Ten Lessor Known Facts About Buffalo

1. Store owners aren’t required to sell you anything.  They will assess you and then determine if you are worth the trouble of getting up for.
2. People eat extremely late here.  You go to eat at 9 p.m. and you are waiting in line.
3. Beggars are required to tell the truth.  So you are hit up with lines like “I need thirty cents for a 40″ or “I need change for coffee and Starbucks isn’t cheap.”
4. Buffalo is required to have exactly a 50/50 split in political thought.  If someone makes a liberal statement, there will be a someone from the right to argue the opposing view and vice versa.
5. They color their squirrels black here.  Hmm, guess gray squirrels weren’t a legitamate compromise.
6. They operate on “manana” time here.  Yeah I see that branch about to fall out of the tree but I don’t think it is going to fall today…
7. They love their old houses, they just don’t want to live in them.
8. They find something romantic about rusting grain silos in the harbor and want to preserve them.
9. They have one of the most awesome City Hall’s you’ve ever seen.  Looks like Gotham City’s.
10. They don’t recognize mainstream teas here.  You go to the Tea Shoppe and purchase loose leaf teas.  Lipton?  Who was that?   Oh, you drink yerba tea from a gourd with a metal straw that strains the leaf  parts floating around in it.  Yes, the metal straw will burn your mouth and you have an interesting oval scar on your lips, but hey, you did drink tea from a gourd.  (Actually I would love to have some of the gourds and metal straws… wonder where I could find some?)

Now you know

Eating Pizza and Kicking Back

Took my son-in-law to eat pizza last night at Just Pizza, a rather Buffalo mainstay as far as pizza goes.  We ordered wings and a jerked chicken pizza.  It isn’t the pizza I grew up with but my, it was good.  Not sure why they only use chickens who have proven to be jerks, but  hey, they are quite tasty.

Today, FOREST LAWN!  I’m so excited!  269 acres of graveyard.  Does it get any better than this?

Toronto

What a visual city!  An experience that had to be feasted upon by the eye and tantalized with a sweet mixture of languages intertwined among the smells of fish markets, cheeses, and assorted cooked items displayed in open air splendor to the delight of fat flies.  All ages moved amongst each other, looking, tasting, touching, smoking, drinking, and commenting to whoever would listen about freshness of the tea or the sweetness of a mango.

Hairstyles spilled out onto the streets in purple, red, green, orange, white or whatever color someone had imagined as it piled up in spikes, swirled in plastered greasy ropes, or hung randomly in dreadlocks.  Tattoos shouted at each other as brightly stained flesh rose above the waves of humanity only to sink beneath’s murky depths of the fast moving crowd.  Metals and plastics of every kind poked out of or through all manner of mutilated flesh as bearers expressed their own individuality. 

Ancient grand buildings that once housed lawyers, politicians, or business movers and shakers, now framed the experience of the Toronto market.  Streets were ladened with fresh flowers and blooming hanging baskets as if to say the city itself still defined itself by the grandeaur of its architecture and visual stimuli.  Monuments to dead soldiers or politicians held court in the boulevard as people slept in benches beneath their weathered eyes.

Whether you were on the waterfront, Kensington Ave. or walking down Queen Street to find a nice sushi bar, Toronto had something for everyone as they absorbed its offerings on a Sunday afternoon.

Anchors Bar Boasts Best Buffalo Wings

Actually they are really boasting about being the folks who invented buffalo wings and their history of having excellent jazz performers was such we went there last night to enjoy both.  The wings were incredible… the jazz, not so much.  When your saxophonist is so wired that he is jumping at every slight movement, you probably might want to replace him with one who isn’t into the whole drug scene.  The upright bass player was fantastic though as was the pianist.  The singer had a great voice but I’m not so sure she wasn’t under the influence since her eyes were so glassy you would’ve thought she was wearing hard contacts in a dust storm.

The ride down to Main Street on the subway was kinda cool and I have to give this city credit, they have some of the cleanest subways I’ve ever seen.  We were only hit up for change once and that guy was totally honest; he needed thirty cents so he could buy a 40. 

I haven’t been disappointed in anything here in Buffalo and actually find the city charming, some of the people alarming, but for the most part, a marvelous place to visit and by the looks of their summer, to live.  Now the winter is another story.

I’m thinking I’ll have to make it back to Anchor one more time for another plate of those wings.  Slap me silly and call me Shorty, them some good wings!

Saturday Stuff

We had somnie really great plans for the day but instead, we sat around and just relaxed.  I know I missed out on a whole day of scouting around Buffalo but wow, was it ever nice to just sit and do nothing.  I read the latest Harry Potter book, checked out some ebay auctions, fixed a sandwich, chatted with my daughter and son-in-law, and listened to some jazz.  Later we went do Allan Street to walk around and enjoyed a nice afternoon.  Tonight my daughter made a marvelous dinner, we watched a movie, and now we’re calling it a night because tomorrow is Canada and Niagara Falls!

An excellent Saturday! 

Buffalo

Walking down the streets serene

Lined with colors in the extreme

Houses painted purple and green

Combinations bordering obscene.

The people who live there

Expressing their care

As they happily share

Their eclectic nightmares.

Sidewalks imprinted with curses

Sometimes in witty verses

Shows freedom this city disperses

And the hatred that it nurses.

A melting pot of races

Sharing each other’s spaces

Pushing against society’s traces

Never losing their personal faces.

So I soak in the brilliant hues

Splashed on houses old and new

As independent spirits spew

Upon this traveler walking through.

Michael of Vick

They say Michael of Vick

Has been misbehavin’

Doing deeds rather sick

And has the who’ nation ravin’

I don’t know nothing bout fighting dogs

But it does sound cruel

Worse than sitting hogs

Up on tall bar stools.

Folks in Atlanta worrying hard

About their football god

Whose reputation’s marred

Cause he put dogs ‘neath the sod.

I don’t know much bout such things

But I do suspect iffin’ it was the dogs

Putting the Vick into the ring

I’d be ponderin’ them on this blog.

Now there’s lawyers hollerin’

About poor Michael of Vick

I can’t keep a swallerin’

What they’re spreadin’ thick.

Iffin’ Michael of Vick is wrong

I don’t think we can abide

Him on the football field long

‘Lessen the football is made of his hide.

Atlanta Fish Market

Conference food is always a hoot since you never know what you are going to get.  Last night it was four courses with the main entree’ being a stuffed chicken breast mated with a stuffed thigh on a bed of wild rice.  It was good but when they serve you the same thing for lunch except on wild rice with cheese you have to wonder what is going on.

Atlanta is known for good food and so tonight we escaped the rampant serving of stuffed rubber chicken and journeyed to the Atlanta Fish Market where we were absolutely blown away with gourmet dishes made from fresh fish.  I had a stuffed flounder (stuffed with crab, lobster, shrimp, and scallops) that melted in your mouth and looking down the long table of happy colleagues I can safely assume their plates of broiled snapper, blackened mahi-mahi, or scallops/shrimp presented in many different appetizing ways were just as delicious.  Okay, they didn’t serve any grits but still, it was exceptionally fine food.

I could only find one thing wrong with the restaurant… the decor in the bathroom.  Above the urinals were posters of fish.  Two urinals had posters of top prized salt water game fish and one had a small picture of four minnows.  Talk about subliminal messages of humiliating proportions that could ruin a guy’s meal and his confidence…  The wallpaper was suspect too as it had mermaids serving drinks under water.  Oh come on, like you can pour a drink underwater.  Let’s get real folks, mermaids do some really cool things but don’t make a mockery of their existence with such nonsense of serving drinks underwater!

The night was full of great conversation and interesting people.  I sat next to a photo buff who makes a good side living selling photos they take on the weekends of Texas wildlife.  I must admit the conversation got fuzzy around the time of the long explanations of apertures, fill lighting, and such but it was still interesting to see someone with such passion for their craft.  Another colleague was our lobbyist from Austin who is a dedicated biker with three competition bikes, two extra frames, and bins of assorted parts.  He almost went professional until he raced against this little upstart kid who smoked him on every training ride… yeah, you got it, the kid was named Lance Armstrong.  He said that was when he knew he wasn’t good enough to be pro.  I’m thinking not many people would think they were good enough if they were training with Lance in the early days and saw nothing but his backside as he left you in the dust.

It was a great way to finish off Atlanta.  I am heading out tomorrow for Buffalo and all the wonders there, including Niagra Falls.  That should be a great trip, especially since I get to spend some time with my eldest daughter.  Have a great day everyone!

Atlanta in the Summertime

I know Atlanta in the summer time is everyone’s dream of Nirvana… okay, only if you think Nirvana is a burning hell in disguise, but it really isn’t too bad if you can stay within the reach of an air-conditioner and walk around with minimal clothing.  Unfortunately, I haven’t really had much time to any roaming around as our seminars go into the night but I have walked out into the garden area and I am thinking I could slice the air with a knife.

From my hotel window I can watch very slow people melt into the pavement as cars try not to slow down too long to avoid that ever threatening scenario where your tires melt and mix in with the puddled humanity.  Perhaps a good rain would help since it would cool down the air a bit but I suspect the humidity would climb even higher (like 99% versus 97%) and then people would be even more miserable.

I have noticed that the natives of Atlanta don’t seem to get in a hurry for anything and can even be abrupt at times.  So much for Southern hospitality in this city… must be heat damaged brains.

Oh well, if you are looking for a great place to torture your family with a heinous vacation from hell… consider Atlanta.

Drive In Observations

Jman and I like to go to the local drive in since we can see two movies for the price of one, take our own snacks and drinks, and since the sound comes over on a low frequency FM signal, you can actually understand what is being said.  During the intermission, you fight the long lines to the bathrooms and I couldn’t help but notice tonight that America has hit the heighth of laziness…. people were driving up to the snack bar and bathrooms.  Wait, it is only fifty yards from your car to the building… there are no mosquitoes… and the night air is really nice… yet you drive up to the snackbar, get out of your car, go inside and order, and then return to the spot you were at ten minutes before?  Have you ever heard of walking? 

Egads, you even get in a line and wait for the time you can be even with the snack bar door before you exit your vehicle.  I’m sorry, that is crazy and lazy!

The ones that really make me scratch my head are the ones who pack up all their chairs and then drive up to the snack bar, get their stuff, and then drive back to unload their chairs… sigh.  I just don’t understand it.