The Troy Pig Out

So, this past Saturday, TEA and I ventured to Downtown Troy for the 9th Annual Pig Out. It was hot, humid, and well attended. The commingled scents of smoke and meat filled the air. It was nice.






OH: (young woman, sundress, maybe 23) You know, I think I like Troy.

















TEA decided on pulled pork from Capital Q. This was a sentimental choice for him as he used to live three blocks away and it was a staple of his diet.








He did make some rookie mistakes though. He choose a large sandwich, he ate the bread, and then he wanted something that was a sliced potato, deep fried, served with nacho cheese and bacon bits.








The nice folks at Foam Brain Games offered a charging station because people were trying to catch the Pokemon, and were encouraged to, as you can see in the video below.

When it came for me to eat, it was too hot, so TEA and I walked through the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market, looking and deciding, and getting warmer, so...off to Slidin Dirty...








It was a great day!

Location:Riverfront Park, Troy, NY

Tangled Up In Blue

So...

I was in a bar. Surprised?

Anyway, while I was at this bar, talking with the bartender, the manager of the bar walked out and informed the aforementioned bartender that supplies were in the back room, including WindEx.

I may have made a joke that the bartender should not confuse the WindEx with Blue Curaçao.

The bartender then joked that she only used it, meaning Curaçao, to make blue Shirley Temples for boys.

I looked at her aghast. Her manager looked at her aghast.

She then said that "it is not like there is alcohol in it" as she went looking for the bottle.

After examining the label,she exclaimed, "but I never went to bartending school", prompting her boss to point to me and yell, "neither did he!"

So, those of you who have children. Order blue Shirley Temples.

Do it.

And I have Mexican food

As I wrote last night, I went looking for pizza and had Mexican at Pancho's instead.

It was great.

Warm tortilla chips and a slightly spicy salsa with a cold beer to start.



Because I was feeling like I needed some greens, I had the guacamole salad.



It was a salad but the guacamole was great!

Last week, when I was in Boston, we stopped at a little Mexican place in a Beacon Hill (Anna's Taqueria) and I had the Chile Verde and it was great. It had a huge amount of flavorful spice. With that meal in the back of my mind, I decided to have Pancho's Chile Verde.




It was tasty. Not nearly as spicy as the food from last week, but it was still very good. The rice had actual pieces of red chilies in it and the beans were as awesome as these beans can be.




Yes, I was happily a member of the "Clean Plate Club".

No, it was not pizza but it was very good and it was a very happy accident.

And I go in search of pizza

I went in search of pizza, but I did not want to leave the area that I live in. So, I decided to try Two Brothers in Troy.



Here is the problem...

They are not open on Sunday or Monday. I would have known this if I decided to check their website. Wait, I did try to check their website. Yeah, they do not have a website. There is a Facebook page but it is not maintained by anyone, therefore, just the address was there. So, I went down to check out if their pizza was any good. (Sidebar: I was looking for that special type of greasy tavern pizza, because it just sounded good and...I did not want to leave my neighborhood, which left Two Brothers as my only option.)

Oh, yeah, they were closed.

I was irked. Yes, I could have called, but what is the point of having to call someplace to check their availability anymore...

Facebook is free and there is a very low barrier in terms of technological know-how in order to set up a page (maintaining it is a different story, and communicating your message is even more difficult...i have two places in Albany that I love. One of them does social media really well. The other one has good wings.) so why hasn't Two Brothers done this? A better question is why haven't all small business done this, especially when they are a bar or restaurant? Venues like that lend themselves to social media for a variety of reasons, but mostly because they are social places that you want to share with your friends...for good or bad. You know what I mean by this. "Oh, this place has the best cheesecake*" or "Don't order the calamari**". You want the people you care about to know these things. This is one of the very definitions of social.

So, I went for Mexican instead, at Pancho's (which has a very good social media presence), which had good food, great service, and wifi. It made me very happy.




So, people, especially if you want my business, take the time to create a social media presence so I can do things like easily look at Facebook, Foursquare or a variety of other platforms and at least know that you are open when I need something to eat.

As seen on Facebook

Oh, poor Schenectady.

I like Schenectady. I also like Troy.

Yes, I am odd but...living life in the suburbs makes your life a combination of a Rush song and a cliche.

Thank Me It's Friday

(not claiming any more divinity than usual as I am making more of a reference to the Batman Begins scene where he demands that the dirty cop "swear to me"...)

• Yes, it is Friday. Are you thanking your creator because They allowed you to see the sunrise, They did not destroy the world, or because you are completely banal?

• It is a gorgeous day in the Northeast and you should plan to spend the evening out of doors. I will be at one of TEA's baseball games and I am really looking forward to it. Teacher Dave gave him a pitching lesson the other day and it has improved his velocity as well as his accuracy.

• I need to pick up summer clothes for TEA and he has told me that his favorite color is aqua. I should ignore that impulse of his because unless you are a Miami Dolphin, aqua does not age well in photos.

• If you are in Troy, The Ruck is given over to the beers of Dogfish Head Brewery. Their beers are very tasty and they have great pub food. (And during the day, you are going to be less likely to run into the young people and the people who give Troy a bad reputation.)

• Oh, I went to the Planning Commission meeting in the City of Troy last night. There will be more on this later. I am torn on an emotional level about the McDonald's discussion but intellectually, come on...

• Finally, TEA still thinks that the pizza at the Hill Street Cafe is great.

Notes from a Friday Afternoon

1) Tim Wakefield has retired.



I love this clip, even though it is from the Onion.

But look at him warming up, that movement is...weird.



Yet another reason for me to only pay attention to the Red Sox this year in order to knowledgeably mock their fans.

2) Speaking of baseball, I have been falling asleep to Ken Burns' Baseball. This has created interesting dreams including dreams where a friend is talking as if she were Doris Kearns Goodwin. This is interesting for a couple of reasons. Largely, it is interesting because I love this friend and I loathe DKG. (Allowing for my soft spot for Wait Till Next Year which as a memoir and not a piece of scholarship stands up to scrutiny.)

3) Still on baseball, I realized that I had never read The Bad Guys Won fully. I had read excerpts and did own a paper copy of it but that was given to someone. When Gary Carter passed yesterday after a long battle with cancer, I thought back to '86 and the Mets and when my love of baseball was cemented. One of my brother's childhood friends had an autographed photo of Roger Clemens and Gary Carter standing together from the '86 series and I still covet it. Reading this book, and the often boorish behavior of these players that I looked up to is a compelling read for any baseball fan.

4) I have heard Whitney Houston's rendition of The Star Spangled Banner often over the past week and while I do admit that it was a supremely good performance, the patriotic song that makes me the most...proud to be an American while being stunned by the beauty of the performance, I choose this one.



5) Troy's reputation for crassness and down market lifestyle was fully cemented in my mind last night. If you are an adult female, and you say that you are "madddd angry" after you get bounced from a bar for starting a fight, then complaining about losing the money you spent on your drink, you have an interesting priority set.

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.

Something to think about...

Based on my incident last week, and this discussion at AOA, I really think that the best solution for the meantime is to...well, do what the sticker says. The Pioneer Co-Op is great, and I do like it, but the surrounding neighborhood is terrifying, and this is from someone who likes living in somewhat sketchy neighborhood because of the cultural variations that they provide.

Gentrification is not a bad thing, because it means people that are investing in the city that they want to live in. To be perfectly honest, would you want to eat at a nice restaurant that is in Downtown Troy?

Oh the places you'll go...

So, I was planning on writing about the JFK Library, or the the wonderful BBQ experience I had, or the lessons I learned from The Year of Living Biblically, (or some random interaction with a young woman and her "body guard") but I had an incident...

As I left the Ruck, at a fairly early time (before 10) and was headed to the ATM to get cash to take a cab home and I heard someone yelling "Hey Lemon*!" (*Lemon is what I am using instead of the racial slur that was being used. Think about it for a minute.) Somehow, as I was walking, I knew that the "Hey Lemon" was for me.

So, I was at the ATM at the Bank of America, trying to use my card to get into the foyer (my card is beat...yes, I have ordered a new one), and failing, and a young (I am thinking 15) African American man came up to me and...

Spoke in complete gibberish and then ran off.

As he was running off, I yelled out, "Come back here."

He came back.

"What did you say?", I asked.

He responded with the same gibberish about throwing signs and such...

Then I said, "Let's talk like men."

"You wanna talk like men?"

I put out my hand, told him my first name and I asked him to speak in English. (Yes, I know, I am not being culturally sensitive, I could give a damn about that.)

He explained that he was sent to beat me up because I was in a girl's apartment and I was flashing signs indicating that I was a Crip.

I asked how he knew that.

"Because you are wearing a blue shirt and have a backpack"

"Well, my shirt is black and look at me."

He then explained that he was paid to jack up the person that committed the aforementioned affront.

Because he was in a gang and he was homeless...there were other things as well.

But...this kid was willing to engage in fisticuffs with someone whom he did not know and had at least 80 pounds on him because he needed the money.

What does that say about the city of Troy? What does that say about poverty? What does that say about America?

What does it say about me that I was not willing to take the threat of a beatdown from a young soldier in Troy's Blood "Army" seriously and that when I asked to talk like a man he responded? I know his name, by the way, but...why bother outing him?

You know why he responded? Because I was not afraid (maybe stupidly) and I treated him like a fellow human being.

I don't have an answer to urban poverty and I cannot speak to the answers that the "experts" offer. All I know is that I saved myself from someone attempting to kick my ass because I treated them as a fellow member of the human race.

What would you have done?

(And while this was happening, HJ77 called and I sent her to voicemail. Yes, I did check my phone while this was happening, it is what I do, and then I called her back to explain what had happened. I think I may have freaked her out.)

Edit: A number of people have pointed out to me that what I did, essentially escalating the conflict was dangerous and stupid. In hindsight, it may have been, but I was angry. Not scared but angry. Too often we are faced with situations where we do nothing and we do not get angry about things that are wrong. Would I act the same way given the same variables, yes. However, I am going to modify my behavior and work so these things do not have to happen. What does these incidents say about out society?

Hope/Change/Chalk

Shep Fairey's iconic Obama image in chalk at the River Street Arts Festival.

Make way for ducklings

Remember the book Make Way for Ducklings? I do, mostly because I loved (and still love) one of McCloskey's other books, One Morning in Maine, which makes me think of being a kid, and being in Maine, and my mom loving the book, as well as a bunch of very fond memories, but I digress.

Yesterday, I went for a long hike as well as a long bike ride, and as I was riding my bike on the very bike unfriendly Oakwood Avenue in Troy, I saw a duck guiding her ducklings in and around the shoulder. For those of you who don't know, Oakwood Avenue is a flat straight stretch of road where the speed limit is a posted 45 mph but people routinely exceed it. I was, quite naturally, worried about the ducks.

One of the weird things, was that the duck was not trying to guide her ducklings anywhere in particular but was just walking in a circle around a sewer grate.

I decided to take a look in the grate and as I was walking over, I saw a duckling attempting to jump out.

Then I looked closer.

There were (and you can make one of them out from that picture) eight ducklings trapped in the sewer grate.

I did what comes naturally to me. I freaked out. I called 411 to get Animal Control's number. (For Troy, the number is 518.270.3640 though the voice mail box is full.) I kept calling. Then I called my brother, explaining the situation, and asking him to look for an alternative number. His response..."They are not an endangered species." I did prevail on him to look, and he could only find the aforementioned number above. I kept trying the number I had, and thought about calling TPD but...what would I tell them? Ducklings are in danger? They have a difficult enough job without people like me bothering them with silliness. So...I kept calling and waiting and trying things like putting a stick in the grate so the ducklings could crawl up but, ducklings do not do that.

Eventually, I watched three more jump out, but there were two at the bottom who, apparently, God did not want to live, who had exhausted themselves, and several of their brothers and sisters were getting to that point. There were five or six in the sewer and I did not know what to do.

So, I left, feeling guilty and like a failure.

As I was riding up to see my brother, I saw a Postal Worker. Figuring that they may have a special number for animal control, I stopped her and asked. She looked at me askew and asked "Why?" I explained the situation and there is something about the word ducklings being so close to the word sewer and the word trapped that gets normally jaded and cynical adults to do something different (And I am not implying that this woman was jaded or cynical). I know that is how I reacted. She said that she would make an attempt to contact him through other means.

My guilt was allayed.

After about fifteen minutes with my brother (he was at my grandfather's house), I decided to get back on my bike and ride the Lansingburgh bike path and decided that I would check out the ducklings and the rescue effort.

True to her word, the USPS Carrier had made it work.

Animal Control was there. So was someone from the Humane Society.

The gentleman from Animal Control was calling someone from the City to have the grate popped to save the ducklings.

Amazing. I may have done a good thing.

Thank you to an amazing USPS Carrier, and to the City for being responsive for something so...well...unnecessary yet heartwarming.

Metroland's Reader Survey - My favorite answer

Q: Best Thing That Could Happen to Troy
A: Apocalyptic Fire

You can take the survey here. I would not be upset if you wanted to vote for the superficial douche and write in afutilemistake.com for best local blog. Or for Friday Puppy or All Over Albany...they are deserving too. You have until tomorrow, February 23rd.

Thanks, Metroland!

And I am enjoying Troy

The co-op just opened. There is a good indie bookstore downtown and Spill'N the Beans is a great coffee shop.



Not a bad way to spend a crappy morning.

Looking forward to reading the new Franzen and notice, no Oprah!

This Made Me Go "Ha Ha"

All Over Albany has a link to a woman at Sage who is using Twilight in her COLLEGE LEVEL ENGLISH COURSES and it made me think bad thoughts about Sage. Wanting to be fair, I went to the Wikipedia page and saw this below. The section in bold was (in all likelihood) written by someone who has a connection to this *cough* fine educational institution.

Russell Sage College - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"The self-contained 10-acre (40,000�m2) campus is located in the historic district of Troy, New York with 19th century brownstone residences, Victorian gates, formal courtyards and walled gardens. This campus is on two blocks and is a safe campus for the most part because there hasn't been any crimes. However, there aren't many businesses thriving around Russell Sage College, which means you won't have many things to do. The area around it is pretty ghetto. There is a bowling lane, numerous antique and jewelry stores, a public library nearby, and several independent coffee shops in the area. There is easy access to public transportation for students to get around. It is better for students to have their own cars or network with people who have cars to get around."

Why yes, I am a douche. Thanks for noticing.