On Saturday (e:terry) and I went cross-country skiing, while (e:paul) recorded his reel to reel tapes of his Italian family.





The last time I went cross country skiing was the back field of Lindbergh in 3rd grade. It took me a block or two to get going but I really love it. It's super schnell to get around Buffalo on skies, way faster than walking. Plus you don't have to worry about assholes not shoveling - you just ski right through. Despite it being near 0 I also was sweating almost the whoel time.

We skied down to the cemetery, down through the park and down the hills in Rumsey Woods. We skied over to Aroma and then (e:yesthatcasey)'s. And then we skied back home with a stop at the liquor store. It's how I want to get around now in the winter.

I only wiped out a couple times - once going down the hill in the park. Terry has a video of it.

Terry made us a delicious eggy breakfast with spargel, peppers, cheese, and some home fries. I love his breakfasts.









(e:paul) and I drank this crazy Chinese tea that blooms from a bulb into this sea-creature looking blob. It's really intense and floral but watching it unfold was cool.

(e:terry) and I headed to the GoBike Valentine's celebration at Handlebar. We walked instead of riding though because we're lame.

The beer and chocolate fountain were delicious. Valentines were made for Paul. We saw Terry's employee Kelly there - she's a hardcore winter biker like I used to be ;(!








On the way home, we walked by the hostel where they were having a 110th birthday party for the building, complete with pinata.

One of the coop house girls had these cute dog gloves.






Inexplicable art.





Afterwards we we're supposed to meet (e:paul) for bear night but it turned out to be the wrong night. Instead we stopped at Fugazi and went home.

Thursday night we went out to celebrate Maria's birthday at Oshun. They ordered almost one of everything on the menu.
It was a super fishy dinner but even the vegetarian sides were filling. Especially the orzo.

Afterwards we went to (e:mike) and (e:libertad)'s for dessert. I think Paul's dad's stories are the best I've ever heard.









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Speaking of net neutrality and real internet providers, when we were in Rochester, (e:masumibot) told us about a new ISP there called Greenlight Networks.

It's what Buffalo and every other place cursed with Time Warner deserves. Basically, it's a fiber ISP that taps into all the existing private fiber networks that were built in the in the late 90's and 2000's (often with government money) and resells service to small business and residential customers. You can see a map of just Fibertech's network here , which includes a trunk right down Linwood and throughout most of the city.

For just $100 install and $50 a month, Rochesterian (? had to look that denonym up) can get 100/20Mbps internet.

For just $250 a month, they can get 1Gbps down and 100Mbps up.

This is in the same service area as Time Warner, who charges a fucking outrageous $250 for 35/5Mbps at Allen Street, with the worst customer service I have ever seen. For fiber service in the city, Fibertech wants over $1000/month for any sort of connection plus huge install fees.

I feel like we're in a internet desert, with a fiber oasis in front of our house that we can't reach.

In other internet news, there is a group trying to start an free, hyper-local, open access wireless mesh network in Buffalo. (e:paul) says he dreamt of this 10 years ago. The group, called Buffalo Mesh, meets at the Foundry, where they already started to build out their network. I wish I had more time and knew more about networking so I could get involved.
Buffalo Mesh