they wanted to do anyway. At least when you know your rights have been violated you can later press charges.
I could start an eating blog based on my Thai restaurant alone. I have a printed menu at home and I'm crossing stuff off as I try it. Sometimes it's impossible to resist some of my favorites when I go in there (Ginger Beef and Red Curry!), but I am still trying new things. Today I realized that I've only tried Pad Thai once and never actually got it for myself. So today I present another Thai-Ku.
and marinated chicken
I'm in Thai heaven
Smooth and creamy drink
Thai iced tea, take me away
I'm gonna get fat
Capital Thai is awesome. It's the best Thai in the area. The restaurant is clean, the people who run the place are super nice and the food is to die for. Today was the busiest I've seen, but then again, I tend to swing in around 4 o'clock when it's dead. For a while, I thought it might just be my little secret, but the crowd in there today tells me that it's not - and that's good!! I want them to stick around for a good long while.
I have to say that even though I wasn't thrilled with my father going to Thailand to find a submissive wife (or as IG would say, "a shy Asian beauty"), I'm so happy he introduced me to the cuisine and even some of the culture. :-)
In an article in today's paper, one of the members of the Albany Common Council has voiced his concerns that they want to build a parking garage under this convention center and it's all going up right on a floodplain. Yes, that's right, they want to spend $300,000,000.00 on a convention center and parking garage to be built on a floodplain.
Oh wait, what's that I hear? It's Assemblyman John McEneny with reassurance for us all:
"I don't believe we've had a serious flood there since 1928 when we opened up the Sacandaga Reservoir," he said. "I expect we won't go deep enough to be a problem."
Oh, we haven't had a flood since 1928, well, that's certainly comforting. 1928 was, like, the Stone Age, right? It'll never happen again, right? Right?
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