Two Fridays ago, I went with (e:paul) down to the central library. Our original intent was to check out the 3d printer, but taking a class is required and we hadn't signed up. So (e:paul) got a library card and we're going to do that another time.

I hadn't been to the library outside of the auditorium since I was starting to pick up PHP 3 years ago.

They have a high-end maker bot 3d printer, and a second smaller one. You only have to pay for materials.
They also have a 3d scanner in between the two. I'm interested to try that out.



After that we checked out the science book exhibit on the second floor. There were exhibits about Galelio, Bernouli etc - light on information, and though the books were obviously old there was no indication about where or when they're from (if they were originals they should have said it).

What's with this crazy creature on a this map? Breasty mer-bird?


Also an artifact of time - payphones. The second last one I can think of in Buffalo besides the one on Elmwood and Summer.


The most interesting part was the Grovesnor room. It has almost any Buffalo related book that was ever written - including books like "Parolees and pensioners in the first ward, report 1912". The room probably contains the most arcane info about Buffalo anywhere, that almost noone left living knows. I wonder how many of these have been scanned, if any.

There were books on being carless in Buffalo, written in the 1960s!

And all the original bike culture in Buffalo.

And an encyclopaedic book written about the NFTA and all it's predecessors, with every line and model of the rolling stock cataloged in depth.


A whole bookshelf dedicated to Timothy McVeigh. Creepy.

And a workbook about immigrants in Buffalo, where one of the activities is "Draw and color pictures of Buffalo immigrants in native costumes"

In one of the sections there were annual reports from Roswell Park. At one point there was a semi-famous BMT doctor there named Geoffry Herzig. Not related to my grandpa as far as I know (this one is from Cincinatti) bu he resembles him a lot.

instagrams of (e:paul)

As seen in the Grovesnor room in the Buffalo and Erie County central library. While (e:paul) was geeking out over Roswell Park and 50 years of annual reports, I found this picture.

I mean I get that they needed to conduct the research but what a crazy photo to use for PR.

The mice are trapped with corks in glass tubes, with burning cigarettes attached. They were setting out to research the correlation between smoking and cancer. There even was a tobacco farm in Orchard Park and West Seneca where they grew different types to compare against commercial tobacco.

I wish I could actually could find this study to find out how many cigarettes they made these mice smoke.

On the day Louis P. Ciminelli gets a day in court to face charges of state briber -

I had to take these pictures. They have a $375 million project and they can't spring for a real garbage and recycle can for their employees and contractors?

Instead they leave a little bucket that overflows on High Street in front of the Langston Hughes building. The rest of the garbage from lunch and breakfast just gets left in the street and blows around for over a year now.

I wrote an email to their PR department, let's see what happens. If they don't answer me within a day or two I'll share this post with them.

We rode to Delaware Park and Hoyt lake water was green, thick and smelly! I hope no one has heard that one before.

I'm guessing it's because it's been so dry, and the scaj has no flow. They also turned off the aeration pump.

The Greatest Place(TM) in America

Back home on the fourth of July.

I spent the afternoon with some of my family and Emily's friend Lauren at Letchworth. The pool is free now with entry. It was human soup but even soup felt good on the 85 degree day. Plus the diving pool is always emptier.


oma Mid wrapped in his blankets

We cooked out - I had some Lebanese food and veggie snausage.



When I got back I sped over to the fireworks at the outer harbor. I shouldn't have rushed because they were 40 minutes delayed.





They also caused a fire.

And everyone to run away from imaginary gunshots at Canalside - wtf

Yesterday we went with (e:mike) and (e:libertad) to Scherer Furniture on Genesee Street since they were looking for a couch. It's this giant four floor furniture warehouse full of every type of couch, dresser or weird table thing you can imagine. It's pretty overwhelming but the old building is neat.

Everything was very expensive but hardwood. I'm not a huge fan of furniture shopping or decoration, but I have to admit it was fun to run around and try out as many of the chairs as you could (before the salesman would mention the single seat you sat on cost $1500!)



This picture was on an office set they were trying to sell. Apparently if you can afford this, you don't use the computer that often - it's off on the side of the room. (e:paul) thinks it's because it would only be your secretary using it.

For lunch on Saturday, (e:paul) wanted to go to Sato. He refused to ride a bike and I refused to drive a car, so we took the metro rail to the new University Heights location. I used to take it everywhere before I had a decent bike (I would still refuse to drive with people then) but I haven't taken it regularly in over two and a half years now.

Despite most of the stations looking worse than ever, the red subway tiles are still just as awesome.





The Sato menu at this location has new stuff like rice bowls. I had one with fried tofu and spring rolls - it was really good except for the ranch on it. Still not a fan of gross condiments.


Paul and his comically oversized ramen

The restaurant was very cute. I think I like it better than the Elmwood one, less fancy and more smiling food.

Paul wanted a shopping spree so we walked down a few blocks of Main Street, with a stop at Parkside Candy.

And this tiny shop (probably 10x20ft) called MerMaid and Weasel. It was supposed to be a shop for nerds. They didn't have much in the store but the owner was in there knitting little fox faces, which I liked. Paul got (e:mike) some candy cigs.

Why is a car dealership allowed to steal the sidewalk to sell their shitty machines? Pretty sure we



On the way back we took the Lasalle station home. It looks like water must be leaking in the tunnel at the top because some areas had a shit ton of paint peeling off the metal panels. Good thing we can get $40 million dollars of federal funds to put cars on three blocks of Main Street, but can't spare any for the NFTA!

I'm not a fan of light pollution but the lights on the grain silos were pretty cool. (e:paul), (e:terry) and I rode down to check them out. I think they're supposed to go for a year so you have more than enough time

I kept up the bike death march with (e:paul), because (e:terry) broke his big toe on the stairs ;(

Have you ever noticed the maze of signs near Church Street and the 190 talking about the Irish Famine Memorial? I've seen them before but never thought about it. Paul and I decided to follow through with them.

Starting at South Elmwood and Church, you zip across the street down Lower Terrace. There, you're sent under the 190, west via Erie Street. The last one just points into the Synacor parking lot on the Inner Harbor.
Which is where the memorial actually is.



At first I thought this was the memorial - a sign and some flowers.


It turned out it was 20 feet behind it. A big stone fountain that wasn't filled with water. I wonder if it was there before Synacor's office? The whole Inner Harbor is a suburban mess if you ask me.






Anyway Paul wanted clams, so we went to the Hatch. He seemed to like them a lot. There were a ton of people hanging around and lots of mom and gramma booty shaking going on to Sweet Home Alabama.






Our last stop was looking at Riverworks. It feels like a crazy big city entertainment area. Even on a Sunday they had people rollerskating on a rink, a big snackstand and double decked restaurant etc. I wonder how big it's going to get. They had the remnants of a warehouse nextdoor with the old rebar all artsily layed out. I wanted to jump over all the concrete and explore ;( too late to do that in Buffalo anymore.

Friday night we headed down to the Project Grant fundraiser at Buffalo Iron Works. (e:terry)'s friend Tina had organized it. The space itself was real nice and had a huge patio, plus a garage door that opened up the whole bar. Music on the other hand was not my style.

Before the event we stopped at Canalside where a house music event was going on. There was a man with a pico projector pretending to be an old Irish cop, telling about the seedy canalside days. He had a picture of these big madams that used to live there.