Why Albany?

Funny how I am on vacation… but I am still getting up at five thirty in the morning.  In this case it is so that I can take my wife to her conference.  Quite honestly I went to bed pretty early last night, so I am more awake than I would normally be at 5:30.  Additionally I have already finished getting ready for the morning… so I thought I would have enough time to knock out a blog post.

Search for Food

So far Upstate New York is vastly different than anything I would have expected.  Firstly we have found what seems to be a residential wasteland, with housing everywhere you can see…  but no restaurants and very few stores.  We ate breakfast around 4 am yesterday… and had a stick of beef jerky in Chicago O’Hare…  but other than that we had not had anything at all to eat when we got here around 4-5 pm.  As we started to roam around town we were absolutely ravenous.

We expected to drive around through the residential areas and eventually find some newer shopping developments which have familiar food options.  This was the theory… but after about 2 hours of driving around we really found nothing.  Finally we found a shopping center with a Target, Lowes, and various other big box stores…  and in it they had a Ruby Tuesday, Panera, Taco Bell and a Five Guys.  This is quite literally the first places we had found to eat that were recognizable in any fashion.

We opted for Ruby Tuesday… and while grossly overpriced it was tasty and familiar enough.  The way this area is laid out just boggles the mind.  I was expecting what seems to be the ubiquitous development model everywhere else I have been in the united states… of commercial areas along the major roads with residential areas between.  I feel like I need to spend some time looking at Google maps trying to get a lay of the land by air.

Another nuisance we have discovered is that apparently this part of the state does not believe in road signs… or at least not well marked ones.  Additionally the same street will change names numerous times…  so on one side of an intersection it will be one name… but on the other side of the intersection something completely different.  The entire area feels like some giant city planning rube goldberg machine…  and we are the little ball bearing making its way through it.

Why Albany?

Rowan asked the question as a comment on my blog yesterday, but I guess I have never really clearly explained why the heck I am in Upstate New York in the first place.  I usually don’t give a lot of details about my wife on my blog, just as a courtesy because she works in a profession that is always under scrutiny.  This coming school year she will be tag-team teaching a Forensics Science class at her school, whereas she does the mathematics instruction and she teams up with a science teacher.  We are here in Albany for a Forensics Science workshop, and the other teacher was supposed to be attending with her. 

However at the last minute they backed out… and I did not want my wife having to navigate Albany completely by herself.  So I took the time off and we are trying to make a vacation of it.  While this may not be the most touristy destination we have been to… there are definitely some interesting things to look at.  Our hotel is in Schenectady, and just down from it is a really cool downtown area full of interesting buildings.  We are hoping to have a few nice days to wander around down there and take photos.

So far however it has been overcast and rainy.  Apparently New York State rain means serious business.  We were driving around yesterday when the sky opened up on us… and remember…  I am from Oklahoma…  we are used to thunderstorms…  but these were literally some of the largest rain drops I have ever seen.  Everything went from clear to flash flood conditions in moments.  I just kept driving because quite literally I was afraid I would drown the car if I attempted to turn off the road.  Again I am no stranger to flash flooding… but this was pretty crazy… usually the clouds move off quickly but this one just seemed to hang over the top of us for a good thirty minutes.

Chicago O’Hare

I know I bitched about this one yesterday a bit… but I have to bring it up again.  My wife travels a lot during the summer, and as a result she has experienced most of the big airport hubs.  Chicago O’Hare is literally the first airport she has ever been in that did not have free WiFi.  It is complete crap that what gets touted as the nations busiest airport does not have free internet.  Hell even when we landed in Albany… they had free WiFi, and that Airport is hands down the most dysfunctional one I have ever experienced.

When we landed in Albany, the route to the baggage claim was rather contorted winding us through what felt like half the airport just to get to it.  When we arrived there seemed to be only one baggage carousel servicing any of the incoming flights.  This one area was trying to serve up luggage from 8-10 flights… quite honestly they were scrolling past on the monitor too fast for me to get a good count.  We waited and watched as luggage went past…  including bags for the rest of the passengers on the plane we just arrived on.

But we did not see our bag anywhere… and during this time I am going through my mind trying to figure out what we would need to do if we had a lost bag.  Once the crowd cleared… and quite literally it had been shoulder to shoulder as we waited for our bag…  I was able to look around the room.  Across the room I spotted our bag at the unclaimed luggage area.  I am guessing our luggage arrived on an earlier flight and was just sitting there waiting on us.  So the forty five minutes we spent standing around watching for it… were essentially useless… but I could not see across the room.

Wrapping Up

Well it is time for me to run my wife to the conference.  I hope you all have a great day.  I will likely be coming back to the hotel room to do some googling and try and find something to do during the day.  If all else fails I will just boot up Rift or Cube World and entertain myself just fine.  I find it funny that I have a ton of people on twitter and G+ but not a single person in this area so far.