All Over Albany

Pics from the Albany flash flooding

Behind Western Ave near Quail. (Thanks, Laura.)

That thunderstorm late Tuesday afternoon hit the Albany area with around 2 inches of rain (plus hail) in a very short time, causing flash flooding in parts of the city.

Here's a roundup of tweets and Instagram pics of the flooding...

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Two star general with ties to Capital Region killed in Afghanistan, Soares to put Backpage Johns on Frontpage website to combat sex trafficking, flash flooding leaves cars submerged, 9 year old Albany chess champ to represent U.S.

A two-star general and Albany native was killed in Afghanistan this week. Major General Harold J. Greene, a graduate of Guilderland High School and RPI,
is the highest-ranked military officer to be killed in combat since Vietnam. Greene died
from gunshot wounds sustained in an attack at the Marshal Fahim National Defense University. Andrew Cuomo has ordered flags at half staff in honor of Major General Greene.[TU][TWCN][WNYT][TU]

Storms caused flash flooding in Albany on Tuesday downing trees and leaving cars underwater in sections of the city. More than 5,300 people lost power due to the storm
Hundreds of National Grid customers were still without power on Wednesday morning.[TU][AOA][WNYT][News 10]

David Soares announced Frontpage on Tuesday -- a website dedicated to combating sex trafficking in Albany County--where he promised to post a photo of every person convicted of paying for sex in the county. [WNYT][TWCN][TU]

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Beach trips from the Capital Region

Sometimes nothing short of the ocean will do.

August is here and it's time to get out there and do all of those summer activities on your list. One of my favorites is a trip to the beach. And while Grafton Lakes or Lake George are nice, they don't really compare to the Atlantic Ocean.

The good news is that the Capital Region is close to some wonderful destinations for a day trip or overnight getaway to the beach.

Here are my top picks for ocean beach spots nearby...

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What's up in the Neighborhood

Among the topics in this most recent spin around the Capital Region's online neighborhood: many lives, speeders, the American dream, mountain hiking, paddling, Westchester, Portland, Bacon Fest, Burmese food, a silence-inducing bite, coffee, chicken parm, letters to the editor, sound, Alaska, and ice cream-making women.

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Park wi-fi

Four state parks -- including Saratoga Spa State Park -- are getting free wi-fi coverage, the Cuomo admin announced today. (The service is being provided as part of pilot program collaboration between a parks information service and a car company.) And while there will almost surely be good/interesting/helpful applications of the service (map downloads, environmental sensors, whatever) -- we gotta admit that the cranky, grumpy side of us is thinking, you know, that maybe we go to the park to get away from stuff like wi-fi...

- Wed 2:07 PM - 4 comments

Can you answer these five 8th grade math questions correctly?

On Wednesday the state Education Department released half of the questions from this year's ELA and mathematics state tests for grades 3-8. From the NYSED EngageNY site:

These questions have been annotated to display the kinds of thinking students are required to do in the new Common Core Tests. These documents will be helpful for better understanding the requirements and expectations of the Common Core state tests.

The Common Core and standardized testing have gotten a lot of attention (much of it criticism) over the last year. And as a result, we were curious about what sorts of questions are on these tests -- so we browsed through a few of them today. And we couldn't help but quiz ourselves a bit along the way.

We figured you might be interested in doing that, too. So we pulled five questions from the 8th grade mathematics test -- they're after the jump with the (hidden) answers.

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