A lot of pocket change

Last night I went shopping at a supermarket on Central Avenue - picking up a few ingredients to make a cake for the office birthdays celebration.  The area of Central Avenue that I was shopping is close to Everett Road, and for those not familiar with the City of Albany - very close to the city.  There is a very mixed clientele at this particular store - some "uptown" folks and quite a few "downtown" and sometimes "downtrodden" folks.

There was a gentleman in front of me buying a few cans of cat food.  Those small packets that are supposed to be "gourmet" for cats.  I watched as he pulled a pile of coins out of his pocket and laid them on the conveyor belt.  I think it was mostly nickels and so it took the store clerk a while to count it out.  The man buying the cat food seemed clean and not poorly dressed.  I still could not help wondering if the food might not be for the cats, and that the coins were all he could muster to pay for the food.  I truly wanted to think better of it and assume the food was for his cat - and that he just happened to have a pile of coins to get rid of.

Let's leave it at that.

What does it mean?

Halal is an Arabic word that means "permissible." In terms of food, it means food that is permissible according to Islamic law. For a meat to be certified "halal," it cannot be a forbidden cut (such as meat from hindquarters) or animal (such as pork.)

This morning my curious mind decided to find out what "Halal" means.  I've been seeing it every morning on the front of a store on Central Avenue.  I had guessed it was something similar to "Kosher".  It is similar as it turns out. 

I realize that not everyone really cares, or is as curious but when I see something that I don't know or understand - my reaction is to "google" it!!  So - I saved you the trouble of having to look it up!

Unsafe Load

Today as I was driving to work I was following a truck with lumber in the back.  The tailgate was down and there did not seem to be any type of tether on the load.  All I could think was that if he was ever hit (which is not hard on a busy highway) that the load would come flying out and hit whoever was behind it.  It surely would've gone thru someone's windshield.  !! 

I'm sure all they were thinking was that the wood wasn't going to shift while driving, but did they contemplate the possibility of someone else doing something stupid like pulling in front of them?? 

I stopped following right after taking the pic - which I took at a stop light.