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rebeccmeisterUnsurprisingly, a substantial fraction of the weekend was devoted to Rowing Projects, which I should blog about in a separate post. However, on Sunday, I did a round of more general Car Errands, which included one adventure that was most particularly entertaining.
My first stop was the closest Goodwill to drop off some donations that have been sitting on our front porch for several years. The Goodwill is one town over and 8.3 miles away, in a direction generally inhospitable to bicycling, so we rarely go over there. I noticed an Ace Hardware on my way as I drove over, so I stopped in after the Goodwill leg, and obtained most of the hardware store items I was after (various nuts, bolts, and screws, some buckets, et cetera).
My destination after Ace was Target, largely in the interest of obtaining one of those big, plastic folding tables. But after I departed from Ace, driving along, I eventually realized a small problem: the Target is located along Central Ave, and I was driving on Western Ave, not Central! Argh!
I didn't have the Bossy Lady turned on, so I figured, what the heck, I'll just make a left somewhere and start working my way over towards Target and Central Ave.
This is where the State Offices come in. It seems like anytime S and I are driving around on our regional interstates and highways to try and complete some errands, we inevitably go past signs for the State Offices.
The State Offices are part of the Bermuda Triangle of Albany. Here's a screenshot of the area:
You can see lots of bicycling infrastructure directly around the SUNY-Albany campus, sure. The State Offices are that large ring area to the right, where you can see tiny dotted scraps labeled as "trails" or "bicycle-friendly" roads, and you can even see how in theory, Washington Ave might get a person on a bicycle into the State Offices.
But also notice allllll of the freeway onramps and offramps, most especially the corkscrews-in-corkscrews. Oh, and there's a giant mall to the left of the SUNY-Albany campus, you know, right on the OTHER side of Interstate-87.
I eventually managed to escape, but DAMN if that section of town/suburb isn't just completely miserable! I really cannot understand how people can work there and have any concept whatsoever of anything other than the hell that is suburbia.
Not that Target is any better. My main reason for going there was that it currently seems to be the least-awful of the various options for obtaining items such as 6-ft-long plastic folding tables. Not that the tables were easy to find inside the store, mind you. As I circled around for the eighth time in search of them (*not* exaggerating!), I kept thinking aboutmallorys_camera's recent comments about late-stage Capitalism, the evidence of which is all over the place inside of a "failing" big-box retailer such as this one. Every time I go into that sort of shop, a substantial part of me wants to shrivel up and die, and I completely lose sight of the meaning of life.
However! By some miracle I eventually found the section with the folding tables and chairs, and by a second act of a higher deity the very table I'd scoped out online was indeed exactly what I was looking for, and available! So I bought it and then promptly got the hell out of there.
My whole reason for buying the table is somewhat silly, but only *somewhat*. One of the local bicyclists has just started to run a bike valet at area events, but hasn't yet scraped together the resources to purchase some of the necessities for a bike valet, such as a pop-up tent and a folding table. I very much want to help the bike valet be a success, but I'm rather low on time for volunteering. So instead I figure I can contribute materially. I've already got a pop-up tent that sits idle most of the time, so let's get it out into the world more frequently as shelter for bike valet volunteers. Plus, we ran short on folding tables for our annual regatta, so another such table will get used on multiple occasions.
Hmm, you know, though, I should really cover MY folding table with bike stickers.
My first stop was the closest Goodwill to drop off some donations that have been sitting on our front porch for several years. The Goodwill is one town over and 8.3 miles away, in a direction generally inhospitable to bicycling, so we rarely go over there. I noticed an Ace Hardware on my way as I drove over, so I stopped in after the Goodwill leg, and obtained most of the hardware store items I was after (various nuts, bolts, and screws, some buckets, et cetera).
My destination after Ace was Target, largely in the interest of obtaining one of those big, plastic folding tables. But after I departed from Ace, driving along, I eventually realized a small problem: the Target is located along Central Ave, and I was driving on Western Ave, not Central! Argh!
I didn't have the Bossy Lady turned on, so I figured, what the heck, I'll just make a left somewhere and start working my way over towards Target and Central Ave.
This is where the State Offices come in. It seems like anytime S and I are driving around on our regional interstates and highways to try and complete some errands, we inevitably go past signs for the State Offices.
The State Offices are part of the Bermuda Triangle of Albany. Here's a screenshot of the area:
You can see lots of bicycling infrastructure directly around the SUNY-Albany campus, sure. The State Offices are that large ring area to the right, where you can see tiny dotted scraps labeled as "trails" or "bicycle-friendly" roads, and you can even see how in theory, Washington Ave might get a person on a bicycle into the State Offices.
But also notice allllll of the freeway onramps and offramps, most especially the corkscrews-in-corkscrews. Oh, and there's a giant mall to the left of the SUNY-Albany campus, you know, right on the OTHER side of Interstate-87.
I eventually managed to escape, but DAMN if that section of town/suburb isn't just completely miserable! I really cannot understand how people can work there and have any concept whatsoever of anything other than the hell that is suburbia.
Not that Target is any better. My main reason for going there was that it currently seems to be the least-awful of the various options for obtaining items such as 6-ft-long plastic folding tables. Not that the tables were easy to find inside the store, mind you. As I circled around for the eighth time in search of them (*not* exaggerating!), I kept thinking about
mallorys_camera's recent comments about late-stage Capitalism, the evidence of which is all over the place inside of a "failing" big-box retailer such as this one. Every time I go into that sort of shop, a substantial part of me wants to shrivel up and die, and I completely lose sight of the meaning of life.However! By some miracle I eventually found the section with the folding tables and chairs, and by a second act of a higher deity the very table I'd scoped out online was indeed exactly what I was looking for, and available! So I bought it and then promptly got the hell out of there.
My whole reason for buying the table is somewhat silly, but only *somewhat*. One of the local bicyclists has just started to run a bike valet at area events, but hasn't yet scraped together the resources to purchase some of the necessities for a bike valet, such as a pop-up tent and a folding table. I very much want to help the bike valet be a success, but I'm rather low on time for volunteering. So instead I figure I can contribute materially. I've already got a pop-up tent that sits idle most of the time, so let's get it out into the world more frequently as shelter for bike valet volunteers. Plus, we ran short on folding tables for our annual regatta, so another such table will get used on multiple occasions.
Hmm, you know, though, I should really cover MY folding table with bike stickers.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-13 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-13 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-13 06:21 pm (UTC)I think you mean the people who live there. For people who work there, the highways take them right to work! No fighting through traffic on local roads, no dealing with poorly-timed traffic lights.
The interchanges are a little squashed, but otherwise typical. If I get a chance, I'll post some maps of the spaghetti interchanges around Baltimore.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-13 07:53 pm (UTC)I also think the extent to which they are "typical" depends on one's frame of reference. Oakland, CA, does have its stack, but it also seems to have many more back roads for people not solely interested in driving through at speed. (of course, it does have other problems, too!)
no subject
Date: 2025-10-13 08:09 pm (UTC)As you wish. :) Having worked in a place right off a highway, I found it convenient.
By "typical" I mean that they're mooshed cloverleaf and trumpet interchanges, not things so strange that even their designers don't know what to call them. :)
Lemme tell ya 'bout the lack of back roads! This area is horrible that way. Hopefully, I'll still have the focus to post about that later.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-13 09:10 pm (UTC)