yesterday I had a 90 day new-hire review.

My boss rated me higher than I would have. I guess he's really happy with me.

he was going to put me in for a raise, but he said he could give me a bigger raise if he waited till the 6 month mark. (? I could use the money now, that would be nice if he's not bullshitting me)


We talked about the direction he wants me to go in the company, blah blah, etc.
I described the track I wanted to take, but I guess it was all kind of a half-lie, because I don't always know or care where I'm going in life.
Sometimes I do.



My homey from college is getting married today.
I'm going out there (roch), I didn't get a hotel room.

This will force me to find a girl to spend the night with. (optimist?)
Or maybe to sleep in a doorway (pessimist)

Have you ever, all of a sudden, realized that you are in love with someone?
And then have you ever been cerebrally pissed off at your feelings, but couldn't change anyways?



Naw me neither.


But I did realize this weekend that I really like (NO, NOT LOVE!) Buffalo.
Once I realized this, I recoiled, but I think the damage has allready been done.

Fuck you Buffalo, I think I love you.



I mean, Buffalo has its problems. We all are aware of this.

The city proper is beat. Its been decayed, decaying at least as long most of the people on e:strip have been alive. (Roughly)


Get out of your happy place and just drive down Main St or Broadway, William, etc, ad infinitum. A fucking shell. Shit-town.

Contrast that shell to the throbbing mass that is the hulk of the suburb mass in the Greater Area.

You can almost look at it like a star swelling before it goes SuperNova, or a heart, balooning as as the patient suffers from congestive heart failure.


Well, nothing as dramatic as that.
Similar difference though.



Plus many other items, but the decay is what consistantly gets me.



But I still like this place. I compare every other city I vist to Buffalo. Fuck, thats twisted.


The music, the food, the streets, even the crappy lake.
Maybe if i was more articulate, I could help explain it, but it seems like most of the people here allready understand what Good about Buffalo anyhow.


(I changed roots to and from work. Instead of taking the thru-way to Dunkirk each day, I've been taking Rt 5. Much better) (screw parentheses)

Taking Route 5 is fucking awesome. The city really looks like a sexy bitch from like Woodlawn.

But my favorite is the skyway. The SKYWAY!!! The way to the future!
Actually its a pretty obsolete future. Some decades ago, the skyway was the shit. Cars in the sky!

I get vertigo thinking about the difference in decades, from when the skyway was awesome, and where we are today.
But that view of the city, coming up over the skyway, gets me every time.
Continue that drive up along 190 by the water, and under the Bridge, and I'm in love.

Reluctantly in Love.




Fucker.

Lilho cut my hair the other day. I dunno, I think she did a good job, shes a good haircutter.

My dome is huge though so she had to charge me extra.


Work is stupid but fun lately. Today the capper on line4 lost timing and the accumulation conveyor on line2 was jumping and the high-speed fan on cooling tower 5 needs to be sent out to be rebuilt. We tried to change the pushout regulator on Line4 but it wasn't as easy as we thought it would be. So I worked on all that plus did research on the air-blower offer for Line1.

This is all so stupid. Why do people drink so much juice? Nobody thinks juice is cool and the money sucks and the commute is fucking awful.


But it still is fun to me because of the weirdness of it, and the challenge of doing something so different. I laugh every day there and its starting to get fun because I'm almost starting to get good at the job.

I really need something else, but if I know myself, I'll stick around there too long.

I told my boss I had to talk to him today (it was about something benign) but his face dropped and said he thought I was going to tell him I was leaving.
I wonder what the significance of that was.


Maybe if the just paid me more I would just be too fat and happy to care about all the drawbacks of the job.

This stuff:





is good hot sauce.


[Backstory: My folks go on vacations down in South Carolina, et all.
One year they bought back this really good sweeet hot sauce. I ate the bottle really fast before I knew what I was doing.

Then I lost the bottle, and forgot the name of the hot sauce. I've been asking them to get another bottle ever since.

This past trip they made, they came back with like 6 different bottles of H Sauce, trying to find that one sauce. We haven't found it yet, but this shit is daaanng good.]


I poured too much of this on my food (Wegman's 33¢ Mac/Cheese) and I tried to pour some milk down my throat to mitigate the death going on inside my esophagus.


Now as I look over at that carton of milk, theres an awful lot missing, and feel like puking.

But that afterglow is so worth it.


Jenks: check out the cassette deck in the background (file photo)

buy my carpet!


cheap!