Ambassador Squared

You know what’s coming up? On May 1, the blog is turning seven years old. I can never remember if we call that a birthday, or an anniversary, or a blogiversary. Maybe we’ll do something special to celebrate. Maybe not. We’ll see.

Over these past several years I’ve done a bunch of things in service of this blog. One of them was supporting Dining Out For Life. That was all the way back in 2013. It was a great experience. I got to sit down with Jose from Mingle, the Noonans at The Orchard Tavern, and Beth at Hattie’s.

I actually remember those interviews like they were yesterday. Seriously, someone has to stop the clock. Three years shouldn’t fly by that quickly.

Well, once again, I’m doing something with Dining Out For Life. But things have changed. For starters, the AIDS Council of Northeastern New York is now the Alliance for Positive Health. Same place. Same mission. Different name. And now I’m no longer just raising awareness of the event, I’m actually going to be an active participant.

That’s right. I’m going to be a DOFL Ambassador. And I’m also going to be there representing Yelp. So if you join me on April 28, I think the appropriate greeting would be something like, Mister Ambassador Ambassador.

But wait, I haven’t even told you the best part.

I’m going to be working the lunch shift at Ama Cocina, and they are one of only four restaurants in the entire Capital Region that are donating 50% of their proceeds from the day. As we say in these parts, that’s huge.

So if you buy a $5 Mexican Street Corn (and I’m totally buying one of those) you are really only paying $2.50 for this beloved dish and making a $2.50 donation to the Alliance for Positive Health. So if you might ordinarily only spend $10 on lunch, but might do some other kinds of charitable giving, I’m going to suggest you spend $20 on lunch with me, and consider half of that as tzedaka.

In all seriousness, I’d love to see a bunch of you down there.

One of my responsibilities as the DOFL Ambassador is to walk up to the tables and kibbitz a bit with the people who are dining out for life. It would make the lunchtime so much more enjoyable if the room was packed with familiar faces. Or even just blog readers who I haven’t met yet. That would be super cool too.

And to make it even more enticing, I’ve got a couple hundred Yelp temporary tattoos I’ll be handing out. Maybe I’ll even be applying them on the spot. How much fun would it be to head back to work with a story about eating tacos, doing tequila shots and getting a tattoo?

I’ll be at Ama from 11a until 2p. And I do wish that I could do tequila shots with you all afternoon. But I am going to have to drive home at the end of lunch. Now if I had an office downtown, that would be a different story.

If you are going to come and be a part of the festivities, even though it’s just lunch in downtown Albany, you should totally make a reservation. Do it today. Here’s the phone number. (518) 776-4550. That’s a full service blog for you right there.

Sure, not everyone is going to be able to go out. That’s fine. It’s a bummer, but I get it. However, if you still want to help support the cause, there’s a handy dandy form online where you can give the Alliance for Positive Health some money directly.

A $25 donation pays for 250 condoms, which will be distributed free of charge thanks to your largesse. Of course the donation site contextualizes a bunch of other different figures. It will also ask you, “Who was your Dining Out For Life Ambassador?”

Who’s your ambassador, baby?

Oh, look at that, my name is right in the scroll down menu somewhere towards the top. You’ll see it. That is, you’ll see it if you’re feeling guilty enough about skipping out on lunch with me on April 28. But don’t feel guilty. Just come.

And if you can’t come and see me, there are plenty of other places around the Capital Region that are participating. In fact I’ve got friends who are ambassadors at other restaurants too. The full list is right here.

One last thing I was probably supposed to mention. At Ama Cocina I’ll also have envelopes that will get you into the raffle to win two round trip tickets for travel aboard JetBlue Airways. The raffle is only for those people who participate in the promotion in our corner of upstate New York. That means you at least have a fighting chance.

If you win the tickets, I want some kind of souvenir from your trip though. Hope to see you soon.