Over 250 special events are planned for New York State’s Path Through History Weekend, June 20-21, at venues throughout the state. This weekend’s events are designed to make it easy to experience the Empire State’s rich heritage and diverse attractions.

In Albany County, don’t miss:

·         Family Fun Day: Summer Reading - Let it Take You Away

at the New York State Museum, 260 Madison Ave, Albany, NY 12230

Saturday from 1-4 PM for Free!

·         Postcards of Albany

at the Albany Public Library, 161 Washington Ave, Albany, NY 12210

Explore 100 historic postcards for views of Albany looked like at the turn of the 20th century

Saturday from 12-4 PM for Free! 

·         Destroyer Escort Day

at the USS Slater, Broadway & Quay Street, Albany, NY 12202

Commemorating the service and sacrifice of Destroyer Escort Sailors and their ships with a ceremony

Saturday at 9 AM, ceremony is Free, ship tours $8 for adults, $7 for seniors, $6 for children. 

·         Helderberg History Hike

at John Boyd Thacher State Park, 1 Hales Cave Rd, Voorheesville, NY 12186

Hike through time with historian Tim Albright from the  early settle of the Dutch from the 18th Century through the creation of the park in the 20th century

Saturday at 10 AM for Free! 

·         Historic Downtown Albany Guided Walking Tour

from the Albany Heritage Area Visitors Center, 25 Quackenbush Sq. (Corner of Broadway & Clinton), Albany, NY 12207

Highlighting historic places of interest, magnificent architecture and fascinating historical events

Saturday at 11 AM for Free! 

·         The History of Chess for Kids
at the Ten Broeck Mansion, 9 Ten Broeck Pl, Albany, NY 12210
Learn about chess around the world from its origins in India to the game changer of chess computers and everything in between.
Saturday at 1 PM, Suggested donation of $5.

Plan your visit to Albany and discover where to stay, eat and play and find offers and discounts by visiting www.albany.org or calling 518-434-1217. For the latest listings, check http://www.iloveny.com/paththroughhistoryweekend.

Whether you’re a sports enthusiast, a nature lover, curious about history or simply want to have fun, there is something for everyone in the 13 Path Through History Themes: Arts & Culture, Natural History, U.S. Presidents, Women’s Rights, Canals & Transportation, Civil Rights, Colonial History, Immigration, Innovation & Commerce, The Revolution, Native Americans, Sports History, and the War of 1812.

In conjunction with Path Through History Weekend, I LOVE NEW YORK’s social media channels will be highlighting various themes with photos, videos, event itineraries and more. Follow I LOVE NEW YORK on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or use #PathThroughHistory to join us on the journey down New York’s Path Through History.

Now this looks fun! Zip lining down a mountain near Lake George:

"The more than 3,450-foot zip line, one of the country’s longest, will rush dare-devils down French Mountain at speeds up to 55 mph...The ride has a roughly 1,000-foot vertical drop and will consist of four cables strung between two tall towers, near the top and bottom. People will be shuttled to the top on an unpaved wood road."

The ride, being set up by the father of the "Karate Kid", is set to open this summer. You can read more here.

I'm always that person chosen for a random screening. I'm padded down, my bags are thoroughly checked, and I'm usually then brought to a separate waiting room with a few others who are randomly chosen, too. At least there's usually cookies and juice.

In our post-9/11 world, these airport checks have become the norm. But a recent report showed that the majority - the vast majority - of tests were successful in bringing hazardous items like weapons and explosives onto planes despite going through security.

Removing shoes, going through potentially harmful X-rays, throwing out a perfectly good bottle of water - apparently these things are not only annoying, they're ineffective.

A lot of these points were brought up in a recent Washington Post column by Petula Dvorak - I'd recommend it.

Seeking Fall Interns

If you are a current university/college student interested in gaining first-hand experience in nonprofit administration, project management, and international affairs, consider applying to the International Center of the Capital Region for a nonpaid, fall internship. ICCR focuses on promoting citizen diplomacy and global awareness and has been welcoming the World to the Capital Region for 60 years. For further information and/or to acquire an intern application, please visit www.iccralbany.org under the Get Involved tab. 

When three of a plane's six toilets became un-usable, the Hawaii-bound pilot obviously had no choice but to land on Sunday.

Here's more on that from The Consumerist.

In other news, from earlier this year in March, *this* also happened.

Two iconic American artists, Andy Warhol and Winslow Homer, will be featured in major exhibitions at The Hyde Collection this summer. The Late Drawings of Andy Warhol: 1973-1987 will feature 50 drawings, some of which are on view to the public for the very first time. This exhibition has been organized by The Andy Warhol Museum, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. Homer’s America: Selections from the Permanent Collection will present approximately two dozen works, including engravings, etchings and paintings that chronicle American life. Both exhibits open on June 21. Drawing was central to Warhol’s creative output. Throughout his lifetime,Warhol created thousands of drawings as he observed and documented the world around him. As a youth in Pittsburgh, Warhol drew people and landmarks in his neighborhood. Working as a commercial artist in New York in the 1950s, Warhol produced playful and delicate ballpoint pen portraits and still lifes. In the early 1960s, Warhol created his trademark drawings of newspaper headlines, product advertisements, celebrities, and dollar bills that made him a major figure in pop art. “Andy Warhol loved to draw, perhaps more than any of the countless other ways he created works of art,” said Eric Shiner, Director of The AndyWarhol Museum in Pittsburgh. “Starting as a child under the watchful eye of his mother, Julia, who also happened to be a skilled drawer, Warhol first came to fame in the world of commercial illustration through his unique blotted line drawing style. Throughout his career, drawing remained a key aspect of his studio practice, and in the 1970s and 1980s, it became a form of therapy for him, in that he would go to the Factory, alone, for several hours each Sunday simply to draw and relax. This exhibition shows all of the many facets of Warhol’s drawing style over the decades, and in so many ways establishes his drawing skills in the upper echelons of art and art history.”

Warhol’s late drawings, from 1974 through 1987, employ a confident and fluid contour line to depict many of the same motifs of his iconic paintings: celebrity portraits, flowers, and ads. Warhol often used an overhead projector to trace the source image onto heavy drawing paper. This technique, used throughout his lifetime, allowed Warhol to produce “machine-made” lines that are equally automatic and expressive, impersonal and intimate. The Warhol exhibit will run through September 27 in the Wood Gallery. Homer’s America: Selections from the Permanent Collection, includes Winslow Homer works drawn from The Hyde’s permanent collection. Homer was one of the foremost painters in nineteenth-century America, renowned for landscapes and authentic representations of everyday life, particularly in his illustrations. Homer’s insightful treatment of his subjects, his point of view, and style captured life’s fleeting moments and were designed to engage a specific audience – the American people. In 1857, at age 21, Homer began his artistic career working as a freelance illustrator. As the printing process using cylinder presses was refined in the 1850s, demand increased for content and illustrations for mass-produced publications. Many of Homer’s images were developed into wood engravings for popular newspapers and magazines such as Ballou's Pictorial, Every Saturday, and Harper’s Weekly. More than 200 of Homer’s images were published between 1857 and 1875. He earned acclaim as an artist-reporter covering the Civil War, providing sketches of battlefield views and soldiers and affording Americans access to stories of the tragic conflict. Five works on this subject are included in the exhibition. Homer’s America also includes many of the artist’s better-known prints of children at play, such as Snap the Whip, and Winter, A Skating Scene, among others. As a naturalist, Homer painted what he observed, the details of the landscapes he created providing a visceral impression of a locale, whether it be the summers he spent in the Adirondacks or winters in Florida. The artist appreciated elements of nature – the ocean, forests, and mountains – and when man appeared in Homer’s work, the subject assumed an energy and heroic quality that were vital to the impact of the work. Homer’s America: Selections from the Permanent Collection will be on exhibit in the Hoopes Gallery through September 16. The Late Drawings of Andy Warhol: 1973-1987 is made possible, in part, through the sponsorships of Fenimore Asset Management, Fingerpaint, Glens Falls National Bank & Trust Company and Alan & Dorie Redeker. All exhibitions at The Hyde Collection are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York Legislature. What is The Hyde? The Hyde Collection is one of the Northeast’s exceptional small art museums with a distinguished collection of European and American art. Its permanent collection of nearly 4,000 pieces spans centuries and includes works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Degas, Seurat, Picasso, Renoir, Botticelli, El Greco and Tiepolo as well as major American artists including Eakins, Hassam, Homer, Peto, Ryder, Vedder and Whistler. The Hyde Collection presents major changing exhibitions in its two galleries, as well as lectures, cultural events, family activities, and school and outreach programming in its historic house at 161 Warren St., Glens Falls. For more information, please visit www.hydecollection.org or call 518-792-1761.