"I'm here!!!" written by Heidi on estrip.org

Category: moving

08/16/08 03:54 - 75ºF - ID#45342

I'm here!!!

Woooohoooo!!! I made it! I'm in my *ahem* cozy apartment on Allen Street. Thanks to (e:chico) , my friend A, and Jeff & Devon (a moving crew that my buddy Lisa in NYC found for me on CraigsList as I stood outside the building and panicked because I didn't plan the move-in part very well...), we got everything from downstairs to upstairs in about an hour. Amazing!

Permalink: I_m_here_.html
Words: 67
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: moving

08/14/08 12:23 - 65ºF - ID#45325

Moving Friday! Garden pictures

Oh my.... It's now Thursday and I've got about 36 hrs to get everything packed and either moved to storage or in the U-Haul trailer. It'll be done, but I'll be exhausted. I expect to start moving stuff into my new apartment in Buffalo around 1pm on Friday...

My previously referenced (e:heidi,45183) nonprofit organization created a community garden this year on an empty lot on the edge of the business district. The lot used to have houses on it but they were eventually condemned as being too risky in a flood zone. Here are some pix I took last week to illustrate the story I wrote for the local paper.

The lot in late April. (credit Tonya McNamara)

The lot Aug. 4.

We're having a little pumpkin growing contest for the fall festival.

One of the gardeners picked kale and zucchini for me out of her plot.

So, (e:TinyPliny), I keep thinking about your tree-planting team. I love the idea, but I didn't have a plot in my community garden, in part because I don't like to do manual labor and I don't particularly like to get diirty... how can I justify digging holes for trees in Buffalo? <grin> I supported the community garden by writing some creative grants...

Permalink: Moving_Friday_Garden_pictures.html
Words: 219
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: moving

08/06/08 04:08 - 77ºF - ID#45253

Internet connection?

So, starting next Friday, I'll be living on Allen Street in Buffalo... What do you do for internet connectivity at home? I have no need for cable TV or telephone, but I guess I'll end up with one or the other?

Is it incredibly rude of me to ask for help moving in? I'm bringing as little as possible, but it's still stuff - bed, mattress, dressers, recliner, table & chairs, bookshelves... My friend A is coming up with me, but gosh it would be nice to have another person, even just for an hour...

chico writes at 10:30:11 08/08/08 - Comment #37727: welcome to the neighborhood, (e:heidi)!! i may be able to pitch in with the move, i'll email you off-site with details.

for the record, i'm getting "broadcast basic" TV (i.e., the major networks and PBS, local access, Discovery, TBS, TLC and a few other random channels) and "medium-speed" (?) RoadRunner internet service from Time Warner for a combined total of about $31 per month...

they're a pain in the neck though, so i agree with (e:tinypliny) for the most part. if they come to do an installation, watch carefully and make sure they don't give you stuff you don't need...the installer gave me a big, ugly converter box that was useless and unnecessary, and it was a pain to give back.

heidi writes at 05:43:50 08/06/08 - Comment #37682: (e:tinypliny) is my hero!!!

tinypliny writes at 05:17:20 08/06/08 - Comment #37677: If you are moving in the evening, I could drop by for a couple hours. I can carry stuff my size. hehehe. :)

tinypliny writes at 04:42:28 08/06/08 - Comment #37669: You have two options for the most basic internet:

1. Time Warner Cable's Road Runner Lite
Speed: 768 Kilobits Down/ 128 Kilobits Up
Price: 19.99/mo
NO yearly committment
Start up fee: $60 ($30 "activation" + $30 "installation" -> both bogus way of extracting money out of you, BTW)
If you don't have pre-existing cabling in your flat, this fee might be higher.
Details at this :::link:::

2. Verizon's DSL Dry-Loop (Without Phone)
Speed: 768 Kilobits Down/ 128 Kilobits Up (Same as above)
Price: 29.99/mo -> However, if you point out that Time Warner Cable is $19.99 for the same speed, they bring it down to $19.99. Kind of shows of how shady they can be.
A full year's painful committment. If you cancel you pay a crazy amount (~$200 now. It was $72 last year.)
Start Up Fee: Don't even ask.
Unfortunately, I opted for this last year and after a major first-bill fiasco ( etinypliny,40220 :::link:::), settled on the $29.99 plan. I wanted to switch to Time Warner this year but I am really tired of confrontations with service representatives over the phone so I just made a quick call and told them that I was canceling in an extremely pleasant voice. They said they would be switching me to the $19.99 "Retention" plan. I said thanks-very-much-I'll-take-it in one breathless whoosh and hung-up. Whew. No more contact for a year. Their service is sometimes incredibly slow and the helpdesk is no help at all, so I just press the reset button on my modem and things get slightly better. Anyway, I don't have major bandwidth needs so this works out fine.

Permalink: Internet_connection_.html
Words: 95
Location: Buffalo, NY

07/29/08 01:42 - 73ºF - ID#45183

Paint & plastic

In response to this post (e:tinypliny,45179) about plastic bags, I worte about my community organization's efforts to reduce plastic bag usage.

We were able to give them away for free thanks to a grant from our regional solid waste authority. People are still asking me for them but they've all been distributed. We're thinking about using some other grant funding to buy more.

(e:drew,44403) prompted me to look at and photograph the paint on my old house. When we bought it five years ago, the paint was all peeling - here's a picture of the side of the house that hasn't been touched yet. (I've got pictures somewhere of when we bought it, but not accessible at the moment.)

West side ainted five years ago:

West side detail of window next to porch

South side painted five years ago:

South side detail lower right corner, spigot:

Paint scraped on east side:

East side currently in progress:

Kitten, my 17+ year old cat:

Permalink: Paint_amp_plastic.html
Words: 181
Location: Buffalo, NY

07/26/08 07:44 - 76ºF - ID#45152

Epic/heroic stories

tagging off (e:lauren) 's post about heroic/epic movies

... here's a telling of the Obama story as an epic...

Permalink: Epic_heroic_stories.html
Words: 38
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: rural

07/15/08 01:14 - 67ºF - ID#45022

Hummingbird in office

I feel like I'm cheating by not reading everyone's posts before posting something... this whole moving thing is difficult and time-consuming, but on the bright side, I just acquired a camera after being without for way too long. I'm out of practice in both composition and technical but sometimes documenting life and communicating outweighs the artistic. My goal is to become competent, if not fluent, in my camera's functionality in the next month. Hopefully I'll have some decent shots occasionally.

We had a hummingbird fly into the office today - we often leave doors and windows open, depending on the weather and my dog's willingness to stay inside:

How cool - my camera captured a hummingbird's wings at the moment of full forward motion!

This cropped version makes it look like the hummingbird is dead and laying on a tile floor, but no, it's just a cropped, flat version of a not very good shot of something kinda interesting.

I haven't figured out how to best manage photos on my laptop - suggestions, anyone? I've got Picasa, Photoshop CS and the software that came with the camera but I'm willing to try other things. I like the Picasa upload to the picasaweb - very easy instead of having to go thru a FTP-type interface (or the additional step to keep it on my own server). But I'm not quite catching on to how to save my edited or resized stuff to be able to send it up to estrip . I think the first hummingbird photo i uploaded here is 2MB which makes me look like a stoopid noobie... I guess I am at the moment... patience, grasshopper.

I enjoyed some time at one of my favorite spots today - long enough for the sun to go down and the moon become visible.

And two cuteoverload-style photos of Nisha:

This one seems like it needs a LOLcat-type phrase on it:

Permalink: Hummingbird_in_office.html
Words: 333
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: belief

07/06/08 11:30 - 75ºF - ID#44884

Belief-o-matic!

Since (e:drew), (e:jim) & (e:janelle) are pondering such things as the particulars of Christian belief, I thought I'd throw out the Belief-o-matic!

(me: secular humanist)

carolinian writes at 09:06:04 07/07/08 - Comment #36811: 1. Orthodox Judaism (100%)
2. Islam (91%)
3. Sikhism (86%)
4. BahÃ¡'Ã Faith (81%)
5. Reform Judaism (80%)
6. Jainism (67%)
7. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (64%)
8. Hinduism (64%)
9. ------'s Witness
10. Liberal Quakers (60%)
11. Eastern Orthodox (54%)
12. Orthodox Quaker (54%)
13. Roman Catholic (54%)
14. Unitarian Universalism (52%)
15. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (51%)
16. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (50%)
17. Seventh Day Adventist (50%)
18. Mahayana Buddhism (48%)
19. Neo-Pagan (45%)
20. Theravada Buddhism (40%)
21. Secular Humanism (29%)
22. New Age (28%)

ladycroft writes at 06:45:39 07/07/08 - Comment #36810: my top 5:

1. New Thought
2. Neo-Pagan
3. Reform Judaism
4. Mahayana Buddhism
5. New Age

tinypliny writes at 11:45:29 07/07/08 - Comment #36797: This was so much fun! Hahaha... my original "religion" ranks at a lowly 12 and I have no idea what the hell 1-5 mean. Most of the ones from 6-14 are some of the central Indian faiths.

1. Liberal Quakers (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
3. Neo-Pagan (88%)
4. Secular Humanism (82%)
5. Reform Judaism (76%)
6. Mahayana Buddhism (76%)
7. New Age (74%)
8. Sikhism (74%)
9. Jainism (72%)
10. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (72%)
11. Theravada Buddhism (71%)
12. Hinduism (69%)
13. Taoism (67%)
14. BahÃ¡'Ã Faith (66%)
15. Nontheist (55%)
16. Orthodox Quaker (51%)
17. New Thought (48%)
18. Scientology (48%)
19. Orthodox Judaism (47%)
20. Islam (42%)
21. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (34%)
22. Seventh Day Adventist (30%)
23. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (26%)
24. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (20%)
25. Eastern Orthodox (17%)
26. Roman Catholic (17%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (13%)

jason writes at 10:58:19 07/07/08 - Comment #36796: 1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (93%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (93%)
4. Reform Judaism (81%)
5. Hinduism (79%)
6. Mahayana Buddhism (79%)
7. Sikhism (78%)
8. Theravada Buddhism (78%)
9. Orthodox Quaker (75%)
10. Neo-Pagan (75%)

drew writes at 10:05:15 07/07/08 - Comment #36794: The comment below was me, not Janelle.

janelle writes at 10:03:15 07/07/08 - Comment #36793: Last for me was Christian Science. Barely ahead of it was nontheist.

I always thought that I was more Buddhist than Bahai, but apparently I was wrong.

jim writes at 09:26:50 07/07/08 - Comment #36792: 1. Secular Humanist
2. Non-theist
3. Mahayana Buddhism

Very last was Catholicism! Nice.

drew writes at 08:41:03 07/07/08 - Comment #36791: Me: Orthodox Quaker.

This thing is seriously skewed towards Quakers/ Quakers can believe a lot of different things and still be Quakers.

:::link:::

"Liberal Protestant" came second for me.

I self Identify as a "Progessive Evangelical," but that's not on the list.

Permalink: Belief_o_matic_.html
Words: 35
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: community

07/03/08 10:11 - 63ºF - ID#44850

Transportation/housing affordability

I like to geek about walkability, communities, poverty, transportation and such... Andrew Leonard's column/blog on Salon.com

is a very good read. He passed along a site that allows you to check out the impact of gasoline prices on household budgets, with 2000 & 2008 color GIS maps, transportation and housing costs as percentage of household income...take some time & play with it. Use the advanced option, and the gas cost impacts link.

I'm familiar with the DC-Balto metro area, and lightly familiar with Buffalo, so I compared those - Buffalo is a -lot- smaller... My current location: Data not available.

You can zoom in to street/neighborhood level. You'll see that cost of transportation is much lower within the city, and very low in certain areas - ones that are highly walkable (Elmwood) and/or highly convenient to public transportation.

Walkability by neighborhood in Seattle

Permalink: Transportation_housing_affordability.html
Words: 162
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: moving

06/27/08 12:32 - 73ºF - ID#44797

apartment!

I found an apartment today! I totally didn't expect to find one so easily, but all the research I was able to do with the kind, gracious and thoughtful assistance of (e:peeps) really paid off. 8/15 I'll take possession of a very sunny third-floor one-bedroom apartment on Allen Street! I think it's the kind of apartment I can live (perch?) in for three years.

I also got to meet (e:drew)! *waves* Thanks so much for the warm welcome!

Now that I know where I"m moving, I feel like I can finally start packing and processing all my STUFF. I have a lot of stuff and most of it will be living in storage.

Permalink: apartment_.html
Words: 115
Location: Buffalo, NY

06/24/08 06:40 - 70ºF - ID#44772

transitions & change

I have a few minutes while waiting for computer scans to complete...

So much is going on. I'm selling my precious house. I'm ending a 2.5 year relationship. I'm easing out of people's lives, helping them figure out what to do when I'm not here to help fix their computers or untangle their QuickBooks messes, not to mention the roles of confidant, adviser, friend, emotional and logistical supporter.

I'm trying to commit to memory the details of -here-. (In the next few weeks, you'll all get some photographic treats, but I'm awaiting house closing to get a camera.)The mountain at my back, the river that speaks so softly of cleansing and renewal despite its pollution, the infinite collection of sunsets, full moons and rainbows. Not that I'm leaving for good - ha ha I tried that. This is my heart's home and this is where I'll always be based, but knowing that I'm leaving for three years makes each day, each starry night more of a gem to be treasured. And the connections to people. Yeah, there's email, there's the telephone, but its those casual, constant connections that make the relationships so real.

And it's not just easing out of here, it's also looking toward Buffalo and the new life I'll be building there. Where to live? How to find folks to connect with? ((e:strip) is an awesome starting point!!!) How to deal with 8am classes when I've never been successful at getting to work at 9? Food... diversity... sheer numbers of people... figuring out what my path is going to look like...