Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:33:07 +0000

Technical maintenance is keeping me out of our editorial system until about 10 a.m., so I'm sipping coffee, ate some cereal and am blogging about ... well, nothing newspaper related.

I wanted to share a tasty meal: Last night, future-wife made a recipe that combines two things I'm rather "meh" about — eggs and salmon — into one delicious form. In the shape of a muffin! I refer you here for the recipe.

On an unrelated note: Andrew told me earlier this morning that I'm the only person he knows who said they liked the new City Center expansion design. I mean, sure it kind of looks like a chip fab, but I think that it makes good use of currently useless space, and the large glass enclosure serves to display and highlight the conventions that will (ideally) be taking place inside. For example: Can you image strolling down Broadway in the summer heat, praying for a cooling breeze as you glance inside the new City Center and see hundreds of Trekkies in full regalia trolling about convention booths and tables? Glorious.

But really, I do prefer it to the current City Center. I'm sorry, but anyone's who's using the "architectural heritage of Saratoga Springs" argument against the new design is standing on a shoddy soap box. Have you SEEN the City Center? The thing is already ugly. I still remember driving by it the first time, years ago, on my first trip through Spa City (I foolishly took Route 9 on my way up to Lake Placid, thinking it would be more scenic). It's already a jarring, shocking contrast to the rest the buildings south of it on Broadway.

On the other hand, if approaching from the north, it's not such a shock to the eyes.

In comparing the design to other convention centers the architects have designed, a local blogger wrote this: "Among the designs, only the center in Providence seems to fit in character of the city. All the others appear to be plucked from Sci-Fi horror movie story boards." Ironically, he/she posted that line next to the photo shown here. I think the image, especially with that dramatic upshot angle of the atrium, is downright menacing. It looks like the Martian tripods from H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" standing in formation, ready to obliterate Saratoga Springs and the Capital Region.

I don't live in Saratoga Springs, and I don't see the City Center everyday (well, part of it, out the office windows), but everytime I happen to go there I can't help but think how horrible I find the outside of the building. Short of knocking it down, I think anything is an improvement.