So, we went on the private Linwood Home tour for all the people who's homes were on the tour. I am totally amazed at how simple in design my house is compared to the other ones. I mean I still love it and honestly, I don't need 10 bedrooms but still it was amazing to see how the real rich folk lived. I don't understand how they managed with such big houses. I never need more than one dining room.

We also learned so much about our former neighbor and everything makes so much sense now.

We met a lot of cool people and I really got along well with many of them. We saw so many interesting home remodeling projects. I am excited at the possibilities for our house if we put a lot of money into it. Almost all of the people were really nice and it was great to see the dedication that many people had to keeping their houses in order.

I most definately can't stand the guys from the Junior League show house - The Silverthorne Mansion. They are the utmost pretentious people I have ever met. Maybe they are just sick of showing people around their house. Also neither one is a retired Naval officer like the show house pamphlet said. They say the junior league made it up. (e:matthew) says I am jealous, I am really not.

Today we went down to the Erie County Electronics Recycling program at the Central Park Plaza to drop off our old electronics that were slated for the dump.

I had such a crazy junk yard's worth of electronics and computers left from the previous owner of the house. Okay, some of it was my own too. I was able to fill up two industrial size contract bags with electronics such as game controllers for systems retired, ram chips, disk drives, CD drives, DVD drives, wires, CPUs, GPSs (yes plural - I had way too many GPSs) Then we packed the rest of the car with 5 computers and 3 additional mother boards, a DVD player and more general electronic shit.

I think the original total retail value of all parts we recycled was somewhere around $25,000 - which is now worth about $400 if I had meticulously picked through everything and sold the good parts but who has time for that. Iw ould have been a serious endeavour taking months, lots of photography, lots of ebay drama, and lots of time at the post office.

Instead, I put it all on the train to happy recycle land and hope that someone else can enjoy it along the way. It is amazing how much electronics devalue, more than anything else.

This IBM server was insane It was here when we moved in. I think, the guy that lived here before ran a site that had a 3D version of Allentown on it. You could walk through and they sold ads I think. It was called neoworld . There is still alink to it on Allenstreet.com It apparently went the way of the dinosaur.


If you don't believe me that it was old and wrothless, just check out the made in england sticker. Have you ever even seen electronics Made in England?


Unfortunately, the server did not have the horsepower to do anything I needed it for and required too much electricity, used scarce parts and generally weighed about a ton. Needless to say, it was like 1/1,000,000 of the computing power of the tiny, energy efficient 1U rack mount that is currently running estrip.

Here are all the things packed up and ready to go.




We also brought (e:lilho)'s old Sony trinitron monitor. That was the last CRT in my life. It feels weird to not even have one. There were thousands of them there.


At the recycling place, you drive up and your car gets in line. I could not believe how many people there were. We waited over 1/2 hour. It was so ironic to see all the people in fancy SUV's with the engine running for 1/2 hour in order to recycle.

When you get to the end, some giant bulky dudes open the doors and trunk and just offload everything. They couldn't seem to handle the IBM server and really fucked up our car door. I can't even imagine if I was someone who really cared about that kind of shit. There would have been a serious throwdown, in which they would have kicked my ass, lol - these dudes arms were liek the size of my waste. They asked us if we were okay with it. What was I going to say. No kid get your supervisor to sew it back up?


In the end they forgot one giant bag of stuff. We went back, drove around everyone and gave it to some coast guard guy at the end and explained the situation. People were beeping and yelling about us cutting. We did not cut, they forgot shit and fucked up our car.

On a totally separate note, the other day we went to an estate sale. i think I mentioned it. It was so weird to go through all of someone else's stuff. (e:matthew) liked the furniture so much that we ended up spending like $1000 for a living room set after talking them down from $1450. I think that it was worth it because they said, after we left some guy offered $2000.


If you come to the Linwood Home Tour tomorrow you can see it. Our first floor looks so different now.

So I finally decided to offload the pics from my camera and found some from the night I got the appendix out. That afternoon, my stomach started to really hurt - right where my appendix is - I chalked it up to Crohn's as no one ever believe me when I sy my appendix is going to explode.. I started to broom off the porch which made it hurt even more. I decided to sit down.



After many hours of puking - till about 6am I think, I ended up in the ER. I have no idea what time it was when I was sitting here with my mom. Was it at night or in the morning? I think I was having this appendix problem for a lot of hours before anything was done. However, seeing as I had an allergy to delaudid, they put my on benedryl - which put me in space. Wow, I look unhappy at that point.


Even in my almost dead, totally drugged up state , I managed to squeeze in this pic of my mom and I in the emergency room. I seem much happier that my mom was there.

The mayor and city officials announced the formation of the Erie Basin Committee. Buffalo Rising ... On May 24th we're opening the beach for everything but swimming."

I hope that a couple of volley ball nets are added to the budget... and some grills, and a shelter or two in case it rains, and some sightseeing viewfinders, and some bike racks, and some fire pits... looks like Erie Basin Marina is going to be the place to be this summer.

Is this really going to make any difference? I guess if you are a Volleyball enthusiast it would be nice but isn't the point of a beach to have swimming. If you can't have swimming then why bother pretending to have a beach when it is really just a park.

I guess the problem with all the water around the city is that it is too polluted. That is why the beaches that do exist like Wendt and Bennett are closed most of the summer anyways. I remember one day when (e:mike), (e:terry), (e:matthew) and I headed over to Bennett on a not closed day. It was so nice to get to swim near home. (e:paul,31201) Look how crappy my cell pics were back then. I think it was the sidekick 1 and that was before we have comments on the blogs. Its weird to have so many with no comments from 2003-2005.

The most ridiculous medical device I have ever seen is this incentive spirometer that I received at Buffalo General the other day while getting my appendix out. It basically gives you visual feedback by lifting a marble when you breathe deeply.



Who can't just be taught to breathe deeply, not to mention that it creates a stream air which tastes exceptionally vinyl flavored - can that be healthy? I mean I understand why breathing deeply is important to healing faster and clearing the anesthetic from your lungs, but does everyone need one of these really durable plastic toys.

::Download Flash Video::

I got a hold of a preview of the Linwood Home Tour 2008 booklet and the estrip ad looks good on the front page.


At Royallite on Sheridan today, they had a test for energy efficiency and light bulbs. I was amazed at the difference.


Target on the blvd in the Best Buy plaza near the 290 is huge now. They have a whole giant grocery store inside with a lot of products. They also redid the cafe section and even have organic mac and cheese as an option.


Linens and Things has the craziest crap. Check out this beer hammer for those times you need to open a beer and you need a hammer.


Seriously, does anyone need a Nana Saver. Surely, no one needs a nana saver but I bet someone has a fetish for one.


Remember, tomorrow is electronics recycling day at Central Park plaza. I have about a ton of electronics to recycle. Sadly, I cannot lift anything so (e:Terry) had to do it all. I feel bad for him, some of the computer stuff is huge that we inherited from the previous owner.

So I call Buffalo General again (e:paul,44084) to see if my test results for the Gluten Intolerance test have come in for the doctor's appointment I am having today - and this time, there fucking program is down and I should call back tomorrow. Are they actually saying that the hospital has no access to medical records until tomorrow. I find that really hard to believe. Where is my paper chart then? Why can they not get anything right?

In case anyone else ever needs to get in touch with the medical records dept in order to get no service, here is the number.

Buffalo General Hospital
ATTN: Health Information Dept - Correspondence
100 High Street
Buffalo, NY 14203
(716) 859-2759

Being someone who is possibly not able to eat anything but rice when it comes to grains it makes me so nervous to thing we are going to go into some sort of shortage. Maybe I should really horde a huge amount of it.

Imagine what its going to be like when we start having food shortages again. As someone who eats such a weird diet, I am terrified of that realty.

Wal-Mart's Sam's Club Restricts Purchase of Some Rice
...The limits on jasmine, basmati and long-grain white rice, a response to "recent supply and demand trends," will be put into effect in all U.S. stores where allowed by law and are effective immediately, Sam's Club spokeswoman Kristy Reed said today in an e-mailed statement.

Some consumers have started hoarding rice, the food staple for half the world as prices soar and supplies shrink. China, Vietnam, India and Egypt have curbed sales abroad to safeguard domestic supplies and cool inflation. Thailand also may restrict shipments, a World Bank official said today.

After all of (e:fing,44075)'s talk about eating crab in Maryland I had to have some myself. I guess this also means I am on the mend. I made some crab and asparagus soup for (e:matthew) and I for lunch yesterday. Who would have thought that crab and asparagus would be a great combo. Well, the vietnamese did or maybe the Thai because I had it at Saigon Bangkok and it was incredible. Then I tried to make it at home. It was not exactly the same, but the additional crab meat made it on par.



Here is a recipe from cooks.com I did not use this recipe, but just went with my own, chicken broth, plus rice, eggs, crab, asparagus, and sesame oil. There's is below.

VIETNAMESE CRAB-ASPARAGUS SOUP    

4 c. chicken broth
1 can white asparagus
2 egg whites
1 lb. fresh crab meat
1/4 c. cornstarch
Salt to taste
1 tsp. sugar

Simmer broth. Add crab meat. Cook 15 minutes. Add asparagus, cut in 1 to 1 1/2 inch julienne pieces. Add salt and a bit of sugar. Mix cornstarch with enough liquid to make it smooth and add to soup. Beat egg whites slightly and sieve into soup, stirring constantly.

The next day, Basra had his own surprise when I chucked papaya and watermelon around the yard for him to find. I don't think I ever saw him "run" that fast before. Apparently, tortoises can gallop.

It's not your beliefs, it is the actions of the freakin' practitioners themselves and their aggressive, obnoxious street mission tactics. I have become increasingly afraid of them, one in particular. In fact I often find myself having to run across the street to avoid them.

I have no idea what the Scientologist's really believe nor do I care. I didn't really look it up until just now when I found My problem with the group stems specifically from the practitioners at the Church of Scientology Building on Main Street.

They are constantly getting in my face on the way to my work and have harassed me numerous times at my home. That is totally unacceptable behavior from any group of people. They are a plague to my neighborhood and honestly I hope their whole building collapses, taking the congregation with it.

Sorry, it is hard for me to separate my feelings for that group from you as a person. I recognize that is a personalty flaw I have, and I thrive on it. If you were just a practioner I would feel different, because I would probably just feel sorry for you, but the fact that you are a large scale persuader, makes me feel uncomfortable supporting your message with my software.

So yes, please stay away from this site and tell all of your Scumbagtologist friends that they are not welcome here either - not for what they believe in, although I hear it is quite sketchy, but rather for the way they have treated me in my hometown neighborhood. They alone have made it a far less pleasant place than before they arrived. Not to mention the outrageous amount of paper wasted taping up those damn posters on ever light post and window around for the last two years.

I hope estrip makes scientologists feel just as uncomfortable as I feel on that part of main street near your church and that you return to LA.

Paul - I find it interesting that because of my association with Scientology, that you now go from friendly and open, and this site is for anyone, to antagonistic. Do you do that with other people who study other philosophies or practice other religious beliefs? Is this site only for "conventional" beliefs?

Besides, read a book on Scientology. If you are a graduate of university they should have taught you to keep your head open to new thoughts.

And yes, I did head up the entire Volunteer Ministers program at one time. I have friends who also headed up different church around the world - they never had a problem with Scientology - because I also respected their beliefs and their religions.

So my question is this? Is your site now off-limits to me? Let me know and I'll bail now if that's the case and I'll know that the Elmwood district is not all that it is being punched up to be.

Real

Real Laplaine @ 1-800-334-5433 or email atinfocenter@scientology.net.

Real Laplaine
Senior Consultant
Dianetics Information Center
1-800-367-8788
6331 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, California, 90028
infocenter@dianetics.org

Real Laplaine (Volunteer Minister Program In Charge)

... are a freakin joke. So I decided to get some exercise as I was told by the doctor that walking and deep breathing is good for healing. I walked three blocks to Buffalo General in order to get a copy of my medical records to review. I had no idea how unorganized that part of the hospital is. I find it hard to believe that anything works well in the hospital if the information infrasctructure is such an unorganized system. I am not talking about medical records from ten years ago, I am talking about medical records from the last couple months.

The medical records system at Buffalo General is not completely electronic. There is this ellusive paper copy that has info that is not available everywhere else. The day I was in the hospital getting my appendix out I was supposed to be getting my Tissue Transglutaminase IGG and Transglutaminase AB (IGA) test to check for gluten intolerance at Quest Diagnotsics. So I figured, while I am already in the Er giving them blood, why not ask them to carry out the test as I was supposed to have the results for a April 24th doctor's appointment. My mother called and get the test names, we gave them to the doctor, he agreed, the nurse drew blood. Now there is no record of the test.

To make matters worse the desk clerk in medical records was this 20 something total bitch. She looked like and acted just like Karen from Will and Grace. If you ever read this, I hate you you mother fucking bitch, I hope this golden skanky, pointy shoes you have give you bunions and hammer toes.

I was nice because I was trying to keep stress to a minimum but I wanted to reach across the window, grab her hair and slam her face into the counter repeatedly.

All I asked her to do was print out my medical records for my and she kept gasping and saying how annoying it was. And the printer wouldn't work. It got jammed twice so she stopped and told me to come back in a week. Seriously, I can understand a printer malfunction, but the customer curtousy thing to do we be to offer to mail them to me, or say I am sorry about the inconvenience, not just get all angry with me for asking for my medial records.

It was totally ridiculous. Then I explained to her how every time I come to the hospital they have the wrong primary care physician for me. She said that she can't do anything about it, I have to see this woman named April down the hall.

So I go down the hall and enter Aprils office and this (sorry this is so unPC) extremely retarded looking woman acts like I couldn't possibly do such a crazy thing as change my primary care physican on my medial record. Right now I could swear she was drooling while telling me this, but maybe now I am blowing it out of proportion due to PTBGE Post Traumatic Buffalo General Exposure.

She seriously tried to convince me that I need to just tell them the new doctor' name every time I come to the hospital. So I ask for April and she starts howling, "April, April - this patient has a problem" - who is like 15 feet away. Could she not just get the fuck up or point to April so I could approach her politely.

I explain the situation to April and she says that she cannot do it and she has no idea why the Karen look alike down the Hall would have sent me there or how to change it. Finally, some other girl overhears and says I should try admissions.

So I go to admission and register and wait in line to be "admitted" and then finally there was a gay guy, who could communicate properly with a patient and was able to handle the change professionally, quickly and courtesly - shouldn't they all be that way. He also took the time to confirm my other information to make sure everything was right. I think his name was Paul too.

So you might be thinking that maybe I was mean or something that prompted all this. But I swear I was so super nice. I as in such a good mood, I could finally move around and it was sunny out, etc. It was really one of the worst customer service experiences I ever had. They really need to read, "If Disney Ran Your Hospital." In fact I am considering bringing my copy down next week when I stop at medical records and throwing it at "Karen's" face, lol.

And for some comic relief. I know I don't have a huge one, but they didn't have to call it "grossly negative", lol.