I tried catching up with the Thursday night ride.

I thought I could count on the ride leaving late from Essex, but they were gone and I had to text find out where they were going. While I was waiting I ran into my mom's friend Leslie. She was taking out a cyclist who was staying at their house from warmshowers.org. It's essentially couchsurfing but for people who are traveling long distances by bike. I want to put our house on it.

Anyway I found out from Alex the ride was going to Dalmatia hotel in Old Town Tonawanda. So I raced up there to meet them, but it turns out I beat the ride.

I didn't want to go in yet so I sat on the curb with my bike. These three guys were arguing outside the bar, threatening to kick each others asses. They break up for a few minutes, and one walks down the street. Then a few minutes later, this 40ish year old guy comes back with a bag around his shoulder and starts yelling at one of the guys he fought with before. Almost 100% sure it was a gun bag, it looked like this: . The other guy starts yelling he's going to call the cops and runs down the block.

I never thought I'd be nervous to be of Tonawanda but there you go.

Obviously I went inside the bar, when the rest of the ride gets there. It turns out this bar is amazing. There were a ton of friendly bros, a CBW beer was $3, Hamburg double IPA was $3.50 (sounds like a lot but it was a full 16oz and 8%, which is amazing for a bar) and a bunch of drafts were only $2.

They even had a black bean burger but i didn't try it.

Even though publishing volume is probably at an all time low for this site ;) I just added a feature where you can be notified when you're mentioned via an inlink in someone else's journal.

Everyone is opted in by default, but you can disable it here. You only get a notification once, when the blog is first published with you name mentioned in it.


Testing with (e:paul), (e:terry), (e:mike), (e:libertad)

Hard to believe summer is almost over. I want to live in the quarry until it freezes,

loooooooooong line to get into the US. It had to have been a two hour wait at least. I wonder how many were just going to Crystal Beach or Sherkston and could have stayed for an hour longer if they rode.





Abandoned pup on the friendship trail. ;(

(e:terry) and I took a Sunday tour of Pittsburgh. Right down the street from Hot Mass is a district called the strip district. Everytime we go to Pittsburgh I discover something new.

Anyway it's full of markets and grocery stores, mixed in with a million sports stores and fancy brunch places. A lot of it is warehouses but a lot of them have turned into new offices and apartments.





(e:terry) and I tried to get a veggie burrito but the line was 20 deep out the door. So we got sandwiches at a place next door.



On the street there was an open garage advertising a craft sale. The crafts turned out to be puppies. This picture looks depressing but they were all super cute.


Then we walked along one river all around the point, from the north side wrapping to the south.

At the point there was a protest against oil dependency. Pretty cool. Too bad we have to drive to Pittsburgh :(



Continuing the walk, we crossed the southern river over to the Duquense Hill. They have an old incline car, which you can ride for $2.50. The top overlooks downtown and I think has to be the most famous photo spot in Pittsburgh. You can see why.






The rest of the time we spent making our way down the hill, back towards the river and downtown through a park/path/homeless encampment. I was never sure which was which.

One of the main bridges was on fire due to a tarp (!!) and almost collapsed so we took a detour through a mall called station square. Pittsburgh's subway stops there, I've always wanted to ride it.

The first Christian wedding I've been to since my uncle's in 1996. Also it ties up the number of straight and gay weddings I've been to.

It was for my fraternity brother Yeskimo, who was a year ahead of me at school. A few of the other bros were there, so (e:terry) and I went stayed out in the suburbs with all of them for the wedding. We confirmed for him that yes, we are all nerds.

It's good to see everyone after 3-5 years. Thinking about it though I somehow came out with the craziest life of all of them (thanks (e:paul) and (e:terry) ;P)

At some point after these pictures I stumbleran to the hotel stairway and fell asleep. Guess we should have eaten dinner.



The wedding was good, though I only knew our table and half of another, but it had the whitest set of line dances I've ever seen!