Blog Master G

Hola, America!

We’re home from an amazing Spanish vacation and the most incredible wedding of Alex and Cati. It took us 19 hours to get from Hotel Europa in Madrid yesterday to my in-laws’ place in Kinderhook (left hotel at 7am local time and arrived at 8pm local time / 2am Spain time), and another hour this morning for the final stretch home. Seven of the travel hours yesterday included 7 storm- and flood-filled hours (we drove through several feet of standing water, too) just getting from JFK to Kinderhook. Repeat after me: From now on, I will only fly out of Albany. We’ll have lots of updates and photos to share here soon.

Now we’re just trying to get used to being back in reality and not on vacation — we’ve also secured the dogs from their bed & biscuits — going through nearly 200 emails and uploading nearly 400 photos (don’t worry, we’ll select only the best to share; we would have taken more, but actually had to keep deleting photos to make room for more).

Yesterday it was officially announced that Universal Preservation Hall was awarded a $200,000 matching grant as part of the federal program Save America’s Treasures. Unfortunately I missed yesterday’s press conference with U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, who helped to secure the grant, but luckily fellow Steeplechasers were on hand to help represent the work we’ve all been doing to preserve the building and turn it into a new performing arts venue for the community.

The Saratogian / UPH receives $200,000:

SARATOGA SPRINGS — First came the rescue. Now, the work of the restoration continues.

Universal Preservation Hall took a large step forward in being transformed into the city’s newest performing arts venue with Monday’s announcement that it received a $197,000 grant from the federal program ‘Save America’s Treasures.’

U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, who assisted in securing the grant, toured the historic building on Washington Street Monday afternoon.

‘I recognize the value of preserving a treasure like this and making it functional,’ said Sweeney, admiring the building that boasts the tallest spire in Saratoga and was originally built in 1871.

Sweeney said he anticipates the cultural influence, and the economic impact on the community to be ‘enormous’ when the 700-seat hall opens for business.

UPH’s new Managing Director Matt Kopans has started the official UPH Blog, and posted this about yesterday’s event.

Congrats to UPH on this great milestone!

You know you had a crazy, exhausting weekend when it takes you a full week before you can blog about it. So here it is Saturday, and, as promised, I will recap our non-stop adventures last Friday through Tuesday, a 4th of July weekend to remember.

We kicked off the weekend Friday evening with an extended, 8-hour-or-so happy hour, which began at Professor Moriarty’s patio, followed by stops at the City Tavern roof, Thirteen, DA’s, and Trotters. It was a beautiful summer evening to bask in the sunshine on the roof and enjoy libations into the night.

Saturday we packed some night bags and headed to New York City to hang out with my cousin Rose. We hung out with Rose at GP and CM’s beautiful house (reminded me of their other house we visited in London, though Apple wasn’t home this time), enjoyed some delicious Korean food, met her cool friends, and partook of some rooftop shots.

Sunday on our way out of the city, we stopped in Hoboken to see Heather, Saahil, and Poodleman Ollie (a very cool, energetic, playful standard poodle). Then we stopped in Kinderhook for an afternoon BBQ with Karen, Joti, the rest of the Breheny clan and friends. It was damn hot and humid, so after a slow-paced game of badminton, I retreated to the couch inside for most of the afternoon. We then stopped to see my mother-in-law, then capped off our longest day ever by hanging out with Hugh, Jami, and friends, lighting some fireworks into the night. (Quote of the weekend: “This smells like freedom!” –Hugh)

As if our weekend wasn’t already packed enough, we thought we’d have a little shindig on Monday after mowing the lawn and power-cleaning the entire house. So Karen, Joti, Alex, and Justin joined us for a BBQ and drinks at our place. We ate turkey sausages on the porch, made some delicious watermelon vodka slushies, then walked into town. We made stops at Gaffney’s, 9 Maple (martinis after a night of drinking are never a good idea), and Trotter’s — where we suspect certain members of our party were being hit on by a swinger. Aww yeah. Later we entertained ourselves with a photoshoot on our walk home.

Tuesday Jen’s parents joined us for evening appetizers and drinks at Longfellow’s with my dad. The rain poured down and we were worried the evening’s parade and fireworks would be cancelled. Then the skies cleared and it was on. We headed to the packed-with-people Congress Park before having drinks on the Gaffney’s patio, then joining Hugh, Jami, and Alexis on the roof of City Tavern. After watching the fireworks from the street, we finished the evening and action-packed weekend with a few more rounds at the recently-revamped bar of The Wheatfields and finally called it a night around midnight.

Happy birthday, America!

Even more photos:

• Friday, June 30: Moriarty’s & City Tavern roof happy hour photos
• Saturday, July 1: Visiting my cousin Rose in NYC photos
• Monday, July 3: A_nderson party, Gaffney’s, 9 Maple, Trotter’s

Fast-forward to this weekend after a week of recovery and doing nothing. Yesterday we had apps and drinks again at Longfellow’s, then crashed out early after some wine on the porch.

Justin’s blog rules 101 are pretty funny if you’ve spent any time scoping out what most of the blogosphere has to offer.

We had one of the busiest, most action-packed, non-stop weekends ever. It was non-stop go from Friday through Tuesday. In fact, I’m still too exhausted and busy recovering to take the time to write about it now. But recap and pictures will be coming soon…

When you’re really psyched about something and spend a lot of time researching it — say a brand-new PowerShot SD600 — it’s a very exciting moment when it finally arrives. The 6MP camera is incredible. It’s smaller than a deck of cards, super-fast, and takes insanely high resolution photos — up to 2816 x 2112 pixels, including 1600 x 1200 postcard and 2816 x 1584 widescreen modes.

Of course, it was a moment of “ahh shit” last night when peering through the camera’s impressive 2.5-inch LCD display in low light, it appeared fuzzy when in camera mode. It’s like static on a TV. And I was convinced it was broken. The display looked fine in playback and video modes. But this morning I did some testing — indoor photos in brighter light and outside — and it actually seems OK. Mainly, the camera’s display doesn’t seem to like our new green paint on our walls, since that’s when the static appears.

Hopefully it’s all good because, as luck would have it, we dropped our old S50 Tuesday night before fireworks and now have only the red screen of death on the old camera. Luckily we had already pulled off all 118 weekend photos from it.

Stella and Happy are famous, having recently appeared on Sarah’s blog.

My dogs love squirrels as much as I do. When they see them, they chase after them. What makes that even more fun is when I’m on my rollerblades, as I was this morning (with Jen riding my bike alongside). Each of the several times we saw squirrels, I crouched down into a tuck and with one arm sprawled in each direction with a dog attached to the end, I let them charge. What a rush. So much fun. They’re fast, especially Happy Dingo, being a border collie monster and all who just wants to run all the time. When I don’t have Stella, the old girl, I can skate as fast as I possibly can and Happy can still keep up with me. Now that’s a fast dog.

And speaking of dogs, although I previously posted a couple random shots from our trip to the lake back in April (Lake Dogs | Happy Dingo by the Lake), I haven’t yet posted a link to all the amazing photos taken by Niki that day. Now you, too, can enjoy all 49 of them, some of which will one day be framed photos in my house. Thanks again for the awesome photos, Niki!

View all Saratoga Lake dog photos by Niki Rossi

If love dogs, the below video is worth the two minutes it’ll take you to watch. It comes courtesy of photographer Mark J. Asher, a fellow Californian, dog lover, Subaru driver, and guardian of Payton, a Stella look-a-like.

Two years ago today I was getting settled into my office in our new home, getting used to owning my own place.

Friday: Happy hour with Hugh, Jami, Alexis, and crew at Brindisi’s, followed by drinks at Thirteen and games at the Chandlers’.

Saturday: Chill day around the house; enjoyed being outside and living in a small town when friends stopped by to hang out; rode bike to Justin’s; hung out with Ken and Joe; went to sleep early.

Sunday: Dad and mother-in-law over for a wonderful evening BBQ and Scrabble on the front porch. Dad and Jen open the game with an unprecedented seven-letter, 50-point bonus each (HONESTY and DEAREST, respectively).

Monday: Tokyo Drift with Dad. Aww yeah.

New camera (we want to upgrade before our big trip to Spain next month): Soon to get a Canon PowerShot Digital Elph SD600 (Steve’s Digicams | CNET Review) to replace our current PowerShot S50, purchased in December 2003. The SD600 is on Steve’s list of best cameras. Jen and I used to have one of the original Digital Elphs (S110) and miss the small, portability of that camera. We also want something faster than our current S50, which has a 5-second delay between power-up and first shot, and a 2-second between-shutter lag time. According to Steve’s Digicams, the new SD600 in our future is very fast (a big requirement for us, along with small size and high picture quality):

“Shooting performance was very robust with power up until the first image captured took only 1.3 seconds! Shutter lag, the delay between depressing the shutter button and capturing an image, was almost instantaneous (less than 1/10 of a second) when pre-focused, and only 1/10 of a second including autofocus.”

As I mentioned on Wednesday last week, there was a strong likelihood that chip-maker AMD was going to build a new chip fab plant here in the Capital Region. Sure enough, the deal was confirmed on Friday. Though the factory won’t actually open until 2012 at the earliest and construction won’t begin for another couple years, I think it’s exciting news for everyone who lives in the are. The news will surely attract other companies to the area in antiicipation of the factory’s opening. Even if it is taking $1.2 billion of New York tax money — the same amount it would cost to build a much-needed light rail system in the region — to lure the company here, hopefully the long-term benefits will outweigh the investment. Of course, Jen and I also pay our taxes, but no one paid us even a dollar to move to Saratoga County… but the corporate welfare debate is one for another day.

For now, we’ll celebrate the positive economic impact this will have for all of us.

$3.2B AMD plant big lift to region:

ALBANY — Advanced Micro Devices Inc. will build a $3.2 billion computer chip fabrication plant at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga County, in what Gov. George Pataki called the largest corporate investment in state history.

AMD, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., said the 1.2 million-square-foot factory — also known as a chip fab — would employ 1,200 people.

In exchange for AMD’s investment, New York state offered the company a $1.2 billion incentive package that includes capital grants, tax breaks and infrastructure improvements to the Luther Forest site in the towns of Malta and Stillwater. An economic ripple effect is expected to bring 2,000 construction jobs and as many as 3,600 additional permanent new jobs to the region — along with the hope of landing additional chip fabs in the future.

AMD expects to spend $2 billion at the plant during the first five years of operation.

“The Hudson Valley is going to be America’s next Silicon Valley,” Pataki said.

State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, called the deal a dream for the Capital Region.

“That dream has truly come true today,” he said.

I just sent the below message to Governor Pataki and Senator Bruno. I’d urge you to send it (or your own variation of it), too!

Please do whatever you can to help the Saratoga Springs Universal Preservation Hall. Tom Lewis, and Deane and Jeff Pfeil have spoken to you about using a member item to help the restoration of the building. I urge you to honor their request and create a member item for the Universal Preservation Hall.

Universal Preservation Hall was built in 1871. Its beautiful steeple is the tallest in Saratoga Springs. The building, which was in grave danger of collapse just a few years ago, is now being converted into a performing arts and events venue. The building will add to the beauty of Saratoga Springs, the arts and culture of the region, and it will add greatly to the local economy.

I urge you to lend your support to the Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga Springs with a member item.

Senator Joseph Bruno
518-583-1001
bruno@senate.state.ny.us

Governor George Pataki
518-474-8390
to send an email, please go to: http://161.11.3.75/govemail

Making big news locally (Times Union | Saratogian) and around the country lately is the likelihood that chip manufacturer AMD, which competes with Intel, may be building a new multi-billion dollar factory not far south of Saratoga Springs. The factory would bring thousands of well-paying jobs to the area, along with thousands of supporting construction jobs and those that would come with other businesses that would spring up around the site, which spans the towns of Malta and Stillwater (Exit 12 off the Northway, just an exit or two south of Saratoga).

The news isn’t quite official yet — though it should be by tomorrow — but Gov. George Pataki has had some verbal sparring with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who’s been accused of leaking more details than he should have. There’s also a small possibility, it sounds like, that the plant will be constructed not at the Luther Forest (Malta/Stillwater) site, but in Marcy, NY, about 100 miles west of here.

I have a good feeling about the plant and think it will be great for the region — even though we still don’t have good public transportation along the Northway between here and Albany — and will continue to make Saratoga Springs be the place to be. That doesn’t suck for my property value, either. Even though it’s not likely, I hope that the surrounding businesses may actually be local or something other than yet another strip mall with Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

Bring it on, AMD!

Bruno: 2 chip plants in play:

ALBANY — Advanced Micro Devices may build two computer chip manufacturing plants at Luther Forest, Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno revealed Tuesday.

The disclosure came as Bruno defended the $1.2 billion incentive package to lure at least one plant to the site in his district.

“They’ve looked all over the world, looked all over New York state, down the Hudson, out West and settled on Luther Forest,” he said. “Why? Because we have invested in seven, eight years up there for this event, that’s why.”

The undeveloped Saratoga County campus, which spans the towns of Malta and Stillwater, is the chosen site for AMD, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver disclosed, while Gov. George Pataki said he hopes to seal the deal soon.

An announcement could come as soon as Thursday, Bruno said. The 1,350-acre Luther Forest site, he said, may become the home of two AMD chip plants eventually “if somebody doesn’t blow what’s going on.” The competition for such plants is fierce, he noted, requiring a big lure.

Bruno made his revelations during a sometimes angry-sounding, 15-minute discourse on his philosophy on job creation, his role in improving the state’s economy and the importance of confidentiality in economic development deals.