Big City Now Now

The bf and I have been planning to hit up Albany for some time now, so today we finally took a little sojourn down 87 and took a self-guided walking tour (i.e. wandering aimlessly using GPS when necessary).  The city was pretty empty, which seems to be the trend for a lot of capitol cities...well, ok, Harrisburg is my only point of comparison, but the analysis stands.

We checked out Empire Plaza, which was very nice and government-y:

I quite liked The Egg, a theater made of architectural awesomeness in the plaza itself:

There were a few parks, where we met my new best friend (he had a hat and was quite dapper):

And we saw some war memorials, where I decided to honor our veterans with a moment of silence (and foot rest):

We stopped off at the Albany Pump Station for dinner, complete with a tasty, tasty burger.  Then, homeward bound for some rest, relaxation, League of Legends, and a bit of business as I may or may not be getting my first online editing gig (fingers crossed!).

All in all, it was a good day with a great companion, and I couldn't be happier.  Now I must go soak my poor feet.

They can't Drive 55, Apparently

One of the main things I was not excited about when deciding to move up here was NY drivers, especially since I've only been driving for a little over a month.  Granted, every state has its idiots.  Jersey drivers tend to forget which pedal is which, erring on the side of speed, whereas PA drivers do just the opposite, though in their defense, they're just trying to get to the Country Kitchen buffet for the early bird special.

This past weekend, the bf and I drove back down to PA to visit friends and drove back on Monday, which is about a 5.5 hour drive.  It really wasn't that bad, though I definitely saw some interesting maneuvers, like the guy who came up real close behind me and put on his high beams to get me to move out of lane.

After you get off the NY thruway onto the local section of 87, the speed limit is 55.  Clearly, this is just a very silly suggestion and has no bearing on anyone's reality.  I usually follow the "+5" rule on highways, going up to 5 miles above the speed limit to keep traffic moving.  I was going 65 and I might as well have been crawling forward at 20 with my blinkers on.  The pure, unadulterated rage I inspired in the drivers behind me was almost Shakespearean as they flew past, cursing my little blue Kia and all who drive at sane speeds.

Granted, we all feel the urge to press the gas a bit more, but if you're going fast enough that the edges of time and space begin to blur, you might want to ease up off the pedal a bit.

Our House...in the Middle of the Woods

I actually made this a little while ago, but I was lazy and didn't get a chance to promote it.  So here it is, fresh from Burns Productions, a tour of the Oakbrook Commons Estate, West and East wings respectively:

The apartment is very nice, and it's kind of nice not to worry about things like out-of-state landlords and an uncooperative toilet flusher.  Also, whoever invented the garbage disposal is my new god.

Nice to Know You, Incubus

Tonight I had my first taste of Saratoga Springs, specifically the Performing Arts Center (SPAC).  The venue was sort of outdoors-ish in the middle of the Saratoga Spa State Park, so the surrounding area was very woodsy and pretty.

Note: apologies for the sub-par photography.  There was no flash photography and we were kind of far back.

The opening act, Young the Giant, was surprisingly good.  Sort of one of those bands that does those softer rock songs you find buried in a quirky indie movie.  In all my concert-going experience, they are tied for first in the "best opening band" category with Cold War Kids.

Incubus themselves were as awesome as I thought they would be.  They played quite a few tracks from Morning View, which made me super happy.  I especially loved that they played "Are you In," and got a little bit of audience participation.  I'm not a huge expert on a lot of their discography (though I did listen to pretty much all of it today via Spotify), so I knew a few songs really well, a few other songs in general and a couple songs I didn't know at all.

I also got to experience driving in the dark for the first time, which was pretty unremarkable.  No small critters committed suicide via my tires.  Though I had to park in a tree (really should have taken a photo), so I might have slightly damaged it.  Ah well, there's a lot of nature up here; I was bound to damage some of it at some point.