Well after reading I thought it would be a good idea to attend Buffalo's Annual Blogtoberfest and get our peeps to meet some of Buffalo's other bloggers. The flyer was so damn misleading because it has no mention of the actual Octoberfest going on there. When we arrived and there were like 600 cars in the parking lot, I though, "Holy shit - I have totally underestimated Buffalo's blogging community." Now I do kind of live in my own web bubble here at estrip.



I barely, venture out to the other blogs but I was totally astounded when we also saw lots of elderly people.

(e:jim) - so many of these bloggers are elderly, that's awesome! it's great things are spreading out through the population!

Slowly, once inside - I realized that it was by no means a blogtoberfest but rather a regular octoberfest. We found the table where (e:zobar) and (e:dragonlady) were waiting. Luckily, I just his chatter on my phone and knew they were there.



So we were pretty much the only bloggers there - either that or we scared all the other ones away. It was (e:metalpeter), (e:mike), (e:libertad), (e:jim), :james, (e:terry), (e:zobar), (e:dragonlady) and I. I met one guy from punaro.com

I am pretty sure that this is the last non estrip, blogging event I will attend until some of the other bloggers attend one of our parties.

As for the octoberfest itself, I was totally disappointed in the food. It sucked. It was like they removed everything good that was german and replaced it polish. It seems to be every buffalo German event is somehow way too polish. I guess Buffalo is just a polish town. We even brought up how you can get pirogies at the Italian Festival now.

Also Steel Drums had jerk chicken there. It just seemed so out of place. I wish that German events ever had more than bland hot dog like sausages and sauerkraut. That is only a fraction of what Germans eat. If you went to a festival in Germany, the food is just so much better.

I am pretty sure that this was my terminal, terminal event. (e:jim) and (e:metalpeter) took lots of pictures.

Other pics from Saturday
The park lane with a sky crane out front. When are they knocking it down?


Someones end the war sign from a lawn over on Lafayette.


(e:matthew) and (e:terry) sitting out front what used to be a giant house and is now a parking lot for the Saturn Club on Linwood.


Another dead squirrel. This one looks like it just fell out of the tree.

So like, no journals all week and then three this morning.

(e:terry) and my mother canned 50 jars of tomatoes on Wednesday. That is a heck of a lot of tomatoes but it means we can have fresh pasta sauce again for the next year. It is amazing how much yummier it is. It looks like lots of work. I missed the actual process though because I was at work.

Here they are looking really happy with their work.








Last night (e:terry) and I went out with (e:libertad), (e:mike), (e:jim), and (e:james). It was a pretty fun evening of eating at Mode (formerly Le Metro) on elmwood and then drinking. We ended it flying a kite down elmwood, I wish I had any pictures but I forgot my camera. One of the hilights was walking down elmwood and having a car full of girls cat call to us, lol.

The Wendy's on Main street is usually the worst quality food you can get. Not Wendy's in general, just that location is borderline sick sometimes, although it has been a little better recently.

ANyways, they must make so much money off the hospital lunch corwd. It is always so freakin' packed at lunch with everyone from Roswell. Check out how many cars are in line for the drive-though.



Here we have (e:enknot) as wendy herself.

I still can't believe that there is Elmwood Village Water. It sounds disgusting. I realize the water doesn't actually come from the Elmwood Village (at least I hope so.) I can't ebeliev anyone woudl choose that over any other water.



On a totally unrelated note, this is how I dealt with my cubicle issue from the other day (e:paul,41100)

We decided to repair some window sashes and fix the counter weights. One window is awesome, two are shattered. The weights we had for the windows didn't match the weight of the window, so it wasn't working right. I think there used ot be leaded or stained glass there.


Looks liek the inside of the window panel says XVIIII C, seem slike 1900 which would eb the ryear the house was supposedly built.


After I eft the other window in the living room on the floor so it could not falll and (e:terry) walked on it with his boots on.


This one Holy Hock is the only one that survived the japanese beetle plague. Only on eo fof hundreds, and every flower on it survived, it was also kinda drawf. I should probably save the seeds

It got so cold on saturday I had to take Basra in the house. He had started to dig really deep into his cave. I think he was trying to hibernate.



He got so dirty digging in his cave.





He look like he is being coy here.

Was pretty crazy. I did a lot of programming as usual, managed to break two windows, fix one window, and went to two shows in the Beyond In Western New York art opening.

The Beyond In Western New York 2007 Art Show just started. You should check out some of the events, both Rockwell Hall an dthe Albright Know were both bumping.


It rained so much the other night.


Looks like this squirrel just couldn't give up the chesnut.


He smushed.



Hm, railroad vacation land? (e:terry) caught that one.

But happy 1,000,000 journal views to myself. It has been a long time since I started counting in december of 2003. It doesn't count when I am logged in looking at my own journal either, so no - these aren't all me looking at myself.

Thanks to all of you that have listened to my rants along the way. I hope that I at least exposed some people to some new ideas or food or that you at least had fun laughing at me or sharing the horrors and treasures that I uncovered over the last several years.

I needed to port the particle code over to surebert for the snowflakes this winter so I decided to do it today and use it for my balloons. We can use it for other special occasions too.

On a lighter now. We decided to do a tour of the Carapelli museum in the old Christian Scientist Church. The building seem so empty and lifeless. It looks like what would be the the government's Ministry ministry if there was one. It has a few manuscripts that you can freely look at. Currently, the selection includes hand written notes by famous criminals. The one from Charles Manson was peed on, he even wrote the word pee on the pee spot.











I do not believe that the hand written note from Gallileo, once of the only ones in the western hemisphere is sitting, unprotected in that empty building that you can just wander around in.

Their guest book seemed rather slim.

I have to say they had the nicest urinals I have probably ever seen. If they ever go out of business I would buy them. In buffalo you can actually wish for that kind of thing and have it be possible, lol.


I really love the Bemis house. I wish someday I could own a house like that one. Also, maybe could be possible in Buffalo.

Can you imagine having those bricks or those gargoyles.







The Mark Twain house was also pretty aweosme. You can't really tell how big it is till you go right up to it, or you see a picture with a person in it.



Look how big that freakin window is!


They are really fixin it up.




Three assholes on North, lol



And then there is this insane remudled house across the street. What the fuck is up with that upside down brick thing in front of the natural doorway. How did anyone decide to do that?

This is an inappropriate journal about an inappropriate incident I had with Jesus in my office cubicle at Roswell today. It is actually kind of hard to write about it because I feel like I am self censoring beyond my natural limit of self censorship. I am kind of still in shock about it. I am sure it will make everyone uncomfortable, but right now I don't care.

Preface: Just the other day I had this conversation with (e:mathew) and (e:terry) how it is so wonderful to work with a Christians who so far have not tried shoving it down my throat. Religion is such a weird thing for me, like I never think about it until someone brings it up in my face.



You know that feeling when you are about to approach a Christian and talk to them about letting atheism and sinful living into their hearts but then something holds you back, like say you are somewhere inappropriate like work... How come so many do not have that kind of boundary.

Flashback to my life two hours ago...

I knew something was fishy because this coworker always wants to talk to me about "stuff" and "plans." Its always mixed in with programming questions and some business talk so it has this notion of legitimacy but then there is this underlying, unspoken something I wasn't able to place. For a while, I thought maybe he was gay.

So anyhow, I kind of ignored the situation, combined with crazy deadlines, I hadn't had time to see him for a while and kind of forgot about the "Stuff."

Then today after his day was done, he stopped at my cubicle to ask some Date and Time functions and I was explaining that the one type of date was only good until 2036ish if used in a 10 digit format. He then informed me that it would not matter because the world is ending and that his kids would not see their natural lives out. Something like 2012 I think. I mistakenly asked him about his reasoning on this to discover the bible clearly says it.

This was the beginning of a two hour cubicle confrontation which tried to save my soul and open my heart to Jesus via his scary God and fear f Satan tactics. At one point he was crying on the floor of my cubicle. A 50 year dude, on the floor of my cubicle, across the entrance - crying.

Looking back on it, I wonder now if it was all a setup. The request for help and more literally the date/time question. All to try and get at my soul.

I am not joking it was literally the most uncomfortable moment of my life but I didn't know how to make it stop. We were able to confirm that I am a lying, thieving adulterer and that even intellectuals can be Christian.

To his credit he asked me at one point if it was making me uncomfortable. I didn't say anything but it made me more uncomfortable thinking about him maybe wigging out if I said it made me uncomfortable. I figure I should probably just never have that experience instead of having it.

He probably interpreted my lacking of asking him to leave as some form of divine intervention but really I just didn't want to experience him wigging out. I mean I clearly told him that i was not interested, that I am not into fantasy, that I am gay, that I have no spiritual inclination, that I am not afraid of dying, that I don't believe god exists, that I don't care who made the universe before evolution, that I am comfortable with questions remaining unanswered or too complex for me to understand- all hoping he would just go away with that.

I said, How am I supposed to understand the universe and evolution when I don't even understand how the sewer system works. And I don't need a mystical explanation for that. I also told him it would take a full on visual miracle where I talked to Jesus for an extended amount of time with other people present to believe in it. None, of this he came to me in a dream, or I felt his presence kind of magic.

At one point I even said that I was not interested in his heaven because none of the people dear to me would be there as Catholics seemed to be excluded as well. According to him I was too comfortable in my life, and that it is easy to convert people who are having a hard time but in order to convert comfortable people they have to experience what it is like to be uncomfortable. I wasn't sure if he was directly referring to out encounter in my cubicle or something greater.

I just felt bad for him, and I know he was feeling bad for my soul - but it seemed to concern him so much more than me.

I wish could remain work related all the time. I know it sound ridiculous to essentially cut out the outside world but frankly, I don't want to ever have that happen again. I guess, I probably deserve it for being such a hardcore sinner ;)

This is something I never thought I would have happen at a state job. If (e:enknot) didn't catch me mouthing the words " help" as his wandered by, I think it might have never ended. I think everyone at work is a born again Christian which is making me feel altogether uncomfortable now that this has happened. Can such a wonderful workplace experience end so quickly, do I really need to move to a more godless place like California now? I figured instead of telling anyone specifically about it, I am going to to the world and hope for the best. It is better than having it be some weird secret. It's kind of sad because now I feel weird about talking with him and before I really respected the guy and his dedication to learning the language I am using. I wonder if it was all a ploy to capture my soul like some sort of pokemon treasure.

P.S. I am thoroughly disappointed with Satan for not shielding me more substantially from the word. Ya, if only I believed in him either.