Yes, it is a Saturday...

I have some amazing and wonderful friends...

Let me explain. I really like David Plotz. Earlier in the summer, Plotz wrote of piece for Slate that I found interesting which ended up pissing FAU off. (FAU's comments regarding the flaws in methodology for the piece are accurate and are in no way a reflection that FAU may be moving to the unhinged portion of middle age. I do not see him yelling at toasters for another three weeks or so.)

As part of this, I took my birthday off my profile on Facebook. FAU noticed last week and because he believes that I take little things and make much bigger deals out of them, he called me out on it. When I responded in my typical douchey way, he upped the ante. Essentially, he e-mailed thirty or so of my friends and encouraged them to tell me that: A) Plotz was wrong, B) FAU is correct, and C) wish me something about my nativity. When the messages started popping up this morning, I turned to HJ77 and asked her if FAU had sent out an e-mail. He had. He is a good friend as well as a bastard.

Speaking of good friends...HJ77, Teacher Dave, Sandor, and Anya all joined me at McGeary's yesterday for happy hour and you know what, it was really a happy hour. Thank you. Oh, and HJ77 has be wonderful and really supportive and (gifts! I hate gifts! I love her for ignoring my protests and paying attention to me for what I was planning on getting for myself.) wonderful, as I have a tendency to be particularly moody when it comes to Labor Day Weekend.

It was a wonderful Friday and I am looking forward to it being a great rest of the weekend.

Morning World

Let the wild rumpus begin!

Yesterday, HJ77 and I toured around the area, going to various places as well eating food, drinking beer, and throwing darts.

We also stopped by to pay our respects to President of the United States (and Union Alum) Chester A. Arthur.













We stopped by Brown's to determine if they were going to open...




Disappointing, no?

The waterfront is coming back but it is still ugly.




The dockmaster's shack is broken. There is no other way to say it.

Today is being dedicated to Habitat with Teacher Dave and beers at McGeary's afterwards.

Then...the Wild Rumpus.

(Oh, and I have to get a birthday gift for TEA...ideas?)

My Top 25 Songs of the 2011...so far (August)

I have completed eight months of tracking what I am listening to and some trends are becoming apparent...mainly that I am listening to a lot of music that isn't happy even though this summer has been one of the better one's in my adult life.

Oh, that and I am listing to "The Suburbs" and "Tallahassee" was too much.

1) Modern Man - Arcade Fire
2) See America Right - The Mountain Goats
3) Southwood Plantation Road - The Mountain Goats
4) No Children - The Mountain Goats
5) Ready to Start - Arcade Fire
6) Crosses - Jose Gonzalez
7) Down by the Water - The Decemberists
8) The Suburbs - Arcade Fire
9) Rococo - Arcade Fire
10) Empty Room - Arcade Fire
11) Paranoid Android - Radiohead
12) No Cars - Arcade Fire
13) Circles - Bob Mould
14) Please Forgive Me - David Gray
15) America - Simon & Garfunkle
16) Peg - Steely Dan
17) Subterranian Homesick Alien - Radiohead
18) Oceanographer's Choice - The Mountain Goats
19) Pump It Up - Elvis Costello
20) Modern Love - David Bowie
21) Gaper's Delay - Holy Roman Empire
22) This Is The Day - Ivy
23) Today - Smashing Pumpkins
24) O Girlfriend - Weezer
25) Dry the Rain - The Beta Band

Pictures from the FDR Museum and Library

This seems to be the summer for Presidential Libraries for me...


He looked like a little girl...


Great outfit. I am sure the other children appreciated it...


HJ77, Fala, & TEA


I love this button!


FDR's Oval


TEA making his Churchill face...


I don't know what this means...


Sure...he did...


The captions indicates that the boy is scrawling a dirty word...


There was quite a bit of anti-Roosevelt sentiment.


Even among fellow members of the Democratic Party


TEA and HJ77 discussing the gold standard (seriously)


The "Repeal" Banner is awesome.


Yeah, FDR drove...


TEA with FDR and Eleanor


HJ77 cheating on JFK with FDR. What about poor EWA?

Keywords

Here are the keywords for this week...

• "north troy" irene, dinosaur bbq flood/irene, irene husdon river mechanicville flooding (Obvious*)
• tag heuer, tag heuer aquaracer, tag heuer aquaracer obama, tag heuer watches (Did Barry get a new watch?)
• slate culture gabfest earthquake (Which is an awesome listen...)
• clifton park rest area (I can only assume that this is because it has become a cruising spot.)
• jfk library can you take pictures with no flash?
  

*Thanks to All Over Albany for calling one of my photos "remarkable"

And TEA rides an instrument of torture...

TEA, HJ77 and I went to Funplex in East Greenbush yesterday for a round of mini-golf (which I was taking far to seriously) and after the game/match/contest of wills, TEA decided that he wanted to ride the Space Ball which is either a flight trainer from Space Camp or something that is used to get Al Queda members in check at Gitmo.

Here is the video...

While I would hate the ride, listen to his voice...he is having a great time, and that is awesome.

And bouncing is what TEA does best!

TEA on the Bungee Trampoline at Funplex.








Doesn't he look like he is having fun?


It looks fun, doesn't it? Too bad that I am too big for it.

Because I know you don't watch Countdown

Good & healthful food does not have to be expensive. I am working on a project regarding inexpensive food that is good for you and easy to prepare.

Anyway, there has been a bit of a bruhahah regarding Anthony Bourdain and his comments about Paula Deae, with even Frank Bruni weighing in on it.

Here is the problem though...we are fat as a nation, and I am fat as an individual, and it is only getting worse.

I saw a tweet from a blogger who said that she loved the breakfast from McDonald's but she was embarrassed walking into the office with the iconic bag. If you are embarrassed by your behavior, you should not engage in it.

She has every right to be embarrassed about that bag, especially since there are a lot of better options, even in terms of "fast" food.

Buy local, buy seasonal, and for the love of all that is holy, please do not "biggie size" it.

Two Items I Want To Rave About

This past weekend, HJ77 and I picked up a bunch of things at the Farmer's Market (See her post here) but there are two of them that I would love to rave about...

Christoper's Homestyle Pepper Sauce (Hot)
A pineapple based sauce with good heat and a lot of flavor. It goes surprisingly well with eggs and with pizza.

Colebrook Country Wines' Green Apple Riesling
Like in flavor and refreshing. This wine could be a badness in a wonderful way.

They are both wonderful new additions to my weekly shopping excursion.

You can go back to your regularly scheduled killing of time.

90s Nostalgia - The Suggestions

So, I asked for advice yesterday about music for TEA and the interwebs provided.

• Apart from "I Wanna (Sexx You Up), most of the suggestions were appropriate
• Oh, I chose which song represented the band.
• It was curious that U2 was not mentioned.
• I think Bell Biv DeVoe's Poison may be an important lesson for TEA...i.e. "Never trust a big butt and a smile."

Bell Biv Devoe


Paula Abdul


The Fresh Prince (of Bel Air)


Violent Femmes


INXS


Digapble Planets


Portishead


The Cure


The Bangles


The Charlatans UK


Matthew Sweet


Beastie Boys


New Order


Faith No More


Color Me Badd

(Thank you to Erik, Joy, Andrea, Tracy, Sean and Mike for offering suggestions)

Photos from the Wrath of Irene

2nd Avenue in North Troy


2nd Avenue in North Troy


123rd Street in North Troy


Across the Hudson River at 123rd St and 1st Ave in North Troy


Across the Hudson River at 123rd St and 1st Ave in North Troy


Delaware Avenue Trail (Entrance to Peeple's Island State Park) in Cohoes


Cohoes Falls in Cohoes


Below the Falls in Cohoes


My sister's backyard, Mechanicville, NY


The Hudson River in Mechanicville


Hadley Park Place parking lot, Troy (Near Brown's)


Noooooooooo! I hope the damage is not severe.


Green Island Bridge as seen from near Ryan's Wake


Dinosaur BBQ, Troy, from the front


Dinosaur BBQ, Troy, from the side


Former site of Troy's City Hall


Riverside Park, Troy


The pictures speak for themselves. Many of these were posted to Facebook and Instagram (thereby pushed to my Twitter and Tumblr) as they were taken.

The Cohoes Falls, of all the pictures, gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I was taking in.

90s Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a combination of two Greek words meaning "returning home" combined with "pain or ache". (I read this while in Boston last weekend and it stuck with me.)

Earlier in the week, Lux sent me a piece from Slate about showing the 1992 Reading Festival performance of Nirvana at this year's festival.



The Slate piece bothered me...for a couple of reasons...some of it is an inside baseball thing about Slate being contrarian when it comes to the general mood, and part of is how they will happily borrow ideas from New York Mag and slag them at the same time.

Mostly it is because the early 90s were different, because...well...they were my formative years. This is when I was a late teenager and young twenty-something. I have been spending a lot of one on one time with TEA lately, and I have been consuming his media in an effort to understand him and I am struck how different his view of the world is than mine it.

Then...I got to thinking about how to introduce this era to TEA.

TEA is too young for Nevermind, and too young for Ten (Do you think that Jeremy would cause nightmares?)

Lux and I had a conversation about hot to introduce TEA to my music and what would be appropriate for him, and all I could come up with is "Squeeze".

But...I know I am leaving bands out...

What late 80s or early 90s band would you introduce TEA to?

Monday Morning

•My morning run was aborted by a personal structural failure. This does not bode well.

•Trying to figure out the best way to get across the river to Albany County (road closures & flood warnings) is requiring more brain power than I am capable of. That being said, how much of Rt. 7 is closed? Is Duncan's not available for breakfast?

•I hope that my friends that are traveling by air are able to get to their destination

•HJ77 and I were supposed to be in Southeast VT this past weekend (that was plan three). I am glad that we aren't there. I am also a bit afraid to turn on the news to see what those great towns have become.

•My hubris when it comes to acts of "God" is unfortunate.

•We do have coffee filters. I just didn't look hard enough. I am an idiot.

•We (myself, HJ77, & TEA) are planning on heading down to Hyde Park later in the week. Is the Thruway going to be open? Is 9 going to be passable?

•If anyone is affected by the flooding and evacuations, I have an extra bedroom, two couches, and beer and food. If you want shelter and company, let me know. (Yes, we are dog friendly if that is a concern.)

Anything for a toy...

Things like this make my little geek heart happy.

It is a LL Bean branded multiple band radio that is powered by either batteries or a built in dynamo.

Not that I needed it but I am glad I had it.

Anyone have any geeky things/toys that they rely on?

Status Report

So...

How are you doing?

HJ77 and I are surviving in Troy. Thriving, in fact. We (or I) did forget one thing when we were putting our storm supplies in place. Coffee filters.

If that is the worst inconvenience that we suffer, we are going to be very lucky.

I have been up since 5:30 and glued to MSNBC. It is amazing how some of these telejournalists (some of whom have advanced degrees) are like children when it comes to these big storms.

To sum up, it is wet and windy but not so wet and windy that I did not make an apple jack marinade for some pork with the intention of grilling it this evening.

Let me know how you are surviving this storm.