I spent the weekend working on one task that consumed more brain cells than all the drugs I have taken in my life - and that is a lot to be said, especially considering my raver years during the 90s. No, I didn't party it up crazy - I stripped a large wooden fireplace in my office of multiple layers of paint in order to restore it to the wood it originally was. The process has been long and crueling and I fear I chose the wrong product, which just ade it take longer. The hard part is really the intricate woodwork, most of which I didn't even realize existed until after the paint started shedding. I even had a gas mask for the second half after I was totally consumed by fumes earlier. Even though the mask was rated for paint thinner and paint/pesticides - the shit still smelled though the mask. It makes me never want to eat ornages again. I feel orange burned frot he inside out.

You saw the first couple stages in my last journal (e:paul,4365) This is where it is at now.

They could not fix my phone so they gave me a totally new one. At the sprint store in Amherst they have a repair facility and if you have the $6/month insurance and you have a phone they can't fix of no fault of your own, you get a new one. Now I have a brand new $599 cell phone. How did the price go up since I bought it last decemeber. It is so nice to have a new one. Even windows mobiel gets the windows regedit slow down after a while and it was nice to start with a fresh copy of windows. Plus I found a bunch of new hacks to ake my mobile videos better.

I went to (e:ladycroft)'s birthday last night. I didn't think I was going to go because I found it quite shitty that she didn't show up at (e:mike)'s or (e:terry)'s party and then at (e:mike) birthday celebration at frizzys and didn't say anything about it either. I decided to go anyways and it turned out to be quite interesting. It was a mix of about 4 or 5 different european ethnic groups. In fact I think an english speaking american was minority at the party. I have a hard time telling gay guys apart from French guys. I mean they kept humping up on each other and sitting on each others laps but I think they were supposed ot be straight.

(e:ladycroft) and (e:neijefer) stuck their faces int he cake. I started getting carried away with taking a picture of a picture of a picture in different digital mediums until they were just about unrecognizable.





The Dalai Lama was at home depot. I know, no one will believe me but he was there buying lumber.


We went to FWS this morning. It's just down Elmwood before Hertel.
(MAP TO: 1738%20ELMWOOD%20AVE)

(e:matthew) got a pretty new 10 x 13 oriental carpet for the living room at FWS You would think he would be happy but he was a gruppy fucker all day, granted, his wisdom tooth is coming in.

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At FWS they had this bizarre miscellaneous piece of furniture on clearance for $10. I almost wanted to buy it, it was so strange.




I decided return all the woodwork in my office back to its original form. I want it to match the foyer, something it used to do before someone decided to paint it. My friend Katie said, "Can you imagine being the first person to paint over that." Frankly, I cannot imagine being that person, it just makes no sense to me with such nice woodwork.

This is what it looked like before I started working and before I had everyone else's stuff banned from my room. I just one one nicknack free uncluttered space with nothing other than me, my laptop and maybe one piece of sitting furniture for a guest/client in my office. I think it will make the 10 x 16 space quite livable. I want to be able to get up and pace, think, sit on my new rug, pace some more, lie on the one piece of furniture and then get up, walk to the laptop on the guant desk and type some more.





I order to strip the fireplace and woodwork I am using citristrip The stuff smells a lot like citrisolve and probably work sin a similar manner. It does smell intense but it is much more tolerable than paint thinner or a heat stripper.



I haven't finished yet but it is coming along.


















These are the color my office would be if I lived alone. Instead they are going to be a yellowish tan, suede color. Behr paint is 25% off with a rebate from home depot this weekend.

I spent the afternoon doing what I like to refer to as duct tape programming. I was given the task of taking a web interface that is created by a propriatary commercial server side application, whose code I do not have access to, and tacking on a new interface and functionality by forcefully unloading their design and DOM and replacing it with my own while retaining the data using surebert javascript toolkit.



I wish the asbestos issues would just go away. I am hiring an EPA certified asbestos abatement professional to come access the situation on friday. I also talked with the lawyer about it seeing as we have still not closed on the freaking house. She said to give her an official esti9mate from the contractor and she will see what she can do. I hope we can work something out or maybe the insurance will cover it. We really have no option because the asbestos is exposed within the ducts and we can't turn the furnace on until it's done.

There was this major traffic jam in front of the hospital this morning. There always is some sort of jam there but today it was particularly bad.


Indoor Air Professionals really did a bad job cleaning. I found after closer inspection that many pipes were full of debris and dirt. They are scheduled to re-inspect of Sept 5th.



I contacted a company about asbestos removal. Let's pray it is not unreasonably expensive or that they can contain it and clean our basement.

The one that makes me really nervous is a pipe that got rusty but has asbestos lining so that the asbestos is exposed through the rust.


















Is this friable?




At least it is not like this. Although that old train station I used to play in was. Does anyone else remember kicking in the decomposing walls, etc. Why was I such a stupid kid?

I feel bad that it was (e:terry)'s birthday today because for me it was the worst day in a long time and I just couldn't pretend to be happy. The "fucking retarded" and I an using "fucking retarded" in a very light manner guy that we had look over the house neglected to mention the rotting furnace pipes laced with asbestos. It makes me wonder what else he missed.





Unfortunately, against my better judgement I decided to go with having a contractor inspect the house instead of an inspector. He must have done a shotty job to not have noticed the pipes. The fact that the few near the door are rusting on the inside means this is going to be a proble. I believe the former owner put wet shoes on the furnace in winter which caused the rust on these two registers. That in turn exposes the asbestos in the furnace pipes. Yuck, thankfully there are very few asbestos lined pipe sin the basement and we can remove them.



Does anyone know anyone that deals with asbestos removal. According to the city I can wet, seal and junk the pipes in the regular garbage if the garbage man decided to pick it up or I can drive it to the dump.

Asbestos abatement in Buffalo can only be done by an asbestos contractor licensed as such with the city.

There is one exception to this regulation: in the case of a homeowner-occupied single-family dwelling, asbestos may be removed by the homeowner. If the homeowner's removal and haul-out costs are below $750.00, there is no permit necessary; otherwise a permit is taken out by the homeowner. It is recommended that the owner water-soak asbestos prior to removal, and double-bag it in contractors' garbage bags. Disposal can pose a problem. The City is not required to pick up asbestos refuse; it is usually at the discretion of the garbage crew. However, once bagged it may be brought to the City's waste site at 264 Hopkins Avenue - enter from Tifft Street - and, bring along a recent city tax bill as proof of residency.

I am even more dissapointed with Indoor Air Professionals I thought they did a good job until I decided to put a web cam down the furnace today during my investigation of what was going on and they were filled with debris and cat hair and two of the registers were not cleaned.



On another note, aren't bugs supposed to hate citronells. What is up with these freak ones. they are on it like crack addicts on crack.

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At the elmwood art festival they through rice all over near the stage. Doesn't that kill all the birds?







Does anyone know if this is a gas shut off for a gas stove or a gas connector. It is behind my tenants stove and I need to get a new stove. Sears wanted to know if I had a gas shutoff behind the stove but I had no idea.



The mushroom-goronzola burger is so tasty at Roswell.


English Standard measurement is really idiotic. We should just give it up.


The sugar glider babies come out now. We have one new boy and one new girl.


This song just came on the radio and confirms my beliefs that the 90s are on the verge of being back in style.

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We cleaned the hosue up so much for the party. It actually looked liek people lived in it for once. (e:southernyankee) surprised us by flying up from DC for the birthday party with her friend lisa.



Throughout the evening so many people showed up. It definately got craziest after midnight and ended around 6am. I didn't take any pictures besides the one above. I cannot wait to see your pics (e:metalpeter)

(e:carolinian), I hope you made it home okay.

There were ~35 people at our house: me, matt, terry, carey, tk, metalpeter, lee, walt, oda(the friend formelly known as emily), carolinian, mike, mrmike, lisa, southernyankee, enknot, chirs scuito , andy, josh, matthew, neil, blond guy, willy, carrie chillberg, tina, her bf, chris, chris, their new sidekick, lilho, nick, tina wang, bf, kookcity

(e:kookcity), I am totally gonna hit you up on that offer to help paint.

(e:imk2)'s ex tried to convince me to built a sex dungeon in the attack. Now I have to say, when we did our house purchasing facilitation with a creative professional last year (e:paul,3559) , one of our prerequisities that got listed during the free association, no feedback component was a the requirement of a sex dungeon in the basement, lol. Here is the post it
on my face after the facilitiation. However, he meant to open a sex club in the attic - not my thing. Basement and attic are so different.

I guess we had really too short of notice and didn't do a good job contacting some people as we just got back from vacation and were moving and I had to deal with my thesis all of last week. Most notably absent was (e:ladycroft) , (e:jenks) , (e:imk2) , (e:vincent) , (e:zobar) , (e:dragonlady) , (e:jason) , (e:joshua) , (e:springfaire) , (e:e):trisha and (e:dimartiste). Their was a definate lack of friends from school too. Everyone is either moved away now ((e:shawnr) and (e:robin)), or I am out of communication with them ((e:liz) , (e:churchofjulie) , (e:soyeon) , etc). I tried to email them but it was a very last minute effort. Maybe, in a way it was reflective of my graduation from UB. (e:holly) was at another party and all of (e:mike)'s friends didn't make it because they were at (e:jill)'s sister's wedding before and (e:libertad) had some previous engagement.

I am writing this recipe for pear ja here because we have about 500 full size pears in our backyard and I know I need to do something with them. I wonder if it will work. You can see them in this old entry (e:paul,4611)



The pears are of the Bartlett Variety

This recipe is quoted from

Pear Jelly

8 cups peeled, cored, chopped pears
1 cup water
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 package (1.75 oz) powdered fruit pectin
6 cups white sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup brown sugar

Sterilize jars and lids. Simmer covered pears, water and lemon juice for 20 minutes. Stir in pectin and bring to a rolling boil. Slowly stir in the white sugar, a little at a time, and keep boiling for 1 minute until sugar dissolves, stirring constantly. Add brown sugar, cinnamon and amond extract, stirring until dissolved. With slotted spoon, remove pieces of pears and set aside for another use (I suggest pie filling). Pour rest of jelly into clean jars leaving 1/2 inch of space at the top. Wipe the rims and top with lids. Screw the lids on as tightly as you can. Process jars in boiling water for 10 minutes. Let cool overnight. If the lids pop when you press the middle down, boil the jelly for a few minutes and try again. Once the lid no longer pops when you press it, your jelly is set and is good for at least a year, perhaps more.

Note about boiling water processing: I use a large stew pot and let the water heat to boiling while making the jelly. Make sure the water covers the tops of your jars and they should be fine.

It is amazing what you can see with a web cam. I wish we only had a magnet now.

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I had a busy day of configuring someone elses server. At least it will help pay for my new fancy ass front loading washing machine. Too bad when they delivered it today, it was broken so they had to take it back. Then I go online to the sears store to get a picture of it for my journal and see it is a full $100 cheaper than when I bought it at the store and everyone gave it bad reviews. I hate appliances now already. I think I am going to just get some sort of wash service and screw the stupid laundry machine. Does anyone else get their laundry done at a place?

There were so many geese at the CFA yesterday.

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The started to get angry with me by the end

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