(e:paul) and I went to the Trump rally protest and it was pretty crazy.

We rode down after work. (E:terry) was supposed to be a legal observer but he was home sick ;(.

The path down Washington divyed up the protesters and the attendees. The whole street was lined with dealers confederate flags, Trump pins and shirts referring to the wall - I know Buffalo is full of racists but it's shocking to see people capitalizing on them in the open, right downtown.



The setup of the protest was ridiculous. Streets were blocked off, canalside was closed, and all protesters had to be funneled into a little barricaded area outside of the HSBC atrium. I don't get why a protest has to be so planned and highly controlled. The news even refers to it as a "free-speech zone". What the fuck? At the very least most parking lots were closed and everyone had to take the metro rail or walk down.

There were an insane amount of cops, none of them hot, and most of them who looked like they had a hard-on for violence with their big wooden sticks. A few were literally stroking them while they were overlooking all the free speech happening.

Apparently a few hundred protesters requires hundred of cops, state troopers, secret service and a rooftop sniper. Seems ridiculous to me. If anything they're letting crime happen throughout the city by all sticking to one place.





The protest started off big while the Trump supporters came down Washington to the area doors. Some Black Lives Matter organizers led some chants and cheers. People were cheered as they were kicked out of the rally (or denied entrance in the case of (e:enknot)).

It was uneventful until about 8pm, when some decided to lead the protest down to the metro tracks, underneath the 190 bridge. This was right about when the first metro train after the rally was to leave. A metro rail packed with Trump supporters.

The police got their wish of a conflict - all of them marching up main street with their clubs, dogs and horses, shoving people back.

After 10 minutes of this we left with Brian, but halfway down Main Street we thought "well, (e:terry) would have stayed" and turned back. This meant salmoning up the sidewalk through the Trump crowd. Right when we locked up our bikes, most of the group decided to march over to the holding center where some protesters were being booked.

Outside the holding center everything fell apart. A girl named Whitney was trying to get everyone to be quiet by going around and asking if hey were a leader of the protest, specifically (e:Paul), Yan and myself. I have no idea why she thought there was any single leader at all - it was clear there wasn't - and why Paul and I would be those people. Especially if there was any sort of defacto leadership at that point was the BLM people.

Apparently her friend went in and got arrested asking about people arrested at the rally. The holding center staff told her if we protested, they'd keep her friend longer.

First of all, the fact that they threaten to hold someone longer just because of a protest is fucked up. How can you make conditions of a detention related to things outside of their control, outside?

Second, I don't agree with her that she should reign over other the protesters just because her friend was now arrested. I stand with (e:paul) that the protest was not some group with a single leader, or some facebook event that you must adhere to someone's rules for. It was offensive that she would even ask if we were leaders when BLM leaders were legitimately protesting. Was she afraid to ask them? Did she know how silly it sounded? On top of it, what is a protest where no one can hear or see you?

However I was not about to get into it with her or anyone else. Escalating a stupid argument on an otherwise good night is not worth it, so I dragged (e:paul) away and we rode home.

I have mixed feelings about the whole shindig as my first protest. I doubt we convinced many Trump supporters of anything. Hopefully we made some reconsider. So what did we accomplish? I'd like to think we made a message that Buffalonians aren't as terrible as they seem but at the end of the day there were way more of them than us.

Today we scampered down to Zoar Valley with Emily and Mike. It was their first time there, somehow we weren't able to convince them to stumblerun down Point Peter. But we had a good time anyway. I'm ready for summer after this.

It was so hot down in the gorge. I wanted to do some FKK schwimmen but there were a ton of people around. The rocks were too mossy to cross in barefeet so we stuck mostly to the part where the creeks fork, having a beers while building a river rock chateau.







Here's a 360 photo I took. I haven't VR'ed in a while but I want to see how it looks.






Said chateau


Rock skipping contests with (e:terry)

I finally got the Ethernet cable hooked up to the solar panel inverter.

Connecting it was super annoying, because instead of just plugging in an Ethernet cable on the inside, you need to strip the wire, run it through a tiny hole on the bottom and crimp a connector with the tiny stripped end you can reach.

But now all our data is uploaded to a monitoring portal. It even has a REST API and app so you can pull production data from every individual panel and find out which one is slacking.

In March alone we already became net power producers. Awesome.

I want to nerd out with this more. What could we do with this data?

I spent my Friday off working on the back garden. Clearing beds and pulling weeds is like dehoarding outside. I actually don't mind it.

Anyway we still need to get rid of more wood. I put it on craigslist free but if nobody takes it I think I might just cut it up and throw most of it out.


Solar powered drying. These blankets could use some sun-disinfectant.


The one raised bed is falling apart. We're going to have to put it back together


I think I want to use this hill as a raised bed too. Now that Basra is gone he can't stomp through and eat anything being grown there.


(e:paul) sunning himself

Afterwards (e:paul) and I went on a bike ride out to Hoyt Lake.




At night we were going to this rave at Iron Works, but the music didn't sound so great for $20 a person. Instead we walked around downtown. The so called cobblestone district had more people than I thought. And it wasn't just the casino. We ended up at Ballyhoo for a few beers. Too overpriced and fancy but they did have an amazing vegetarian sausage.

The last snow pile in Buffalo.

Still a vegan at heart, right (e:paul)?

(e:terry) and I channeled our inner Chetna (e:joe,60410) and did a bake. We made these cheesy flakey pastries filled with dill, goat cheese, leeks and potatoes. Recipe hier:

Hot goat man cheese was involved (e:joe,59060)

We rarely bake anything so it was a crap shoot on whether we were doing the dough right - but it was buttery and perfectly cooked.

Frying up the leeks

If you go by the recipe picture, we were supposed to spread the filling more and leave the potatoes exposed. This worked fine though. All the galettes got an egg wash.

Cheesy goat man goodness

Finished project

On Friday we decided to try somewhere new for lunch and ended up at Buffalo Rome, on Porter. It's where the second Cafe 59 and a million other cafes used to be. I really liked it - they had a delicious mushroom soup and an eggplant sandwich. The bread was especially amazing. Soup, sandwich, coffee and a shared dessert was only $30 for all three of us.

It was cramped inside but very nice.




What is Luiza's pierogi club? I'd want in.


Later at night we went to the Underground with Jeremy for the next she lives event. It was crazy packed. I've never waited so long at a bar before.
Still it was fun to see everyone there. (e:mike) and (e:libertad) you should have made it out.

At the end I got chased out by the butch security guard at the door for taking my beer with me, but luckily my legs are longer ;)

(e:joe):60451
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(e:Paul) and I went down to the gemshow at the fairgrouds. It's the strangest combination of crystal people, geology nerds, cat ladies, and people who love gems.

Bismuth is really cool. There were some very neat minerals at the show. In the back of my mind I had to wonder how many of them were not safe to handle, conflict materials, or were straight up from strip mining or mountain top removal or something. (e:paul) noticed some that looked very similar to asbestos.











Dino bones!


While the magic crystal people are fun to watch, some of what they were hawking was insane.
Unfucking believable! Crystals healing cancer and AIDS? And people were buying it.

Weirdly enough while I am updating this post a lady is talking about setting her energies into crystals. What a world crystal people must live in.

We rode bikes up for lunch to Lin on Tonawanda Street, in Riverside. unfortunately while we were crossing the street I dropped (e:Paul)'s old Android wear watch and the glass smashed. It's still usable but has a ton of shards sticking out.

They had the Thai iced coffee which is amazing.



They also had a tea leaf salad. I usually eat my tea leaves anyway but this was pretty interesting.


Terry and I split a curry and a fried rice. We also got a million different appitizers, including spring rolls and samosas. They had extremely tiny and super spicy peppers to top everything. Yum.




Next door they had a small grocery store with a bunch of different Indian/Japanese/Chinese foods.

One of the shelves contained nothing but this nut. Apparently it's speed-y plant that gives you oral cancer. Anyone want to try?


And some banana blossom. How do you eat these?

It's so warm out and were not even inland. I want to go hike or camp.

(e:terry) and I cleaned out the garden. It's time to ember all the shit you hoarded outside from last fall, like this pile of wood. Anyone need any 2x4s?

It's also time for Dyngus day. Do you believe the "official dyngus day guide" is 26 pages long? Every holiday must be milked for all its worth!