Family

Sunday's Post Standard featured this story about the newfound cleanliness in Onondaga Lake. This is great news for Syracuse!

Many negative perceptions center around this lake and its infamous pollution levels. In 1987, the Phosphorus levels in the lake were at 120 micrograms per liter. In comparison, Skaneateles Lake, where we get our drinking water, has only 4 micrograms per liter. Now the levels are at 17, which is below the court-ordered level of 20 micrograms.

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November 15th 1:30-3:30 “Letting Go of Negative Mind Patterns”

Elaine Wolf Steinberg, LMFT, MSW and Robert Kiltz, MD are happy to offer you a workshop designed to help you restructure your thinking. If you find yourself having recurring negative thoughts about yourself, life, and others, this is the workshop for you. We will do an activity to help you change negative thinking. Meditation, light movement, and creative visualization will be done to help you quiet your mind and heal. You will leave with tools to quiet the ‘inner critic’ and create the beautiful life you deserve.

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The Taste of Syracuse, held this year on June 5th and 6th in Clinton Square, is one of my all time favorite Syracuse events. It is becoming a tradition for a group of friends and I – we attend this event every year. I have discovered some of my now favorite restaurants there.

By Kirk House
Story curtsey of The Syracuse Chamber and Visitor’s Bureau Magazine. Available online at http://www.visitsyracuse.org/media/VisitSyracuseMagazine.pdf

Nobody can say it – everybody loves it. Skan-ee-AT-las is the name… “Long Lake” in the local Iroquoian tongue. It’s just the right size for strolling from shop to shop to shop, and the lake itself makes a wonderful backdrop for the 19th-century shopping district.

Story curtsey of The Syracuse Chamber and Visitor’s Bureau Magazine. Available online at http://www.visitsyracuse.org/media/VisitSyracuseMagazine.pdf

What kind is your favorite? Empire? Macintosh? Cortland? Whatever your choice, there are tons of local apple orchards within a 15 minute drive of downtown for you to sink your teeth into.

A few weeks ago, I visited Beak and Skiff Apple Farms in Lafayette and was pleasantly surprised at all they had to offer. Not only apple picking - complete with riding a tractor out to the orchard and getting "let loose" to choose the perfect pieces for a pie, cake or just to nibble - but a full country store, apple tasting stations, games and horse rides for the kids -- and a winery!

Anyone flying US Airways in September 2007 had the opportunity to read a 58-page profile on our great city. It's a glowing review that focuses on everything from entrepreneurship to Dinosaur BBQ.

My favorite section featured a lifelong resident versus a transplant to our area. While their views were different, both mentioned the high quality of life and the variety of things to do.

Check out the links below to read each section of the feature. These are PDFs:

Word of Mouth

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Above the hideaways of the Underground Railroad, and the covered-over speakeasys, lies a coffee shop that was both the delivery room for the birth of 40 Below, two weekly outdoor concert series, and a favorite resting stop for Onondaga Nation faithkeeper Oren Lyons. Coffee Pavilion, co-owned by Bill Harper and George Feltman, is in its fifth year of existence...as a coffee shop, that is. Before that, it was just one of the dozens of architecturally distinct buildings that make up Downtown Syracuse.

Last weekend, my parents were in town. When they show up, I always make an attempt to fill the visit with fun and excitement, with the ultimate goal of showing them how great it is to live in Syracuse. They have lived in Chicago for the majority of their adult lives (in the actual city, not a suburb) and are surprised by how things operate around here. They'll say things like "Do you think we'll hit traffic?" To which my response is a laughing "no.. this is Syracuse!"