"Chesnut Ridge hike" written by Joe on estrip.org

Category: hiking

03/01/16 11:56 - ID#60432

Chesnut Ridge hike

We took advantage of the warm Sunday to go hiking down at Chestnut Ridge. From the look of the parking lot we thought it was going it was going to be packed - but they all must have been on the eternal flame trail because we didn't see too many people. The shale-y creek beds remind me of Hunter's Creek.

I hadn't been to hike at Chesnut Ridge since elementary school, when a bunch of hippies showed us what weeds we could eat, and we had lean-to building contests. During (e:paul)'s time Ken-Ton elementary schools had camp outs - but at some point that became too risky for schools, and it turned into county park day trips.

My favorite part about the weather was the watching the snow melt run off into increasingly bigger streams. We walked through a path that basically became a creek.

At some point we came across this old chimney backing up to a creek. Nothing else was around it - I wonder what it was for. I climbed the top and looked down - it was full of garbage.

My photos for the day came out pretty good. I wish I could post a bunch of the time lapse pictures I took because I felt they get the streams the best, but they're in mp4 format and I don't feel like uploading them to youtube. Maybe estrip should support small file-size HTML5 video.

On the way home we stopped at Curly's for late lunch. It was expensive but amazing - I had the jerk tofu with sliced grilles vegetables and Terry had a mushroom mac and cheese. I need to figure out how to cook tofu that way.

Permalink: Chesnut_Ridge_hike.html
Words: 296
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 03/02/16 01:57

Category: consumerism

02/29/16 11:37 - ID#60431

Outlet mall

On Saturday (e:paul) begged me to go to the mall with him, (e:mike) and (e:dave).

First we went to the Como restaurant on Pine Avenue Niagara Falls. My meal wasn't a decent deal - salad, cheese ravioli entree and a cannoli for $12. An old Italian man in the bathroom asked me if I was trying to hide my gun.

(e:mike) had the pops all lined up.

The outlet mall is as expected - pointless. Even Paul agreed that there's not much he actually wanted to buy. But I managed to block most of the consumerist orgy out by hanging out with Paul, Mike and Dave. Plus I got to do a lot of walking, even if it was inside.

(e:paul) trying to bring back the 90's

This sweater was $1395 marked down to $595. WTF?!

Permalink: Outlet_mall.html
Words: 142
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 03/01/16 10:54

Category: party

02/27/16 07:51 - ID#60430

Boat party

We went to a going away party for (e:keitht) and his buddy Miranda at the Maritime Center last night. She's built a boat they're taking down to Florida with them. It's pretty awesome.

There was an after party house party in West Ferry. We hung out a lot in the amazing attic with a loft/bed. (e:terry) wouldn't let me take his picture for some reason but I snuck one of him and Paul up there.

Good luck down south (e:keitht)!

Permalink: Boat_party.html
Words: 87
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 02/27/16 07:51

Category: building

02/27/16 07:39 - ID#60427

Girthy girders

I'm not a big believer in the medical campus construction, but I still like watching stuff get built. I feel like I can imagine myself putting my degree to use by thinking about how the construction is staged.

Look at these big girthy girders getting erected between Buffalo General and the new children's building. Gets me hot and bothered.

If we are allowed in the conventus (e:Paul) and I can almost walk to work entirely inside. Good for him in the winter.

Permalink: Girthy_girders.html
Words: 85
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 02/27/16 07:39

Category: house

02/27/16 07:27 - ID#60426

Big packages

We were in a desperate toothpaste situation, until I found out from Paul you can cut open the tube and scrape the last few uses out. He said his old East
German friend Jörg used to do this. I can't believe I never did it before.

Anyway I went to the coop and the price for the Toms toothpaste was ridiculous, $5. So I looked online and found on online grocery service called Jet. I was able to order it for 3.50 a tube, plus there was a 15% off coupon. I ordered $215 dollars of groceries for $180, including bulk laundry detergent and 30 packs of granola bars. (e:paul) says I'm hurting the local economy but it's way more efficient to have them drop shipped from the manufacturers warehouse instead of ten other warehouses and a big box store. on the downside they used too much packaging. Wtf. who cares if a dishwasher detergent box is dented.

I guess online groceries delivery is exciting for me now.

Yesterday we went to the new food court next to the Market Arcade. The food was pretty good but once again look at this packaging from Sun. I wonder how much gets thrown out.

Permalink: Big_packages.html
Words: 203
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 02/27/16 07:27

Category: winter

02/18/16 01:48 - ID#60423

Snow problems

It's snowed so little this winter it almost made me forget how much I hate the lack of shoveling, monster plows and salt that results from it. I love snow but this transforms me into a get-off-my-lawn type of guy.
I want to make a drone that lets sprays shaming messages on the lawns of people who plow but can't shovel. Some blog shaming is the least I can do. ;)

My dream is to have an website where you can report/document incidents and property owners could be easily fined by the city. It would go along with a program for disabled/elderly homeowners who couldn't afford a service could find shovelers, who would be paid to shovel by the fines. It'd have easy access to location info of users so shovelees could be matched to shovelers, and for reported properties it could pull county tax records to generate fines based on assessed value and frontage.

More than 24 hours after the heavy snow, Sinatra didn't shovel their Franklin Street slum house, but did plow their parking lot and driveway.

Neither did McGuire development, also on Franklin

Just because a building is for lease doesn't mean you don't have to shovel.

Or Elmwood Village Fabrics, although they also managed to plow their driveway.

Cleve Hill Auto piles their lot's snow on the corner of Main, over the fire hydrant and handicapped ramp.

A plow knocked a North Street light off and drives away.

And the stupid Church of the Ascension manages to drive down the sidewalk, heaving the sandstone - and plows our driveway in.

Also the wind blew one of our dormer windows open and split it at the hinges. ;(

Permalink: Snow_problems.html
Words: 300
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 02/18/16 03:29

Category: plants

02/18/16 01:24 - ID#60421

Botanical Gardens

On one of the coldest days of the year, of course (e:Paul) and I go to the Botanical Gardens with (e:hodown) and Zoey.

A bunch more desktop style background picture taken. It's so easy to take nice pictures on a sunny day there.

I noticed a bunch of the orchid plants have flowers that look like large insects. I wonder if they were selected for that intentionally by gardeners or of it was natural.

the citrus plants were done fruiting there. They had ponderosa lemons which are huge - Paul wants to buy 20 of them.

Prickly pear cacti remind me of Basra. I wonder how his winter in the desert was.

Permalink: Botanical_Gardens.html
Words: 132
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 02/18/16 01:24

Category: birthday

02/13/16 06:31 - ID#60420

Maria's birthday

Last night we went out to Coco with (e:mike), (e:dave), Tony and Maria for Maria's birthday.

There was way too much food to be had. (e:terry) and I split a veggie pizza but I don't think we even dented half of it after the frites.

Then we went back to have coffee and cake. I wanted to make a Chetna-styled sponge with white chocolate, lemon zest and curd with raspberry jam - but after cleaning the house all day, we ran out of time and had to buy a coop cake.

For future reference:

The sponge was dry. The baker would not make it on the bake off.

(e:mike) and (e:paul) got her another set of her favorite dishes as a present.

Permalink: Maria_s_birthday.html
Words: 140
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 02/13/16 07:02

Category: allentown

02/13/16 06:31 - ID#60419

Allentown Action

This was an action packed week in Allentown.

On Monday night, right after we went to bed, an ambulance flipped over at Delaware and North after an SUV ran into it.

They really need to take the rest of Delaware down to three lanes. It's too crazy aggressive on the four lane part.

Then on Wednesday, Bill's Deli on Allen was raided by the police. They found crack and guns by the counter. It always seemed so obvious to me - there's always the same few guys who circulate inside and outside the store all day long, always on cell phones, greeting people who drive up.

(In googling for the article, I found (e:tinypliny)'s review of the store)
(e:tinypliny,39934)
Weirdly enough it's still open. It makes me wonder about the other businesses in the building, like the one selling Nintendo 64 games, $5 hoodies and VHS tapes.

Governor Cuomo came to the medical campus to announce a Buffalo billion pharmacy company subsidy at Conventus. There were black SUV's swarming everywhere that day.

And they are now possibly using an old lab freezer as cadaver storage around the corner from the office of (e:paul) and I. We found that out after some real craziness Wednesday night at the office.

Permalink: Allentown_Action.html
Words: 224
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 02/13/16 06:56

Category: going out

02/07/16 02:16 - ID#60416

Goz Gozah and e:robert's birthday

This was a ridiculous weekend. Between Goz Gozah for (e:dianne)'s birthday and (e:Robert)'s birthday Saturday there was way too much crunkness.

The Goz Gozah drag show.

After the dancing was done, (e:paul) and I went to both Thirsty Buffalo and closed out the Pink. This was the most straight night of my life in a long time.

We hung out with Nathan after the pink at our house. He had his own theory of physics that I wasn't really ready for at 5 am - or ever really.

The next day (e:terry) and I went on a long walk around the city and to the coop. He managed to find both a knife blade and chunk of sharp glass within 500 feet of each other on Linwood. Here he is ready to shank someone.