(e:Paul) and I went down to the gemshow at the fairgrouds. It's the strangest combination of crystal people, geology nerds, cat ladies, and people who love gems.

Bismuth is really cool. There were some very neat minerals at the show. In the back of my mind I had to wonder how many of them were not safe to handle, conflict materials, or were straight up from strip mining or mountain top removal or something. (e:paul) noticed some that looked very similar to asbestos.











Dino bones!


While the magic crystal people are fun to watch, some of what they were hawking was insane.
Unfucking believable! Crystals healing cancer and AIDS? And people were buying it.

Weirdly enough while I am updating this post a lady is talking about setting her energies into crystals. What a world crystal people must live in.

We rode bikes up for lunch to Lin on Tonawanda Street, in Riverside. unfortunately while we were crossing the street I dropped (e:Paul)'s old Android wear watch and the glass smashed. It's still usable but has a ton of shards sticking out.

They had the Thai iced coffee which is amazing.



They also had a tea leaf salad. I usually eat my tea leaves anyway but this was pretty interesting.


Terry and I split a curry and a fried rice. We also got a million different appitizers, including spring rolls and samosas. They had extremely tiny and super spicy peppers to top everything. Yum.




Next door they had a small grocery store with a bunch of different Indian/Japanese/Chinese foods.

One of the shelves contained nothing but this nut. Apparently it's speed-y plant that gives you oral cancer. Anyone want to try?


And some banana blossom. How do you eat these?

It's so warm out and were not even inland. I want to go hike or camp.

(e:terry) and I cleaned out the garden. It's time to ember all the shit you hoarded outside from last fall, like this pile of wood. Anyone need any 2x4s?

It's also time for Dyngus day. Do you believe the "official dyngus day guide" is 26 pages long? Every holiday must be milked for all its worth!

I downloaded f.lux for my computer. It's a program that adjusts the color temperature of your computer screen as the time of the day and position of the sun changes. Because blue light prevents melatonin, which helps you fall asleep, from being produced, the program gives your screen a warmer color temperature as it gets darker/later.

Download it here.

I used to have it on my Windows computer but it's much better now. It takes into account your location, the time of day you want to wake up, and generates an graph overlay of the required color temperature on the amount of potential sunlight for the day.



I've already noticed a difference in the past few days in how long it takes me to get ready to sleep. There's even a version for android phones but unfortunately it requires you to be rooted. So I downloaded a similar app called twilight. You have to make sure to turn down the brightness on OLED screens like the Note, otherwise you may get burn in.

An amazingly awesome time with all the peeps. I can't believe how many people we managed to fit on the roof with the solar panels, with no chimney damaging humps. I can't believe we ended up on the roof with the ladder in that state. I can't believe (e:paul), (e:terry), (e:uchina) and I survived after being up til 5:30 the night before.



Even Daniel and Mary showed up!




The feeling of the parade always seems to border on drunk riot.







How's the pizza (e:mike)?
Do you know how expensive pizza is now?!

Up on the rooftop with the panels. It was beautiful and sunny.






On a semi-related note to some of the smokers, thanks for throwing your gross butts on the porch and in the garden. So disgusting. I'm thinking the porch should be smoke free.