Valley views

I went to Syracuse on Wednesday to attend the New York Associated Press Association's annual seminar and awards banquet. The topic of the seminar was -- what else? -- the painful transition newspapers are making from print to digital. I came away from those discussions with more ideas than I could shake an iPhone at, so I'm going to take a few days to ruminate on the subject before I write about it here on the blog.

For now,  I'll simply mention that it was the first opportunity I've had to hear Gov. David Paterson speak in person, and I can report that he still seems upbeat, confident and quick with a joke despite his lack of support in the polls. I enjoyed his description of Albany: "a planet with little gravity and no oxygen." On the whole, however, he didn't seem to say anything substantively new or different from his other public remarks this week. (Follow the link in the box at right to read the Syrcause paper's report on Paterson's speech.)

Another highlight of my trip had little to do with journalism and politics: instead of taking the Thruway all the way home, I took Route 5 from Utica to Little Falls, and then went up through Dolgeville to get back to Johnstown. I took some photos along the way, some of which you can see here. I'll put the rest up on my CU site later today.  

My photography junket got particularly exciting in Little Falls, where a police officer asked to see my identification and wanted to know why I was taking pictures. Apparently, he thought I might be scoping out a bank and planning a big heist! We had a brief discussion about whether I was doing anything wrong -- I reminded him it's not illegal to take pictures from a public sidewalk -- before I showed him my press pass and reassured him that I wasn't planning to hold up the Little Falls Savings & Loan.

PREVIOUS POST: Photos from the Farm