11/11/14 10:48 - ID#59563

Allen Street Consulting, part II

Today (e:paul) and I went with (e:terry) to move the new server, and check out (e:allenstreet)'s new digs. The space is freaking awesome if you ask me.

The server is all set up now in it's new case. Super fast and in a much cleaner environment than the basement. It might even cannibalize some of its other server brothers and virtualize them.

Terry's new office

Corner office panorama

From the back hall, Paul and I noticed a tiny house (or connecting building?) between the two houses across from Founding Fathers. Never noticed from the ground.

Roof shot from the bathroom's tiny escape hatch.

(e:czarkasm) in her new office

Permalink: Allen_Street_Consulting_part_II.html
Words: 127
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 11/11/14 11:03

Category: food

11/11/14 02:14 - ID#59561

French Onion soup and internet grilled cheeses

I made a vegetarian French onion soup tonight with purple onions. It was real good - I didn't realize how long you had to carmelize the onions (in olive oil and thyme) until I asked my mom, but I left mine on the stove for nearly two hours. I used a mushroom and faux-chicken broth with some red wine, boiled it down even further, and then broiled cups with a baguette slice and provolone.

Soup and melty cheese makes me think of grilled cheese. Somehow I ended up on this reddit dedicated to every type of grilled cheese - the internet has everything.

Permalink: French_Onion_soup_and_internet_grilled_cheeses.html
Words: 115
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 11/11/14 10:57

Category: buffalo

11/09/14 05:10 - ID#59554

Tour de West Side

(e:paul) and I decided to fight the last bits of our colds by going on a walk for groceries. What started as a simple trip to Elmwood Market and the co-op turned into a shopping tour of the West Side.

The coop has gotten as expensive, if not more, than Wegman's since their own renovation. Or maybe the Farmer's market is just too good. Either way, there wasn't much I wanted to get there.

The burned out Elmwood house has a new roof, and is getting new siding - I can't imagine that really fixes the problem, but at least they're not tearing it down. Maybe they can undo the remuddling.

We tried going to Guercio's to get dandelions for the tortoise. Unfortunately, they were closed.

So we warmed up with a PSL (so basic Paul), chai and egg sandwich at Sweetness 7.

(e:mike) and (e:libertad), your neighborhood looks nice.

Lin Asian market was the first Grant Street store we stopped at. It was small but pretty clean, and still had a lot of good stuff. We got a 5 lb bag of jasmine rice for about $6.
They had egg tofu there - I wanted to try it but it was full of hydrogenated oil.

After we walked across the street to Vineeta International Foods. This store was not the best - it had a lot of rotting vegetables (or durian fruits?), and meats that looked like they had been defrosted a lot. Even Paul didn't want to get anything. Gross.

Frozen fried paneer. I would try it but I didn't trust it. Could probably make it much easier.

Golden Burma - the last stop on Grant Street

They did have this cute hund statue

The garbage on Grant Street was real gross

What's up with this building? The cornice is completely gone and so are the windows. I hope it's not getting razed for another dollar store.

Paul wasn't ready to buy any camel meat

We continued back down on Ferry and then cut over on side streets to Richmond. There was:

West side lawn Mary

and the Italian wrought iron everywhere.

Murrica.

We finished the day at Price Rite and getting some egg sammiches for (e:terry). Definitely got our 10,000 steps in.

Permalink: Tour_de_West_Side.html
Words: 425
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 11/09/14 09:33

Category: computer

11/09/14 05:09 - ID#59553

Brand new server

Since we're moving the server from the basement to the new (e:allenstreet) offices, (e:paul) wanted to build a new server. The old one is still very fast and useful - but too loud for an office apparently.

Paul and I spent all Saturday building it - we had everything but a new case. So we cannibalized an old one from (e:terry)'s office.

The specs of the new server:
Intel Xeon E3-1271 v3 - 4 cores, 3.6Ghz, 8MB of L3 cache and only a max power usage of 80W.
32GB of ram
2x Samsung 500GB 840 SSDs in software RAID 1
And a giant super quiet heatsink and fan

It's the fastest computer I've ever seen - all the packages Paul was installing on it finished near instantly. Hopefully it'll use way less power than the old mechanical drive server. The new case should be here and ready to go on Tuesday when we move the server and cable service over to the office.

Permalink: Brand_new_server.html
Words: 176
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 11/09/14 08:19

Category: going out

11/09/14 05:08 - ID#59552

Attic party

On Friday, (e:terry) went out to Dreamland's nonprofit fundraiser, and then a house party for someone named Corey Dodge. (e:Paul) was too sick to come :(

First, we met up with (e:yesthatcasey) at Dreamland. Terry and I went to go steal some nachos from Founding Father's, and ran into (e:robert) who joined us.

The attic of the party was an amazing dance floor - definitely something I think we can do here. Really, we just have to stop people from falling through the floor. Plywood up.

Permalink: Attic_party.html
Words: 108
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 11/09/14 08:59

Category: food

11/09/14 05:07 - ID#59551

Wholesale wine by the Farmer's market

(e:paul) and I stopped by the end of the Clinton Bailey market and got some apples, onions, beans, honey and peppers. The food market is part of the Niagara Frontier Grower's coop - it must have been such a bigger thing when more food was shipped by rail.

Across the street, we noticed a wholesale wine seller. It's crazy, you can get almost anything wholesale at the food terminals. I remember my mom used to buy 5 pound bags of cheese and restaurant quantities of flour down there.

While doing some googling I found (e:tinypliny,0498)'s post about the market. I wonder how much different the early morning wholesale market is? Maybe if we have a late night, we can go. It seems much easier to go from the 4:30 side.

Permalink: Wholesale_wine_by_the_Farmer_s_market.html
Words: 136
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 11/09/14 07:56

Category: paul

11/08/14 03:58 - ID#59549

Bear at work

Looks like Paul's become more of a bear than he thought.

Permalink: Bear_at_work.html
Words: 14
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 11/08/14 03:58

Category: halloween

11/08/14 03:57 - ID#59548

Cleaning up the porch

We finally finished cleaning up the aftermath of halloween. Our front porch looked so frat house-y. I couldn't believe how much I found in the bushes.

Mostly clean now.

I also had to put some of the pumpkins in the compost. My feelings exactly.

Permalink: Cleaning_up_the_porch.html
Words: 56
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 11/09/14 07:34

Category:

11/07/14 01:38 - ID#59544

Allergy Pride

I saw this sticker on the back of a car on Allen - I realize people have serious allergies but it reminded me of the allergy pride parade in Portlandia.

Permalink: Allergy_Pride.html
Words: 55
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 11/07/14 01:38

Category: android

11/01/14 06:49 - ID#59537

Google Fit

The Google Fit app came out the other day and is a million times better than the S Health app that just counts your steps. The app keeps track of all activities and times and durations, including bike rides, and also can pull data from other fitness apps.

The weird part is it records the locations of the activity but only shows you a circle containing the beginning and end points. They obviously record the exact location but don't show it. I wonder if its to keep people from being reminded they're tracking themselves 24/7.