Garangelo's at 1197 Hertel between Delaware and Colvin is pretty tasty. I had the very best Italian Sausage sandwich I have had in years there.



However, I did not like drinking tap water out of plastic cups, not being given complementary bread and then being charged when we asked for it, or their calamari appetizer. The appetizer was made with the weakest excuse for calamari. They were so tiny and had no meat to them and this is coming from someone who has written 24 journals about Calamari. I didn't even bother taking a pic of it.



The italian wedding soon was really good.


The stuffed artichoke looked delicious but I was too full to eat one. I tried to bring (e:enknot) and (e:jon) there for lunch today but they are not open for Lunch anymore. That kind of sucks because honestly, I thought it was more lunch quality ambiance.

When we realized it was closed we tried Kabob house on Hertel and it was closed, then Romeo and Juliet's and it was closed too. Hertel might be cheaper than Elmwood but it was virtually dead at lunchtime unlike Elmwood and A-town which are both hopping at lunch.

We ended up going to (e:enknot)'s house and (e:megan) cooked us some fine home cooked spaghetti for lunch.

As per (e:leetee)'s suggestion we decided to stop at Gothic City Collector's Cove this weekend. It is located at 1940 Niagara street right by the giant porn store where Niagara meets Military. They have a lot of stuff but most of it is in a better state of being sorted than at Horsefeather's (e:paul,43525) I would suggest anyone interested in antiques and collectible stop by. Even if you are not a collector it might be fun just to check out.



I am not sure what the building used to be but I think it was a church of some sort.

They had these two giant devil pillars for sale. Both were identical. I wonder where they came from. They were huge and iron.




Here is their card and website which is just an ebay store

I tried calling rent4bufflo today to rent an apartment for one month for (e:terry), (e:matthew) and I, as it is cheaper than the Hotel Lenox on North and includes more. I wanted to support a local business before I looked into the corporate solutions near the airport. I found this craig's list ad for rent4buffalo.com

Accept under the desperate conditions of having the floors redone in toxic oil drama and needing a place right away, I would never suggest renting from rent4buffalo.com , somewhere so out of the way.

So I called and the old guy who answered asked if I was familiar with Buffalo and I told the guy we lived in Buffalo and were having our floors redone and wanted a place to stay while that was going on. He then asked how many people and I said three for one month. Their ad said it could house 2-3 with contracts as short as one month.

He then said we don't do 1 month rentals and that "we would be unhappy and he would he unhappy." How does he know that he would be unhappy. He is right though I would be unhappy in their ghetto ass apartment building. Look at the tinfoil laundry room.



You know what - fuck you liar. Your ad says you do one month rentals and that you can fit 2-3 adult so why say you can't. Are you just not willing to do it because it includes utilities are we are three people? Then don't advertise that you can handle that and waste my time.

I hope that your apartment business fails. Seriously, who in their right mind would ever rent from someplace so far out in the nasty of post-industrial wasteland if it was for a longer period of time than a month. If you were going to go with a longer rental you would be far better off with a real apartment anywhere else in the living part of the city.

Whether you are being transferred, or on temporary assignment,we offer you a "HOME-like" environment. Fully-furnished 2-bedroom home/office in downtown Buffalo close to waterfront, major highways and all transportation.

Your choice of short or long term lease to suit your situation. One year lease at $900./month including ALL utilites.

Shorter lease (1-3 Month) is negotiable.

Fully furnished and decorated, including the bed linens, soap and towels. Full kitchen w/ utensils. In-unit washer & dryer, folding table, ironing board. Computer desk w/ high-speed internet. Cable TV/HBO DVD/CD. Central station alarm system. Safe Parking

NO SMOKING ALLOWED. No pets. Security deposit required. Our hope is that you'll feel welcome and excitement in downtown Buffalo.
See our photos and more contact information;

The guys from Amherst refinishing are almost done with refinishing our wood floors. They are going to recoat the foyer one more time on Wednesday, but other than that - it is done. If you have them do your floors after reading this, tell them paul from estrip.org is where you found out about them. The floors generally look amazing. Way better than I ever thought they could. The living room, dining room, office and stairs look sensational. When we bought the house two years ago, all this wood was carpeted with nasty indoor/outdoor carpeting that the cats peed on (e:paul,32610)

stairs
Stairs Before


Stairs Sanded


Stairs Shined




Dining Room
Dining Room Before


Dining Room After




Living Room
Living room before



Living room sanded


Living room after




Office
Before


This is the best repair job that they made. There was this awful section of parque floor added and the floors were so scratched up.



Office After


Check out the whole thing.


Foyer
The foyer does not look as great as the rest of the rooms but it is because the floor was previously so damaged. From afar it looks great.





Below is a pic of where the old bathroom used to be, in the before stage. Can you believe these floors could ever be fixed? The first stage of removing the modern bathroom added under the stairs was me ripping out the moldly linoleum. It was so bad it was bubbling. (e:paul,32720) The second stage was (e:paul,43489) when pat did the deconstruction of the structure.

This left this to deal with.

Foyer Bathroom Damage Before


Foyer Bathroom Area After
The bathroom is the most complicated repair. unfortunately, they told us the way our sub floor is made, it was impossible to lay down the floor stippled, as they did in the office, so the fix is more obvious but honestly - anything looks better than the giant shit hole in the floor from above, lol.



But upclose the foyer floor has a lot of damage from years of neglect. I think someday I will just have it totally replaced as I really don't like the way it looks compared with the rest of the house.

The mold spots got darker way darker and greener. Here they are before.


These spots are from this moldy marajuana grow room that the previous owner had in the basement directly under this room. It was full of sinks, dirt, fertilizer, dead plants and a dead pet turtle that wandered in and created a maggot extravaganza.

We had the entire room demolished and removed (thanks Pat) shortly after buying the house. It still had pot plants all molded to the floor, and smelled so terrible of mold when you opened the door to it, that you could taste it afterwards for hours. I remember one time (e:theecarey) and I drank a bunch of gin to try and kill the taste, the first time we discovered the room.

Too bad it happened that way because as Keith from Amherst Refinishing pointed out, the floor is amazing in that the boards are solid oak and span the entire room in most cases as a single plank. He said it would be impossible to get that nowadays.

Here is the good side of the foyer afterwards from two angles.



And here are the damaged areas after they were fixed. The black stains are form cat pee, water damage, mold.


Around this vent was really moldy and rusty when we bought the house.


I think the previous owners would put their shoes on it in the winter. That caused the furnace pipes to rust which ate a giant hole in them. We had those replaced, which stopped the problem (thanks again Pat) (e:paul,32742)

The one thing I was not sure about were these faint lines. I don't remember them in the before pics but maybe the moldy marks spread or stained when the machines went over them. They are hard to see in this pics but they span across the foyer.


Conclusion
All in all I am very satisfied with the work of Amherst Refinishing and would recommend them to anyone. Our house had some particular challenging spots and overall it looks 1000% better.

Did you ever see the movie, The Mist? That is what it is like right now in my house. The smell, polyurethane, is downstairs in the living room, dining room and drawing room and it is slowly creeping past our plastic boundaries toward us. I was standing in the shower with the window open to try and get some air. Eventually, it will consume me.

I can't believe I am going through this again (e:paul,31499) The smell is giving me Post Traumatic Stress Flashbacks to those days (e:paul,31500)