Time certainly flies! Back on April 16th we had the second meeting of the CNY Bloggers group, this time at Kitty Hoynes. Many of the people who came to the first one were at the second, along with some new folks. I can’t find the sheet now to list all the new people unfortunately, but it was a good time nonetheless.

There was one guy who made a very interesting impression however. His name is Larry Dietrich, and he’s the editor in chief for the Syracuse New Times. His presentation to the group was simple – write for us! In essence, something he’s like to see is more of a local flavor for the New Times online, and he’s reaching out to local bloggers to help do this.

It’s an interesting concept, one that reminded me of Huffington Post, so I asked some questions and answered a couple as well since I’m familiar with the concept in general. Each person approved would get their own byline and a link back to their blog. One can decide to write new content or post something that’s already on their blog; they don’t have the ability to repost via RSS so it would be a copy and paste situation if one went that route.

This is the kind of thing that takes some forethought. As the New Times figures out just what they really want, local bloggers would also have to figure out a few things.

One, time commitment; if someone is accepted will there be a request for a certain type of regularity that the blogger might not be capable of?

Two, will a blogger be limited to one post a week or can a blogger have multiple posts?

Three, if a blogger disappears for a long time, will they automatically be removed while their content stays?

Four, how many people who write will be allowed to write on the same subject? For instance, within the group are multiple people who write about food, designing and saving money; would those clash with each other, as well as the general goal of the New Times?

Of course the major benefit is potential traffic and notoriety. The majority of local blogs don’t come close to the traffic figures the New Times offers, and even those blogs ranked higher probably aren’t known by as many local people as they are people from around the world (I’d count myself on that one because of a couple of my other blogs). I know a few local people who’d be great writing for the New Times.

There is no pay, which is something that irked a lot of HuffPo writers when the creator sold it for lots of money so you might as well get that delusion out of your head. And yet, if your missives brought traffic to your blog and website… who knows right?

At this juncture I’m waiting to hear from Larry, who said he was going to reach out to me at some point. I’m on the fence because I write a lot already, and yet being able to reach more local bloggers than I do now, even with this blog… that would be hard to turn down. What do you think of this prospect?
 

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A couple of days ago I went to the Oncenter to pay my respects to this year’s version of the SOHO Business Show, aka SOHO Syracuse 2013. That stands for “small office/home office” in case you didn’t know. It used to be every October but they didn’t hold it last year and it looks like it’s switched periods with the major chamber business show… that is, if they’re actually having it this year.

I like the Oncenter, although it’s so big that sometimes it feels pretty cavernous. They always hold this show in the main showroom and it’s basically a bunch of booths set up where businesses get to hock their wares and services, there’s lots of banks and investment organizations, most of the local chambers of commerce will have a presence and of course local and state organizations that offer assistance to small businesses.

For the first time they actually had some presentations in one of the corners, which is the same type of thing the main business show usually has. I only got to hear a small piece of one, that being put on by my buddy Todd Engel of Engel Law Offices, and I only heard it from afar because I was getting ready to leave for reasons I won’t disclose so I didn’t get to sit down & listen to any of it.

Usually the SOHO show is a big more muted than the big show and this year was no exception. I often feel bad when I’m walking through the aisles looking at some of the businesses that are presenting that don’t have anyone stopping and talking to them and wonder whether they feel they’ve lost their money or not. Of course I’m not there for the entire show so it’s possible that they did do some business, enough to cover the expense of setting up a booth.

I made it through all the booths in about 90 minutes. The only reason it took that long is because I did stop to talk to some of my favorite people and participated in some taste testing. For instance, there was Yummies Cheesecakes, who gave me a sample of peanut butter cup cheesecake on a stick; very tasty, and this comes from someone who usually hates cheesecake. Dinosaur BBQ was there again with some pulled pork & sauce, and for the first time that I can remember Speech’s candy was there giving out samples of chocolate covered potato chips; I loved both. I spent time talking to Theresa Cangemi of Medicare Made Simple and John Hunt of Movin’ 100 and my local consultant’s group.

All in all, even if muted, I probably had the best time out of all of the SOHO shows I’ve ever attended and I even learned a few things here and there. What I especially learned is that the Oncenter is honoring black soldiers and veterans this month, and a couple of the images I’ve shown here, though a bit hard to see, are from their exhibit, which is spaced out but still something to see. Any small business that have never partaken of this should do it at least once; maybe next year…
 

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Usually I have lots of pictures to share of my local adventures but this time the topic warrants something slightly different. I’ve been sitting on this story from February written by Carl Schramm for Forbes Magazine titled By Forgetting Its Proud Economic History, Syracuse Loses Its Future, knowing I was going to write about it eventually but wondering how I was going to do it.

The story garnered a lot of attention locally, lots of it negative. People in general didn’t like it, and it got to such a fever pitch that the author ended up writing a second article backing up the first and basically saying we were missing the point. And he’s from the area so he should know what he’s talking about.

There’s almost always two sides to every story, and I’m feeling both sides of this particular story. I have to get this part out of the way; he’s not wrong. We don’t like how he said it and what he said but he’s not wrong. We can’t ignore that our mayor declared that the city would probably be bankrupt by 2014; that’s only a year away. We can’t ignore that the Syracuse school system is in the hole to the tune of around $50 million. We can’t ignore that the city’s pretty much only collecting taxes on 68% of the properties in the area. We can’t ignore that manufacturing has left the area and that our unemployment really hasn’t dropped as much as we probably need it to.

In the two years this blog’s been in existence I’ve written on some of the problems of Syracuse and central New York as well. I started out talking about assessment issues. We lost our symphony orchestra. I wrote about Syracuse schools & their problems. I talked about issues with Loretto, problems with Erie Blvd East’s crackling infrastructure, the ignoring of small businesses by the main Chamber, Shoppingtown Mall and the Galleria. Those aren’t pretty stories to be sure.

On the other hand I’ve talked about some of the good things the city has to offer. I talked about community theater, Armony Square, multiple restaurants and local networking, the Regional Market and Destiny USA.

Of course, Mr. Schramm might say that’s not quite enough to offset the problems of the city. I’d say that’s true, but I’d also say we have lots more to come. Syracuse University’s new Maxwell Center is creating a whole new breed of entrepreneurs, and a guy named Nasir Ali is working with leaders in town to help keep them here. The downtown area, at least parts of it, are going through a regrowth and rebuild and more people are moving into that area, living in luxury apartments, and there’s talk of creating another new neighborhood near Destiny. The Tech Garden continues to help create new business ideas and works on keeping those ideas in central New York, and the area is starting to be known as a technology power in its own right.

In other words, though I said Schramm was right, he was also wrong. So no one knows who Lyman C. Smith is (I’m sure he only means those of us who don’t go to Syracuse University. I bet most people under the age of 30 don’t know who Lee Alexander is, a guy who was probably the best mayor the city of Syracuse ever had, even if he turned out to be a crook.

The reason I and my buddy Phil point out some of the bad things in town isn’t to make the area look bad; it’s to make sure that when all this new stuff is coming into the area that no one forgets to fix these other things as well. It’s the same reason there’s a petition going around now looking for the demolition, clean up, and revitalization of the area around Carrier Circle. Those of us who are still here are proud of our area, love our area, and want to make sure someone in a power position knows it and tries to do something about it. And the rest of us are ready to offer suggestions if asked… or offer those suggestions on our blogs if we’re not asked.

Syracuse and the rest of central New York is in transition. And we’re doing it faster than Buffalo or Rochester or Albany. We’re doing it faster than Cleveland and Detroit. We’re going to get it done; who’s with me on this thought?
 

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I love cartoons, although I lean towards Warner Brothers and most older cartoons of that type. I also love art… okay, art that I can understand. I may not understand Picasso all that much but I had a feeling that I would easily understand the latest art show that was titled “Tooned In” that was exhibited at the Tymeless Tattoo Parlor in Baldwinsville this past Saturday night.

by Stephen Eckhardy

by Stephen Lindsey

Below you’ll see some of the other pieces for which I took pictures of so you can see the types of work there was. I tell you, there are some very talented people in central New York, and I’m glad I got to be a part of it in my own way. I just wish I was a better photographer. Be sure to click on the images to see them as they were actually taken, as I had to show them this way for formatting purposes.
 

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I thought about writing this after the season was totally over, which includes the NCAA tournament, but changed my mind. For me, with this being the last in the Big East, I felt it was more important to write about that than whatever happened in the big tournament. And if Syracuse happens to win it all… I’ll be back.

In my opinion this was Jim Boeheim’s best coaching effort in a very long time. We went into the season with really only two tested starters, that being Brandon Triche and C.J. Fair. We had no idea what we were going to get out of anyone else on the team; that’s the truth.

What did we discover?

We learned that we had a diamond in the rough in Michael Carter-Williams who, when he’s on his game, is quite spectacular. Unfortunately, he might as well have been a freshman because he wasn’t on his game as much as we needed him to be. That’s not really his fault, but comparison’s have to be made.

Early in the season national pundits had him suddenly being a top 10 lottery pick. I was missing that one; was he as good at Pearl or Jonny Flynn or, even Sherman Douglas? For that matter was he as consistently good at one of his coaches on the bench, Adrian Autry? My opinion, no; if he stays another year and improves his shooting, possibly. He’s not NBA ready; if he leaves he’s done.

We learned that we weren’t going to get any offensive help from the center position. DaJuan Coleman was Fab Melo all over as a freshman; too big, too gawky, and too slow to fit in the defensive scheme. Our hope is that he develops as Fab did for year two because, truthfully, he’s got the most offensive skill out of the 3 men who play center.

It was amazing what Baye Keita did in the Big East tournament but I’m not sure I believe he’s going to be an offensive threat yet; the dude’s got the weakest hands in the league. And Rakeem Christmas… man, I don’t want to pile on the guy, but I had expected some improvement from his freshman year & this team didn’t get it.

We learned that when James Southerland is on the floor Syracuse has a chance to beat anyone… when his shot is on. He had an up and down season which included those missed games in the middle and I think if he gets an NBA look it’ll be because he showed some other talents this year which the team needed; rebounds and an inside game. His ball handling is a liability but in the NBA, they have people who handle that a lot better.

C. J. Fair is going to come out next year as someone who’s going to be gunning for a top 10 look in the draft. He’s the most consistent player Syracuse has had in years and his game has gotten better every year. He’s the guy inside I think we all thought Christmas was going to be, the most overlooked forward in the nation,and I think he’s going to be a star next year, if not in this year’s big tournament.

Trevor Cooney… dude’s got to get his confidence because as it is right now he’s starting on this team next year. One good game in the Big East tournament doesn’t equate to a season. Gerry McNamara, someone who should know, says he’s lights out in practice; he needs to have a killer instinct, be tougher, and prove he can do it in a prominent program. And Jeremy Grant… he played like a freshman with talent, and I see him taking over Southerland’s spot and bringing a different dynamic to the position next year. If he adds 15 pounds… watch out.

Finally I’ve got to talk about my man Brandon. For 3 years I watched him make a mistake and then hang his head and I always cringed seeing that. This year he stopped doing that, and for 3/4ths of the year, he was the man in my opinion. Then his confidence went after a magnificent game against Louisville on their home court; I’ve never seen that before. He kept trying but when you’re pulling up on almost every shot you take, that’s nerves. I kept “willing” him to greatness; guess it wasn’t meant to be.

Still, with all of this the Coach got them to 26-9 and, in what I considered as the true final Big East game, beat the hated Georgetown Hoyas from my past, although today’s kids seemed to think our biggest competitor was Connecticut; p-shaw!

Just imagine what this team would have been had both Dion Waiters and Fab Melo come back. Of course, every year we say something like that don’t we? In the end this team had heart and I was happy to see that, regardless of the Louisville debacle. Coach Boeheim helped them find their heart, and that was great to see. This was also one of the best defensive teams I’ve ever seen; that served them well as it gave them a chance in all but 2 games this season.

A fitting end to a more than 30 year run in the Big East. Next year we tackle the southerners along with Pitt and Boston College (who?). It’ll be competitive for sure but it won’t feel the same. So I’ll cherish this year’s version of the Orange for their grit and wish them well in the big tournament.

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I finally got my wish; a Japanese restaurant very close to me that’s open for lunch and is fairly affordable. Not only that but it’s pretty good as well.

Kawa Japanese Restaurant moved into the space that was Verizon wireless and some old dry cleaners and is very new, probably less than a month since I’d driven by that space looking for Verizon & it was empty at the time. It was because of Twitter that I even learned that it existed, and it’s only 5 minutes away, in what I call Aldi’s plaza (it’s actually next to Aldi’s) in Liverpool, and across the street from what’s still my favorite place, Pier 57.

I went on a whim for lunch, not sure what to expect because depth perception isn’t my friend, so I was expecting a very tiny place. Instead, it’s long, if narrow, and its inviting. When you first walk in there’s the desk where you’re greeted and where you’ll pay your bill unless you pay at your table. To the immediate right you’ll see a well lighted sushi bar with a cool sign behind it with the name in it. The light rotates between 4 or 5 colors, and unfortunately it was too bright for you to see the name in it.

Across from the sushi bar begins the seating, bench seating on one side with chairs across the table. Further back are booths, but I’ve yet to go that far back. For my first meal I ordered what I always order, salmon teriyaki. I asked for fried rice instead of white rice, and was told it would have to replace whatever else they were thinking of giving me. At no extra cost that was a very easy decision, and immediately there was a difference between Kawa and Koto, where they charge you $5.95 extra for fried rice instead of white.

As you can see in the picture above, the presentation is pretty cool. The vegetables that came with is are some that I’d normally eat, but they’re served extra al dente, thus were a bit harder than I normally eat with a meal. However, the salmon teriyaki itself was very tasty, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. They also brought me a salad that wasn’t bad and some miso soup that I normally don’t consume, and it was okay but didn’t alter my taste buds any. The cost of the meal, including my soda, was still under $20, almost $8 less than it is at Koto and 20 minutes closer; works for me.

As an additional story, I went again with my wife for dinner one evening. She ordered the shrimp tempura which was tasty, although for my palate I might have wanted the sauce a little more flavorful. They gave us a free sampling of something they called volcano sushi. I normally don’t eat sushi but this was cooked and warm, and much different than what you’ll see online described as a volcano sushi roll. As you can see in the image, you get 8 pieces (in this picture I’d asked for 2 orders), and when you bite into it there’s a slight yet delicious crunch. It’s not spicy at all, so I’m not sure why it’s called volcano unless it’s because it’s sushi that’s served hot. It was great.

Finally, the staff is very friendly and constantly checks on you to see how you’re doing. They’ll also engage you in conversation, which I’m not sure if they’re doing as a normal course of business or because, since the place is still new, there hasn’t been a crowd in there any time I’ve been. I might have to experience a Friday night to see if it gets crowded, but it is still new.

This is easy to recommend. They offer hibachi cooked food but, as far as I could see, don’t have a hibachi set up where they cook the food in front of you. You just have to check it out; I ran into someone else I knew ordering take out from there and she said she loved the food as well.
 

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Some weeks ago I went downtown in Syracuse to the main Onondaga County Library, which is in the Galleria Mall between South Salina Street and Warren Street. Since I don’t live in the city I hadn’t paid much attention to the area for a long time. There have been a lot of changes; most of them aren’t all that good.

For one, the Galleria is now less of a mall and more of a place for some fancy office space. Gone are all the stores that used to populate it. Some of the spaces are still empty, while others have been filled by some kind of business. Luckily, the library occupies most of the space, upwards of 4 floors, but I have no idea if many of the upper spaces in other areas of the mall have any residents in them at all or not.

There’s still the diner/bakery Cristo’s, along with an office supply/gift shop, but that’s pretty much it. The food court, which was a big deal when there were still tenants in the old Sibley’s building space (Medicare used to occupy that space but they’ve been long gone), has been closed in and now Traveler’s insurance is there. Just like other cities that have tried putting malls into their downtown areas, it’s an idea that just didn’t work, and that’s unfortunate.

What’s also unfortunate is what’s going on in the rest of that block. While you see all sorts of things happening in the 300 block (where the Landmark Theater is) and in the 500 block (where the new Greyhound transportation center is), the 400 block is a mess of dilapidated and empty buildings with no purpose and not even any consideration as to what can be done about it. There’s still a large space that may or may not contain a post office; it was dark when I was there, though it could have been the windows keeping the light from escaping.

Part of that mess includes what was supposed to be both a community center of sorts and luxury hotel rooms or condos in some of the old Hotel Syracuse space that overlooked the city, now empty with a chute of some kind coming out of one of the rooms, as if the place is up for demolition. Frankly, it was pretty depressing walking in this area and it made me wonder how or if someone, anyone, might be trying to market it to prospective buyers.

This is definitely a major eyesore, especially being in the middle of two blocks going through some major renovation. Once again I have no answers; I’m only pointing things out. As we look towards making downtown both beautiful and prosperous again, a place where people will not only feel safe but want to shop, we can’t forget things like this, which aren’t going to be easy to solve.
 

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Actually I don’t spit on snow unless I can’t breathe, but here in central New York we don’t sweat the small stuff all that much. There’s something about living in an area where 9 of the last 10 years have given us more than 150 inches of snow in the Syracuse area, way more on the outskirts, that makes us feel pretty arrogant and dismissive when we hear that other areas of the country might be getting hammered.

Such is the case of the last 24 hours where, trying something different, the Weather Channel decided to name a winter storm for the first time ever, calling it Nemo. This was once again predicted as a perfect storm that would drop feet of snow all up and down the East Coast and dump grand amounts in certain places further in as well.

Truthfully, it lived up to its hype in many areas. Some areas of New England got more than 2 feet, some 3 feet, and a few other places got more snow than they’re used to. Something many of us weren’t paying attention to was another winter storm that was hitting Michigan at the same area, dumping a nice load of snow on their as well.

The Syracuse area got somewhere between 7 and 10 inches, depending on where you lived, and up north they got between 10 and 20 inches. Yup, that’s a lot of snow for sure. Here’s the thing though. Syracuse acknowledges that it gets a lot of snow, so it and the surrounding communities budgets its money to take care of the roads.

The main roads were actually pretty clear yesterday when the hardest snow was hitting, which was around rush hour, although it was slippery in many areas. My wife and I were driving home and it wasn’t even a blinding wind that we’ve seen in much worse weather. It could have been worse in other places.

I’m thinking we’ve all gotten to a place where we realize that weather patterns are changing. Any Eastern communities of the United States who aren’t starting to plan for these types of winter events better, budgeting for real snow removal services and equipment, and able to clear their runways so they can keep air traffic going are failing and should be ashamed of themselves. The only reasons planes don’t leave Syracuse is because the airports those planes have to fly to are shut down; that’s just a shame.

Massive weather events… we get it. Here, 8 inches is just another day; a messy one but we get on with life. If we get hit with more than that in a day, or are averaging an inch of snow an hour, yes, that will slow things down some, and we had that for a few hours yesterday. But the ability of a community that’s prepared to get roads clear as soon as possible for the protection of its citizens is a community to be admired for its foresight.

Winter weather… yeah, we’re living in the right place. Some might have said at some point yesterday they wished they were in Florida… hmmm, I’ve got nothing for that.
 

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For someone who doesn’t drink, it seems like I’ve been to Al’s Wine & Spirits on Clinton Street a whole bunch of times. This time it was for a get together of local bloggers, something I got invited to at the last minute on a very windy night and decided I just had to go, especially since I was having a last minute massage at Armory Massage in the same area.

When I walked in the door I was recognized by Renee Benda, aka cusecomm, who writes about local things like I do on this blog, who was talking with Mark Strong, aka phomancho, who writes about food. I was connected with Renee, though it wasn’t until later when I put her picture and seeing her in person together; much more attractive in person. I didn’t know Mark, but we’d talk a lot early on.

Eventually people started trickling in and I got to know some of the names. There was Christopher Malone, aka chris___malone (that’s 3 underscores), who works in politics and writes short stories, and was soon followed by Kelly Covert, aka trimommykelly, who writes about life as a triathlete, mother, and all around superwoman, and Amber B, aka amberbinteriors (that’s all I got out of her lol), who writes about interior design.

Once Margaret McCormick, aka mmccormickcny, who I wrote about almost 2 years ago when she challenged the Doubletree hotel in a cookie contest, showed up, Mark and I went to save us a space in the establishment, where we talked about his penchant for loving to create interesting food combinations, including desserts he won’t eat; strange concept to me that one, but I’m hoping to talk him into making this cookie thing surrounded by a brownie in a cupcake wrapper for me; oh yeah!

When others finally joined us we were off and communicating. I knew some of the folks already, like Sunny Hernandez, aka sunnyinsyracuse, with whom I’ve shared a few adventures I’ve written on this blog, including my first visit to the B’ville Diner and the day she tried to kill me at Green Lakes State Park, who writes about pies of all sorts, and Steve Borek, aka steveborek, a local business coach and theater arts producer who, along with Sunny, was part of a theater production I saw called Urinetown, a strange little show that I actually liked, though I wasn’t sure I would, who writes about business and coaching; makes sense.

And there were some people who came I didn’t know or hadn’t yet met in person. Those folks were Joanna Giansanti, aka joannagiansanti, who writes about graphic design and creativity (we were connected already so it was our first meeting), and Christie Jones, aka bedsidesign (who also doesn’t always look like her pictures), who writes about interior design, and her husband Ian, aka helloianjones, who’s the spitting image of Elvis Costello and even plays guitar!. And Sunny came with her man Steve, aka SMARTASScny, who runs Trivia Night at Wise Guys every Tuesday and informed me that real Irish people don’t eat corned beef & cabbage; who’d have thunk it?

It seemed like everyone had a great time as no one was left out of a conversation that I noticed, and maybe the one thing we didn’t do that maybe next time we will is have a quick moment to talk about our blogs, although I’d have had to figure out which one to discuss with so many of them. There were a lot of other people who said they wished they could come but couldn’t, and it was put together pretty quickly so maybe next time it’ll be an even bigger event, with better weather. Hey, this is Syracuse right?

It’s great finally meeting local bloggers, and I’m someone whose said that it’s great when we can support each other since most of us seem to have bigger followings elsewhere. I’ve looked at all the blogs on this list that I’m about to share with you below; go take a look, comment if you have something to say, and look for a message concerning the next time we get together, because I know it’s happening. Anyway, here’s the list:

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A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine asked me to come over to help him put an antivirus program on his computer. I got there, figured out what he’d done, and went through the process of uninstalling what he had and downloading an antivirus program I use all the time.

by technoloic via Flickr

I decided to run a speed test, and the site I usually go to is Speakeasy Speedtest. I ran it and his speed topped out at 1.15 MBPS. That’s barely faster than the slowest “hi-speed” internet service you can get; that made no sense. I ran it a few times using the Chrome browser; browsers have nothing to do with download speed but you’ll know why I mentioned it in a few minutes. I told him that Verizon tells people their minimum speed is around 3 MBPS, and of course Road Runner just went up to 15 MBPS, so we knew there was a problem.

He got on the phone to contact customer service. After 10 minutes or so someone comes on the phone to take care of his problem, and I immediately knew we were in for a long time. Like most call centers, they employ people who have no idea of how to take care of your problem. Instead, they have a manual that they go through, and they say that you have to go through all these steps with them or else they can’t take care of your problem; sigh…

For the next 15 minutes we went through trivial things I knew made no sense, but that’s how it goes. We had to reboot the computer. We had to run the speed test again, this time on Internet Explorer using their recommended site, Speedtest.net; same result. We had to turn off the antivirus, even though I had just loaded it and thus knew it wasn’t the program slowing anything down. We had to reboot the computer up into safe mode with networking and then run the speed tests again… nothing. After a few more things which resulted in nothing she said she had to talk to a technical specialist. That took another 10 minutes of waiting, but at least she did come back a couple of times to say she was still waiting for an answer.

When her response came, it seemed ridiculous at first. She said that they had on file that because of the location of his house, the fastest speed he could ever get would be 1.5 MPBS. That made no sense, as he lives in the Tippary Hill area, but that was pretty much that. She passed him along to the billing department so they could change the rate of what he was being charged based on their promise of 3 MBPS as a minimum. As I thought about it all I realized the problem wasn’t his neighborhood, but the city of Syracuse in general; they don’t have FIOS! Many of the outlying areas have FIOS, the high speed fiber optic cable that can bring multiple speeds depending on what you want to pay for, but in the city… nada. That he was told one thing, then had to spend all that time on the phone waiting for information that they should have had readily available was almost insulting.

This is one of those times when relatively good customer service was inept in more ways than one. It was also appalling that sales didn’t know this information up front, wanting to get the sale more than take care of a potential new customer, as he still would have probably purchased the TV and phone package. He’s planning on switching to Road Runner internet service for more speed, and now lamenting what he had to go through. This is more of an informational piece about getting specific information on how things will work in your location than a bashing of Verizon, although I guess both can occur at once.
 

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