(e:janelle) ran hard today, and embarrassed me off the couch, so I jumped on my bike. In addition to grabbing my helmet (a new habit), I also grabbed my passport. There is a nice bike path on the other side of the Niagara River, and along Lake Erie. It's a great ride.

One warning though--the ride from Canada to the USA is uphill, so be prepared for hard work going home.

I took some pics. I may post them later or maybe even make a movie.

Because I have posted more on Buffalo Rising than here. Please forgive me.

Tonight I am hosting a back yard movie party. Guess where we will be watching Religulous?



yeah. My back yard. I think we are going to have a fire, too, so it should be fun.

BYOLCOB (Bring your own Lawn Chair or Blanket)

265 Lexington Ave 7pm.

I haven't been posting much, and shouldn't be posting now--I'm kinda busy. But (e:heidi) shared her Shango gift certificate that she couldn't use, so (e:janelle) and I used it last night.

Shango was good. We just had drinks and apps. I had what the tap said was a Flying Bison Maibock, but seemed to be something different. It was still tasty, so no complaints. Sweet Potato fries were amazing, the quesadillas were, too.

It was way better than last week when we went to La Docle Vita. Overcrowded, loud, and bad service. I sent a feedback email and they didn't respond. Oh yeah, and the website is ugly and noisy

So, next time you go out, choose Shango over La Dolce Vita. And if you can, have (e:Heidi) share a gift to pay for it! (THANKS AGAIN!)

When you make a funny movie look like a not funny movie, it is funny.

I was feeling kind of bad about my slothfulness on such a nice day, and somehow, walking to Sprinkles, the new ice cream bar in Delish didn't help for some reason. Maybe if I would have only had one scoop.

Just an aside--the Delish people are great, and so is the ice cream bar. It's worth a trip for the treat.

So anyway, even though the wind and the rain were threatening, I decided to head out on my bike, and it was a good choice. I highly recommend this ride.

I rode from my home to the island at the end of W. Ferry. This was the toughest part of the ride, as it was directly into the wind. It was also the only part of the ride that I had to deal with traffic. For those who fear "urban" neighborhoods, this was the only part that looked scary. But with all of the people outside, there was absolutely no reason to be afraid.

From the Island, I headed North on the Riverwalk. The river was beautiful, there were birds, and old guys fishing, and kids rolling down the hill with their mother. Windy, but flat the whole way, and is was a cross wind, which is much better than riding into it. Nice views of fancy houses across the river, too.

From the unfortunately named Squaw Island, I headed inland. It was a little bit confusing finding the path, but not really. Even though I was tempted to continue all the way to Tonawanda, I wanted to ride the Scajequeda path, which (to my shame) I have never done.

A great ride. Views of the creek, nice trees, and a look at the back of Amherst street. In case you were thinking of dumpster diving at Wegman's you can't. Trash goes from inside the store into the compactor. There is a nice playground behind Our Lady of Blackrock (I forget the church's real name).

Everytime I went under an underpass it was clearly marked, and a note was made that the clearance was ten feet. Maybe not necessary for a bike path. Maybe better signs at the Grant Street Crossing would be a better choice.

From there, the path goes past the back of the historical society and the Japanese garden. Again, I can't believe I haven't been there before--a beautiful place. (And backtracking a bit--Rock Harbor Commons looks cool, too. I am going to have to make an event there this summer, and I will ride straight there on the riverwalk).

Across the pedestrian bridge, around Hoyt lake (nice statues) and onto Lincoln parkway. Lincoln parkway to Bidwell parkway, to Richmond (with quick stops on Richmond to visit an estate sale, a car accident, and a friend who was in her yard). Richmond to the house.

Good exercise, but not too much. A photographer could make this an all-day trip (but I didn't bring a camera and wanted to break a sweat).

Buffalo really is a well planned city, and a great place for a bike ride.

Obviously, I think prayer is good.

I don't need, or even want, my government to tell me to pray.

And--although part of my job is praying in public, Jesus made it pretty clear that prayer is something best done in private (Matthew 6), and so I will follow that admonition.

So, (e:jim)'s update has reminded me that I have not updated.

Basically, I am off the meds because the doctor's appointments and bills became to much to deal with. My doctor was great, but their office staff was a wreck.

I promised my dear wife I would start over again with a new doctor.

Does anybody know a good doc, with an organized/efficient front office and billing system?

And Jim, I am sorry that the other stuff stopped working for you. The Ritalin, for the short time that I was on it, worked sometimes and not others. I only felt bad if I drank too much coffee with it, or took my doses to close together.

I am downloading the newest version of Ubuntu right now. Windows will live on in a partition of my harddrive, but hopefully, I will use it infrequently.

I am more excited about changing an OS than a person should be, but I am glad to stop complaining about crazy Microsoft and actually start doing something about it.

I give credit to Open Office and Firefox for demonstrating how much better Open source can be, and to Vista, for convincing me that a different OS couldn't be much worse. Also to Ubuntu for making a live CD easy to test out and for making installation look easy (we'll see how easy when I am done)

Our government has admitted to torture, in general, but hasn't "named names" or prosecuted it. In my opinion, the Obama administration is failing to do its' duty here. While the "low-level" guys MIGHT have an excuse, the higher ups do not. Prosecution will be difficult, but if we do nothing, there is no deterrent to future torture.

To avoid trials, I would be willing to offer amnesty for all people that made a full reporting and apology for any involvement in torture. Following that period of amnesty, there should be a full investigation and trials.

To me, this is not a left/right thing. It's a humanity thing, a security thing, and a rule of law thing. There is never a reason to torture a person. Every time we condone torture, we gain enemies and alienate allies. Every time we ignore our laws and our values, we weaken them.