The worst Christmas gift was a cold. I got sick for a week with a stupid chest and head cold. It sucked. I mostly slept and worked non-stop to locse our year end projects until New Year's eve.

So sad I missed New Years Eve dinner at my mom's. Instead we were at a camp out in Alleghany. The camp out was really fun and the people were interesting. I was happy the cold was ending. One night there was a cabin dance party that was awesome till I found that I was allergic to their cabin and almost died of an asthma attack. Luckily (e:heidi) had a rescue inhaler I could use.

To some that up, a lot of whiskey and beer, a lot of campfire, campfire stories, eating lots of good food, spending a lot of time wrapped in blankets, unexpected hetero sleepover frolick.

I didn't really get any pictures. None of my devices were on network so I just left them in the car. My Note 5 was still locked to AT&T because they couldn't get their billing in order, my Verizon iPhone 6S Plus didn't get service. I think it was the longest I have been without cell phone service and data since 2003 when I got my first sidekick minus Jabe Pond Adirondack summers and Cape Code. It was a combo of nice and stressful. On one end I got to focus on talking to new people. On the other hand I was terrified there would be a work emergency. There wasn't.

So much stuff happened in the last 12 days. I have been so lame about posting. Part of the time I had no cell phone.

First there were the christmas holidays. (e:terry) left (e:joe) and I and went to Florida. We were sad, I was jealous too. (e:joe) hates warm weather so he wasn't as jealous. Luckily, it was insanely warm here. I think we even hit 60 degrees.

I got a new hat. I love my new hat. Unfortunately, right now it smells like a camp fire.



We ate a lot of food at Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I wish I got pictures of the finished plate.







Got so many gifts. A cake tray, a clothes steamer, vegtables spiralizer, a stainless steel rice cooker, a bed in breakfast tray.

We switched to T-Mobile from AT&T. I hated AT&T, the customer service department was friendly and quick but they would make up any story. I repeatedly had issues where I talked to 2 or 3 representatives that each had a different story.

Before we left AT&T, our family of 5 (me, (e:terry), (e:joe), (e:yesthatcasey), (e:xandra)) was paying over $300 every freakin month. Some months closer to $400. The $36 for a family text plan was the most ridiculous because almost no one texted anymore but it was an insurance in case someone did because it was otherwise $0.20 per text and $0.60 per MMS.

When we heard they were going to up the cost of our grandfathered unlimited plan we decided it was time to just ditch them. I also wanted to add my mother to the account as we got her a phone for christmas and I couldn't stand the thought of the bill going higher. Their shared mobile data accounts didn't work for me either. I wanted everyone to have their own amount of data so no one could hog it.

T-Mobile had a special and for $160 we got 6 lines unlimited talk, text and 6GB of LTE data. The speed is really fast. Even faster than I had with AT&T. Sometimes I think all the iphones of AT&T made the network slower. I remember before the iphnes were LTE it was much faster.

Anyways the best part is that we can use it in Canada. Living a 15 minute walk from the Canadian border. Even just swimming in Fort Erie it was such a pain in the neck that we had no service. I think this will result in me traveling to Toronto much more.

I hated going to Toronto and being in the dark of having to go from sketchy wifi hotspot to the next in order to contact the people we were with or get directions, etc.

Here is the speed from my neighborhood in Allentown in Buffalo, NY. I spend 90% of my life here so that works for me.


(e:joe) had a T-Mobile phone over the weekend when we were camping in Allengheny State Park. I had a Verizon iphone 6 S Plus. His phone had service and mine did not. So much for the "its only in the city" that you always here.

The thing I found most frustrating about the move was AT&T holding my Note 4 unlock hostage for a week and not even being able to produce our final bill yet so that we can unlock our AT&T phones. I got so sick of it I just bought a new T-Mobile Note 5 (gold) and decided to just sell the AT&T one when they get around to unlocking it. AT&T and Verizon Note 5s can't be rooted or flashed with another ROM. The phone basically destroys itself so by switching you end up with a phone that can never be upgraded - ugh. I wanted the gold one anyways ;)

Good bye glasses.

I can't believe I don't need glasses anymore. I wonder why LASIK doesn't get cheaper. It seems like most anyone who can get it should get it instead of glasses but especially instead of contacts. It's crazy how much contact stuff I had in my life.

I found a new very warm hat. This one for clearance at $6.99 at JC Penney which was such a great deal.

We went to go see Matt and Kim as part of the Christmas Kerfuffle concert at the First Niagara Center. There were some other bands including Third Eye Blind.

I love Matt and Kim's live performance. It is one of the most exciting and energetic shows there are. They are seem totally on.

The giant balloon drop was pretty out of control.

The only shitty thing was we didn't get floor tickets. Its not fun being at a dancey energetic event in seats.

I really thought that I had bought floor tickets but when we got there to pick up the will call tickets, it wasn't for the floor section. It's so frustrating because I felt like I had tripple confirmed it, guess not.

This was one of my favorite tapes from the past. I found it at one of those trade in music stores in high school. Then it sat in hoarder box after hoarder box. Using Google music I found so much more. It's crazy how accessible music is now.

This year I made the usual grapefruit juice and cranberry sauce with ginger but I also added clove and cinnamon. It was a really yummy combo.

Take 2 bags of cranberries, 1 cup of fresh squeezed grapefruit and orange juice, 0.5 cups water. Boil cranberries. Add grated ginger, clove and cinnamon bark roll to taste. Mash with spoon and keep stiring till jelly like. Add turbinado sugar to taste. You could substitute regular sugar or brown sugar.

We went to my parents for dinner. It was delicious. Afterwards (e:mike) and I went to the mall at 1am and got lots of great deals.

I did not get the coffee maker of my dreams.

Im all about preserving the historic nature of our house. Its one of the few that are the exact original design inside and out in our neighborhood.

At the same time we think responsible energy and renewable enegry are important so when the opportunity arrose to get solar pabels, we jumped on it.

After like a year of working on it and trying to get approval by the preservation board, we finally got the solar panels installed two weeks ago. They are on the side of the house facing the driveway.

The pattern looks asymmetrical because Tim Tielman of the preservation board would not approve the ones under that other dormer. Unfortunately, those ones got the most sun due to their postion and lack of shadowing. Therefore his decision, which really only makes it uglier, lowers our overall energy production significantly.

Now that it's asymmetrical it also draws way more attention to it than it would if it matched. Someone actually asked me if the ones under the front dormer blew off during the wind storm! Seeing as it's not a permanent fixture and seeing as the roof is covered in non historically accurate asphalt shingles, I don't understand why he had to be a dick about it.

The solar company we used almost quit on us after three rounds trying to get it approved.

Meanwhile, just down the street in the same historic district we have Sinatra paving the front yard of a house in asphalt and giant asphalt parking lot with cheap ass home depot special wood fence across from fugazi where the art voice building used to be.

I wish I had the deep pockets to just buy off the preservation board like the big players do.

We have been working a lot on the new den. It's where we will do our computing. After we build the new bathroom and took the closets out there was a lot of space with no trim. I learned how to cut with a manual coping saw and join the moulding. It looks pretty good for a first time try.

Believe it or not I did not pick this color. I would have definately gone lime green or darker orange.