In this episode, our hosts Mike Nelson and Derek Foster interview Morgan Pellitteri, the man behind TechSmart Inspections! While he worked white collar and with other employees in the past, Morgan rededicated himself to a new calling – running an entire home inspection operation himself! What made him make the change? How has he achieved success? Listen to this episode and find out!
Listen to the episode HERE!
Welcome to Buying Local!
Saratoga, Warren, and Washington County have no shortage of fantastic goods and services to offer! In this podcast, our host Mike Nelson will clue you in on the amazing gems hidden in your very own community!
Episode 43
In this episode, our host Mike Nelson interviews Daniel Breeyear, the Director of Integrative Care at The Eden Care Center! They’ve expanded their offerings across the board, and some of their offerings are truly unique – their fully personalized therapy options ensure that no matter what your troubles, The Eden Center for Integrative Care can help!
00:21 – Introduction
01:12 – The Best Therapists…
03:18 – … And the Best Practitioners
05:44 – Hormones: Their Effects, and How Eden Supplements Them
09:30 – Lowering Testosterone Levels… Is Food to Blame?
13:52 – Going Beyond the Basic: Investigating Causes
15:38 – An Infusion for Every Ailment
17:07 – Mike’s Aching Feet
18:30 – Oh D, Oh My
19:57 – Pills vs. IVs
23:15 – Testosterone Risks… Are Overstated!
27:05 – Optimal for You
28:19 – Not Just for Men: Women can Benefit from HRT Too!
31:01 – Ketamine vs. Depression
33:27 – Bringing Down the Walls
36:13 – Wilderness Therapy
38:24 – Water Down the Stress
41:14 – Not So Alternative Anymore
43:13 – How to Get in Touch
44:14 – Community Education
45:26 – Closing Remarks
PRODUCTION NOTE: The opinions reflected in this podcast are not indicative of the views of Saratoga Business Report, SaratogaBride.com LLC, Saratoga TODAY, Glens Falls TODAY, Spa City Digital, or Five Towers Media.
Michael Nelson
Daniel Breeyear
46 min, 10 sec
October 16th, 2023
On Friday, October 13th, 2023, The Warren County Board of Supervisors held a special meeting to begin the process to renew the county’s 0.25% tax on new mortgages.
Director of Public Affairs Don Lehman said: “The way the calendar falls this year, beginning the process at the regular Board of Supervisors meeting on October 20th would not have gotten it done in time for when it expires at the end of 2023, so a special meeting was scheduled.”
This tax has been on the books since 2009. Annually, Warren County collects as much as $1.6-million through this tax. This tax is renewed every three years through this process.
The board set a public hearing regarding the local law that allows the tax. This public hearing will be held at the Board of Supervisors’ monthly meeting on Friday, October 20th. This meeting will start at 10:00 AM, at Warren County Municipal Center.
On Friday, October 20th, 2023, at 3:00 PM, the city of Glens Falls will be hosting a ceremonial groundbreaking to mark the start of construction of the City’s $5-million event and market center. This is the signature project of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative.
The $4.55-million contract for this building project was awarded to Bunkoff General Contractors Inc. out of Latham, New York, winning the bid over five other contractors. The project – located between 51 and 63 South Street – will be a 6,000 square-foot farmers market and event space. The Market Center pavilion will be the year-round home of the farmers market and other community events.
“We’re pleased to now be able to show on-the-ground progress on South Street that reflects all of the work that City staff have done together with consultants, designers, and other professionals to bring this to fruition,” said Glens Falls Mayor Bill Collins.
This investment is expected to bring more shoppers and investment to what for decades has been a run-down commercial area: “The Event and Market Center is expected to be transformative – and not just to South Street,” Collins said. “It will no longer be the last corridor of the city untouched by economic progress.”
“It has been a marathon to bring this project to fruition,” said Glens Falls Economic Development Director Jeff Flagg. “Following the sudden passing of my long-time predecessor, Ed Bartholomew, and amid the 30-month disruption of the COVID pandemic the City staff, consultants, and advisors spent more than a year just getting the project back on track… And then, with the update in the project parameters, and the increasing costs of materials and labor, we had to ensure that the proposal was still economically viable and acceptable to the state,” Flagg said.
The groundbreaking ceremony will take place at 57 South Street in Glens Falls at 3:00 PM on Friday, October 20th, 2023.
Glens Falls Symphony will present a special performance of Lucinda y Las Flores de la Nochebuena by Evan Mack and Josh McGuire, American composers, librettists, pianists and friends.
The opera stars of Seagle Festival, in Schroon Lake, NY along with our fully professional symphony musicians will present this coming of age, Christmas opera based on the Mexican folktale of the poinsettia.
Students from Queensbury, Lake George, Warrensburg, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Keene Valley, homeschool associations, and more will be attending this school-day concert at the Warrensburg Middle School/ High School Auditorium on Friday, November 17 with three 48 min performances starting at 9:00am.
The Glens Falls Symphony takes great pride in the tradition of the children’s concert which shares music made on instruments with hundreds of years of history. Glens Falls is the smallest city in America to support a fully professional symphony, making this opportunity both unique, and important for the rural school districts it will be serving. “With an array of electronic devices and access to the internet, kids have so much at their fingertips” said Senator Betty Little. “However, there is nothing like the sound of a live symphony. The Glens Falls Symphony is phenomenal. These students are in for a very special and memorable treat.”
Executive Director Jennifer Brink says “Sharing the tremendous range of the orchestra sounds with young people who may never have heard these instruments before is a wondrous thing. We are delighted that after several years of planning, the children in our region can hear the talented musicians of the Glens Falls Symphony in a concert designed just for them. We hope to continue this program with new concerts each year so that the Glens Falls Symphony forms a critical piece of every local child’s cultural education. We feel we have a duty to share this great art with children, and to contribute to building the arts audiences of tomorrow.”
When asked about why he chose Lucinda for this program, Music Director Charles Peltz shares, everyone loves a unique Holiday gift and the Glens Falls Symphony is putting a bow on a special theatrical present for the children of our communities. Our colleague the eminently gifted composer Evan Mack has offered to co-produce with the Glens Falls Symphony his wildly successful children’s opera “Lucinda”. We love his tuneful tale of old Mexico and the legend of the poinsettia. The musicians of the orchestra are eager to make music- and magic! – with Evan and the Seagle Colony as we bring to life this charming musical miniature.
Each character in Lucinda will be represented in brilliant fusion of the opera with a traditional children’s Mexican story regarding the birth of the poinsettia flowers! This could be the first and only opera that many Adirondack Park students experience. This beautiful opera educates children, touches their hearts and illuminates the understanding, and true meaning behind the power of gift giving. One objective of presenting live music by professional musicians in this way is to inspire more young people to take up band and orchestra instruments when the opportunity comes.
The concert is supported by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. The Charles R. Wood Foundation, and the JM MacDonald Foundation.
The 2023-24 Glens Falls Symphony 40th Anniversary concert season is sponsored by Glens Falls National Bank.
About Glens Falls Symphony
Since Maestro Charles Peltz’ arrival in 2000, the fully professional Glens Falls Symphony has performed a dynamic repertoire, regularly including musical premieres and world-renowned guest artists while expanding musical offerings to include family concerts, summer pops programs and more. Cited as “one of the great orchestras of our country” by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Joseph Schwantner, the orchestra comprises professional musicians who come from all over the Northeast to perform.
About Seagle Festival
Seagle Festival is the premiere opera and musical theater producing organization in the Adirondack Region of upstate New York, and the oldest and one of the most distinguished summer vocal training programs in the United States, founded in 1915 by renowned singer and voice teacher Oscar Seagle. Over our 100+ year history, Seagle Festival has transitioned from a successful family-run business to a well-established non-profit organization, run and staffed by leaders in the field of opera and musical theater performances and vocal training, and overseen by a committed and diverse board of directors.
The non-profit corporation Seagle Music Colony, Inc. doing business as Seagle Festival has deep roots in the town of Schroon Lake, New York but serves a much larger community of artists and staff that have participated or worked at Seagle Festival and now live and work across the country and around the world. The mission, vision and values of Seagle Festival include a commitment to the highest quality performances for our devoted audiences and top-notch vocal training for aspiring vocalists of all backgrounds and identities.
About Evan Mack
Believing that opera should be theater grounded in climatic expression that delivers larger-than-life stories and music that harnesses the full athletic thrill of singing, Evan Mack has devoted much of his compositional life to opera and song. His first major operatic composition, where he served as both composer and librettist, was Angel of the Amazon. “Angel” premiered in May of 2011 by Encompass New Opera Theatre at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City and was subsequently released on CD worldwide by Albany Records. Two years later, Fresno State Opera Theater premiered The Secret of Luca. This was the first of several collaborations with librettist Joshua McGuire. In August 2016, their American grand opera Roscoe premiered at Seagle Music Colony to rave reviews. Roscoe received its orchestral world premiere with the Albany Symphony starring Metropolitan Opera star Deborah Voigt. In between the two large scale projects, Mack & McGuire found time to write the first ever opera for Twitter #IsOperaDead – an opera in 5 acts lasting one minute and forty seconds.
Their Christmas opera for children, Lucinda y las Flores de la Nochebuena is quickly becoming a holiday standard with yearly productions by San Francisco Opera, Opera in the Heights and Fresno State Opera, who commissioned the opera. The one-act opera The Ghosts of Gatsby premiered by Samford Opera in Birmingham, AL in 2019 and won the National Opera Association’s Argento Chamber Opera Competition. Mack & McGuire’s latest, Yeltsin in Texas! premiered in 2020 by TCU and Opera in the Heights. It’s now in development to become a musical comedy!
Evan Mack has proven as deft at song writing as he is in opera. His song A Little More Perfect is a setting of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s final paragraph of the Marriage Equality Decision by the Supreme Court in 2015. Premiering at Seagle Music Colony in 2015, it has quickly become a favorite of many baritones including Michael Mayes, Daniel Okulich and Michael Miller to name a few. The song had its professional premiere at the Glimmerglass Festival in 2016 and the orchestral premiere at the Fort Worth Opera Festival in 2017. His new cycle If Only Lenny Were Here, which celebrates the life of Leonard Bernstein had its world premiere with the Schenectady Symphony in October of 2018.
Evan was named “2018 Professional of the Year” by Musical America, was a composing fellow at the John Duffy Composers Institute and a resident artist at Yaddo. He is currently published with Hal Leonard, Alfred, and Amazon. Evan is a Teaching Professor at Skidmore College. He lives in Ticonderoga, NY with his wife, Kristin and two sons, Carter and Henry.
About Joshua McGuire
Joshua has written librettos for The Secret of Luca, (based on the novel by Ignazio Silone) and Roscoe (based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize winner William Kennedy) with music by Evan Mack. In October 2016, Roscoe received a full performance by the Albany Symphony featuring soprano Deborah Voigt in the lead role of Veronica. His collaboration with Mack also produced Lucinda y Las Flores de la Nochebuena, a children’s opera commissioned by the Fresno State Opera Theatre. Since premiering in 2016, the opera has played for over 25,000 children, including annual performances by the San Francisco Opera Guild. Mack & McGuire’s one-act opera The Ghosts of Gatsby, based on the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, won the the National Opera Association’s 2019 Dominick Argento Prize for contemporary opera, with subsequent productions by Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory and Opera Las Vegas, among others.
Yeltsin in Texas! — a comedy about the fall of the U.S.S.R. commissioned and premiered by Opera in the Heights and Texas Christian University in February 2020 — is currently being expanded and developed into a full-length musical theatre piece with The Blueprint Project. McGuire is currently developing A Nearer Mother with Evan Mack (based on the life of AIDS activist Ruth Coker Burks), as well as a multimedia opera entitled Siddhartha (after the novel by Hermann Hesse) with composer Murray Hidary.
In 2015, McGuire was commissioned to write a libretto for Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative, and the resulting one-act opera, Alexandra, with music by David Clay Mettens, was premiered at the Kennedy Center. He is also the author of The Secret of Music: a look at the listening life, a book of essays on music and mindfulness. McGuire is the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, Opera America, and the the American Center for New Works Development.
McGuire currently teaches at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. He studied at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where he pursued Master’s work in both guitar and orchestral conducting, holding assistantships in both areas. As an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University, he took the Bachelor of Music summa cum laude as well as High Honors in English Literature for his thesis on musical structures in the work of James Joyce. He currently resides in Nashville with his wife, pianist and conductor Jennifer McGuire, their son Thomas, and a basset hound.
Contact the symphony to reserve your seats for your school, organization, association, church group etc. Good seats still available. Transportation funding available by request.
CONCERT PROGRAM:
Lucinda y Las Flores de la Nochebuena by Evan Mack and Josh McGuire
9:00am / 10:30am / 12:15pm Friday November 17, 2023
Opera Singers Conducted by Richard Kagey, Seagle festival
Orchestra Conducted by Charles Peltz
Warrensburg Middle/High School Auditorium
Visit the Symphony website at www.theglensfallssymphony.org
Call the Symphony office at 518-793-1348
Mailing address: Glens Falls Symphony, PO Box 2036, Glens Falls NY 12801
Office Location: Upstairs in the LARAC Building, 7 Lapham Place, Glens Falls NY 12801
More than 30 properties will be available for purchase when Warren County Real Property Tax Services Office holds its annual live public auction of tax-foreclosed property on Saturday, October 21st, 2023, at Warren County Courthouse.
Among the 31 properties on the list as of this week are single family homes, commercial property, and vacant lots, including two with waterfront access – all of which were foreclosed upon for non-payment of property taxes. Auction proceeds will be handled in accordance with recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings related to tax foreclosure auctions.
For further information and links to the full tax foreclosure property information booklet, which includes detailed descriptions and photographs of each property, check the auction company website here. (Scroll down on this web page for Warren County’s auction.) This website includes a photo gallery featuring the available Warren County properties.
More information can also be found at https://warrencountyny.gov/rp, or with Auctions International at www.auctionsinternational.com.
Registration will begin at 8:00 AM, and the auction starts at 10:00 AM. Warren County Courthouse is located at the Warren County Municipal Center complex, at 1340 State Route 9 in Queensbury.
Beta Technologies, out of Burlington, Vermont, has completed a successful landing of an all-electric, battery-powered aircraft at Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport, as part of a longer trip down the east coast. The flight lasted 49 minutes and the airplane flew a total of 84 miles according to Beta Technologies public affairs team member Will Guisbond.
This is a step towards solving the problem of the aviation industry creating 3 to 9% of all emissions, and becoming more sustainable. Beta’s systems include an all-electric aircraft, charging infrastructure, and training programs for pilots and support staff.
Beta Technologies was incorporated in 2017 by Kyle Clark – an experienced pilot, engineer and entrepreneur. Clark became the company’s first test pilot, learning to fly in helicopters and earning his FAA qualifications for a powered lift rating. In the past three years, Beta’s aircraft has flown over 26,000 miles, completing over three years of piloted flights towards achieving FAA certification.
Beta’s first customer was United Therapeutics led by CEO Martine Rothblatt, who awarded Beta a $48-million dollar contract. United Therapeutics was looking for efficient transportation methods for organs intended for human transplant. UPS was another early customer; they ordered 10 aircraft in 2021, and reserved the right to order another 140.
Beta’s electric motors are quieter and have a smaller carbon footprint, with zero operational emissions compared to an equivalent gasoline engine. This type of aircraft also requires less maintenance, and the motors are run from lithium-ion batteries. Beta Technologies is expected to have the capability to produce up to 300 aircraft per year by 2027.
Beta Technologies built their factory on a 40-acre site in South Burlington, Vermont. The production facility was designed to be sustainable, which is an important aspect of Beta’s mission to decarbonize the aviation sector. It is equipped with 260 geothermal wells to provide energy and temperature control, and there are also nearly three acres of roof-mounted solar panels.
The 188,500-square-foot electric aircraft factory is expected to create hundreds of jobs as Beta ramps up production. These aircrafts will be used across the cargo, medical, defense and passenger industries.
This multi-leg flight will have traveled from Burlington, Vermont, to Duke Field Air Force Base in Florida to deliver the aircraft to a Beta Technologies customer. For more information, please visit https:www.beta.team
In 2014, SPoT Coffee was a new addition to the restaurant scene on Glens Street in Glens Falls… Now, just under a decade later, they are a mainstay of Downtown Glens Falls! SPoT Coffee, through the leadership of District Operations Manager Bill Dingman, is always on the lookout to expand offerings and find ways to service more customers… With this in mind, SPoT has moved to provide more substantial and widespread catering options through ezCater.
EzCater was established in 2007, to connect businesses with restaurants through an online marketplace. SPoT Coffee recognized the opportunity, and Bill has been able to implement the expansion with the help of his seasoned crew. Dingman is thankful to be a part of the thriving Glens Falls community: “Honestly…We think that this cafe has really grown in terms of revenue over the last couple of years, and we are really thankful and really glad to be part of the community. We want to be the epicenter, where Glens Falls starts their day, and ends their day,” he said.
Bill knows that he owes the success of the cafe to his tenured staff, as low staff turnover is not a common trait of the cafe model: “I’m proud of our staff… They’ve done a fantastic job. We’ve added the number of staff that we are holding at any particular time because of revenue growth… We are employing more people. The demand is there, and we are really thankful,” he said.
SPoT Coffee is open “777” – from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM, seven days a week. “We have to wake up and do it every day… Our staff has had to adjust, grow, and get stronger. They manage when there is a line out the door all day,” Bill said.
As SPoT Coffee grows and adds more dynamic offerings, catering is at the forefront of their endeavors… Joining on with ezCater has allowed SPoT Coffee to service more customers in more communities, and increases catering options for potential customers that are further away – the first catering order that SPoT filled through ezCater was for customers in Corinth, instantly proving the value of the expansion!
Catering allows SPoT Coffee to increase revenue with less impact on the staff, and with Bill Dingman, it all comes back to having a reliable staff: “There had been some concern that we wouldn’t be able to have a busy cafe and keep the product that we would need for catering… We have the tenured staff, and that has allowed us to have the information to make it work. We have folks who recognize where we are, what we are doing, and see the opportunities… That’s the benefit to having long term employees,” he said.
To order from SPoT Coffee on the ezCater.com website, the minimum order is $75.00. For more information, please visit ezcater.com, or Spotcoffee.com.
The music scene is about to get a new infusion of talent in the Capital Region! The Albany Rock Pit opened on August 1st, and is already setting lofty goals based on the premise of team building and community through live performances. Located at 9 Norman Drive in Albany, The Albany Rock Pit is gearing up for its grand opening on October 24th, 2023.
The Albany Rock Pit accepts students as young as 5 years old, and offers four different age groups lessons and performances: “This all evolved when my daughter’s music school closed,” says Kim Lindh, co-partner now professionally as well as personally with Tess Collins, the owner of McGeary’s. “There’s a nichemarket that was unfulfilled… Music is needed. It’s an outlet. It’s both expressive and therapeutic”.
“The space was available next to Kim’s shop and it’s in the perfect area,” stated Collins. “We were able to transform the space into a music school within 30 days during the Summer… And, since we’ve opened, we’ve seen an influx of students and instructors. They realize what we’re trying to build here… We’re absolutely stressing team building and community,” she said.
“What sets this apart from any other music school, the kids interact together and will have an opportunity to play live in the local music scene,” continued Lindh. “The kids are multi-talented. They’ll not only be able to set up their own equipment and perform their own sound checks, but they play different instruments, too… So, you’ll see them switch off playing different instruments as they go from song to song. And, what’s good for them, they’re not paying a venue to have a recital or a performance. They’re getting the real experience now with the guidance of the school, so they’re fully prepared for what they can expect down the road.”
“The first show for these kids will be December 2nd and 3rd at September’s in Colonie,” continued Collins. “They’ll perform a variety of hits from the 1980s, while sprinkling in songs from the 1960’s associated with the ‘British Invasion’… Then, once we get into the first quarter of 2024, we’ll change up the musical theme on a quarterly basis.”
The Albany Rock Pit just hosted their first “Open Mic/Free Jam Friday” which will continue the first Friday of every month!
The ribbon-cutting ceremony – the first ever for both Collins and Lindh – will be Tuesday, October 24th at the Albany Rock Pit. Assembly member Pat Fahy will be attending the ceremony.
For more information regarding the Albany Rock Pit, please contact Kim Lindh at kimlindh@albanyrockpit.com, or Tess Collins at Tess@mcgearys.com. You can also visit their Facebook page at Albany Rock Pit.
The Lake George Association held the 8th Annual Adirondack Champlain Regional Salt Summit at The Fort William Henry Hotel and Conference Center in Lake George to bringing together stakeholders from around the Adirondacks – many of them from Warren County – to discuss the ongoing effort to keep roads clear while using less road salt.
Warren County and the towns along Lake George in the county have been leaders in the use of saltwater brine instead of road salt – an emerging technology as experts have looked to lessen the damage that road salt does to the environment.
Warren County Department of Public Works Superintendent Kevin Hajos, center, was among the event’s panelists. Hajos was a member of the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force, which studied ways to reduce road salt use and issued a report earlier this fall.
The day-long event was held to bring experts together with highway personnel to refine ways to cut road salt use in the Adirondacks. Warren County DPW has been one of the leading agencies in use of salt brine; purchasing equipment to make and distribute brine that is also used by town highway crews in the county.
For more Information, please visit Lake George Association