Six of us went canoeing yesterday down the Oak Orchard Creek in Media. (e:matthew), (e:terry) and I, pat, terri and dave. Two canoes and two kayaks. Unfortunately, the one blow up Kayak had a funky oar. (e:terry) decided to just paddle with it take apart which is a little different than you would normally kayak.

::Download Flash Video::

We made a couple of stops along the way to play frizzby, reshuffle beer, etc

At one of stops there was this beer tree and I asked Dave if he thought it was inspired by the beer tree at St. Patrick's Day beer tree (e:paul,43734) and he said that, that particular beer tree was there for at least 10 years. So now I have to ask myself - is this a coincidence or did this beer tree inspire the other one - or are beer trees, a dime a dozen and I just never saw one.



Dave in the creek.


(e:terry) with some fancy rolled shorts


I found some clam shells that looked way prettier in the sunshine of real life than in this pic.


Most of my trip looked like this:

::Download Flash Video::

(e:terry) decided to test out standing up in the canoe when dave shouted drop your shorts and (e:terry) mooned the whole gang.


There were lots of other canoers during most of the trip and you can see from this pic that Terri - not (e:terry) - had no shirt on, which was of major interest to the straight canoer guys we past.

This tree house on the water, was the coolest one I eve saw. The one disappointing feature of our house is the lack of tree-house capable trees. This means we will need a cottage at some point.


We are almost at the end of the road.


Between hiking, tree chopping, refrigerator moving and canoeing, my body is so sore. Now we have to get the new refrigerator in place, argh.

Yesterday, in lieu of setting up the refrigerator we decided to chop down some dead trees in the backyard and go hiking at the Gorge. Today, after some seriously axing yesterday morning - my hands are killing me.



Here is (e:matthew) climbing in the tree and breaking off branches before we cut it down.


Basra is a bit obsessed with getting his face in the sprinkler from the sprinkler system. It is so cute, I should have taken a video.



On the way to the Gorge, (e:james) got all crumbtastic with some yum yums from the coop.



Like they throb a ton and I can't even hold the toothbrush right when brushing my teeth. Thanks to my stupid crohn's I never take pain meds which should make our canoe trip today fun. At least I will be outside.





Once we got down there, (e:matthew) threw a rock at my head. Luckily, I survived.


Just kidding, it is a rust puddle. (e:terry) love to perch on rocks


and he also loves caves. So finding this river cave was like a dream cme true for him.








(e:james) and (e:terry)




What I want to know is, who the fuck is Kyle?


These pictures of Sea Weed remind me of the "painting with light" pictures I used to do (e:paul),/32329 with the nokkia 7710 with the slow shutter speed.







There are all these awesome little pools filled with water.


(e:terry) love being on the most dangerous edges.


After the hiking trip we went to One Eyed Jack's in Lockport. Their smoked wings are awesome. On the way there we stopped at Smoking Joe's to get gas. It is not much cheaper than the $4.01 in America.

The parking Story Ending
(e:matthew) and (e:terry) got to talk with the priest from the church who was unaware of the property lines and other drama according to (e:matthew). Apparently, everything worked out great and they are moving the dance camp pick up/drop off to the North St side of the church which solves the problem for us!

Work
Work was great. I did a successful demo of two projects to two VPs, the time lines for the projects seem realistic right now, we are getting two new people and the two people we are thinking about going with seem great so far - according to (e:mrdeadlier).

Food
Then after work (e:terry), (e:matthew) and I went out to lunch at Saigon on Elmwood where I had the most delicious pork chop/shrimp combo. It was only like $8.00 and quite filling.



Shopping and workout
After that we decided to stop by Home Depot to look at refrigerators. You guys might remember that I wanted to get this one Jenn Air Model (e:paul,44379). So we went to go see if they had it at Home Depot.

I can't believe anyone really needs an oven in their grill, seriously.


(e:terry) made it clear we were just looking and not buying one. The didn't have the Jenn Air, but to our surprise they had a floor model that was very similar (minus vacation mode and open door alarm) for super sale. (e:enknots) friend Jake was our sales guy and he managed to get us an even better deal plus 10% off as it was 10% off appliances over $399 day. Which means we ended up with a $1699.00 refrigerator for $1068 which is quite awesome deal. The one hitch was that, because it was a floor model they don't offer shipping.

So we rented a truck form Home Depot. Has anyone else done this. their truck rental is awesome. It is only $19.99 and unlike Uhaul, there are not 106 extra fees that bring it to like $100. However, it is only for 75 minutes but if you are just moving stuff around the city, that is usually enough.

It was a rough operation considering that it weighed 320 lbs and we barely weight that much between the 3 of us. Somehow, we managed to get it home and into the foyer. Because it is so deep we had to take it a apart a bit to fit it in the doors. Then we deiced to break for the day and deal with getting the old one out tomorrow.













Linwood and the red sqaure
I wondered what was up with this red square on this empty house on the 400 block of Linwood. At the block club meeting the building inspector explained that the fire dept put this symbol on all the houses that were abandoned, to let other firefighters know. Unfortunately, the housing dept also put this exact same symbol, in the same color on all the houses scheduled for demolition which cause a lot a drama - as you can imagine. The building inspector said they were going to have a meeting to discuss this issue. It seems so insane that they didn't work together on that. Shows you that all government is disorganized.

He also said that now that people know this is the symbol for houses to be demolished some overzealous block clubs began to pain tthe symbol on houses they wanted to get rid of. I am sure this house is worth around $300,000+ - I hope they can get it on the market ASAP and turn it back into a house.





random pics
Totally unrelated pictures from my camera.

What the heck is up with the scientologists and their extreme paper waste. Its like every surface is covered with Scientology propaganda. Here you can see a flyer on the ground in the parking lot at the corner of North and Main.


This morning there was something crazy going on at the Salvation Army on Main. There were at least five police cars pulle dup to it as I walked to work.


What are all the religious symbols on this coexist bumper sticker?"


I forgot to post this before but when we went to go see the (e:paul,44413) Death Note movie, at the end the screen became a windows desktop. I guess they just palyed a DVD or something. It was weird to see the start menu so giant at the regal.

After all the drama with the driveway and the parking situation, some parked in our driveway again. There was no one monitoring the situation like they promised. The woman got out of her car and went into the church for about 10 minutes before coming out and driving away.

Its so frustrating because I really do not know what to do anymore. Imagine if you neighbor just started having guests over that parked in your driveway all the time. This woman wasn't even hovering, she just parked and got out.

I went to go see Death Note with (e:imk2), (e:metalpeter), (e:jenks), (e:tibruon1724), dan, and faben. It was pretty great. Poor (e:enknot) - he missed it but he would have freakin loved it. I think it is the first time I have ever been to a movie with such a jazzed up fan base.

The storyline was pretty good. It was like a live action. I would suggest seeing it tomorrow if you can.

Wikipedia link:
Anime Site:
Live Action Movie:

There is a sequel coming out and there is even a prequel about L who was by far the hotest of the main characters:

What is the dollar value of four months of freetime? This is the question I keep asking myself for the last hour.

First of all I would like to mention that I love the block club president. I would vote for him for president of the USA in a heartbeat. He just seems so honest, driven, dedicated and organized.

There was talk about surface parking vs preservation, actually not about our situation but about the JCC that wants to expand their surface parking. The block club president suggested they add pick up and drop off zone instead.

Possible Solutions
I was thinking that might be a solution for the church next door. What if they had the 3-4 parking spots in front of the church on Linwood converted into 5-10 minute drop off zone during certain hours. Also, maybe we can fight to get rid of the only single sided parking after 6 or at least extend double sided parking to 9PM so that more people can park during "business hours." Its not like it is a narrow street.

Talking with the church people
We talked to some of the ladies we know from the church and they seemed to understand our situation. I really like them. The one woman said she spoke to Father Armand and tried to explain how we have to deal with it all the time and the people give us trouble and that he doesn't see it all the time.

Either way, someone must have said something because it was totally in order today. People parked and walked their kids to the door. I hope it stays that way.

I still can't believe Father Armand tried to make it a race thing when it is obviously about cars. It makes me wonder what else he blames on other things in his life.

(e:matthew) and the grounds guy
Before the meeting (e:matthew) had a talk with the grounds guy that led us to believe that he and Father A also misunderstood our property line . 10.2 feet of the driveway is ours and 3.5 feet is theirs according to our property map, you can see below. You cannot possibly park anything on 3.5 feet and the preservation district won't let them build more surface parking which leads to the issue they are having.





Maybe the misunderstand comes from an agreement with the original purchasers of the house from the church to share the driveway as part of purchasing the property from the church. According to our contract, those terms did not transfer to us. Specifically worded, "this reservation of rights shall not be covenant that runs with the land and does not bind all successors, heirs or assigns of grantee."



I hope it works out between us and by that I mean, we don't have problems with people blocking or parking in our driveway, they find out some parking solution for them, we are on speaking terms with all the church people. Although, honestly, at this point I could care less if I ever saw Father Armand again after this.

I don't think we can ever live amicably with one another now that you suggested this is purely a matter of racism. You might as well pretend I am just singling you out because you are gay, lol. It shows me how out of touch you are with the whole situation. The only reasons I single out the dance camp instead of the other groups is that:

1. No other group has ever given me attitude about moving their cars.
2. No other group consists of 50 or more people that drop off and pick up people for hours at a time.

Dear Paul,

Please believe me that I am upset over the difficulties we are having as neighbors. We are trying our best to work out a mutually beneficial arrangement between all of us.

The simple answer to your question of your last e-mail is yes, you need to call the police whenever anyone blocks the driveway. Perhaps even better would be to have a police officer here when you believe the situation is at its worst. They will be able to immediately cite those who are blocking the driveway. We will share the cost with you of having a police officer here to evaluate the situation.

As I mentioned in my last e-mail, Karen has hired a traffic guard for the pick up time, but I believe having a police officer there would do a lot to quell the situation, along with our long overdue sign.

You must have been aware when you purchased 24 Linwood that there were activities going on at the church. If not, that is the fault of your real estate attorney. The Dance Camp has been here many years and we are not in a position to ask them to leave. I am also aware that your anger is directed at an African American group, which has given me cause for concern.

I have alerted the Chancellor of the Diocese of Western New York about our situation. He will be monitoring the situation and give us advice as needed.

Again Paul, I truly hope (and pray) that we can work this out and we will be able to reside amicably with one another.

P.S. I have also alerted the commander of the star ship enterprise in the delta quadrant. He will be giving us advice as well.

I wrote back to the priest about his last response (e:paul,44381) to my email (e:paul,44377)

Armand,
I am not asking you to police the public street. I am asking you to get rid of the tenants whose clients cannot abide by the law - after months of being told what to do - and who require a significant amount more infrastructure that you can offer. It has gotten so much worse now that they can't park in the driveway, they just park across it or double park which is illegal.

You are right I should call the police. But seriously, do I have to call the police every day to get in my own driveway. That is ridiculous. The only reason these people are here is because you are making money off of it.

As you said in your Feb 29th email:

"If the situation does not improve within a reasonable time, we may be forced to ask the Dance Camp to find another place to teach. We at Ascension are dedicated to this neighborhood, so rest assured, we will stand up for your side on this."

What is reasonable time? It has been over 2 months and the situation has not changed in fact it has gotten worse.

The real problem is that no matter how much the dance camp tells all the parents, often the children are picked up by friends/grandparents/etc who are not aware of the rules. I think you just don't undertsant the volume of the situation. Try visiting the church around 5PM when they drop-off/pick up or on a saturday afternoon.

This is not a once in a while, one car thing. It is an every day thing involving many, many cars. It is an everyday issue that I have to fight to get in/out my own driveway and none of these people would be here without the dance camp.

You also said that you had ordered a sign on in your April 9th email:

"Yesterday we ordered a "sandwich" board that she will put in the driveway every day. It reads NO PARKING OR DROP OFF IN DRIVEWAY, THIS IS A PRIVATE SPACE AND YOU WILL BE TOWED."

I have to ask how it is possible that a simple sign, ordered April 8th is not finished by May 18th, over 2 months later. And honestly, where is this sign even going to go? On the back of a truck at the end of the driveway?

As another example , the other day a man in a red car, who's license plate I could not capture from the in the house, sped up our driveway at like 20 miles per hour all the ay up to in front of our garage.

The older lady security guard asked him not to park there because it was not their property and then he yelled out the window, "I am not parking, just dropping them off real quick" and she said, "okay." This is never ok.

However, I can't blame her because what is she supposed to do? She has no way of enforcing the rules and I don't think there even is a way to enforce the rules. I know how rude and angry the people can get and she is just one, very nice older lady policing the situation.

Really, the answer is not hosting something that you do not have the infrastructure to support.

As I said before, the other groups using the church do not make this an issue at all.

Paul

So the priest responded to say they are doing their best and that is all they can do and that I should call the police. How about the fact they are only there because you are running a money making business renting space to them. If any other business on Linwood was doing the same thing it would be a huge deal. Imagine a doctors office with the same problem. In fact I am now going to have to make this a block club issue. If you don't have the infrastructure to handle he volume of people then don't run a business that requires that volume.

Dear Paul,
We have control only over the driveway itself. We cannot police the public street. The Dance Camp has hired a security guard for their closing times when parents are picking up their children.

If someone is blocking the entrance to our driveway, we call the police. Alas, for the Buffalo police it is a low priority and by the time they've arrived, usually the perpetrator is gone.

I feel the Dance Camp is being accommodating to the neighborhood and in this case, hiring a guard. The AA groups are on notice about their noise level, parking and trashing our lawn.

I'm sorry that things have escalated to the point when people begin to swear at one another. Obviously it's at a boiling point for both you and the Dance Camp.

Let's see what the security guard can do. Karen has written to all the parents, who have done their best. It's usually when a non-parent relative who is not aware of the driveway situation comes to pick up a child. As I mentioned before there is a sign being made that states: DO NOT BLOCK DRIVEWAY. No stopping or drop off. It has not yet come back from the printers but when it does, we'll install it down by the sidewalk.

Plans have been talked about even before I arrived about putting in a parking lot on North Street. while this is a viable option, at this point we don't have any money for it... but it's still an open option.

Armand