Downtown Albany and the Bronx Zoo - an Educational MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Well, it’s midnight, and no way am I going to be up before at least 10 AM tomorrow, since it’s been a hell of a week and a hell of a weekend. So I am posting tonight. But what a fun weekend!

All pictures provided are public, easy to access and thanks to Mr Bus Guy for recommending Picasa, it does seem very easy to use.

On Friday night we went to see the Blue Man Group - greatest rock concert ever, IMO, down at the Pepsi. They had a program on “How to be a Megastar volume 2.0” and they were extremely entertaining and quite hilarious. I love them. I hate the Pepsi. I promised I’d never go back to the Pepsi again unless it was BMG - and guess who shows up.

Before I continue, here’s a pic for the fog lovers - My street.

Saturday my friend came up and we went down to take the Albany Aquaducks tour. I was really impressed by how much they are trying to make my City beautiful…downtown Albany is a place of pleasure these days (provided you don’t go past Pearl Street). Anyway, here are the pictures from that particular trip. Some of my favorites, first of all,
SUNY Adminiistration Building

Bridge Turns

And here’s the full link:

Albany Aquaducks

Sunday we went to the Bronx Zoo. We found it remarkably easy to find, which is always nice. They had no lions, though. And we nearly got in for free. When we first drove up, there was no one there at the entrance and us being the silly people we are, just drove on by. No one stopped us. We parked, then looked around blankly for a bit, especially when we suddenly came upon animals. But we felt too guilty to take advantage of it so we walked back to the kiosk, where the little man was now back. He was all kinds of sheepish, and charged us for admission but not for parking, as a thank you for coming back. So at least we took advantage of that.

The weather was beautiful and I have two separate sets of shots, one that I took and one that the SO took. You’ll see his are better, but enjoy them both - a fair amount of pics in both so you can either just skim or look more carefully.
My Pics

His Pics

Also, as per request -

Lions(no lions at the zoo, but I put in something that had the temperament of a lion) and
Tigers and
Bears,
Oh My!
Aaaaaaaaaaand…my very first ever YouTube video! Woohoo! Turtle

And yes, that’s me and the SO talking in the background. First time I ever tried the video function on my digital camera.

See you all tomorrow! Off to bed for tired old me.

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Oh cool…I just posted to the old MMP and now I get to post to the new one. Cool pics, Meeks. Haven’t looked at the SO’s, but I did watch your video. Cute turtle.

Very sleepy.

Off to bed.

GT

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Dude, I hate that rotating draw bridge so much. My senior year, when classes were over, we went on a ‘booze cruise,’ as it’s known, and we were stuck waiting in the damn river for a couple hours because it broke. Argh. Cool pictures, though. I’ve never been to a zoo before. I suppose I should go to one.

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bouv?? You’ve *never * been to a zoo?? Dang, where did you grow up? (Go ahead - tell me it was a wildlife preserve in deepest, darkest Africa and I’ll smack ya one!!) I love zoos. We were members of the Jacksonville Zoo, which I recommend highly if you’re ever in the area - their 10-year+ overhaul turned it from a crappy 50s vintage series of concrete boxes to a lovely park with critters in natural settings. Way cool!

Seriously, no zoo? I just can’t imagine. Poor dear…

Good morning. Miss Brandy is still on The List. 4 AM and she was smacking me in the face yet again. **FCD ** says he’ll have a talk with her when he returns. Yeah. Right.

So, it’s Monday and a holiday and as soon as I shower, I get to take my van to Guy Brothers Motors to get the undercarriage checked out. Sumpin’ ain’t right, and I’m hoping it’s not sumpin’ obscenely expensive. We shall see.

Then I’ma gonna get all domestical for a little bit - dustin’ and vacuumin’ and tidyin’. Then the world will probably end. I apologize in advance. And on that note, I’m off to shower. I’ve got some serious pillow hair going on, which isn’t easy, considering how short my hair is now.

Good job with the OP, Mika!

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Good OP Mika! You done the MMP proud. I’ll check out your video when I get home tonight.

I’ll be back for more general ramblin’s on later. Right now, I get to leave work and go to the dentist. Just a routine cleaning, but still, ICK! for a Monday morning thing to do.

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Heh heh. We have the white version of those birds walking around here. And flying around. They actually have a tinge of pink. Sometimes you’ll see the scarlet ones, but they’re non-native.

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Nicely done, mika. It felt like I was there. But I had to do some magic to slow down your video - that durn turtle was moving way too fast for me to see.

There a little town a bit north of where VunderBob lives that’s flooded. The entire town is closed down. Guess the nor-easter we had this weekend was a little too much for it. And I think a couple of the roads in that area are washed out too. Did you make it to work okay?

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Update to *The List * - two, count 'em, two incidents of cat puke - one in the living room, one in the dining room. At least I found 'em before I showered.

And now I’m off to the car place. Fingers crossed for a cheap repair…

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I love zoos. Well, really, I like monkeys, and they’re usually surrounded by zoos, so I love the rest of the zoo, too. As an aside, “zoo” looks very odd in the plural. Love the turtle video. Especially love the SO telling you it was going to use up all your memory. That’s why I rarely take videos. :slight_smile:

I’m home again today. Why? Mostly because I’m tired, and I don’t want to sit at work and hurt for many hours. We went to Maine this weekend for a wedding, and ended up doing most of the setup work because the bride’s family didn’t take care of the things they were supposed to. So, I ran around the reception hall and put up decorations and decorated tables and helped prepare the buffet all with a broken bum. I am told that I displayed a level of maturity seldom seen in the female animal, as this was all for the wedding of a man everyone has always thought would end up marrying me. I practically catered my ex-boyfriend’s wedding. I’m a grownup. :slight_smile: The interesting thing is that I’ve known him for ten years, I dated him on and off for four, and Saturday was the first time he ever danced with me. Of course, Saturday night I took a mess of percocet and went to bed at nine because all the dancing (one slow dance, really) and decorating took their toll and I was in agony.

So, yeah. Home again today. I have strict instructions to call Roomie around noon and tell her I urgently need her help with something, because she doesn’t feel good but can’t in good conscience take a day off like I can. I get to help her play hooky, which is what friends are really for. Until then, Ima go back to sleep. :slight_smile:

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I know about Gloucester and Isle of Wight County; you thinking of someplace else? Mayberry did fine, but we went out yesterday, and the west end of the county was flooded down by the river.

I’m at home, but it’s because of pre-arranged telecommute because of the holiday.

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A turtle - Oh my!?

Kind of a fly-by before I head off to classies.

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My maternal grandparents live in Barcelona. Gramps will be 93 tomorrow and that means Grandma gets to spend the next 20 days calling him an old man; she turns 94 on November 1st. Anyway, they live in their own flat and Mom occasionally goes to visit, at which point they proceed to gleefully drive her up a wall. I mean, they can already drive her up a wall just by calling at, say, 6am saying “I can’t sleep!” (which thankfully they’ve only done once, Mom threatened with not going to visit until they died in case of a repeat), but when they actually have her there they must make up for lost opportunities, right?

For several of her last visits, either myself or one of my bros have arranged to pick her up or spend a couple days there, taking her out of the house without the “youths”. In one of those visits, I took her to the zoo; we hadn’t been there in ages. The Barcelona Zoo was built over 100 years ago, for the Universal Exposition; some of the buildings are still the original ones. We had a lot of fun.

Last Friday when Lilbro came home, I greeted him with “hi there, brother-who’s-29” and he deadpanned “ah yes, so nice to be young. You know as well as I do that middle age begins at 30”

Of course, on Saturday my greeting was “hi there, brother-who’s-30” and he proclaimed that middle age begins at 40. So on Friday I was middle aged and today I’m not, by his definitions. We had lunch at his place (he is planning on moving there from Mom’s once he gets the rest of the furniture, right now all the storage space is the kitchen cupboards); he had dinner there with his friends. Sunday’s lunch was there again, the leftovers from Saturday night. One of his friends brought mushrooms; another one brought several cans of asparagus; another, chorizos from his uncle’s factory; two more brought cakes. Now we have one frozen cake from Mom’s Bday and 3 from Lilbro’s; we’ll probably get “Christmas baskets” and don’t plan on buying any kind of cakes or sweets until May at the earliest (the cake that’s in my place says “expiration date May 2007 without freezing, Dec 2007 if frozen”).

Anybody want some frozen cake? We’ve got chocolate, whiskey, lemon cheesecake and strawberry.

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Good morning, all!

Great pics, Mika! I love the Bronx Zoo. When I was in college, I used to go there at least once a month (there’s a pedestrian-only entrance to the Zoo right around the corner from the university). The zoo and the Bronx Botanical Gardens (across the street from the univ entrance) were my “happy places” back then. I haven’t been back nearly often enough since. I think I"ll have to plan a visit!

**Drae ** - personal growth can really sneak up on you, can’t it?

**Nava **, didn’t someone famous once say something about old age always “being at least ten years older than I am” – I can remember who that was, though. But it’s true for me! (Actually, let’s make it 20 years!)

**FCM ** and **Swampy ** – sorry your mornings started off with cat puke and dentists (too close to call on which is worse). I’m sure things will only get better, though! :slight_smile:

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Great OP, meeks! I grew up living within hiking distance of my town’s zoo. It had lions and bears and bison. In fact, they had a bull and a cow bison who would have a baby bison every year. It was a big deal back in the day when there weren’t a lot of bison to be had. The zoo (the fifth oldest in the US) was part of a greater park that dated back to the 1890s. They also have a very old carousel. You have to click on the picture of the Ross Park carousel building to see the one I rode all the time as a child.

We had a small tornado in the area on Saturday night…an F0…that’s not a typo…it was an “ef zero”. Not much of a storm but it did take the roof off an apartment building that was housing quite a few illegals from what I heard. Poor folks lost everything and are afraid to take aide as they fear deportation.

Today will be very busy. Must get press kits assembled. Meeting with DQ (drama queen) at one. :stuck_out_tongue:

Back later if I can.

Tupug

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dibs on the whiskey cake :smiley:

mika - great OP and great pics. You really dug that peacock, huh? Too bad he wouldn’t spread his plummage for you (in one photo he seems to be saying “you lookin at me? you lookin at me?”)
Sorry you didn’t get to see a lot of big cats - that’s the main reason I’d go to a zoo. I’ve been to a few - we used to take annual class trips to the Bronx Zoo; I’ve been to zoos in several other states and in London, England.
Albany looks like a neat place to visit. I was on the SUNY campus once for an intercampus theatre festival, but I didn’t get to see the city at all
Back and neck majorly out of whack today so I’m going to pop a few pills and crawl back into bed.

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Sorry I missed you, Mika. I took my daughter for a breast-cancer run Saturday morning, near the Egg.

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Done with nursing work until tomorrow, but off to library now.

I would like to be in a zoo–it might be more restful…

Greetings to all my fellow MMPers.

Someday I’ll tell you about Cynthia, my project partner from hell, but no time now.

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A slice of each please. :smiley: What? I’m hungry!

We actually have a pretty neat zoo in Albeeeny, not to be confused with Albany where Mika and Ex are. It’s called The Parks At Chehaw. It’s a couple miles from the swampcave. I buy an annual pass cause it’s a tax deductible donation and I like goin’ there and just walking around sometimes. I always get followed by peacocks too. A peacock bit ACBG once so he ain’t too fond of 'em. That was back on the farm when he was just a certain burly lad. Poor thing. He told me he wanted to find out what fried peacock tasted like after he got bit but he was told he could not do that. It used to be a thing to have a few peacocks around on a farm. I have no idea why.

Oh, the dentist was just fine. I got clean teeth. I also have a new cute little container of floss, a tube of Crest Sensitivity[sup]TM[/sup] toothpaste and a new toothbrush. I have no idea why the dentist gives me a toothbrush. I use a SoniCare.[sup]TM[/sup] So, a certain somebody gets a new toothbrush everytime I go to the dentist. The toothpaste and floss are mine, however. All mine. It’s been years since I bought floss and I buy a couple tubes of toothpaste a year cause I always get a little tube of toothpaste everytime I go to the dentist, which is every three months. I have very sensitive teeth and get 'em cleaned every three months.

This afternoon I get to go play consultant. I’m helping another place out with their accreditation process. Oh, and apparently I have poed TPTB in Tucson, cause I advised the place not to order a manual until January when the new one, aka, the one they will actually need comes out. TPTB had advised 'em to drop a hundred and forty bucks on the current manual which they don’t need. I couldn’t let 'em do that cause I’m nice, dammit.

Since it’s a federal/state holiday today, lots and lots of people who would normally be [del]buggin’ the shit out of me[/del] calling me up with questions are not working. The phones are blissfully silent.

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ya know, swampy, toothbrushes can clean more than just teeth. They’re great for scrubbing in little places, as long as you label the “scrubbing” toothbrush to prevent misusage. :eek:

Well, my Aerostar is in the custody of the repair guys and I guess I can’t goof off any longer - I’m gonna start cleaning up. <sigh> I hate housework.

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Gah. I’ve been horrible about posting lately, I know. Work sucks in my life, and I feel that I shouldn’t post without at least trying to keep up with the thread. Oh well. I should have more time this week at least, since I don’t have a mechanics homework set due - it’s a “catch up” week while we prepare for our exam.

Mika, excellent OP! I remember when I went on the Albany Aquaducks tour - it was great fun. And your turtle video is tres cute. :slight_smile: I wish my weekend was half as much fun as yours. I did get to finally meet in person someone I’ve known online for 2+ years, so that was good.

Yesterday it was 71 degrees 'Merkin here in Hanover. Now it’s 41 degrees. The weather needs to make up its mind already. :dubious:

Oh, I owe you guys some puns, eh?

Enjoy. I’m off to eat food and go to class.