I have been sick the last two days. Yesterday, I really wanted to eat some spicy food as I thought it would make me feel better. (e:theecarey) and I went to Wegmans at around 8PM and I was feeling a little more lively.

We bought lots of seafood to make jamabalya, another ultiate chocolate cake, and some champagne/wine. Well at first we didn't know what to make but my phone suggested jamabalya.

We bought mussels, scallops, catfish, sausage and spices. The mussels from Wegmans were pretty crappy. We bought two bags and I had to throw out about 40 of them as they were dead and smelled really bad. The rest were fine. I think I am done with mussels for a bit.

Bad ones


Good ones


I never realized what a difference there was in the quality of spice brands / labels. I suppose it makes sense. Let me use the bay leaves as an example.

Spice Island Bay Leaves are like the Kine Bud Did you know that Kine means excellent in Hawaii. Anyhow, at the opposite end of the spectrum, is the schwag of bay leaves - McCormick brand, red top line. They are all chopped up and have bug holes in the leaves, etc.

Spice Island Bay Leaves cost $9.50 per bottle


The McCormick Gourmet Line $5.89 per bottle




McCormick Red Top Brand Thrift Bay Leaves $3.39 per bottle




When I was searching for the spice island web site I found this

Here is the jambalaya itself, a very delicious dish. After we ate it I fell asleep on the dining room floor and then went to bed around 10PM.









We finally closed on the mansion today. I felt like crap the whole time and had to sign like 3000 peices of paper. I wish I could have not been sick but at least it is over and we own the house, moreover, we actually own more property than I thought. The stone fence is on our land as is part of our neighbor's driveway that he tried to tell me was his land. I really don't care if he uses it, but it isn't his property. He even cut our bushes the one day because he said they were on his property. Maybe, I should let him keep believing that!

While reviewing the land around the mansion, I had this overwhelming fuck you people who didn't think I was good enough feeling.

Over the last couple months the interest rate went down and we actually pay $100 less per month. The guy we bought the house from owed two years in taxes and back water bills. It came to over $6000 but they just took that out of the price of the house - so that we in essence got credited for it. Basically, the seller loses the money and the city gets it but we pay the same price.

The terry looking serious at the county clerks office - did you know that McKinley was burried here.


The downpayment


The property lines

I finally got my diploma in the mail today and it is damaged. Also, seems a little late for a 9/1 graduation. What the hell, for the amount of money I paid for it, I would expect to be in better conditiion. Oh well, at least it is finally over. I feels so good to actually have the paper and know it is done. No more homework ever.







Now I have the paper. Tomorrow I will have the papers for the house. Then I will be set.

I was cleaning out my camera phone again:

The Buffalo Smokehouse (257 Frankiln St) on Franklin kind of sucks.

(MAP TO: 257%20FRANKILN%20ST.)







It is the same place that used to be Darcy McGees. The place was empty, the sides were luke warm. The meat itself was pretty yummy though I doubt I would ever go back in a city that has Fat Bob's ( 41 Virginia Place ) although, frankly though, I cannot believe how bad the Fat Bob's website is

It doesn't even have its own url - check out the page. I guess it proves that a website means nothing as there food is far superior to the Buffalo Smokehouse.

(MAP TO: 41%20VIRGINIA%20PLACE)

Almost directly after the snow storm of arborgeddon all the snow melted away. These pics were taken of the house on the 16th.




We celebrated (e:lilho)'s birthday at home with just a few of us. We got drunk and ate webman's new ultimate chocolate cake It really is amazing. I ate so much of the cake. It is definately not for people that do not enjoy lots of sugar and butter.

I am sick again. It seems that october and february really do get me every year. (e:paul,3907)

Perhaps, I should just buy a bubble for these months.



At first I thought I was getting depressed - which I just about never am and would have no real excuse for. Then as the day went on I realized I was getting sick. It makes me wonder if lots of people's depression is based on some sort of physical unhealthiness.

At least I had a good night programming last night. I still have lots more code cleanup to do today.

Has anyone els enoticed that Buffalo Rising has been offline since the storm (e:paul,4679) . I wonder what happend as I think their servers are housed out of town. A new version or a storm related disaster?

Now I feel bad because (e:enknot) and I bought a lot of bottled water last night. I can't believe it will take 8 or 9 days to restore power to everyone.

Boil Water Order For Erie County Authority Customers
Posted by:  Athan Kompos, Producer  
Created: 10/13/2006 6:05:07 PM
Updated: 10/13/2006 7:55:58 PM
The Erie County Water Authority has issued a boil water advisory for all customers. The authority wants all customers to bring water to a rolling boil for 2 minutes and let it cool, before consuming.

The boil water advisory is only for cutomers of the Erie County Water Authority. Residents in cities such as Buffalo and Tonawanda recieve water from a different source and are not subject to the advisory.

The advisory has been issued because the main pumping station for the water authority is without power. When power is restored, water may include bacteria.

Erie County officials want all residents to consume water spareingly, due to the natural disaster caused by the Friday lake effect snow storm.
WGRZ-TV

This is the worst tree damage I have ever seen in my life. (e:matthew) says that it is because the leaves are still on the tree and hold up the snow which causes a huge weight burden and then the wind whips and cracks the branches off. That sounds about right to me. I don't remember the snow falling on green leaves very often. I feel bad that one of the best visual treaures of our city, the old trees, have been so badly damaged.

250,000 WNY residents are without power. That seems insane and they say it may be until Tuesday or Thursday before its all back up. The streets are alive with the sounds of people and chainsaws. It is an interesting combo.



I decided to go for a walk and tour the damages in and around the elmwood strip. Seems like the elmwood village was hit pretty hard in terms of power outages, etc but elmwood itself was clear as was deleware. ELmwood has very few tree left in the first place so they had minimal damage. Many of the stores including LeMetro and Globe Market were open. It appeared even the busses were running.



I ended up going by myself because no on else wanted to brave the cold as we have heat and electricty at the house. Linwood as well as other fancy streets and side streets with big trees were hit kind of hard.

Our house wasn't damages accept the awning in the back.













Here are some pics from where in and around the villagers live.

wow, it's not even sort of slowing down out there and not one plough has come by. Will work get cancelled?

I have been too busy to keep up with y journal these days. Soon, I think the house stuff will calm down and I won't have any outside projects. I really need a rest from other programming so I can work on estrip and my journal. To bad I can't get paid to do that.

Ok, I am offically listed as having graduated on the myUB site but I still haven't received my diploma which I find to be shitty seeing as they were so specific about their fucking deadlines. I should charge them a late fee. I have no idea how I managed to turn a 60-credit degree into a 74 credit degree but let me tell you it had a lot to do with them not being very clear about pre-requistes and changing the rules all the time. Obviously, I wasn't a total fuck-up because I managed to get a 4.0 on all 74 credits. Where is my diploma!



The day before (e:southernyankee) left we went out to pick up the new insurance for the house which we should own next week according to the lawyers. It is nice to have actual insurance that is paid for for the whole year. I can't believe how cheap house insurance is, at least comparatively. I think we paid under $900 on this huge house, while the car insurance is much higher. I guess it makes sense since the house doesn't move. Well at least it shouldn't move. Please god do not let the house move in any way.







On the way back we ate sushi at the Fuji Grill in Williamsville. I could not rememeber for the life of me where it was so I typed (GOOGLE - sushi williamsville estrip) into google and it took me to my journal (e:paul,4307) which had a yahoo map on it while using phone.

I still haven't tried white cockle. I can't decide if it looks like the tastiest thing I ever had, or the most disgusting thing you could eat. I guess it really depends on the consistency.


What I ate.


At the Buffalo Medical Campus they are smashing down a building to make roof for soething. It was so fun to watch them smash it down. Sometimes, I wonder if I picked the wrong career when I watch peope smash things with big machines. I got that same feeling at the dump. There is just something magical about smashing things into peices with big machine.


I ate at Ulriches with y co-workers again.


It is now much closer as we moved to new offices right next to main street and allen.
(MAP TO: 901%20WASHINGTON%20AVENUE)

At first I was in this tiny cubicle with a sawed off desk but Del let me move, thank god or Del. My new cubicle is really big and everything is adjustable. It gives me that Steven Hawkins feeling I always really wanted when interfacing with a computer, the one where everythign fits just right to my body.

Also today, (e:enknot) lauched the new roswell site . It is awesome. If you didn't see the old site you really can't imagine the difference but it is worlds apart. It is the first non-estrip version of surebert based javascript living on the web. Thanks for taking the time to learn it (e:enknot)


Okay so the real drama is the roof. Tuesday was so beautiful that I went up on the roof with (e:terry) to repair some sports aroudn the chimney that were damaged. I love being up on the roof looking over this part of the city. Unfortunately, I got a little too thorough and decided to rip off all the roof where the damage was. Del let me out of work at 3PM so I could help (e:terry) with the process. I couldn't stand the idea of rotting wood being covered over. It turned out it was much more damaged then we thought. Luckily, our friend Dave knew about rooves and we went out and bought a circular saw and soe timber. Soon (e:terry), dave and I had the roof fixed but by like 10PM we had to start tarping it because it was supposed to rain and now there is so much snow.

I have no idea when we can uncover and fix it, but it has to be very soon as we have to real roof on the top.

Here you can see some pics during the roof repair. Mind you it did not look liek this until I ripped off the top couple layers for in order to repair the wood. It is all repaired now but the pics didn't come out in the dark. Now it just has to be re-tared and re-shingled. You can see (e:terry) repairing the wood in the video.













My favorite part was when it got dark and we were still working.

::Download Flash Video::

Then it goes ahead and starts to freaking snow again. I actually don't mind the snow seeing as I only live about four blocks from work and I never have to drive. It would just be nice if it could have waited until after I finished the roof.

::Download Flash Video::

PS Don't worry (e:metalpeter) I will bring the snow back to the site.

Glass
Who broke this glass onto my computer and all over my new curtain in my office? There were little shards of glass and coca-cola everywhere.







Maybe it was the squirrel demon that I found in the Attic.



North Korea
North Korea exploded a nuclear bomb and I really have no idea what we can do about this. I imagine it would be a really bad idea to start a war on two fronts, especially on the Chinese border. On the other hand isn't it ironic that we decided to attack Iraq about the Weapons of Mass Destruction while they were really a danger in North Korea the whole time.

"It is a setback for American prestige and influence in the region," Wolfsthal said. "The adminsitration will argue this will further increase North Korean isolation, but the fact is North Korea has stood up to the Bush adminsitration policy and won. There are very few options now to reverse what has taken place."

Electricity




I almost electrocuted myself with a metal socket cover. I forgot to screw it on tighly after painting and then it fell out and made the two sides of the plug touch, shooting sparks and fire into the air and melting the petal plate. I ended up kicking out the plug with rubber boots. Thank god this didn't happen when I wasnt home or there would not be any more house. I think I know why the socket covers are made of plastic most of the time now. It really is a better idea. Imagine if the plate got wet.

Canada
We ended up going to Niagara On The Lake with (e:southeryankee) and company. Turned out to be a very pleasant day of wine tasting, eating and shopping. (e:matthew) got some fancy ass plant stands at an art store that was closing. We get yumy british candy including black current gummies. I love them.

This was (e:matthew)'s gluten-free meal at Cafe Shaw. The place was kind of pricey but super tastey.



Inside a pretty flower on the street.


Wineries were neat but I am not into wine enough to ever go on a full day tour. I would much rather go on an eating tour. Say a chesse tour, is there such a thing?







Nicole, one of (e:southernyankee)'s friends has a Russian Toroise she is looking to give away and that is exactly what we were looking for so we might have a new roomie soon. On a side very funny note, I asked Anika to bring in Basra yesterday and she had't seen him much before. When she went to go look for him she found the dead turtle that we had found in the basement, which I put in the backyard for the bugs to eat. At first she thought Basra had died. I feel bad for not having mentioend about the dead turtle, haha.