09/06/16 12:44 - ID#60644

Exploring Pittsburgh

(e:terry) and I took a Sunday tour of Pittsburgh. Right down the street from Hot Mass is a district called the strip district. Everytime we go to Pittsburgh I discover something new.

Anyway it's full of markets and grocery stores, mixed in with a million sports stores and fancy brunch places. A lot of it is warehouses but a lot of them have turned into new offices and apartments.

(e:terry) and I tried to get a veggie burrito but the line was 20 deep out the door. So we got sandwiches at a place next door.

On the street there was an open garage advertising a craft sale. The crafts turned out to be puppies. This picture looks depressing but they were all super cute.

Then we walked along one river all around the point, from the north side wrapping to the south.

At the point there was a protest against oil dependency. Pretty cool. Too bad we have to drive to Pittsburgh :(

Continuing the walk, we crossed the southern river over to the Duquense Hill. They have an old incline car, which you can ride for $2.50. The top overlooks downtown and I think has to be the most famous photo spot in Pittsburgh. You can see why.

The rest of the time we spent making our way down the hill, back towards the river and downtown through a park/path/homeless encampment. I was never sure which was which.

One of the main bridges was on fire due to a tarp (!!) and almost collapsed

so we took a detour through a mall called station square. Pittsburgh's subway stops there, I've always wanted to ride it.

Permalink: Exploring_Pittsburgh.html
Words: 333
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 09/11/16 02:12

Category: college

09/06/16 12:41 - ID#60643

Fraternity wedding in Pittsburgh

The first Christian wedding I've been to since my uncle's in 1996. Also it ties up the number of straight and gay weddings I've been to.

It was for my fraternity brother Yeskimo, who was a year ahead of me at school. A few of the other bros were there, so (e:terry) and I went stayed out in the suburbs with all of them for the wedding. We confirmed for him that yes, we are all nerds.

It's good to see everyone after 3-5 years. Thinking about it though I somehow came out with the craziest life of all of them (thanks (e:paul) and (e:terry) ;P)

At some point after these pictures I stumbleran to the hotel stairway and fell asleep. Guess we should have eaten dinner.

The wedding was good, though I only knew our table and half of another, but it had the whitest set of line dances I've ever seen!

Permalink: Fraternity_wedding_in_Pittsburgh.html
Words: 162
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 09/13/16 01:23

Category: food

09/06/16 12:39 - ID#60642

Tacos with Mike and Emily

Emily and Mike made us veggie tacos made with pinto beans and zuchinni filling, pickled red onions, turnips, and cilantro. They were delicious.

She even got us Paula's doughnuts stacked as a cake for (e:Terry)'s belated birthday.

Permalink: Tacos_with_Mike_and_Emily.html
Words: 41
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 09/06/16 12:39

Category: birthday

08/31/16 10:38 - ID#60639

Happy birthday e:mike

I hope your birthday was 360 degrees of awesomeness.

We went and had delicious food and cake from Maria.

We discovered Women's Day after dark. it's only a three pages so apparently women aren't supposed to stay up.

Permalink: Happy_birthday_e_mike.html
Words: 43
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 08/31/16 10:38

Category: bikes

08/30/16 11:45 - ID#60636

Bright lights, big duck

Has anyone else been down the new bike lanes on Niagara at night? I rode down last Friday night.

I love the green paint and the general quality of the pavement. Especially compared to what it was before.

But the LED streetlamps are blinding, especially coming on and off the dark streets on the west side. There's no trees to limit the glare either. I really wish they would either tone them down or pick a warmer color temperature, instead of putting a sodium lamps wattage into a white LED. It's really the same problem on Ohio Street too but much less traffic.

Then I saw the giant duck down at Canalside. Even at midnight people were lining up to take pictures of it.

But by yesterday it was already gone ;(
I stole this picture from (e:czarkasm)'s facebook. Who knew it would goatse everyone on the way out?

Permalink: Bright_lights_big_duck.html
Words: 154
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 08/31/16 12:44

Category: computer

08/30/16 11:43 - ID#60635

Terry's new battle station

The new battlestation is complete and (e:terry) is warcrafting. He and I assembled it together last night.

We spent hours debating the parts and I spent hours more deal hunting.

The parts include a

Nvidia GeForce 1080,
4 core, 8 with i7 6700k, unlocked
Gigabyte motherboard with configurable timing and voltages for overclocking
A ridiculously heavy but silent case (Fractal R5)
16 GB of 3000MHz ram
500 GB SATA SSD.
and a gold level efficency power supply (550W and completely modular). The modular power cables along with the hidden cabling channel in the case made the build amazingly clean on the inside.

I am 100% sure it is complete overkill for WoW (you know it, (e:yesthatcasey)). But maybe Terry will come across other intense games. Or (e:paul) and I can learn how to do some machine learning on the GPU, I could learn how to render something etc.

I have to admit even though it was pricey it was less than a nice laptop, and almost $1000 less then a much less powerful Macbook Pro. It seems like it'd be nicer to use a Linux chromebook as a thin client and have a beefy upgradeable tower to offload intense work remotely.

I installed Windows 10 on it, but left a ~70GB partition for a future Fedora installation - I can't imagine it'll be free for a little bit ;)

Permalink: Terry_s_new_battle_station.html
Words: 227
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 08/31/16 12:02

Category: birthday

08/28/16 06:42 - ID#60627

Happy birthday e:terry

Happy birthday to the smartest, sexiest, squiggliest otter I know. Here's to another amazing year - love ya! ?

Hope you had a good day, from the party til we stuffed our faces with cheesy nachos.

Permalink: Happy_birthday_e_terry.html
Words: 40
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 08/28/16 11:41

Category: dancing

08/25/16 03:37 - ID#60626

Honcho campout

Last Thursday we went down to the Honcho campout. It was essentially the Pittsburgh party times 10 on top of a mountain in West Virginia (e:joe,59525).

It took us about 5 hours to drive down not counting a stop at an Indian restaurant in PA called Cafe Dehli.

It was rural. Like, an hour driving up twisty single lane, half washed out mountain roads rural. Despite that the campground itself was glamping. A pool, bar, "barn". $16 buffet - I'm glad we brought our own food.

Butts and boy and fur.

The event itself was full of the friendliest furriest sweatiest gayest gays I've ever seen. Maybe it was because nobody knew each other but the judgement was almost non-existent. People danced for days. The pool was human soup. Everyone just wanted a hedonistic good time. People just came up and chatted. Cell phones were practially non-existent.

On one hand I wish (e:uchina) could have come because she would have loved it. On the otherhand a weekend of just million other gays is pretty fun. Even if we had to retreat to our mountain campsite to take a break from it sometimes. Maybe we can just sneak her in next year.

This is Bones. He lived with the owners in the house next to our site. He was the best cat I ever met.

The mountainous overlook over the pool.

Permalink: Honcho_campout.html
Words: 235
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 08/27/16 08:54

Category: food

08/25/16 03:35 - ID#60625

Teryiaki tempeh

(e:terry) and I made this delicious teryiaki tempeh, with steamed broccoli, white rice and purple cabbage.

It only took ~20 minutes to make, including prep. the recipe: Here's a link to the recipe.

Permalink: Teryiaki_tempeh.html
Words: 34
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 08/26/16 03:12

Category: hiking

08/17/16 12:10 - ID#60624

Mudbaths in Zoar Valley

We went down to Zoar Valley this weekend.

It must have been raining down south because the creek and the hills are a mudbath. I still swam in it. It felt so good.

We attempted to go down Point Peter but the water was too high at the bottom. So it was a climb right back up.

Lookin' skeptical

Our new pet Philip

The best part of Zoar to me is the way the water flows over and fractures the shale. A mix of engineered looking edges and channels with worn and cracked stone. I could watch the water run all day.