On the road again: Bouchercon, Albany, day 0

As bad as many of my flights are, most of them are on American Airlines, where as a lifetime platinum member of their frequent-flier club I have some privileges.  Today, I flew to Albany on United Airlines, on which I have no privileges.  Worse, both flights involved commuter jets.  So, I was expecting a rough trip.

Amazingly, everything went swimmingly.  The flights boarded and departed on time, I had time for lunch at Dulles, and I arrived in Albany in as good a shape as one can be after spending a few hours in tiny airplane seats.

After doing a phone meeting and checking into my hotel room, I headed off to register for the con.  Registration setup was in The Egg, a part of the Empire State Plaza.

On the way there, I walked up to and then by the rather imposing seat of New York State government.

On the way back from registration, I happened to pass by the state's fallen firefighters' memorial

and its Viet Nam veterans' memorial.

Both were lovely pieces, sad but useful reminders of some of those who have paid dearly in service to America.

Speaking of reminders, not far down the street from where the powerful gather to legislate on the citizens of this state, boarded-up storefronts and dead businesses shouted to anyone willing to hear that the economy is far from fully recovered.

On the other hand, this is still America, so if you want Lay's Chicken and Waffles potato chips

by God, you can have them--as long as you have $3.49 plus tax to pay for them. 

As it turns out, I had that much money with me, but I didn't want to risk having 1,600 calories of weirdly tempting yet likely nasty salty snacks in my room, so I gave them a pass.

Dinner was a good Indonesian tasting menu at Yono's, which a little research suggested would be one of the better restaurants in town.  The meal wasn't great, but it was good, and I'd definitely like to try more Indonesian food now. 

All the rest of the day and time into the late night went to work, as usual.

Tomorrow, the con begins in earnest.