I can't belive stamps went up. For those of you that communcate through the web and pay all your bills on line then that is a nice savings but most people don't do both the minority of people pay at tops or through the internet. New york state sales tax just went up. So for those who get paid Minimum wage and just got a raise now how much of raise did you really get since the tax went up half a cent. It is like the Regal there prices sneak up every so often and you don't notice it untill you think back a couple years and compare prices. I saw Fun with dick and jane over the past weekend I enjoyed it. I had more of a point of how prices went up but lost it somewhare. On another note I thought Truffles where candy oh well little do I know.

Some random thoughts on various things to hit on. Firstly on the TV front. Starting Tuesday at 10pm New Episode of Miami Ink are on. I think it is an interesting show I saw the ad during one of the episodes I missed last season on a marathon last night (on A&E). I Posted about Rollergirls and today they had a good review of it in the Buffalo News. I thought it was a good discrtion of the show. I have seen a couple good reality shows lately One is MTV True life I'm a gun Owener very interesting. But the true life "Im moving to NY was also verry interesting. The price of rent is unbelivable. I also saw part two of Taxicab confessions NeW York New York. It was raunchy like it is sometimes but it was still entertaing.

The steelers and Redskins won over the weekend wich was awesome but the sabres lost oh well. I'm going to the game on thursday I'll be in the 300 level hopefully I will get some pics and post them then I'm going to the game on saturday as well. Both teams are from the west coast Phoenix and the KIngs will be fun if they can win both that would be awsome my sabres luck isn't the best. On Friday the Bandits (lacrosse) season starts they play in toronto. I don't know if the games are on the radio like they where last year. With Hockey and Football it will be a busy weekend. If I'm not around here I hope everyone has a great weekend. Oh yeah the Senecas are still in the news. I read some article about them moving along and calling in people to suggest designs for the casino don't remember the entire article from the news. I know I forgot something but don't really remember sith so many random thoughts. Of to catch the end of wife swap and then Wrestling to find out what happend at the PPV.

There is an interesting article in artvoice it is the cover story and can be found at www.artvoice.com . For any one who is interested in reading it is right there at artvoices website. In a previous journal [inlink]metalpeter,460[/inlink] I posted a long artvoice article about the writers trip to china. Towards the end of the article the writer presents idea about how the NFTA should expand the Niagara falls airport and how they could get a ot of flights from other countries. He mentions that Buffalo or Niagara Falls (if don't count them as the same) is in a great cental area for people from other countires to go to boston, toronto, montreal and a bunch of other big cities. Recntly I have read a Buffalo news article where they bascily dismissed or said this idea was stupid (if I remember correctly). I wish I would have thought to post it at that time. I'm guessing by now it is archieved but not sure. In any event in the new artvoice article they attack the Buffalo News and even give some exmples of bad ideas the Buffalo News supported. There general point there was that since so many people read the news they helped push there idea on the people and the city of Buffalo. Not sure if I really agree with that or not but it is a good point. From what I have read on both sides I agree with artvoice (or the writer of the article). I can remember years ago when the Concord was the most famous plane but it couldn't land in Buffalo because the runway wasn't long enough. That is the advantage the NF airport has you can land huge planes there and form asia it takes just as long to fly to the east coast as it does west coast. That seems had to belive but I assume there facts are correct. I think that the steps taken to improve the airport and get international flights into Buffalo is a great idea. Do I think a China town will form like in the article, no but it would be possible I think just dismissing the idea is a bad idea. Don't be affrid to chime in, even if it is to say who gives a fuck.

I hope to talk more about advertisng soon. But for right now I will start with one distrubing add for a place called HUSH. there is a new Lunge in Casino Niaigara called Hush. I don't know if it is supposed to be a gay club or gay friendly club. If it isn't then they sure picked a bad model. I can't tell if it is girl or a guy. I don't have any problems with guys who look like girls or vice versa, or gays or transexuals. But that being said I don't understand how that ad could be aimed at stright guys and girls. To me it seems as if they are trying to sell androgeny wich is fine. But I have a fealling that, that was not the attempt. Hopefully I can do a little more reaserch and get more answers. I don't even have time to rant about that creepy burger king who wakes up next to the guy in bed but maybe that will be my next post who knows. Go Redskins, Go Sabres I'm off to watch sports and see if I see any other weird adds.

Over the holiday there were a bunch of marathons. I did watch some of the Monty Phyton one. I wasn't in the mood to watch the Tlight zone. But sometimes other stations willl put on atleast 3 episodes on in a row it is a good way to get caught up on shows that you have missed or that you might be interested in. I have heard of some people who wont watch a show untill there is a marathon that way they get the entire story at once instead of waiting a week. I wish I could have watche the 24 hours of 24 on A&E but that was to intense. But it is a great way to cathch up.

There are lots of sports to do in the winter. I used to ski some but never learned how to snowboard or race snowmobiles or any of that stuff. I admit I love watching it but don't see it as often as I like. There have been lots of differant kinds of sking in the olympics for a long time. But snowboarding was (im my opionion) put in because it was verry popular and to try and cut into A huge market and a sport wich is growing at a large rate. But that being said both snowboarding and sking can be seen live at the X games. For more info go to EXPN.com . One aspect that I really like is when they do Moto X on the snow that is amazing. The schedulle I got is for what will be shown on TV. Sometimes what is shown changes based on weather and snow conditions. Also some of the events that are finals the last of runs are on sportscenter live from the site and then some times they give you some sports news and then go back to the event live. I'm not going to get into the debate of if it is better for them to be live or not (they used to be taped and then showed). I have never tried it but I think there is a way you can watch all the events live over there site. I'm sure some the the athletes at Winter X will be at the olympics also it happend the same way 4 years ago, wow I can't belive that was 4 years ago I can bearly remember it.

Winter X Games 10 Live Telecast ScheduleEXPN.com


Saturday, January 28

TIME NETWORK COMPETITION
2 p.m.-3 p.m. ABC Snowboarder X Men's & Women's Finals
3 p.m.-4 p.m. ABC Snowboarder X Men's & Women's Finals
4 p.m.-5 p.m. ABC SnoCross Quarterfinals
5 p.m.-6 p.m. ABC Snowboard Slopestyle Men's Finals
9 p.m.-11 p.m. ESPN Snowboard SuperPipe Women's Finals; Moto X Best Trick Finals Part 1



Sunday, January 29

TIME NETWORK COMPETITION
2 p.m.-3 p.m. ESPN Skier X Men's & Women's Finals
3 p.m.-4 p.m. ESPN SnoCross Semifinals
4 p.m.-5 p.m. ESPN Skiing Slopestyle Finals
9 p.m.-11 p.m. ESPN Snowboard SuperPipe Men's Prelims; Moto X Best Trick Finals Part 2



Monday, January 30

TIME NETWORK COMPETITION
9 p.m.-11 p.m. ESPN Snowboard SuperPipe Men's Finals; SnoCross Last Chance Qualifiers



Tuesday, January 31

TIME NETWORK COMPETITION
9 p.m.-11 p.m. ESPN Skiing SuperPipe Men's Finals; SnoCross Finals


ESPN's SportsCenter will report nightly from Winter X Games 10 including LIVE reports on Monday, January 30 and Tuesday, January 31 during the 11 p.m. ET show.



ESPN2 will feature daily late-night highlight programs from Sunday, Jan. 29 through Wednesday, Feb. 1. The Sunday, Monday and Wednesday shows will air from 2 - 3 a.m. and on Tuesday from 3 - 4 a.m. ET.

• Times and events listed are Eastern Time (ET) and are subject to change. Please consult your local listings.

Before I get to the show Rollergirls that I taped last night and watched today. When I got home last night a had a phone message on my machine from a buddy of mines father that his son had a daughter. I didn't know what to say on a call back so i left it at that. It is hard for me to imagine him with a kid.

There is this show on A&E called Rollergirls it was on last night and is repeated tonight at 10 pm. If you go to www.aetv.com you can get more info on the show. One thing I got from there are the pictures below. The show is a reality show that follows girls who play Roller Derby. I used to really like watching that it was fun. Plus there are a lot of fine chicks playing it. It is also a ruff sport. The league they play in is in Austin, Texas. I don't know if each show is going to be the same way. But this one Was about the Rookie Venis Envy number 9 and 1/2 and her life outside of the game and with her team mates and what goes on outside of the sport. But they also had highlites and a preaty good overview of one of there games. I think it is a good series, at least based on the first show.

Cool all 5 Pictures Worked. I decided to only do 5 incase they didn't work. If you are interested in seeing more pictures from the new years game I went to I have two links for you. They are (this one is the newyears day game) and (2 previous games). Over the season I will add more pictures the two albums. I'm going to 1 more game for sure and i'm thinking about going to a game a couple days before that one.

(weird that I took all the tv pics at the same size and downloaded them all togather at the same time but some will show up and some won't hopefully in a couple of days I will have all my hockey pics up and a link to them)

In my last journal [inlink]metalpeter,520[/inlink] I mentioned someone who I went to school with and how they came back to Buffalo. That Article is below. I found in at the Buffalo News web page it is an article in First sunday and I didn't read the dating articles but they are there also. If you get the sunday and you like the article then you may want to look at the pictures.


An Organizer at Heart

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A HARVARD-EDUCATED NATIVE SON RETURNS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

By MARK SOMMER

1/1/2006

Aaron Bartley used to be disturbed by the poverty he saw from the window of hisschool bus. Those rides in the late-1980s took him from his home in North Buffalo to City Honors on the East Side.
That trip and the education he received in and outside the classroom left an indelible impression.

"It was educational beyond the 3 Rs," Bartley says. "I got to meet a lot of diverse people who were poor and wealthy, and understood class dynamics even before I knew what they were."

Bartley, a 2001 graduate of Harvard Law School, could have followed the lucrative path of corporate litigation or securities law, as many of his classmates did.

Instead, he cast off the class privilege of a Harvard degree to become a community organizer, rolling up his sleeves to throw in his lot with the city's poor and disenfranchised.

"Buffalo has always been on my mind, and one of my aspirations (after going away to school) had been to do work here," says Bartley. He returned to Buffalo a year ago and directs People United for Sustainable Housing, known by the acronym PUSH. It's a new organization mixing nonprofit development with community activism.

Bartley's plans for Buffalo were recently boosted by a $60,000 fellowship from Echoing Green, a New York City-based non-profit that named him one of the world's "best emerging social change entrepreneurs." The funds include a stipend for Bartley and another staffer.

His "Niagara Community Initiative" was one of 10 applications accepted out of more than 700 requests, says Lara Galinsky, a foundation vice president.

"Aaron is both extraordinarily intelligent and humble, as well as very dedicated and connected to his hometown," says Galinsky. "He is an organizer at heart."

Bartley, 30, lives on the West Side's Plymouth Street, near the Massachusetts Avenue Project, a community-building organization on whose board he sits. He served briefly as its executive director.

PUSH has acquired a building on 19th Street to redevelop into a low-income co-op where poor people ineligible for mortgages can develop equity. He hopes it will become a model for redevelopment elsewhere.

Bartley joined with others outside the Buffalo Convention Center in September to criticize a city-run foreclosure auction. The protesters said low-income homes are often resold to out-of-state buyers looking for a quick profit and not concerned about the community.

"This encourages the speculative market that is highly destructive to neighborhoods," says Bartley, who teaches a course on community organizing in the University at Buffalo's Urban and Regional Planning Department.

PUSH is promoting auction reform that would follow New York City's example and give low-income, first-time home buyers priority in buying homes. It also wants to see larger city grants available to these would-be home buyers.

PUSH held its first community forum in early November with the help of the UB planning department, and about 100 residents attended. They were invited to imagine the kinds of improvements they would like to see on the West Side.

"We did a lot of outreach for the meeting," Bartley says. "We probably knocked on a thousand doors."

"There's a ton of frustration, but that's not bad for the West Side, either. It's warranted when you see things like abandoned houses on every block."

Michael Clarke, program director of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a not-for-profit that works to revitalize distressed neighborhoods, says Bartley's efforts hold promise.

"Aaron is a pretty inventive young guy," says Clarke. "I think he has a lot of really good ideas, and a lot of different ways of approaching some of the problems we see here.

"If he succeeds with this, it could be something that is modeled in other transitional neighborhoods as well."


On the Battle Lines

Bartley grew up in North Buffalo. His mother, Maureen, operates a downtown flower shop, and his father, John, is a computer programmer and former fiddle player in the Happy Richie's Polka Band. His parents divorced when he was 11. He remains close to them, and with a younger sister who is a school teacher in Portland, Ore.

As a law student, Bartley co-founded the Harvard Living Wage Campaign after graduating from Swarthmore College with a political science degree.

The student-led coalition won $10 million in 2001 in annual wage and benefit gains for more than 2,000 janitors, dining service workers and others.

The summer after graduating Swarthmore, Bartley took an internship with the AFL-CIO, assigned to a Denver suburb where striking immigrant janitors were seeking union recognition.

Bartley was cynical at first. "I didn't know that the picket line was anything but an empty symbol."

After the union drive succeeded, he gained more organizing experience before returning to Buffalo in 1998 as the Western New York coordinator for Mark Green's unsuccessful U.S. Senate run.

From there it was on to Harvard - where Bartley felt like a fish out of water.

"At Harvard Law School, the career track is very much about fitting into a particular set of 10 law firms that everyone is striving to get into," Bartley says. "There was a small subset of law students - maybe five or 10 per year out of 550 - who were committed to social justice."

He compensated by getting to know Harvard service workers. After discovering the world's wealthiest educational institution was paying them $7 an hour without benefits, with many of the jobs outsourced to low-wage companies, he and two other students began the Harvard Living Wage Campaign.

"We had a simple demand," Bartley says. "Raise the wage to $10.25 and give everybody health care."

The campaign lasted three years, ending four months before his graduation. A 24-day sit-in inside Harvard President Neil Rudenstein's office galvanized the protest. It also led to Bartley receiving a formal censure by the administration, which was later noted in his student records.

The successful labor campaign attracted national attention, as rallies drew thousands and politicians such as Massachusetts senators John F. Kerry and Edward Kennedy, and the Boston Globe lent their support.

The Nation ran an article entitled, "Joe Hill Goes to Harvard," referring to the early 20th-century labor organizer.

After graduation, Bartley worked for the Service Employees International Union's "Justice for Janitors" campaign. It was the first mass mobilization of Latino immigrants.

"The important part of that campaign was getting tens of thousands of brown people - immigrants - visibility and some power and some recognition," says Bartley.

"I learned a lot, especially from Latin Americans who had done a lot of organizing in their home countries," says Bartley.

In the end, 2,000 workers received health care gains and slight wage increases - better than before, if less than organizers hoped for.

The diversity of that janitorial work force is what attracts Bartley to the West Side, given the recent influx of Africans, Central Americans and Asians.

And he is encouraged by new trends in urban planning reflected in the Elmwood strip.

"There is a whole current in American thinking of a New Urbanism - pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods," says Bartley. "It's about refocusing on the quality of life for the neighborhoods and the commercial strips that touch them, and not relying on silver-bullet solutions.

"We want to be a voice in that movement and that process, especially from a low-income perspective."


Mark Sommer is a staff reporter for The News.