Get Me Out Of Here

The top five Netflix local favorites for Lincoln, Nebraska:

5) The Oprah Winfrey Show: 20th Anniversary Collection (6-Disc Series)
4) Hope Floats
3) The Perfect Storm
2) Northern Exposure : Season 1 (4-Disc Series)
1) Wrestlemania Anthology: Vol 1 (5-Disc Series)

The top five Netflix local favorites for Albany, New York:

5) Pulp Fiction
4) The Sopranos Season 2 (4-Disc Series)
3) Queer As Folk: The Final Season (5-Disc Series)
2) Mallrats
1) Gremlins

OK, so Gremlins is a rather random number 1, but it's hard to get any worse than a top five that includes both Oprah and Wrestlemania.

An Ad Agency Tool

OK, I'm going to law school so it's not exactly like I have a sharply honed sense of cool, but I know one thing that isn't cool: driving a car with 2006 plates that read WASSAP. That wasn't cool five years ago and it hasn't improved with age. Anyone willing to put that on a license plate probably still answers the phone with a loud, drawn out "WAAASSSSUPPPPP!!!!" (which I now realize was never cool).

Pack It Up

Our home in Lincoln is gone. Yes, we still have a roof over our head and a place to sleep at night, but the place we called home is gone. Our dining room table is buried beneath paper, packing material, and other assorted stuff. Empty boxes liter the living room and packed boxes sit patiently stacked against the walls of our living room and in our guest room. Everyday, more of our stuff disappears from the walls, counters, and dressers. Our warm little house is looking bare and white and it’s never going to be the same again.

It’s amazing some of the things you remember when you’re packing up. Some of them are little things. As I walked up the basement stairs, I remembered putting the banister back up after moving in. I remember hauling the mattress from the guest room downstairs to cuddle up and watch movies for the day. And then, of course, there are the big things. I remember tying a rose to the front door and decorating the living room with candles and flowers on the day we got engaged.

We’ve had more than our share of good memories in our duplex and they do tend to come flooding back as you pack everything up. The thing is, after you move enough times, you realize that your memories aren’t tied to geography. We’re leaving the duplex behind, not our past. And even as we look back on the great times we’ve had in the duplex, we know there are plenty of good times waiting for us in Albany. It’s nice to look back and remember the good times, but you can’t ever miss the fact that there’s always more to come.

Ah, New England

The two-letter state code for Nebraska is NE. It’s the first two letters in the name of the state, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising. So why do people insist that NE stands for New England?

I called Time Warner to schedule a time for them to connect our cable (yes, we did eventually find a place to live). The rep on the line, Jason, insisted that our current address was in New England.

“Lets see, your current address is in New England?”

“Ah, no, NE stands for Nebraska.”

“No, NE stands for New England.”

Now I can see thinking there was a typo in the address, but don't try and tell a customer that they live in some mythical state after they correct your mistake the first time. Sadly, Jason isn’t the only person I’ve ran across who believed that NE was short for New England, but most people won't argue with you about it.

Exploring Upstate

We plan to get into Albany on August 1. That gives us less than two weeks to unpack and settle in before orientation starts. In other words, we’re not going to have a whole lot of time to explore Upstate New York (and we’ll have even less money to do so). So we made it a priority to get out of Albany and explore more of Upstate New York.

After the frustration of trying to find a place to live, we more than welcomed the distraction of exploring a new place. We started with Saratoga Springs, home to world famous horseracing. The town itself is quaint. Congress Park, in the middle of town, is a beautiful small park right in the middle of downtown Saratoga Springs. We had an amazing breakfast at Beverly's including the most amazing Eggs Benedict I’ve ever seen. After that, we explored the old mansions along Union Ave and drove by the racetrack (which we’ll be exploring more after we get out there).

After exploring the town, we headed out to the Saratoga Battlefield. In 1777, the British commander, Burgoyne, was marching his army south toward Albany. The Colonials effectively funneled Burgoyne’s forces toward the Hudson River dictating the terms of the battle. Burgoyne won a hard fought battle against the Colonials on September 19, 1777, but the victory was so costly that Burgoyne decided to entrench his forces and wait for reinforcements from New York City. The reinforcements never came and on October 7, Burgoyne decided to try and fight his way through the Colonial lines. The decision was a mistake. After losing 1,000 men, Burgoyne had to surrender when almost 20,000 Colonials surrounded his exhausted army of 6,000.

Above is a Colonial canon. The fence post in front of the canon indicates the Colonial front. Red fence posts, like the one below, indicate the British front.

After exploring the battlefield, it was off to the Adirondacks. The Adirondacks is the largest National Park in New York and comprises a huge portion of the state. We took Interstate 87 into the Adirondacks, but eventually got off the Interstate to explore the small, twisting roads that run through the region. Many follow old mountain strems such as the one below.

We continued heading north in the Adirondacks until we reached the Lake Placid, home of the 1980 Winter Olympics. We grabbed a bite to eat at a local pub and snapped this shot of Mirror Lake.

As it turns out, we spent too much time at the battlefield. We missed being able to take a run down the bobsled course by about 30-minutes (the sleds run on rollers in the summer). We headed home from Lake Placid and went out to conqueror the Catskills the next day.

In some ways, the Catskills were very similar to the Adirondacks. Mountain streams and lakes were everywhere and thanks to all the recent rain, all the creeks were up and the trees were a beautiful green. The highlight of the trip was the Kaaterskills Falls.

While Niagara may be better known, the Kaaterskills Falls are taller. In fact, they are the tallest falls in the state at 260-feet. As you can see from the pictures below, the falls are not well developed. There is not even a handrail to protect visitors. You can dangle your feet over the edge or snap a shot from above (as I did in the picture below).

Unfortunately, roadwork closed off the only access to the bottom of the falls that we knew of, so we couldn’t get any pictures from below. Obviously, there is a way to get to the bottom. If you look at a larger version of the image above, you can see pople standing at the base of the falls looking up.

From the Catskills, we headed back to New York City. We’ll talk more about our city experience later.

I wouldn’t exactly say I’ve been “missing it”, Bob.

And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...

I never thought that Milton Waddams could summarize my feelings on my employment so perfectly….I am in my last week here at the cubicle farm. I have been moved three times in the past 2 weeks. I was moved out of my big luxurious cubicle with a window (and you know what, the squirrels were merry), to a smaller cube sans window and finally to a half cube stuck in a corner, with no privacy. I am no longer able to hide my internet usage. If I had work to do I would do it, but they have taken it all away. I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason my security card still lets me in the building is through some sort of “glitch” I am in constant fear that they will fix the glitch, or that I’ll be moved yet again, and this time I will only have a flashlight and a bottle of Raid. And, I kid you not, they have actually taken away my Swingline stapler.

Albany

Last month, we got our first look at our new home, Albany, NY. In order to use our hard-earned ticket vouchers, we had to fly into LaGuardia rather than Albany. So we spent our first night in Queens, picked up the rental car the next day, and headed north along the Hudson.

Traffic heading out of the city wasn’t too bad and once we got across the Whitestone Bridge, the scenery quickly changed from urban to rustic. After living in Nebraska for so long, I think we were both excited to see so many trees and mountains. We passed through several small towns that could’ve easily been nestled in rural Vermont or New Hampshire. After stopping for breakfast at the CIA (Culinary Institute Of America). The campus, which is nestled just off the Hudson, is lush, green, and beautiful. Of course, the appearance of the campus couldn’t compare to the smells of French, Italian, and American cuisine that centered around the CIA’s five restaurants. We grabbed a croissant, a scone, and freshly squeezed OJ at the bakery before heading north again along the east side of the Hudson.

Along the way, we stopped at the Vanderbilt Mansion. We didn’t go inside, but had some fun exploring the property. The Hudson is beautiful north of NYC. This picture was shot from the Vanderbilt’s backyeard.

We approached Albany from the east and weren’t too impressed with the neighborhoods near the river. As we got up the hill and away from the river, however, the city began to improve. We parked the car and explored the Center Square neighborhood around Lark Street. The area has plenty of well-kept brownstones and Lark St. is a popular college hangout filled with small shops and bars.

After exploring the city a bit more and grabbing a bite to eat at a local pizzeria, we explored the Empire State Plaza.

The performing arts center, known as The Egg, is the most unique structure in the plaza.

Here's another view of the Egg and the plaza from the observation deck of the Corning Building.

We started the next day with a tour of Albany Law School. We spoke to Gail Benson, Director Of Admissions, and got a nice tour of the campus including both the 1928 building and the 2000 building. The buildings had a nice mix of modern and classical architecture and I think we both liked the feel of the school, which was a relief considering we had already made a commitment to attend.

After our tour the apartment search oficially began. Our plan was to walk through Center Square and call on any For Rent signs we found. Unfortunately, it rained the entire day making it difficult to talk on the phone, take notes, and stay dry at the same time.

Apartment hunting is never fun and it was even less fun in Albany. Few landlords we contacted returned our call. When we were able to schedule an appointment to view an apartment, it seems like we either didn’t like the neighborhood, the apartment, the landlord, or all of the above. One apartment rented by an old Italian couple stands out for in particular. The husband wasn’t home to show the apartment, so his wife, who spoke broken english, attempted to let us in. She claimed the front door to the basement apartment was stuck and asked me to open it. Turns out the door wasn’t so much stuck as locked, so she took us around to the back door. We continued walking through an unfinished basement and eventually got to the apartment. Even if we liked the look of the apartment, we couldn't have gotten by the dank, dusty, smell. I unlocked the front door to let us out and we practically ran back to the car.

The downtown apartments that we did like didn’t stay empty very long. We found an apartment on Madison Ave near Washington Park that we loved. We talked it over on the ride back to the motel and called the landlord 20-minutes after seeing the apartment. He never called us back. We found another apartment right off Washington Park that we loved. Unfortunately, someone was already looking at it when we came in and he took the place before we even had a chance.

After the frustration of dealing with landlords, we decided it was time to look at a few apartment complexes to use as last resorts and vowed to continue searching once we got back to Lincoln.

We had fun with the rest of trip. We explored the Adirondacks, the Catskills, and we still got to spend almost three days in the city.

Deal or No Deal

We had our big garage sale this weekend. Things went pretty well. (read as: we made enough money to compensate for our misery). It was hot this weekend. The temperature reached triple digits both days and the humidity was, um, humid. And we had a lot of stuff to sell.

I felt a little like Weird Wally trying to dispose of items that His and I have had for so long, but couldn’t justify hauling across the country. I don’t like to haggle and that made this weekend tough. If only someone had asked us to throw in some rope and strap it to their car!

I’m amazed by what people will actually buy at a garage sale. We had one guy buy His’ entire box of CD’s. Did he know the artists? Well, maybe a few put he wanted the whole box. What is he going to do with these? What must his house look like if he is just going around buying all of this random stuff? Why did a bunch of thugged out Gangsters want two-dozen glass hurricanes and a gilded gold mirror? Why would somebody want to refinish wicker? These are the questions that have haunted me.

The highlight of the sale: The boy who bought Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Thank you for buying that movie, but if you were really that patriotic, why didn’t you buy the flag desk?

And for the guys who bought our refrigerator: Its still there, please pick it up.