Estrip would like to know my current location

Pretty cool, not exact, but awfully close. That is an older photo but it came close. I'm a little further back as this has me sharing a desk with big horned sheep.

Aside from breathing, Bikram Yoga classes are quiet affairs with only the instructor’s guiding voice taking you through the 90 minutes. That said, three things are not real desirable to have happen, especially all in the same evening.

1. A sneeze

2. A Yawn

3. Your stomach remembering you skipped dinner so it makes its displeasure known by screaming like an stereotypical old man “oyoyoyoyOYOYOYOYOYOYoyoyyoyoy”

If you had any flow to your work, that last one takes it away.

–So, the city is paying millions to people too deceased to say thank you. We just can’t get out of our own way. Nice work, H.R.

–All praises to IKEA for doing the City of affording Buffalo the dignity of a quick no, not 9 years of hemming and hawing. To think the Aud got torn down on a hand shake and a lame press gathering. I think what Montreal did with their old Forum, it makes you wonder. The time for the Aud was obviously 1997-98 to get cranking on something, but it does make you wonder.

–Anybody notice there isn’t one monolithic Anchor Tenant on the waterfronts of Baltimore, Cleveland or Chicago. There are lots of little things. Didn’t we learn anything from bending over backwards for Kmart on Broadway to see how fast you can wind up with a big empty building. Create some reasons to come and access to the waterfront and the shops will be lined up looking for space.

–An interesting to site to emerge from the Rogers Centre in Toronto and note that it was indeed Spot Coffee across the street from us.

–Can you imagine getting a field facing room in the Renaissance Hotel in Toronto (The Hotel part of the Rogers Centre) and not being a baseball fan? Nothing worse than wanting to pound on the wall, tell people to keep it down, and the 55,000 people on the other side pay you no heed.

–Back to our silly city for a moment, McCarley Gardens is one of those housing complexes that work. It was planned and executed right and UB needs that exact space for their city expansion. I’m all for UB expanding their city presence, but does it have to wreck a functioning neighborhood to accomplish that? I think not, think a little harder, folks.

–And you have the time thanks to the derailment of 20/20.

–According to a number of sources, the Taliban have been partially funded by factions in the Pakistani government which receives considerable amounts of aid from the U.S. government. So, one of our biggest enemies in the war on terror is apparently….us.

–I don’t have a particular issue with the Sabres and the Tim Kennedy debacle, but I do have to wonder what they are doing aside from wasting the prime of Ryan Miller. You could watch Darcy Regier speak through practically clinched teeth which indicated to this observer that it wasn’t his call. All this buzz killing moment did was to ensure that the Sabres have to pay Kennedy a pretty hefty severance for his taking a chance. The team didn’t get any better, still has to pay him and basically told the fans not to expect any moves that matter going into this season. Hope I’m wrong, but to raise a stink over $200,000 when they have wasted millions on other guys who weren’t worth it seems to scream fire sale as they wait for 40th anniversary sweater sales. Darcy, if you disagree, take a stand, dude!

–Not too sure why everybody is all excited for Pat Kane to lug the Stanley Cup all over, it’s been here before. I got to it before he did.

–In praise of East Side Mario’s in Toronto, the Sleeman’s tap at the bar was a reassuring site.

–The New York Mets torture me so. For every 1985-86, there are seemingly loads of 2010s.

–I have yet to go 3000 miles since my last oil change but when I went to my Valvoline station for a top off before my recent Canadian sojourn, the little weasel said he’d do but I was two months over due as that is their policy. Stated where, exactly? Aside from some obvious Dale Carnegie needs in regards to talking to customers, he needs to think about the car a little bit as it clocks miles driven not the changing of the calendars. Schmuck.

Paul McCartney first graced these shores on February 7, 1964. Not being one to miss a big thing, I arrived a day later. 46 years forward, our paths finally crossed at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Monday night. You don’t a get a chance to see history walking around too often, especially when he has been so omnipresent in your collection as Paul has been in mine. John was always the popular answer to look cool when asked your favorite Beatle, but being a sucker for a good hook, more of my favorites were Paul’s works. We all go through that transition to where your music starts to grow up a bit as early teenagers and in late 76, I got Wings Over America and the Beatles Rock and Roll Music for gifts and I was off.

Flash forward to Monday night, in the company of my oft partner in crime, my lovely son, who is getting into some eclectic musicians and whose eyes went appropriately Tex Avery-like when this seemed like a possibility. Now, the Air Canada Centre is what the HSBC Arena would like to be when it grows up. Our tickets collectively were just shy of $130 for the pair. Pretty reasonable and we were in the building.



Okay, that’s in front of the building. Here, ya go:



About 18,000 people, as they didn’t sell the back of the arena and we might have been Paul’s guests at a cook out. He is that good. A crack band, all the songs you would expect (“Long and Winding Road,” “Let it Be”, “Hey Jude”), new stuff (“Dance Tonight”, “Sing the Changes”), stuff that flat out thrilled me (“Venus and Mars”, “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five”, “Let’em in”, “Two of Us”) as well as stuff that if you weren’t moved you need a check up (“Here, Today” and “Mull of Kintyre”), it was a great night. Even familiar stuff like “Live and Let Die” were a wonder with great players and some pretty impressive pyrotechnics. The capper of “Sgt. Pepper” with a little of Golden Slumbers medley from Abbey Road was perfect. It’s one thing to have that great selection of songs to work through, but the band was playing them, no going through the motions. The lengthy video montage to start the show was getting on my nerves a little as it went on forever.

But by not phoning it in, I was a happy guy as was my youthful cohort, savoring his first concert.

Well, the Toronto Star got better seats, but we were in the building. Insanely great time. It falls into one of those things I really couldn’t afford it, trying to live with in means and stuff, but sometimes you just have to say screw it and go for it.

The silly grins that my son and I kept exchanging were worth it.

So, Bass Pro isn’t coming to Buffalo.

As my idea of roughing it is Room Service closing early, I didn’t really have a vested interest in the outcome per se. The Canalside development is making positive inroads along the water with the Central Wharf and the surrounding area. Things are showing signs of progress. I don’t think Bass Pro was a deciding factor in well much of anything, but is indicative of a seemingly endless quest on the regional leadership for the “If we can get (fill in name of fictional attraction here), everything will be great, good beer will flow from hydrants, Crystal Beach lollipops will sprout from the trees” and so on.

It would pretty obvious that Buffalo was going to be dropped like the blind date with the nice personality for some time now, even before Congressman Higgins drew his politically motivated line in the sand. While it was long past time for B.P. to shit or get off the pot, the announcement was tantamount to telling us what we already knew. The complaint about toxic attitudes about Bass Pro among the populace rings a little hollow to me. They were offered 35+ million dollars from an area that really can’t afford it, choices of locations, etc. About all we didn’t promise was to still respect them in the morning. Given that ludicrous press conference to celebrate the memorandum to begin to consider to start thinking about possibly contemplating a potential store in 2001 and 9 years of nothing else publicly, while all the while building a number of stores including in Toronto and Auburn, can they really be surprised that the rank and file population was a little full for the shenanigans?

I mean, if I am running Dick’s Sporting Goods or Gander Mountain and have to watch verbal tap dancing, I couldn’t help but wonder “what the hell? Nobody’s subsidizing me, shooooot”

If you take a walk down the marina, and get close to the water, and are generally unplugged from everything, one of the most universally soothing, peace inducing sounds is that of the water lapping up to the land. If you look at the genial populace doing their level best to make the best out of what water access there is, that solves what needs to happen there. One of the truisms to the success stories in and around the city, is that the best regions like Elmwood, Hertel and now sections of Grant become what they are through lots of little things, not because Joel Giambra wanted Waterworld, or Joel Rose doesn’t want anything, Anthony Masiello donning Camos, and Bryan Brown wants to cast aspersions on anything.

The canalside folks are on the right track and turn Benderson’s savviest recruiters loose by all means, but some things seem be slipping under the radar a little bit. Think of the folks squeezing themselves onto the Marina. Can you imagine the populace if they could actually touch the water? Grant Park in Chicago doesn’t have an anchor tenant, but the citizens can get their toes wet and when dry, they want to buy stuff. A city beach be the anchor? That’s crazy talk. Walk through Waverly, Crystal, Sherkston and some of the Canadian beaches and count the New York license plates.

If you build it, they will come, even if the it is a sand castle.

Shops would multiply like rabbits, which could inspire growth of the great programming already taking place at the Central Wharf. Take some of that BP incentives and lock a loyal Buffalo firm like Phillips Lytle or HSBC into some of the new space and you have an instant year round populace to go along with the potential merchants and residents. It’s a crazy thought, but could be a thing.

For years, my dad goes to the attic for the Christmas decorations, some of which are wrapped in a newspaper headline from the Buffalo Evening News, with the line about “Buffalo’s Waterfront ready to take off!” The exclamation point commemorates the 1967 construction of the marina. So, let’s quit mourning the decade long dalliance with B.P. and move on.

There is progress happening and I think will continue be, even without the city lifting it’s collective skirt, asking national chains if “they like to party.”