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Joe's Journal

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10/29/2016 22:43 #60702

Scooter sympathy
Category: bugs
Do you ever have simpathy for the centipedes your house? (I know you don't (e:mike)) I caught this one in the yellow room and felt bad as he kept trying to squiggle his butt up the container.

I avoid killing them and usually let them out either in the grass across the street or a few houses down. I think that they'd try and head inside where it's warm. If I left them in our house they likely get caught in spider webs.

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10/24/2016 12:58 #60701

Cooking marathon
Category: food
After the hike I went shopping at Price Rite and the co-op for 2 hours. And then (e:terry) and I began our cooking marathon.

Terry made potato goat cheese galettes (e:60460), and I made a double batch of chana masala. It almost overflowed the pans.

Together we cut up 6 onions, 8 cloves of garlic, four tomatoes, two potatoes and something like ~1800g of chickpeas.

Now I barely have to cook this week. I feel like a mom-blogger with all this meal prep.

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10/24/2016 12:57 #60700

Reinstein woods
Category: hikes
While (e:paul) went down to East Aurora with (e:libertad) and (e:mike), (e:terry) and I rode bikes out to Reinstein woods.

Despite it being way out in the burbs, in Cheektowaga, it's really easy to ride there.

Just go down William past Bailey, almost to Harlem. Not much to look at but the road is wide and there's little traffic.

Then once you're in Cheektowaga, there's a rail trail that runs along the tracks to Union. Then from Union, you take the huge bike lanes up Como Park Blvd to Stiglmeier. It's about 11 miles from Allentown.

I had been to Stiglmeier before but never the woods. There's these boardwalks that run over all the depressions and creekbeds.

Terry admiring the foiliage
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All through the park people were dumping bird seed for the birds. Like, all over the benches and boardwalk rails. This leads to the fattest, boldest squirrels I've ever seen. They thump when they skitter between branches.
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Weirdly enough the two parks aren't officially connected but (e:terry) and I found away across.

In Reinstein woods on the Beech trail, I found these little floof bugs. They're tiny bugs in a pile with fluffy white butts. They don't really move and just wave their asses back and forth.

Apparently they're called boogie woogie/beech blight aphids.
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Here's a video of their squiggle dance I found on youtube.


The ride back was ridiculously windy.
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10/24/2016 12:53 #60698

Dehoarding, and hoarder shopping
Category: house
Like (e:mike) I took time to get rid of old junk. (e:mike,60694)

I dislike keeping things around in case you 'need' them later.

I'm guilty of hoarding though. I finally got rid of my old high school and college computer, a Dell Vostro. I used it circa 2006-2012. The last 3 years the hinges were torn off so I always had to prop it up against a wall or with my knee while I worked with it. It's probably not even salvagable for donation.
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A lot of what I got rid of were boxes and broken electronics but also books. Recipe books seem extra useless, when you can find millions of recipes online with reviews and pictures. If that ever goes away I'm going to guess we're also not going to have much produce year round anyway.
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Saturday we went to Coocoou to look at office desks for (e:terry). The warehouse is floor to third story ceiling with vintage stuff. Like this giant fiberglass flamingo. Or rustic wooden booths that look like they're from the Roadhouse Grill. Maybe (e:terry) can set up a replica restaurant to work in.

There was only one desk he liked. It was huge and seriously hardwood, from a Xerox executive. $4500(!) - he didn't get it

Some of it was cool to see and I recognize mid-centry design is trendy but I get flashbacks to my grandparents house when I see so much junk.
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10/19/2016 13:48 #60695

Playstation VR
Category: tech
(e:chris) bought it for his playstation. Compared to the Samsung VR, it's way more immersive. The helmet tracks your movement in the real world and you can walk around a little bit.

The controllers are also tracked by the console and you can see them in the games - the creepiest feeling was playing this clown shooting game and your hands were carrying guns. I didn't like that.

Here's (e:paul) in VR world, about to be eaten by a radioactive shark.

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